I can't really explain quite why discovering the mere existence of this fills me with such pleasure.  Maybe it's just that it has the right name, or maybe it's because, unlike Network Rail's last attempt at such a thing (3000 pages!) it can actually be carried around without risk of a hernia.

In so many ways, it's a symbol of an earlier, simpler age.  An age where travel was, almost by definition, by train, and where such trains were enormous, gasping, oiled beasts, of brass and steam and soot.  Where railway stations, and everybody in them, smelt of hot coal.
This was the age in which it seemed Sherlock Holmes could barely embark on an adventure without first asking, "Watson, do you happen to have a Bradshaw about your person?"  Watson, that stalwart of reliability, always did, of course.  There would be a feverish rifling of pages, before Holmes would triumphantly announce that they had a mere five minutes to reach Paddington in order to catch the 4.38 express.  This, too, was the age when that express would have had a guaranteed connection with a succession of branch lines, all of them catalogued by Bradshaw, and which would have delivered Holmes & Watson to a tidy little rural station, where their journey would have been completed by pony and trap.

The last original Bradshaw was sadly last published in 1961, but as of December 2007 there's this.

Curiously, in our modern era of internet timetables and journey planners, I have a feeling it really does have a place.  I've ordered one, and I expect to find myself using it.

I really hope it succeeds.

Tesco.
Saturday evening shift.  Store becoming quieter, staff suffering a little from boredom and cabin-fever.

Two empty aisles at the far end.  I took my basket to one, an attractive, happy-looking girl in her twenties, the other.  We did a little dodge/dance thing, as one does, as we manouevred ourselves to our respective aisles.  I smiled.

The chap running my checkout seemed as dull, surly-faced and slack-jawed a teenager as I've seen.  Gave every appearance of wishing he was anywhere else (fair enough, I supposed, it being Saturday night). Uncharitably, my subconscious reaction was "chav", and I scowled inwardly. However, as I began unloading my basket, his face lit up in the friendliest of smiles, as he asked me that ritual question, without which no trip to a supermarket would be complete these days, "are you ok packing?".  I agreed that I was, and we began.
"Are you collecting the school vouchers?" he continued, pleasantly.  I told him I wasn't, so he called cheerily across the the girl in the other aisle, to ask if she was.  She gave him a look as if he'd just asked if he could fist her mother, but eventually accepted the vouchers, though without so much as a twitch of a smile, or a thank you.

As I left, I was wished a pleasant evening (in those terms, too, which was unexpected and lovely).  I'm not proud of myself that I only just had the presence of mind to return the compliment.

Walking down the length of the store, someone ran past me, barging into me, and almost tipping me over.  It was the girl from the next aisle.  Not a hint of an apology, nor even an awareness of having collided, as she disappeared at speed into the throng by the doors.

Sometimes, I am ashamed of myself.
Sometimes, I am ashamed of my fellow human beings.

What is it about this time of year that's so special?

I've been pining for the lack of auditions for weeks and months, and suddenly I get three in a row, two on consecutive days, and another very shortly afterwards - what's more, they're all films, and all planning their shooting for pretty much the same time, so their dates overlap.  This will make it difficult to tell them what my availability actually is... 

The first one was this morning, and it seemed to go very well.  Very friendly panel, and all very very complimentary of my brief performance.  Good for the ego (and, handily, that's the one of the three that I'd most like to get cast for... though I'll guarantee they'll be the one to take the longest to reply)

And whaddya know?  As I'm typing this, up comes another audition.  Shooting the very same week.  What's more, they want me to audition either tomorrow or Saturday, and, if successful, to be available all weekend for workshops...  which I can't do anyway, as I have a fairly full weekend already!

Funny old business.

Reading that back, it sounds like a moan, which isn't quite how it's intended.  More an expression of amused disbelief!  Really rather nice to be getting all these auditions, but it's bizarre how they all clash quite so nicely!

Caught sight of myself in a mirror today.  Well, not just a mirror, many.  A lift, with mirrored walls.  My face, my head, my all, from every conceivable angle.

My first, last, and persisting thought:  "No wonder nobody's interested"

Not very cheery (and indeed, if I look back, most of my recent posts here haven't been that bright. Must try harder).

Not even strictly accurate, in any case - there are people who are interested, at least on the superficial, physical level - but they fall into two groups:

On the other hand, there's that other group of people... who also fall neatly into subgroups:

If I have an aim in life, it's to meet one of the elusive members of:

...but then I catch myself in those mirrors, and despair of such people actually existing.

It's always like this.  I can be absolutely fine, confident in myself, sure that the things that distress me are well under control.  Then something makes me glance aside, and I'm lost.  Often for days.

And so it was this time.  Two days ago, I was happy in my spring cleaning, the world was, if not full of joy, at least full of things I could deal with.  Then a series of tiny, tiny things occurred, none of which should have been the slightest problem. But I lost my concentration, allowed myself thoughts I shouldn't, feelings I shouldn't, and down I went. As I slid further and faster, I tried to grasp at things on the way, to slow myself, gain support, confidence, hope.  But I missed them all. No new footholds appeared, nobody ran to catch me, because nobody saw me fall.  Still I'm falling.  The bottom must be near.

How long have I sat here like this? Head in hand, head in hands.  Keyboard in my eyeline.  Hours, probably.  No sound but the people and the traffic outside, grubby Romford passing me by, living its own life, ignoring mine.  Grubby Romford, grubby Essex, grubby London.  A world on which I hardly impinge. My own fault, I suppose, I don't seek out great gangs of friends, just a select few who I really value.  But they have lives of course.  Days like this, when my life, my soul, has a gaping gap in it, days like this, when my friends have too much on their plate already, days like this, when I sit for hours, head in hand, head in hands, contemplating my keyboard.

So, my Mother's back home again.  Friends will be aware that she had a bit of a fall a couple of weeks ago, fracturing both radius and ulna in her left wrist, tearing some ligaments in her left leg, and acquiring some most impressive bruising.
Thanks largely to the wonderful efforts of her next door neighbour, she was very quickly into A&E, and her arm plastered up.  There was a fair bit of concern about her mobility, the injured leg hampering her movements a lot, especially since she couldn't grab hold of anything for support with her left arm.

So they kept her in overnight.

Somewhere along the way, what began as overnight observation grew somewhat:

Next day, when a physiotherapist asked her to walk a little, she found it very difficult (surprise surprise, because she had torn something in her leg).  The effort made her breathless (again, surprise surprise).
Somebody made a note about "breathlessness", and the rollercoaster began.  "Chest infection", somebody said.  Antibiotics.  Never mind the fact that she's in her late 70s and has had a major shock.  Nope.  Breathless?  Must be an infection.

Her blood pressure was a tad low - well she'd barely drunk anything for 24 hours, and was still taking (as recommended) her medication for high blood pressure.  Now, I'm a layman, but that seems like a recipe for low blood pressure to me...
They put her on a drip.

At various points they worried about (and administered medication for) her digestive regularity, the pain in her arm, antibiotics for the imagined chest infection, perhaps others I know nothing of.  On top of all this, the hustle and bustle and general noise meant she barely got any serious sleep for the two and a half weeks she was in hospital.  It's perhaps no surprise that pretty soon, she felt much more ill than she had when she went in.

For most of the time she was in, almost no attention was paid to her leg, and almost no effort made to get her walking on a regular basis.  A physio came to see her the day before yesterday, and was apparently apalled by this.  There had been talk of moving her to another hospital, with some sort of mobility clinic.  The physio asked Mum if she thought she needed this - Mum's response, apparently, was a fairly emphatic "no" - and hooray, I brought her back to her bungalow yesterday afternoon.  Very shaky, very tired, but much much better already, simply for being home.

We looked at the letter from the hospital to her GP, this morning.
1. Whoever wrote it can't spell "ulna".
2. Makes a big mention of "Chest Infection"
3. Makes no mention whatsoever of the injury to her leg.

Not terribly impressed.