The Friday Feeling

You'd expect that Friday would bring joy and jubilation to the average working man. A day away from two days of bliss, without work, or early mornings, or stress.

Well aside from the fact that I only suffer from one of the three, this isn't a great Friday. One look out of the window is testament to that.

I have my posh Sennheiser earphones in my ears today. I'm not even listening to anything at the moment, but it's all I can do to drown out the booming thunderstorm outside.

Only a few weeks after the government told us what to do in a heatwave, we are hours away from Huw Edwards telling us about a rural town that used to be near a river, now becoming a rural town in the middle of a river.

We are constantly being ridiculed for not being able to cope in any weather conditions, but this is because we are stuck in an area where the weather conditions are never predictable. In six months we have had temperatures in the 30s, 2 inches of rain in a day, and 3 feet of snow.

It's no wonder we struggle, and no wonder we complain.

"The government is not doing enough to help rural towns cope with the lack of rain/too much rain/snow/ice".

"When we bought this house by the river, we were told this river never floods."

In other news, I read that kid's authors are boycotting schools because they don't want to be subject to the same child protection regulations as everyone else. I'm not entirely sure why they have such a problem with this; everyone else who goes within 10 yards of a school has to go through this ridiculous routine, so I don't see why Phillip Pullman should be any different.

This scheme costs £64. I think he can afford it. And besides, it's only applicable if they spend a lot of time with the same children.

Having said that, if he's in a school by a river today, he might find himself spending the weekend with them, waiting for Farmer Giles in his tractor to turn up.