The Story So Far

It seems to me that my destiny is to be the ‘eternal sufferer’.

No matter what I do; what precautions I take, things are just meant to go wrong.

There was the long saga with my rust-bucket car (deceased), the fence (twice), the guttering on the house (I haven’t told you about that, have I?), the laptop (throws tantrums like a petulant teenagers) and my desktop PC (oldoldoldoldold!) and now the garage wall.

Let me tell you about that wall…

It is an old … very old ,,, crack in the brickwork that dates back more than fifteen years, which is as long as my wife has lived here.

It was never repaired properly (according to the surveyor) but was masterly disguised by someone with an artistic bent.  When the missus bought this place it had been made to look just like any other wall.

Now, after all this time a rather large leak in the garage roof has revealed this wall to be, in fact, a forgery!

Ok. It’s too late to run to the previous owner (long dead,I’m afraid) and punch him in the face, so we braced ourselves for the worst.

Our  garage has an outer and an inner roof. The inner is just a number of one inch boards sealed together and fixed above the joists supporting the whole roof.  Above that is the outer roof. This one is also made up of one inch boards but water proofed, leaded and tarred. It has a life span (so I’m told) of up to fifteen years.

Sadly, it would appear that that fifteen years has long since passed and our waterproofed roof has gone to ‘garage roof heaven’ allowing all of the roof boards to slowly soak up water.  It has taken a long time but now the water, seeking an escape route, has begun to destroy the previous owners artwork allowing us to see the damaged wall.

Quotes fro the repair work are coming in thick and fast!

The work the are specifying ranges from stripping the roof down to the rafters and totally re-roofing to simply applying a heavy duty one-piece rubber sheet.

The rubber sheet seems to be favourite price-wise but, on the other hand, for £1900 we could have a new roof.

What do you think?

To other news now …

You may have heard that snowflakes have been seen in Britain!

The ensuing chaos has been widely reported and once again made us (Brits) look like bunch of idiots.

        Snowflakes here,
        Snowflakes there,
        A Country in chaos,
        Every-f***ing-where!

Sym: Early Days

We chose June as the time to search for a dog because the kids would not be home. 

Christopher and Gabriele, children from Julie’s previous marriage, would be on holiday with their father and grandparents. It was meant, partly, to be a surprise for them when they returned, but mostly it was to prevent them coming up with any silly or ridiculous names for the puppy. They had already given our cats the names Blossom and Zak.

OK, I could live with Zak ... but Blossom?

Anyway, I wanted to name the new member of our family!

You see, in my mind, the puppy had in fact already been named.

Even before I began my campaign to overcome my wife’s ‘dog-in-the-house’ objections I knew what I wanted to call him.

He would be called Sym.

Many years before, when I was about 8 or 9 years old, my cousin Gavin arrived at our front door. Stuffed inside his jacket was a twelve week old fluffy bundle of black and tan puppy.

He had brought us, against my parent’s express wishes, Sym Mk I.

The Mk I was a gorgeous Border Collie/German Shepherd cross and from the moment he took his first steps on our living room carpet and wagged his tail all parental disapproval evaporated.

I shared many an adventure with him as a child and he has always had his own very special place in my heart. To this day, if I close my eyes, I can still see him.

I can still easily recall how we used to run through the corn fields close to our home or how we would run along the shore with him attacking the waves as they crashed onto the beach.

With vivid memories of Sym Mk I, I desperately hoped that Sym Mk II would achieve the same high standards.

There was no objection from Julie as to the selected name.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think it means anything, really. It’s just short and snappy and not as common as something like Sam” I explained.

...

So we arrived home that day with our beautiful puppy and, as he explored his new home, I named him Sym.

As Sym wandered around the house sniffing and, yes, peeing, he was observed by Blossom!

From her vantage point on the back of the sofa, she watched as the interloper sniffed his way around the furniture. The expression on her face was not one of joy!

As Sym disappeared through the door to the hallway, Blossom, already in stealth mode, followed.
She peered after him as his he made his way towards the open back door, her tail swishing this way and that, and there was definitely an air of the hunter about her.

Unexpectedly, Sym turned, just as Blossom made her move to follow him.

He saw her! 

She saw that she had been seen. 

His tail wagged. 

So did hers!

She waited. 

He watched. 

His intention was play. 

Her was murder!

Sym barrelled through the hall on a direct line to Blossom. She did that cat thing and made herself big. Sym yapped his pleasure at having found a friend to play with. Blossom raised a paw and gave Sym such a slap that he rolled sideways and yelped.

Blossom had just established herself as top of the pecking order in this house!

As she strutted away, confident that the interloper now knew his place, Sym cautiously followed.

From that moment on, Sym, although still seemingly desperate to play with her, had a respect for Blossom which would never dwindle!

Apology And Basic Rules

I have some new followers to whom I owe an apology.

I apologise most sincerely for not welcoming you 'on board' at the appropriate time.

As I hope you will appreciate, I have had and extremely busy week, what with work and my 'research' into toiletry history of the U.S.A. as depicted by the movie and TV wizards of Hollywood.

I am most grateful that you have chosen to follow my scribblings and can assure you that I will do everything in my power to make you feel at home and keep you entertained.

Basic House Rules

• Gentlemen are reminded the the toilet seat should be lowered (for the ladies) after the expulsion of 'used' beer.
• Ladies are reminded that the toilet seat should be raised (for the gentlemen) after the expulsion of 'used' girlie beverages (what's good for the goose ... ).
• Personal property, including you sense of humour, cannot be replaced if damaged and no liability will be accepted by the author and owner of this blog.
• Any comment you would care to make, both positive and negative, would be gratefully received and could only serve to benefit this blog.
• The consumption of junk food and alcohol on this site is strictly encouraged, however ...
• the fridge (eat your heart out Mad Lady!) will be padlocked and the chocolate cake well hidden.
• In case of emergency, exit via the tiny little X at the top right-hand corner of your browser.
• And 'NO!', you cannot rummage through my drawers during your stay.

Thank you for 'reading' Symdaddy Blog-ways!  I hope you will 'read' with me again soon.

Christmas: How It Is And Always Will Be!

It's that time of year and we've spent our hard earned cash,

on cards and presents and a good Christmas bash.

We'll all get presents that will force us to smile,

and the gift that you wanted will be missed by mile.

There'll be books, chocolate underwear and socks,

just the usual gifts but no great shocks.

Then food galore will be dumped on the table,

and we'll gorge ourselves till we're no longer able.

There will be burps and farts and occasional snore,

until all we ate settles then we go back for more.

We'll sit around the TV and watch the Queen's speech,

and get the usual guest that hangs on like a leech.

When the evening comes there's more food to eat,

at least for those that can still find their feet.

For the sherry has flowed and beer has been drunked*,

for the oldies some tea in which biscuits are dunked.

We'll all sing some hits of a bygone era,

and remember those absent, like my cousin Vera.

Then off the guests go to their own little homes,

waddling merrily like drunken garden gnomes.

The washing up and the mess that they made,

unwashed and untouched in the dining room stayed.

Then it's off to bed feeling ever so stuffed,

my amorous advances ignored and rebuffed!


* artistic license 

  

'Free Time In Flatulence Heaven' or 'Back With The Wind'

I find myself with some unexpected time on my hands.  Well, I say 'unexpected', but what I mean is that I was supposed to have this time off, but what with the 'extra calls' I referred to yesterday, I didn't think I'd get it.

But I did.

So, I find myself once again blogging.

I have three dogs lying at my feet and there is a curious odour permeating 'my space'.

I have been listening to curious 'phut' and 'sssfffffffffftt' sounds which I am sure has a lot to do with the pong currently engulfing me.  The three dogs are, or at least appear to be, oblivious to it and continue to snore.

I should really pack up my laptop and move to a safer location but, damn it, I was here first and my backside has taken ages to warm up this sofa cushion!

Oh!  That was a big 'PHUT'!

Sym, my boy, is now investigating an apparent rupture of his anus.  At least I now know which dog to throw out into the snow!

Only kidding!

I wonder how the queen reacts when her corgi's starts playing 'Jingle Bowels' on the bum-organ?

I wonder how her dogs would react if she did it! I'm sure the dogs would get up in disgust and walk off.  Ours do!

[ re-location pause ]

My laptop and I have retreated to the kitchen.  I experienced one 'phut' too many!

My eyes had begun to water and the damp handkerchief that I'd tied over my nose and mouth just didn't bring me any respite from Sym's chemical attack.  The bad news is that all three dogs are now in the kitchen with me!

One 'phut' or  'sssfffffffffftt' and they are ALL going out into the cold!

The story that I intended to post on my blog, or 'bloog' as the dodgy O on my keyboard would have me type, isn't this one.

I'm afraid that writing, as I have, about the doggies 'bottom burping' all the time has completely side tracked me and I now find that work, once again, beckons.

Did it really take me that long to write about farts?

Oh well!  At least you now know something about the Hell I've been going through.

Smelly Animals And Well Aired Rooms

One of my dogs has just farted and I swear to you, something must have crawled up it's backside and died!

I have three very ashamed looking animals here at the moment but they are holding firm under intense interrogation and I still don't know which is the guilty party.

Excuse me while I just open all the windows.

Phew!




Addendum:

You guys out in the Bloggi-verse must love smelly dogs.
After this was posted there were over thirty hits within a minute.

Walk, Granny! Don't Run!

Once again I braved the early morning roads, on what should have been my morning off, in order to cover for an absent colleague.

Through sixteen miles (there and back) of stop-start traffic I struggled, along with all those other plonkers (who were obviously to blame for everything), in a desperate bid to earn my wage.

It was 06.45 when I mounted my trustee steed (my car, but a horse would have been quicker) and took off into the darkness and pouring rain.

I managed a magnificent half mile before being halted by the first of many delays ... a mini-bus trying to do a three point turn on a narrow street.  After about twenty 'points' he managed it and cleared the road, much to everyone's (there was a queue of about twenty cars by this time) delight.

Of we set again, through Llandaff North, past BBC Cymru (Wales) and into Llandaff itself.  Mere minutes it took me to arrive in Llandaff but it took another twenty before I could leave and head towards Canton.

And Llandaff isn't like, you know, big.  It's a titchy little patch of Cardiff's greater metropolitan region and usually it's behind me in two or three minutes.

It was, I discovered to my utter horror, dustbin day and the Refuge Collection Operatives (grubby men in fluorescent jackets) were out in force.

Canton, I feared, would be no better.

It wasn't!

Anyway, the eight mile journey - twenty minutes on a good day - robbed me of fifty-five minutes of my life.

After I had completed my call, I headed home again but by this time Cardiff's drivers were out in force and were all desperately trying to get to work on time.

Stop!

Start!

Stop!

Start!

I left my client at a little before 08.30 and managed to pull into my driveway at 09.35.

Cars, buses, trucks and cyclists are a pain and I complain (justly) about them far too often but it occurred to me this morning that there is another area of complaint well worth mentioning.

Pedestrians!

They ignore the pedestrian signals and just keep on crossing the roads with a 'What the hell! They're doing it' attitude.

And there is always ... always ... a granny at the back of them who ties to walk across with them. But, when granny realises that she has been left behind and is alone in front of a hoard of pi$$ed off drivers, she tries to break into a jog, somehow contriving to become even slower in the process.

And it's a safe bet that once she's started doing her impersonation of Usain Bolt, she will drop something and spend another couple of minutes doing the 'old person' squat (whilst groaning about her poor old back) and  try to pick it again.

It can be an excruciatingly painful thing to watch, but no one ever leaves their car to assist  lest they themselves fall under the hateful glare (and a few choice words) of their fellow motorists.

There you have it.

A completely unimportant semi-rant about road users and pedestrians.

Reading this may not have been your cup of tea, but writing it has certainly taken the edge of my lust for blood and the doing of physical harm to my fellow man!

I'm sure though that after today's vehicular experience that I am only one of many that have taken to the  Bloggi-verse in order to vent off steam.

Damn it!

I have to go back to work in twenty minutes.

The Moving House Phenomenon

All those of you that have moved home at least twice will have come across this.

Those of you who have only recently left the comfort of the family home for pastures new, will have parents who have come across it, but you yourself, having probably let your parents do all your packing, will not yet have had this experience.

You  will though ...  one day.

This phenomenon is not one which would entice Mulder and Scully out of their X-Files retirement but it is, nevertheless, a quandary as to why it occurs.

It only occurs when all your bags and boxes are packed and the removal men (if you aren't doing it yourself) are about to take the furniture out to the truck.

You do a final check to ensure everything is secure and then you find the one item that is always left in a drawer.  Something you can't remember buying or, if you did, certainly never left in that drawer.

Yes ... as someone who has a multitude of house moves behind me ... I know that when all is ready to go, this  item will be found.

Always!

I refer, of course, to the paper-clip!

It's ALWAYS there!

Go on.

Deny it.

I dare ya!