Ghouls, cooking and paint

Since the last time I put pen to paper we have had another trip to the seaside, more glorious winter sunshine, lunch out and a lovely stroll along the sands.  On the return journey we were caught behind an accident on the dual carriageway.  The collision had only just happened and was half a dozen cars in front of us.  It was particularly nasty, every emergency vehicle in the county seemed to be in attendance, including the air ambulance, and we were held up for two hours whilst the emergency services did their job (I certainly do not envy them).  What we found shocking was watching masses of people getting out of their cars from further back and trooping down the carriageway for a better look.  None of them were offering assistance, some were even photographing and videoing the goings-on.  When the helicopter arrived, people were getting their children out for a look.  What planet are these folks on?  Would they like to be gawped at, photographed (no doubt to be uploaded to social networking sites) and pointed at whilst lying on the road?  No, I thought not.  You ghouls should just be thankful that you were caught in the queue and not in the incident itself.  As for quizzing the police on just how long the road would be closed for........get real......they don’t have it shut for fun you know.  Did you think the seven land ambulances and five fire engines were just there for a day out?

Last weekend I sorted through the freezer and liberated several items that were past their use by date.  Some had been there for so long they were priced in guineas and carried the message “Good Luck to the Troops, best wishes Florence Nightingale”.  On the back of this clearing out I decided to break with tradition and do some cooking.  I now have six vegetable lasagnes neatly placed in one of the drawers.  I am guessing this is a better option than bulk buying lasagnes and other pasta dishes from the supermarkets in the current climate........I can’t say that I am fond of horsemeat thank you.

Here is a question for you regular readers.  Should I write my memoirs?  Having read several celebrity books telling their life stories, ought I have a go as well?  Difficult one really as various issues are raised.  Would it be ethical to only include the happy and jolly stuff?  Probably not.  Should I leave out people that I would rather not be reminded of but who were part of the story?  How many people might decide to sue me afterwards?  Hmmm......need to think about this a bit more I think.

Now that the better weather (ha ha ha) and longer days are approaching my thoughts are turning to decorating.  I have been in this house for nearly eight years and there are still rooms that have not been done.  My bedroom has a bizarre shape with a sloped and domed ceiling and lends itself to being painted white and marked out in large blocks to form an igloo.  There is even an arched doorway so this style is a possibility.  My parents have decorating to do too (although I expect I will have to do battle with my Dad over this and maybe tie him to a chair) and I believe a list is being compiled.  At least I sorted the trickiest area last year so the rest should be a doddle.  I enjoy the painting and can whip around a room pretty quick with my five inch roller, so let the revamping commence.

 

Dreams, snow and thongs

A happy belated new year to my regular readers (and any new ones who have found their way to my works of rantings) – I hope 2013 is a good one for you all.

Christmas passed without incident this time fortunately, nobody overate and my father resisted the temptation to induce illness by snacking on meat products that had been left out for too long.  We even managed to celebrate Boxing Day with friends on the actual day this time.  Santa did well with his delivery of goodies and the reindeer appreciated the plate of carrots that I left out for them.  They had all gone by Christmas morning.............although there was rather a large pan of sliced carrots on the hob. Surely there cannot have been a connection?  I will investigate further.

Back in the world of my peculiar dreams (amazing I have any at all really considering the few hours sleep I manage to snatch each night)........I did have to check the details with my parents and fortunately they were able to confirm that they were not moving back to Harrow, and my father was certainly not going to abandon my mother to go and live with Esther Rantzen.  Glad I got that cleared up then.

Prior to Christmas I placed an order with Jessops for a slide scanner.  I paid for overnight delivery and the following day the box arrived.  Excellent................or not.  They managed to put the wrong item in and sent my scanner to Southport.  This was the Thursday prior to Christmas.......by the time I had been lied to several times, promised delivery of the correct item the following day and so on, I eventually received it a full week after I had ordered it, having not been sent out until Christmas Eve.  With service like that is it any wonder they went belly up the next week?  John Lewis also let me down with their next day delivery........all the paperwork in the store I was collecting it from said it was there but it was somewhere else with the courier company.  Once again I was lied to time and time again and I eventually received it nearly a week late.  On the plus side they did contact me within an hour of picking it up and told me that a credit would be applied to my Barclaycard (sadly not for the full amount).  Why in this country do we put up with such poor service?  Customer service is totally lacking in many cases and with more and more retailers going out of business there should be a wakeup call from the survivors to pull their fingers out and get on top of shoddy delivery and rude staff.

The snow hit us last week and shows no sign of melting any time soon.  Quite frankly I had had enough of it after the first hour, particularly as 24 hours prior to this I had been skipping along the beach on the south coast and paddling in the sea.  Such a change in the weather is not welcome.  Snow belongs up a mountain in Austria where in fact my brother is heading this week for his annual skiing trip.  Perhaps I could bag a load of snow up for him to take as carry on luggage, thereby relieving us of some?  Just an idea.

With the current weather conditions I have confined my parents to barracks and am doing their daily shopping.  There is no way I am risking Mum’s new hip that was installed nearly a year ago and Dad won’t wear appropriate warm clothing most of the time.  I have been forced to threaten confiscation of Mum’s boots though as I have discovered she keeps popping out (along the icy path) to the bin........... Ha, try doing that with no winter boots on!  They are going pretty stir crazy though as they are used to being out and about every day.  This is the ideal time to crack on with sorting out photo albums, doing a bit of decorating, writing large cheques to their favourite daughter etc. but instead so far they have tried making soup in their new soup maker (it went down the sink), and sampling a large lump of Panettone (the garden birds are enjoying it instead).  Roll on the big thaw when they can get back to their thrice weekly trips to the nearest large town, where Mum can scuttle about doing the shopping and Dad can count the number of obese people eating sausage rolls whilst wearing vests with heavily tattooed arms showing, and bending over to reveal a grey-rather-than-white thong poking over the top of their chav jogging pants.

 

Pus, pictures and a pooch

Well then, it has been a while since my last publication but life has been rather busy.  Actually life is always busy, but it is a good excuse.

I finally got to the dentist and had the hole in my wisdom tooth plugged.  After the initial first three and a half weeks of pain after the filling went AWOL it sorted itself out and has been fine ever since.  However, the plugging reactivated the recurring abscess that has been claiming squatters rights in my lower jaw for over twenty years and I spent a few uncomfortable days with a square face and pus filled cavity before it exploded over the bathroom mirror.  Okay, too much information, but now you know.

One of my main hobbies is photography and I have around 17000 photos stored on an external hard disk............or at least I had.  For no reason whatsoever it went kaput at the end of last month and basically told me it was empty.  Aaaarrrgghhh!  To say I was beside myself was an understatement; however I managed to source a forensic lab with talented technicians who have managed to retrieve a lot of the pictures.  In this world of digital photos I thought I was doing the right thing by storing them all on a separate drive to the main computer.......my new way of thinking is to store them on about four different devices.  Fortunately thumbnails for all my photos are on the photo editing software, however as they are now not linked to the drive it looks like I will have to take photos of the thumbnails and download them......the quality won’t be the same as the originals but at least I will be able to look at them.  Anything prior to digital can be rescanned so it looks like the long winter nights now have a purpose with sorting, scanning, renaming etc.  Just goes to show that whatever you load onto a disk stays there even if you think by pressing the delete button it zooms away forever into cyberspace.  Of course Mr Glitter made this mistake when he took his pc in for repair.

I made a show of myself last week.  A supermarket visit was needed on a very wet and windy evening so we jumped into the car and headed into town.  Armed with goodies for the weekend we dashed back across the flood plain that is the local supermarket car park and himself dashed on ahead in a chivalrous manner to open the car for me.........I was hotfooting it with my hood up and head down and on arriving at the car I flung the door open and was about to toss the box of tissues (that I certainly didn’t remember leaving on the seat) onto the floor before leaping in to get out of the rain...........just then a very nice and somewhat bemused lady told me I was in fact getting into her car............  Well it was hardly my fault, similar style of car, interior lights on........okay the interior was pale leather rather than dark fabric, but hey, it was wet and I was in a hurry.

Shocking drivers continue to appear all around town, every type of driving offence from using a mobile phone whilst travelling; overloading the car; not strapping children into seats......there was one stupid woman who took the biscuit last week.  She was driving down a main road with schools up and down its length whilst using her phone and stroking the head of her dog that was sitting on her lap.  I am guessing she was either steering with her knees or had employed a small person to stand in the foot well.  What gets into these idiots???  I presume the biscuit she took was later enjoyed by the pooch.

Spain, pain and rain

Back from two weeks in the hot Spanish sunshine to reacquaint myself with the cold, wind and rain of England.  What joy.  The fortnight was great fun and kicked off when I woke up minus a rather large filling in my wisdom tooth (think half the tooth and you will get the idea) on the first morning away.  I don’t normally take painkillers on holiday but this time I had packed a couple of packs so eked them out over the two weeks...............some people might think that taking Panadol away for the first time was down to witchcraft, however I prefer to consider it forward planning.  Now I am back home I can’t get an appointment to have the gap plugged until November.  Ouch, ouch and thrice ouch.  I never did find the one that dropped out..............I guess it morphed into a midnight snack.

We saw plenty sights around Andalucia including some rather unpleasant female ones on the beach.  Good grief, in future please consider the feelings and sanity of the other beach visitors and  (a) do not wave your various body parts around for all to see; (b) wear clothing that is suitable for your age and body size; and (c) remove the brillo pads from under your arms and around the bikini line – the supermarket near the beach sells razors for this purpose.  Thank you.

The town we were staying near had a local fiesta towards the end of our stay which we went for a look at.  There was a fairground, all the children were dressed in traditional costumes, food and prize winning stalls were sited around the area and all in all the whole event was brilliant.  I have an aversion to fairground rides and will only go on the ghost train, so imagine my excitement when we found one!  We paid our three Euros each and hopped aboard ready to brush against fake cobwebs and hear ghostly whooooooo sounds...............hmmmm, the train in fact went around a circular track passing behind a board then back outside again several times, then did the same thing backwards before another couple of laps forwards!  No ghostly stuff at all, however it was so silly it was funny and well worth the financial outlay.

The locals had a celebratory church service then headed outside to carry on the theme.  This took the form of various flamenco teams dancing and singing in some sort of contest.  Contrary to the holiday brochures depicting such dancers, these ladies were generally over sixty years of age and some sadly were more pantomime dame than flamenco dancer, however it was fun to watch and certainly got all the watching tourists into the mood.

Local wildlife was in abundance around the villa and started with ants about an inch in length.  They scuttled about here and there before finally launching themselves into the pool and drowning.  Later in the week we met a large cricket, a lizard, some teeny tiny ants and some beetles.  Fortunately these were of the insect variety and not the musical Beatle species as had Sir Macca turned up then it would have been time to beat a hasty retreat back to Blighty.

I am currently sitting watching the great British weather at both ends of my house.  Out the front it is bright and sunny with blue skies, out the back the sky is black and about to rain.  Bizarre, and I have had enough of the cold weather already.  However, compared to the sight that greeted us on the run in to Malaga airport, we have it pretty good I suppose.  The area had been subjected to heavy flooding in the few days prior to our arrival and the land looked like a third world country with the amount of water and mud everywhere, crops ruined, villages under water and general chaos for those involved.  Once again I was reminded of how glad I am to live at the top of a hill (although the top of a hill in a hot and sunny country would be far preferable)........if I get flooded then the whole town will have already been submerged!

Adios amigos.

Fly on the wall, overpricing and special offers

Another week and another eye-opening fly on the wall television programme.  This time the cameras follow the emergency services in Blackpool and show what the crews have to deal with day and night.  The episode this week focused on young people..............well, what an entertaining bunch those featured turned out to be.  One 13 year old was arrested for head butting a police officer followed by swearing at him, which earned the lad a night in the cells.  The programme makers interviewed his mother who couldn’t understand why the police didn’t just bring him home “like they used to do to me at that age”.  Oh right then, that is totally acceptable.  Another woman (I use the term loosely) was arrested for prostituting herself under the pier in broad daylight with a group of young lads for a fiver “a broken fiver at that” she said.  This piece of loveliness claimed she didn’t think Blackpool is a family holiday resort – in fact she described it as a shit hole.  You can’t beat the education standards these days.  Chavs displaying their finest qualities – I feel sorry for the decent citizens of the town who have to live amongst these people.

Despite the poor weather this summer I seem to have a garden of triffid proportions which all need cutting and sorting before the autumn sets in.  How on earth can everything have grown so much without any sunshine?  The ground has been so wet over the past few months that I considered growing rice – I quite fancy standing in a paddy field to harvest my crop.  I made a start on the chopping at the weekend and have bizarrely given my Dad the go ahead to prune selected areas when I go on holiday.  Once more I will be trying to source some police tape to cordon off certain parts of the garden to try and prevent an unnecessary cull.............perhaps a local farmer has a spare length of electric fencing I could utilise?  Hmmm, must look into this further.

I had a reply from London Zoo in response to my email following the overpriced visit where the lack of main attraction animals was evident.  Apparently they have over 650 species on display, this includes hundreds of varieties of insects........who on earth wants to see these?  The response also states that “we do not advertise anywhere at all that we have these animals here at London Zoo”.....I beg to differ as the onsite maps around the zoo clearly show the camel and gorilla areas, neither of which were evident on the day of our visit.  The extortionate food prices are, apparently because “we do source our food from local, high quality suppliers and this does mean that this is reflected in the costs we charge our visitors”..........how can two sandwiches with not much in the way of fillings, two bags of crisps (branded, not locally made) and two bottles of soft drink cost over £14???  Sadly this is another place that is on the ‘do not bother to go again’ list.  The food prices at the zoo made Waitrose seem like a bargain store.

My parents are off to the Lake District for a short holiday with their wellies and umbrellas packed.  Plenty to see and do in the area and I daresay there will be a few amusing tales to tell when they return.  Twelve months ago my Mum couldn’t have entertained the idea of such an active trip but since her new hip was fitted there is no stopping her.  I am not entirely sure she will be scaling Scafell Pike but at least walking around the towns and doing some Christmas shopping should be okay. 

This week’s special offers via email...........a pack to help me stop smoking (bearing in mind I have never even tried a ciggie); the mobility scooter has made a reappearance; offers of payday loans with repayment rates in the thousands of percents; and finally, private healthcare – I guess this will come in handy for the vasectomy I was offered a couple of weeks ago.  I just love the total lack of research done prior to the send button being pressed on these messages.  I can hardly wait for the next crop to land in my inbox!

London, football and animals

What an amazing weekend at the Paralympics!!  Well in fact it was a weekend in London for the sport plus some sightseeing and with the 80 plus degree temperatures thrown in for good measure, two brilliant days were had.  First port of call was the Cutty Sark now that the burned bits have been scraped off and repainted.  I had been as a child but with the addition of a visitor exhibition it is a real crowd puller now.  However, the high entry fee was off-putting so we admired it from the outside and took a few photos.  From there we walked to the Greenwich Observatory (the hill was very long in the hot weather............) and stood either side of the Meridian Line (had to pay for the privilege of course).  After a reviving cake and bottle of pop we skipped down the hill and climbed aboard the driverless Docklands Light Railway to head to Stratford for the night.  I was really looking forward to a long hot bath to relax my muscles............however, we had been allocated a room with disabled facilities – no bath, just a floor level shower with no tray.  Hmmmm okay then, it was functional and obviously saves the maid a little time as the water flows across the floor thereby washing it, but I wanted to have a bath!!!

Anyhow, onto the main event, the Paralympics 7 a side football.  We were lucky enough to see Team GB beat the USA in the first game of the morning, followed by the Netherlands thrashing Argentina in the next game with a hat trick in the first 18 minutes.  Watching these guys playing quality football put the overpaid prima donnas of the Premier League to shame.  Each of the team members yesterday had some degree of impaired mobility but they played as a team; when they fell over they were straight back on their feet; they could actually do stuff with the ball like dribbling not just passing it from one to the other........the FA would do well to look at the high priced rubbish that is fielded every weekend and make some serious changes.  Sign up some of these chaps instead and the fans will see proper skills. 

When wandering around the vast shopping complex by the Olympic Park we kept running into athletes from many of the international teams buying souvenirs, having dinner or simply soaking up the atmosphere.  Everyone involved with running the event from the volunteers up to the armed services integrated with the public, little kids high fived the soldiers, people were smiling and joking...............what a great public relations display this was.  I wonder if the spirit of being nice will continue?

We took the Javelin train back to St Pancras on the high speed six minute trip from Stratford then made our way to Regent’s Park to visit London Zoo.  Having grown up in the London area, this was a favourite place to visit in the school holidays to see all the animals, have a picnic and learn about wildlife.  What a disappointment this visit turned out to be.  After being ripped off for the entrance fee (well it is Britain after all), in we went to see the usual main attractions at such a place.  However, there are now no elephants there (a zoo without elephants, what is that all about??), the many gorillas advertised as being on show were invisible either inside their area or in their outdoor enclosure (I am guessing they may have paddled across the moat surrounding their island and escaped over the fencing) and the camels were not being displayed as their current area is being remodelled to house the tigers.  That should be interesting if they forget to relocate the camels to an alternative place prior to moving the large stripy cats in.  An email has been sent to the zoo but I doubt anything very useful will come from it.

Good news though as I got home to find a letter from Silverstone with a refund for the parking fiasco at the grand prix this year plus a goodwill gesture for 10% off the price of tickets for next year.  As these have already been booked, the admin crew are arranging a refund cheque.  What a result..........perhaps I will be able to afford to head out to another London attraction now?

Carnival, the snip and Zanardi

Another couple of busy weeks have passed by..............I sometimes seem to be living in a whirlwind being blown from one place to another with no let up to pause for breath or to get any sleep!

Over the bank holiday weekend we headed to London for the family day at Notting Hill Carnival.  What a great event!  Having lived in the London area for 34 years, I had plenty opportunities to go but at the time it was often marred by high levels of crime and violence which was somewhat off putting.  In more recent years this has reduced a lot so off we went.  Anyone who doesn’t like very loud booming and bass based music would run a mile, but this just enhanced our experience.  Originally an exclusively West Indian event, the carnival has evolved to be a community project with all nationalities taking part.  The costumes were spectacular, the weather conditions very similar to the Caribbean and the streetside food and merchandise stalls plus a great atmosphere all contributed to a great (and free!!) day out.  Yes please for another visit.  How do I get to be part of the parade or travel on a float?

Regular readers of my witterings will recall how I am continually bombarded with offers of products aimed at more senior members of the community.  However, the spam mailers have excelled themselves now by offering me...............wait for it.................a vasectomy!  Actually I will hold off on that thanks as I am a bit busy at the moment, I have a couple of hours free next week if you can fit me in then.  Market research at its finest.

I am getting excited about my forthcoming trip to the Paralympics this weekend!  The weather is even due to be totally un-British with wall to wall sunshine and no rain forecast, hurrah!  The athletes from around the world have all shown great determination and talent in the various sports and I expect the football on Sunday will be no exception.  So many of the Team GB Paralympians are now household names and our medal total is creeping up on a daily basis.  I was particularly pleased to see that Alex Zanardi won gold in hand biking this week.  I used to watch him in his Formula 1 days and subsequent racing in other classes; however this was cut short when he lost his legs in a terrible racing accident.  Many people would have seen this as the end of their career, however within two years he was racing in Touring Cars, determined to carry on with life.  Absolutely bloody brilliant I say!

Having fancied something other than cereal today for breakfast I headed off to Tesco and purchased some juice and a pack of pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants in case anyone is confused).  Back home, I put two on the plate, settled down in front of breakfast television and took a bite.............never have I come across such hard and stale croissants.  They were impossible to eat and in fact I have the remainder of the packet contents ready to offer to the builders working around the corner in case they are short of a brick of two.  The best before date is still two days off.........these manky offerings have never had a best let alone a best before.  This only reinforces my continued preference to shopping in Aldi where the products are cheaper and far more palatable.  After all, most of mainland Europeans shop in Aldi, Lidl and Netto and they all thrive on it – they also save plenty money by doing so hence the influx of tourists to the UK (I bet they get a huge shock when they see the prices to get into our tourist attractions!).

Now on countdown to Spain, just need to count out all my saved two pound coins, bag them up and ask the lady at the bank to magically turn them into Euros!  Hopefully the forest fires from last week will be extinguished by then otherwise it might be a little tricky on the roads.