Lead the Way Tim

At the moment I am reading Bill Bryson's 'Note From a Big Country' which is really just a series of Blogs about the USA made into a book. Technically they are articles Bryson wrote for the 'Mail on Sunday' supplement in the '90's but they remind me of a Blog.  Bryson writes about the nonsensical, the quirky, the funny and the serious side of American life. He rants about bureaucracy, he examines the peculiarities of language and he talks about his home land with both affection and frustration. He gives the reader glimpses of his family life and comes across as a very nice, clever guy who sometimes thinks too much. And sometimes has too much time on his hands. Which is good for us readers because his idle thoughts sometimes become investigations into the whys and the hows that result in his many wonderful books.

Taking of idle thoughts is it OK to spend the whole day at home doing nothing? There has been a succession of bank holidays recently in which I did very little, other than celebrate the Royal Wedding at a friends 'wedding breakfast party' where we drank Bucks Fizz and ate Danish Pastries and oohed and ahhed over the dress and then, on following the Bank Holiday Monday, I spent the day on the Wey & Arun Canal. http://www.weyandarun.co.uk/hist1.php. I ask because I seem to have spent a lot of days at home recently shamefully doing nothing. Beautiful sunny days and I have steadfastly remained cocooned in my flat reading, listening to music, watching TV, spending time with my family and basically vegging out. Puts me in mind of the 'Lazy Song' if I was a teenage boy! Check out the impossibly cute Bruno Mars and this amusing little song -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLexgOxsZu0

While it is acceptable to have lazy days when you are young isn't it just a waste of time as you get older? I get cross with myself if I stay in bed too long at the weekend preferring to be up and about early and I begrudge the lost hours when I fall asleep at 9pm after a hard day at work. So the fact that I wasted a succession of sunny days makes me feel guilty. They may have been our summer!

Oh I forgot my eBay travels! I now know Essex like the back of my hand. Well Romford anyway. Ream! I take back everything I ever said about Sat Nav. What would I do without Tim, the kindly,
calm, authoritative yet slightly sexy male voice that never steers me wrong - not if I listen to him that is. He found all the places I have visited over the past few weeks and now I will have to relent and actually buy one as I really need to give this one back to its rightful owner. I will of course buy one from Ebay. And will insist it has a Tim. I was right about one thing though, I have lost my own internal navigation system - it was so fragile anyway that Tim has destroyed it with ease and now I can't find my way without him.

Back to the Wey & Arun Canal. I would never have found it if it wasn't for Tim. There is definitely something about being near water that makes me feel peaceful. As a child I always got so excited by my first glimpse of the sea when I went on holiday with my grandparents. As an adult,
taking my children to Cornwall for the first time, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of a truly bright blue sea in Newquay and then Looe, the sight of the sea meeting a lake will stay with me always. Lakes, rivers, canals all make me feel content. I wonder if that has anything to do with being born in a hospital situated on the side of the Thames and growing up a stones throw from its banks. The exception to this is the unease I feel whenever I see those streets up north, the ones with rows of small two up two down terraced houses and, at the end of the grim street is a grim river or sea. Whenever  I see these streets on the television (Liverpool springs to mind although when I went there the Mersey looked wonderful) I feel depressed. So much so that I have been unable to watch any more of the new detective series 'Vera' starring Brenda Blethyn. Set in Northumberland it is utterly depressing with ugly bleak scenery and an ugly bleak sea. It looks bloody awful up there and is obviously somewhere I will never ask Tim to take me. Getting back to beautiful water ways it is such a shame that some canals were abandoned, unfinished and filled in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Surrey_Canal. I had to park near the timber yard that was the beginning of the Grand Surrey Canal the other day and walk along the filled in canal which is now a walkway and cycle path. Strangely it retains the peace of a canal, even in a busy part of the city and is well used by commuters on their way to work.

eBay is a wonderful thing if you are looking for a bargain or have something to sell. That is if you are a private buyer/seller and are using it on a casual basis. Of course if you are selling or buying high value items there is a risk of being scammed but on the whole it seems to be a pretty good site. However it has grown at such a rate and is now big business and as such is subject to all sorts of rules and regulations such as Distance Selling Regulations and sellers are now ruthlessly monitored and judged. Of course a lot of what is going on is designed to route out the cowboys and scammers and ensure that the buyer can purchase with confidence but the pendulum seems to have swung too far the other way and sellers are being scrutinised to the nth degree. The sellers have something called Seller Performance which determines whether or not they can continue to sell and it doesn't seem to take much to make their SP enter the danger zone, just a couple of low ratings. Take a look at the Seller Central forum page on eBay to get an idea of the problems sellers face.

I may have been lucky as my experience so far has been painless and I always leave sellers positive feedback with high star ratings. If there ever was a problem I like to think that I would contact seller first before I would ever consider leaving negative feedback or scoring them low. Having read a few of these threads, the buyer is always right and sellers will bend over backwards to protect their SP ratings. So much so there are some unscrupulous buyers out there taking advantage of the situation. However if I buy a Sat Nav on eBay that sends me round and round in circles I may however feel differently!