Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!
That is what we are all supposed to charge round doing, wishing each other a HNY, so I am doing it, Happy NY
Well, the season of festivity and generosity is over for another year, just the debauchery left to get through. That time when we get rid of the old and welcome the new, good-will to all men etcetera.
We look back at the year and ask ourselves, "Has it been a good one?"
My response to that is, "It hasn't been a bad one."
A lot of changes from this time last year, then I was stuck in the Home for Gay Sailors with slight prospects of advancement although I had great expectations.
Now?
Well, I am free of the shackles of confinement, living in the arms of my clan, got a dog, got a horse, got a car, got money in my pocket, petrol in my tank and I'm king of the road again!
Still got a long way to go of course. This coming year the plan is to get myself established as a writer and get a decent income from that. It aint going to be easy, but we have got plans.
So, let me wish all and sundry, A Happy New Year

Monday, December 23, 2013

A Christmas Message

Well, it's that time of year again. The time when everybody tries to get on with everyone else and when we all do our best to forgive real or imagined transgressions against us, not always successful may I add. We run to the various supermarkets, loading up trolleys with crap that nobody really wants to eat but it's traditional. We fork out an arm and a leg on booze, all that stuff that we wouldn't have given to us the rest of the year. Sherry, port, eggnog and all the rest of it. Of course we stock up on our favourite tipple, in my case it's scotch whisky, but we get the rum, the brandy, the vodka and all of the stuff for mixes too. No change from £150 quid, not in my case anyway.
But it's worth it!
Everybody who comes to the door during the week between Christmas and New Year gets asked the same question, "What'll you have?"
Well, this year has a special significance for me, it is my first Christmas in twenty eight years with my family and I intend to make a proper job of it. I will sit in my carver chair on Christmas morning with my glass and I will move only to go to bed. I will allow the younger members of the clan to keep on filling my glass and if I am still sober by lunchtime, I'll be disappointed.
Then it's Boxing Day of course, so more boozing, and two days later, my birthday. Hardly seems worth stopping! I may be partying for a while.
Having said all that, I want to say one more thing, Happy Christmas to all of my friends, wherever you are, and remember, it is friends who enrich our lives, I am indeed a rich man.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

A good feed.

Our Ellen Jane likes to make sure everyone is fed properly, that's for certain. Take today for instance.
Sleeping in the house this morning there was me, Ellen Jane, her husband Joe and our Kevin who was too pissed last night to go home.
Me, snoozing away until I had to get up for a piddle, had no idea when I went back to sleep that young Joseph was dropping off Alyssa for the day. I only found out when she woke me up ranting and raving as only a child can do, squealing and enjoying her life.
Anyway, that's all beside the point, by about noon when Ellen Jane started the lunch there weas me, Ellen Jane, Big Joe and Alyssa, Kevin had sodded off.
So, EJ is making the lunch, Sunday lunch, she does a great Sunday lunch.
Then Wendy turned up followed by our Michael, his partner Kailey along with little Ben and the new baby. By the time it got to serving up the food there were ten of us!
It didn't even make a ripple in Ellen Jane's day, she fed the lot of us, big meals too!
The dining table is a six seater which can extend to an eight seater, but we all got fed. Oh yes, Ellen Jane keeps a good grub house.

That was easy

It was easy really.
There I was, trying to recover my own blog site which I had managed to lose through my unfailing ability to bugger things up, but I couldn't get it back. I even went so far as to revert to the oracle! Andrew. Him who always seems to have the answer to all of my computer errors. Of course he sent me a step by step method to recover my blog, the trouble was he forgot he was dealing with me, the congenital idiot that I am. I tried to follow his easy steps, but I failed gloriously as usual.
So, there I was, looking at my gmail page when for some reason I went up to 'searcg' at the top and pressed it.
Up came my blog!
Well, that was easy.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Good manners

I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but it doesn't require an Einstein to work out that somebody is taking the piss.
Yesterday I saw an advert on the telly for selection boxes for the kids for Christmas, buy one, get two free, two to a customer only. This is at Tesco or Asda, can't remember which one. So, in I went to get a couple of these good deals. Were there any to be found? Were there bollocks.
Ah! But they know what they are doing because I came out after buying a pile of other crap for the kids in the clan.
That's the trick you see, make some ridiculous promise that they will never have to keep, just to draw us mugs in and fleece us for our hard earned dosh.
Bandits, that's all they are. At least when I used to rob people I always had the common decency and good manners to point a shotgun at them first.

Thursday, December 05, 2013

It never rains in California

Ha! I wish the same could be said for this place.
All night we've had wheelie bins rolling around the back street, windows rattling and these old miner's cottages make a lot of noise in a strong wind, in fact, any sort of wind. Creaking and groaning, it's like a geriatric tart when the fleet is in town.
Anyway, it was a stormy night indeed and when I went out this morning to run a couple of errands and put 'GO' juice in my vehicule the wind was gusting enough to move the car. That's not to mention the driving rain!
Well, it might never rain in southern California, but it does here.

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

She is only six.
Today she decided that she needed a playmate, guess who she selected!
We keep the dogs out on the decking during the day provided it's not raining. So there I am, sitting quietly waiting for Godot and suddenly I have got a dog trying to get on my lap to lick my face.
In she comes begod, socks hanging off her feet because she doesn't wear her shoes unless she has to.
"Who let the dogs in?" I ask, not unreasonably I thought. "Did you let them in?Pest!"
"Actually," said she, all prim and proper, not easy with your socks hanging off. "Actually it was Tara."
"No it wasn't," I countered. "She can't open doors. It must have been you. Get them out again."
"Can I have some paper?" says she, completely ignoring my instructions.
"What for?"
"I want to draw Santa," says she.
Oh yes, a perfectly sound activity in anyone's book, but the facts speak for themselves. She never actually draws anything apart from squiggly lines, I have to do the drawing.
"Santa?" says I. "You are going to draw Santa, are you?"
"Yes," she lied.
So, I got her paper and she pinched four pens out of my pen cup.
"Draw Santa for me," says she. "I don't know how to do it."
Mind, she is only six!

Monday, December 02, 2013

Why

"Why haven't you been doing your blog?" asked she. Mind, it's not so much an ask as a demand.
"Er," said I wisely, "I was busy."
"Busy? Busy doing what?" asked she.
"Driving you around for a start!" I cried.
Speaking of driving around, I got a fixed penalty notice for Bonfire night, Kier Hardy Way, just outside the Stadium of Shite, 35 mph in what they say is a 40mph zone.
Not just me, hundreds of people got em including a few officials.
Now, at this point I need to point out that everyone thinks it is a 40 zone, it is not a built up area, no houses, nuffink. So the other day I went and checked the speed limit there and would you credit it, there is not one single solitary speed limit sign anywhere on that road, nowt, zero, zilch.
Supposed to guess the speed limit are we?
I wasn't even in Sunderland that day but never mind, I am challenging it.
Why stick a police camera van there on that particular day?
I took my letter to the Fixed Penalty Unit to the post office to post, denying everything. The postmaster took one look at the address and said, "Don't tell me, Kier Hardy Way, Bonfire Night. I've had loads in, all the same place, same day.
I have to ask myself, "Why?"