Shopping, blinds and James Herbert

23 April 2013

We need to get some shopping done today; Jan is at the dentist at 2pm so I'm going to do this so I can get going.  I would have gone earlier but we've had someone come round to measure up for some blinds for the rear window and door.  What a game that was.  At the store where we booked the appointment we were told that the cost would £40 each for two blinds and there is not fitting charge.  The girl who came today has gone off muttering because of it claiming that they know at the store that her samples and prices are a good deal more than those quoted in the store.  So one again we end up as piggy in the middle, and we're not happy about it.  Anyway, the blinds are ordered and due fitted in four weeks. 

That week will be a busy week for us what with hospital and GP visits, a weekend away in Brighton, picking up our new car and leaving the following day for a two week break in Western Super Mare.  By the time we arrive in Western we will need are two week break.  I've also booked an appointment with our foot butcher for four days after we leave; so that's another job I have to do, letting her know.

It looks like our neighbours June and Tony have found themselves a bargain.  They have a lot of family and friends in the Chapel St Leonards area.  One of their friends phone to say that there was static caravan for sale for just over a grand.  June's sister went round and went and had a look and confirmed it was good buy.  They now own it.  They are both very happy about it.  Personally I spent four days in a static owned by some other friends of ours there a year or two ago and wasn't impressed.  It was cold and wet.  I had been toying with the idea of buying one before that but that our days put me right off the idea, not my idea of fun at all.

I'm currently reading James Herbert's Ash, which I think is his last book.  The blurb on the back says it's his most contentious book yet.  I think I can agree with that.  It starts with the death of Princess Diana dying in that tunnel in Paris ... but did she?  That's just part of the story line.  He makes a lot of claims about Harold Wilson and Ted Heath; King Edward after he abdicated, Winston Churchill and any others, all dead of course.  It's all wrapped in a tale of corruption and ghosts and evil spirits.  Not a bad read if you want something get into.            

That photo of mum I posted the other day has now been entered into a photo competition, my first attempt at entering one.  Let's hope eh ;-)))  So for today then I offer ... 

Prince's Street Gardens looking towards Waverly Station. 

Today's funny ...

Went around to a friends house today. His wife was sat there with their newborn baby. She asked if I'd like to wind it.... I thought that was a bit harsh so I gave it a dead leg instead.

Cuts, more cuts and fairness

22 April 2013

Yet more cuts are being forced on the whole of Warwickshire.  The county council is reducing its grant to various family groups.  There are six such centres in Dorktown and they have been warned that there needs be a 50% saving over the next two years.  These centres are a much valued resource for the county but the Tory lead county council is not interested in that.  It also seems to fly in the face of Cameron's Big Society idea he came up with. 

However, it's not just the Tories making cuts.  Dorktown's Labour run council has decided that the A444 that runs from junction 3 of the M6 and Burton on Trent, is to cleaned up on the stretch from the M6 to the island at Bermuda Industrial Estate.  The cost is going to be £6,000.  OK, but at the same time of spending that money some of the workers who are expected to do the job are facing cuts to their wages.  The reason is a thing called 'single status'.  They are using this as an excuse to reduce the wages of refuse collectors and cleansing operatives (bin men and street cleaners in plain English!), they very people who will have to do the A444 cleanup.  Some of them will losing £200 a month!   

That's a big drop in wages.  Yet the same cut is not being imposed on the executive staff members who are also single.  But hang on - a thought has just come to me ... surely the recent legislation regarding pay for women who do work of the same value as men might also apply to single people who do the same work as married men?  Worth looking at I think.

So photo time ... 

one of Jan I took yesterday for a daughter Lynda.

And today's funny ...

My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary. She said, ‘I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds.’ I bought her some bathroom scales.     

Caught, a book mark and some wine

21 April 2013

Sunday morning and it's a nice bright sunny day here in Dorktown.  I like to watch the London Marathon on telly but this year it just doesn't peek my interest as much as normal, so now I will find something else for me to do.  Jan is off to church and will visit mother and take Vicky home afterwards so she will be gone till around 3pm now.  I might be able to get a bit of writing done today.  We'll see ... ... ...

So the Yanks have their man.  Well, as long as he doesn't snuff it in hospital they do.  But why on earth did two brothers suddenly take it in their heads to go and blow up the spectators of the Boston Marathon?  From what I heard on the news yesterday there is now political reason behind it so why do it?  I have feeling though that if he does get over being shot by the cops he'll be wishing he hadn't when he gets to a prison cell!  As far as I know Massachusetts still has the death sentence in place so I can see him spending a long time on death row once convicted.  Perhaps the only 'good' thing here is that only three people died in blasts.  It could have been oh so much worse couldn't it.

While Jan was away last week she met up with some friends who moved down to Devon and couple of years ago.  Martin and Pam have settled in well down there it seems and we will be calling in to see them one day while we're in Western for two weeks in June.  Anyway ... Martin showed Jan a book mark he was using.  When she got back here she order me one and it has replaced my old leather one.  Basically it's a strip of fairly thin plastic but it also has a dictionary programmed inside it.  Jan though it would be useful because every so often I keep mumbling about authors using silly words that no-one else knows and look them up in a small dic-n-ary I have beside the bed.  Now I don't have to and con do it all without getting out of bed.  It's a very useful device indeed!

When we moved back to Dorktown over four years ago when my brother died, we started sorting out all his crap he left for us - and there was a lot of it too!  Among it we found four bottles of white wine so I thought, "Oh very nice.  Thanks Dave!"  Well, that's what I thought when I found them.  Once I tried one of them I nearly choked on it.  It was really bad, ropey as hell and very sour tasting.  No Idea what caused it.  I wasn't going to risk it with the others so they were opened, poured away and bottles went into the recycling.  But we also found a fairly large bottle of champagne.  As with most thing Dave bought we have no idea why he bought it.  Anyway, I was saying to Jan yesterday that I don't have an clue when we were going to crack it open.  "Why not have it on my birthday in August?" she asked.  So that is what we are doing.  We've invited June and Tony next door but one as well as some of our family.  We'll be doing a barbie and we shall have a good time that day ... as long as we have good weather.  Looking forward to it now ... ... ...

Today's photo is one of mother ... 

It was taken on Christmas Day 2005 and when she saw it a print we had done if it she said, "Don't like it.  It makes look like an old woman."  Well, she was, even eight years ago.  It was then that we really began to realise just how bad her mental capacity was getting.  At that time she was sure she was only in her 50's. 

Today's funny is another one of a number of short ones I've found ...

My son's been asking me for a pet spider for his birthday, so I went to our local pet shop and they were £70!!! Sod to this, I thought, I can get one cheaper off the web.                     

Odds and evens, bailed to kill and the plug is pulled - again!

20 April 2013

Like most streets in the UK our street has odd numbered houses on one side and even numbered houses on t'ther side.  So why is it that so many people in Dorktown seem unable to work out that little bit of information properly?  Yet again this morning I had to direct a nurse to #6.  I'd seen here walking backwards and forwards outside our place looking at the flat numbers on our wall and then across the road at the houses.  We've even had a nurse walk straight in here looking for someone else and had thought this was the right flat!  Ah well ... Dorktowners ... ... ...

Yesterday we had made plans that we would go off for a day's birding today.  We were both looking forward to it too; until just after 9 o'clock that is.  At that time I seemed to lose all my energy again.  It's like some has pulled my plug out of the socket and I just fold in on myself.  This morning I've phoned a place in Leamington I'd like to go to and we had said we would go this afternoon.  But guess what - the plug has been pulled yet again.  We will still be going though; there's a few items of photo-kit we could both do with down there that we want to look at to see if they would help us in shooting.

Front page of the Dorktown Telegraph this morning is a story of a 15 year old boy who broke into a house and stole the keys to a van before stealing it.  He then smashed into a lamp post and a car before losing control of the van and killing one of his friends.  He of course ran off but later handed himself in to the police.  Now here the rub ... he had been released on bail for one offence, reoffended and released a second time on bail, reoffended again and again released on bail.  The trial judge at Warwick Crown Court mentioned that those reasonable for the releasing on bail of the this lad should be searching their consciences now.  At long last someone in authority has had the balls to stand up and say something that has obviously been needed to be said for years.  Next step to make them responsible when things go wrong!

We had a good laugh yesterday afternoon.  Every other week we pick-up Kile's step sister Vicky and take to Kile's place for the weekend.  Jan will take her back on Sunday.  Anyway ... while I was away in Scotland I bought the kids a few presents, tee-shirts for Kile and Vicky and a cuddly toy Nessie for Billy.  But I also bought them all a plastic tumbler with a false bottom where there was a blue liquid with two small Nemo fish in it.  Billy loved them.  The laugh came when we watched him as he tried to get to pull the fish out.  In went his hand, out came his hand and up went the glass to see why he could get at the fish ... and so on.  His expression as he tried to work it out was a picture - or would have been if my Nikon had worked properly!  Anyway, it still a good laugh for us.

Captain James Cook is perhaps one of Britain's greatest explorers.  It today in 1770 that he discovered New South Wales.  I wonder what he would make of the place now?

I'm sure my regular readers will know well enough that I like real ale.  Well, I also like pubs with some character or point of interest in them.  It might that the pub is an old one; by old I mean hundreds of years.  Years ago I went into one in London to find it is the only pub on Oxford Street.  Whetherspoons have bought and converted a number of old buildings into thriving pubs.  I've been in one in North Wales where they had converted an old theatre.  Another one is a converted church.  Well, how about this then ... 

the ceiling of The Old Bell Inn in Edinburgh.

And funny time ...

A new middle east crisis erupted last night as Dubai Television was refused permission to broadcast 'The Flintstones'. A spokesman for the channel said....
'A claim was made that people in Dubai would not understand the humour, but we know for a fact that people in Abu Dhabi Do.'