As seems to happen more often these days, I start the day with one intention and immediately get swept off to something else. This, for example. I open up this website and find that yesterday’s post isn’t showing, only the one from the day before. I refresh the page (Ctrl+F5), which should bring up a post titled ‘Vehicular Ramble’, but things stay the same. I asked my handy chatbot thing on my host dashboard about this yesterday, and it told me all was well and I needed to do XYZ, which I did, and again, ‘all is well’, only it isn’t. So, I start today with one thing in mind, and then have to go off on this tangent to try and put things right.

Which I may have done now having de-optimised this and unplugged that, and ‘he said and she said, and who brought the subject up first?’

So…

I ventured into Yialos yesterday, heading down the steps while Mr Blackfoot took the bus. I scooted around the back to ACS to collect a package or two, bumped into Jenine, caught up on godson news, had chats with various other people I’ve not seen for weeks, and had a Vap Lemon at Pacho’s. When here on holiday last century, Fanta Lemon was my thing because it tasted different in the sun than it did in the gloom of East London. I haven’t had one for years, but I ended up with a different brand that was, perhaps, even better. Then, to lunch as a treat, and we were treated to a lunch at Merakles, which is always a treat, even when you have to treat yourself. Then, back up the hill in a taxi, which meant driving through the onslaught of day trippers wandering blithely along and in the road…

Here’s a thing. On the way along the quayside yesterday, the police car was coming in the opposite direction, and this numbskull tourist still thought the road was for him and not vehicles, and although the police car was crawling (not curb crawling you understand) so as not to hit anyone, and although it didn’t have its lights and siren on, it was still a pretty obvious bug white thing coming towards him, and this idiot was walking towards it, in the middle of the road, and then wonders why, when he didn’t get out of the way, he nearly got run over. He even appealed to the car as if to say, ‘What you playing at, man?’ when he was entirely in the wrong… I mean… Honestly. (He’ll end up as a character in a book before long.)

As it turned out later, the cops were after people driving motorbikes without wearing a helmet. They’ve caught a fair few of late, and rightly so. They do, though, need to have a word with our top dignitary, who, like a tourist, blithely uses the road for all to see, without wearing a crash helmet when on his moped. Now, what kind of example is that to show the young and the daring who, now and then, end up in a bed for life because they weren’t wearing a helmet? Uh-huh.

But that’s another story.

As is the one about the three large red day trip speed boat things that come in daily. Not only are there now three, but they also stop off at St George for a swim (passengers, not boats), and are, apparently and naughtily, encroaching further inshore, thereby ruining the tranquillity of one of our most unspoilt bays. It’s the summer, you see? The best chance of anyone making the money they need to survive happens in the summer, but to the detriment of what brings people here to spend their money? It’s a balancing act, I guess, but one which I see more and more out of control each year.

Anyway, that’s my rather negative first thing thought for today. Now, at least, I am off to do my final final read of my final draft before proofreading, finally.