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!

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.

Parties And The Eternally Young

As you get older ... and you will ... that thunderous cacophony of noise as 'late at night' crashes into 'early in the morning' will be heard fewer and fewer times.

Partying ... real partying ... is a younger man's, or woman's, sport.

I used to be able to go out at 8pm, trawl through the bars, disco's (in my day) and clubs only to arrive back home well after the new day had dawned ... nowadays, well, let's just say that I haven't seen midnight for quite a while.

I envy the young! They seem to have energy in abundance and insist on burning their candles at both ends with a fervent passion that I, in my younger days,could only have dreamed of.

Of course now that I belong to what once was called the 'fuddy-duddy'-set, and no longer indulge in youthful boisterousness, I thoroughly disapprove of what the young get up to!

And why not?

The young b@$tard$ are having all the damned fun whereas I sit (well, slumber) the night away wondering where I'm going to get the energy from for the following days work.

Party?

I reckon I'd be too much of a grump-assed git to attend any parties these days ... except those senior citizen tea and bingo ones.

Just like Jonah Louie, I used to be a kitchen hoverer, so when all is said and done, I ain't really missing much.

But young folks are still b@$tard$!!!

I've Aged! What A Bummer!

It's broken!

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever.

My 'mojo', if indeed I ever had one, is broken.

My mirror doesn't lie and it's telling me all sort of nasty things.

It says "You've got ... puffy eyes / no hair / jowls / fat / old!" and I hate it.

Yes, I know.  I can hear you all chorusing "Noooooooo!  You are still the handsome (short) hunk you always were", but I must unfortunately agree with my mirror.

It's a damned shame really, because in my mind I'm still that sweet, innocent seventeen year old that went away to join the army ... I still have a childish sense of humour and delight in the misfortune (as long as it isn't serious) of other's.

So why does my body do this to me?

I'm sooooooo intend to replace my mirrors with life size photographs of me as a teenager.

Yours

The fed up Daddy of the Sym