Storm Barney Bites and Blows over a Robot

Well as I sit typing away in the security of my little office (well sort of office) the wild winds are now blowing overhead as the second named storm of the year has arrived. It is something of a novelty in Britain to have named storms because in general we don’t get anything bad enough to be worth naming. But I think the National Weather Centre (the Met Office as in Metrological) in a cunning bid to keep their hands on the BBC weather forecast franchise have decided folk like names. And that is indeed true we all like a storm with a cute name, the first one was last week and was called Abigail and now we have Barney, which implies an alphabetical theme going on I suspect. As far as I can tell from here, Barney is blowing harder than Abigail was so I am hoping to see Barney Blow a stone wall over so I can point and say . . . . . Look it’s a pile of Barney Rubble . . . HAH AHAh ah ah a hah ah ahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha  . . . . . .  Sadly we do not have any flint stone walls in this part of the world which would make that even better.

The other thing I noticed is that they say there is a small chance of power cuts which means typing away on a device that needs power is like a game of Russian roulette for writers. I was planning on saying failed writers but actually I write loads of stuff it is just that no one actually reads much of it, that is not quite the same thing as being someone who has written stuff read by loads of folk but who no longer writes stuff. A bit like that Shakespeare chap, although to be fair he has quite a good reason for no longer writing much. I mean I would be disheartened if a load of monkeys turned up and we able to write you entire works without ever reading it in the first place,  Its like that chicken and egg problem . . . . . Which can first the Monkey or Shakespeare. . . . Well plainly in that case it’s the monkeys which can only mean Shakespeare copied the complete works of the monkeys

OOOOoooooo I have just lost a paragraph due to a power cut, see I was not kidding it is getting windy out there. So it might well be time to run off and hide for a while . . . . .  OK then chaps head for the fortified bunker, make sure your heads are wrapped in kitchen foil and you have your trusty pointy stick and inflatable Hedgehog (sorry life raft).

I have Just had to go out to save one of the Robots and all I can say is BLOODY HELL. . .

Good Luck Mr H I hope all is well with you

OK that's it powering down and running away. . . .  

A Day in the Life of a Blogger and other events

Yes this is a snowman and a vampire drawn by a small child

The Vampire is the one with the ears

And they both look a bit evil to me

This is my drawing of Thomas the Tank Engine

I was told it is rubbish by a Small Child

I think the addition of the Owl and the Pussy Cat

Confused the Small Child

I have had a busy day that involved my attempt at making a gate for outside, I say attempt because it is a bit rustic, but looks OK and it will do the job required of it. Which is to stop the winter wind sneaking round the corner of the house at the back and laughing at me. It has done this for a couple of year now and I have threatened it with retribution at least once, but all it does is howl a bit and carry on. So that is that, it has had its last chance, mind you I did not get to put the new rustic gate on its hinges as we had visitors one of whom was a small enthusiastic and noisy child.  I am not that good with small children with their leaping about having a good time and it is much worse when the little critters like you, which makes it much harder to scare them.

To try and keep this small enthusiastic child quiet the pair of us did a bit of drawing. Now I don’t know how many of you have experience of drawing with small enthusiastic children but they are to put it bluntly not easy to keep focused on what they are drawing. We started with Thomas the Tank Engine, well he told me it was Thomas but it looked a bit like a demented mad axe murdering train to me. And I know it has been a while since I have seen Thomas (I prefer Ivor the Engine it is a million times better) but one thing I know is it does not have 14 pairs of wheels. I tried to help by drawing the Fat Controller. . . .I suspect he is not called that now. . .  but my controller was actually rather thin and looked like a priest out of some old western with a parrot on his shoulder. The small person then drew the fat controller but it looked a bit like Edward Scissorhands to me but very very thin and sort of tree shaped. . . .  Small people are (not to beat about the bush as the saying goes) total rubbish at drawing and trying to explain the principles of perspective is like trying to teach an Earthworm to climb a ladder.

The Small child soon got bored and decided it was time to leave and head off for his Sunday roast while I now slightly the worse for wear headed out into the cold wind that was still laughing at me even though it could see what I was planning to do. I then managed to hit my thumb with a hammer which was a bit sore, so I shouted at the wind a lot and waved my hammer at it in defiance. Starting a small stampede among a passing group of elderly walkers I had not spotted until then who thought I was mad. And a man on a bicycle fell into the hedge thinking I was the God Thor arriving to attack him, apparently he said he has been expecting it to happen for some time. I tried to tell him I was not Thor but it is tricky when you are holding a large hammer in the air and shouting so in the end I agreed and said he was now free to cycle in peace. . . .sort of. 

Some days never quite go to plan  

How to use an Umbrella on a Sunday

It has been and still is, not a nice day, I refer to the weather, in fact it is worse now that it was earlier with the wind picking up and the rain increasing somewhat. Luckily it should not get windy enough to cause us any problems and despite the fact the front lawn is under an inch of water we are not going to flood due to the position of the house. But being Sunday means it is quiet and with the weather the way it is, it’s very quiet indeed, not even a Zombie is going to stagger about groaning in this. Interestingly one thing I have never seen before is a Zombie with an umbrella, I’m sure they must know about them and they are technically not hard to use.

Actually I take that point about the use of umbrellas back, because one thing I have noticed on the various news clips of the terrible weather Britain is having is that in many of then folk are battling against the wind and rain with umbrellas.  As you might expect I can hear you type, but in most of these cases the umbrellas are being flipped inside-out and the folk holding them looking stressed and wet. You see there are one or two important points to using umbrellas and these days they are even more important due to the ever increasing use of the small collapsible umbrella; a device which I think we can say is rubbish.  O yes the collapsible   brolly might be convenient to have when it is not raining but they certainly are not when it is raining unless you don’t know how to use an umbrella then at least they will flip inside- out and back again all day long.

So using a brolly correctly first you need to keep the front edge down and pointing into the wind, lift it up to far and the wind gets underneath and will do its best to pull it out of your hand or turn it inside out. You also need to keep the thing close to your head not three feet above it unless it’s a sun brolly or as posh folk call them parasols, try that in Britain and you will be a goner unless you are called Mary Poppins. Best not to tell folk you are Mary Poppins lets face it nobody liked her and she set Britain back 100 years in the minds of the rest of world.   The final point with an umbrella is they become unmanageable once the wind gets to a certain speed and it is like trying to hold a wild man eating mutant seagull over your head and lets face it if it was a wild man eating mutant seagull you would not hang onto its legs and hope it will keep you dry. So once the wind speed gets to the point you can no longer maintain dignity with a umbrella it is better just to fold it up and get out the rain as fast as possible rather than appear on the BBC news looking silly and holding a wild man eating mutant seagull.

Oooooooo yes I have done a bit of arty stuff today so all has not been lost,  although I have probably lost something somewhere today as I tend too most days. One advantage of having glue all over my hands is that I tend not to lose stuff as it tends to be attached to my fingers……