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Location: Blogs Simon and Melody's Blog |
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| Posted by: supersi |
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 |
I recently found a fab new route to work. No more cramming myself into the DLR, slugging my way through escalator-refurbishment-work-infested Bank station, then arriving at work two-dimensional after a trip on a Central Line train. Now I walk two minutes to Greenwich station, take a quick overground train to London Bridge and enjoy a peaceful 30 minute walk to my office along the Thames. Taking in the sites on the water is surprisingly preferable to being packed like a sardine into an underground train.
This past Friday was a little different though. I was casually enjoying my morning stroll when all of a sudden… *sniff* *sniff*. Erm… ew what’s that? Something was a little foul. I wondered if perhaps I had Arwyn’s dirty morning nappy stuck to the bottom of my shoe. Nope. It smelled… very… agricultural… very… manure-ish. I didn’t think much else of it, except for frequent concerned glances at the bottom of my shoe the rest of the morning.
On the way home I read in the paper what it was. Apparently, farmers in France, Holland and as far away as Germany have been spreading fresh manure on their fields. Usually this starts in February but with all the cold weather the farmers are doing it all at once in April. Britain’s fresh air normally comes from the Atlantic Ocean to the west, but unusual winds from the east have brought the continent’s stench.
Friday brought a flood of calls to emergency services from people concerned about the odour. Even Her Majesty was not immune as the smell lingered over her castle in Windsor and its many foreign visitors. A spokesman at the historic town's tourist office said: "When I left home this morning the smell was virtually unbearable but we haven't had any complaints from anyone so far. “I think the Queen is in. I hope she has her windows closed.”
At the German Embassy in London nobody was willing to apologise for the smell. Staff had not noticed anything unusual in the air and pointed out if anyone was looking for another country to blame, the French coast was “much nearer.” Newspaper subsequently headlines branded it “Le Stink” from France or “Der Stink” from Germany.
Funny how things get blamed on another country, isn’t it? In the US they blame cold weather on “wintery blasts from Canada.” In England they blame cold weather on “wintery blasts from Siberia”. Everything else apparently gets blamed on the French and Germans. Hopefully Le Stink clears up soon and we get the normal smoke-and-pollution scents back that we’re all familiar with.
Something else that stinks is that we have to move. Yes, again! Our landlord is selling our house and we have just a few weeks to get out. This makes it an average of moving once every 6 months over the past 2.5 years. But what about our Canadian-sized couches? Oh, those blessed couches! |
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