Friday. 10.50 a.m. It's another bright and sunny morning, but there is still quite a gusty wind.
Saturday. 12.20 p.m. It's quite windy today. I can hear it whistling around outside Dexter House as I write this. The sun is out, and it's reasonably mild, but little else.
Not a lot to report on here. Just another regular sort of day. I went to Aldi to do a shop. I was there around 9.15, and I was in and out of the store within about thirty minutes. A good deal quicker than if I'd gone to Sainsbury's. I think it's because it's a smaller store, with fewer choices, so you don't stand in the aisle attempting to decide which product to buy. The tills are faster, because they've designed their packaging so the bar codes are easier to find and scan, and you pack straight into your trolley and then pack your bags on a shelf. But I can manage to pack straight into my bags. In the process, I think I save around a third, compared to the price of a full shop in, say, Tesco, Morrisons or Sainsbury's. Certainly no loss of quality.
I have now managed to write around 24 pages of new material, which is now transferred from handwritten to word processing. That is somewhere in the region of 6,400 words. It's nowhere near complete, and I am still working on it so that it can be assimilated into what I have already written.
Sunday. 6.15 a.m. The clocks have moved forward one hour. This is the time I usually take Alfie out. I have a feeling that it has rained in the night because I think I can hear the rain outside (just as well it's not inside.) I have checked my bank account by going online. The balance is fine, which means I can go and put fuel in the car before I go to church.
7.15 a.m. Having now been out with Alfie, we discovered a light rain as we came out onto Strudwick Drive and the path awash. It was like walking in a river. Alfie would rather go back indoors, but after I'd picked up after him and went to the bin across Oldbrook Boulevard, we walked home.
1.15 p.m. I have been to church, but on the way, I went to the Esso filling station in Child's Way to fill the car with diesel. I went via Marlborough Street, and no sooner had I turned into Childs Way on the roundabout, that the alarm went off in the car, to warn me that the fuel level was low. I have had the car for around five years and never, in all that time, has that alarm gone off. I knew the fuel level was low because I have been keeping an eye on the fuel gauge.
Having left the Oaktree Centre after church, I had just got on Chaffron Way to return home, when a car came right up behind me, insisting that I get out of the way. I was going around 45-50, which seems a reasonable speed to be doing. The driver would not reduce his speed and remain tailgating me until I got to the roundabout on Fulmer Street, so I decided to peel off to the left. These incidents seem to be getting worse. It seems totally out of order. People don't seem to have any respect for other drivers and just want you to get out of their way, or else. I find it totally unnerving to have a car behind me, almost touching the bumper of my car.
5.45 p.m. Watching the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race on BBC1 (which has just finished, with Cambridge winning both the men's and women's races.) I'm intrigued by the commentators. Why do they all have such oversized microphones (this is the same with all sports commentators, especially motorsports.)? Is it some sort of 'we're big and important, so we have to stand out by holding such oversized microphones? Technically, they surely don't need to hold a microphone, and not each has one. They could easily have small mics that clip onto their clothing. I think it might be so they have something to hold. They're props. If they didn't have them to hold, they wouldn't know what to do with their hands. Then, why do each of the commentators have them? With four people, it must be difficult for the sound operators to keep the sound balance.
