Another day in the life of a blogger

Yesterday Mr Chris our friendly builder and master of many trades arrived about half an hour before we were due to head off for an Indian meal with friends; he had arrived with a vital part for the central heating.  Luckily although we did not have time to change the vital part we were able to remove the old part (the motorised valve drive) to prove that my assessment of the fault was in fact correct. Then before Mr Chris ran away he left the valve fixed in the central heating only position. This means the central heating is working rather well and not being overridden by the hot water thermostat, so although today has been rather chilly the house is nice and toasty and the office radiator is seriously hot. This is rather novel and has not been the case for months.

My trusty vehicle which has been at the garage for a couple of days has returned a bit dented on one of the front wings and although I don’t mind as the car is old, it is a bit annoying as it drives rather well now. The garages are really good and have said they will investigate and will give the car a look at next week.  I have said many times to many folk, never get too attached to a car as scratches and dents are an everyday hazard and if you get worried then you will go mad each time they gain another small injury of some sort. To tell the truth I never clean or wash the car and it is usually full of rubbish and stuff such as an axe, a crowbar, gloves, bits of wood, several small cheap kites and maybe a plastic rat and various things of the unknown.

Funnily enough in the post this morning arrived one of those Car Digital Vehicle Recording camera systems, so if I end up in a bump I will have recorded evidence of what happened. In the old days folk would be honest and admit things but sadly those days have long since become a thing of the past. Now folk blame the other driver, seagulls, trees, snowmen or Zombies.

My eyes seem to be a bit better now than they were and I am also feeling a little more bouncy again and with luck a decent spell of spring weather might turn up soon too.  Finally I noticed on the Midlands news that the British Quidditch Cup is taking place this weekend, now personally all I can say is a sport designed to be played on a flying broomstick either needs to be left to wizards or they need to lose the broomstick entirely. Just a small personally view point that will not make a blind bit of a difference to anything.   

The Strange World of Harry Potter, Sinks and Fate

Only the other day I mentioned that a trip to IKEA was needed in order to replace the sink as our old sink had sort of fallen apart (I know it’s a sink?) and I also mentioned that my car had issues. Not as in it does not like pink and is refusing to enter the garage until the wallpaper is removed sort of issues, but as in a bit faulty. Anyway as a result of all this plans changed a bit today and my sights were set on nearer locations for sinks, in particular B & Q in Shrewsbury. Well fate is an odd critter indeed and can create many a coincidence, because as you know my blog is in JK Rowling mode at present so as I looked at a wall of sinks (no really it was a wall of sinks?) and we pinned the choice down to three it became clear which one was the right choice when I looked at the names. You do loads of research and in the end it comes down to the fact one of the sinks was from the World of Harry Potter, by that I mean it was called a Sirius Black sink.

Then I thought maybe this sink is named after Sirius Black or to give him his full name which we now know, Sirius Sid (Sink) Black or just Sink to his close mates. I can see why he has kept this a secret over the years I can imagine folk saying stuff like . . . Who the hell is doing all that tapping . . . . . or . . . . WHO’S turn is it to do the washing up then SIRIUS . . . or even . . . Stick a Plug in it Sirius . . .

Interestingly having just heard the Midland news on the tele, it appears that had I tried to go to IKEA it would not have been very easy as the main road was closed due to an accident involving several vehicles. It just goes to show that life is a very very twisty road indeed (no pun intended) and that you just can’t tell what is for the best, which it seems in my case was my car having problems and requiring a trip to the garage the other day. Maybe the car knew more than it was telling and thought I am not going there.

With luck (well who can tell what luck is) the new Harry Potter based Sink will be fitted into the new worktop tomorrow and will look dead posh, the new kitchen will then be one stop closer to completion . . . . . It has been a long time now since it was started and I am flagging

Ooooooo I also got my car back in the late afternoon and it is happy and smiling again. 

Alien Spiders from Mars . . . (The Ziggystardium)

It has been some time since we have seen Mr Jones the alien hunter so it was a surprise to see him peering into the Ghost Writers car about lunch time. It appears that unknown to the Ghost Writer his car has become an incubator for a particular race of spider like aliens from Mars which Mr Jones says are called the Ziggystardium. The ghost writer himself is not too bothered and says they can stay there for now, but Mr Jones went OOOOooooooooooooooooo.

According to Mr Jones they will quickly grow into huge things and are not friendly and will probably suck the brains out of the Ghost Writers head, something aliens have a habit of doing quite a lot.  The Ghost Writer says that his brains were sucked out years ago so YA SUCKS BOO, but Mr Jones says that he will regret saying that when he is trapped in a traffic jam on the M6 with his head covered in aliens and a policeman knocking on his side window. 

Delicious and full of Natural Goodness the all New NOCAR BAR . . . Driving Men Mad

The Ghost Writer ventured off to his place of work today, but was using our car (again) as he has Nocar . . . . When I say Nocar I am not referring to the chewy sweet substance made with the fermented legs of the nine banded armadillo and seaweed from the shores of the Ivory Coast blended with the crushed bodies of the sugar monkey. Yes I know I know they are very cute, but delicious and give Nocar its distinctive sweet flavour. 

I am referring to Nocar which is the state of exact opposite of a car.  The advantage to owning the Nocar is that it is incredibly cheap to run although admittedly it is a bit slow, but in eco terms it is difficult to find any vehicle that can equal it. Of course the great disadvantage for the Ghost Writer is the reason he is using the Nocar is because his car is sort of dead, like the Norwegian Blue and is pining for the Fjords  (sorry I mean Fiat spare part) and like the Norwegian Blue will arrive back with a big Bill  . . . . . . HAH HAHAH HAH HAH HAH AH HA HAH HAha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Anyway the Ghost Writer was in his grey office with one other person who it turned out was not expecting to see anyone else, so it is just possible that he spent the day working away when in fact he was probably still on his Christmas Holiday. But he did say that he was able to get on and do stuff and back up the entire system, and did not have to be nice to anyone as they were not there, as he often says an empty office is a happy office.

It was also a slightly better day today something that the Ghost Writer says tends to happen when he is trapped in a grey office all day. However the forecast is not good for the weekend and it looks like its going to be good pirate weather again, HAR HAR HAR me old sea dogs…..

 Ooooo yes I have been told I am an IDIOT apparently Nocar the chewy sweet substance made with the fermented legs of the nine banded armadillo and seaweed from the shores of the Ivory coast blended with the crushed bodies of the sugar monkey is not called NOCAR. . . . It is called  NOUGAT, and apparently not everyone makes it the same way as we do, I have been told to say nothing as it may ruin sales . . . . . . . AH DAMN. 

A Rolling Stone and a Gutter Full of Moss.

There is an old saying that goes . . . .  A rolling stone will gather no moss . . . . . Well yes, but that is a bit vague, surely it would depend on where it was rolling, how fast it was rolling, how big it is, weather conditions and all sorts of other stuff. So as a saying it is like many others I have used in my diary, rubbish. However the saying . . . . A north facing roof gutter gathers loads of moss  . . . . .  is far more to the point, particularly when used as a saying in the UK.  And can be used with some effect if you are told to get the ladder out and someone points at a gutter and says . . .      A north facing roof gutter gathers loads of moss . . .  followed by time to get up that ladder Rob and sort it ouT. So I spent part of the day clearing a very blocked gutter but it no longer has any moss in it, I have glued the moss to a large round stone which I plan to roll down a hill in front of a crowd of people and point out that a certain old saying needs to be removed from the encyclopaedia of old saying, pronto.

The Ghost Writers car is back at the garage, I was sent with him so that he would be nice to the mechanics and smile when they implied that the reason the clutch has failed again was due to a build up of moss in the moving parts, due to a period of wet weather. And of course it did not help that one of the mechanics quoted the old saying . . . A rolling Firestone Tyre . . . .  Although after my experience I was able to add that only if you don’t drive in the gutter of northern roads, which lead to much pointing and scratching of heads with the occasional knowing nod at something mechanical.

Anyway I am off drumming tonight, the last session before the end of the year so we will be summoning up the Micro God of Years ready for the big event……. I will return later (and still this year).

I have returned but I have also forgotten what I was going to add so I will go again. It appears the year is going to end in rain, but why does it end now (well at the end of tomorrow) I need to find out, because it not the most significant day of the year really. 

By the way have you ever wondered what happened exactly 

one year ago  

I did

The Car, the Council, Rats and other stuff

The Ghost Writer has run off with one of our cars, well when I say run off he is in fact sat in it driving, he is not the sort of chap to run anywhere. He has done this because his own car is technically a little faulty as its clutch it not entirely working as it is meant too. The problem is to do with the fact clutch is not releasing when the pedal is pressed and as the clutch was changed about 30, 000 miles ago by the previous owner there is suspicion it might be a hydraulic problem. However if you look up his particular vehicle, a Fiat Multipla in cyberspace and see what folk say about this the general view is OOOOOOOooooo its not the clutch is it that will be expensive, those cars are a nightmare to sort clutches out. And it appears irrespective of what the fault is the engine needs to be removed which involves mechanics shaking heads, pointing fingers and making distressed tutting noises.

The Ghost Writer borrowed our car to attend a meeting where his work (a charity) warn everyone that due to funding negotiations getting protracted there is a risk everyone will be made redundant.  This happened last year also and much of it is to do with the local council on the Welsh side of the border not only being a little slow and inefficient about these things, but also desperate to cut a spending overspend. And I think there is a certain amount of stabbing one another in the back at present, something that can happen when folk are pushed to the edge, this is a natural human instinct (also shared by rats) which is why folk get crushed in panicking crowds or large men dress up as Dorothy when the ship sinks, or it may be they found a bargain on Amazon, well that what they tell the ships captain anyway  (Rats by the way don't dress up as Dorothy).

I have also been to see Mr P in Hospital today as promised to both Mr P and Mr M and he was looking rather happy today as he has been given a date to go home which is Monday. Lets hope he makes it after all he has been in hospital a year and most of that is waiting for the council to sort his accommodation out, strangely it’s the same council as the Ghost Writers work is funded by so I wonder if that is good or bad…….

In other news there were many tractors on the road today going places although I do not know why, where they came from or where they were going so to tell the truth it is pointless even mentioning that I saw them although I have now  . . . . .DAMN.

Finally we are having Homity Pie for tea WELL YUM I love Homity Pie………….

Ooooo yes I must get back to do some arty stuff I am less efficient in the cold. I bet I could make some great snowmen if snow was warm. . . . . 

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Cars, Cold and the Dangers of the Amazon

It appears the Ghost Writer is having a bit of a car problem at present as his clutch will not disengage when his car is cold, this is OK in the summer but not ideal when it is cold in the winter. As we are now in December what it means is his car is sulking and it will be heading off to the garage some time next week to be looked at. He has tried sacrificing leaves to Gearboximus the Micro God of Car Parts but to no avail. It does mean all the leaves got cleared off the drive, so dad was very pleased although it was dad who told the Ghost Writer that sacrificing fallen leaves was a sure solution to the Ghost Writers car problems, I was sure it was furry mice you were meant to sacrifice or was it furry dice?

While on the subject of things that are happening at present I have a word of warning for you all that you need to take heed of, particularly if you are a young eccentric child of cyberspace like myself when I remember, I am old I forget these things . . . . . .(DAMN that’s a slip up). Anyway back to the present and my warning, you see I have been looking at Amazon the rather well known online shop of everything (well here in the UK it is) for presents and made a serious mistake. While looking for presents for Dad and the Ghost Writer I made the mistake of typing in Men’s toys as you do, lets face it men like playing with toys loads; it a sort of men’s thing they remain about aged 10 deep down in their DNA and I know these things I’m a chap.

Yes I know what you are thinking Men’s Toys we know the sort of thing that turned up with that search and to some degree you are right but you are also wrong because there are things there that plainly confused me, so I will try and list a few.

My Little Pony Rainbow Dash All Over Print Lounge Pants

Mens Shrek Gingerbread Warrior Costume

Mens Fishnet Tights (Black)

Meerkat Costume - Kigurumi onesie animal suit

BLACK ROADIE BEARD HEAD HAT NOVELTY MENS CHRISTMAS BIRTHDAY GIFT PRESENT

Donkey - Adult  Costume

ADULT ANIMAL ONESIE,PENGUIN... FANCY DRESS COSTUME

Mens Funny Dorothy Comedy Wizard Of Oz  Costume –

Now when it comes to dressing up in a fifteen pounds Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz costume there must be a limited customer base among men, yes I know she is a bit of a gay icon (I think?), but I really don’t think even the gay community will buy a cheap plastic Dorothy outfit in order to look a bit like an escaped Zombie from Oz.   And what is even more worrying is much of this is made in China and what on earth are they going to think, we may be attracting entirely the wrong sort of tourist from this vast land and they may be very disappointed.

Anyway I have abandoned this idea now and they may have to be content with socks . . . .

It was another rather cool looking sunset tonight but is now cold, what I need to keep me warm is a Shrek Gingerbread Warrior Costume  . . . . . . . . OK its not that cold yet.

Professor FrankenZompire and Mr Voodoo Vam Banshee's Mechanical Emporium of Amazing Contraptions Ltd

The Ghost Writer has got his car back today and it is working hunky dory again so he is very pleased, however he says that he was not expecting it to be turned into a fire breathing dragon by the garage, even though they were very reasonable with their charges. They told him that the modifications to turn the car into a large undulating fire breathing dragon were free and all part of their comprehensive service package. The Ghost Writer says all he really wanted was his car back as the modified vehicle is very unpractical and he is blaming the person who recommended this particular garage because he personally  had never heard of it before.

AH DAMN; as it happens it was me who told him to go to Professor Frankenzompire and Mr Voodoo VaM Banshee’s Mechanical Emporium of amazing contraptions Limited, as they are very friendly and always willing to help. Yes they do have a bit of a reputation for getting a little over enthusiastic in their work, but that is a positive thing when your car is poorly and needs to be fixed.  I guess I should have warned him they are rather keen on dragons though.

Still it is a cool car (dragon), although the police have told the Ghost Writer that the flames emitting from the mouth of the dragon are not legal.

I did not do a lot today, ate, painted and poked about in ditches with a pointy stick and cooked  marshmallow on the breath of a dragon car……..

The Car, the RAC Man and Pgytis Manra the Micro God

AH yes last night as we went off for a meal with our Friend Mr F to The Sun we sort of broke down, I say sort of because after kicking the car a bit and hitting it with a large stick then phoning the man from the RAC who put us in the priority list; I explained that the very nice Steven Spielberg was making a movie and that a car braking down was rather a nuisance when there is a large film crew in convoy stopped on the main road. Which of course is true it would be, and will be, when Mr Spielberg gets round to making the film, but then dad and Mr F managed to get the car going again so we made it to The Sun (the inn not the big orange thing in the sky) so we phoned the RAC man and said that all was well.

Pgytis Manra the Micro God of Cunning, Stealth and  Small to Medium Machines

Today is seriously hot again and added to that the  grass strimmer was not working so I was sorting that out and discovered the spark plug was a bit rubbish even though the voltage to the spark plug was excellent, I also discovered that my heart works fine too and that a large voltage to my body has no effect to my typing ability which is sadly just as bad as it was before.

Anyway in order to avoid further mishaps I have drawn Pgytis Manra the Micro God of Cunning, Stealth and  small to medium machines…… 

PHEW its hot  . . . . . . . .really hot 

Glastonbury and Rolling Stones, Zombies and Top Gear

I have been outside today strengthening a weak spot in the Zombie defence system as a smallish one managed to climb through a small hole and attack me; luckily I have recently done my Zombie defence classes at school so was able to fend the beast off. I say beast it looked a little like one of those Rolling Stones chaps who are playing music in a big field down South in a place called Glastonbury. Only if it was one of them, then they are smaller than they appear on the television and much older but not as scary. . . .  I managed to patch up the hole with hazel branches and some other bits and pieces but I can hear the faint sound of music from the dark distance past drifting over the fields which I can only assume is an old Zombie war dance of some sort calling the massed armies of the ancient Zombie hoards together. Luckily there is talk of a few showers tomorrow and Zombies hate mud they keep falling over.

While on the subject of terrible ancient things from the past I have just returned from watching Top Gear the rather popular motoring entertainment show, I know what you are thinking and I am very sorry, but we all have our little weak spots in culture and mine is Top Gear. I am always amused by the fact folk get so upset by them saying silly things and acting like small children but that is what makes it so popular. And as dad points out if we all drove like mad men we would go through a set of tyres every week which is silly and expensive.  And everyone thinks they can drive the Reasonably Priced Car faster than all the celeb’s who get to drive it, it is the human ego; but I for one know I could drive it slower than anyone else if I was allowed too because that is the sort of chap I am . . . . 

Silent Zen Retreats and Dinner, Micro Gods, the Z to A and other things

It has been one of those days were much has happened, but in a sort of not doing much way, so it sort of looks like not much has happened, I think we all have days like that and just at present I am having quite a few of them.

First thing this morning dad went off to get two new tyres on his car, but he had made the mistake of making his car tidy a while back and in so going had left a big tool box full of stuff in the garage which included the lock nut bolts for the wheels which can't be removed without them . . . . .AH so after about forty five minutes dad arrived home to collect the lock nuts and me, and we went off to get two new tyres, they are much better tyres because the car is much quieter now. It is surprising how much noise some car tyres can make, particularly square ones made of stone.

XYTHIM the Micro God of Words

On our return Miss I and Mr S were at our house they had arrived for lunch and we then waited for Miss Kate, Mr S’s mum who was also coming to lunch. When we sat down for lunch Miss Kate told us she was off to a Zen retreat after lunch up in the wild hills of the Welsh countryside, apparently it is a silent retreat with no power and old fashioned soil composting toilets and healthy food and you have to get up at five o’clock in the morning and because there is no electricity once its dark its dark. I am a little worried about this because if you don’t know where things are and it is a silent retreat you can’t ask folk how to find things, and if someone came and woke me up at five in the morning I would shout at them a lot. I would probably also fall about at night in the dark saying “where the hell is the light switch” only to be told off silently.

So by the end of lunch Miss Kate was starting to worry a bit as we explained all the pit falls of a strange Zen retreat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mad Zen monks with glazed looks and large axes who laugh in a slightly manic way but silently, and what happens if you do want more dinner you can't ask anyone.

Remember yesterday when I wrote Z is for the Zumtonians (sorry but not the Zubtonians, we don’t talk about them, well not in the silent retreat anyway)  as the start of my Z to A jolly and I said I had no plans to do Y today well its true so I have done X instead and I have drawn XYTHIM the Micro God of Words, the thing is the X is silent so it sounds like it should start with Y only it does not.  It seemed very appropriate to draw the Micro God of Words because I can say loads of them because I am not in a Zen Silent Retreat . . . . . HAH HAHAHHHAH HAH HAHAH HAHHA HAH HAH ah h hh ha hah ah ah hah aha hah ah ha ah ha hh ah hah ah ah ha ahhaha ha hah haha ha hahah HA HA HA.

OK I need to go it is getting dark (Oooooo luckily I have a light switch) HAHAhHAh hahah haahhah hahah hahhha………………. 

The Garage, the cat and being poorly

Today has proved to be very different to yesterday. The weather man said yesterday that we could expect rain where we were at two o’clock, and at five minutes to two it started to rain. And it has also been about 20˚ C colder today than yesterday.

I have been rearranging the garage and so it looks remarkably tidy at present but you still can’t get a car in it, something that is fairly typical for Britain. It is strange just how common it is to have a garage and the last thing that anyone puts in it is a car on the grounds that it is an entire waste of space, even when you have loads of space both outside and inside the garage; unless  you have seriously posh car that you get all paranoid about, worrying it might get wet. The big garage clean up is in preparation for the possible arrival at some point of a load of stuff.

Thinking outside the Blog's 

Now yesterday was ticking along OK right up to evening when I started to feel a bit on the cold side, colder that I should have considering it had been such a lovely day. Then I started to get colder so I spend half of last night physically shivering in bed, so cold it was impossible to sleep properly; then about four in the morning I warmed up and got so hot that it was very difficult to get to sleep and I ended up with a headache. So today has been a long day because I have been very tired, I have just had a siesta for a bit to get my wits together. Interestingly I have not been the only one not feeling well, as Sooty the Cat has slept most of the day and hardly eaten and looks like he may have been beaten up by geese or Zombies although Zombies would have eaten his brain and he would now be wandering about like a Zombie which just at present he is. . . . . . .AH.

Last night in my state of frozen delirium I did manage to finish a new members badge for my rather elitist blogging group RATs, the Radical Abstract Thinkers, there is nothing quite like a new posh hand drawn members badge to rekindle interest or justify the huge membership fee.

OK I am off now as I am still not 100 percent and need to be on full alert in case I am attacked by a zombie cat.

Pizza, Marmite Fudge a Blue Sugar Mouse and newts

I have had a long day doing IT stuff with the Ghost Writer, normally that is his area of expertise but he needed someone to use as a human guinea pig to conduct IT experiments on and the only person anyone could think of, who it was felt was expendable was me. Apparently a life in the twilight of reality and cyberspace means I can poke about into a PC and prod RAM and stuff and go oooo no that bit of code does not fit between the bed and the wardrobe and it clashes with the red curtains. It appears this is not how normal IT conversations go between IT folk, but then we are not normal IT folk, well the Ghost Writer certainly is not for a start off he hates computers and says they are the devils work.  He often makes the point that people think by using computers in their office they will use less paper, but the reality is you use more because you can generate more things to print much faster but very often get it wrong at least once.

After a long day of doing IT not only was the Ghost Writer totally spaced out as he is every weak, but so was I. But on my return home and after some pizza and marmite fudge and a blue sugar mouse, I spent the evening doing African drumming with my drumming colleague who is making a pond at present and was wondering if we could sell him some black market crested  newts out of our pond in a sort of nudge nudge wink wink say no more sort of way. Well you know what newts are like, a right bunch of prima donnas.

So there you have it I am late tonight and it is all the ghost Writers fault (again), I bet Steven Spielberg does not have problems with Ghost Writers and computers, and fitting computer code into a  Victorian alcove with an old guilt mirror and flying ducks hanging on the floral wallpaper hand printed in china in 1924.

Sorry it is all a bit of a rush tonight and very late and my brain hurts...... PHEW

The Comet Store Web Site, the Washing Machine and the Wing Mirror

Have you noticed that when the weather is grey wet and generally not very nice, something that keeps happening in the UK quite a lot on and off, motorists start to get more aggressive.  I assume there must be some sort of deep rooted physiological reason for this that goes back to the days when we were quadrupeds and switching on the central heating or lights or air conditioning and the like were not options. Maybe bad weather instils a need to head for the hills and safety in a sort of dog eat dog way, which when driving a car can be a little scary for the rest of us. I am sure it is not as bad when the weather is sunny, we tend to watch antelope leaping in the fields and ducks swimming in the ponds,  while chatting on our mobile phones and smiling as we drive, which admittedly can be a little distracting on the M6 at spaghetti junction. I think personally if I was in charge I would ban knitting while you drive; all that knit two pearl one slip every fifth and pick up the second of every fourth row is hard to do while changing gear on a roundabout particularly if you are also eating a doughnut with cream.

Dad has resolved getting frustrated by all the bad motorists by leaning out of the widow with a large axe and removing the offenders wing mirror with a well aimed blow then sticking his tongue out at them, sticking his thumb on his nose and wiggles his fingers at them as their wing mirror bounces along the road.  His only error so far was doing this to the local police car because they were not entirely happy but dad put their grumpy behaviour down to a long dull spell of weather.

Myself and the dog have decided to have a bet on whether the new washing machine and tumble drier will turn up on Saturday. You see mum and dad have bought them from Comet, which for those of you outside the UK is a large chain of shops that have sort of got into some serious problems with cash flow. I am confident it will all be OK but the dog is convinced someone has done a runner with our cash. Trouble is the old one is dead and outside and unlike the Undead will not even groan and stagger about a bit so once I am very smelly that will be that.  First thing this morning dad was able to get to the Comet wed site and track his washing machine across the world but by midday Comet had vanished from cyberspace and the help desk says  . . . . . . . We are hiding under a table out of view of the public, please go away. Then it automatically hangs up on you.  In a survey recently by the chain store (they do not sell chains) it was reveal customers very grumpy due to bad weather on the road getting to the store. They are generally out of town stores and a significant number also said they were put off when a madman with an axe attacked the wing mirrors on their car. 

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The Bradley Wiggins Effect, a Strimmer, Heavy Harry the Cat and the Chicken

The summer holiday appears to be rapidly going at the speed of a speeding express train (no not slow I mean quickly) and I appear to be doing DIY and gardening every day, that can’t be right. This diary is meant to be the diary of an eccentric child of cyberspace, a Peter Pan character in a Harry Potter world only less sulky and moody and in an Adrian Mole Diary format. So all this DIY and gardening is fundamentally wrong, however I am working on it, and I talked the dog into eating a large alarm clock. Peter Pan had a large scary ticking beast, unfortunately I had not considered the fact that the dog would chew my alarm clock quite that much so it stopped ticking.  You can let a dog off once with that mistake but after he had chewed the fifth alarm clock I was a bit annoyed and had no alarm clocks left. In the end he swallowed my ipop in one go and spend the day busking outside the out of town supermarket singing the Ace of Spades (again, I know it’s a small world, things repeat themselves).

Meanwhile Miss Fionaski the Famous Russian Spy is off today to the moon on a secret mission which I must not mention……..DAM……… Sorry I did, and Captain Nessman of the High Seas starts heading off for his adventure in China tomorrow.  I think I am allowed to mention that so that’s OK…….. …….. ……….. …….. AH No sorry……..DAM.

Heavy Harry the Cat and the chicken have sort of been playing although Heavy Harry the Cat was not entirely happy that the Chicken tried to nick his drink. Mum was out in her black Lamborghini and muttering about the so called Bradley Wiggins effect, this for those who do not know of the Bradley Wiggins effect is groups of unfit men on expensive bicycles cycling on the road and looking like a heart attack on wheels. I personally think it is best to leave this to Bradley Wiggins himself he is much better at it that the rest of us after all I would not leap out of a tall tree and flap my arms just because a pigeon does (yes yes I know I did try it just the once).

As for me I was gardening again, well after I stripped the strimmer down and rebuilt in which took half the morning to do, it was bought in 1995 and spent the first 10 years of its life outside regardless of the weather so it sometimes decides to sulk a bit. I once met the man who invented and designed Black and Decker’s first electric string trimmer in 1970 (the model #8200) but he never got the credit for the design which was given to an American the following year. Life is fickle (again). But this is all a distraction from the fact I have not done anything interesting today what so ever.

Oooooo I did catapult a dead pigeon over a fence……….

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The E type Jaguar, the medieval chairs and the combine harvester

Today started in a fairly traditional Saturday morning way with a quick trip to the Bishops Castle (he still refuses to come out), where provisions in the form of milk and bread were purchased and a decent newspaper so that we can catch up with the worlds news. I will have to do some politics again soon I think just to prod the world with a pointy stick and see if we can dislodge a snake from a computer. Nothing to do with me by the way, cats are to blame.

We then went to purchase suitable desk chairs for the slowly emerging orange room. Luckily we found the ideal things, a pair of highly carved but slightly battered medieval oak desk chairs. They are well cool and will fit in perfectly to a bright orange room with a 13ft X 3ft 6 inch desk in it and a computer with a snakes head sticking out of the front fan vent.

As we arrived home however waiting to turn right onto our drive we had to wait for a convoy of vehicles, but not just any vehicles. This was the classic ‘you don’t see a bus for hours on end then twenty five of them all turn up at once’, only it was not buses, it was classic E type Jaguars…….. Now how cool is that, it was the most E type Jaguars I  have seen in one place in years. I ran off to get the camera once they passed because I reckoned there must be at least one straggler some where a bit behind. One thing I know about E types is they may be cool looking and hell to park but they are rather unreliable, even when new they were a bit fickle and some of these cars are now fifty years old.

I did not have to wait long because a few minutes or so later three more passed and I did manage to get pictures of the beasts……. WELL COOL.

After a game of Paper Scissors Stone I found myself sorting some electrics out after lunch and then fitting the top to the desk of the Orange room. It is sort of fitted in as much as it is the right size and in its final resting place, but not yet screwed down.

And a short time ago a large combine harvester arrived in the field next to us to do some work, I assume combining the harvest, or maybe having a race with a tractor with a strange array of massed wire comb things that also turned up. The dog has an each way bet on the combine harvester which to me is cheating bearing in mind there are only two things racing about the field.

Ooooo yes and loads of butterflies today (why are they called butterflies. The only flies that land on butter are ordinary house flies and that big thing with the teeth and pointy tail (the DOG HAHAHAHAHh hahah hahh ha hahahahhah hahah ah hah hahahhaha hhahha )  

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George and the Goat. The European Union and old traditions

With it being July now we are ever so close to the end of yet another school year and so today was the day the school mascot was dressed up in his ceremonial outfit for the ritual feeding of the beast.  Yes today was the day when every pupil in the school had to look the school goat in the eye before the end of the school year sacrificial feast.  It is not exactly as you might be expecting because all the pupils are lined up and the goat proudly walks down the line looking for any small weakness in the pupils. Eventually someone will crack and they become the goat’s ceremonial feast for the day.

Of course some of the parents can complain and the local authority have said they are considering banning the practice, apparently we are the last school in Britain that still sacrifices a pupil at the end of the year for their goat to eat. The Headmaster has blamed it on the European Union and says these old traditions are all dying out, a bit like George from Class 13TA who made the mistake of sneezing as the goat was passing him. It’s his parents fault they should never have sent George to our school knowing he is allergic to goats.

Esmeralda is not happy she says once the goat has finished eating George (it may take a couple of days George was a big lad) he will be too heavy for her steam powered catapult. But right now I don’t thing the goat cares. A small word of warning; never stand alone with a school goat in a dark alley unless you are absolutely sure it has eaten….

Dad went off to Shrewsbury today to get some wood for my next project but he says the roads were chaos; he was not sure what was going on because we do live a bit out on a limb (not Georges limb). It appears the A49 was closed and so all the cars had to find alternative routes south which included a chunk of them heading in our direction. Our little twisty roads are not designed for loads of traffic and huge trucks so dad was well spaced out by the time he made it home.  Apparently the dog lost his bet with dad, as the dog had bet dad that the goat would pick me this year, I was wondering why the dog threw a pot of barbecue sauce on my head this morning. Which is why I stood next to George just in case; you see despite all appearances I am not an IDIOT or dinner (HAH HAHH HAHH HAH hah hah hah ha hah ahah ha)

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The curse of the Bank Holiday traffic

As many of you know Mr Napoleon Beelzebub closed his shop, Napoleon Beelzebub’s Very Strange Victorian Curiosity Shop about six or seven weeks ago. And although many of his treasures have been returned to the bowels of the earth and are now locked away in the vaults for eternity; several items had to be returned to artists. It is the SOR (sale or return) items that he had in his shop; mum said at the time that we would do this for him as a favour, after all Mr Beelzebub does get a hard time from folk.

So today we arranged to go on a little trip delivering items at two secret locations (its mums spy background coming out). The first location was a garden centre where we were delivering ceramics, small bottles designed to house genies, to a person in a car park with dark glasses on and a rolled up copy of The Times newspaper (that’s the person not the car park). Having first said “The begonias are looking remarkably well for this time of year” and getting the reply “Yes I have one in the potting shed that likes to sing songs by Elvis”.

The second location was in a quiet street near a ‘house for sale’ sign and this time we had to say “the rain is falling on your house” and the person this time (a different person) would say “Ah yes, so you like the water feature, I can leave it for you if you wish”. We were delivering painting of tempestuous weather in the wild hills of Wales to the second location.

Now as far as the deliveries went all was well and it was mission accomplished, however there was one thing overlooked in all the planning that only came to light when we stopped at the local garage for petrol before we set off on the mission.  Having been cut up and forced to wait by angry aggressive drivers determined to be first at the fuel pumps at all costs, it suddenly dawned on us it was in fact the bank holiday weekend. OH NO Bank holiday weekends on the roads in Britain are not good and today was a classic example of the bank holiday effect. People are very aggressive and everyone is determined they are going to be first to get to where they wish to get to. So drivers are hunched over the steering wheel faces pressed against the windscreen and snarling, grinding their teeth and driving like it’s the end of the world. And all so that they can go somewhere to relax (?) and enjoy the extra day off work. It’s a strange way to relax fighting on the central reservation of the bypass and jammed for hours waving your fists at other motorists or driving down the wrong side of the road because someone has the audacity to drive at the speed limit.

Anyway as I’m the eccentric child of cyberspace me and the dog were in the back of the car shouting BOO and LOOK OUT THERE’S A WHITE LION ON THE ROAD at other motorists and the dog would bite the odd wing mirror off cars towing caravans (they have those extended ones, ideal for a dog to bite off). And Mum would shout IDIOT at us.  

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Nitroglycerine, narcotics and a fried Nightinggale

A Nice if Nippy trip to school this morning, in a Nissan nascar driven by Nigel from Nicaragua who is Nice too, in fact I would Not be at all surprised if a lot of things are Nice today.  The dog is (k)nackered after spending last Night in a Night club throwing Nitroglycerine at the Newspaper man, taking Narcotics and sniffing Nitrous oxide. Mum for today only has said he is a NINCOMPOOP; the dog is Nodding in agreement.

 

We had a New teacher today from up North who had a Norwegian Nanny, he is one of the Nouveau rich and a Notorious Novelist and thinks our class are all Numskulls …… NOT NICE

 His first Question was who wrote “Take thee to a Nunnery”, none of us knew but Natalie did shout A NUN, he seemed a bit nonplussed and shouted NO NO NO NO it was; but before he could finish his sentence Esmeralda said Isaac Newton , He is an “N” person. The New teacher Mr NASH then said N’s, N’s Why are you are obsessed with N’s

 Nick said he liked N’s and had several in his garden, as well as a pair of Ducks and a Rabbit. The rest of the class then jointed in and added that if Nick keeps N’s, than with tomorrow being an O day we could all eat Omelette. And someone pointed out that if we lived in the south of Britain we would not be able to do the O day because they are planning to ban the use of O’s because it was on the News. By Now Mr Nash the New teacher appeared to be having a Nervous breakdown and said that we were all being needlessly negative and noxious, before a nurse came and lead Mr Nash away, who was by now wearing nothing, (completely Nude) and playing Noughts and Crosses and throwing Novels at the Notice board. Natasha said she had accidently seen Mr Nash’s Naughty bits and it was NOT NICE, in fact she thought she would be having a Nightmare tonight and was never never ever never going to have a boyfriend ….. …… ……..YUK     

Captain Nessman of the High seas says HAR HAR HAR HARDY HAR I be heading to Nova Scotia HAR HAR.

Newt Stew and Noodles with stir fried Nightingale for tea YUM

Oooooo sorry I am a bit late tonight but for reasons it will take to long to discuss now I have been at a WI meeting ...... Nice Food though 

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