Misfits Mid-Life Crisis Adventures in …………..Surrey, Croydon, North London, Essex & Kent.

Week 46 (or Week 9 of the new adventure), Saturday 2^nd May until Friday 8th May 2015.

I miss driving; I took my fossil fuel chugging ride for granted.  My car recently failed the M.O.T in spectacular fashion.  When Gimli (named after my fave Lord of the Rings character) was loaded on the scrap truck and taken away there was a tear in my eye.

    Train spotting.

My friend MOZ and I go to this large craft fair in Kent, in the past Gimli took us there like magic.  I pointed him in the right direction and he got us there safely.  I’m a huge fan of science fiction and do feel a little robbed that we don’t have hover boards and flying cars yet.  I know that there are driverless cars in development but as a kid I would have thought that by 2015 we would all be going around in cars that drive themselves.

 MOZ walking to the craft fair, pavements haven’t been invented in the countryside.

I have no idea how Gimli worked, there could have been a heard of Magic Unicorns under the bonnet, I think of a car as a magic chariot.  I can look at a water wheel and can see it working in front of me, but a car is a different matter.

 Penshurst Place in Kent.

MOZ and I decided to go to the fair as normal; the train journey was quick from London.  Once we passed Redhill you knew you were in the country as the tightly packed houses were replaced by rolling green hills. Once at Penshurts we realised that the walk from the station was about 2.5 miles.  We walked passed fields with lambs and the horse looking at us strangely, because we were studying our small illuminated devices looking at maps; the animals really must have thought we were not great advertisement for the human race.  We reached the fair in 30 mins.  Pavements haven’t been invented in the countryside so we had to walk road, with large 4x4s coming up to us and pulled away at the last moment.  I’m sure that when I travelled in Gimmie he didn’t do that, if we saw a pedestrian walking around looking at their illuminated devices we would slow down and move around them carefully.  But then Gimmie was a special car not a brute of a 4×4.

 She says “it’s coffee”, honest.

The craft show was nice, it was good to see others arriving late like us.  We had a couple of hours there before it closed.  High lights were a couple of cups of coffee, some honey liquorice and real life Owls and Vultures from a sanctuary (they also had a very large and hairy Tarantula in a plastic box, I wanted to hold it but thought I’d look a little strange as I think it was there for the kids, or was it there to eat the kids).  Every time we went to the fair Gimmie would happily carry all of the crafty object we had spent our hard earned cash on.  This time we would have to carry all our own crap that helped us save money and just look at stall after stall.  I could have bought everything from stained glass objects, rabbits sculpted out of clay, handmade leather shoes and bags, lovely clothes, small trinkets, bits and bobs that just gather dust.  This time I bought nothing but a couple of pies for lunch at work.

    Alfie the Barn Owl & Maggie the hooded Vulture.

Leaving we knew we had a rush and it was all up hill.  The 4×4’s seemed to want to run us over again, in fact one woman actually waved as she passed us at speed (B***h).  We passed the fields; rushing by the sheep who looked at us as if to say “what did we do, you spoke to us earlier”.  Made it to the station I got my ticket rushed back over the bridge and stood there.  We stood a little longer, according to MOZ’s small hand held illuminated device the train should have arrived to take us home.  The reality was we were still waiting at the station as the rain began, the only company we had were birds and squirrels and a cat staring up at us from the other side of a fence.   Luckily in front of the country station was a country pub.  An hour later sitting on the train with a belly full of larger shandy swilling around I was glad to be going home.  Its days like that I really miss having Gimli around, I really did take for granted how easy it is to travel somewhere like the craft fare in the middle of nowhere when you have wheels.

 emmmmm, so tasty.

A short work week because of the bank holiday.  Went to the Olympic Park (wasn’t impressed).  Mooched about Belsize park and Hampstead Heath again (was impressed).  The more time I spend in north London the more I like it, it’s not a part of London I know well.  Another dentist appointment, lots more cycling, painting oh and voting.

 There all a load of crooks, but I did pick one.

The Mid-Life Crisis cont…..

This week I have been watching: “Graham Norton” (Season 17, eps 5), “Have I Got news For You” (Season 49, eps 5), “Ballot Monkeys” (eps 1 & 2), “W1A” (Season 2 eps 2 & 3), “Atlantis” (Season 2, eps 10), “Into the Woods”, “Thunderbirds are Go” (Season 1, eps 5), “Nick and Margaret: The Trouble with Our Trains”, “James May’s Cars of the People”, Tatau” (Season 1, eps 4), “The Game” (eps 1 & 2), “Murder in Successville” (Eps 1 “The Mob”), “Shark (eps 1).

This week I have mainly been listening to: “David Bowie”, “Morrissey”, “PJ Harvey”, “Smiths”, “Kate Nash”, “The Charlatans” On Xfm, “The Black Keys”, “Alt-J”,” The Artic Monkeys”,

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