Rushing, rain & roadworks

Yuk. It's Glastonburying it down over the whole country (big, splotty rain drops, falling at a rate faster than they can drain away, causing flooding, mud-slides & soggyness - invented by myself & Mr A after the notoriously wet festival), and I've been out & about in it all day.

I knew it was going to be a busy day today. I had to go down to Helston at the tip of Cornwall for a meeting covering a range of subjects, most of which I'd tried to sort out on a number of ocasions before. That's a good four hour drive at the best of times, so I set of at 7am with LMD, leaving LMB & Mstr A with Mr Aginoth to sort out & take to school/nursery.

It was quite nice as I left Weston, but by the time I reached Taunton, the rain was sheeting down, reducing visibility to about 1m! There were still plenty of people on the road without lights though! Plus there were about 10 miles of roadworks on the A30, for no apparent reason - no people working, no machines standing idle, no holes half dug....... However, I made it to Helston just about in time for my 11am meeting, gave them the bad news that they'd missed the funding deadline so couldn't claim the £500k they'd pretty much been promised if they'd just pulled their finger out! Still, I also gave them lots of ideas for where else to go, & how to fundraise themselves, so hopefully they will still be building a new facility down there soon.

I scooted out of there at 1.30, knowing that I had to be in Paignton by 3.30. That would be really tight timing if the weather was great, I knew where I was going & I didn't have to stop to feed the baby or myself. Unfortunately, none of the above were true. I wouldn't usually book a second meeting like that, but I've been trying to get these people to sit round a table & talk for nearly a year now, & this was the first time they'd all agreed to be in the same room at the same time, so I didn't want to put it off.

I finally made it through the floods & idiot drivers, round dodgy country lanes that are mapped as major A roads, and reached Piagnton at 4pm - The "English Riviera" does not look so inviting on a cold, wet October day:-) Managed to get them all to agree to at least talk to each other in the future, suggested they may want to try to co-ordinate their planning & offered them some money if they can be good boys & girls & play nice (Sport has worse politics than politics has half the time!).

I started home at 5.30, and shot up the M5 far too fast, through the floods & rain, to get home just as Mr A had finished putting the other two to bed! Good timing:-)

Now LMD is wide awake, having spent much of the travelling sleeping, I'm knackered, and the kids are going to sulk tomorrow as I didn't see them at all today. And just for fun I've got to go back to Paignton next Tuesday, & Penzance on Wednesday!

Just think, I could have spent the day at home with purple Mr A, getting to know each other again;-)

this is Mrs Aginoth, for her blog, in somerset, wet, cold, married, fed-up, really fed-up.........