Lovely peaceful morning

Today was a lovely morning: we woke to the sunshine, and after the seemingly endless days of windy damp days it's lovely and still.

The daily bike ride to school was almost perfect: a little chilly but no wind and lovely sunshine. People all seemed happy and enjoying the first hints of spring.

But then the grumpy, angry, pushy, annoyed car drivers start to appear, like vastly-oversized steel wasps on a pleasant summertime picnic. Engines roar, wheels spin, and there's an overall smell of burnt fossil fuels in the still air. The normally-invisible exhaust fumes are visible as steamy clouds that hang pungently in the air.

But we're not in a car, so the cars don't bother us. Life is good, and before long the cars will be extinct.

Local Post Office Closures

Following closure of many of the small local Post Offices here, we now have a terrible situation and dramatic loss in service. The central Post Office in Lancing is now always heavily congested, with long queues and waiting times even at off-peak times.

The net result is that what used to be a ten-minute job, to walk to the local Post Office to post a parcel, now takes more than an hour.

Yet another case of corporate profit taking precendence over public service.