R's rue

On Monday, Shirley said she wanted us to go down to London to see Ian and Sarah and our two month old grandson Zach. I didn't fancy driving down to our capital city again so I checked out public transport options for today - Friday, returning on Sunday afternoon. Travelling by train would have cost close to £400 in total - that's $507 US or  $756 AUS.. The very high cost quoted is down to the fact that we wanted to make a late booking. If we had booked a month ago, the cost would have been much cheaper. The train from Sheffield to London St Pancras takes around two hours and ten minutes but a National Express coach takes double that amount of time. However, the cost of two return tickets on the bus was only £60 - that's $76 US or  $113 AUS so that is what we have gone for . After all, £400 is quite outrageous - it represents over £1 per mile of rail track. I will be able to get plenty of reading done aboard the bus. It is now one in the morning and the coach departs at...

On Tuesday there was constant rain or as we coarse northerners usually observe, "It was pissing it down!" Consequently, I was not drawn outside and in fact stayed in all day with nothing much to occupy my time. This is not something I would normally do but I had the idea of spending the afternoon watching a current ITV drama series called "Mr Bates Versus The Post Office". It is very much based upon a rather shocking true story and incidentally, a story that is by no means fully resolved. In the late nineties, the British Post Office invested in an expensive new computer accounting system called "Horizon". It cost over £1.5 billion and was meant to streamline post office services. In league with the Fujitsu computer company, it was claimed by The Post Office leadership that the "Horizon" system was entirely reliable, foolproof in fact. To them it seemed entirely proper that if there were any accounting shortfalls they should be personally mad...

 Settling into  The new year Finding joy In the small Ordinary pleasures That are the greatest Sources of joy from R's rue https://ift.tt/WYvw7O9