Teatime Gridlock

Another grey Monday morning, with housework to do after breakfast, and then digital housekeeping with new booking dates to add to the calendar, and a clean-up of my Chromebook for optimal efficiency and speed. The trouble with doing this is that you have to re-enter all your Google account sign ins and jump through their security hoops, which is time consuming. So, better to do this when I'm not eager to get on with work.

There were photos in the news of two Banksy stencil graffiti work which have appeared recently on walls of bomb damaged ruins in a town outside Kyiv. One depicts a young gymnast dancing, the other is of a young lad in judo dress throwing a large man wearing a black belt with Putin's face. An amazing political artistic statement, bound to give Ukrainians the encouragement and recognition they need to persist in the costly struggle to liberate their country. President Zelensky visited the newly liberated town of Kherson today for a morale boosting speech and photo opportunity, declaring this victory was the beginning of the end for the Russian invasion. A bold and risky gesture to make considering that the city is within range of front line Russian artillery.

Banksy and his team give such an imaginative prophetic insight into contemporary moral and social concerns, often mocking the art world's obsession with wealth and status. The ancient prophets were poets of the word, using the language of metaphors, conjuring up images to make their point. Banksy and co just use images that speak louder than many words. What a gift to our image conscious era.

We had mussels with cauliflower and rice for lunch, then I went for a walk in the park before driving to Newport for another osteo treatment by Kay. I left in what I thought was good time and drove as far as the junction with Cardiff Road on Penhill. The traffic was heavy but moving, but stopped completely just as I was about to turn right in the middle of the road, with another car in front of me, both of us blocking the traffic flow both ways as a result. There was no alternative but to drive straight on, turn around as soon as I could and rejoin the traffic queue, this time turning left. This way I lost ten minutes, and arrived at Kay's place ten minutes late. 

Traffic congestion locally is getting worse with commuters to and from the centre and the Bay needing to go through Llandaff to get to new suburban housing estates now being occupied on the north west of the city limits. There seems to be no infrastructure improvement plan in place to alleviate the growing traffic problem. Additional rail capacity from Radyr is said to be coming, but this won't meet all requirements for people living several miles from the railways station there.

Anyway, the treatment and conversation with Kay did me good and I was back home in time for supper. I started watching a couple of programmes about Ancient Egypt after we'd eaten, but missed part of the first after falling asleep, relaxed by the treatment. Cue for early bed, I think