Wrexham County Borough 105 - Don't seek , don't search/The world cup begins and not everyone is happy/ Having booked the holiday accomodation we need a hotel or two

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Day 327 of 2022. Only 38 days left of the year. Time has on one hand flown by at a fast rate of knots and on the other it has gone very slowly. We have had a few more birthdays, the heavy colds we seem to pick up after Covid and Spring has been long forgotten. To be fair Summer and Autumn are beginning to feel like a distant memory. The weather has ruined Bonfire Night. We did not risk taking a car onto a muddy field and risking being towed off it after the fireworks. We never heard many going off this year. Was it a legacy of Covid or just the cost-of-living crisis? We seem to be stumbling from one miserable disaster to another with no end in sight. The horse racing up the road had heavy going this year with the constant heavy rain falling. The council still continue to come out and clear the drains. We still see deep puddles on the road. Especially when I go out for my walk. A walk I could do with my eyes closed these days. I wondered how many times I had walked the same walk in the last 23 months. I had lost count.

When the sun shines though it is quite pleasant. In between the rain showers that is. Rain showers that are downpours. More like the monsoon when the rains fall. I think about the World Cup on the horizon and the fan zones being set up in the town. One outside in Queens Square next to the Christmas Tree. That might not be the best place to go with the inclement weather. A second in Ty Pawb complete with music and one at the Turf Hotel. Street theatre has come to town with a "A very ordinary Miracle " touring. I missed buying tickets for it. Such a shame as this sort of event does not come round often. A chance to become part of the production following the proceedings around the streets. I have seen the banners fixed on the railings along the route. "Save our steeple " Was that an imaginary church steeple or the old chimney down Tuttle Street? The production looked like a demonstration as it made its way round the streets. Perhaps our town /city will put another one on. We are trying our best to put failing being the next City of Culture to bed and make up in time for the next one.

From home to the world cup. Those were my thoughts. The river is up. That is to be expected with all the rain. The sky is grey and suggests snow on the way. But that never came thankfully. A football match against Aldershot . A game we needed to win. That together with the hope that Notts County who were top of the league would draw or lose. We won quite comfortably and Notts County drew. We are top of the league - we are top of the league or so the chants went.

The riverbank looks rather sorry for itself. With little colour, no flowers and no sign of the swans, the ducks or the cormorant it is quite dismal today. I find nothing to photograph. I find myself thinking back to walks in and around Wingerworth . So many houses with so many different gates, gardens and features. Signs thanking everyone for what they did through Covid. Positive thoughts and displays on the school gates. The Lido, the pond of Stubbing and the old stone walls. And the mannequins dressed up as nurses, the milkman and essential workers. None of that here. Not so many gardens. No interesting gates. Not enough houses. No-one cared enough to make a mannequin. Or perhaps they did and I just missed them arriving in the village too late. I could not wait for Spring to come round again and see the riverbanks clothed in white and yellow.

The World Cup was making some very unhappy fans. It was weird to have a world cup slap bang in the middle of our football season. Games played in hot conditions at 10 o'clock at night. Bucket hats confiscated. Some teams sporting controversial armbands and others capitulating. The FIFA spokesman who went down in our estimation telling us all to put up and shut up.

I put those thoughts aside and returned to next years holiday. May seems a long time away. We have to get through December, Christmas, a cold and miserable January and February before the holiday will seem just around the corner. Having booked the holiday accommodation and the route down to the Tunnel fixed we had turned our attention to getting to Italy. Two days of travelling. Could we drive down early on the Saturday morning and get as far south as the Tunnel before crossing late at night and booking a hotel in Calais. There would be no work or school traffic on the motorways down. So, it seemed possible and would mean an early breakfast in France before the long drive across the country to our Sunday night stop at Strasbourg. Again, the roads should be relatively quiet on a Sunday. Breakfast Monday morning in Strasbourg and arrival at Lake Como for midafternoon. A plan was developing. We booked the Hotel du Golf in Calais for the night. A reasonably priced hotel which would suffice and then a Campanile in Strasbourg. The plan was coming together. I had however arrived home before I could get round to thinking about the return journey. That was for another day.

The thought for the day had been Don't seek, don't search. I did not like that one because you never find what you are looking for if you don't seek or don't search.

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