Tired, Annoyed, and Thankful for Escapes
Today started out like a normal day. I got up, had a shower, shave, made breakfasts, packed lunches, washed up, sorted out medication for our eldest daughter, and got myself ready for work. I even managed to arrive a few minutes early, which I thought pretty miraculous given that every ass-hat in the known universe appeared to have taken to the roads through town during the few minutes I was on them.
The morning at work also went well. I deployed code to a server farm at the other end of the country in preparation for a demo tomorrow, and everything worked first time. That's kind of rare, believe me.
Then lunchtime arrived, and I might as well have pulled out a suitcase full of marmalade sandwiches, and rode off on my bike, never to be seen again, right then or at least not seen until I ran out of marmalade sandwiches. I'm not sure I'd have gotten as far as deepest, darkest peru, but I'd have given it a good go.
I arrived at the school field a little before 1pm, and joined the rag-tag collection of other parents stood awkwardly around making conversation. It was “Sports Day”. My final “Sports Day”, given that our youngest will be leaving junior school in the summer. I smiled and said hello to a few people I vaguely know, but spent the next three hours pretty anonymously really. At one point I found myself stood in the middle of an unmarked running track, and nearly got flattened by a stampede of ten year olds, but otherwise yeah nobody really noticed me (which was amazing really, given that I had a bright yellow cycling waterproof on).
Between the end of the mayhem on the school field, and now, I have walked to the school twice more, and walked to the local football pitches twice. I've fought with getting the children to take showers, fought with them to pick up stuff off their bedroom floor, washed the kitchen cupboards down (I could smell cat wee), tidied the lounge, spare room, and kitchen (again), and finally walked to the garage just now to get money for my other half (who has been out all night), because she forgot her pin number and has managed to lock out her bank card.
I've had it. With everything and everyone. I imagine the people at work thought I was using Sports Day as an excuse to sit at home and watch the England football match. I managed to check the score exactly twice on my phone while running here, there, and everywhere during the afternoon. To be honest, I'm expecting England to be expelled from the competition, because the “fans” don't seem to be able to attend an international match without getting blind drunk, fighting other “fans”, and vandalising as many bars as possible.
ANYWAY!
It's 10pm, and I'm finally sitting down – writing this. I don't think I have to be anywhere, or do anything for anybody else tonight. Maybe I'll try and lift the tone a bit.
I ordered a Raspberry Pi 3 Starter Kit earlier. It's the educational computer thingy that's kind of taken the world by storm. I'm using the excuse that it's for the children to learn with, but it's as much for me as them. The basic idea is they will build the “computer” from the ground up – putting the motherboard in it's case, plugging the wires in, and starting the thing up. I'm half tempted to try using it as a desktop replacement for a month or so – to see if I really need the junkyard PC hiding under the desk. There are loads of educational resources for the Raspberry Pi, so if I can keep the kids from playing Minecraft on it, maybe they might learn something. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
I still haven't sat down and read any of the books on my “to read” list. I started tidying up my old GoodReads account the other evening, but got distracted from that too. I'm getting worse.
I guess sometimes we need distractions though. I've made a couple of far flung friends on the internet recently that have provided the prospect of escape from the obligations, expectations, and endless chores that usually surround me. I can open my email, or mobile phone and share random thoughts – random moments. It's become kind of a crutch I suppose.
Maybe that's how I should end this post – not bellyaching about all the crap I had to wade through today, but about the people I regularly cross paths with on the internet, who take those few moments to send a few words, a random photo, or a snippet of idiotic video. You mean more to me than you will ever know.