Personal things you don't need to know

I spent holidays in Cornwall / England and I am travelling home today. I somehow must have collected bad Karma points, as somehow everything goes wrong on the way:
My train to London was almost canceled because there was an "incident" in the railtrack. Fortunately the track was cleared just in time and I arrived in London only 30 minutes late. I got to the airport in time and got on my plane to Frankfurt, Germany. Unfortunately there was a thunderstorm so that the plane had to wait for 45 minutes in London before departure. The delay meant that the 95 minutes that I had for changing the plane in Frankfurt melted down to 45 minutes. As I rushed through the airport (one of the largest in Europe) I was searched very thoroughly the the security. First time I had to take off my walking boots to have them checked. When I finally got to my gate it was only to discover that my flight to Bremen was cancelled on very short notice. By now it was 9.30 pm and there weren't many options of traveling onwards. As there were many passengers stranded in Frankfurt there were huge cues at the counters and on the link provided by the flight operator there weren't any hotel rooms available.
So I thought: be clever! and took a train at Frankfurt Airport which was supposed to bring me directly to Bremen. It was supposed to arrive in Bremen at 3.18 am (instead of the plane's scheduled arrival at 10.35 pm). "Supposed to" means that at the moment we're standing here in Düsseldorf and having done so for 60 minutes now. "Technical problems" that have to be investigated. As of now it is promised that the train continues its journey "in 5 minutes". If it does it'll be late 60 minutes. I'll take a taxi home from Bremen train station. Let's see what he has in store for me...

Edit: the train is on its way again. The stewardess said the technical problems don't prevent the continuation of the trip but added: "let's hope that the train will still take us through this night". Very reassuring.
 
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Oh. Deutsche Bahn. Yeah, their having LOTS of troubles now - mainly due to construction work. Their infrastructure had neen neglected far too long meanwhile the ministery responsible for it had nothing better to do than building more and more and more and more streets and motorhighways. Meanwhile neglecting bridges of any kinds as well. Nun haben wir den Salat. ("Now we have that mess." - idiom/proverb).

I think it was in December 2022 when after a concert in Essen / Ruhrgebiet) my train was sitting there in the middle of nowhere around 1 o'clock after midnight because something that was going on on the railway somewhere around Düsseldorf airport. We were never actually told what it was, and I don't even remember anymore at what time I got home. It must have been deep in the night / early morning.

Besides, meanwhile LOTS AND LOTS of very friendly Scots invaded Cologne because of the European Championship, almost all traffic in the Cologne main railway station broke down. I needed 2 hours to get home from work because of that ( I normally need 1- 1 1/2 hours getting home from work that way ). Partially because all of the Rhine and Ruhrgebiet area has railway constructions going on, and that even includes a few tram lines I normally need for getting home.
 
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Yeah, that wasn't enjoyable. It's a real pity because I really enjoy travelling by train but if every other trip ends up being late it's not fun anymore. At least the compensation rules are quite liberate and I will get a partial refund.

@Redglyph: Probably! I haven't been that sad about a vacation coming to an end like this time for quite a while. What a beautiful region it is, with good beer, cozy pubs and friendly people.
 
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Me, I'm finally thinking of going to Great Britain one day, too. I never did it, because in my one and only flight to London, my left ear was aching so much (you really can't imagine it) that I decided to never fly to Britain.
I somehow never had the idea to go to Great Britain via the Eurotunnel - by train. I really really really should have done it when England was still a member of the EU. It wold have been so much easier, then.
But, well, personal problems are gone for some time now, and things are much more stable now and now my focus shifts towards other regions to visit again.
And now I really really really want to visit London again, and, if possible, other regions as well, now via the Eurotunnel. There is so much I have missed since then.
From what I have read and seen, I like Great Britain very much. Now, that I've found a way to evade that pain (that ear has its problems), I want to see it.
Fun fact : By pure chance I once met the daughter of my "godmother" (German : "Patentante") in a bus, told her about this, and got as reply : "I have already done that." She then gave me a few tips about going by train with the Eurotunnel.
 
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While London may well be an interesting place to visit, and despite what Londoners would say, London is definitely NOT Great Britain, or even England!! :) You need to get out into the villages and countryside.
 
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While London may well be an interesting place to visit, and despite what Londoners would say, London is definitely NOT Great Britain, or even England!! :) You need to get out into the villages and countryside.
I learned that when I was in the Isle of Wight as a pupil, the journey of our English class. I instantly loved the Isle of Wight.
 
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It's been a while since I've posted, more than a month. I had decided to leave.

I was deeply disturbed by my exchange with SirJames ("It's incredible how - in 2024 - little you know about these things. And yet so fixed in your claims"). It seems like I really hurt him, and he hasn't showed up here after this. I can't handle that. So I decided to leave. But I've learned not to make hasty decisions, so I didn't ask to be deleted immediately, in case I changed my mind. Which I did.

One of my principles in life is that people are not stupid, they do stupid things, people are not evil, they do evil things and so on (There are exceptions). Translated to the watch this means "Attack the writing, not the writer" (and try to treat her/him with respect). It's also why I don't have an ignore list. All (nearly?) ignore list candidates also have (occasionally) interesting things to say.

However, I'm no saint, I've definitely not obeyed it on occasion, and this was one of those occasions. Now, mr James himself isn't exactly diplomatic, but that's beside the point. I don't have to, don't want to copy that.

There is another factor. At the moment I'm deep down in an unusually severe episode of depression. Everything is a chore, absolutely nothing is fun, not even games (not even BG3 which I bought recently). NB! - no reason to feel sorry for me. I'm quite used to it, I know it will only last for a couple of months and I'm not suicidal (and I have people taking care of me, privately and professionally). But it makes me more vulnerable.

pibbuR who is not leaving after all, but probably won't be very active here for some time.
 
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We can all display poor judgement at times, especially when fatigued or otherwise not fully ourselves, tis always best to take a step or two back then and reassess. Haste, at times, can only make things even worse.
 
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Some good news and bad news

Bad news:
I signed up for 1 month free ultimate gamepass subscription. Tried for some reason to install Diablo 4, and was told my profile didn't allow it, I had to get an adult signing in for me.

Good news:
I signed up for 1 month free ultimate gamepass subscription. Tried for some reason to install Diablo 4, and was told my profile didn't allow it, I had to get an adult signing in for me.

pibbuR who enjoyed the feeling of being young again. As long as it lasted (it's installed now, and he did not ask the wife's permission).
 
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Hilarious but I do remember reading the GamePass plans were changing.

In order to play Day one/exclusive releases they created another tier.
 
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Temperature (according to car) +276K (aka +3C, don't mention the silly scale used in lesser developed countries). And possibly - also according to car - ice on the road. Heavy rain promised as well (according to meteorologist@yr.no). I'm in heaven!

BTW: Some wind, but no hurricanes.

pibbuR who in principle doesn't mind getting wet. When outside.
 
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Temperature (according to car) +276K (aka +3C, don't mention the silly scale used in lesser developed countries). And possibly - also according to car - ice on the road. Heavy rain promised as well (according to meteorologist@yr.no). I'm in heaven!

BTW: Some wind, but no hurricanes.

pibbuR who in principle doesn't mind getting wet. When outside.
Autumn icy rains with a little wind, yummy! Here, we're working hard to beat your impressive rain record of 3 m/year. I think we have a chance to at least get in the same league.

It's not motivating to work in the garden in those conditions, though (excuses, always excuses).
 
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Breaking in a new cat (not literally).

Yesterday, after being without feline company for 1 1/2 year, we got one from the animal protection service, one of the many rescued from somewhere and needing a new home. Approximately 3 years old (we can't know for sure, of course). She has spent around a year in a foster home.

She's naturally pissed at being removed from known space, and has gone into hiding. Somewhere in our living room. But eventually she will get used to us, and when she does (according to foster parents) she'll definitely be a "laptop" and love being cuddled.

Pictures are for practical reasons not available at the moment.

I want to continue my plan of naming our cats after programming languages. Our until now penultimate cat was Pascal. This one - I suppose C or C++ is out of the question - most likely (and there's a small chance the wife will accept it) will be called "Sequel".

pibbuR
 
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Temperature (according to car) +276K (aka +3C, don't mention the silly scale used in lesser developed countries). And possibly - also according to car - ice on the road. Heavy rain promised as well (according to meteorologist@yr.no). I'm in heaven!

BTW: Some wind, but no hurricanes.

pibbuR who in principle doesn't mind getting wet. When outside.
According to my sources, on Thursday we'll get 120 mm (4.7 inches) rain from 00:00 to 24:00. If we're lucky.

pibbuR who will definitively go outside for this.
 
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