Time passages...

Goodness me don’t you think that the whole month of January has skootled past in a huge hurry? 

It’s an interesting looking date today 31/1/13. 

There has to be a name for that kind of number formation. I like it whatever it is called. Do you?

Another comparatively warm day today, at almost ten degrees this morning at 0700. There was a touch of rain, but not much.

Back home in NZ its already tomorrow, still having trouble coming to grips with the altered time frame, and a very special day in the household of one of our family members. Our second to youngest granddaughter is five. 

Hang on a mo, there are other big birthdays this year too. Oldest daughter has just turned 45! Wow does that make me feel old.

Two of our other granddaughters and a grandson will turn 10 this year.

And my aunt, my mother’s sister, will be 100.  

How’s that for big milestones!

And yes I really did enjoy that first episode of NCIS. It’s taken almost this long, that is the three years we have been here to catch up with where it left off when we left NZ in 2010.

I enjoy the interplay of the characters, and the twists and turns of the plots. As in previous series it looks like there will be an on-going story line running through.

Short and sweet...

Very very short blog tonight.

Why??

 

Well I’ll tell you.

The latest series of my very favourite TV programme, NCIS has just begun and I want to give it my full and undivided.

I’ll write more tomorrow.

Promise. Lol

Bad idea...

Lasts night blog reminded me about a couple of other occasions that fall into the ‘rip off’ category.

Years ago when we lived in PNG the prime minister, a very corrupt individual had a cunning plan. He exported all the money in the treasury to Australia and then devalued the kina, which was the monetary unit. That done he imported exactly the same amount of kina he had sent out and then pocketed the difference. 

It was common knowledge country wide.

The word that spring so mind is corruption. 

Another decision he made was that it was a much better and cheaper idea if the country grew all its own beef. 

So he ruled that no more beef would be imported into the country. Now the local population were large consumers of tinned beef.  Unfortunately the PM didn’t do his homework because the amount of beef the country produced was only enough for a couple of days production at the canneries. He pretty soon reversed his ruling

Then after we went back to NZ, we lived in the Bay of Plenty where the council installed water meters at each residence. Having to pay for water consumed the economy mined public reduced the amount of the precious liquid wasted. That’s a good thing isn’t it?

Well the council didn’t think so because it was suddenly faced with a reduction in its expected income from the water usage and promptly put up the rate of it.

Who's counting?....I am

I usually just add new posts to my blog once a day.
I am posting twice, because the next person who views my blog with be the 5000th.

Wooo Hoooo

Credibility challeged..

I think the weather man must be making up for the loss of credibility of the last two days by being spot on today. Rain by going home time is what he said and that is exactly what we got. Not cold though which is good. 

What was not so good was seeing people coming out of Canary Wharf tube station at that time of the evening, when usually it is the exact opposite.

I said to The Man, ‘that doesn’t look good’, and it wasn’t. We were faced with a humongous crowd waiting at the ticket barriers, and not even a trickle of passengers was going in or coming up from the platform level.

So what does one do when faced with a long delay?

Nothing better than a cinnamon swirl and a vanilla spice latte at my regular café. Good on ya Starbucks.

Just over half an hour later the crush had cleared and we were on our way home.

I think that this next bit belongs in the ‘rip off Britain box.

Transport for London is tightening the rules in a so called bid to discourage motorists from buying diesel powered cars that allow them to drive in central London for free. 

Soon drivers of all diesel and most hybrid vehicles will be forced to pay the congestion charge in a crackdown on traffic congestion and pollution.

If Boris, the mayor, approves it the new rules will start in July this year.

Now here is the clincher for me thinking it should be categorised into the Rip off Britain box, this new charge will rise and extra £2 million a year…helping to reverse the £60 million slump in revenue.

The AA is saying shame on you Boris for moving the ‘green goalposts’ after businesses replaced their fleets with compliant vehicles.

The Transport for London made a net profit of £136.5 million in the 2011/2012 year.

Shame on you TFL. in this hard economic time, when Britain is entering a third period of recession you are putting an even bigger financial burden on the public at large  as well as small and large businesses and ultimately the consumer

Balham to Bromley

Weather man was wrong again today. but at six am I did think ti was going to be a ‘not going out day’, but by nine am it was sunny and would have been almost warm if it hadn’t been for the biting wind. 

So did we go out?

Of course we did, not far though.

Months ago on of our favourite stores here in Crystal Palace upped sticks and moved lock stock and art works to Balham. Among other things we bought there was our very colourful giraffe. 

Balham is one of the stops the train to Victoria goes to. We have been saying for ages that we should get off there and see if we could find his store. Did we? Unfortunately no, but we did have a look around. Found a little back street store that sold marine fish and corals. The owner was there and though his shop wasn’t open for business he was happy to show us the setup and let us admire his fish. 

The Man and I spent three years in PNG and did lots and lots of diving, and had our own small seawater aquarium. Great to find a kindred spirit to talk fish with

We had a chat with one of our neighbours this morning on the way our, ‘been to Bromley yet?’ he said. ‘Nice shopping area.’

It was pretty chilly so a shopping mall seed inviting. Back on the train to Victoria, then jump on the fast train to Bromley. 

I didn’t think we had been there until half way around the mall we spotted a pet shop that we recognised and yup, we had been there before. We found a café there overlooking a pretty garden where we had a very nice lunch and did some people watching.