Dotty found a new friend to kickstart the weekend. She dived through the cat flap with a small bird in the clasp of hew jaw. I don’t think the friendship was a mutual relationship.
She released the poor bird in one of the bedrooms. It made a dart for the light by the window pane. Dotty leaped up and reacquainted herself with her new pal. I was still wearing my PJ’s.
I’m afraid there wasn’t a happy ending. Friends for life, etc.
I played around a little more with Chat GPT. I think I’ve found a workflow to auto generate school content. Bashing out 2,000 words after every school visit does my nut in.
The Postman Delivers: A Greensleeves compilation. Dr Alimantando, Eek-A-Mouse, Yellowman – all there, all bringing back memories of shifting box loads of this stuff back on the market stall in the Fair City.
I missed out on The Jam’s This is the Modern World by 3p with a snipe. Bloody eBay.
“Lambeth Council is set to waive its standing orders to allocate an extra £621,000 towards the repair and refurbishment of the Lloyd Leon Community Center along Coldharbour Lane. The total cost of the project is now estimated to be £994,000. The contract for the work will be awarded to RME Services Ltd.”
Buzzed a bit more: Lambeth set to spend £5m on contractors ahead of taking the leisure contract back in-house at the start of April
“Lambeth Council is set to appoint ten contractors to its Leisure Centre Maintenance Framework, following the completion of an Invitation to Tender exercise.”
Robert Elms had a Burt Bacharach four-fer. It was actually a six-fer, given the short duration of the classics that were selected. It was disappointing not to hear The White Stripes; 24 Hours from Tulse Hill would also have been a bonus.
I was back cycling the Trail and back swimming in the pool mid-morning. The tattoo recovery period has kept me away.
The nature shit colours are starting to change along the Trail. It’s not quite spring, but slowly slowly you can see the winter gloom starting to descend.
The hedgerows have been cut back since I last cycled along here. There was plenty of space and a dry surface to enjoy. The Hythe still reeked of shit, mind.
Hygiene was also a concern at the pool. Black crap was all over the floor in the walk between the changing room and the pool. wtf is this stuff? Toe jam? Unlikely, given the carpet covering over the entire space. Dirty dogs.
The water was cold, my pace was a little average. I was 30 seconds off where I would like to be for the 40 lengths. It still felt good. There’s no such thing as a bad swim.
To Broad Lane! …mid-afternoon. I was spectacularly late, even by my poor standards. Wivenhoe Town were already 1-0 up against GAWD knows who. A second was scored for the home team with a classic lob.
The away ‘keeper had a bit of a nightmare trying to clear the ball a little later. The old boys behind the goal without prompt broke out with:
“They call him the Fumbler, the Fumbler, he likes to fumble, fumble, fumble around.”
LOVE non-league football.
GAWD knows who scored a consolation goal just as Forest let in a second at Craven Cottage via my AirPods. One of these goals really upset me, whilst I couldn’t give a shit about the other. It was good to leave Broad Lane still under daylight.
To the Essex Sports Arena! …early evening. The Men’s Div 1 team had a home court tip off against high-flying Worthing. The game was also billed as The Rebels’ Valentine’s Day Special.
We had a little time to kill ahead of tip off. We walked through the campus and towards the SU Bar. The daffs of Wivenhoe Park are starting to show their face.
There was a fantastic crowd at the Sports Arena. This reduced our chances of being captured on the bloody Kiss Cam on the big screen.
The Essex Rebels Women’s team rocked up and sat in front of us. They seemed to be in good spirit. There’s a great club atmosphere developing across all levels.
The men found it tough against a very strong Worthing side. A 65-90 home defeat wasn’t one for the romantics.
