Rain, rain go away...

...I'm right up to here (indicating over the top of my head) with wet shoes (and we have our Cornwall holiday coming up very, very soon)!  Thomas is so excited, he asks me every morning "Are we going on holiday today, Daddy?"...and I have to answer "I really wish we were, but it won't be long!"... ;)

Lovely weather today in Wapping...

...really looking forward to my trip back to London Bridge...

Earlswood Station Rain storm...

...it's just absolutely horrible at the moment (last couple of communting days exactly the same)...today the early train was completely cancelled thanks to flooding at Christ's hospital...this can't have been a surprise can it?  Could they not have started it from Horsham on this occasion?  What about tomorrow?

Horrible Weather this morning!

Thanking my lucky stars that I did the entire walk (listening to Larry Niven's RingWorld) in gentle drizzle, walked onto the platform at Earlswood (shaking the rain from my coat) and then -the above- happened...absolutely crazy, train was three minutes late into the station and then delayed by a further twenty at South Croydon due to a power failure...

I'm putting my assessment of the rail improvement works (that closed the entire line over Christmas) on hold for the time being...we'll see how things are after the weekend...fair is fair... ;)

Ah...the sun is shining...

...the birds are singing and everybody is happy!  Or not...

I bet all of you can you identify these well known London landmarks?  Wonder if my clothes will dry out ready for my journey home? ;)

It *might* be time to get the winter coat out...

And yeah...

...the Met office got the weather right today, it's *pouring*... ;)

Mmmm...nice...

...thank goodness we had good weather for Thomas' birthday!

Freezing Fog and Jubilee Line Fire

Ah well, here we go, the proper proper cold weather starts here...Well actually to be more precise, it started on Friday night when I was attempting to get home...got down to the Jubilee line (having dashed through the torrential downpour between One Canada Square and the tube entrance) only to be met with reduced gate entry and a huge queue...not a good sign...when I got down to platform level things were even worse, 3/4 of the space was taken up with people trying to get back west, so I hopped on a waiting eastbound service (thinking I could cunningly switch back after one stop and skip the wait, maybe even get a seat if I were very lucky)...when the train pulled away the driver came on over the tannoy system - "Just a quick announcement, if any of you happen to have friends or colleagues following on the train behind, they are stopped at Canada Water with reports of a strange smell, so they might be delayed a while"...

At the O2 I flew across to the westbound platform and jumped onto the waiting train which, two minutes of uncomfortable waiting later, my worst fears were confirmed "Sorry folks, the Jubilee line is now suspended in both directions due to a track-side fire at Canada Water"...wonderful...so everyone on both the trains headed upstairs, into the freezing rain, to try and figure out which bus to get...as I was checking signs I missed a bus that said it was going to Waterloo (argh!), but when the next one pulled in, no-one seemed interested in getting on, checking the front it said it was going to Greenwich (which I had a hunch had a DLR stop and a mainline station), so I hopped on, really just to get out of the rain (but there were also enough grumpy commuters waiting to fill two double deckers, so it could have been a bit of a wait)...

About 15 stops later, at Greenwhich high street, lots of people hopped off, so I followed suit, asking as I trudged, getting more and more drenched, which way the station was, and finally found it...but not before I was freezing cold and absolutely soaked...I got up onto the (extremely windy) platform and found that a London Bridge train was due in 10 minutes (delayed), so finally made it to London Bridge about an hour and a half later, and much colder than I should have been...

Today it's freezing fog (which had me walking up and down the platform to stay warm) but at least it isn't pouring with rain...

Free Wet Umbrella Cover - Canary Wharf

Well, well, well...looks like something has come out of the slip testing they were conducting in reception of One Canada Square earlier on in the year...I've commented before on how terrifyingly treacherous walking can get on some of the highly polished stone walkways after a shower, and now it seems that something has been done to try and combat it...Next to the doorways into the lower ground floor of our office these little dispensing machines have appeared, the idea being that instead of walking along with your wet umbrella dripping water all over the slippery marble floor, you pause, and tuck it into one of these little plastic bags (for free) to save everyone from slipping over in the little trail you have left...

Quite how successful this will be in practice, when there is a queue of busy commuters debating with themselves whether to continue standing patiently in the rain until their turn to wrap their umbrella up arrives, of course, remains to be seen... ;)

Wimbledon Rain...

So the whole of Wimbledon fortnight (during which I confidently predicted it was going to piss it down) manages to go by with barely a spot of rain, the very *day* after it finishes (as if with deliberate malice), we walk out the front door to a few spits and spots (pausing to pick up the one small umbrella we can find, just in case) by the time we have parked the car in Earlswood the heavens have absolutely torn themselves open (having saved up the full two weeks worth ready to dump upon us all in one go), soaking us both to the skin...even on the platform (the sound deafening as the torrent pounded the corrugated roof) the clunky guttering completely overwhelmed, directing water everywhere except down into the drains...

By the time we got to Redhill (90 seconds later), it was blue skies again...

Extremes of weather

Well, good news (for once)! The weathermen are predicting a fantastic bank holiday weekend (can it possibly be true?)...with temperatures of up to 23 degrees! This has to be an excuse to get the new BBQ out, it's been sat in it's box since Flyingpops bought it at the end of last summer (at a bargain price from a Tesco seasonal clear out sale)...just have to hope it's nothing like last weekend, when the weather really couldn't make it's mind up at all...either torrential downpour (as pictured above) -

- (and this shot was only taken five minutes later) blazing sunshine, if you look closely you can still see the puddles...!  I certainly wouldn't want to have everything set out ready for a nice al fresco tea and suddenly be rushing for the living room door, soggy sausage in hand... ;)

In other news, Flyingpops mum Nanjan has come out of hospital after a scheduled operation, everything seems to have gone smoothly, but we just want to send you our love and hope that you get well soon (we would have sent flowers but apparently the house is already overflowing with them, so we'll get you some later)... ;)

What actually is a "rain check"?

You see, I knew how to use it in conversation, but it dawned on me (after reading Bill Bryson's excellent "Mother Tongue") that I fell into the category of people perfectly content to take the matter no further (i.e. happily not bother to seek an explaination for this odd term) and that has had to change...I don't like being part of a category, especially a common and lazy one... ;)

So, let's explain (embarrassingly it took no time at all to find out, and was completely logical), so in case you are in the same situation that I was in - it's an Americanism (as you had no doubt already guessed), the saying "I'll take a rain check" originated either in the sport of Baseball or Golf (depending on who you want to believe).  When a game was cancelled thanks to bad weather, the disgruntled baseball fan or damp golfer would then stomp back to the corresponding office and collect (literally take) their "rain check" - a free entry ticket to enable them to return when the weather had improved and the game was to be resumed...

So there you go...I have to say I was really quite surprised, the Americans are actually far more civilised in this respect than even the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Association (who one would have expected to be absolute bastions of fair play) - for them, however, if rain stops play all day, tough luck you only actually paid for the right to sit in the seat, not to see any games being played...!

Most other sports popular in the UK obviously play on regardless of the amount of rain (football, rugby etc.) as I miserably discovered in school...only, it seems - cricket - saves us from complete humiliation, offering a full refund or a transfer of dates if it really is too wet to play (and, interestingly, they even refer to it as a "raincheck policy")...

Now why didn't I know all this before, lack of interest in sport?  Perhaps...but thank you, Mr Bryson, for the kick up the arse...while I didn't actually use the term myself prior to this, I can now, at least, do so with confidence (if I so desire) in the future... ;)

Brockham Bonfire 2008

Set your wayback machine for last weekend (okay not so wayback) and join us as, despite the fact that it had been raining really very hard all day, and Flyingpops mum had already called us in the morning to cancel attending (she normally walks along with us), we decided (perhaps unwisely) to go to the Brockham Bonfire...the easiest route for us, as we discovered before, is to drive to Reigate, park the car in Morrisons car park and then pay to get the special bus service (which this year was actually quite a posh coach instead of a broken down semi-retired double decker) -

- it's not actually that far to Brockham from Reigate (about a ten minute drive), so in no time we were trudging through the dark past the odd stalls selling glowing items for draping around one's person and over the river -

- to join the surprisingly (considering the way the weather had been) swolen crowd awaiting the festivities and gorging themselves on the constant stream of burgers and sausages coming out of the bustling kitchens -

- we went and checked out the hog roast, overheard the guys cooking it saying that it was totally burnt, but that they couldn't take the heat shield off it as they feared it would be ruined if it rained (and it was starting to drizzle) -

- so we wandered back away from the grassy area (as it was starting to get extremely muddy and slippery), I slipped a few times trying to get up the little slope away from the hog roast fence and then back onto the road and we made our way up to watch the torchlit procession from a position not far away from the organisers watchtower...and it was here that we spent the next 25 minutes waiting, at one stage we did catch a glimpse of the procession, but we were then told (as the rain continued to build into a proper shower) that because the conditions were so bad in the car park we would have to wait for everyone to park before everything would kick off, so the torches vanished back round the corner again as the rain did it's best to soak everyone through and dampen our enthusiasm...when the final stragglers from the car park did finally manage to drag themselves to the green the procession started up again, the guy was hoisted onto the top of the (increasingly saturated) pile of wood -

- and this time the torch bearers managed to make it all the way to the bonfire (which we were jolly pleased about as we were now completely soaking and getting rather cold, Flyingpops muttering something about "rather being curled up on the sofa in front of X Factor") -

- unfortunately the wood was so wet by this stage that the flames took *forever* to reach the top -

- it was literally another 20 minutes before the bangers started to go off (one or two at a time, not the usual cacophony at all, which was a bit of a let down), during this time we made our way back along the road so the massive amounts of smoke coming off the bonfire wouldn't be in our way of the display -

- and then (thank goodness) the usual having to cheer louder/"I can't hear you!" cycle was broken as on our first (as cheerful as possible in the circumstances) collective yell was answered by the start of the fireworks (making me think the guys controlling it were perhaps getting damp and cold too) -



Shame about the weather, but an excellent display (as usual)...when it all finished we made a mad dash for the buses, got on the first one and then had another mad dash through Reigate from the Red Cross in an absolute cloudburst (couldn't have got any wetter if I had jumped in the bath) and all the way across the car park at Morrisons (as I had stupidly advised Flyingpops to park near the pick-up bus stop rather than the dropping off one)...oh well, maybe we'll remember for next year!

Commuting in the rain...

...you know, apart from the small walk from the car at Earlswood, in theory I could do the entire journey to work under cover - across the concourse at London Bridge, down into the tube, then at Canary Wharf straight into the underground shopping centre, turn left at HSBC and up the stairs next to Birley Sandwiches and I'm right by the lifts actually inside 1 Canada Square...today though I braved the rain (using my Metro as a makeshift umbrella) -

- on the way in today I also made a good start at reading Derren Brown's book "Tricks of the Mind" (don't buy it from there though, Tesco have it on 2 for £7) which is absolutely excellent (thus far), even without a paper and pen (as advised), I managed to annoy the hell out of Flyingpops on the London Bridge train by managing to memorise and recite a list of *twenty* obscure words (both backwards and forwards) in order after only having spent about a minute studying the method! Very, very impressive...it's absolutely *everything* to do with technique and nothing to do with extraordinary powers of recall however...and in order to do it to demand you would definitely need a very quick and bright imagination...

I can see why Flyingpops was a little embarrased at me delightedly saying "Urm...Wigwam, Baby...urm...Kiwi...BED...paintbrush aaaaand WALNUT! Yes!", there were a couple of funny looks being levelled in my direction... ;)

Welcome back to England...

Rain rain rain...bleugh...just lucky I was backing up all my photos and found some nice pictures of the garden from the summer that I had forgotten about (just to cheer us up) -


- oh and out of interest, I was rather shocked to discover that since the 5th of May (when I got the new camera) I have taken over 9000 photographs(!), that's 21.7Gb of data to burn...urk!

The Sun Newspaper

...is obviously contempating a name change, following the extraordinary weather we have been enjoying just lately... ;)

London Canal Museum (in the rain)

Join me, in a peek out the cell window at the cloudburst happening currently a few feet behind my desk...nice weather for ducks...*shiver*...

Severe Weather Warnings - South East England

Oh dear, not the sort of thing one expects to normally see on a map of the south eastern portion of the United Kingdom...the red bits on the map above are regions where the MET Office have issued "Severe Weather Warnings", this means danger to the public, in this case, in the form of flooding or dangerous road conditions...or in First Capital Connect's case, the railway, being about the only main route into London which regularly has to close due to flooding (at Moorgate, this time)...and this may shock you, they managed to close it due to flooding *this* morning, before the rain has even hit! Knocked out by the weather little Alexander managed to ignore while walking around the farm yesterday, impressive, eh?

Anyway, we will see what happens (The Express is confidently annoucing that we are due to have the wettest day in 50 years), but it's not due to hit us here in London until about 1330hrs...meaning I could be in for quite a soaking on the way home (assuming all the trains and buses are even running)!

Update - So, made it home, only one shower en route, even managed to make the direct bus, did, however, get back to find the new gazebo absolutely ruined, poles twisted out of all recognition, and Wimbledon coverage on the TV is just showing replays, so there are obviously pockets of what the rest of the country is suffering around this area!

Bocketts Farm review

So (and quite why we picked the very beginning of the Wimbledon fortnight to do this, I really cannot *begin* explain - and - having lived in Wimbledon, I am doubly guilty), today was the day we had decided to take little Alexander to celebrate (a slightly belated) birthday surprise at Bocketts Farm -

- which is actually still a working farm, as well as providing all sorts of visitor facilities (thank *goodness*) including plenty to do *indoors*...

...Alexander started (despite the rain) to get really rather excited (dashing off ahead of us across the car park!), the minute I mentioned that there might be the chance of seeing some geese -

- which, while relishing the rain, were doing so right at the extent of my zoom lens (he loved the glimpse anyway), but rather than stand and watch we dived into cover inside the main barn -

- what followed was almost an hour just following him (smiling), as he *ran* from animal to animal in amazed joy, pointed out "eep!", "raddit!", "igs!"', "tow!" and "oat!" (etc.) -


- although he missed the miserable looking Llama who some cruel git had shaved leaving an 80's footballer's haircut (he was *not* amused) -

- Anyway, at the appointed time, we went into the animal encounter room to witness (drum roll please!) the "Goat Milking"- in the poor old thing was lead (to a chorus of "Awwww!", "I don't loike it!" and "Why is it limping Mummy?" from the little kids lining the room) -

- but despite *repeated* good humoured attempts to get it to mount the milking position (including, eventually some obviously difficult "backside" encouragement), in the end the poor old thing was lead back out of the room, and a younger substitute was brought in (much to everyone's relief) -

- this new goat, called "Shandy" I think, hopped up as soon as it smelt the grub, and stood good as gold -

- until a thick creamy jug of fresh milk had been extracted (6-8 pints per day, apparently!) -

- the young man then got up, announced he was now "kn*ckered" (to a laugh from most of the watching crowd), and then a very brave little chick, and a very patient little rabbit were quickly paraded around the room, so everyone little could have a tiny gentle stroke.

Once all this was done, we all paraded out, back into the barn but it was *still* raining outside, in the lack of *much* else to do (Alexander being too young for the adventure playground) we decided to brave it anyway -

- checking out some of the larger wildlife -

- who were kicking their stable doors (I imagine as normally they would have been let out to do Pony rides by now) -

- a lot of ducks, who couldn't care less about the inclement conditions, and some wonderful gardens -

- with some incredible residents -

- (driven back by the rain) we then stopped for a bit of lunch in the large "Tea shop", which was actually a licensed restaurant, shame the toasted sandwich they brought me (Bacon and Stilton) came largely devoid of bacon, but to their credit they took it back and made me a proper one without too many excuses - "but it's just been chopped up a bit, look, we all do them differently" - which was swiftly answered by a pointing finger at Mr S's plump and fine sarnie next door, which was positively overflowing with bacon, whereas mine appeared to have 3 sliced lardons that had accidentally slipped in, after which it had obviously been run over by a traction engine), anyway - after lunch the rain had let off a little bit, so we went and took the tractor ride around the site (an extra few quid) -

- which was very exciting -

- taking us up through "Scarecrow wood" -

- which was like something out of a horror film quite honestly -

- the rotten, deformed and limp, sack covered bodies, hung from trees being snorted and snuffled around by fat looking pigs (Hannibal, anyone?) -

- anyway, Alexander seemed to enjoy every minute of it, and in fact, quite amazingly, in the distance from the top of the hill, it was quite possible to pick out Canary Wharf (all the way into central London), even on this largely rainy day!

We were driven, hanging onto our lunch, back down to the barn, and that was where the day drew to a close - and despite the weather, I think I can safely say, a lovely day was had by all! I can heartily recommend it as a fun-filled day out (if accompanied by a young family member, of course)...otherwise you would have the whole thing done in about 90 minutes... ;)