This weekend has been the classic English bank holiday. We started with a forecast of good weather, latterly tempered to a great Friday and Saturday then deteriorating. Great tactics by the weather forecasters that ensures the masses will try and travel on Friday, one of the worst days of the year. Friday, Saturday and Sunday have followed the same pattern in weather terms. Waking up to glorious sunshine and all the hallmarks of a beautiful day but fading rapidly as soon as the hungover tourists start circulating. Today (Monday) is the magical culmination, a stunning day that is like nature sticking two fingers up at tourism. Already I have heard suitcases being wheeled to the station, where they will join a sweaty bus due to track renewals, and later the road out of town will be full.
The final tradition of a bank-holiday is to indulge in a pint whilst watching children bickering in overheated cars while hungover parents scowl. I think that our politicians would benefit from a bank holiday spent at a UK seaside town, to give the some understanding. All of the advertisements and inducements in the world won’t draw more people to UK tourism, it is ingrained for generations. It can all be summed up by the 60 year old man walking down the prom in bare feet yesterday, in the face of coats and hats to defeat a chill wind he sported only speedos and wet hair, fresh from his swim. I can hear the conversation, as I did when I was child, that went “I came to the beach for a holiday and I will be going for my bloody swim”. It is this bloody minded spirit that sees families battling the wind to get to the beach and frozen children paddling in the sea. They know that on Monday the coast will be mocking them but that doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy their break.
In other news my stubborn streak has been out in force this weekend. I decided to do some tattooing on Saturday and it went reasonably well although I did ache very quickly. On Saturday evening my left wrist was in agony which made no sense, I am right handed. So the wrist that controlled the machine was ok but the one that had to hold the skin was not, why on earth would that be? I checked the relative movements but could not make sense of it.
The pain remained overnight and into Sunday morning when I was forced to consider options. Here the stubborn streak stepped in and suggested that I should do some more work. After all I had adjusted that packer hadn’t I? And it would be a shame not to use it. And so it is that I can report that two shorts sessions of ink has done nothing to ease the pain in lefty which is, equally stubbornly, claiming the title of ‘hardest worked’. On the plus side the greatest response to an SMS that asked what you are doing has to be “colouring in my knee”.