The Lair of the SlowFox

The training course is taking place at a farm/conference venue a little way outside Hull, and I was rather surprised to discover, once I'd made it past the outskirts of civilisation^* that there was actually quite a bit of snow about. Had I been so forewarned, I'd probably have allowed myself a little extra time for the Castle Fox -> Happy Holiday Home -> Work Training run.

As it is, I wasn't late, arriving about 2 minutes early, but that's slightly closer than I like to cut things.

Anyway, the drive back was through some pretty thick fog as we came up over the hills, and it caught me by surprise. At home, briefly, before heading up to the Farm to collect ex and thence to P's school for parents' evening.

M&D rang from the car this morning to say that they were on their way up to see friends at northerm destinations unspecified, but would be calling in on me somewhen. Exact timing is unspecified, but has at least been narrowed down to 'some time in the next two or three days'.

Not heard from them since, so maybe it'll be tomorrow.

Or, then again, maybe not.

So today was spent mostly on the A1, travelling down to a mutually distant place of meeting for both my parents and myself and P. The weather's been a bit dicey of late, so I had to nose the Fox Mobile a little gingerly away from Castle Fox's immediate surroundings, the streets remaining, as mentioned a day or so back, complete sheets of glass in terms of traction-like qualities.

Nonetheless, once we were out onto roads proper, conditions improved, even if the weather did not, freezing fog hanging around us as we headed over the bridge. These days, y'see, rather than the old M62-M18-A1 route, I prefer to go over the bridge and round Lincoln. Yes, you pay the bridge toll (£2.70 now), but it's shorter, and the reduced trip distance offsets the cost, not to mention the time factor.

The downside is that the A15 to Lincoln is an evil road, with helpful signs up every now and again telling you how many people have died this year compared to last.

Anyway, P and I arrived at the appointed hostelry a little early, but M&D, having similarly worried about the impact the weather might have on logistics, had set off even earlier, so were waiting. Everyone was in good humour, though (which is surprisingly rare for these things), and the parental units were pleased to see P (I hadn't mentioned he'd be with me, thought it'd be a nice surprise).

Pub meal, chats about eBay (M&D are getting into selling some surplus stuff they have about the Parental Abode); to be honest, I had been fretting somewhat about their adventures with the 'Bay, but it seems my fears about them unknowningly swimming with sharks are unfounded, so I'll just leave them to it on that score.

After two hours, though, conversation was drying up quickly, and both sets of us wanted to start wending our ways back to our respective starting points, so Present Exchange and done.

Drive back was in better weather, and we made even better time - and P agreed with me that that section of the A1, where the central reservation gets wide and the road North goes up and down and left and right, at speed, feels just like Out Run (common cultural frames of reference FTW!).

Dropped P back off at the Farm from whence I'd collected him yesterday evening, and then trundled carefully back home to an empty Castle Fox - Mali's at his Happy Holiday Home for the day (because there was no chance at all of doing the whole there and back again within five hours, and I will not leave Mali alone for longer than that), so I pick him up tomorrow.

Which means that the whole present-swap operation really takes something like 36 hours all told. So I hope they all like 'em...

Today is one of those days where, from about lunchtime onwards, everything needs to run exactly to schedule if I'm going to achieve everything in time.

I've got my appraisal this afternoon, which is a little bit weird, because it's going to be with New Boss, who still doesn't really know what I do day to day, nor has he been in touch with Old Boss/Effectively Still Acting as Boss to find out said. Hmm.

Anyway, that's scheduled to end at 4pm. Which is fortunate, because I then need to pick P up from school, so that I can get the two of us back to Castle Fox to walk Mali, eat (speed dining FTW!), possibly take Mali out for Walk 3, and then amble across to the KC to watch Hull City take on the mighty Everton in what will be P's first evening match.

I've only been to one floodlit game before now, which had a less than optimal outcome for the Tigers, so I'm kinda hoping for better things tonight.

I'm currently reading Rachel Caine's second Morganville Vampires book, Dead Girls' Dance, which is... not quite as much fun as the first instalment, but is certainly readable. Proper review to follow on completion.

It's always the same when I wake up after 4am, but before 5.45am - I wonder whether it's worth trying to get back to sleep, or whether I should just get up anyway. This morning I decided I'd try and get back to sleep, and amazingly I actually managed to achieve it this time.

What was weird was that I then had a whole sequence of dreams, one after the other, all distinct, but sadly the details now are too faded to recall. One, at least, had my dad, post-op but recovering, in, which is certainly unusual (I hardly ever have dreams involving M/D/Brother), but is probably explained by the fact that I rang him yesterday evening to check how things are. He certainly sounds a lot better, so that's good.

Reasonably busy weekend, all told. Aside from the usual library and dog-walking stuff, instead of kayaking at the swimming pool yesterday afternoon, P got to paddle around Princes' Quay in town instead.

The weather wasn't being very co-operative, what with the especially timed downpours and all, but I think the main reason the boy ended up getting soaked was his paddling through the fountain multiple times :-P

I had thought that the 18:50 showing of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen would be relatively OK, but it turns out it's a loooooooooooooong film. And, truth be told, not a very good one either - the first was much better. But P liked it lots, which was, of course, the point.

Bookwise, have just finished Subsmash by Alan Gallop, which is all about the loss of the Royal Navy submarine HMS Affray in 1951. First half of the book, dealing with the circumstances surrounding her loss, the subsequent search mission and the corresponding press reaction was good. The second part of the book, mainly conjecture as to possible reasons for the loss of the boat was less compelling. Tremendously sad tale, all told: 75 people lost their lives :-(

Have now moved on to Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant, which is subtitled Guns, Votes, Debt and Delusion in Redneck America, and is very good. In fact, it seems to be addressing much the same issues as Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason, but from almost exactly the opposite end of the spectrum - looking at life for the American working class, rather than surveying the landscape from the confines of the ivory tower.

Sneaking online over breakfast, before Mali and I head up to his Happy Holiday Home where he's staying for the next 48 hours (or thereabouts). Tomorrow, see, I'm off (with work) to Stockton on Tees: we're setting off at 7.30am, and we're not expecting to be back much before 8pm.

Kennels, for their part, open at 8am, and close at 5.30pm, in terms of drop-off/collection, so as is usually the case with these work thingies, I tend to end up having to put Mali in for an 'extra' day, as it were. To be honest, he doesn't seem to mind: when we park up at the place, he'll be desperate to get inside and meet up with the staff there. And, despite it being a huge place (they have room for 72 dogs and I forget how many cats), all the staff know Mali on sight (I'm pretending this can only be a positive thing).

Actually, this works out quite neatly today, as I'm babysitting up at the Farm this evening for both P and his sister (who's now three years old, and is cute beyond belief). So, having dropped Mali off at the kennels, I drive to work, and from work I drive straight up to the Farm, without needing to worry about coming back to Castle Fox to check on Mali.

And the babysitting also ties in neatly, because the Farm's PC crashed on Monday (they had a series of repeated power cuts, after which their Dell has reportedly flung itself into a massive sulk and won't. do. anything). So I'm going to have a look at that whilst I'm there and see if I can help at all.

And finally, going back to that post on Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool, I've learnt that Windows will do a cursory scan on the next rebook of the PC after that month's Windows Updates have been installed, but that the Full Scan is only a user-driven thing. So it's worth running.