Crimble is coming, decs are appearing and maybe some snow this year?

30 November

Twenty five days to Crimble Day, just in case you hadn’t realised it. Well, I was driving home one day last week and saw a Christmas tree lit up in the front room of a house on in our street. You could hardly miss it really. Yesterday we went into town on had a totter about with our walkers. We called into the Anker on the way home and by the time we left it was full dark outside. As we drove home along Shanklin Drive, house after house was lit up link Blackpool used to be. The house opposite us is done up in flashing blue and white lights, it won’t be long before the family next door does something similar.

Is this a case of bah-humbug on my part you might think? Well, no, it isn’t. We will be putting up some decorations later in December. Last year we had a large flashing multi-colour start in the bedroom window on the front and another one in the living room window at the back. Our tree and stars are handy to get to go up at the sometime. The thing is, putting up the decorations too early makes the session far too long to my mind. My parents would put up theirs 14 days before the 25^th and take them down 14 days after; a 29 day holiday session seem about right to us. But even so, I’m ready for them all to come down on Boxing Day; they all look tired and drab after the 25^th to me.

Along with all the fun and anticipation, is the hope of a white Christmas. Some places are lucky and get one most years. I suppose it’s not something they think about really. Here in the UK we don’t. In fact, here I am at 66 years old and I can’t remember ever seeing one. The nearest we got to having one was in 1962 I think it was.

Every Boxing Day we visited Uncle Bill Aunty Eva in Bed’th. Uncle Bill collect us in his car and always took us home after. OK, fine; except that on that year it started snowing in the afternoon, and it didn’t stop for days after. We got home just in time cos our village was more or less cut off from the 27th for around a week. The snow and ice stuck around for near on four months that year. We were happy that when it was finally gone.

As things stand right now, it’s far too mild for snow; as for looking ahead, half the time out forecasters only hit the target around 50% of the time on a daily basis. How they can hope to forecast a month in advance I don’t know. It’s just a case of wait and see again.

I’ve actually got snow photo too … 

This is Sally-pup, our golden bitzer when I took her out on her morning walk. This is an old image taken on a Minolta 404si on slide film. It’s not the best shot of Sally I have, maybe I’ll post a better one tomorrow.

Funny time …

A wife was sitting peacefully in her cozy armchair sewing her husband’s socks. Her husband came in to the room and glanced at what she was doing, and started badgering, “HONEY be more careful! PLEASE WATCH WHAT YOU ARE DOING! You don’t wan’t to poke YOUR finger! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU! Don’t look up when YOUR’E SEWING! There you go now slow and steady, nice even stitches. The wife puts down the needle and thread, looks up at her husband, and says, “What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know how many times I’ve sewn socks before?! “EXACTLY THE POINT I WAS TRYING TO GET AT”, hollered the husband, “DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I’VE DRIVEN A CAR BEFORE!?

Voting, wars and the BB partnership

28 November

We will soon be heading for the voting booths again, and I am still in the same quandary I was in at the time of the last General Election. You see, I’ve been a Labour supporter all my life, just as my dad was. He left the Royal Marines in 1948 and went to work in the local pits. At one time he was one of the union reps there. When he was made medically redundant he began work at an engineering works in Coventry and yet again he became a union rep. The thought of voting anything else but Labour was a big NO NO for him.

I’ve said on here and on FB that Tony Blair was good for the UK. Now I’m not so sure. The current problems with devolution can be laid at his door, and so will the break-up of the UK when that eventually happens. The second Gulf War was a real mistake. At the time I was behind him on that but it certainly looks like that war gave false hope to other countries run by dictators, the so-called Arab Spring. Now there’s trouble in all the countries where that has happened. It has also caused the rise of groups like ISIS simply because of the lack of strong and unified leadership.

Moving on to Afghanistan we see the same yet again. Even the loss of 450+ UK forces there haven’t really brought the change that was needed at that time. It seems likely that the Taliban will walk straight back in once the NATO troops have finally left. But what of Yemen, another hot bed of terrorist groups? Nothing has been attempted there; I wonder why? Maybe because the UK got a bloody nose last time they deployed in that area. Perhaps the BB partnership was had thought about it but wiser head prevailed at that point.

And while all this was going Israel was pounding Palestine, and t’ther way about. Hamas, the main political group there have openly declared that they are fighting for the destruction of Israel as their being there main aim. The BB partnership did nothing, or at least very little with that one. Blair hasn’t done much since he left office either.

Local things are not that different really. The public consultation on the so-called Town Plan has been put back yet again, and there are so many other problems with the current Labour run council I couldn’t possible remember them all. But it’s the same with the Tory run county council too. And so I eventually come to where I stand in all this.

Labour has no chance of winning while Milliband is running it. If some miracle did happen, the break-up of the UK will still happen. Cameron will just go on as he is and we will all get poorer while his mates in business will get richer. As for Clegg, gives us a break folks! In reality though, there are no real contenders within the minor parties is there. Farage is certainly making waves at the moment but there is doubt that will continue next year. Whoever gets in, the UK will still break apart, and that is down to Blair!

At least I have a few months to decide.

Today’s photo then … 

A pub sign in Coventry which has a fake coat of arms but which sums up the BB partnership.

Today’s funny …

There were no two ways about it. Rosie was fat. Very fat. “Martha”, said Rosie to her best friend, “it was terrible what happened yesterday after the birthday party. You know how half of the birthday cake was left over? Well, I knew Bob would be fuming at me for eating it,with my diet and all, but I couldn’t help myself, it started with just a small nibble and before I knew it the whole cake was gone!.” “Oh my!” clucked Martha, “was Bob really upset?” “He never found it”, responded Rosie with a full double chin smile, “I just baked another cake and ate half of it!”

No Brum, Skype and back to writing

27 November

No Brum today folks. It’s far too murky for decent photos and the forecast we follow says there’s a 50% chance to rain. Next Monday or Tuesday are supposed to be fine and dry so we will be looking to go then. The idea is to visit the German Market in the city centre. Last night’s Midlands Today was warning of gangs of pick-pockets roaming around robbing visitors. My reaction was, ‘So, what’s new?’ These cretins are always about, you just need to be what is going about you and where possible keep wallets and purses out of sight as much as possible. If they can’t see anything, they can’t pinch it can they?

Sometime ago BT were upset that there were plans for ‘phone and video calls’ to be made over the internet. They could see their profits taking a hit. I don’t know just how much Skype has hit them but Jan has two calls for her sister in Thailand this week. Before Skype Trish wouldn’t have bothered calling here but Jan would have wanted to call her, and Lord knows how much that would be. So perhaps BT were right to be worried. As it is, we wouldn’t have BT in here for any price! We are perfectly happy with Virgin and will continue with them. The last time we had BT in we had more problems over six months than we’ve had over the last, of I don’t know, at least 12 years.

Yesterday I mentioned the problems with CreateSpace, so later on I tried LULU again and couldn’t head nor tail of it. I’m not giving up with it though, I just need to look more deeply at it. What threw me was the pricing at each step of the way and I began to see things mounting up. As I said, I shall try again later.

A week or so ago I said that I was dropping out of this year’s NANO effort because I just had far too much to do. Well, all but one of those jobs has now been completed so later today I shall be sitting down and starting to write more of Shipshape. At 19,000 words, or just over, I’m hoping to bring it up to the 50,000 word needed for NANO, plus a good few more. Of course I won’t get my winners badge this year, but I’m sure I will managed to live without it.

Today’s photo is … 

Crushed muggles.

       

And today’s funny …

Did you hear the joke about the toilet?

Never mind it’s too dirty.