New Hobby

When we first booked our holiday in Ibiza, I decided it would be a good idea to go parasailing.

With two weeks to go, I had chickened out.

I told BigHair this a couple of days into the holiday and he persuaded me to chicken back in again.

By the end of the week we had roped in four others.

It was great! If I had known how brilliant it was going to be I would have done it every day. It was so peaceful and not in the least bit frightening.

And then I was on a high for the rest of the day.

Today's music in my head: "L'Anamour" by Serge Gainsbourg

Why I like Chelmsford

I went into Chelmsford at the weekend and this is what I saw:

1) A vehicle claiming to be an insect circus.
2) A white grand piano trundling along the high street with a ballerina on top of it.
3) A hunchback wheeling around a coffin being followed by a black and white jester wheeling around a blue gramophone with lights on it.
4) A five ton weight suspended outside Next with the area directly below it cordoned off from pedestrians.
5) The aforementioned hunchback and jester sitting on the coffin eating bananas and then shaving.
6) Three cupids walking through HMV.
7) Two men in top hats playing trumpets and being chased around a clock by a mouse with pot plants on their heads.
8) A man hanging upside down and playing the guitar.
9) A human weeble.

Today's music in my head: "Fool on the Hill" by The Beatles

Learning to drive: Lessons six, seven and eight

More stalling, less crashing.

I am meant to have finished the simulator course – it should take eight hours – but I still have a bit more to go.

On the plus side, things are looking up. The assessments have said that there’s only one area that I need more practice on so far – I postponed that for a bit because I kept stalling, got wildly irritated and was in danger of turning violent. Even the simulator had had enough. It decided to terminate the exercise before I could complete it so I was able to go on to the next stage.

Which was a whole lot better - emergency stops. I'm brilliant!

And then making left and right turns which gave me lots of good practice at slowing down, changing gear and steering. And driving on the pavement.

I Like Bees

I was walking along Chelmsford High Street when I noticed a bee. You don’t usually get bees on Chelmsford High Street but I saw no reason why it shouldn’t be there if it wanted to. Especially as it is June.

A few paces forward and I saw two more bees.

A few more paces and I saw hundreds of bees. I immediately realised I was in a swarm of bees the size of a house. These thoughts went simultaneously through my head:

“Coo! Look at all those bees!”
“I’ve never seen a swarm of bees before.”
“Do bees mind humans walking straight into their swarms?”
“I’m not going to be able to get out without being stung several times.”

I put my head down and legged it. None of the following happened:

- Me being stung by bees.
- Me being chased around Chelmsford town centre by a swarm of bees.
- Me jumping into the River Chelmer to escape a swarm of bees.

Bees are nice like that.

Today's music in my head: "Teaboy" by Cloudboy

Learning to drive: Lessons Four and Five

This week I have mostly been stalling and crashing into parked cars.