Monday, August 09, 2004
Back To Normal
The hot spell is well and truly over. Grey clouds welcomed me this morning as I rose from my slumber, and spittles of rain bounced off my baldy napper as I made my way to work. By lunchtime the rain was heavy and persistent. Looking out the office window is like peering into a bleak dankness, broken only by the fluorescent strips of light running in parallel along the ceiling. It is not pleasant, especially when I travelled through Edinburgh's soaking streets at lunchtime on foot, to return my kilt to the hire shop.
News reports came in of severe flash floods in Glasgow and of the devastation caused in the early part of the morning. Theose same angry clouds are set to continue moving east, so we are preparing for some ideal street-canoeing weather in thenear future. It continually amazes me that in a place such as Scotland - widely regarded as one of the wettest places on earth that ISN'T an ocean - still has problems when a couple of inches of rain should fall on it. It's not as if we haven't had much experience with the stuff, and it's not as if we don't have the equipment, the money or the patience to cope with it. But we do, and it keeps happening. You should see what happens when it snows!
With work over I trudged home in the torrential and unrelenting rain. I made my way to the nearest bus stop, but even then my suit was soaked through to the skin. I had to wait a further fifteen minutes for my bus, and with the day going as it had, I should have been perhaps more braced for the unexpected as I was. It is no falsehood, or tug at a comical story when I tell you what I am about to tell you. I watched as the bus approached from along Queen Street and into York Place, and I could see it was mostly empty so I was glad I would get a seat all to my sodden self. I edged forward to the kerb, and the bus moved into the bus lane. I watched aghast as the bus proceeded to shoot past me, sending up a litre of two of water into my face for the trouble. Embarrassment doesn't cover it, nor does anger. It's not the first time I have had a run-in with Lothian Buses, but this really took the biscuit. Eventually amother bus came although this only went half of the way I needed to go so I had to call the wife and ask her to rescue me. She obliged but mentioned that I would still have to make the dinner when we got in.
After drying off, I was straight back out again to go to Asda for a shop. I'm starting an 'Eating Sensibly Diet' tomorrow and so needed to get plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit in. So with all this going on I never got a chance to do any writing of substance other than some furious scribbling in my notebook (wet through also) and of course, this Blog.
Tomorrow's weather report will be slightly shorter as I am fed up talking about the movement of rain over Scotland for the time being. A poem is in the offing though, inspired by those lovely people down in the Annandale Street bus depot, which I shall refine and probably post to a forum I am a member of in the morning.
News reports came in of severe flash floods in Glasgow and of the devastation caused in the early part of the morning. Theose same angry clouds are set to continue moving east, so we are preparing for some ideal street-canoeing weather in thenear future. It continually amazes me that in a place such as Scotland - widely regarded as one of the wettest places on earth that ISN'T an ocean - still has problems when a couple of inches of rain should fall on it. It's not as if we haven't had much experience with the stuff, and it's not as if we don't have the equipment, the money or the patience to cope with it. But we do, and it keeps happening. You should see what happens when it snows!
With work over I trudged home in the torrential and unrelenting rain. I made my way to the nearest bus stop, but even then my suit was soaked through to the skin. I had to wait a further fifteen minutes for my bus, and with the day going as it had, I should have been perhaps more braced for the unexpected as I was. It is no falsehood, or tug at a comical story when I tell you what I am about to tell you. I watched as the bus approached from along Queen Street and into York Place, and I could see it was mostly empty so I was glad I would get a seat all to my sodden self. I edged forward to the kerb, and the bus moved into the bus lane. I watched aghast as the bus proceeded to shoot past me, sending up a litre of two of water into my face for the trouble. Embarrassment doesn't cover it, nor does anger. It's not the first time I have had a run-in with Lothian Buses, but this really took the biscuit. Eventually amother bus came although this only went half of the way I needed to go so I had to call the wife and ask her to rescue me. She obliged but mentioned that I would still have to make the dinner when we got in.
After drying off, I was straight back out again to go to Asda for a shop. I'm starting an 'Eating Sensibly Diet' tomorrow and so needed to get plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit in. So with all this going on I never got a chance to do any writing of substance other than some furious scribbling in my notebook (wet through also) and of course, this Blog.
Tomorrow's weather report will be slightly shorter as I am fed up talking about the movement of rain over Scotland for the time being. A poem is in the offing though, inspired by those lovely people down in the Annandale Street bus depot, which I shall refine and probably post to a forum I am a member of in the morning.
Colin 1:15 pm