To those tired of Winter, March has a much more appealing ring than February. Except that this year February has been such a stunning month that March can only be a disappointment. My month got off to a bad start when the postman knocked, wanting a signature for one of those letters that you just know are going to be bad news. My job requires me to spend a lot of time driving hire cars in Europe. There is now a pretty efficient system (in most countries) for tracking down the drivers of rental machines that have offended the law. I confess that I have, once or twice, received letters from Germany or Holland politely requesting that I part company with ridiculously large quantities of money as recompense for that moment of fun/frustration/lack of awareness when I may have inadvertently crept over the legal speed limit. This morning’s correspondence had a slip attached saying that I should acknowledge receipt by returning said slip to somewhere in the Netherlands. As I haven’t been in Holland for well over a year this gave me hope that it was either a case of misidentification, or it was a missive from the Euromillions Lottery telling me that I’d got the ‘Big One’. In fact, as I haven’t driven anywhere in Europe for well over six months, it had to be the latter…..surely? Unfortunately, upon opening, the letterhead read ‘Provincia di Brescia’, which I happened to know was where the Italian Open had been played last June, an event at which I had commentated….and driven. Sure enough, a mere nine months later the highly efficient Italian Police require me to cough up Euro 59.20 for doing 102.4 kph in a 90 kph limit. That’s the equivalent of 63.6 mph in a 56 mph limit. I am actually struggling to write, so overwhelmed am I with guilt and gratitude for the efficiency of the Italian State in allowing me this opportunity to make a significant dent in their mind-boggling National debt. My only concern is whether they will still be in the Euro by the time I pay this on Monday. Indeed will the Euro still exist? Will Italy? Will Europe? Will there be anything for Britain to Brexit? Our news media is so fixated on Brexit that we don’t hear too much about what’s happening on the other side of The Channel, but by all accounts it’s an unholy mess.
You will no doubt have seen, or heard reports of, the fire in Ashdown Forest, AA Milne’s inspiration for Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood, as the unseasonably dry weather creates problems more often associated with August. It brought to mind the first poem I ever learnt from”Now we are Six”, which I had to stand up in front of my class as a six year old and recite. I’ve never forgotten it.
“If I were John and John were me, he’d be six and I’d be three. If John were me and I were John, I wouldn’t have these trousers on”. I was so nervous doing it, I think I needed clean trousers afterwards anyway. Now I do it for a living…..and still get nervous.
Where’s John…..
ADayInTheStrifeOf 