poised

I don't dance but I do appreciate an ability with the art in others.

I would have posted this nice and early but there appeared to be an issue with the bit of the internet Blip lives on (possibly related to the Grand Earthquake attacking Lincolnshire and possibly the single most exciting thing to happen to the county since the Floods of 1952-3. Hopefully not too much of the sub-sea-level fenlands were liquefacted) and it now grows late so I'll continue tomorrow.

Barely two weeks ago I was thinking I might possibly get to go snowboarding at the weekend and today it smelt of summer at lunchtime. It also smelt of cement dust and bitumen but they're an impediment to all forms of transport rather than just the snowboard. As well as finding a new variation for lunchtimewalking to avoid the various constructions including the exciting new closure of Shandwick Place (the barriers for which are all sitting in a nice big stack on Coates Crescent) I'm going to have to start taking a longer and more roundabout way in in the morning to avoid being held up either by switched-off pedestrian crossings or really slow people in front of me in the narrow channels grudgingly created by construction crews between the ripped-up pavement and road. These people are generally wearing earbuds and staring into a small, dark pit of personal torment somewhere a couple of feet in front of their shoes and lack the ability to notice subtle hints such as sudden rapid footsteps approaching from behind them followed by a deliberate pause and several subsequent extremely slow footsteps accompanied by foot-scuffing and exasperated glances. I would attempt to ask them to excuse themselves but there's usually nowhere for them to go and the one or two I've tried that approach with seemed to lack the ability to move any faster, weighed down as they were by coats, scarves, briefcases and stupid shiny clopping-shoes. Leaving the house slightly earlier just means that I end up stuck behind gaggles of construction workers instead, ambling slowly along on their way back from crisp-and-bacon-roll-shops eating crisps and bacon rolls whilst simultaneously swearing and smoking before forming pavement-blocking groups outside the entrances to their sites. Pretending to take photographs of them usually makes them move and shut up but given the extreme duration of the various projects and the frequency with which I pass them there's a risk of being recognised and subsequently accidentally nudged into a deep concrete-filled hole by one of those mini-excavators which seem to be fashionable at the moment.