La Pluie Est Pissant 😁

Chiswick Mall, post-deluge
Yep, weather for ducks

What a weekend! I had it all planned out but it went pear-shaped almost instantly. Going to a surprise party in Croydon from Somerset, no problem. Allow 4 hours for travelling so I’d have time to change when I got there, and generally hang around shooting the breeze. A nice little amble down the A303, clock Stonehenge on the way, fabulous. It was all going so well, driving past the spectacular colour-show that is autumn. Having had a truly lousy week where I actually overslept on one of the days, waking up at the exact moment I was supposed to be at work because the blasted alarm didn’t go off, I was really looking forward to this weekend. Not that the week was a complete bust – of course I had one of what I now think of as my personal rainbows. I was driving to work on the gloomy ‘late’ morning, thinking ‘Where is the SUN? ‘, and I thought, ‘It’s moved from the sky into the leaves’ The colours are that amazing. Yep, I’m a poet and I don’t know it 🙂 There is a particular yellow with a hint of orange that you will occasionally see in oak tree leaves at the moment. Oh my giddy aunt, if I could EXACTLY replicate that colour on canvas, my work here would be done.

So, technicolour amble down the A303 despite the lashing rainfall till 5 miles from Stonehenge, then a complete stop – for 45 minutes. Broken-down caravan, single lane traffic. And then downhill all the way– apocalyptic rainfall, M4 closed, M25 closed, I could have cried. Tried a detour through Surrey but the reception was so bad, Google Maps lady had a nervous breakdown — turn right, turn left at the rounadbout, turn right in 300 yards, I don’t know where I am! Aarrrggghhh!! Abort, abort, abort— in the end I turned the damn thing off and navigated with good old-fashioned logic and motorway signs. The rain was so bad, no one was even doing 60. On the motorway. In England. Believe me, I have seen these maniacs going 90mph with black ice on the road. Upshot, the journey took 6 hours. For 180 miles. The flight time from London to New York is 6 hrs and 50 minutes, just to put that in perspective. Having had nothing to eat since 11am, by the time I got to the party I could have eaten a scabby horse between two old mattresses. An old East End saying – don’t say you learn nothing from me. The party itself was fab and the celebrant is worth the hassle but if I don’t see Croydon and its insane one-way system for at least a decade, it’ll be too soon.

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Hypertension? You Bet!

  • Peaches in Rum made by clueless short-tempered person. The jar of wonder
  • Peaches in Brandy made by someone who is not an idiot

All in all, I’d rather be in Rome. I’m still on holiday, working harder than if I’d been at work. I’m in the middle of developing facial skincare– cream, lotion, you name it; I’m making it and testing it. Plus, I’m redesigning the packaging, testing out switching products from plastic to glass (although our plastic bottles are already 100% recyclable), designing artwork for the new products etc etc. So you can see why I hate the living guts of Extinction Rebellion. Trying to traverse Central London is an absolute nightmare especially when you factor in torrential rain. What is with the rain, anyway? If God is looking for a handy target for lightning bolts, I can recommend a Tower-of-Babel lookalike in Brussels…..Not quite sure what XR’s end game is – there is surely no one left alive whose ecological awareness needs improving. We all know what the problem is; what are their solutions? As for the people going on about their children’s futures… you have children!!??? Do you know what a burden that puts on the planet according to the overpopulation fascists? That’s it, euthanasia all around.

Of course what the overpopulation crowd never seem to address is who is going to look after this population of aged people, who will be working to cover their pensions and where are the healthcare professionals coming from when the average age of the country is 60 and everyone is living to 90 in this new utopia? Where are the new ideas and innovation going to come from with no young people?

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