The Magpie, The Wood Pigeon and the Huge Mutant Spider as predicted by Quantum Mechanics

OK you might also notice an Eyeball on the worktop 

Today has seen the arrival of a mancky and very battered Magpie in the garden, and a not quite so battered Wood Pigeon. Now I suspect they have not been fighting each other but if they have then the Magpie is rubbish at fighting, I mean wood Pigeons are not famed for fighting and Magpies are cunning birds that will cheat and use rocks.  I am not sure if either will survive and trying to help the Magpie in particular is almost impossible, Magpies don’t trust us humans for many reasons so getting close to one is a no no.  OK the don’t not go out their way to make themselves likeable but nature is a bastard.

However I have avoided stooping to the low depths that nature in the raw can plummet to by painting round a spider in the kitchen. Yes the little beast has laid its eggs not far from the hob and was going to defend them to the end even against a huge great human five millions times bigger than he/she was. I think it might be a she, a chap would abandon the kids in that situation and do a runner for sure, which as a chap would seem the logic thing to do.  So it only seemed fair for me to rise about the basic instincts of nature and paint round it and the eggs in order to give them all a fighting chance of making through the winter to a new life in the spring. I have a habit of saving wood lice and slugs and various other little critters at times so some might say I am a foolish idiot who is not prepared to face the basic facts of nature such as . . . . . Where does a bacon butty come from. . . . . .  NO NO fingers in ears and shout hum hum hum diddle ping hum a lot is my response to that one, bacon comes from the fridge in a packet and that is enough for me.

The painting has gone to plan and the kitchen is now 99.9% complete which I have worked out will mean next August will finally get it all done with the exception of a small area the size of a little spider and its eggs which by them I will have forgotten about entirely much as I did in the hallway. Something that was pointed out to me, as I carefully painting round the spider. I don’t think the spider in the hallway was the same spider although come to think of it I don’t know what happened to all the eggs once they hatched so maybe they are related. If I ever have to face a huge Mutant Spider in a Gladiatorial Roman Arena in the future I know I will be safe when I tell it of how I did not paint over his ancestors.  OK it’s a long shot but Quantum Mechanics says it could happen, so it just might.   

House Signs, Halloween and untold tales that have not been told.

Yesterday was quite busy which led to the repeat of an old poem. Today has been fairly chilled which means that really I should not repeat an old poem or post but I might just repeat one of the old Halloween stories, because that will save me loads of extra work.  Sometimes towards the end of a lazy-ish day the last thing you fancy doing it writing clever stuff or leaping about, not that I leap about while I write my blog that would be stupid on many counts. One of which is my old PC can not leap, it is too old and Knackered and another of which is I am too old and Knackered, you see I and my PC are in harmony we are as one.

One small Job I did get done today was to finally finish the new House sign, remember I did say that DIY works on an exponential time curve so that last tiny bit has taken a while. I still have a wedding present to finish and there are tiny bits of painting to do in the kitchen.

There was a village hall meeting in our kitchen last night and folk nodded approvingly and said things like Oooooooo that’s very shiny red and stuff like that so it means folk seen to like it. It is good if folk like what you have done, there is nothing worse than then going O MY GOD have you been burgled or make comments like O dear who chose that colour still it matches that decomposing mouse the cat mauled that is rotting in the corner. . . 

I now need to fix our new house sign to the big post at the end of the drive securely so I may need to phone the very friendly builder to see if he will lend me his cordless drill as my drill has a cord and the end of the drive is a long way off. That sounds dead posh but it is not, we just have a very long drive. Mmmm that might still sound a bit decadent, but the keeper of the gate is allowed to wear informal clothes these days.

Right OK I will go and find a good Halloween post to repeat now. . . What about the one where the large man eating rabbit peers through the window of a mad android scarecrow that is making soup out of kittens and . . . . NO you are right that was not entirely kitten friendly

Well what about the confused Aliens who arrive on the night of Halloween and spent a lot of time trying to communicate with small children dresses as Zombies . . . OK yes it was silly

OK the eyeball lost in the Lollipop factory . . . . . Right I sense I am not doing well

The sea monster that ate fish fingers

OK that’s it I appear to have run out of words, I may ramble a lot, have you noticed I ramble a lot. I can imagine some professional publisher going why is he rambling, this is rubbish this is not how to write. . . .well YA SUCKS BOO is my response to tha,t no wonder books have a certain sort of uniformity to them with there covers and pages full of words and page numbers that increase in a rational logical fashion one after the other.

DAMN I may have got a bit distracted, did I say I finished painting the new house sign today. . . . .   AH DAMN again I did.

The Exponential Time Curve of DIY, Lists & Zombies

So what did I do today well not a lot I did manage to clean up the last window in the Kitchen, which has been lingering about as a job to do for some time now.  I have over time come to realize that working on the house you actually live in has its own issues that need to be taken into account.  One of the more important of these is the completion of the task, OK it sounds dead easy, but it is not. You see you start off all keen and enthusiastic and the job skips along like a kangaroo chasing a porcupine on a skateboard, but the nearer you get to completion the slower you work. Eventually you will come to a grinding halt although it can be difficult to judge at what point this will happen; with luck it will be with something tiny left to do that folk will not notice. 

Now some of you will be thinking OOOOoooooo no I would never do that, but anyone who does any DIY on their own home, which here in Britain is loads of folk will know this is a universal truth.  I am sure that there is a wise old Chinese saying from back in time that says something like. . . . . No man should ever completely finish working on his own home if he wishes to remain happy. . .  It is a wise if sexist saying, but back then old Chinese sayings could be a bit like that, lets face it political correctness is not something history is abundant in.

However in respect to completing the work in the kitchen this was the last awkward little job to get done and it is all chilled from now on with only a few tiny wafer thin bits left to do which based on the Exponential Time Curve of DIY (that’s Do It Yourself if this is a term not used outside of Britain).  So in a mere 15 years it will all be done. However there are loads of other jobs to do I have a list which was given to myself and our friendly builder Chris. Although Chris the friendly builder was given his own list by his wife so he is a bit busy at present, well up to the point he has almost finished then he will be back. We have a project to start in the garden building a Welsh Chapel lookalike Summerhouse and bolthole to escape from passing Zombies.   Zombies avoid Welsh Chapels because they will say. . . It is full of Hymn. . . . . HA HAH ahah ah ah a ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah ah a hah  

Talking of which I still have to write my all new Halloween tale of an old witch from a strange Kingdom where celebrating Halloween was banned until one year when . . . . . . OK that is enough of a hint for now. . . . . Exciting isn’t it . . . AH DAMN

And a bit of Poetry to keep you happy

The strange world of twitter

Is full of bits of litter

Jumbled words in a few short lines

From the jumbled heads of jumbled minds

Where has the Tarra-gone

It’s been missing for some Thyme

It ran off to Coriander

Having heard the Garlic had been crushed

And the Chives all chopped up Fine. 

Kitchen Floors, Strangers, and the End of the World

Today we had strangers in the house not as in sneaking in but as in expected, but they were folk I did not know and I don’t like having folk I do not know in my own house. To make matters slightly worse they were doing work in the house, I do not like folk doing work for me if I don’t known them, particularly in my own home. Just before they arrived in their van they phoned and a rather chirpy Jack the Lad sort of chap explained they would be arriving soon in a rather chirpy Jack the Lad sort of way.  They were on their way to lay the new vinyl flooring in the kitchen diner. I had laid ply down removed the skirting boards and filled any gaps so that all was nice and easy so they were dead chuffed when they realized all that had been done. It also meant they were able to complete the work much quicker than they had planned and left a couple of hours later still chirpy and smiling well ahead of schedule so that they could get another job done before heading home.

So it means the kitchen  diner is starting to take shape and is just starting to look a bit posh which is all a bit odd really because I am not posh and very very dishevelled and rickety. So there is not a great deal left to do, a bit of electrics and I have to remove all the plastic film from the IKEA units so that instead of a dullish mat red there will be a high gloss shiny red allowing folk to see my reflection in all the units glowing red at them in a scruffy dishevelled fashion. . . A bit like a shabby devil with unkept hair and a grumpy disposition.

I heard from a friend earlier who was having a bit of a family issue with a member of his family clutching the lawn in a vice like grip and refusing to let go. I think they were trying to talk the person off the lawn, but last I heard they were still fixed fast to the ground.

Now if you remember I did say 21^st September was the End of the World and I was just wondering if this was the first stage. One of the things you might expect to happen if the End of the World does occur is folk clutching the ground and refusing to let go. It is entirely logical because if the world is going to vanish the best chance you have of being a survivor is to be hanging onto it as best you can. . . . . I am at present hedging my bets because I have just had a posh new floor put in the kitchen diner so if the world does not end I will be able to eat in a posh room although still looking a bit tramp-ish in my own general appearance.     

Kitchens, Ducks, Swallows and the Creature from the Black Lagoon

Today has been a big day in the revamped kitchen where much plastering and tweaking has taken place as we battle to try and finish everything. I am not that good at plastering OK I can get away with it in a house with wonky walls but not in a house with flat walls for fairly obvious reasons. So today Mr Chris the builder came to do plastering and between us we removed and adjusted some wiring. 

To add to the interest our little pond at the front of the house had a visit from a female mallard duck and her duckling that spent a bit of time stuffing themselves with pond weed. They were then joined by a large flock of swallows on the power cables in the field next door. Seeing swallows on mass is not a good sight because they tend to do this a week or so before they head south and they head south because they think Autumn is due, it seems a bit early to me but swallows know stuff.  So is nature predicting an early winter, I am not planning on predicting anything more this year after the Queen did not die and the Conservatives won the election. I know I did mention sort of mention the world is due to end on September 21st 2015 at 8.30am GMT, but I like to think of this as more fact than prediction. I mean all that conflict between diametrically opposing dimensions in space and time can only end in the end of something and after the election and the Queen it has all gone seriously wrong and that’s for sure.

Anyway I am rather knackered now and the rest of the night will involve being chilled followed by my re-enactment of The Creature from the Black Lagoon in the shower later where I will scare the glow in the dark plastic duck. I usually try and scare the Elvis plastic duck but he has worked out it is not the creature from the black lagoon but me, so he just thinks I Quackers . . . . . . HA AHAH ha hah ah ah a ha ha hah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah h ahah ah a ha ha ha hah hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I have another very busy day tomorrow where I need to look like I know many things and will be nodding and pointing at stuff in a very knowing way while others nod and look like they know what I’m doing. When the reality is no one will know what’s going on but no one is going to admit that. So very much like the government really only none of us get paid loads of money (well I don’t although the others never say what they get).

Oooooo yes the solar panels manages 1540 kilowatts this quarter so impressive stuff.

Well that’s it for today I need to think of some big questions again and write something interesting, I can feel boredom creeping into the minds of the readers even as I type.    

The art of the double edged compliment and handles

If you are going to put handles on draws and cupboards then it is important to make sure they are exactly in the right place or it will be noticed. There is nothing worse that ripping out the old kitchen knocking down walls, redoing ceiling and rewiring only to have someone say when you finally finish. . . . That must have been a lot of work, is that handle a bit off centre or out of alignment. This you see is the nature of humans. Folk will say things like OOOOoooo that is a lovely shirt is it meant to be white. I have resigned myself to such comments over the years as I potter about with various projects and arty things. A great classic response in art said by many to many is That is really a nice picture. . . What is it? You then go onto explain and be nice to them when what you should say is something like What a lovely nose you have what a shame it appears to be spilling blood all over the carpet, but we don’t do that.

So what I am getting too, is that today I was fitting handles to the new kitchen and I was going to make sure that they were right and they are. Yesterday the electrics were moved about and the sink fell apart. Yes the sink which we planned to reuse as it is only just over two years old fell apart. . .I know sinks don’t normally do stuff like that but this one appears to be rubbish. So a replacement is needed in order to avoid folk saying OOOo what a lovely kitchen Ah why does the sink look like that. . . .that IS  mmmmmm unusual.

Getting the new sink will involve a trip to IKEA (the old sink was not from IKEA) which will involve my car, which went to the garage this morning with a fault, the main man at the garage has gone on holiday so his faithful assistant looked at me and said NO Mr T has gone on holiday, please take it away look at all those cars out there.  Understanding the plight of the faithful assistant I said I’ll leave it over there with the others then. Well what can you do with a faulty car?  I could see he was looking stressed so I cheered him up and said you have done a great job on that old jaguar out front it looks like new, shame about the oil stain all over the drivers seat . . . . I then ran off, well I had no choice as I didn’t have a car, I will sneak back in a couple of days and smile at him and see if I can get my car back.     

The rambling words of a Newt Keeper

It has been a couple of days since the last post posted on this blog which was about hard working families and the reason I have not posted a post is because I have been working hard on you know what. Yes the Kitchen, you see I discovered that a couple of pipes from the range cooker sort of went where I did not want them too, so I have been sorting it out (sort of). Anyway it means that the problem will now look like it was all planned and when folk look I will say. . . . . . . . Oooooooo it was all quite easy really and everything went as expected. . . . Which will be a lie as houses do like to fight change, as do people generally.

It has rained today which is not nice but I guess it does keep all the plants (and us) alive and the ponds filled up and the newts and toads happy. I had to move four toads and a couple of Great Crested Newts yesterday that were living in a tarpaulin in the part of the garden that has the apple trees in. They did not have it propped up like a tent and were not huddled round a fire to keep warm toasting the odd fly on a skewer complaining about hard times. The tarpaulin was lying on the ground and rotting and needed to be moved and the little critters were making the most of the perfect conditions to chill among the fruit trees.

 I saw a huge hornet at the same time . . . it was huge and I mean really giant sized huge,  in fact it was run away screaming huge shouting what the hell is that thing. . . .  It was the largest hornet I have ever seen outside of a scary sci-fi movie about man eating hornets.

OK back to the newts, because while at the Friday market in the village I was informed that it is illegal to handle a newt in the UK without a licence. What was particularly odd about finding this out was it happened before I found the newts under the tarpaulin. As the subject of newts had arisen in connection with another unrelated issue to do with other folk in the village, who as it happens would like a couple of our newts.  But we do have loads of them and a bloody huge Hornet. . . AAAAAauuuuuuuuGGGgggggHHHHHH.  

By now you might be thinking what the hell is he rambling on about why has he told us about newts well the fact is I have reached one of those moments known as writers block and no one likes writers block when you spend hours looking at a blank sheet of paper.  Well with all this kitchen building I don’t have time for writers block so I writing freestyle with no idea of where it is all going to end, which ironically is NOW.

OOOOOOooo just to say the picture has no bearing on the words but she might be shouting . . .  AAAUUUUGGGGGHHHHH A HORNET. . .

Lazy Days, Kitchens, Takeaways, Huge Birds and a Fox

I have had a lazy-ish day doing a bit in the kitchen and eating a not so good Chinese takeaway. I think they mean well, but dissolving that much sugar into your meal is a bit off putting. It’s a damn shame because it’s a nice shiny place now and they all smiled, but hey ho and tickety boo such is life in the country, the options are limited.

Anyway I have discovered pipes behind a couple of the old units that are being ripped out and replaced with the new IKEA shiny red ones. This is a slight problem no one likes pies (sorry pipes) where it would be so much easier to get on with stuff if there were no pipes. I can’t move the pipes either as they attached to large lump of metal the size of an average range style cooker. As it happens that is exactly what it is, it provides hot water, central heating and will cook stuff, although its ability to cook depends entirely on the mood it is in and we have long decided it is too temperamental to be trusted with meals.

So I will be pondering and will need to modify the new units a bit in order to make everything look like it was all planned in the first place. I suspect this is the name of the game in the world of assembling a Kitchen, behind all those neat rows of doors in every kitchen in all the world lies a myriad of bodges and tweaks to make it all look as it should. I am confident it will all be OK as there was a huge beast of a bird sat in the apple tree the size of a small sheep while I ate my takeaway. It was being pestered by a blackbird which sat  on the same branch a couple of feet away shouting and leaping about, which was brave considering it was no more that a snack for the big beast. Anyway the blackbird won as the big beast got fed up with all the noise and flew off.  I saw a Fox as well today scurrying across the road and looking like it was up to no good. It was an adult so must be a true cunning fox because about 90% of the folk in these parts will point guns and shoot Mr Fox no questions asked. . . . . 

The continuing saga of the IKEA Kitchen. . . . .

I have been back working on the Kitchen today and it has been slow progress. One of the chunky hinges snapping closed on my finger and then to get it off I had to first find a screwdriver and then had to slide it into the side of the hinge and force it apart enough to escape. It was rather painful but it is OK (that’s me NOT the hinge, although it is OK too). Then later on I found a Stanley knife blade while rummaging in a box for some screws. There was not much blood and anyway the kitchen is a glossy blood red colour, something I have now conclusively proved. I am still working on the 2.2 metre units and the draws are all in and are even in the right place. The microwave is in and working, we need a microwave to make Cocoa and Hot Chocolate as well as defrosting the odd thing from the freezer.  We are not fans of microwave food but they are good to heat up an Indian takeaway from time to time. . .

Anyway I discovered today there are three different hinge types to deal with so I am using my technical know-how to work out which one goes where (luckily only one type bite, the biggest), OH yes that time spend in a secret research laboratory was not wasted. . . . AH DAMN forget I said that. I will say the IKEA kitchen appears to be fairly well made, for what is in kitchen terms a relatively cheap option, but the instructions (or lack of them) are rubbish. All we have are three diagrams of the unit door layout and where they go in the room and a very long list of parts. As for the inside of each unit it is vaguely based on a sketch we made, of what we wanted when we were at the store.  O well onward and upward.

What I need are some of those Mechanical Knights of Trumble-Spinny, they would have this kitchen finished and working before you could say. . . . . . . Why have we got a shelf left over . . . . . . .    

Autumn, floors and the closure of a large place

Today was without doubt the most Autumnal day of the year so far, indicating that autumn really has arrived. Here in Britain that means that the temp in about 12C to 15c it is very very grey on account of the fact the sun is hiding behind a thick layer of grey cloud and it is also slightly drizzly and the hills are shrouded in a layer of mist. Still it could be worse……..

Anyway I was doing practical things at school today as the headmaster insisted or he said he would send me home to mark exam papers from this years new intake of pupils. So today I started to put down a new school staff kitchen floor to cheer it up and make it more colour coordinated… With luck it will be finished on Thursday and we can then play chess on it.

I noticed on the news this morning that the United States of America has closed as a result of a political stalemate in their equivalent of the House of Commons or maybe Lords (Congress). As it happens the real reason that American has closed is that it is broke, yes sadly the country has less money than a lonesome tuna fish in an aqua theme park which has now closed till further notice. But although broke America also has all the really scary weapons, so it will be OK because we will smile and lend them some more, it is always good to be friendly with the man with the scariest weapons. I could try waving my pointy stick, but I feel it will not have the same effect.

So all in all I have not had an exciting day and neither have folk in America, it must have been like the old days in Wales on Sunday’s before IKEA…..