Six pet peeves, Pt. 3
Saturday, 14. April 2007, 11:44:33
I'm not quite sure what peeve I'm going to drop from the top 6 for this one, but as of now I have another pet peeve.
Weather forecasters who get it really wrong.
Picture it. Every forecast, local and national, on every channel, has forecast a beautiful day "Once the sun has burnt the early morning mist away." So you drag your poor old mum out of bed really early and bung her into the car. She complains it's cold, you tell her it won't be once the sun has burnt the morning mist away, and you set off.
150 miles and several hours later (Around 5 PM to be more or less precise....) the sun finally burns the mist away.
For about 10 minutes.
It's happened twice this year already. Last time it was supposed to be a lovely day but with clouds starting to gather in the evening and rain overnight. The clouds gathered at around 11 AM and the rains came not far into the afternoon. To make things even more fun, seamist came in and I had to drive at a crawl along a clifftop road which normally has beautiful views of the sea, unable to see more than a few yards ahead.
The real stinger was when I got home and my sister informed me that they'd had nice weather until around 6 in the evening, when they had a really spectacular thunder storm.
The words 'shine', 'your', 'stuff', 'sun', 'barometer', 'don't', 'the', & 'where' are circulating around my head.
But not in that order.
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As a matter of fact, something really strange happened on the return journey from that trip. We'd been letting the GPS drive us to a random destination. If I'd known how far it was going to take us I wouldn't have gone ahead with it, but we decided for no real reason that it was about time that we did let the poor old thing get us to a destination for once.
It finally announced we'd arrived when we reached Gainsborough, we looked around for an old hall that my mother was certain was in the town somewhere, but it had all changed too much and she didn't recognise anywhere. We drove around the flatlands outside town a little and then as we drove back in we noticed that the evening traffic build-up was already starting, so we decided to meander on homewards. First we crossed the River Trent, which took us into another county, and drove South a little to make sure that the GPS would take us home by another route. Then we set off.
Driving through a small town on the way I noticed a road on the left completely cordoned off, but thought nothing of it. We reached a road junction with a mini-roundabout and the SatNav told us to turn left. We couldn't. It was cordonend off as well. Big time. I figured, OK, there was a little country road running off from the junction that seemed to go in almost the same direction. I could go down that and turn left somewhere to get me back onto the blocked road.
Nope. Sandbagged off. No one was getting down that road. So I took the only other road available. After about half a mile the SatNav told me to take a left. Nope. Closed and blocked off. So we drove on and tried at the next junction.
This time we got lucky and the road was open. After maybe a mile the GPS once again told us to turn left. You have of course guess what happened when we tried...
Eventually the poor old navigator gave up on that route and took us home by another.
When we got home I logged on to Googlemaps to see if I could see what kind of calamity could have occured to make it necessary for them to completely close off several square miles of countryside.
I couldn't even find the road junction.
I've traced and retraced the route that I think we took. It's hard to see how we could have taken any other, that part of Linconshire/Nottinghamshire isn't exactly awash with major roads, yet I cannot find that junction anywhere. I've looked at the map, I've looked at the satellite images. Even at full magnification that stupid road junction isn't there, or at least, it wasn't when the images were taken.
Roswell? Don't talk to me about Roswell. That was just an alien. Somewhere out there near the East coast of England aliens have stolen several acres of real estate.
And I want it back.
Weather forecasters who get it really wrong.
Picture it. Every forecast, local and national, on every channel, has forecast a beautiful day "Once the sun has burnt the early morning mist away." So you drag your poor old mum out of bed really early and bung her into the car. She complains it's cold, you tell her it won't be once the sun has burnt the morning mist away, and you set off.
150 miles and several hours later (Around 5 PM to be more or less precise....) the sun finally burns the mist away.
For about 10 minutes.
It's happened twice this year already. Last time it was supposed to be a lovely day but with clouds starting to gather in the evening and rain overnight. The clouds gathered at around 11 AM and the rains came not far into the afternoon. To make things even more fun, seamist came in and I had to drive at a crawl along a clifftop road which normally has beautiful views of the sea, unable to see more than a few yards ahead.
The real stinger was when I got home and my sister informed me that they'd had nice weather until around 6 in the evening, when they had a really spectacular thunder storm.
The words 'shine', 'your', 'stuff', 'sun', 'barometer', 'don't', 'the', & 'where' are circulating around my head.
But not in that order.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a matter of fact, something really strange happened on the return journey from that trip. We'd been letting the GPS drive us to a random destination. If I'd known how far it was going to take us I wouldn't have gone ahead with it, but we decided for no real reason that it was about time that we did let the poor old thing get us to a destination for once.
It finally announced we'd arrived when we reached Gainsborough, we looked around for an old hall that my mother was certain was in the town somewhere, but it had all changed too much and she didn't recognise anywhere. We drove around the flatlands outside town a little and then as we drove back in we noticed that the evening traffic build-up was already starting, so we decided to meander on homewards. First we crossed the River Trent, which took us into another county, and drove South a little to make sure that the GPS would take us home by another route. Then we set off.
Driving through a small town on the way I noticed a road on the left completely cordoned off, but thought nothing of it. We reached a road junction with a mini-roundabout and the SatNav told us to turn left. We couldn't. It was cordonend off as well. Big time. I figured, OK, there was a little country road running off from the junction that seemed to go in almost the same direction. I could go down that and turn left somewhere to get me back onto the blocked road.
Nope. Sandbagged off. No one was getting down that road. So I took the only other road available. After about half a mile the SatNav told me to take a left. Nope. Closed and blocked off. So we drove on and tried at the next junction.
This time we got lucky and the road was open. After maybe a mile the GPS once again told us to turn left. You have of course guess what happened when we tried...
Eventually the poor old navigator gave up on that route and took us home by another.
When we got home I logged on to Googlemaps to see if I could see what kind of calamity could have occured to make it necessary for them to completely close off several square miles of countryside.
I couldn't even find the road junction.
I've traced and retraced the route that I think we took. It's hard to see how we could have taken any other, that part of Linconshire/Nottinghamshire isn't exactly awash with major roads, yet I cannot find that junction anywhere. I've looked at the map, I've looked at the satellite images. Even at full magnification that stupid road junction isn't there, or at least, it wasn't when the images were taken.
Roswell? Don't talk to me about Roswell. That was just an alien. Somewhere out there near the East coast of England aliens have stolen several acres of real estate.
And I want it back.
WIDGETIZE