A Small World or Balls Up at Blackhill

Yesterday (Tuesday) I had three tangible demonstrations of just how incompetent I am.
In my defence on Monday night I had been out watching the Badgers. Therefore in part I am offering a defence of tiredness (your lord ship). And while I think of it, and I had better use the thought before it gets lonely, I did get to see a Mole while out watching the Badgers.
I had planed on getting some sleep during the day, but a telephone call meant that I couldn't do that.

The caller was someone that I have been writing to for more than fourteen years, but I had never met before. I started writing to “The Professor” after reading an article that he had posted in a news group. It turned out that he genuinely was a climatologist working for one of the universities in Cambridge. That fact never stopped from giving him a hard time over some of the assumptions or his interpretation of the data looking at ice loss in the Antarctic All in a good humoured way I should add, but I have been signing off my mails by calling myself that pain in the butt (that's the clean version). He had been visiting Newcastle University and had made the time to visit as he hoped to see a Red Kite.

Now I knew that we had friends in common, as I know that he has worked with people I know. However, as he showed me some pictures of his last trip to Antarctica, he slipped in a couple that had been taken of me years ago. I asked him how he got them. He told me that his daughter had taken them. Well if he had a feather he could have floored me with it.

When my ex-wife and I first split up, I started to build a new circle of friends. One was a PHD student who was remarkable in so far as was one of the few people who had not only heard of Climate Change, but understood some of the science. Well the discovery that I had nearly been dating The Professors daughter was almost a Hommer Simpson moment in its self. But what really floored me was that she had been much more interested in me than I ever realised. However, as I now repeated to her farther, I was married at the time and while I was separated it would have been inappropriate to have started a relationship then.

And this is really the first demonstrations of just how incompetent I am, while I had thought about trying to contact her, when I knew I was single, I didn't even though I knew there was mutual interest.

As the professor and I went out to see if we could get a sighting of the Red Kites, we talked and I asked him if it had not been that his daughter knew me would he have come to meet me? And did she know you were meeting me? The answer was no on both counts. However, he said that a couple of years ago she had gone through a “messy” divorce and she had mentioned me only a few weeks previously, wondering what could have been. While making me feel uncomfortable I said that we can all think of events where we made choices and where we could all think of ourselves in different lives...

While in one of those awkward silences, not one but three Red Kites came over. I had chosen to take the Professor up to a ridge overlooking some fields, and it paid off. For a good five minutes we had a clear sighting of the birds. I was thrilled as I trained the video camera on them, I really thought that I was getting some great shots. It was not until I got home and tried to review the footage that I realised that I had been trying to film with the camera on pause! The second demonstrations of just how incompetent I am. But I got twenty minutes film of my legs and feet as I slogged up the hill!

When the Professor went he gave me a little gift, some sausages from his local farmers market. As I may have bored people with here before, I love trying sausages made by craft producers from quality food markets. So he had brought some as a gift.

Well while I do pride myself on my cooking skills, I think I must have left them by the Badger sett. I got out the griddle pan and switched on the wrong ring on the cooker to start with. I prepared the potatoes and Broccoli and then only put one pan on for both, this resulted in overcooking the potatoes. I did finally get my dinner cooked, but it was more Joe's Café effort than Gordon Ramsay meal. Well as things are supposed to happen in threes, I hope that I can get back to the illusion at least that I know what I'm doing now.

One last thing, I mailed the Professor, and told him that yes he could pass on my details to his daughter. She and I were good mates eighteen, nineteen years ago, but that she should only expect friendship now.

Its events like this that reminds me of how small our world really is. Further it shows that it only takes a woman to turn me in to a gibbering wreck.