Lights in the sky

So the Easter holidays are over and it's back to the routine of daily drives to college and back. It makes me leave the house at least and although its always to travel the few same miles back and forth they are quite interesting miles. Today Catie and I were talking about the huge variety in flying ability amongst different species of birds from the "I can but I'd rather climb" of parrots, cockatiels etc to the sophistication of apparently effortless aerobats like ....and here we both simultaneously came up with the same example....Red Kites. About a minute later, in perfect timing for us to see the show as we drove past, a beautiful Red Kite came almost vertically up out of the field by the road, got to 70 or so feet up and for a moment seemed to hang in the air before stooping into an attack dive onto some unseen creature behind the hedge. "....rather like that!" we agreed.

Getting into Abingdon I was stopped at a crossing and had to do a disbelieving double take when a woman walked past the front of the car obviously doing her best to look like Margaret Thatcher. She was wearing a close match of the iconic blue suit, pearls, handbag and her hair was coloured and styled like that of the mid eighties model Thatcher. I was dumbstruck. As she passed the bonnet I could feel the muscles in my right hand wanting to relax their pressure on the break/accelerator hand control.....I had to talk them down. I wonder how many points you get for a Thatcher look-a-like? She was surreptitiously glancing at people as she passed them - to see what their reaction was I imagine. I could see a few people looking at her in a mixture of anger and disbelief. "I'd like to see you try that in Glasgow!" I thought as the lights changed.

My back is much worse today, bad as its been. I felt another prolapse move when I sort of half bent, half crouched to take yesterday's blip and it got worse over night. Consequently today my legs are like tubes of numb flesh with a club on the end and a core of lightning sciatica reaching all the way up to mid chest and with additional stabbings of pain through from spine to groin. I can barely stand and each small step in my tottering gait is a wincing effort. As a result I did not get out of the car to go looking for a blip and instead worked with what was within reach.

I managed to scrape together enough for train tickets to London tomorrow for the pair of us but I am having to admit defeat and give up my plan to go to the protest at the funeral. I am just not physically able to do it. This is the third or fourth protest in a row that I've wanted and intended to get to and have had to give up on. Maybe I should stop letting my brain make appointments my body cant keep - on the other hand not making such plans feels a bit like surrender. I'll watch it on TV if I can stomach the coverage of the ceremony.

I see Congresswoman Bachmann is going to the funeral....wow! They let crazy people like that on aeroplanes?