Damp

I decided to be virtuous this morning. It was raining rather hard so I didn't fancy cycling so I thought I'd walk to work so as not to lose the exercise. However, what with it being very early in the morning, I didn't really think it through and so I wore my trainers. This meant that I got wet feet. Also, I need a pair of over trousers as otherwise, you get wet trousers. I don' t think I would have been much worse off cycling! Still, I feel virtuous.

Turn and turn again

Why is it that the misconceptions of my childhood stick with me more than the facts I should have been picking up? We used to make calendars for our parents, and I distinctly remember doing one which had a clock of the seasons style design. Whenever we did something like that, or a picture of seasonal things for science, we always divided the circle of the year up into quarters and worked our way from spring clockwise round to winter. Which is all very well except that that gives you Spring from Jan to March, Summer from April to June, Autumn from July to September and Winter from October to December. So now every year I find myself in November thinking "It's quite warm considering it's winter now, isn't it" and then remembering that it isn't really yet, not til right at the end of November really. It's still rainy, windy, damp warm Autumn. If they'd shifted it round a whole quarter they would have been closer but really, as far as I can see, if you start winter in December, Spring in March, Summer in June and Autumn in September that would be about right. Which makes me wonder whether that "Spring starts at the beginning of the year" thing is a very long hangover from when the new year used to begin in March before we joined the single European calendar (don't ask me when).

I like bits of autumn. September and October can be really nice but by the end of October it's usually become like this - i.e. very very rainy and blowy. Which I don't like because I hate being cold and wet. I'm writing this with my legs over the heater to dry my jeans off so no wonder my musings turn to the turning of the seasons. Still, at least it's better than snow.

Notes from This Sceptred Isle

Somewhere between the Suez crisis (56?) and the Falklands war (81?) we lost the War Office and gained the Department of Defence. Not much perhaps, but a start.

To be continued, possibly

Draining away

I'm sitting here in the deaf/hard of hearing centre wondering why I volunteer for this - I hate giving blood. But I suppose I feel a little like I do about taxes - if I want the service to be there, I should do my share. I may yet escape - I had a menegitis vaccine 3 weeks ago.