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In the cold cold night
I wonder if its time to leave the heating on when I go away down to London. Although thinking on, that'll probably incur a sizeable carbon footprint - which will mean there'll be a polar bear going belly up or something. Alternatively, I could leave the heating on and subscribe to Trees for Cities to offset it in some way; or, I could talk to my electronics mate and rig up some whizzy remotely controlled heating system that I can activate when I get to around Seaham so that the worst of the edge is taken off of it.
Or, I could sit in the house wearing a coat and a scarf with the old, paint covered ,rust filled radiators gently spitting out warmth ... like what I'm doing.
Today I drove up from that there London. Its been an evening of mess on the roads. The local tube station had had a nasty accident just outside - I'm hoping that the pool of liquid by the side of the road was a result of attempting to clean the blood with water rather than a massive pool of blood. On the way up, the A1M was shut around J42 due to some multi-vehicle pile up; possibly due to the terrible gales which did help to make the drive up slightly more character building than it normally is.
My apologies to PS - I did tune in to Radio3 this evening after Stuart and Mark had finished their stint on Radio 2 (which was again most excellent, not only for the excellent 'chain' tracks and 'life enhancing quotes', but for also Elbow's new single which I will be purchasing) specifically to listen to 'Late Junction' - but instead I caught Night Waves and Artist Focus. At the time 'twas interesting, but not what I was expecting. Pity I missed Marcus du Sautoy mind on Night Waves, he's an interesting chap.
Anyhoo - instead I find *now* that Late Junction is on much erm... later - d'oh!. At that time I'd subjected myself to Pickups - which was a whole half hour of my life I could have done something more useful with. Honestly, if you feel the need to listen to that show, go stare at a wall for 30mins, it'll be more life enhancing.
Anyhoo - the erm.. highlight of my entire trip up was driving a small stretch of new road in Sunderland. And with that, I have finally become my dad - if life really was Star wars, we'd now be in The Empire Strikes Back, I'd be Luke, and I'd have accepted the offer :(
When I was small, I went to school in Grangetown for all but a couple of early doors months at Redby. During my time there, the council knocked down a load of houses round by the Hendon Grange pub, and a small row that used to be set between the railway lines. Twas for the 'new' east ring road. Its here if you're interested.
Now. the google map is out of date - but it looks (as of 01:52 1/2/08) similar to when I were a lad. But *now* - now its got a 50mph road running through it - effectively running the length of Ivor St as it is on the map.
I got excited by driving along it! How sad is that ?! it was going to be 'built' when I was at junior school - its taken nearly 20 years to sort out. And now its here. I'm going to write an unashamed... mint! Just simply because now its been built.
I used to live on the St Aidan's estate. erm.. twice. When I moved there the second time, the solicitor warned the road might be built...I lived there for years and moved away and it was still no closer to starting. And now its there. No more play park, I expect. I remember when I was a kid some guy had a garage there with a load of old cars in and it burned down. I recall sitting in a burned out wreck out and hoping that it'd be there all the time as it was the coolest thing I'd ever been in. The garage would've fallen in to the embankment. I remember there being a detached house that was gutted and a mecca for kids on their way home as some sort of massive adventure playground. If my children are reading this - not for *me* obviously, that would be wrong. And ...if they're not - yeah me! - and it was a welcome return because there used to be an old house and allotments where there is now (or was) the football pitch.... I might be dreaming that mind - I used to be convinced there was a big wooden fort down in the cut just off of Benedict Road in Roker - but I went to look once and it wasn't there. Pity, as it was splendid - if you've ever been to Flamingo Land in the fort, or even Lightwater Valley when they had one - it was similar, but smaller... in "my mind" by all apparent evidence.
When I win the lottery I'm going to build one - that'll teach my memory.
The knacker.
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Posted: 01:21, Friday, February 1, 2008 |
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Eeeeh...
...that's why it isn't called Early Junction... :-)
You can have a listen through BBCi any time as a taster of course. |
Posted by ps at 08:16, Friday, February 1, 2008 |
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