'Tis another Monday, and in true Swindon fashion it's a grey foggy morning. The sky an anonymous pale stone grey that obscures the taller buildings.
My days are busier now, mostly concerned with the daily routine of searching for gainful employment and collecting rejection letters. So that's my day pretty much planned then.
Is that all that I am? Is there nothing more to life than endless letters and emails? In my post forklifting course world, what can I do to make life interesting?
After a week of intensive forklifting that saw me spending most of it twiddling my thumbs in a dingy office, I can finally relax a little. Truth is I'm shocked how tiring I found it. Getting up early, walking to and fro from work, leaping on and off heavy and potentially dangerous industrial machinery, and worst of all, braving the queues at the local fast food takeaways for lunch.
KFC weren't bad I suppose. They did point me toward the 'loser corner' seeing as I look like a neanderthal in a
This truly is the calm before the storm. Relaxing night tonight, after spending the day with a couple of friends. Tomorrow afternoon I head to the parents' place for the evening; we'll be going to the neighbor's farm, which is decked out with Christmas lights and winter wonderland-ness galore. Then a calm Sunday before...the whirlwind.
Monday afternoon: office hours
Monday evening: final exam #1
Tuesday mid-morning: final exam #2
Wednesday evening: good friend comes into town
Sunday m
A spectacular end to the day as I strolled home. Bright orange and blue-grey waves of cloud against the pale blue sky and yellow horizon. Best of all it comes for free.
In Poor Health
According to the news, our National Health Service is on the point of collapse. So what? That's business as usual isn't it? The media have made claims of impending disaster for decades. Face it. For all its good work, the NHS is a disaster. Mostly because the people telling the media how ramshackle it all is
Sure, the song talks about the holiday spirit, the thrill of meeting up with family and friends, of enjoying a bit of Christmas Cheer as we celebrate a season of giving.
But, see, this also is a most wonderful time of year for the professorial types. It's the end of fall term.
Most of my grading for the semester is done...everything but the final exams and some wayward homework assignments that seem to find my mailbox on campus. And then...judgment day, or days, in my case; Monday ni
Early this morning, before first light, I trudged along the route to the test centre. It's located in small industrial estate (the map pointed at an alleyway a hundred yards further on) and as I turned the corner I spotted one of my trainee colleagues leaning against the wall, as the premises weren't open just yet.
As I got closer, I noticed he wasn't moving. Curious... Hello mate? How are you this morning?... No answer. He just leaned there immobile, well and truly asleep. Poor lad. I let
To us British, the depths of a midwest American winter is something of an alien experience. We just don't get that sort of weather here,, with our milder atlantic climate, or at least not usually. The winters of 1961 and 1947 are exceptions of course, savage reminders that nature hasn't forgotten us.
on the other hand, the glorious photographs of winter in railroad magazines are well known to me. Whilst I haven't experienced that sort of climate for real, I have become familiar with that mon
Our brief dalliance with sunshine is over. Freezing fog obscures the land and makes my toes feel very uncomfortable. I notice the weather people are warning us of more wintery weather to come. Really? Who would have thought it?
His Other Car Is...
Another day on the farm. Huddled in a small office warmed only by a primitive electric heater, I meet up with a band of disparate doleseekers and prepare for another course, another day of learning how to be joyful happy droids earning taxes for t
Hello, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice-fortnightly blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
Trivia Answers
Firstly, I know you�ve all been sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for the answers to to last week's quiz questions, so I will keep you in suspenders no longer:
Q1. What was known to the Romans as the Mare Nostrum? (Shame on you if you don't know that one!)
The Mediterranean
Q2. Which modern word derives from the Roman practice of posting
What? Sunshine? Surely not? There was I expecting another grey dull and bitterly cold day when out pops a clear blue sky. That said, the pavement is dangerously slipery in places where the sun doesn't melt the frost, but so far I haven't bowed to the inevitable and made an undignified close inspection of the paving slabs.
Suprisingly, given the clear skies, it wasn't as cold today either. I hardly needed gloves. Now if only I can manage to stay on my feet...
This'll Warm You Up
Although
I knew it was going to be slippery this morning and I wasn't disappointed. There was a glass surface on the pavement outside my home. As it happens I was able to avoid a life and death struggle with gravity walking down the hill this morning because someone had thoughtfully cleared the pavement on the other side of the road. Normally that would be a hassle, but with traffic diverted I need only stroll across and around the roadworks. Job done.
Unfortunately not all the ice is cleared in the
Sometimes you just know something is different. it's a subliminal thing. You don't think about it, but rather it suddenly occurs to you that the world is not following the same old ritual. Such a minor epiphany happened to me last night. It was quiet. Too quiet...
Now that my street is blocked by roadworks, traffic is diverted, and no longer uses the road to travel between the town centre and Old Town up the hill. At least most people are diverted. I've seen a few confused attempts by driver
My mobile phone beeped. That's almost a social event for me, and whilst most texts are usually reminders of phone services or the occaisional marketing ploy, I still give it a read. Just in case.
Remember that you're due to attend a course the message said. Eh? What course? Why wasn't I informed? You see, with the current 'One strike and you're destitute' regime absence could cost me my payments. So naturally I'm a little annoyed by this bureaucratic oversight. Thanks for telling me guys.
Some trivia for you
Hello, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice fornightly blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin. . . .
The club in our village runs monthly quiz nights during the 'off-season' months. Each month they have a different 'guest host' (a bit like Have I Got News For You? does, since Angus Deayton's little 'ahem' adventure with a prostitute and some cocaine.)
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I do the Christmas and Easter ones, and I've made a start on
It was inevitable. Even Swindon, a town usually immune from the hazards of winter, could not escape the onslaught of our current freeze...
Truth be told we've only had a light snow fall, nothing like the experience of London and the Northeast. Trouble is this snow is the very fine variety that compacts readily and leaves icy conditions the next day. I see council workmen out and about spreading grit. Now that my road is closed for some weeks with a darn great pit in the middle of it, I
I woke to the alarm clock this morning as I suspected I might. That's the price you pay for staying up late. I now have half an hour to get dressed and down to the job centre to sign on. Inertia is a terrible obstacle first thing, amplified by the frigid temperatures that only a siberian would scoff at. No, it's no good, I have to get out of bed.
Having fallen listlessly sideways onto the carpet, I was suddenly aware that I was risking hypothermia unless I moved. Move I did. In fact, I was
Some people read the daily comics in the morning to start their day. I read the horoscopes. 4 of them, mind you...the fact that 4 different 'readers of the stars' have 4 wildly different 'interpretations' of the same stars is hilarious to me. Not to mention what they mention will happen to me today.
The last 4 days one in particular has been predicting that a 'windfall of money' is coming my way. Um, it's been 4 days now, and I haven't exactly seen an extra red cent come my way. Sure,
Sorry to disappoint you all, but there aren't any camels in my bed. Far from it, I'm warm, comfy, and indulging in a spot of Sunday laziness which I don't often fall prey to. Why waste a day? Sunday is no different.
However, the instinct to wake up and go about my daily business is quite strong. Russian scientists would point and tell me that's learned behaviour. They're almost certainly right. Look how dogs uncannily know what the time is despite being intectually incapable of using a clock
Almost daybreak. I'm sort of drowsy, in a warm bed, and very unwilling to brave the chilly temperatures of the bedroom even with the heating on. So I dozed for a bit longer. Plenty of time.
Not any more. Almost 9;30, and if I leave it too late, there'll be a two hour wait to grab a computer at the library. My life is full of these little problems. Quick! Out of bed - Cold! - and take a peak out of the window to confirm the weather conditions I'll have to cope with this morning.
Oh no! Th
One of the great bugbears of life is getting old. When you're young, you tend to sneer and roll your eyes, for the experience of age is something beyond you. Well, my hair began to go grey when I was a teenager so that never really made any impact on me. It all seemed normal and part of everyday life. I never got self-concious about it at all, even after enduring endless jibes about hair colour products for men.
It seems however that I've recently attracted an unfortunate medical condition I
Wow, didn't realize how lax I had become in my blogging duties. But times have become quite busy in the morning lately, what with work and new routines. I do wish I could be of a mind to do this in the evening, when I'm relaxing, but sadly it escapes my mind. How odd, as I'm usually doing so many other things at night which are equally as taxing. Oh well, I promise to myself that I'll check in more frequently.
At any rate, this by far is my favorite holiday, and not just because of the d
The amber triangles are proudly displayed on the weather report again. This time it's not heavy rain and the attendant risk of flooding, but the arrival of this years first snowfall, which shouldn't affect Wiltshire as yet.
Nonetheless the temperatures are plummetting. This morning was no exception. I've resorted to gloves for the first this year. Even my claims advisor mentioned how cold it was. Hey, that was almost conversational.
Yesterday had one advantage. It was a bright sunny day,
Yesterday channel is rather like Discovery, except they avpoid 'shark week' and instead show programs about Nazi's. Sometimes though you do get a decent documentary. I remember seeing one on the Flying Tigers in China that was something I didn't know much about (That's a group of american aviators in World War Two, not some rare breed of aerial carnivore, in case you wondered the Chinese were sniffing suspicious substances).
On the bright side, Yesterday is showing the Colditz series. I reme
