It rained again today. And again the country was unable to handle it.

It took me three hours to get to work this morning due to two floods, one of which made me very nervous as I went through it. It seemed awfully deep.

I was interested in my acceptance of delay, though. When I was sitting in the Glen of the Downs, it was some time before I realised I hadn't moved for about ten minutes. A few times I turned off my engine as it seemed pointless to use fuel for no reason. I desisted later as I got a bit nervous about whether the damn thing would start again. But anyway, I was sitting in traffic, assuming that the delay was water related but not getting too worked up about it as I thought there might have been a crash and I didn't want to tempt fate like Bobby Baccala. The sight of an ambulance made me sure that some crunch had taken place, but it transpired that it was just (just!) a huge puddle. A truck went through before me and made seemingly enormous waves despite the exhortations of a construction guy who was trying to keep the plastic road dividers from floating away (there's a lot of construction going on there at the moment -- expect delays until 2003, they say).

I felt that the worst was over and that as rush hour had passed (some time ago) that it would be relatively plain sailing (ho ho) from there. But then as I drove up the motorway I saw people reversing over the bridge feeding the on ramp. This can't be good I though (I used fewer words) and indeed it wasn't. There was another tailback, but at least this one was moving (albeit slowly).

It wasn't so bad and at least there was something on the radio.

I took the children to Galway for the weekend to visit some friends. It was a nice low key visit. They hadn't seen Paddy since he got talking and it was nice to see them impressed with him.

I tried to do my much talked about christmas shopping but I had forgotten that I hate shopping and find it impossible to commit to buying anything (that isn't socks. Or maybe a toothbrush). I did get new strings for my guitars as I felt that this might encourage me to play (this has worked somewhat), but I couldn't get the brand I usually get and the lightest ones I did find are heavier that the ones I'm used to. It's amazing the difference a half a millimetre makes to the tension and playability of a string. The calluses on my left hand are building up already.

Work continues and we wind towards a final push into QA. I have grown weary of the component I am working on and would like to do something else. All programmers prefer green field development and this thing we have now is getting encrusted and crud-like and the urge to rework is very strong. I must resist this as it won't do anyone any good at all.

On the home front, we're getting our new bedroom carpet on Friday despite the room not being ready to receive it. I will have to move the gigantic wardrobe somehow. Still, it'll be nice.

Once we've hung the wallpaper.