Life on our Peninsula has been compromised by a block of flats at a road pinch point being declared unsafe. Residents of this block and surrounding buildings have been evacuated and roads are closed. Dreadful for all those people whose homes are compromised.

There is a complex one way road system in place to protect everyone from the potential risk of this building falling down.

Everyone on the Peninsula has had to alter plans. I was so successful at changing my Monday plans that I thought it was a Tuesday. So yesterday I cracked on early with my day doing my Wednesday jobs only realising I was a whole day early when one destination was closed.

Having returned home using the complex current arrangements  for roads, I relaxed until a call from my Tuesday appointment at 11 am reminded me where I should be on Tuesday. By midday I was on track for Tuesday jobs on Tuesday. By midday today, Wednesday, I am on track for all Wednesday jobs for the second time this week.

All minor stuff really compared to all those people who are out of their homes but strange how a wrinkle in normal life can disrupt thought processes.

But today is also World Earth Day, not just any old Wednesday. Wherever we are the Earth is our shared experience. I am extremely lucky that my current normal day at the office looks like this.

Another greige day and an early morning soaking for me and Lola.

Greige weather and chores/ domestic admin does not a wholly exciting day make.

A series of rearranged appointments gave me a schedule that a Kardashian might be proud of. Kardashians exist in the periphery of my knowledge base. I am sure they are many interesting things but High Maintenance Women would be #1 in my fact list about then.

Yesterday all my chores required me to be entirely present.

Mindful of my speed awareness course* last week I knew that only optimal time management could  enable me to be in the right place at the right time for the three time sensitive appointments of the day.

The first one was already on rocky ground after the early morning soaking which required a change of clothes.

*By identifying the cause of my speeding as squeezing too much into a day.

Let me be honest, a manicure, lung function tests and a haircut all within a 6 mile radius are not exactly the stuff of great jeopardy. But I really dislike being late or missing appointments.

I imagine a Kardashian might have a driver and a PA who could mitigate the rush involved with a cluster of appointments.

Mine just clustered, and until last week and a hundred pounds fine, I wouldn’t have worried over much.

As it happened all went like clockwork.

But I was somewhat late for the lung function test. 50 years late!

Digital record keeping and Digital native medical staff  have everything actually at their finger tips.

Analogue records are a little more archaic.

In asking who prescribed my Asthma inhaler you might expect a fairly swift response. But I was trawling the names of a lifetime of G.P’s.

The selection of timescale tick boxes also didn’t stretch to 50 years .

Most importantly though I didn’t speed to catch up.

But there is something in common with my asthma diagnosis and last weeks Speed awareness course. It was also 50 years since I have actually read the Highway code.

I have a bit of catching up to do. Within the speed limit of course.

Possibly the most bonkers tulips we have ever grown. A squirming and outrageous cousin to the prim creatures of my still life studies.

In a week where Spring has tentatively sprung these tulips have been slow to reveal their quirk.

But every phase has kept me interested. I realise these tulips would not be to everyone’s taste but I love their unpredictability and resilience. They have survived the wettest winter on record on Stonehouse Peninsular. They are slightly Rhubarbian in colour which also pleases me. In a fantasy planting scheme they could peek out through early rhubarb leaves.

Not in their current location however as the Parrot Tulips are growing in a prime spot on our street for larger dogs to wee on them. These are strictly look but don’t touch blooms.

A little bit of Spring Madness

The blog I should have written yesterday.  I have been an urban bad person, driving 24mph in a 20mph zone. Unknowingly until a brown letter dropped through my door. £100 fine and either mandatory attendance at a Speed Awareness Course or 2 points on my licence.

I accepted the course either on-line or in person. On-line bookings were not being accepted so I opted to attend a city hotel 5 miles away. The booking that appeared when I clicked Plymouth, was a remote golf club in Launceston, a small Cornish town more than an hour away.

And then the chicken story of yesterday got in the way. The ear worm of The Janner Song became my in car entertainment as I drove through miles of  beautiful Cornish Countryside in glorious sunshine.

West Country accents shift and change as the geography of Devon and Cornwall change.

As I sat in the front of the classroom I could easily pick up the distinctive Plymouth accent from quite a few course attenders who, like me had been relocated ” down Cornwall”

Every time a “Proper Job” Plymothian spoke my head played a few seconds of the Janner Song.

Well, in England’s South West is the

county that’s best,
       
full of rolling green hills and a coast
           
that’s been blessed.
     
And inside of the Sound lie the three
        
Plymouth towns,
     
where everyone’s known as a Janner.



Janners,   Janners,
               
down in Plymouth we’re all known as

Janners.


        
And our own footballteam Plymouth Argyle
 
supreme
             
are the finest this beautiful county has

seen.
     
Every player of every nationality,
                        
when they pull the green they’re all

Janners.



Janners,   Janners,
               
down in Plymouth we’re all known as

Janners.


So, there was our song, we didn’t keep you
    
too long,
              
now you all know just one word of

West-Country slang.
                         
And while there’s meat on me bones, I hope
     
I’ll always be known
    
as a typical Plymouth grown Janner.


Janners,    Janners,
              
down in Plymouth we’re all known as

Janners.


Janners,    Janners,
                
down in Plymouth we’re all known as

Janners.

The Janner Song by the Sensational Baret Brothers.

I blame the chickens.

There was an irony to attending a speed awareness course in deepest Cornwall when, for many of us, our misdeeds took place within Jannerland City Limits.

These were two of the roads I drove down to get home.

Not a chance of reoffending.