Time for a new gadget?

As anyone who knows me can testify I love gadgets and web widgets of all shapes and sizes. For instance on a working day I rarely leave the house in the morning without having checked the weather page, the rain radar and the train times with a passion verging on the obsessive/compulsive so imagine my joy when I found out that TFL are providing live bus times from a bus stop of your choice! All you have to do is head to http://countdown.tfl.gov.uk/ and stick in your postcode and it will let you select the nearest bus stop, like the example shown below:.

It's almost a shame that I rarely need to get a bus, but perhaps you might find it useful!

Making water run uphill.

Seriously nice thunderstorm this morning. Brinkster Minor had woken up early this morning so we had the full pleasure of it but if anybody was hoping to go to Sainsburys at the top of the hill it's closed because of flooding. Quite how you flood something at the top of the hill I'm not sure but you'll have to go elsewhere for your eggs and bread until they mop it up.

For those with a meteorological slant here was the weather radar at 6am this morning.

Snow more puns

Just how many weather-related puns can a guy get through in one week!?!? There are limits to even my literary endurance, though thankfully commuting-wise the trains have been fine since Wednesday so I haven't had to resort to strange and tortuous routes to get to or from work. Parts of the pavements on Brinkley Road are still dangerous underfoot but these kind of conditions are the only ones where you're allowed to walk down the middle of the road without having people thinking you're some kind of "Care In The Community" reject.

Once again Metcheck and the Met Office disagree about how much snow/sleet/rain we're going to see today (some v none) so we'll have to see how it goes, though Monday night's looking potentially nasty although perhaps too warm for snow.

There's not been much happening in Worcester Park this week that isn't snow-related but those of you who remember the, currently closed, Huntsmans Hall's past as a Punch Tavern may be amused by the manner of the closure of another Punch Tavern in Oxford for, you've guessed it already, underage drinking. It seems like the local teens revelled in their lawlessness by, ermm, posting it on the internet for all to see. The Oxford Mail takes up the story:
"A pub has been shut down after police spotted teenagers bragging about boozing in the bar on an Internet site. Police launched an investigation into the Black Bull, in Kidlington, after being handed photographs showing youngsters posing with bottles of alcopops on social networking site Bebo. The teenagers posted messages on the site celebrating how they could get away with drinking in the pub – even though they were underage."

Ce n'est pas Le Kitchen

Pardon the schoolboy French but I noticed when driving past Le Kitchen (middle of photo above) yesterday that it has been reincarnated as "Bombay Masala", and looks very nice too. I really ought to give it a try as I've heard good things about it but we haven't got round to it as yet as the Munal and Meghna are both closer. I don't know if the makeover means that it's changed hands or just had a revamp.

With the weather as cold as it has been surely only a lunatic would be found playing football on a freezing cold Saturday in January wouldn't they?!?!? Ermm..... Well actually Brinkster Minor wanted to make use of the new facilities in the park in Longfellow Road so we braved the sub-zero temperatures to have a good kickabout. The nice smooth tarmac is great but has the side effect of letting the ball wander downhill as the site slopes down away from the road... not that the ball was stationary for that long with Brinkster Minor on the loose!


Has anybody else been to the Kimpton Park Way Recycling centre? It was gloriously quiet this weekend during the course of my three visits to the site (early spring cleaning!) unlike the normal carnage of the summer months but I was disturbed to see the workers on site sifting through the bins with a rake and pulling out anything that took their interest. I've seen them at it before (together with sharing round unsavoury images/videos on their phones) but on Saturday I saw one of the workers come up with a Man United pencil case he thought he could get a couple of quid for and other stuff too so I began to wonder what else they might have found... makes me want to make trebly sure I've shredded anything of potential interest before I put it in the rubbish.

Weather Alert!

I was somewhat disturbed yesterday to read Metcheck's prediction for Saturday's weather:

They seem to have changed their collective minds this morning but I did spend a minute wondering how weather like that would change the Worcester Park scenery.

I hope you all survived, or even enjoyed, Christmas!?!? We went off to "Narfuk" for a bit of relative-spotting but have been happy to return to the relative sanity of Worcester Park... Much happen while we were away?

Whom to believe?

As the countdown to the Worcester Park Traders Association Late Night Event creeps down below the 10 hour mark the excitement mounts, certainly in the Brinkster household, towards what should be a great evening of fun and shopping. Assuming the technology works I'm hoping to blog live throughout the Brinkster Clan visit to the event so if you're not able to be there then I'll get some photos and the like up on here for you and via Flickr (and keep an eye on the Twitter feed on the left as well).

With all such events it's proven a time to be stereotypically British and indulge in the kind of detailed weather-related speculation that's normally more appropriate to, say, an RAF sortie.

Unfortunately the two main sources of weather forecasts seem diametrically opposed in their predictions of whether it'll be raining tonight with Metcheck having changed their mind since yesterday and now saying there'll be 3mm of heavy sleet while BBC Weather, and by inference the Met Office, believe that the light rain will have cleared up by 6pm. I'll be keeping an eye on the Met Office Rainfall Radar (see below) for something more accurate than the contradications above.


See you on Central Road this evening!

Looking better!

The unpredictable priests of meteorological prognostication have relented in their poor predictions for tomorrow's weather and Metcheck now forecasts a maximum of 0.1mm through the course of the evening, which even the most rain-averse shouldn't have a problem with. Do stock your pockets full of cash and come along to Central Road tomorrow night prepared to part with it and enjoy an evening of Christmas fun with fellow Worcester Park-ies and our local traders.

Moving on, I notice that Cafe Piccolo now has part of the shop open as a cafe serving coffee, snacks and the like for those who don't want a full meal. The staggering part is that it was open when I went to work this morning and according to the sign on the door it opens at 6am!!! The lovely Costa doesn't open its doors until 7am I believe and I'm usually on a train by then so it's tempting to go into Cafe Piccolo on the way to the station just because I can :)

This post was brought to you by the letter "p".

Into every life a little rain must fall.......

I was trying to get from Brinkster Central in Worcester Park to Kingston during the storm last night and it seems like my instinct to bypass Central Road was well-founded, according to the Sainsbury's delivery man who arrived a while afterwards. Instead I went to North Cheam and then along and up Grand Drive to Raynes Park and through New Malden, which took no time at all. At the weekend we came all the way back round the M25 from Knebworth on Saturday afternoon and the only place we got stuck on the whole journey was from the A3 to Worcester Park......... inevitable really.

Anyway, as far as the forecast goes it looks like last night's storm may only be the warm-up act for tomorrow:

If that's anything like accurate then I might be coming home by hovercraft.

The new Worcester Park Life magazine is out and can be found in a Worcester Park store near you or on t'internet here. Worcester Park (blog not suburb) has his monthly musings on page 40 and 41 and I was asked to make a last-minute contribution about charity scams, which can be found on page 8.

And as for why Mrs Brinkster ended up in a hotel last Friday night I can say that Ann has come closest to unlocking the story but Matty and Jezz can wash their mouths out with soap!! Honestly.....

In case you hadn't noticed

It's snowing.

The Brinksters are already back from a foray out to Nonsuch Park and the little Brinksters are now parked in front of a blazing fire with the Peter Pan movie on the TV. It didn't seem to be settling on the roads or pavements much first thing this morning:

But no such problem in the park!!

Has to be the most snow we've had in years!!