View From The WIndow

How are you getting on with the heatwave so far, according to the weathermen and the media who have taken their lead from them we are going to melt for the next few weeks, no doubt Burton-in Kendal will be as hot as, say Bermuda, so all you people who went to Bermuda this week should have stayed at home, ah ha! Well the heatwave must have stopped at the Watford Gap as usual like so much else in the country, or, heaven forbid, didn't actually turn up. Just because the Met Office want a hot summer to crow about it really doesn't have an affect on the weather if you just say it often enough or choose a couple of weeks in the office lottery.

So yes, it is dull and grey again, although the fields are a lovely green and at the moment visibility is all the way to the windmills, nature continues to reclaim the garage over at Washington House and the roof is a mass of green foliage now. There are several houses up for sale in the village at the moment but nothing is moving. We are all dreading the closing of the road in a few weeks, it is the number one topic in the pub, I have started to go back down on a Wednesday again, albeit for several Beck's Blue's rather than real beer, but my old friend enjoys his couple of half pints and it gets me out of the house of an afternoon.

The installation of my fibre broadband has once again been delayed, this time until August 25, I decided to give them a ring as the house down the road is being fitted but I am not. This time the traffic management excuse was not mentioned, this time it is a blockage in the conduit. It took me quite some time to tell Divyansh at the other end that the trench had been dug, re-tarred and the pull through strings attached to a pole without any of the workmen telling me they had hit problems. Divyansh asserted loudly that no matter what I thought there were blockages. I have a sneaking suspicion that the organisation of fibre broadband in the UK is in disarray and fully expect to see workmen this week at some point.

I can see, after almost six months of not seeing very well and doubting my senses I can now see perfectly. I went to the opticians around January to be told my eyes had improved and I needed a new prescription. I got my new glasses and immediately said they are blurring my vision, the woman looked in her 'Big Book of Optician Excuses' which is printed by the same publisher as the 'Big Book of Broadband Excuses', and informed me I had to 'wear them in'. I did this but was back within a month and this time there was nothing in the book so they recut the lenses. I gave my eyes another four months or so to wear in but it was no good, I went back and insisted that they were not right. This time I was given a new eye test and my eyes had not improved at all, but had reverted almost to what they were before I went for the original test, so I now have my third set of new glasses through which I can see. In January I was suffering from a spike in my diabetes and was losing weight and drinking like a fish, according to the optician this also affects your eyes, now that I am back on an even keel the original prescription was no longer valid. I can accept that.

I nearly forgot, I am being hounded by Divyansh's cousin Lakshay who is determined to get me a cheaper deal on my electricity, despite being told three times now that I am happy with my supplier and I have money to burn so don't need anything cheaper he rings back on average about every five days so desperate is he to solve my 'problem'. Even informing him politely(?) he was my only problem he continued for about ten minutes ringing me back every time I cut him off. I asked him to simply send me a cheque if he was so sure I needed money but somehow I don't think that is going to happen.

A fairly quite week due to the Olympics which like garlic to a vampire or silver to a werewolf has kept me from the television for a week now. I have of course seen the odd snippet, you cannot avoid it and marvel at the near empty stadia for most events, even when it is a popular event there are many empty places in the rows. I seem to remember this circus was originally for amateurs and professionals were not allowed, a showpiece for the achievments of mere mortals, not a place for the likes of Andy Murray and the Harlem Globetrotters?

I see Labour's anguish continues, not a fan as you know, but surely it cannot be right to join such an organisation, pay your dues and then be told you cannot have a vote for who should lead said organisation. I may be wrong but I believe both the Labour and Conservative parties are actually bankrupt or at least were not that long ago and both these outfits want to run a country while most of the time they cannot run their own clubs. Democracy, dontya just love it.

Brexit, come on, one more. The BBC programme about the vote and why it went the way it did was brilliant, I especially loved that apart from the talking head experts there were no europhiles sitting around a table crying into their gin and tonics bewailing the outcome but there were four 'Last of the Summer Wine' characters in the local surrounded by beer to represent all us out voters. This round's on me lads.