Thursday 26 September 2019

Roaring 40s

Among other things I did on my holiday, I sat with my brother in the cemetery where my father's ashes are buried - after we'd run a loud strimmer and disturbed the Sunday morning mourners for quarter of an hour.

"Do you still use any of the old man's phrases?" asked my brother. He still often says "goose driver" instead of "screwdriver". The only phrase that I could think of that I still use is "get home cold, wet and frightened" which used to generally be about sailing adventures. The thing is that I drove to Norfolk for my holiday and I did get home cold, wet and frightened.

The journey home took over 8 hours and was marred by extremely heavy rain, heavy traffic, poor visibility, and a long delay on the A303. While my car does have a hood and sidescreens, it's not particularly waterproof. By the end of the journey the inside of the windscreen was as wet as the outside and there was half an inch of water sloshing around my feet. The rain gets through the scuttle and drips on your legs, and the spray gets up between the sill and the sidescreen and drenches your arm.

I had also worn the tires to within microns of the legal limit, so as soon as I hit a deep puddle I skated across it, on at least three occasions I was not in control of the vehicle, and I found myself going pretty much sideways leaving a roundabout.

Richard "IP22" B

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