Car Park Attendant

Today he was reading the paper, I am still fairly convinced he's planning to kill his friends he just knows I'm on to him and is trying to look innocent. I am not fooled.

Day Trip

On Sunday Mr T wants me to be up and out of the house for 6am, we are going to Brands Hatch for the Truck Superprix. With the exception of the early start I am looking forward to it a little bit, mainly because we get to go on a mini adventure, my favourite kind of adventure. I am also looking forward to it because I am going to make us a picnic of egg mayonnaise sandwiches and cheese and onion sandwiches and cupcakes, I am going to make loads of cupcakes. I can't wait.

Last time we went to a race track they were classic cars and I was promised a glimpse of Rowan Atkinson in an Aston Martin, it didn't materialise. I have not been promised anyone famous this time, which is a good thing I can't be disappointed.

I have an in-car charger for my iPod which means we can play guess the song throughout the 480 mile round trip. Hooray.

Just checked the Brands Hatch site to ensure there were no celebrity promises only to discover a 106yr old lady has just become the oldest person to lap a race circuit. She is 107 on Saturday and I think she might well be one of my heroes. I like her.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh

I am in a bit of a panic. One of my closest friends is getting married next year, I am going to be her only grown up bridesmaid, that is a scary prospect, organising things and taking care of their daughters who are also bridesmaids and young. Last week she asked did I want a challenge...... the challenge was to make her wedding cake. I have said before I love to bake, I really do but I don't know if I am good enough for this sort of thing. I think I may have to start looking into courses on making decorations for cakes, if there's something really good on top of the cake people might not be so worried about how it tastes. Or at least that's what I am hoping.

I baked her daughter's birthday cake last year. It was well received but a wedding cake is just a bit more important. And frightening. Very frightening.

Observation

"Kill Your Friends" - the title of a book I noticed a man reading today. Well I think it was, I am in dire need of an eye test (not strictly true, I know I can't see things anymore, I am more in need of glasses, no test needed really), but the print on the cover was pretty large. This man works alone, in a little hut at the entrance of a car park, I know this because that is where I saw him. It's got me thinking, over the last 3-4 months I've got used to working alone, since the other secretary was made redundant, but what if I end up like him? He sits there alone waiting for customers to come to him so he can do something he is paid to do. I sit here waiting for colleagues to come to me so that I can do something I am paid to do instead of writing this drivel or emailing friends. You get used to working alone and then someone comes in and tries to make polite conversation and it seems totally alien. I wonder if that's how he feels when people drive into the car park and say more than three words to him?

I am also beginning to wonder, is it only a matter of time before this level of solitude gets to me and I need to learn how to kill my friends? I hope not because I actually really quite like my friends.

Sorry, there doesn't appear to have been a point to this, I was just curious as to what drives someone to want to kill their friends, I bet it was nothing to do with friend killing. I suspect there was print too small for my failing vision stating "with laughter" and it's actually a joke book. I'm not going to look any closer next time I pass him, you know what happened to the curious cat.

The Past

It's not like me at all to dwell on the past or even to give much of the past more than a second's thought but on Sunday as I walked up the staircase to my Nan's flat I realised that would probably be the last time I smelled that smell. She died three weeks ago today and I think it is just hitting me. The death I coped with, I knew it was coming, I'd prepared myself. At the funeral I held my 18 year old sister against my chest while she sobbed as the curtains drew around the coffin and the music played. I am not one for waterworks, not usually. But it's the little things that get to me, the birthday card, written by my Mum because she was too ill to write it made me weep, that smell of her flat, not a bad smell just one I've only ever encountered in that particular building. Her flat now empty except for the last few bin bags, the last few bags of the things she bought "just in case", the extra toaster, microwave, kettle, mini oven, the last of the souvenir cocktail sticks found lying in the back of a cabinet.

My heart is heavy . I'd forgotten how this feels. I just wish I didn't have to remember it.

Three Questions

Ozzy Osbourne surely does not look like this in real life, does he?

How many hours airbrushing did this take?

Am I the only one who is going to have nightmares as a result of this picture?

Scottish Road Trip

I am back from Bonnie Scotland. It was indeed bonnie it was also pretty windy, the first day we couldn't go out for a walk, I am only little and very nearly blew away. I think Scotland might be edging above Wales in the UK mini break ranks.

We did a lot of driving, 711 miles of driving to be exact. There is so much amazing country side to look at, perfect for the non-driver, I may have taken one too many pictures as we whizzed along the lanes. In a break from tradition we even got out of the car once or twice, something which is practically unheard of on our drives, we explored the ruins of Dunure Castle and got all Burns'd out in his cottage, on the Brig O'Doon and in a Visitor's Centre. Oh and we went to Electric Brae which I refuse to believe is an optical illusion, we definitely definitely were rolling up hill, it's all witchcraft and magnets and I won't hear any other explanation.

From the west coast to the east coast, down the most fun road of the trip, straight, not a single other car around for miles, a few hills, perfect. Edinburgh was lovely even if the castle did smell of corned beef hash. Did a ghost walk in the vaults under the South Bridge, no ghosts, perhaps they were eating corned beef hash somewhere in the castle. Oh and Russell Brand, the reason we went to Edinburgh, was terribly funny.

Navigation central (my office when we go on a drive) got messy owing to the two maps, and 15 pages of printed directions. To my eternal relief I got us around just fine and we avoided any "I did say turn left there you know" type domestics, hurrah. Also, in spite of some terribly complicated Edinburgh roadworks to find the Tempting Tattie, just because Richard Herring says they have nice potatoes, they do, I had some of Mr T's.

We bought a lot of fudge, about 2kg, a week later and there's an awful lot in the kitchen still. I think Mr T is going to end up in a diabetic coma. Perhaps I shouldn't have encouraged him to buy so much. But then some of it was made on the HMY Britannia and was buy one get one free, it would've been rude not to something which I think Mr T's arteries would disagree with. I sat somewhere the Queen may well have sat on the yacht, terribly exciting.

So, the holiday was a very welcome break having spent the previous three weeks visiting my Nan in hospital every evening. We came home to go to her funeral. Not such a great ending to the holiday.

I feel I ought to waffle on more about the things we saw and did in Scotland but I don't think there's much else to say. Except perhaps how brilliant it was to go to Services with ducks wandering round there. It doesn't take much to please me.

Now I am counting down to the next one, or at least I will be just as soon as my boss comes back to work from the holiday he's on this week and starts calling me Bobby Sands again.