POTHOLES

I’ve taken to slaloming down the road whenever I drive home.

I really can’t bear that shudder and jolt when one wheel bounces into a pothole. The thought of that jagged concrete ripping through my tyre is awful, let alone the bone-rattling ricochet through the suspension, the chassis, and, ultimately me.

So I swerve left, left, right... left, right, on my way down the hill now, all to the imaginary music of Ski Sunday.

Who’s responsible for fixing potholes? Is it the council? Or the DVLA, (the UK Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency) we pay our vehicle tax to? I mean it’s taxes either way, isn’t it, but it’s strange that I don’t know. Who is it that’s making me drive home like I’m Indiana Jones?

-

It’s been a strange weekend. On Friday I unexpectedly went to a Nigerian wedding reception - which was hard to describe, other than by saying that it’s a quite extraordinary thing.

I learned a lot about family, about honour, about how to eat cake, and thanks to the table conversation, the fact that in some cultures (though it didn’t happen this time) the guests make the groom drink champagne... out of the bride’s shoe.

The person who told me that found my reaction hilarious. I said I didn’t understand it. I mean it’s not just me that finds that... grim... is it? Out of a shoe! Love conquers all fear, agreed, but that’s just disgusting.

Anyway, amidst a colourful party of elaborate headscarves, of gold and white and purple and green, the couple sparkled into the evening with all the grace and elegance you’d expect.

-

Probably, one of the last things to do with a belly full of tasty, spicy, flavoursome Nigerian cuisine... is to go for an Indian. I mean you can’t mix the spices. Jollof rice and moinmoin isn’t going to sit well with chicken korma and biryani sauce. Puff puffs are delicious, but when you’ve eaten four of them (because the lady next to you is gluten free) can you really then face down a plateful of onion bhajis and a couple of naans?

Nothing in my universe reminds me I’m not a student any more like my digestive system. I do not wish to go into details. Don’t ask.

-

I followed all of that up with a church leaders’ day, which was great, but also a whole day, a sleep that felt longer than it must have taken to build, float, and sink the Titanic... and then an early start for church today, which was sort of an endurance miracle for my swirling insides, still processing the haute cuisine.

-

I’m kind of tired. It’s no wonder I’m going on about swerving potholes - really, they’re the least of my worries. And anyway, life’s full of cracks in the road - so many tiny injustices that we can’t fix, and have to slalom around. When it comes down to it, we all pay for them to get fixed eventually - but that timescale is in somebody else’s hands.

The thing we can do for now, is plot the best route home.