A Bit Angry

 Cop 26, what a joke!  Heads of state from all over the world flying in for two days with all their entourage and in the American Presidents case - a massive petrol guzzling car and about a million secret service agents to talk to the world about carbon emissions and saving the planet!  Our city roads have been gridlocked because huge swathes of the city is closed to the public and I'm not just talking about the immediate area of the conference - the whole of the expressway - the main artery to the north side of the city is closed it's whole length for the two week duration, whole streets near the area are closed there are armed police at every possible entry way to the area and I've never seen so many police vans, bikes, cars as there are just now.  Today on my way to the hospital the main motorway through the city was a virtual car park for several miles and in among it all I passed a row of 8 police vans in a row - I assume a vip had been escorted to the airport and they were on the way back or they wouldn't have sat in the jam!  Then to add to it there are all these people from all over the UK (and possibly beyond) marching through the streets using flares (I've no idea why except to reduce our air quality!) and apparently turning corners at random.  Other marches would not be able to do that so I can only assume there were not enough police left over to police this.   How is this all saving our planet?  All these leaders will go home and they have to face re election at some point and I'll bet if the environment is a game changer for them, it will get dropped like a hot potato.  All I see in this is a huge PR event - all talk and little action.  Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe we do need to clean up our act but I don't think this is the way to do it.  Bringing a busy city to a grinding halt to host a load of windbags does not seem very planet friendly to me.  I'm pretty sure our air quality during this has dropped dramatically due to all the traffic trying to find an alternative route and sitting for long periods in traffic jam.  To be honest, if it weren't for my mum being in the hospital, Cop26 wouldn't have affected me in the least but having sat in several jams and taken much much longer to travel to where I had to be I'm annoyed.  Traffic jams when there is an accident or road works etc don't bother me in the least, but traffic jams for this kind of thing and for football traffic etc annoy the heck out of me!  Rant over!

I had a bit of an arguement with the hospital last night too!  My mum phoned me at 5pm last night to tell me she was getting moved to another hospital on the north of the city (we live south of the city)  As above, getting from one side of the city to the other is nigh on impossible at the moment but that all aside, we'd been told she was probably getting home today so why would they move her for one night.  The poor nurse I called got it.  I wasn't cheeky but I was very firm that I did not want her moved.  Not only could we not visit her, she'd be in a ward with other people (currently in a room of her own), she'd be ages going across the city in an ambulance during rush hour and again, see above for crazy road situation why on earth does it make sense to waste the ambulance time and mess up a bed for one night when she's likely to get home the next day!  The nurse said my mum had said it was ok and I said, well at 87 of course she'd say ok to you, she's not going to argue with you.   Go and ask her again and tell me if her answer is the same.  She did, it wasn't!  She said she didn't want to move this time.  The nurse spoke to the bed manager and thankfully they let her stay!  I took in some chocolates that night as bribery and corruption and told the nurses that was what it was for!!  At least they laughed.  However by 4pm today we'd still not heard if she was coming home so I decided I was waiting no longer as I was sure they'd call me to get her right at the rush hour and the road was bad enough at that time so I was glad I went.  So, all is well for now.  Mum got home, my brother took her in a fish supper which she asked for and she's looking forward to watching her favourite program on telly tonight before having an early night with her blanket on!  She said she felt quite cold in the hospital and I must admit it didn't feel as hot as it used to.  I'm not even going to start on our energy crisis!!

I'm really really looking forward to a few 'normal' days now.  A few days where I don't have to drive across town, where I can just spend the day at home and not worry about having to go out later.  I will have to go to mums at some point for the next few days until she's fully on her feet, but thats a 5 minute trip up a quiet road so it won't be a problem.  It's the small things in life that you appreciate sometimes isn't it.