Another mild sunny day. I slept for nearly eight hours, and woke up with a stiff neck that took a long time to ease. I prepared the liturgical texts for next Sunday, and sent them out, and did a preliminary edit of the next Sway edition - my eighth. Then some housework, before cooking a chickpea and veggie stew for our lunch. After we'd eaten I relaxed for a while, then went for a walk.
When I got to the junction of Llanfair Road with Penhill Road, I was pleased to see a fresh painted yellow hatched box on the road, and some additional lane direction arrows up at the junction with Llandaff. When I went out for a walk yesterday afternoon, a man who wasn't in work clothes was positioning 'no parking' traffic cones around the junction corners. They had been replaced by double yellow lines earlier today.
It's strange that the bus lane markings were done on September 1st, and the rest of the road markings have been added after five weeks. When driving in or out of Llanfair Road over that period, the lack of a full set of road markings has made me nervously extra vigilant, not being sure of when the bus lane (although not yet operative) turns into a shared traffic lane, and whether the inside lane is both for turning left and going straight on. Correct road markings remove the ambiguity which no driver needs on a busy road. Didn't anyone think of that when deciding to make this a two stage job? Even if there have been no accidents as a consequence, the risk has been higher. I realised this afternoon what a relief it is for the road to look the way it needs to, for safety's sake.
On my circuit of the Fields I came across eight dumped drinks containers, glass and plastic bottles and cans and some plastic food wrappers which I escorted to the bin. There aren't enough bins in the parks and some of them are rarely filled. The number of drink containers dumped within fifty feet of a bin made me wonder if they're invisible to people. Then it occurred to me that bins are all decorated in green Council livery, would it be better if they weren't dark green against a green grass background? Pale blue, grey or red would stand out better, and maybe lead to increased usage.
After supper, I watched a couple of episodes of 'The Fall' on BBC iPlayer, featuring Gillian Anderson as a senior detective in a multiple murder investigation in Belfast. I last saw her playing a Russian aristocrat in a costume drama a few years ago. Now she's back playing an investigator again 30 years after she starred in the ridiculous long running 'X Files' series, still looking great and filling a more senior role now with credibility in a dark and sinister crime drama.
In Israel/Palestine the death toll continues to mount with a thousand air strikes today and the threat of land invasion of Gaza to come. Vengeance heaped upon vengeance, one side as cruel and ruthless as the other. Three millennia of history keeps on repeating itself, without lessons being learned. That's how long there has been tension and conflict between Jews and Arabs over the land of Canaan. How can that be changed? Outbreaks of anti-Semitic reaction are occurring around the world, stirred up by fools who think this is going to help secure freedom and land rights for Arabs in Palestine. There are only losers in the absence of a deep change of heart on all sides.
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