Day Out?

It’s my birthday tomorrow, at my age not a cause for celebration, and as I wasn’t working, we decided to go to Dartmouth for the day, there’s a very nice restaurant for lunch, and enough to do for a nice day out. Anyhow, to save messing around with the car ferry and park and ride, we thought we could take the bus and foot ferry, it also meant that I could have a couple of beers without having to drive home.

Looking into the prices for this, I was somewhat shocked and must question the incentive to leave the car and submit to the vagaries of public transport. Bear in mind that Dartmouth is 4 miles from my house (including the ferry), and I live 50 yards from the bus route.

Option 1 Car (Up to 5 people)

Diesel for 8 miles                                          £ 1.00

Ferry (Return)                                                 £ 7.00

Park and Ride                                                £ 5.00

Total                                                              £ 13.00

Option 2 Bus

Two return tickets (Inc Foot Ferry)                £ 13.00

So where’s the incentive in that? I know it’s more environmentally friendly to take the bus, but the cynical side of me can’t help wondering if the price of the bus ticket has more to do with the price of the alternative than the cost of provision. If there were 4 of us in the car, the bus option would be DOUBLE the car option.  And the council wonder why the buses are empty, and have to subsidise them.

Enough of the rant, it’s been the usual mad rush of a week, Naomi had her 12^th (I think but am losing track) operation as a result of the car accident TWO years ago. She is home and OK, we are going up to see her on Sunday, whilst I am at work Monday Yvonne and her can have a girly day, before we come home on Tuesday.

I worked on Wednesday, and did a couple of jobs, this one into Tilbury Lock (0.5m clearance each side)

and this one outwards.

It was nice on the river, with a gentle breeze keeping it cooler.

As a result, I hadn’t been cooking much; we had enough bread to last and because of the warm weather we have only been eating salads, sadly not from the garden, the leaves were all washed away and the replacements are not yet grown. Also the tomatoes are not quite ripe, although I do seem to have a few that are nearly there.  

And a very small crop of runner beans.

Jason gave us some fresh caught Mackerel which tasted superb baked in a little oil and some herbs. I’m having a rest from bread baking until we get back on Tuesday, when I will start again. I did manage to make 12lb of Blackcurrant Jam, which should keep us going for a while.

 I had to get a new food processor, as the old one (5 years) smelt of burning every time you turned it on, and was taking longer to chop things. I now have a Kenwood, which was half price on Amazon.

I have finally taken the plunge and started writing my novel, I have written a couple of short stories and magazine articles, but for years I have had ideas in my head for a longer story, at first they were vague and unconnected, but now I can see where they all fit together, and I’m even having dreams about bits of it. So I’ve got about 4000 words down, very rough and unfinished but it's a start. And it's funny, I have heard writers say that when you invent characters, they come to life and become more than just words on a page. I thought that was a silly idea, but it’s true, although I’ve only got half a dozen so far that have actually said anything, they seem more real, and almost do things without me having to think about it. With a bit of luck they can write it for me, I’ll just type it out.