Heavy, Heavy Mileage
Posted: Sat 3 July, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving, Travel Leave a comment »The coming week is another one with lots of miles to go under my wheels.
Tomorrow I’m off back down to Berkshire (and, of course, back again) to collect Hound. It’s been a really nice ten days without her barky shithead presence, but I know Herself will be glad to get the poxy pooch back. Me, I’d happily leave her in Berkshire. But there we go.
During the week I’ll be doing my normal commute to Bury St Edmunds, which is just second nature now, but still adds 350 miles to the week.
And I’ve also got one night of driving Herself down to London, from whence she shall depart the next day with others for a week’s holiday. I’ll be looking after Hound – who will just be eating, shitting and sleeping, following her time in ‘kennels’. (The place she goes is really ace, with lots of running round rather than being cooped up for most of the day. So she’ll be utterly knackered, and won’t have eaten much, if I know Hound)
All told, I’ll be covering near as dammit 1,000 miles between now and next Friday. (And there’ll be another London run the week after to collect Herself from London again, as well as a weekend seeing friends in Manchester)
I don’t mind, fortunately – the driving’s something I can do easily now, and in a lot of ways I enjoy it. I’ll be playing my music quite loud, and just making progress through the motorway system.
Pink, Portman Road, Ipswich
Posted: Wed 30 June, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Reviews(ish), Stupidity, Travel 13 Comments »Last night I was supposed to be seeing Pink at the Portman Road stadium in Ipswich. I didn’t see it.
Why? Because I couldn’t find the fucking stadium.
I’m normally pretty good on finding places, but must admit that in this case I’d figured there would be some signs to follow. After all, it’s a football stadium for fuck’s sake. Surely they need some signs for away fans to get there etc.?
Apparently not. I have to assume that Ipswich is truly embarassed about the stadium – they sure as shit don’t like to admit that they’ve got one.
Driving along the A14, I got to the first turn-off for Ipswich. There’s a sign there that says “Football Stadium” with an arrow pointing straight on (i.e. don’t take the turn-off). Fine. Second junction’s the same – “Straight on for Football Stadium“. After that, nothing. I got to the far side of Ipswich, no more signs. I turned round, coming back from Felixstowe direction to Ipswich, and there’s not one fucking sign. Not one.
All told I did that stretch three times, checking the exit roads, trying to see any damn signage whatsoever that pointed me in the direction of the stadium. Nothing except those two signs saying “straight on” from one direction.
So in the end I said fuck it, and drove home.
I assume Portman Stadium etc. won’t give a shit, as they’ve got their money for the gig already. But you can be damn fucking sure I won’t be going back there again.
I do feel like a right bell-end for not being able to find a sodding football stadium. But at the same time it’s not just me, others have said it’s a shit to find unless you actually know where it is. Personally, I’m not going to make the effort to try and find it again.
Driving
Posted: Thu 24 June, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving, Travel Leave a comment »Today’s another one of my big driving days. I’m taking Hound down to Berkshire to stay in the kennel that’ll have her, because of other stuff going on this weekend.
So it’s a day off work, and a day spent on the motorway. Long term it’s worthwhile, but it’ll leave me looking like a stunned primate tonight.
Enjoy.
Hectic Fortnight
Posted: Tue 22 June, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Animals, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, The '10 Writing Project, Travel, Writing Leave a comment »The next two weeks are – to say the least – pretty damn busy.
Among other things (and not all at the same time, obviously) it will involve :
- Giving (another) statement to police re Emma Ward
- Driving down to Berkshire to put Hound in Kennels
- Driving to Peterborough to collect Herself’s brother
- A big birthday party for Herself’s grandfather
- Driving down to Berkshire to collect Hound from kennels
- Finishing off a couple of short script ideas
- Seeing Pink’s gig in Ipswich
There’s also a number of work-related things in the same timescale, which isn’t helping much.
So all told, a fairly busy couple of weeks…
Union Street Urban Orchard
Posted: Sun 20 June, 2010 Filed under: Green, Green Garden, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »While I was in London last night, I had to take a walk to try and find the car park I had planned to use.
While doing so, I came across the (closed at the time) Union Street Urban Orchard. I think it’s a fantastic idea :
Designed by Heather Ring of the Wayward Plant Registry and built with the help of Bankside Open Spaces Trust and an array of other helpful volunteers the garden will regenerate a disused site in Bankside and create a place for exchange between local residents and visitors to the Festival.
As the above quote from the site says, they’ve taken a disused site on Union Street, and created an urban orchard in it. They’ve recycled pallets, tyres, wood, glass and more to make the orchard. Sadly it’s only in situ until the middle of August- although at that point the trees from the orchard will be transplanted to three or four other sites around Bankside.
Personally I’d like to see this done far more often, creating valuable green/growing space in disused plots and areas throughout cities. Of course I realise that London prices are huge and the cost of those plots is almost certainly prohibitive – but at the same time if you can make use of those disused plots that aren’t doing anything anyway, well why not?
If all else fails, I think that local authorities could/should do a CPO on some of these disused plots, and actually make solid use of those plots for the local community.
The Union Street Urban Orchard is a fantastic project. I hope it puts ideas in the heads of a lot more people.