Too Hot!

I don't do heat well.  I don't do cold well either.  There are around three days a year when the weather suits me.  I am currently completely wiped out by the heat.

I had another driving lesson today.  It was amazing.  I was out with bpm, who is great.  I managed to more or less pull into a space (it was an easy way in and there was nothing around).  I also had an accidental opportunity to go backwards and it worked! 

I was slowly tootling around a very small, very empty car park on a Sunday afternoon, and I pulled up to the Give Way junction, misjudged the distance to stop, decided to swing around as nothing was coming, misjudged the steering in a spectacular fashion and shot forward (I was going at least 12 miles an hour) into a car park clearly marked as private property.  I didn't bump into anything, so I took it as a win.  Then I was stuck with no room to drive forward or round so for the first time I reversed while turning.  It worked!  Then I managed to pull out of the car park and carried on bimbling on at around 8 miles an hour.  There were no casualties. 

I'm taking tonight off, sort of.  I have been listening to Jackson Crawford and History Time.  It includes plenty of snippets about Anglo Saxon and Viking Britain which could impact on York.  Apparently there was an Aelfhelm in charge of York in the tenth century.  I would love his name to mean 'elf helmet' but I suspect it is more likely to mean 'noble something'.  I may use it in the White Hart regardless.  His daughter married King Cnut.  This is apparently a picture of her (picture from WikiCommons and in the public domain)

Aelfhelm was allegedly murdered by Eadric Steona, who is described as an Anglo Saxon villain, but I have felt a real call for a story where he does what he does for a reason.  Eadric also allegedly blinded Aelfhelm's sons, which seems a very Merovingian thing to do, and was murdered himself possibly on the orders of Cnut.  Medieval history, at a safe distance, is a lot of fun.