Very tired today. Normally the 300 miles just comes under the heading of "tiring" but today I feel like I've flown halfway around the world. In some part, that may be due to a stupid accident on the M1, the closure of a whole section of the M54, the A5 being stupidly busy and the M6 ferrying the good people of Birmingham from one end of "The Misery" to the other with their Christmas goodies. Oddly, the M25 was smooth as an omlette on the kitchen floor.
When you're travelling, you often see some weird stuff that's worth talking about and yesterday on the M1, there was a notification for a stretch of about 6 miles that said "Slow Down - Pedestrians In Road". I've never seen this one before and I was massively disappointed that there were actually no pedestrians at all. Not even a one. What I was hoping for was something like 20 to 30 people running around trying to avoid the cars but there was nothing. Shame.
Anyway, about 50 miles later on, there was an accident of nastiness culminating in four Range Rovers, four ambulances - and a lot of police with big brooms. The traffic was STACKED FOR MILES - yet somehow we found ourselves at the front of this queue and the nice copper with the biggest brush let us through but stopped everybody else - who no doubt then had to sit there for the best part of an hour while they cleaned up. Mr Copper - I salute you on your excellent judgement call.
I have about a weeks worth of posting from the weekend but here goes: did my honourable duty and went to see my Gran who is getting REALLY old now. She had no idea who I was but at the same time absolutely knew who I was. Very strange and a bit upsetting in some ways but time rolls on. She's 90 next year. That's not a bad life really...
My bro and his wife have some troubles, my sis and her boyfriend are fine and my ma is trooping along in the middle of all this like a er... trooper. Dropping them off for a shopping trip on Saturday afternoon, I bumped into none other than Charlotte. Spooky. Pleasantries exchanged, I then had about 2 seconds to spare before I jumped into JJs car for a meeting of "gigantic proportions" about a little project or two we have on the boil.
All in all, a most excellent, very pleasurable weekend. Much alchohol was consumed along with the traditional pagan feast Ma serves up when we all get together. Why, this time, she even remembered that eleanor doesn't eat meat - which was a bit of a bonus.
What wasn't so much of a bonus was my Ma rummaging out my old school reports - for all five of the years I was there. I didn't think they were quite as bad as they actually are but they're also quite funny considering they were written either by alcoholic swingers or complete educational failures themselves. I felt quite guilty that I was such a let down to them and hadn't realised that this was the case until yesterday.
My favourite comment is "Sion is a polite and popular member of the class but he must come to realise that this alone is not enough". That fair warms my heart. This I believe was written by form tutor who got nailed for shoplifting cheese in subsequent years.
Always on the lookout for ways of turning a negative into something useful, this gives me just what I need to fill in rather a lot blanks in those years of Almost Human and also provides quite a lot of insight into just how much I haven't changed in the last 25 years.
25 years. My how time flies. Some of those people that wrote crass things about me will be dead now. More on the school reports later this week. Sleep beckons.
Currently listening to: Guillermo del Toro/Chuck Hogan audiobook The Strain
Currently reading: Company of Liars (keeps getting better but boy, I'm taking my time with it).
