Wow

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

An envelope stuffing machine.

In Scotland

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Have arrived safely in Scotland. Staying overnight in a Travel Tavern in Queensferry before hitting the campaign trail in Dunfermline tomorrow. I can see the Forth Road Bridge from the window!

Pledge!

I woke up this afternoon to find a flyer stuck under the windscreen wiper of my car to tell me that it had been “invold in a colusion” with an ambulance in the early hours of the morning. “Involved” presumably in the sense that it just sat there, parked on the road, and the ambulance ran into it on the way past.

A cursory inspection revealed that the ambulance doesn’t seem to have done it much harm.

It certainly isn’t the first vehicle to run into the long-suffering Skoda. The first day we moved here, a taxi pulled in behind it and knocked off the side parts of my rear lights on one side.

In Bordeaux (already not my favourite place in the world, see here for why), I parked behind a rental van which reversed delicately up to my bumper, paused, then slammed itself into the front of my car as hard and as fast as it possibly could. The driver got out, and I could plainly read two things on his face “OMG, this is going to cost me” and “Aha! A chance to practice my English!” He couldn’t quite phrase “I forgot to change gear before trying to pull out,” but I knew what he meant.

In both cases the car wasn’t seriously damaged, and I let the other guys get on with their journeys.

It’s going to be the same with the ambulance. He’s lightly scratched my front bumper. No big deal.

I hope stopping to write the note didn’t have consequences for whoever was in the ambulance. The flyer was half handwritten note and half photocopied details of insurance company. For them to carry that about presumably means they hit things quite often.

Hopefully, you can’t tell any differences, but when I log in to write posts, it’s way fancier.

I have successfully upgraded to WP2.0.

DSCN1895

Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Have just found Leigh’s photos of our New Year party. Doesn’t P look wonderful?

The Iain Dale bounce is over, and I am once again getting the majority of my hits from links within the Librivox project.

A doodle

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

I think it has 9 tentacles, which stops it being either an octopus or a squid. It could, I concede, be an injured squid.

Laundrettes

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Since moving house, I’ve had to start using laundrettes again. New house doesn’t immediately have anywhere to put a washing machine, although our kitchen redesign and possible conservatory plans will include one somewhere. AND a dishwasher.

I hadn’t used a laundrette for at least 6 years. Both my previous rental houses came with nice new machines and were permanently festooned with airers with drying clothes. I certainly wasn’t particularly organised and have been running a demand-driven laundry system rather than a pro-active one, relying on the backstop of slovenly men the world over: a month’s supply of underwear.

Careful timing usually means I can have the laundrette to myself and spread0out over a variety of different machines. When I was a student, I used to wait til everyone else was out on the lash of a friday night, and combine laundry with watching Frasier. Last week, I came and laundered one afternoon, reading my council papers whilst my smalls danced around.

Coming on a Sunday evening was a mistake. Everything was fine to start with. Then while I was over the road in a wannabee euro-style cafe having a double espresso during the rinse cycle, all hell broke loose. Now i’m in a battle of wits with steel-eyed housewives and a genial tanned bloke in a blazer who’ve committed the cardinal sin of just coming in to use the dryers.

After an hour of this, I’m increasingly tempted by the service wash options. I gave up washing and ironing my own shirts last year in favour of paying £1 a shirt to a dry-cleaner to do it for me (if anyone out there needs wire hangers for anything…) so it wouldn’t be that much of a leap. I’m just not sure how comfortable I feel having someone else folding my smalls and bundling my socks. Will they pay enough attention to the 4 different shades of navy?

Have to dash now. Still need to defend my second dryer. Tanned blazer man is confiding that this is his first laundry in six weeks and that it’s cost him 14 quid to dry it all. When he half-jokes that he needs a woman in his life, I can’t tell whether the change in atmosphere is the women pricking up their ears or tutting to themselves.