Misfits Mid-Life Crisis Adventures in …………..Surrey, London, Essex and Croydon,

Week 43 (or Week 6 of the new adventure), Saturday 11th April until Friday 17th April 2015.

I have been watching: “The Graham Norton Show” (Season 17, eps2) ,  “Have I Got News for You” (Season 49, eps 2) , “Nightmare at the Museum 3”, “Helix” (Season 2, eps 2 & 3) , “Travel Man: 48 Hours in Istanbul” (Season 1, eps 2) and Iceland” (Season 1, eps 3), “Reggie & Thunderbirds: No Strings Attached”, “Thunderbirds are Go” (Season 1 eps3), “Raised by Wolves” (Pilot ep & Season 1 eps 5), “Inside No 9” (Season 2 eps 1 and 3), “The Island with Bear Gyrills” (Season 2 eps 3 & 4), “The Sky At Night”. 

This week I have mainly been listening to: “Elbow”, “Natalie Imbruglia”, “Divinyls”, “Morrissey”, “Smiths”, “Placebo”,“ Jamie T”.  On Xfm “The Kings of Leon”, “The Manic Street Preachers”, “The Yeah Yeah Yeahs”, “ MGMT”, ” Paul Weller”.

Reading on Kindle……“A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire” book 2 “ A Clash of Kings” by George R.R. Martin.

This week the weather got better, the sun came out.  I can tell this for a couple of reasons.  I didn’t need to wear my coat; I have been walking around holding my coat or trying to hang it on my ruck sack straps or just carrying it while juggling other things such as small illuminated screens that rule my life.  I have never been a fan of the heat or the sun (don’t get me wrong I’m fascinated by the sun as an astronomical body, the fact that it takes light 8 ½ mins for light to reach us through the vacuum of space constantly amazes me), but I do I try to keep in the shade or just stay in as much as possible.

 Vest and shorts is all I really wore in Mozziebeak.

Recently I spent 8 to 9 months in Mozziebeak a county where there is a lot of sun and in some places not a lot of shade.  I got used to the heat overtime, but I would never say I fell in love with it the way I did with Tofo and its people.  I was covered in factor 50 and always wore my battered M&S hat, plus I spent a lot of time in the sea which helped.

 Me and my battered hat in South Africa.

Another reason I knew that the weather had changed is that people have been wearing less, and I’m not talking about the ladies.  Frist I noticed while in London that a lot of men were wearing shorts (this was definitely the first time in a while that these bodies had been touched by UV radiation). Then on the hottest day of the year in Croydon there was an explosion of men walking around with no tops on.  The park that I eat my cheap supermarket sandwich appeared to be full of men laying on the grass either alone or in groups topless. I tried to find a spot that was not near this display of public nakedness. I have to admit that it did make eating my cheap plastic cheese sandwich difficult.

After I gulped down my food I made my way back to work, partly to get out of the sun (I didn’t have any factor 50) and to stop my eyes from burning from the south London nakedness.  Once in reception I started seeing people entering the building carrying large ice cream cones, some of them even had flakes sticking out of the top.  It was amusing to watch then struggling to open the entry gates (like the ones at a tube station) while carrying official paperwork or expensive handbags.  There was a small part of me that hoped that the artificial creamy goodness would slip off the cone and in to the expensive bag or stain the official council paperwork.  This is only because I didn’t have one. No one did have an accident; obviously the employees of Croydon Council are experts at balancing ice creams while operating mechanical devises.

 I do work in Council Tax after all.

So far the heat wave hasn’t lasted; there has not been any further displays of naked ness while I eat my past its sell by date sandwich. I haven’t seen anyone with an ice cream either. In Croydon summer came and went in one day.

After spending month’s just wearing shorts and vest tops I’m still getting used to wearing normal clothes.  When the sun came out I went through a case and pulled out some clothes that haven’t seen the day of light since just before I left for Mozziebeak.  There crumpled and musty but after a clean I will be able to stand in the corner of a packed train commuter train in them.  The big question is “are they smart casual” which is the description that I was given by the agency for this job.  I will have to test some of them out once the sun returns.

Everyone looks forward to Friday at the office not just because it’s the end of the week but its “dress down Friday”.  Looking around I haven’t seen any of the men walking around without their tops on. However an ice cream wouldn’t go a miss as the building I work in is really a huge cube of glass.

 The glass cube I call work.

Another busy week.  A week of train delays and changing trains when I wasn’t meant to. Spending time with MOZ in Essex and London which is always nice.  I’ve joined the 21^st century and started to download programmes on to my kindle to watch while standing in a corner of the train. I also finished a test painting for my children’s story, just got to paint the real things now. Highlight was the new Star wars trailer, I’m very excited.

 Just some of my R2D2 collection now in storage.

The Mid-life crisis cont.….