Off to St Ives

So it's off to St Ives tomorrow morning, just getting myself into Cornwall-mood

Step 1. Check the local weather (see previous post) - looking good :-)

Step 2. Listening to Atlantic Fm online whilst a work today - that's it I'm almost there :-)

Step 3. Check out the local news - oh bollix :-(

Now if I can just find a bottle of Doom Bar in a local off licence ......

Summer Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow - Sunday 29th July 2007 - at 8 a.m. we're heading off to Cornwall for a weeks holiday. Hopefully we'll arrive at Noon. I've had a word with him upstairs ( you know the score, kneeling at the end of my bed, hands together, eyes closed) and I've arranged for summer to start at that very moment

Having written this completely tongue in cheek I've just checked the 5 day forecast for St. Ives courtesy of the Met Office (and they should know, the own the weather) . Lo and behold ...

Today 19°c rain (don't care about today)

Sunday 18°c 3 a.m. Rain
6 a.m. showers
9 a.m Light cloud (on our way)
Noon Sunny Intervals (arriving about now)
3 p.m. Sunny Intervals (lunch/unpacking)
6 p.m. SUN (Beach)

Monday 21°c SUN !

Tuesday 22°c SUN !!

Wednesday 20°c SUN !!!

I am NOT making it up . Maybe there's something in this praying lark after all !

Life's Not Fair Is It.

For an hour last evening, along with Mrs Wurzel, I trudged my local streets, one eye on the foreboding dark clouds above, pulling behind me one of those dayglo yellow trolleys. I was delivering this weeks "Advertisers".




Before you get me wrong, it's not my round. Things haven't sunk that low - yet. It's my daughters' - I'm just covering it for them whilst they are in Florida. Yes that's right - Dad is trudging the streets dodging the showers whilst the kids are living it up in WaltDisneyWorld and no doubt sunbathing to their hearts content. As the title says (courtesy of evil Uncle Scar in The Lion King) Life's not fair is it ! Although to be fair it's a suitable payback for when Mrs W and I went to Disney a couple of years ago and left them all behind.

To be honest, I quite enjoyed doing "the round". My sense of natural curiosity was on overdrive at having the opportunity of a good nose through peoples windows under the pretext of stuffing a rolled up newspaper through their letter box . And by pure luck we managed to time the deliveries to coincide with a bunch of Jehovahs Witnesses doing their "round", they were more than happy to walk up quite a few garden paths for me.

So all in all, it wasn't too bad, a bit of exercise in the fresh air combined with a chance of a good nose. But don't tell the girls, they'll have me doing it every week.

Cornwall Get's A Bit Closer

The 222 mile trip from Bursledon to St Ives is becoming a regular trip for me, I reckon the car will soon be able to do it on it's own. Usually I allow five hours for the journey and am then pleased to do it in four and a half. But this weekend saw the journey time drop considerably.

My Dad had gone down to our holiday home alone and was taken ill necessitating an unexpected trip for me and my brothers to collect both him and his car. Leaving at the unusual time of 2pm on a Sunday afternoon we were pleasantly suprised at the lack of traffic on the M27 and around Wareham, giving us a much better start than usual. Later in the journey came even better news, the long awaited Bodmin - Indian Queens Bypass across Goss Moor was finally open. We arrived, with sensible driving throughout, including a very slow stretch due to thick fog on Bodmin Moor, just 3 hours 45 minutes after leaving home. Returning home shaved another 5 minutes off.

Admittedly the time of day was in our favour, virtually no traffic the entire journey to delay us. But new record time's like that almost bring St Ives into the day-trip category. And records are made to be broken.

Race For Life

This morning Mrs W, along with 10,000 other women took part in the Southampton Race For Life, a 5km charity run raising money for Cancer Research Uk. She managed to run it in a very comendable 30 minutes, proving that even now she can still live up to her FAF nickname.

But the whole point isn't the time ,it's the taking part and raising money for a good cause. To see so many women of all shapes and sizes, from fit young girls to old ladies barely able to walk unaided, all willing to give up a bit of time and effort to help others was very humbling. Mrs W entered as part of a team along with 27 workmates, I'm not sure how much they raised between them but congratulations to all of them and everyone else who took part.

Big Respect To The Arctic Monkeys.

Tomorrow sees a series of worldwide concerts under the banner of Live Earth. Yet another cynical attempt by pop-stars to promote themselves to a world audience whilst patronising their fans with claims to support the latest cause.

It's no secret that I think the global warming/climate change theory is a load of bollix, having been measured over far too short a time scale to indicate anything other than a "blip" on the millions of years of our climate history. But that's not the argument here, it's the hypocrisy of the stars taking part that gets to me.

So how refreshing to see the Arctic Monkeys (among others) criticising the event. As they point out, they are always jetting around the world nowadays, and their latest stage show uses enough energy to power 10 houses and that's just for the stage lighting alone.

Pop stars who practice what they preach - what a novel idea. I might even buy one of their records out of respect.

Sold Out? - Clearly this is one group that hasn't.

It's Still Raining !

Not a lot to report. Except it's STILL raining.

On and off, we see the occasional blue sky but it rarely lasts more than half an hour.

Time to start drawing up plans for an ark I reckon.

Oh, that reminds me, what did the "global warming, err, sorry no, we mean climate change" men of wisdom predict for us? Long hot dry summers. !!!

Yeah right !!!!

(See snazzy new poll thingy top left)