Legs and Borders

Today is the day when my passport came back through the post with the american B2 visa stamped and approved to use. It is a crucial part of the plan I made to hike Pacific Crest Trail in May. Here is what happened so far. First part of the plan was to get a PCT permit, which turned out to be organised in a matter of waiting room system on the PCTA website. I had to queue up at certain time with thousands of others, and being assigned random number, wait my turn to be able to register and grab a remaining starting date slot for PCT. Unfortunately I missed the first application date in late October when first 50 applications per day were issued, and applied on 14th of January, when additional 15 slots per day were being issued. I didn't get particularly lucky at rng game and got pretty far away in the queue (number 6783, picture below), after waiting for about an hour I eventually managed to log in and book a date for a mid/late May, all things considered the outcome wasn't ...

On my way out of Marks and Spencer where I went to buy some fish for today's lunch, I stumbled across tulips and suddenly realizing it's Valentines Day. I decided to buy a bunch and went for the cheaper £3 option of the red and yellow flowers, after all, at least in my own opinion it's the intention that matters, or perhaps I'm just a miser. When I was waiting in a queue a very old lady wearing a granny outfit, a scarf and a Coke bottle glasses stood behind me, when I looked into her basket all I found was two items: four scones and a simple bunch of daffodils, that's all she was buying. It immediately made me wonder, of why (other than financial reasons), she's only buying those two things. It was more likely than not that her husband was dead (she looked like she was approaching her 90s). Perhaps he used to buy her those same daffodils, or even cut them straight from the garden if the year was warm and gave it to her on Valentines Day. With him gone,...