I only ask because I'm a nosey individual. For me it's a bit of both. Things that would have annoyed me in the past no longer do in a "getting angry at that is pointless" sort of way. Other things, however, really twist my melon. Yes that's a phrase.
A few years ago we were in a car park of a French supermarket in the days when you crammed your car full of stuff ( there's that word again) before returning to Blighty.
Anyway we were really stuffing stuff (see I can use the word in a number of contexts) into the front of the car with the other threequarters and two young sons in the back. She may only have been the other half at that point.
Two melons we had put on top in the front suddenly decided to go for a walk and rolled out of the car to which the other half shouted "I've lost my melons. They are rolling over the car park" or something similar. I have no idea why people started to laugh.
But I digress and I know some of you enjoy my digressions.
I think I'm showing decided signs of grumpy old man syndrome. We all seem to have to have a syndrome nowadays and that's mine. Some of the things that make me grumpy.
Parking on pavements so people in wheelchairs and with buggies can't get past.
Crowds in general (a feeling of claustrophobia here).
Talentless people becoming famous through reality shows when genuinely talented people get nowhere.
Simon Cowell.
Arrogant people (Simon Cowell).
Casualty and EastEnders - an awful lot of blood and shouting.
Scammers.
People talking into mobiles on public transport - I really don't want to know what they are having for dinner.
Norwich city losing, although this is now something I'm becoming accustomed to.
People like me who subject readers to travelogues, talking of which, here we go with the next leg.
*. *. *
In the words of the immortal bard Sir Paul Simon .
I'm sittin in a railway station
Got a ticket for my destination
So I'm writing this in Faro Railway Station on the Algarve in Portugal. Many years ago we holidayed on the Algarve and enjoyed it. We may even have visited Faro itself but I have to say the railway station is a dump as we spent a couple of hours waiting for the train to Lisbon.
We left Seville by coach on a three hour drive to Faro which was pleasant enough. We had time to kill at Faro so had some strange food on the station. There's an awful lot of mush that gets cycled in the name of food. Sometimes you just have to eat it if you are so damned hungry.
The Paul Simon song I quoted above is Homeward Bound and along with Sound of Silence contains some of Simon's most perceptive lyrics.
I like to think of myself as something of a writer (that's wishful thinking I hear you say) and the words of Homeward Bound sum up what it is like to write.
But all my words come back to me
In shades of mediocrity
My great hero Harry Chapin came up with a similar idea and similar lines, albeit in a slightly more pithy way, in his song "Story of a Life."
"Now sometimes words can serve me well
And sometimes words can go to hell
for all that they do."
There was another example in the railway buffet of finding out what's going on in a person's life irrespective of whether you want to or not.
A few yards away from us was an English guy talking very loudly into his mobile about the fact his wife has just been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and spends the day staring into space. I felt sorry for him but really didn't want to know that. It was his private business but he was talking so loud it was impossible not to hear what he was saying. Perhaps he wanted us to hear, but more likely he just forgot there was anyone else around.
The train journey to Lisbon was almost four hours and not a coffee trolley in sight.
Read a website stating how easy the ticket machines for the Lisbon Metro system were to operate. No problem. We knew what tickets we needed and everything went swimmingly until we tried to pay by card and it kept cancelling the transaction. It did the same for the guy behind. Machines are fine when they work but when they don't they are useless. We ended up having to do the transaction through a human being. Now wasn't that an original idea?
There seems to be a lack of escalators on the Lisbon Metro and so I had to jump the case up and down several flights of steps.
When we found our room it was miniscule. No room for the case and you couldn't swing a cat in it although why anyone would want to swing a cat I have no idea.
The temperature in Lisbon is over 10 degrees cooler than Seville. First impressions of the place are disappointing and not at all favourable. Perhaps it will grow on me but I think we have already been spoiled by falling in love with Seville. More tomorrow.