grumpyf1

A tricky dilemma for me this week: I’m British so I should enjoy queuing, but it turns out I really, really, don’t. Especially when it should be easily preventable. Compared to some, I have a sweet commute. I leave my pretty village, drive through lovely countryside with views of mountains, skirt around England’s largest lake, then arrive at work, 25 miles later, on the edge of Ambleside. I could be on the M25. Or Basingstoke. Or somewhere in a tube train, hurtling along below ground pressed against a sweaty guy with an annoying cough who bathes in garlic oil. Sure, there are some occasional annoyances; tourists in 4x4s who seem terrified that there’s a dry stone wall close to their car; Rivers and lakes that sometimes get over-keen and try to muscle in on the roads; Idiots in Audis (I don’t need to qualify that one, do I?). But there is one irritation that outstrips all others and I encountered the latest incarnation of it this week, when a set of temporary traffic lights a...

We’re now firmly into that awkward time of year when councils desperately try and patch up our crumbling roads before the tourists arrive for summer. Got to look our best after all! What does it matter if a bunch of surly locals get inconvenienced massively? (I didn’t mean you madam – you look jolly nice in those wellies, and they go ever so well with the flat cap and pipe.) This does seem to happen every year, and for once I’m not being paranoid (although aliens are definitely living in my shed, and the tin foil helmet isn’t blocking their transmissions telling me to eat all the chocolate Hob-Nobs in England). We have reached the latter stages of a truly absurd bit of money saving. It seems the powers that be are now so cash-strapped, that waiting until AFTER the road surfaces have turned into something resembling footage from the moon landings before attempting repair is the norm. How big do pot holes have to be before they get filled? If I can lie down in it, is that bi...