Mr Grumpy Pants

Now – I know that regular readers may find this difficult to comprehend, given my normal sweet nature – but throughout this last week my mood has been distinctly – how shall I put it – tetchy!

Looking back to this time last year – as illustrated by this less than temperate post – it should be apparent that this is, to an extent, an annual phenomenon. Granted that last August was in many ways exceptional (the Kickass Canada Girl had just gone back to Canada and I was feeling abandoned and overwhelmed) it has to be said these last few days before the start of the new academic year are always fraught with difficulty. The teaching staff – having disappeared for the entire summer – pitch up again with all manner of last minute demands and requests just at our busiest time of the year. This time around we have also suffered from an apparent lack of planning and forethought (on the part of others!) which caused us to sit twiddling our thumbs (metaphorically at least) for the first part of the summer, followed latterly by a mad dash to execute a variety of complex projects for which it is far too late for there to be any reasonable hope of completion before the new term starts.

This makes me grumpy – which in turn leads to my behaviour towards others falling short of the standards to which I normally aspire. This culminated yesterday in what might be considered a mild incidence of ‘road rage’.

There is a point on my weary journey home at which a bottleneck on the motorway that I use – two lanes merging into one – inevitably causes the traffic to bunch and to slow down. The queue of vehicles shuffles forward sluggishly at this point – merging in turn in the accepted fashion (accepted in the UK at any rate!).

Or at least – that is what usually happens. Yesterday I was in the outside of the two lanes and I duly let the inside car go first and then moved to follow. The next driver in the inner lane – half a car-length behind me – had other ideas and proceeded to muscle his way forward preventing me from completing my maneuver. Forced to stop unexpectedly I glared at this inconsiderate automobilist, throwing my hands heavenwards in that time honoured gesture that is recognised the world over as meaning – “What the f*ck?”!

Normal behaviour on the part of the offender at this point is to make a show of not even being aware of one’s presence. In this case – to the contrary – the aggressor wound down his window and glared back – making gestures of his own and mouthing what I can only imagine to have been language of an ultramarine hue. He then proceeded to drive in what can only be described as a menacing manner – sometimes hovering in front of me, sometimes rather too close behind – in a fashion that suggested he was just waiting for me to come to a halt so that he might have an opportunity to leap from his motor to beat the cr*p out of me. Fortunately he had to turn off the motorway before I did, and I did not see him again.

Not pleasant – and not my doing, though I have no doubt that my mood probably exacerbated the situation.

The truth is that I do know – deep down – at least part of the reason for my present petulant frame of mind. Had our original scheme come to fruition as intended I would by now be retired and we would be busy establishing our new life in Victoria. Instead of which I find myself dragging my weary bones towards the start of another arduous academic year.

The Girl was sympathetic. “Go to work – ya hippie!”, she explained.

She had a point…