The Banes of my Life

As Phanee hasn't posted this week (at least while I am typing this on Thursday evening), it looks like Anne and I will have to think up a suitable punishment. Good look, Phanne.

Anyway, I have some pet peeves to talk to you about. This isn't really a phrase we use in the UK, as far as I'm aware, so my definition of the phrase is coming from an old episode of Friends and an understanding drawn from Anne's post. Basically, pet peeves are things which annoy us, right? I guess I can take a stab at this...

One thing which annoys me is when I come home after a day out or whatever and find a little note from the post man telling me that I have a package that went undelivered. This would not have made it onto the list were it not for the fact that this happened to me today. It's only really annoying because I have to wait to pick it up instead of just going straight over considering the depot is only down the road. Grr...

Okay, so things which actually annoy enough for me to pick them from the top of my head. Hmm... Definitely the weather, specifically weather in Manchester because OMGFWUBHJDSC WHY?! Just why?! It seems to always be raining, or if it's not raining then it's windy or the air is suspiciously moist despite the lack of fog. Do you know what this means for my hair? It means that all my hair straightening was for nothing and I` then get to look like a fool for the rest of the day. 

Another pet peeve definitely has to be sick people. And by that I mean people who have a cold and act like they're on their death bed. I get colds and I live with it, I don't even take paracetamol unless I have an exam or something the same day. I just get on with my life, but then you have those people who get a runny rose and behave like they've been shot in the arm - and boy do they insist on letting you know about whatever is ailing them. 

I'll just go now, because I could list annoying things for hours, but being the kind soul I am, I'll leave you all alone now. Bye.

P.S. Phanee, let us know you're still alive :)

The End is Nigh... But Not Really

Apparently I live in the tamest place in the world because natural disasters really don't happen in England - we just get the occasional natural inconvenience. Now don't get me wrong because I obviously prefer my house standing rather than it being a crumpled mass on the ground, but it is a little boring. 

Phanee mentioned that England only gets an earthquake every decade or so, but I beg to differ. At least once a year I am asked if I felt 'it' last night. Usually I respond with 'no' and have to ask what 'it' is. They are earthquakes usually and they seem to creep up only in the middle of the night and don't move so much as a feather, but they do happen. And ever few years they even get reported on the news. 

We don't get tornado's like Tornado Alley does, either, but we do have our own mediocre version of a plastic bag blowing in a circle in the wind. It may not be impressive, but it's the closest we get to a natural disaster. 

What we do get a lot of here is flooding. I can use my geography knowledge now, because I took that last year, and say that it happens as a result of urbanisation as the surface run off water at times of high precipitation has nowhere to go but on land because we've plastered everywhere up with concrete so that the earth can't absorb any moisture. I am actually I surprised that I managed to retain that information. So yes, we get floods. Not me, the largest body of water near me is a canal and I've never heard of one of those flooding, but England does flood a lot in places with stupid names like Cockermouth. 

I have to say that despite how much I complain about the wind and rain we get, particularly in Manchester, things aren't really as bad as it could be if I lived elsewhere. My geography teacher told me that geographically speaking, the UK is one of the most stable and safe countries to live in because of wind patterns and whatnot. I wasn't really listening so I don't remember properly, but yes. 

Disaster! Or not?

So Phanee wants us to talk about natural disasters. This is kind of convenient, since I live in the middle-ish of Tornado Alley. Actually, not so convenient - my oldest recurring nightmare is of being stuck outside during a tornado and not being able to get away (inevitably while I was on a picnic with my grandparents... go figure!).

For the most part, my area isn't particularly known for natural disasters. There are no mountains to be volcanoes, it's a swamp so wildfires are unheard of, and we're too far from the coast to get hurricanes (though we do get the leftover rain, which makes getting anywhere without swimming through puddles rather difficult). We get the occasional earthquake rattle, but only from earthquakes that have focal points several hundred miles away - most of the time nobody notices until they mention it on the news. Even true blizzards are rare, though more common than the rest of that stuff. I'm pretty sure the last real blizzard on record was in like 1972 or something. But what we do have a lot of are tornadoes.

Basically, for those who don't know, what happens to form a tornado is the upper level of clouds in a thunderstorm begin swirling due to updrafts and crossed wind currents, and well, a bunch of technical stuff. Anyway, when the wind shear gets to a certain point, the clouds begin to form a funnel. If the funnel actually touches the ground, then it's considered a tornado.

Now, I personally have not been near a tornado. There have been several, some pretty devastating, in the areas around us, but they never got close enough to be really threatening. But, just about every thunderstorm we have in the summer, the weather forecasters get out their fancy-dancy shear detectors and show us exactly where each tornado COULD happen. In all honestly maybe 1 in every hundred touches down, but each storm there seems to be at least 5 potential points where we could MAYBE have a natural disaster.

My life sounds so tame, doesn't it?