Eleven Fifty!!!!!!

THAT, my dear blipsters (and others who read my blips) is the mind boggling cost of parking the car close to college for a morning of lesson observation! Oxford is an exceedingly car-unfriendly city, exceedingly. The "powers that be" are constantly desperate to tell us to cycle, get buses etc. and to leave our cars at home.

This is all very well if you live somewhere nearish to the city, on a bus route, are not phobic of buses, are fit enough to cycle, and have not spent the last 6 days eating less than a butterfly! If you are poor, disabled (but not sufficiently to get a blue badge), or temporarily incapacitated, then you're in trouble!

The other issue, of course, is that rents in the city centre are prohibitive for anyone on a "normal" income, which is why we live over 20 miles from where we work. I almost laughed during the winter snows when someone suggested I "walk to work" - I can't walk 40 miles in a day when the weather is nice, the ground is flat, and I don't have to worry about work, never mind when I have to do a day at the office, tackle steep hills, and the snow is higher than my knees!

What's also galling, is that many of the "anti-car" people live in giant houses, drive their kids 1 mile down the road to private schools in their 4x4s, and have sauropod-sized carbon footprints! Yet they look down their noses at us when we request a carrier bag when we go shopping!

This is why I am not into "greenness", although, perversely, on every "green" test I've ever taken, I come out almost as green as Dick Strawbridge - the only things that let me down seriously are owning pets and living in an uninsulated house (the latter is not down to me, since I am at the mercy of my landlord on such things - and I do sellotape up the gaps in the window frames over winter)!

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Right, rant over! Time to tell you about the day!

Not much to tell really. Back to college, which was fine - all tutors pleased to see me and welcoming, missed teaching practice will be sorted - looks like there may be a slot for me in the last week of term, colleagues seemed happy to have me back too, and by the end of Friday it'll almost be as if I've never been away. Looks like I missed a bit of drama on Monday when a colleague had a run in with the college principal for not wearing her ID badge on site - oops, but otherwise, all is as normal!

I was glad I'd parked close, despite the astronomical cost. Even with the journey time cut to a minimum, it was still an hour's travelling each way (normally it's closer to 2 hours), and I was VERY tired when I got home.

When I got home I ordered repeat prescriptions, sorted out notes and folders, started to think about Friday's lesson, and did some viola practice (performance in less than a month, so I'd better get some hours under my fingers).

Early evening my stomach had a briefly rebellious and hurty moment (probably cross with me for exerting myself, but it'll just have to lump it), but then settled down again sufficiently for me to dine on half a plain pizza and a small glass of red wine. I then slept soundly on the sofa through a programme I'd been hoping to watch, went in the bath, was woken up by the Wonderspouse who'd heard me snoring in the bathroom, and finally fell asleep in bed!