The Cold Sthriketh Again!

                            that                                               given
It would theem               my cold hath although                     me a limp!



                                sthrange!
Now ithn't that                           It makth me feel like a thilly old thod!

I Have A Cold ...

... and it'th given me a lithp!

Sthupid, I know, but it'th thomething that alwayth happenth to me.

You'd be thurprithed at how many folkth come to our houth when I have a cold jutht to athk me to thay 'Mithithippi'.

My wife, ath uthual, ith withing me a thpeedy recovery becauth theth really thick of me thpitting out my wordth!

It's Coming!!!

My head already hurts.

The talk, in the circle I frequent, is already turning towards Christmas.

I haven't recovered from the stress and cost of the last one and already people are pushing the unavoidable prospect of another one under my nose.

I really should speak to my therapist about this!

Shopping expeditions are no longer the strategically designed 'in and out' exercises they once were, as I am now 'ordered' to keep my eyes open for suitable presents - "... but cheap ones, mind you! We don't want people thinking we like them!"

Like the surfer that has just found a ripple that is destined to become the perfect wave, I feel compelled to ride it to shores of  Christmas and beyond.

I just wish Christmas wasn't so commercialised and that we could return to the uncomplicated Christmases of old, where the Christmas spirit started to flow at the end of November and not a moment sooner.

I wish the media would wait until the smell of an on-rushing frost was in the air before peppering us with ad after ad.  

I wish my parents were still around so that they could take charge of the present buying and I could sit back and just relax until the big day.

I wish ...

Bug'rit!

Everyone's getting handkerchiefs again this year.

Now if only I could remember which colours they had?

Sunday...

... used to be such a relaxing day.

It used to be, as I remember from my childhood days, a slow, quiet and boring day that ding-donged it'sway through the morning, siesta'd it's way through the afternoon.  The only excitement of the day was when Song Of Praise was on TV in the evening and granny would say "Oooh!  Harry Secombe! He as a Goon, ya know".

Granny didn't often spoke of her past, other than the occasional "In my day we ... " rebuke, but when Harry Secombe appeared on Songs Of Praise the the flood gates would open and she would recount tales of how she and the family would gather around the Bakelite encased radio and listen to the Goon show.

"He's fallen in the water!" she would always say, in a poor impersonation of  Bluebottle.

"Peter Sellers was Bluebottle." my dad would always counter. "Secombe played Neddy Seagoon!"

Mentally, granny was as sharp as knife, but she did have that little black hole in her memory when it came to who-played-who in the Goon Show.

Anyway, as I grew up I must have heard that little exchange at least a few hundred times.  I was interested in Harry Secombe. As far as this school boy could see, he was just an old man talking and singing (hymns!  Yawn!) so I paid him no heed.

But I must admit that grannies tales of the Goon Show got me interested and when they started re-running the shows on Sunday afternoons, I became hooked.  It didn't matter what I was doing, I would always make sure that at 11.30 on Sunday's that I would be listening to the show.

The Man Who Won The War (Seagoon MCC) is currently on the BBC iPlayer, if you are interested.
(you'll have scroll forward to about 2 minutes 40 seconds)

Now, what was it I was going to tell you?

Erm ... I know I was going to tell you something important.

Maybe it'll come back to me.

High Speed Deposit

Bubbles

Intelligence, per se, is a fine thing.  Everyone should have some!

But there are some ... geniuses we call them ... that are somewhat over endowed in the little gray cell department. They hover constantly at dizzying intellectual heights conjugating and theorising; contemplating and postulating; designing and extemporising. Yet they are prone, as in deed we all are, to the effects of bubbles.

Little  bubbles!

And each one of those little bubbles has the ability to lower, even though it's just for a moment, the IQ of the most intellectually gifted of us an leave us (yes, I think I'm gifted!) looking pretty stupid.

Of course I'm talking about those little moments that occur just before we cringe and utter those immortal words "Oh my God! Did I really do that?"

Like the time I said to a man twice my size and with more muscle between his ears than brain "C'mon then pal!  If you think you're hard enough!"

I won't tell  you the outcome of that little tete a tete other than to say that I lost a tooth.

But it was one of those moments where I walked into one of those bubbles and lost all sense of common sense and my intelligence let me down.

In the cold light of day (and in the absence of stupidity bubbles) it would never have occurred to me to do something like that.

I must have stumbled into a fair few of those little buggers in my time.

How many have you bumped into?

Youthful Mind, Ancient Body!

Trekkies everywhere will  understand what I mean when I say I am currently suffering from temporal disturbances.

My 17 year old brain is at odds with my 52 year old body!

Whereas my brain is still screaming "Yeah" Go for it!", my body seems increasingly less willing and able to grab the metaphorical skateboard and head off down the hill.

My head tells me that standing on one foot, for example, for a few seconds is easy-peasy, but my body sends out contradictory panic signals which leads the rest of me to believe that 'Timberrrrrrrrrrr!' is the word of the moment.

I feel as if I'm still the seventeen year old that enlisted in the Army all those years ago (at least when I'm sitting down). But when I am 'on the go', out and about, the aches and the pains of age catch up to me very quickly and my mind turns the things that, as I recall, gave my parents succour in their later years when trying to cope with myself and my siblings ... a soft chair, a cup of tea and a nice sticky bun!

I envy all those that can tap their hidden energy reserves in later life and I envy all those of my age that can still squeeze into their tight lycra cycling shorts or their running gear and exert themselves to the max.  I envy everyone with enough drive to get up and chase their youth through physical exercise.

But I also admire them and hate them in equal measure.

Phew!

You'll have to excuse me for now. All this typing has worn me out.

If I only had the energy to reach the kettle, I'd make a cup of tea.

Dog Pampering

Since Sym he has been ill, he has developed a few funny routines which we have to play along with.

Feeding, for example.

Yes, feeding.  You would think that a dog would immediately and instinctively eat.
Not so with Sym.  He will stand in front of his bowl ... look at it ... look at me ... and complain ("Hrowowow" he'll say).

He won't touch his food until he has had a calming, pre-meal hug.

Yes, we have to give him a hug before he'll eat his food.  No hug ... no eat!

Bedtime is another of his strange rituals.

Usually it's me that puts them out for their last bladder emptying exercise of the day before I lock up and go to bed.  They usually wander around the garden for 15 minutes or so then, as one, they all troop back to the house and head for their beds ... except Sym!

Clover and Sox know what's coming (a 'good night' sausage or piece of cheese) and jump straight into their beds.  Sym, on the other hand, will stand in front of his bed and wait.  When he first started doing this I was a little confused.  I had no idea why he would just stand there and 'Hrowowow' at me.  I tried the comforting hug but it didn't work. He just took his sausage and lay on the floor.

It was purely by chance one evening that I had to straighten his bedding (I think he'd humped it!) and, to my surprise, he jumped straight, settled down and waited for his sausage.

Now, every evening, I have to make his bed before he'll get into it.  Not even a sausage will get him into bed (he's not that easy) if his bed isn't made.

Anyone else got fussy pets?

Sanity Lost Or Mega Porky?

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Yeah, well ... I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting.  I know how much you all hang on my every word and dream of reading another smidgeon of the literary torture that I put you through.

The reason I was late?  

Simple!  

I couldn't be bothered!

I'm not talking about the run of the mill couldn't be bothered that we all go through once in a while.  No, this time I mean a "Why am I here? What's it all  about?" kind of couldn't be bothered.

For a while there I thought a shrink (I can't spell psychiatrist) would have to make a house call.

Actually it wasn't that bad, but I did have a minor crisis which would have caused me to acquire a few more grey hairs ... had I still had some, but it was all pretty silly really.  

I was sitting here ... right here, just like now ... and I thought 'Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!'

You see, I'd been planning a really witty post ... one of those filled with a host of double meanings and literary sharp sticks that poke fun at people ... when suddenly I realised that I'd lost my notes!  Yes!  For this post I had notes ... and I'd lost them.   

I went through the 'Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!' phase several times as I tried to recall what I'd wanted to write.  I ate two packets of chocolate chip cookies in pure, unadulterated frustration, washed down by numerous cups of coffee.  All to no avail!

I was at the end of my tether and, after questioning my mental faculties and indeed my very existence, I found myself wallowing in pit self pity and frustration.  I was teetering on the very edge of sanity with little hope of salvation!

You don't believe me?

You don't, do you!

OK!  You're right! I was telling a porky (pork pie = lie).

I was enjoying some time off work and had some friends from Germany staying with me and was, in general, just too busy to get my backside behind the keyboard.

But that wouldn't really be as interesting, would it!

Sorry to have disappointed you.

Quiz

Come along and show me how bright you are!

Symdaddy's Quezzies