Making the roads run on time

Yesterday morning, as I left the house to make my way to the bus stop to start my journey to Southend, the rain was absolutely hammering down (in much the same way as it is now, as it goes; in fact it's been thudding against my windows practically all day, hence the fact that I've spent most of the day here rather than going out and doing something slightly more invigorating). As the bus made its way to the station it splashed through vast puddles, throwing up sheets of water that would make a log flume enthusiast weep.

As I made my way home from the bus stop after making the return journey in the evening, the vast puddles of the morning had gone but there was still annoying fine rain in the air, the sort that you don't feel you can put your umbrella up to protect yourself from at the risk of looking unmanly but which will soak you if you're out in it for too long. Fortunately I was able to get across the road fairly quickly, and so managed to get back before I got too wet.

In between, I'd been horribly sunburnt.

I'm so annoyed about this. I'm usually quite assiduous when it comes to avoiding getting burnt. If there's even the slightest possibility that there might be warm sunshine I rub in sunscreen and take the bottle with me just in case; it's this, allied to my general dislike of hot days and tendency to stay in the shade, that makes me the pale and uninteresting fellow that I am during the summer months. The alternative would be to end up with a big red face, and while the big red face is not a desirable look at the best of times, the big red face on a short-ish tubby bloke is even worse. And yet I now have a big red face. And a big red neck as well, a big red painful neck.

The sun only came out for about half an hour or so. Which all goes to prove how dangerous its rays are; if only you could buy some sort of personal miniature Al Gore that could warn you of these things. Anyway, while I thoroughly commend the first track of my Muxtape, I'd advise anyone planning a cover version to append some sort of important message about not taking the title literally.

The half hour or so that the sun had come out for coincided with us sitting on a hill watching the Southend Air Show. I hadn't planned to see the Southend Air Show, not least because it was supposed to rain all day, but as the weather had held off and I like to go out somewhere when I visit my parents, that seemed the logical place to go. And, and I realise I risk throwing all my wet liberal credentials away here in one fell swoop, seeing the parachutists come down in formation, starting as little vapour trails in the sky before slowly coming into view, and then seeing the Red Arrows fly in tight formation before doing that thing where they fly towards each other and just miss, was really quite impressive. Yeah, I know, I'm basically Tony B. Liar's military lapdog.


(See, the black dots are the parachutists. Yes, all right, this is mostly a picture of the sky.)

Actually the bit where the Red Arrows fly towards each other before just missing was hugely improved by my mum, who presumably hadn't seen this sort of thing on television before and as such jumped several feet in the air every time that they did it, convinced that they were about to smack into each other. I could understand it the first time if you weren't expecting it, but it caught her out every time.


We also strolled along past the various stalls that had taken over the seafront. Many, as you might expect, were of a militaristic hue, but despite my sudden turn to the hawkish side I didn't feel tempted to sign up for any of the forces. I did eat an army cadets chocolate muffin though. I realise that this is probably exactly how Hitler got started. It was a good muffin as well. Back when I was at school we used to sneer at the kids who went to cadets; if I'd known that muffins were such an integral part of it I might have been a bit less dismissive.