Week 292: as if being from Birmingham wasn't bad enough

This week I was mostly in the Liverpool City Region. Lovely.

Broke one of those expensive Serious Readers reading lamps you see advertised in print media. Then I managed to fix it – gluing a little ceramic component back together, re-inserting some little springs after finding them in the deep pile carpet, etc. – so proof if proof be need be that if you believe in yourself you can do anything.

Saturday: back home via the Megabus from Birmingham. It seemed to be going well until the driver revealed he’d not driven this route before and needed directing to the various stops; fortunately, help was capably provided by some capable passengers. He had some kind of satnav, but I’m not sure what it was smoking as it later directed him a long way north along the ring road. (Aside: to pass the time I was experimentally using my mobile phone to track the journey, and began to feel bad about about broadcasting such lostness.) Still, it was better than the time we drove cluelessly all around Oxford.

Then for the last hundred or so metres it fell to me to direct him into the bus station and to the correct stand, and I’m terrible at that sort of thing despite, you know, making a website with maps of all the routes and stops. My minute as navigator was enough him to be exasperated by my “I think”s and “should be”s – and fair enough, he was having a bad day at work, as if being from Birmingham wasn’t bad enough! And uncertainty is one of my most annoying features, but then I think of the few times I’ve been certain about something – I did tick that box on the form, the London Palladium is that way – and I’ve been quickly proven wrong.

Sunday (content warning: disgusting). Noisily and horribly sick a few times, also diarrhoea. A novel experience, really – I’d wondered whether my gag reflex was, I don’t know, either too weak or too strong, but no I’m definitely still able to vomit. Not sure whether to blame some fishy soup I had last night, or I caught something from a young relative. Anyway, the post-sick relief is great and I can almost understand why Bruce Parry’s Amazonian friends do what they do.