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I have previously denied being pandamonium with one ‘m’.  This wasn’t me either.

A couple of Fridays ago, I was a bit on the tipsy side and agreed that me and Colin would go to watch the match yesterday at Histon.  It was Kendo’s testimonial match, playing against Micky Quinn’s Allstars, who consisted of Spidermonkey, on the subs bench until some point in the second half, some ex-players and other such jackies.

Histon won, the final score being something like 11-2.  Micky Quinn was fat, was round, he bounced on the ground.

There were beers afterwards in the bar (as opposed to the beers during, in the stands, and beforehand, in the Railway Vue, which will shortly be changing its name to the Guided Busway Vue).

I recall that last May, the weather was hot and sunny a lot of the time; it seemed like summer, although it’s really only late spring.  Then it chucked it down in the period we in Britain traditionally associate with summer.

This year, we’ve had our April showers and now we’re into May and the sun is blazing away up there in the sky, seeming like summer again.  Presumably that’s because there’s less ozone to protect us from the rays now.  Hmm, no-one ever goes on about the hole in the ozone layer anymore.  It’s all greenhouse gases this and carbon footprint that.  I still say we should plug the cows into the gas mains…

Anyway, from the evidence of two consecutive years, I hypothesise that summer has moved to May.  I also suggest that winter has moved as well, given that 20–30 years ago, we got snow in December, but now we get it in January, if any; spring must be reduced to March and April.  If we get all that rain again that we had last year, then I propose we have a new rainy season in June to August, followed by autumn.

Seeing as it was May Day Bank Holiday yesterday, the weekend lasted slightly longer than its usual paltry length. So, after spending Sunday night relaxing, I concocted a picnic of chicken and sweetcorn and mayonnaise sandwich, veg crudites, cucumber and mint yoghurt dip (home-made) healthy crisps, boiled egg, tomato for Colin, parkin (home-made), malt loaf, fruit salad and pop. Colin went to the shop to buy some of these things while I made the rest (not the parkin, though; that was made earlier).

We then took this picnic to Six Mile Bottom, a place where I have wanted to go for some time, merely because of the name. I have to say, that’s the only remarkable thing about the place. There’s a pub, a church and about three houses. And an excessively large vet’s. The church was shut except for births, deaths and marriages; worse, the pub was shut because it was a Bank Holiday. We had our picnic in the church grounds, which was all very nice, even the healthy crisps. On the way back home, we stopped off at Little Wilbraham to see if their pub was open. It had been, but it was closing at half past three, which is when we arrived there.

We got home, dropped off our bikes and whatnot, saw to puss, who’d been out all this time (I said she should have been inside) (she did have a bowl of water out with her), and went to the Green Dragon for a pint. The Green Dragon doesn’t shut randomly in the afternoon, not like these pubs in the countryside. We played I Spy in the beer garden; only had one go each, because each go (WB and WIG) seemed inordinately difficult. Perhaps we were just tired.

For tea, we had cheese and bacon burger and chips. The burgers were constructed from individual items at home, but weren’t home-made. They were very tasty.

Friday night: got pissed in the Maypole.

Saturday morning: had hangover.

Saturday afternoon: cycled with Colin to the Cambridge pitch ‘n’ putt place, independently of the conversation on said activity the night before.  Pitched ‘n’ putted.  I think it’s safe to say that I was pretty dire and Colin was pretty good, except that I returned the same number of balls that I’d started with whereas Colin returned one less.  That’s not to say I didn’t lose balls.  There just happened to be other balls in the ditch that I repeatedly lobbed the ball into that could be retrieved instead.  One had obviously been there some time.  That one replaced the one that fell directly into the water and was quickly swallowed by the silty ooze as opposed to the one that landed at the edge somewhere.  Colin’s ball landed in the lake and was deemed irretrievable.  That was after he’d played the ball on the previous hole fantastically so it went flying over the lake and through the trees and onto the far edge of the green.  I, after the ditch debacle, decided to tee off from the easy tee, which didn’t involve having to get the ball over said lake.  After that, we cycled to a local nature reserve, where there were bluebells, ivy, yellow flowers, trees, other plants and birds, and looked at Byron’s Pool, then cycled to Grantchester, and decided not to eat at the Orchard because the queue was really quite long.  Then we cycled home again.

Saturday evening: got Chinese takeaway from the pub.

Sunday morning: rudely awakened by Colin looking out the window to see what the noise that had rudely awakened him was.  I looked out and discovered there were two rampant dogs in next door’s garden.  The cat was out.  She goes next door sometimes: there’s a gap in their fence and our hedge she goes through.  I looked out the window and saw her on our wall by the gate, on the opposite side to the hedge.  I went to let her in.  She came in pretty quicksmart.  And just in time, too, because the brighter of the two dogs came through her gap shortly after and went beserk in our garden.  The other remained next door.  Going more beserk.  Colin got dressed and went out into the garden (rather him than me) and I fetched a bowl of water on his bidding.  The dog was really thirsty and it calmed down a bit after a drink.  Colin found a phone number on the dog’s choker chain, so I phoned it up.  The woman who answered said she’d be here shortly to get them.  Colin rang next door’s doorbell; the woman answered it, looking sleepy.  He told her there was a dog in their back garden.  “Oh, that’s what it is,” she said.  Colin told them someone would be coming for it soon.  Some time later, a young woman knocked on our door with a cigarette in her hand.  The smoke wafted in the house, and stunk, even though she didn’t come in.  She said she wasn’t the owner and couldn’t take the dogs away.  I’m not sure why she came round, to be honest.  She did say the owner lived just up the road and she’d be coming soon.  After what seemed like ages, with the dog next door flinging itself against the fence and barking and whining and generally being stupid in the way that canines are and the woman whinging, “it’s wrecking everything!” and the dog in our garden jumping up at Colin, wandering round the lawn sniffing, lying on the lawn eating the grass, flinging itself against the gate and generally being stupid in the way that canines are, the owner finally came round to collect them.  She’d been to next door first, which was probably just as well because I don’t think they’d given “their” dog any water.  After she’d gone, I looked at the clock.  Nine o’clock, on the dot.  In the morning.  On a Sunday.  We went back to bed.

Rest of Sunday: lounged around the house, recovering from the previous day’s exertions and reassuring poor puss that the nasty dogs had gone and the garden was perfectly safe for her again.

Given the choice of

1. jack-knifed lorry on the A14, one lane blocked, and
2. major roadworks on the M11 with a long contra-flow,

go for the contra-flow every time. The “one lane blocked” is a complete lie. The whole damn road is shut.

Four and a half hours it took me to go 14 miles. And yet only twenty minutes to go back the other way.

Bloody guided bus, bloody not reinstating existing train lines to get the freight off the road. The jack-knifed lorry was carrying one of those containers that can go so easily on a freight train.

I’ve only ever found one person in favour of the guided bus, and I’m afraid her opinion, in my opinion, was particularly parochial.

The guided bus system can only take people. A train line would be able to take people and freight. The A14 would be a delight! Even if just the freight were taken away, it would be a massive improvement. The trainline could have been reinstated all the way to the port at Felixstowe. The guided bus only goes to Cambridge.

If the container that had been on the back of this lorry had been on a train instead, it wouldn’t have held the eastbound A14 up, the lorry driver wouldn’t have needed a blood transfusion (a blood-carrying car attempted to squeeze past all the traffic with sirens and lights a-blaze), and I wouldn’t be having this rant now! And I’d have got to do all the things I was supposed to do today.

Brandon’s Mind

Damn printers.