I haven’t blogged since Saturday. This must be the longest stint without updating my blog this year. I can’t even use the old laziness excuse for the lack of updates this time. I tried to blog, I really did. On Sunday evening, I sat down, with my laptop in front of me, staring blankly at the screen, hoping for something to appear in my head that I could blog about. There was nothing. I took to Twitter and the BBC website, in the vane hope that the internet would provide me with inspiration. It didn’t. Damn you, internet!
How can you maintain a daily blog when you don’t have anything to blog about? I am more than aware that when I do blog, 99% of my posts are meaningless drivel and about nothing. Given that this is the case, it is a pretty sad state of affairs that I cannot summon the thought process to write SOMETHING.
I am writing this blog throughout the day in work, while on breaks, of course. The office is unbearably hot. Our office is small. It’s basically a box bedroom attached to a building. Half of it is surrounded by glass. We may as well be sitting in a greenhouse. You could grow tomatoes in between the computers. It makes me hot and cranky.
This is just one of life’s annoyances. I shouldn’t complain. Hard to believe, but I do actually enjoy my job… as far as jobs go. One of life’s complaints which I will soon be free from, for the next six weeks at least, are the school children who I pass every morning on my walk to work. It’s not children I take issue with. It is the scooters they ride on. No word of a lie – every child at my local school rides one of the damn things. They don’t ride them safely, either. Walking my local pavements on a school morning is up there with crossing the M4 motorway, when it comes to danger. I have narrowly avoided being run into on a number of occasions. The parents of the children have apologised for their offspring’s wreck-less behaviour on a small number of occasions, but not very often. It is only a matter of time before somebody is killed… or at least receives a nasty bruised knee.
I was awoken in the night by another thunderstorm. If I thought the other night’s was a boomshanka, mother-hubbard, shit-storm of a storm, this was something else! The lightning made the night sky as light as day. If that wasn’t scary enough, the morning was worse. Dark, black clouds descended, making the day appear night. It felt like the end of the world. Then the thunder started again, before a downpour of rain like I’ve never seen before. It was like God was spraying his shower on full blast onto earth.
Then there was the heat. It was hot. So, so, so hot. I thought storms were meant to cool down the atmosphere. The house felt like a jungle. I opened all the windows. Claire has only just gone around and closed them, meaning they’ve been open all day, so no doubt all the spiders that live in Weston Village have crawled into the house and will kill me in my sleep, or at least run across the carpet when I’m watching Coronation Street and scare the shit out of me.
For all the traumas brought by the storm, there were some impressive photos all over Twitter. This one of Bath Abbey being struck by a bolt of lightning is my favourite.
Credit to @antinbath for this superb photo
There was a thunderstorm in the night. It was a proper boomshanka, mother-hubbard, shit-storm of a storm. I wasn’t expecting it. There were no pre-warnings on the weather forecast. Claire was the first to notice the storm approaching. She noticed flashes of light in the sky. Given the fact it was the middle of the night and I was asleep, when she asked me, in my comatose state, if I had seen it, I replied ‘no’. I think she was reassured when the storm finally did arrive, by which point I was awake and able to see it too and confirm she wasn’t seeing things and going mad. As tends to be the way with all thunderstorms, there were lots of flashes of light and bangs of thunder, which seemed to go on for hours, but in reality, probably 10 minutes. I quite like thunderstorms if I am indoors, safe, dry and warm. However, if I am outside, it is a bit shit-your-pants-scary. I get worried I’ll be struck by lightning. I know the chances of that happening are something like 100,000/1, but I don’t like those odds. Besides which, I play the National Lottery, with the (stupid) belief that I may win it one day. If I believe I can win the lottery, with their crazy odds, my brain can certainly convince itself that my body could randomly be struck by a trillion volts of electricity.
Luckily, by morning, when it was time for me to walk to work, the storm had long gone. Probably up t’north to electrocute some Mancunian. The air was cool as well. Recently it had been like wandering around in a giant oven. I think I could have roasted a chicken, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, had I left them in the garden for a couple of hours, or however long it takes to cook chicken… 30 minutes plus another half an hour per pound.
After my mammoth commute to work (a 10 minute walk around the corner), I treated myself to a Mattys breakfast. This is a weekly tradition for many in my department, and something I rarely participate in. However, today I pushed the boat out, went the whole hog, and got a full English breakfast, substituting hash browns for tomato. On the occasions I do have a Matty’s, my choice of egg is always fried, although this time I went for something I had never tried before… poached. Yes, that’s right, before today I had never eaten a poached egg. As of this morning, I have lost my poached egg virginity.
It has been a busy morning in the office, with staff out on annual leave and whatever. But with little over two hours left until home time, I am being kept sane, in the knowledge that the weekend awaits… well as sane as I can be my by standards.
I hope this blog has been sufficient. I know recently, my efforts have been pretty poo. I hope this makes up for things. If you think it does, please send me money and I will blog some more.
Uh-oh. It seems like my old friends, the flying ants, are coming back…
I read this news during the afternoon. Such a shame it turned out to be a cruel hoax. Sadly, David Hockaday is still at large at Leeds United.
About Me
So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?
If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.
However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.
You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.
All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
