The concrete and the train...

Somewhat sombrely, a sad and solemn Scrobs watched A.K.Haart's intentionally depressing post about HS2...

I actually like this piece of music for several reasons, but some depictions such as this one really do bring home the disastrous efect that these railways will have on our British countryside!

The shadowy and soulless appearance of a sour grey world, with sorrowful significance and a specific lack of semblence for sunniness, reminds me that I have to queue up at our bloody chemist for three-quarters of an hour again, as I forgot to buy the bloody cough mixture...

 

Outrage...

As Scrobs is always ahead of the news, the bit in one of the rags which tells everyone that Tottenham Hotspur fans have watched their team allow five goals go to Newcastle within ten or so minutes of the match starting has really made this train hit the buffers! Some 'fans' have now decided to go back home immediately after all that expensive travelling, so the cost of living (lockdown) crisis apparently doesn't apply to football... 

I mean, is their football train 'special' still parked at platform 3? Is there enough Stella on board? What about the ham rolls!

Surely we need to get an all-party parliamentary committee to investigate this outrage, after all, there maybe some vulnerable persons arriving at Winchelsea in an inflatable boat, and they might need that train!

Hopefully, there will be a Civil Service enquiry and all will be revealed in due course, probably 2026...

The village bicycle...

There was uproar at the Sodden Prickney Praish Council meeting last Thursday, when Cllr Ron Newt, freshly unhinged from an amorous embrace from his prime squeeze, Cllr Amelia Newt, proclaimed that Cllr Kalashnikov had been seen parking a bicycle outside Cllr Edwina Baggage's mother's house very late one evening. Ms Baggage is a well-known exponent of the art of bicycling, and is indeed the expert on the subject, having experienced countless occasions when such intimate knowledge is important, even gaspingly neccessary!

On learning from PC Lumbersnatch that the said bicycle had been thought to be the property of Cllr Kalashnikov's stepson, Wayne, it turned out that it had indeed been bought by the local political group, the Sodden Prickney National Emporium Party, and nobody knew how the money was paid!

In time-honoured method, Cllr Kalashnikov refused to make any worthwhile comment, except for his time honoured verbal embellishment, "Sod the lot of you", as did his second - or possibly the third - wife that year, Svetlana Kalashnikov, who is a diminutive, unpleasant person and well-known for being as tight as a fish's backside, i.e.watertight, but it was also well known that she would give him one heck of a bollocking when he got back after all those passionate forays Chez Baggage!

Meanwhile, the local rag, 'The Bugle', published several stories about the various sums of money being paid to the whole Kalashnikov family, which included visits to the local gyms, restaurants, massage parlours etc., and that there was a possibility that the offending bicycle might even have been purchased from a member of the same oligarchy, but Ms Baggage declined to comment after a breathless interchange on the telephone with the Bugle's chief reporter, 'Roland' Rat!

So, as usual in the village, nobody really has a clue about what was going on, and speculation continues in the smoky sitting rooms, the stuffy bars, the local conveniences, the public (That's enough places - Ed), and it's probable that after the next elections, everyone will have forgotten the issues, except maybe Ms Baggage, who probably still waits expectantly for the next tinkle on a rather rusty old bicycle bell...

0.769231%...

 

One of these varmints has reduced my tomato crop by the above amount...

This year, as in many seasons past, Scrobs has sown tomato seeds in abundance, sometimes manic, screaming profusion, because we especially like home-grown tomatoes, and the passion also extends to giving plants away to chums whom we particularly like, and they provide a super opportunity for receiving several lingering hugs from the benefactors, especially if they are the local girls!

So the greenhouse has shelving bulging with 130 plants of varying types of tom, 'Shirley' being the main crop, with 'Roma' a secondary sowing, and 'Orkado', which is a new one I'm trying out this year. The 'Roma' seeds were thrust at me by a lady chum last year, as she always had trouble germinating the seeds for some reason, so I acted as surrogate grower for her, and received the obligatory squeeze and prolonged peck for the result, which was jolly interesting, I can tell you!

But this year, the 'Shirley' seeds seemed to go into a sulk, and refused to show in their compost for over three weeks, which is just not normal! The others were also struggling, so in panic, I visited our local garden centre, where the lovely lady there told me not to worry, sit down on a bag of compost to rest, and she would give me three more packets of seed buckshee, as the rep for the seed company was coming in that afternoon, and she'd get a full refund anyway!

So, after her Gladys Emmanuel moment, which is always extremely gratifying, Scrobs returned to sow the new seeds, and pray for a result! The prayers included the wish that at least one or two of the earlier seeds might show, so a decent crop could be managed, and sure enough, about a nano-second after checking the original crop, the whole bloody lot appeared with a symphony of greenery rather like a hundred Kermits on a trampoline!

The new seeds took just a few hours to show, and there was a bemused Scrobs with 130 plants on his hands, and wondering how he could cope with all the hugs, squeezes, pecks etc., which would be due from an increasing list of benefactresses! I began to make a list of names, well away from the interested eyes of Senora O'Blene who would soon be asking certain questions...

But...! Catastrophe!

An early morning visit to the greenhouse turned into an arrival at a murder scene, as one of the dear little Shirleys had been demolished by the very evil sort of mollusc shown in the mug-shot above! The evidence was all there with the slime trail leaping over the edge of the seed tray!

Slug pellets had to be distributed with immediate effect, and sure enough, the following day, the offending little critter had succumbed to the dubious chemical and become a late mollusc, and not before time!

So, there are only 129 little darlings left, and already Scrobs is readying himself to receive the various bodily conversations to be expected in the forthcoming days - one was a phone call, but he is an elderly chum, and the other is an email, but I'll get there sometime very soon, as soon as signing off this post if I'm lucky...

Lost in translation...