About This Blog

This blog was originally started as a thread on the forum pages of an animal rescue site. Now it's here!

The articles you find in here are purely for entertainment (yours and mine) and (with one or two exceptions) are all tongue-in-cheek chronicles of the World (my bit, anyway) as I see it.
No disrespect is intended towards anyone unless I make a mistake and make it too obvious.

I hope you enjoy my offerings. Feedback and comments of any kind are welcome.


Monday 15 September 2014

The mouse!

Mouse alert: http://youtu.be/OeTv47z0Z0k

The cat brought in a snack. Gabriele rescued it and it went into hiding.
This is her trying to unhide it!

Dunno why this link reverts to text all the time. Try copy and paste.

Towels

We have this thing going on.
When I say 'we', I mean we Brits, and when I say 'thing', I mean a ritual.

It's a holiday ritual.

It began with the advent of the cheap package holiday in the 1960's.

And over the years has caused any amount of trouble. It could well have caused a third world war with Germany had sensible people, such as I, not refused to play ball.

It goes like this ...

The Brits, in their sunny, summer corner of Spain, in an effort to safeguard their position by the hotel pool or breach, would slip from their rooms at ridiculous o'clock in the morning and lay their towel on the best positioned lounger available.

Disappointed Germans soon learned that to get the best spot they had to get up even earlier with their own towels and beat the Brits at their own game.

Often Germans would encounter Brits and Brits encountered Germans during this clandestine operation.

It very often came to blows!

Well, I've just been to Spain with my wife. In our hotel, the staff would pile and chain the loungers during the hours of darkness.
They were unchained at 6.30am every morning ... and within minutes three towel carriers would swarm around the pool, laying towels and claiming loungers.

It was always a sad sight ... like watching a list and lonely puppy ... to see the stragglers as they wandered around trying to find the last available spots.

Sadder still was the fact that the only people playing the towel game were the Brits!

I have to say that early mornings whilst on holiday are far, far better when you ... and by that, I mean me ... are filling your plate with a delicious fried breakfast!

I'm happy to let the towel loonies do their thing, as long as there are enough sausages and lashings of bacon, eggs and fried bread!

Besides, if I see a lounger I like, I have no qualms about putting someone else's towel in a dustbin and replacing it with my own!

Towels

We have this thing going on.
When I say 'we', I mean we Brits, and when I say 'thing', I mean a ritual.

It's a holiday ritual.

It began with the advent of the cheap package holiday in the 1960's.

And over the years has caused any amount of trouble. It could well have caused a third world war with Germany had sensible people, such as I, not refused to play ball.

It goes like this ...

The Brits, in their sunny, summer corner of Spain, in an effort to safeguard their position by the hotel pool or breach, would slip from their rooms at ridiculous o'clock in the morning and lay their towel on the best positioned lounger available.

Disappointed Germans soon learned that to get the best spot they had to get up even earlier with their own towels and beat the Brits at their own game.

Often Germans would encounter Brits and Brits encountered Germans during this clandestine operation.

It very often came to blows!

Well, I've just been to Spain with my wife. In our hotel, the staff would pile and chain the loungers during the hours of darkness.
They were unchained at 6.30am every morning ... and within minutes three towel carriers would swarm around the pool, laying towels and claiming loungers.

It was always a sad sight ... like watching a list and lonely puppy ... to see the stragglers as they wandered around trying to find the last available spots.

Sadder still was the fact that the only people playing the towel game were the Brits!

I have to say that early mornings whilst on holiday are far, far better when you ... and by that, I mean me ... are filling your plate with a delicious fried breakfast!

I'm happy to let the towel loonies do their thing, as long as there are enough sausages and lashings of bacon, eggs and fried bread!

Besides, if I see a lounger I like, I have no qualms about putting someone else's towel in a dustbin and replacing it with my own!

Thursday 12 June 2014

A Moving Tale

Well who would have thought it?

A torrent of emails regarding The Symdaddy blog have brought me to the conclusion that I must continue my writing.
So all you b@#£ards that wrote thanking me for stopping ... Nah-nah-na-na-nah!
And to the person who asked me get back to blogging ... HERE I AM!

For those of you that don't follow my status updates on Facebook ... and let's face it, who does? ... I'm moving house!

Contracts were exchanged two days ago and the money will flow towards its final resting place next Friday ... The day we move.

The process of moving started after we decided it would be nice to have no mortgage to pay off monthly. Within days or house was on the market!

At the very first 'open house' viewing there were about 10 families traipsing all over the house. They started arriving at about 10am and by 3pm, we had two offers.

A call from the estate agent later that afternoon informed us that one of the offers had been substantially increased, so we snapped it up!

That was phase one. The sale of our house took less than a week!

Phase two was not the cake walk we'd hoped it would be! Properties on the market were plentiful and prices ranged from dirt cheap to sky high.

We spent weeks finding out just why some of them had such small price tags.

There were houses with impossibly shaped rooms, rooms the size of football fields and rooms barely big enough for a pair of shoes. We saw houses that DIY dad's had butchered and others that hadn't seen a paint brush in 50 years. Others ... the slightly better ones ... were just too pricey for what they offered.

Then, two months into our search, we found it!

A three bedroom semi that has our name all over it, so we made an offer. It was less than they were asking, so we were over the moon when it was accepted!

The following weeks were spent finding new furniture and getting rid of the old.

But the paperwork dragged on and on and on and ...

Anyway, the past four weeks have been spent in a 3/4 packed up house with no furniture other the two uncomfortable loungers and a bed.
We shuffle to and fro between packed boxes and as yet unassembled new furniture.

It has been hard!

But now the end is in sight!

The paperwork is finished with, contracts are exchanged and we are ready to go.

When that phone call comes to say "the cash has landed" WE ARE OUTTA HERE!

Watch this space people!

Phase three kicks off soon!

Thursday 1 May 2014

Still Suffering

I have been laid up now for over three weeks!

I don't like it!

Packing boxes ready to move house isn't an option, going for anything other than short walks is uncomfortable and sitting (or lying) down is driving me nuts!

I was told to rest, you see. Take it easy.

I used to have active days ... out and about for 14 or more hours ... sometimes seven or more days in a row and I was less tired than I am now.

I'm constantly dropping off!

I'm so bored that I've resorted to amusing myself by picking people at random on Facebook and sending them jokes!

How sad is that?

Anyway, I have to get back to my suffering!

Owowow!

Thursday 10 April 2014

Ribbed

OK, so it's been a while.

I lost interest, if truth be told. The motivation ... or sporadic genius if you prefer ... up'd and left.

I put my energy, such as it is, into work and home, although after work there was precious little left for home.

I'm writing now as a form of therapy and in an attempt to cast off the blanket of apathy which has smothered me for far too long.

And to tell you about my pain!

Oh, the pain!

I worked through the pain for a whole week before tearfully dragging myself to a doctor ... and after my wife threatened to cut my todger off if I didn't.

It began with a plastic dog bed.

As I carried it to my car (to take to the local dog charity) there was popping sensation in my ribs on the left side.

I'm pretty dammed sure I heard it pop too!

Needless to say that the dog bed landed on the ground, closely followed by a groaning and rapidly crumpling yours truly.

The pain, although short lived, was tremendous! It quite literally took my breath away.

Anyway, it went away and I was left with only an ache under and around my ribs.

However, as the week progressed the pain increased and I soon found myself unable to walk, sit, stand, drive, laugh, cough or fart without discomfort.

Stupidly I soldiered on, going from call to call grunting and groaning my way through each one, much to the concern of my clients ... except for one chap who thought it was hilarious that someone was in more pain than he was.

So, threatened by my wife, I took myself off to the doctor.

It seems that my floating rib on the left side has decided to change places with the rib above it. For some reason they crossed causing some tissue and muscle damage.

Hence the pain.

I've been off work and on heavy duty painkillers for three days now and I'm so [insert expletive] bored!

The pain is still severe and my floating rib is continuing it's 'day trips' up my rib cage, so you can imagine just how comfortable I am right now.

I will willingly accept even the merest scraps of sympathy from anyone reading this ... any young ladies wishing to pop around and give me their sympathy in person shouldn't hesitate to do so. In my condition, they can be absolutely sure of their safety.

Mores the pity!