Monday 23rd July 2012

One of my oldest online friends lives in a place called Aurora, Colorado. I have often imagined what that place is like, and in my mind it is typical American housing, picket fences and the snow-capped Rocky mountains in the background; all very dramatic and beautiful. That, I now know, is wrong, its nothing like that, and seems to be largely a suburb of Denver. A quick look at Wiki shows it to be a city of over 300,000 souls.

I mention this as, sadly, last Friday there was another shooting, 12 people shot whilst watching the new Batman film. Sadly, for the rest of the world now, whenever they hear the name of Aurora, it will be linked only to the events in the movie theatre. I won’t preach about gun control and the other issues, it is something the US as a whole is going to have to grapple with. What I will say is that the right not to be shot was violated in the movie theatre, and that trumps anyone’s rights to bear this or that.

I don’t know how a city or a population recovers from something like that……..



Away from those events I was home alone this weekend. Well, Jools’ Nan was visiting friends in Devon this past month, and Jools volunteered to go down this weekend to collect her. And rather than drive there and back in one go, she decided to drive down Friday night and stay in a hotel or a pub and so split the driving. And what with it being the beginning of the school holidays, she wanted to get an early start, so she took the car and left at lunchtime. Or as it turned out a bit after lunch as a major problem developed at her work. The database they all work from crashed and the back-up failed; or something like it. And all data was having to be recovered by hand. Even the thought of that is scary, but it shows it can happen.



So, once she could, Jools left for Devon and I worked from home. Which isn’t that bad a thing, of course; as long as the cats decide that they will leave me alone. I had a new procedure to write, and that gave me something to get my teeth into for the day. And all was well until I saw the rat. I think, on reflection, the rat had appeared the night before, as Jools and I were chasing it around the living room trying not to get bitten. We failed and it hid somewhere under the furniture. It was a small rat, but a rat nonetheless, and sometimes when you were least expecting it you would see it on the prowl for food or water. Or as it turned out, avoiding one of the cats.



That night, after chasing it under the DVD shelves, I pointed it to Mulder that it really should be his job. It seemed to work and he sat guard. Whilst I was in the kitchen, I heard some loud squeeking, and came in to see the rat cornered and it just jumping up and down whilst Mulder looked on. I think it had just had enough and wanted out; so I took off my t shirt, threw it over the rat, scooped it up and went to the back door, turned the t shirt inside out, the rat dropped to the ground, stunned, as it to say, bugger me, I’m free. And he scampered off.

And that was the exciting bit.

I watched the last hour of the final ‘proper’ stage of Le Tour, and Bradley came in having lost no time on those behind, and it really was his to lose. It still didn’t sound right, though. GB being first and second on the GC.

After cooking a fry up for dinner, and a half hour on the cross-trainer before that, I sat down to watch TV; I could have watched the first time Great Britain had put out a football team in a generation or two, but I ended up watching Gardner’s World on the other side instead, and then heading to bed at half nine as I was pooped again.

And so Saturday, and if the BBC was to be believed, the beginning of summertime proper. Although it was grey and overcast again, so I began the day with another session on the cross-trainer and did some chores around the house. The sun broke though in the middle of the afternoon, and so I walked along the lane at the end of our road to check out the butterflies and was rewarded with more Meadow Browns, Marbled Whites and this time, Gatekeepers. And the Gatekeepers we happy enough to bask in the sun and let me snap them to my heart’s content.

Time then to watch Bradley Wiggins cement his place at the front of Le Tour as he beat the rest of the field by 90 seconds in the final time trial, and it really was his race now.

Jools arrived home, and we sat in the garden soaking up the warmth chatting, but sadly she had to go into work on Sunday for more data recovery.

On Sunday, she headed to work at eight, but my planned walk along the cliffs was cancelled as it had clouded over. But within an hour it had cleared again, but instead of more photography, I did chores in the garden. Collect the last of the hedge clippings, mowed the lawn and made the edges neat and tidy. By half ten I was hot and a beer would have gone down nicely, but I made do with squash, and then made some bread rolls to go with our dinner.



For the afternoon, I watched the final stage of Le Tour, a procession into Paris and then a sprint round and round Le Louvre until one last dash and it was over. The presentations at the end all seemed rushed, Wiggins was presented with flowers, a bowl and a trophy, waved to the crowd and made a speech in English which begun something like “And now your raffle numbers…….” After 109 years and 99 Tours, Britain, a Briton had won.

And another had come second too.