Monday 28 February 2011

Antique IKEA furniture and the skip of eternal fire

We have some IKEA furniture in the workshop that dad has been storing for a friend, dad’s friend said they are valuable antique IKEA bits of furniture but the antique dealer that came to look at them this morning said it will be at least another one million years before anything from IKEA is an antique. Dad is not happy he does not want to store his friends stuff for the next one million years.


I was asking if an antique dealer was a bit like a city dealer only older but apparently that’s not quite right. Mum did imply that you have to keep a close eye on both of them because they are both good at doing the trick with the three shells and a pea.  Pirate Pete said he lost his first pirate ship with that trick and his second and his third, but he did win his forth so every thing was OK. I did tell him he was still two ships down but he said he hadn’t thought about that.

Dad is trying to convince his friend that we should douse the IKEA furniture in petrol, set fire to it and catapult it over the lake in the park into a skip also filled with petrol, it would be a really cool end to the stuff and we could sell tickets to the public to come and see it. In fact dad recons he could start a business doing it and make a fortune, but mum has pointed out that the price of petrol is now so high he would have to charge at least one hundred and fifty pounds a ticket or seventy five for concessions like pensioners or children etc. So it’s a bit of a no goer really and dads friend still thinks his antique IKEA furniture is going to be worth loads of money one day, mum has said IDIOTS, not sure if she means dad me or dads friend or IKEA.

Sunday 27 February 2011

City Bankers, Owls and Bats

Mercedes and Mr Pickup headed back into The Great Metropolis this morning; they say they will be back in the summer. Mr Pickup said it is nice to come to the countryside because people here don’t hate him . It might be to do with the fact that no one knows he’s a high flying city banker.  We are nice, well mainly nice as we are not very good with Britney Spears songs so none of the neighbours sing them now.

Dad sometimes mutters things about city bankers although he does say it wrong if mum is not about; mum does point out that when the banks crashed dad went out and bought loads of bank shares and so he has made money from all the greedy ******* dealers in the city.  Dad insists they are a long term investment in the fabric of the financial stability of the county and that if everyone did that and not buy sell buy sell everyday just for personal gain the country would have much better weather. I am not sure that last bit is right. But dad insists that the bad weather is all the fault of fly by night city dealers and traders.  I think it would be fun to be a fly by night trader, I could sell Owls and Bats and Moths and things like that it would be great fun, mum said IDIOT to dad but she said IDIOT to me too. I asked mum if I could set up a stall in the front garden when it was dark to sell things that fly by night. She shook her head but said yes, that is very confusing.  I will go and collect things to sell now.

A few hours later

 I have set up my stall and am now selling things that fly by night I found a Barn Owl and two Tawny Owls only they keep screeching at me so I think it will be hard to sell them unless they go quiet. I have a good selection of bats but the only one I know the name of is the Long Eared Bat because it has long ears. And I have a whole load of moths and creepy crawly critters; I have tied tiny Lego tyres with very fine tread to one of their legs like they used to do with goats to stop them flying away. I have a long perch for the owls and the bats. The bats are hanging under it and the owls are sat on top.  I am having to keep an eye on them all because the owls think the bats are food and the bats think the moths are food, and the moths keep playing hula hoops with the Lego tyres. I’m sure it should be easier than this to have a little fly by night stall in the garden.

And even later still, almost bedtime  

I spent ages on the stall but if was a bit of a failure because the owls got bored and flew away then the bats and the only buyer for the moths wanted to stick pins in them all and put them in a glass case. Well that’s not nice so I let them all go although one of them has pinched a Lego tyre   

Saturday 26 February 2011

Square hail stones and a drop of rum

What a funny day for weather, it has been lovely and sunny sometimes and when you go out in the sun it then suddenly pores with rain. It is Mercedes's last day before she returns to the Great Metropolis and we tried to go for a walk but we got attacked by giant hail stones.  Pirate Pete was rushing about collecting them to put in the freezer.

Pirate Pete said that giant hail stones are the best thing to put in his rum at night so he was collecting as many as possible. He does have the advantage that he can run at fifty miles an hour because of his steam powered bionic legs that dad made, so he was able to get loads of giant hail stones in fact I think he has filled all the free space in all our freezers and we have three or four of them. Mum and dad sometimes buy frozen legs of lamb in bulk for the dog, they used to padlock the freezers to stop the dog pinching them but the dog is ace at picking locks and if that failed it just bit them off.  Pirate Pete is well pleased he said it will save him loads of money because he has had to buy his giant hail stones from a man in town and they cost loads because the man says they come from the rain forests of Antarctica and are shipped to him specially in a refrigerated helicopter. I did say they just look like ice cubes to me but Pirate Pete said the man said they are square because of the weather conditions in the Antarctic. Dad has told Pirate Pete he will take his flame thrower and the dog to see the man in a bit and he is sure that he will not have to pay for anymore ice cubes once his present supply runs out.

 
Mercedes said it is much more interesting in Mid-Wales than in The Great Metropolis although the lack of small designer shops and cafes is not good. I did point out that we have Big Bills Greasy Fur Ball Café and Napoleon Beelzebub’s Very Strange Victorian Curiosity Shop so we don’t need anything else because almost every other shop or café in the country are clones. Dad thinks it’s an alien plot because there is no other reason for finding a Costa Coffee or Big Mac in Siberia or the middle of the Kalahari Desert. Mercedes said she likes Costa Coffee, so maybe she’s an alien.

Friday 25 February 2011

The Transflux-Monofisolter Mechanical Ion Machine and the sword stuck in a stone

Pirate Pete and me are helping dad fill in the hole that the Transflux-Monofisolter Mechanical Ion Machine made last night, it must have kept working for a while because there are several mounds of soil in the garden so it is like a giant mole attacking your garden. Dad was reading the instructions this morning and they said don’t pull level C in a well cultivated area.

While filling all the holes with the mounds of soil Pirate Pete and dad have found a big rock with a large and very shiny sword sticking out of it, dad thinks that the sword might belong to some bloke called Arthur. I asked if dad meant the Arthur who is in my class at school but it’s not him apparently.  Pirate Pete kept trying to pull the sword out of the stone and both he and dad said it was well stuck, which made it more difficult to roll the big stone out of the way. I had a go at getting the sword out of the stone and it came out dead easy, I think Pirate Pete and dad must have loosened it up a bit. The sword  was a bit heavy but really sharp because I accidently cut the rotary washing line in Mr Jenkins garden in half and slightly pruned one of his fruit trees a little, well quite a lot really but not on purpose. Anyway mum said I was not allowed to play with large medieval swords with precious stones in the handle and I had to put it back in the stone straight away.

Mercedes said she would like to take the sword back to the Great Metropolis; mum said that was OK as long as she pulled the sword out the stone herself. For some odd reason it was well stuck again, even Mr Pickup tried to help her; but in the end she gave up and went off in a huff muttering something about pneumatic drills and sledge hammers. Mum has made dad bury the stone with the sword back in the ground although he did say it would make a really nice water feature for the pond, but mum said NO.

Thursday 24 February 2011

See whats happens if you spend days in dull offices.......Blue Smoke

Dad has been working in his workshop all day with Pirate Pete, they have been making a Transflux-Monofisolter Mechanical Ion Machine all day. I don’t know exactly what that is, so I asked Pirate Pete he just said I don’t know Har Har HAr. So I asked dad but he said I don’t Know.  

They finished it a short time ago and so we all went into the garden to see them start it up, it is a very impressive machine with lots and lots of gears and levers and glass tubes full of blue gas and electrodes on the top. It needed to be plugged into the mains power and had a pump that clicked and banged once it was running, lots of the gears started to go round and round and the blue gas glowed so it looked good in the dark. Then there was lots of arcing and flashing on the top like lightning and blue smoke started to fill up the garden luckily for us the wind was blowing the smoke across the road and over the fields with the sheep in. In the end it got very thick and we could not see the sheep and the whole machine started shaking and making a bleeping noise so Pirate Pete pulled a few levers and it stopped making blue smoke but it started to spin and buried itself. It seems to have gone a long way underground and there is a huge pile of soil in the middle of our garden now. Dad and Pirate Pete were really pleased they said that they knew it did something but mum said IDIOTS. What is quite interesting is the smoke is clearing from the field over the road and the sheep are all glowing a sort of pale blue. There is a man taking pictures of them too, he looks like the local Environmental Health man who was attacked by the car dealer yesterday. I think the farmer is about to hit him with his sheep dog now.  

The Joules Verne Pocket Oracle and Prophecy machine has said today’s  events have the appearance of a ghost writer who has spent all day in a big grey office in a big grey building and got home late and has had his brain cells wiped clean of original thoughts; a bit like 1984. Dad said he knew there must be a logical explanation why he was making a machine he only got the blue prints for in a plain brown envelope this morning.  Mercedes is in a bigger grump she says she had to spend the whole day in the garden reading Mills and Boon, luckily it was a very sunny day.

And if you’re a ghost writer in a grey office and it is the sunniest day of the year all I can say is NOT FAIR

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Dark Creatures Banshee's and Frogs

A very mild day so we all went for a walk in the wood, so that was me, Mercedes, Mum, Dad, Mr Pickup, Mr and Mrs Jenkins, The Dog, Pirate Pete and Captain Flint the Parrot although he didn’t walk but sat on dad’s head and kept saying are we there yet, Har Har Har Har. I think dad wished that he had left Captain Flint at home.

Heavy Harry the cat said he had been hunting and eating most of last night so he did not come with us and was going to have a little sleep, dad and the dog were muttering that the perpetual motion machine would be stopped again. We took a huge picnic with us so it was great; we also made sure we had enough food to ensure that the dog did not eat everything. I had asked for pork pies so I got to have six of them at lunch time and one or two as I got hungry before and after lunch while on the walk.

Mercedes said she wanted to see The Dark Creature of the Undergrowth and the banshee’s so we had to go and find them. We knew when we had found the Dark Creature of The Undergrowth because Mr and Mrs Jenkins and Mr Pickup screamed a bit, The Dark Creature of the Undergrowth growled at them but it only made them scream more. In the end mum took them off to see something else in the wood while I introduced Mercedes, she was well impressed by The Dark Creature of the Undergrowth although she said it was very dark and she could not really see what it looked like.  Mr and Mrs Jenkins  and Mr Pickup screamed again them and The Dark Creature of the Undergrowth vanished off into the undergrowth of the wood.

Mum had taken Mr  and Mrs Jenkins and Mr Pickup off to see the Banshee’s which is why they screamed, I’m not sure mum had thought they would scream again, Mercedes was impressed again and said WOW a lot. The Banshee’s I think were showing off just a little by doing formation flying and loop the loops and leaving different coloured trails of smoke in the sky. The ended their show by writing goodbye Mercedes see you again soon in the sky in huge red letters. The letters were so large they could be seen from the whole of the town. Unfortunately the environmental health man thought it was the fault of the local car dealer and as we passed his showroom on the way home he was being arrested for hitting a man from the environmental health department.

The frogs are still very noisy in the pond and we already have quite a lot of frogs spawn, the only problem with lots of frogs in the garden is you have to watch what you do to avoid hurting or squashing them. It is even worse later in the year when all the tiny frogs set off on their adventures.  

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Ticking Gnomes and herds of snowdrops

Dad fixed a gnome clock that has not worked for ages, but we all remember why no one had fixed it before; it has a very very loud tick. Not that we don’t like clocks that tick and chime but this one is a bit over the top and sounds like the end of time is coming. Mum has said that because it sounds like the end of time we should give it to Napoleon Beelzebub for his shop.

Dad was rather reluctant to do that at first because he said it’s not easy to fix gnome clocks because gnomes are fairly timeless objects and most gnomes don’t get on well with tics.  In the end dad changed his mind and decided Napoleon Beelzebub could have it because the news on the wireless was not good what with earthquakes and political violence everywhere. And this combined with a clock that sounds like the end of time and the mad stare and sinister smile of a garden gnome looking at us all day was too much for dad.

We also worked out that a gallon of petrol is nearly £7:00 or if you are one of my American friends 10 or 11 dollars. Dad said it was OK until they sold fuel in Litres and then it all went wrong, He recons they should bring back imperial measurement and do away with all that metric and digital rubbish, he complains about that a lot really I’m sure I have mentioned it before, and probably will again soon.

Mercedes was wondering why there are so many snowdrops growing everywhere because in the Great Metropolis they cost at least three or four pounds for a little pot with a couple of plants in. She said the field over the road must be worth several hundred thousand pounds. But we all just said there are millions of snowdrops in the country, they are like sheep only don’t move about or go BAAH or eat grass. Pirate Pete said he thought he had seen a herd of snowdrops running across a field chasing a mole but mum said IDIOT.

Monday 21 February 2011

Fashion orange models and the supercharged Ford Model T

Mum and dad had to go off to some trade fashion show today so me and Mercedes went too. There was a man doing seminars on how to sell things but mum and dad said he was an IDIOT and talking complete rubbish. Dad said it was ****** RUBBISH but mum hit him. Normally she would hit him with the armadillo toaster but that was at home.

There was a catwalk show at some point in the day but the music was rubbish and very loud so we ran off to a different part of the show. There appeared to be several very thin anorexic models wandering about with very little on, only they were a bit of a strange orange colour; mum said it was spray on tan but it did make then look radio active. Dad decided to use his Geiger counter to test them but said they were safe. The models all had to wear very high stiletto heals but they were unable to walk normally so they looked odd moving about. Mercedes said she has decided that she will not become a fashion model because she would end up hitting all the starring middle aged men and does not want to be a strange colour.  There was a man walking about in underwear too but he did not have to wear stiletto healed shoes and was not orange but a lot of people were going Ooooooo Yuk anyway.  In the end we ran off early, Mum and Mercedes said we should leave while it was still light as they didn’t fancy meeting the man in his underwear in the dark.

We then had to deal with the M6 at Birmingham when its busy, luckily dad had the flame thrower in the car so everything moved out the way for us. I think dad’s superchargedV8 metalflake purple Goth stretched Ford Model T with flames leaping into the air round it from the flame thrower is a bit scary to most drivers.  Mum says he should think about getting something a bit more eco for everyday use as the Model T only does 3 miles to the gallon although it can do it very quickly.  Anyway Pizza and Chips for tea Yum. Mercedes has just tried to walk in a pair of stiletto shoes but is now stuck in the wooden flooring in the hall so is now getting grumpy, I have offered to spray her orange but she has threatened to kill me if I do. Dad and the dog are going to remove her from the floor in a bit in time to eat.

Sunday 20 February 2011

Sheep Noise Opera and the Daytona 500

Sunday at this time of year is very quiet, well when I say quiet it really depends on where you are as I have noticed one of my friends in the USA is watching the Daytona 500 race today, I think its today because in the UK if you mention the Daytona 500 everyone says WHO ARE THEY. The point is really that it is not quiet there.

Now look I have been distracted by stuff again. Dad likes those big American race cars but they are no good in Britain because they don’t really work very well on all those fiddly twisty roads and even our race tracks are a bit fiddly and twisty. Where as the Daytona 500 is along the straight left along the straight left so it is difficult to get lost but you do have to watch out for the other cars pitching your space in the bends so it can be a bit hairy. Anyway enough of this distraction.

Mercedes had a long lie in this morning she said she needed her beauty sleep; I told her I like to get up nice and early but she said she could tell and I should consider having some beauty sleep too as she thinks I need it. She said that she would like to do one of my film re-enactments’ she suggested The Phantom of the Opera and it was fine until I started to sing Bat Out Of Hell by you know who, then she said we should do Silence of the Lambs as my singing was making her feel sick (COOL I AM GETTING BETTER). Silence of the lambs was OK but Mercedes kept trying to lock me in dads old wood shed, luckily I could escape out of the back as it had a loose plank. And I don’t remember that anyone set fire to the cell in the film either. Then the sheep in the field at the end of the road escaped, that happens a lot at this time of year because all the little lambs climb through the fence and are to stupid to get back; so all the sheep and the rest of the lambs all follow them. We had lots of lambs for the film but they were not very quiet so the day ended a bit like the Daytona 500 race with lots of noise only the noise was sheep and lambs not cars. Mercedes said she likes coming to Wales she is not allowed to do things like set her friends on fire in the Great Metropolis.

Saturday 19 February 2011

Mercedes and the mumified poets, cake and other stuff

Mr Pickup is a city banker and deals in shares and stuff he has just got a huge bonus and pay rise, so all the ordinary people now hate city bankers including Mr Pickup.

Mrs Pickup has told Mr Pickup and Mercedes that she will stay at home until everything calms down and she will get the staff to keep the masses of ordinary public at bay by throwing cake at them. They are all very healthy organic cakes with fruit and stuff in. That is rather a shame because I like my cake really unhealthy and full of cream chocolate and nuts with loads of icing and stuff (not fruit though). Mercedes likes cake like that too but only gets it when she comes up to see Mr Jenkins and has tea at our house.

Mercedes has now stopped collecting mummified poets, she said they were taking up too much room and one or two of them were starting to smell very musty. She  tried to leave them in poetry corner at Westminster Abbey but got shouted at, and was told poetry corner was only for dead poets, she tried to explain they were mummified and so were dead but one of them groaned then and they made her take them all away. In the end she had to leave them on the London Underground on the Circle Line so they would go round and round for ever. As she says they are sort of buried because they are underground and being in a London tube train is a bit like being in a coffin, and they are the ideal conditions for a mummified poet. She also said she was really pleased to see me and despite being male I did have one or two redeeming features and characteristics, she even said she was planning to write them down so she would remember what they are just in case they got lost amongst the huge number of other features and characteristics that were not so good.  She said the trouble with boys is they are boys, funnily enough mum says that to dad sometimes. Mum says boys start playing with toys when they are little and well sort of never stop and girls start playing with toys when they are little but grow out of it, I’m glad I’m a boy the thought of growing out of playing with toys YUK.

Friday 18 February 2011

18th Feb Maths the dog and armadillo's

The half term holiday starts today, so a week off school, just as well as the maths teacher said today that E equals X squared minus 2A where A is an integer and X is a constant. Well it is all very well for him to say that and the dog is nodding his head and agreeing but then he asked the class to explain C.

I tried to explain that C is what you find at the beach and is made of water and has waves on it and pollution and sewerage in it. The Maths teacher then said no not sea but C, we were all well confused in class and so we said we didn’t see C or sea but the teacher said it all had to do with exponentials and Boolean logic.  The dog says it’s dead easy but he likes pure theoretical maths which is why he does all the mathematics for dad’s inventions. Although dad and the dog still can not get the perpetual motion machine to work properly because Heavy Harry the cat is still sleeping in it at night; well sometimes he sleeps in it, if he spends the night out hunting mice. The dog says that the maths involved by adding a random element such as a cat into the equation are just too complex and it reality would be much easier just to chase the cat away. Only mum and dad quite like Heavy Harry even if all he does is eat and sleep and pretend to be cute to passers by; only to hiss and rip their hands off.

Pirate Pete is practicing woodwork techniques so he can help dad in the workshop more, he was doing sawing today. However he appears to have cut the dining table in half with a jigsaw, his first project is to build a full scale working armadillo. Dad has always said once you master building armadillo’s anything is possible, but the rest of us just think that it is an excuse to hide dad’s obsession with armadillo’s.  I think Pirate Pete’s main problem is dad has not shown him an armadillo yet although there are a few robot armadillo’s in a box somewhere. Boxes sound like a good idea until you have a lot of them and can not remember what is in each of them anymore, then its best just to not know and start with new stuff

Thursday 17 February 2011

17th Feb Almost sunny and No BRUSSEL SPROUTS

Dad got in a strop today with the internet; he had to check something in his banking only he forgot his password. He was complaining that he now has at least twenty passwords for different things and keeps getting told oooo no don’t write passwords down or use the same one.

Then when he phoned someone up to sort it out they asked him all these security questions that he cant remember the answers too either. So he then failed and was told he had to start from the start again and set everything up new. Dad didn’t like that and set fire to the computer and keyboard with the flame thrower, he has done this before. He said he hates all that plastic rubbish anyway. And he might just build a prober computer with brass knobs and glowing thermionic values and cat’s whiskers etc. He said he was going to do that once before too but built a stream powered till for Napoleon Beelzebub’s Very strange Victorian Curiosity Shop instead. Mr Beelzebub was very pleased he likes all that hissing and steam and said it keeps all the change lovely and hot, Mum and dad get 10% discount now when they buy stuff.

It was a much better day today weather wise, and not raining, so more people are out and about and doing things although according to the dog it will rain again in the next couple of days. The dog uses the old ways like watching the trees and talking to the fish, smelling rocks and eating very large bones to predict the weather. Even the Joules Verne Pocket Oracle and Prophecy Machine says it will not predict the weather although it did add it will be a lovely warm spring and early summer followed by a huge storm. The dog is all excited now it loves storms, I have pointed out we are going to have a nice spring and summer first.

Thursday is the day when we have veggies delivered to us from a farm shop so they are nice and fresh only last week the man hid brussel sprouts in a plain brown paper bag which everyone thought was mushrooms, only they were not. We all hate brussel sprouts including the dog so they must be bad, so the man better get it right today or he will be in trouble.

Wednesday 16 February 2011

16th feb 2011 and all is very quiet in Mid-Wales

A quiet day today, I think it is to do with the time of year as it is not quite spring yet so it is sort of cold and sort of wet and sort of grey and because everyone has not been well we are all sort of weak and flimsy and our brains have sort of stopped

The dog for some reason best know to himself decided to take up knitting today; when I got home from school it had knitted a scarf with five arms and 3 built in gloves. I did say that seemed a bit odd but the dog said he has four legs and a tail and he only wears three gloves because he likes to keep his front left paw free to write and make rude gesturers at the bus drivers.  Mum said he shouldn’t make rude gestures at bus drivers but the dog said they won’t allow him upstairs anymore, and he does not think it’s fair.  I did try and point out that the buses they use now don’t have an upstairs but the dog recons that’s a rubbish excuse.  Because Pirate Pete now has steam powered bionic legs and can run at fifty miles an hour. The dog has got him waiting at bus stops and when the bus stops he tells the driver he is going to wait for the next bus, then when the bus drives off he runs ahead to the next bus stop and confuses the bus driver when the bus arrives at that stop, One bus driver has banned Pirate Pete but then as Pirate Pete says he does not actually get on the bus. 

You can tell it is quiet today because I am writing about the dog knitting and a pirate standing at bus stops.  I bet you are all thinking O no I am having to read about a dog knitting and a pirate waiting at a bus stop, when it would be so much more exciting if the dog was waiting for a bus and the pirate was knitting. I have just asked Pirate Pete what he would knit if he could knit, he said a treasure map but mum said IDIOT it would be much better to make a tapestry. Pirate Pete is really pleased now he says it’s the first time mum has called him an idiot, and it makes him feel like one of the family. Mum has just said IDIOT again but has given him a lollypop.

I am still not sure about this bloggggggg thing but will no doubt sort it in the end

Tuesday 15 February 2011

The first few days of the blog or day one million of the FB diary from Mid Wales


10/02/11

It is Auntie Karen’s birthday today The Zombies are keen to have another party to celebrate, but the pirates are a bit low on supplies of rum. So it will only be a small party. Auntie Karen has said she will not visit until all the spies go away.

Auntie Karen was once part of a mass protest group involving hundreds who marched on the MI6 headquarters in London they were all musicians and chained themselves to the main entrance and played The Pink Panther theme song all day. The police did try to get them to stop playing but one hundred saxophone players at full volume with supporting brass and woodwind plus percussion and a string section meant no one could hear the police. It even made the international news in the days before MI6 did publicity and tours of their building. As mum says spies are rubbish now. Auntie Karen has no time for spies since she found out they like to listen to Britney Spears and Bon Jovi. Auntie Karen was also part of a protest movement that stuck flowers in the barrels of soldiers guns a long time ago, but mum said Auntie Karen was always more practical minded so she filled the barrels of the soldiers guns with flour. The army got a bit upset then as flour is much harder to get out of a gun than flowers, Auntie Karen keeps a much lower profile in the hills of Wales now bearing in mind she is still making lots of noise with a saxophone. One of her greatest achievements to date though is the Pink Panther theme song is still banded from all UK and USA government buildings and if you play it near a group of spies they tend to run off with their fingers in their ears, and they don’t like saxophones.


11/02/11
I can walk about again and do things without falling over or wondering where I am or who I am. I have noticed I am well enough to go out now just as it has started raining, well that is not very fair.  Dad and Mr Jenkins used to go fly fishing together once, and when I went out I found them standing in the middle of the fish pond in waders practicing their casting.

At first I thought it looked a bit silly for a start off there are no trout in the fish pond and if you’re standing in the middle then you can only cast onto the land. But they were catching dark sunglasses, Mr Jenkins has won prizes for his accuracy in casting so he said hooking a pair of sunglasses off the nose of a spy was dead easy. I think Mr Jenkins had nearly fifty pairs and dad only twelve. They said standing in waders in the pond in the rain made it feel just like the old days but they were both rather sad that sunglasses don’t taste like fresh wild rainbow trout. Although they did both insist on hitting the sunglasses over the head with a large rock to kill them. Mr Jenkins said they had to hit them with a big rock to ensure the sunglasses were completely armless, and then they both fell about laughing for a while before returning to tales about the huge 50ft salmon that got away by eating through the side of the boat.
The dog and the pirates decided they might join in and play Eye Spy. Pirates have a bit of a reputation for plucking the eyes out of their enemies although they do like to point out they generally only take the one. They only take two if the person is very annoying and they always offer a glass one to replace the real one although they say if the spies are going to wear dark sunglasses the glass eyes are pointless as no one will see them.

The pirates are spending the evening playing marbles and the dog is designing a marble run than can deal with squidgy bits. Dad and Mr Jenkins are telling us all about the prescription reactalight designer sunglasses that got away. Mum said there is eye scream for pud YUM 



12/02/11

The Einstein Cube turned jet black in the middle of the night. The Joules Verne pocket oracle and prophecy machine has said it is due to miss use and the Einstein Cube has its own defence system for dealing with this. I said I had hardly used it. But the Joules Verne pocket oracle and prophecy machine said the miss use hasn’t happened yet.

It told me I must never use a Einstein Cube when it is black and I should put it in a sturdy wooden box and take it to the wood and bury it, ten paces north from a big oak tree with a woodpecker hammering high up near the top. I then had to make a map but showing the Einstein Cube buried ten paces south of the oak tree and leave the map in my super deluxe garden shed. Me and the dog did all that and went back to see what the Joules Verne pocket oracle and prophecy machine would tell us to do next.  All it said was Einstein Cubes are multi-dimensional but never ever keep the black ones.  It also said we should have another long walk in the woods and watch.  I needed a rest first I still get very puffed when I do stuff; then when me and the dog arrived back at the oak tree the spies had dug the wooden box up with the Einstein Cube in and were running off in the other direction. We tried to chase them but I am not up to running so they got away. Then when we walked back to the oak tree the pirates had my map and were digging the other side of the tree. What was very surprising is they found a great big sea chest full of pirate stuff and it even had half a treasure map in it, they were very excited. Then they found a small wooden box with my name on it which they gave to me, an inside that was very shiny silver Einstein Cube. We all went home then and the pirates decided to have a party (again). It was a funny evening because every now and again a pair of dark designer sunglasses would fall out of the sky, but I have heard dad talk about the spy in the sky before when he was growing all those plants in the cellar; with the big lamps and foil on the wall. Dad just said IDIOT, he hasn’t said that for a while.


  
13/02/11

The spies have all gone, well sort of gone there does seen to be the odd pair of dark sunglasses falling out of the sky. They even mentioned it on the national news and say it is due to freak winds in Washington DC that have sucked the sunglasses off a large number of government officials and dropped them round the world, a bit like frogs.

Mum said IDIOTS; she says it’s a cover story to hide the fact they are messing about with the black Einstein Cube. Several Sunglasses manufacturers are rather upset because the sale of sunglasses has plummeted as everyone is waiting for a nice pair to fall out of the sky.
The pirates are packing up ready to go too as they have the half a map they found yesterday and they have half a map from the dog. The fact that they are two different maps does not appear to worry them and they say one is a left half and the other a right half so its OK.  The robot zombies are looking forward to going to sea as pirates and have even been for swimming lessons in the local pool. Although they did get banned in the end for making the life guard walk the plank (well the diving board) and shouting HAR HAR HAR a lot.  I think the final straw was when one of them shouted SHARK and all the children in the pool run outside screaming.



14/02/11

I was well enough to go back to school today; mum gave me a note to excuse me from thinking in class. Luckily there are a lot of people who have had the same bug including some of the teachers. In the English lesson we had to guess the name of the teacher, but it was only because the English teacher could not remember his name.
                                                                                      
The school bus was half empty because of the bug but it was nice to see my friends again, well some of them. They were really jealous that mum had given me a note excusing me from thinking they said they don’t like thinking much either so I am very lucky. I said I thought I was lucky too but then that meant I was thinking and I was not meant to do that so I had to lie down on the back seat of the bus then.  One of the really clever pupils said we have created a thought provoking paradox about thinking and most of the other pupils all came and hid at the back of the bus and said their heads hurt.

The pirates left this morning on their adventure. Shawn dad’s robot assistant has decided to go with them but Pirate Pete is going to stay with us because dad made him steam powered bionic legs instead of his wooden ones so he can now run at nearly fifty miles an hour; although he is not very good at stopping yet and tends to hit walls a lot. He can jump about twenty feet high so he is very bouncy and is planning to take over from Shawn as dad’s assistant in his workshop. He is not as good as Shawn at drumming but Captain Flint the parrot is really pleased as they have been exchanging old pirate tales for a while now. It will be quite good to have a pirate about still.


15/02/11

It is a very wet day today, so I don’t mind being at school only we had Maths, French, Physics, Chemistry,  English, Information Technology, Geography, Politics, History, Craft and design, Latin and Post Industrial Social Architecture. As well trying to climb ropes in the Gym; so I was well scrambled by the time it was home time.
The wet weather has suddenly made all the frogs and toads active and there are loads of them in the boggy bit of the garden singing (well sort of singing).  We get loads of frogs spawn each year and once the tadpoles start swimming about we try and give them some dog food. They only get cheap tinned dog food but it stops them eating each other. I am not sure why they do that it really is not very nice is it. You don’t see us humans fighting and eating each other, do you (well not very often anyway).

Dad has said that Mr Pickup and Mercedes will be up to visit Mr Jenkins next week as its half term already.  I did say that half term had arrived very quickly and dad said that’s the first sign of getting old. He said as you get older time goes faster but you go slower, He said its like being a snail getting catapulted across a field or into your neighbours garden.  I don’t think I like the sound of that, but at least I know what dad does with the snails now I wondered where they went.

Mum took Pirate Pete to the supermarket today to help with doing the shopping but his steam powered bionic legs kept hissing at the customers so the manager said if he didn’t stop his legs hissing at people he would be banned. Pirate Pete being a pirate made him walk the plank although it was only into a freezer with frozen peas and various other veg. The manager did get very cold because Pirate Pete sat on the lid of the freezer until mum found him and said he had to let the manager go. By then the manager was a bit frost bitten and delirious so was taken to hospital to warm up. Mum has decided she might leave Pirate Pete at home next time just in case the manager remembers his hissing legs