The knees, the horrible knees!

It’s been hot this weekend. How hot? Really hot. So hot, the cats have been sleeping in the fridge. So hot, rail tracks warped, bringing train travel to a grinding halt across the South East*.

So hot, I’ve been wearing shorts. In public.

Under these conditions, of course, things go wrong. Little-known fact: this is why Hell is commonly depicted as a blazing furnace. It’s nothing to do with the agonies of burning flesh – physical pain is a mere shadow of the psychic pain that comes from Things Going Wrong, consistently but unpredictably, in ways that resist contingency planning. Temperatures rise, tempers fray, and implacable cosmic laws come into play: there will be engineering works on the line, there will be meetings missed and deliveries cancelled, and of course there will be airconditioning breakdowns, furthering the cycle of decay.

This was my weekend.

Friday. The plan: movies with a friend. The screw-up: babysitter cancelled.

Saturday. The plan: exploring Richmond by bike. The screw-up: newly delivered bikes, once assembled, proved to be leprechaun-sized.

Sunday. The plan: a long walk out in the countryside. The multipart screw-up: missed the once-an-hour train by one minute; missed the Plan B train by a bit more; concocted Plan C, only to find that due to engineering works on the line (obviously), we would need to take a succession of trains to our destination, none of which could be guaranteed to arrive in anything like reasonable time – so we could expect to be at least three hours late. We chose to graciously give up instead.

However, this being the mortal plane and not Hades, these various screw-ups all had a happy ending. Instead of movies, we had a chat in the baby-bound friend’s garden. Instead of cycling, we had a surprise delivery of plants and a mellow afternoon in our own garden. Instead of a country walk, we had a wander in Battersea Park and (eventually, after further public transport-related screw-ups) yet another mellow garden afternoon. All of which were very pleasant, and even productive, since we got to stick plants in the ground, and can now justifiably call our patch a “garden”, rather than “that weedridden bit of scrub out back”.

I think the Universe may be trying to teach me flexibility. Or possibly practical ecology.

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* The authorities actually feared this might happen back in 2003, as I recall, and imposed a speed limit on trains, thus adding “the wrong kind of sun” to the list of problems faced by British Rail. UK readers will already know this; non-UK readers unfortunately won’t get the joke. Trust me, though, it’s funny.