And the drizzle continues

Today I was engaged in some delightfully mundane envelope stuffing. Sometimes it’s the perfect thing. You just switch into robot mode and think about all sorts of things that have nothing to do with anything. It’s sort of like a personal, mind filling ramble through everywhere with no destination at all. Kind of like most of the conversations I have with Carmen (or Nicktor after a few glasses of single malt whisky).

When I say ‘envelope’ I mean big, grey, plastic things and I was stuffing them, not with letters, but with boxes containing USB players. These are to be posted to all our Talking News listeners – note the new name…we are no longer the Talking Newspaper. We stuffed nearly 250 of them. It was mindless and could easily have been tedious. It wasn’t. In fact, it’s fair to say, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Particularly the silly stories everyone was telling.

Not in the silly vein, one lady told me about one of her sons who went to Australia and trekked around, going from job to job. At one point he was north of Perth guarding dolphins. At another point he was juggling in a circus in Alice Springs. Leaving Oz he ended up in Chile teaching people to fly microlites. As I said to her, he is some kind of dude!

Afterwards, I popped into the Nelson Arms for a quick pint. It made me wonder how many times I’ve heard someone on a British sit-com say they’re popping in for a swift half. In Australia, I didn’t really know what they meant; living in Britain I know perfectly.

The pub was lovely with the regulars chatting to the bar staff, me sitting reading about the first geological map of Britain and a scattering of mothers with babes in prams enjoying a late lunch. I really love the Nelson Arms. It typifies the English town pub. And I make sure I only have one. That way I can pretend I’m in a British sit-com.

I wasn’t going to talk about the weather but seeing as I’m imagining myself in a British sit-com, it seems appropriate. The day has been very dull and miserable with intermittent showers. Not pleasant at all. I’m amazed they managed to play any tennis at Wimbledon but they did and Andy Murray is through to the last eight, having trounced Marin Cilic.