Return to the past...

I went to Colchester today, to look at some development sites and get used to the town again after many years. (One of the biggest building jobs I ever did happened there at the R.E.M.E., and my bonus commission was £350). That was in 1983 before everyone chortles with mirth… (WATCH IT…the war wound pictures still have a few pixels to daunt the fearless – even you Kevin…)!

What a place! Buzzing with good friendly people, and at last I managed to appreciate a Local Authority actually taking charge of the change from enforced garrison town and leading the redevelopment process into respectable residential/university/retail/business oriented development. The sort we all like.

The High Street was impeccable, and although I did all of the regeneration areas to the South on foot – both feet actually – I felt the place really deserves some recognition and a few folding pictures of Elgar! Worn out streets attract investors, and these places are ripe for new growth.

Also, as a bonus and on a whim, I’d rung an old work colleague and good friend from the seventies on the train up from Liverpool Street, and we had a glorious reunion and lots of old fart’s chats about who’s retired, gone, missed-out etc.

I really rate the place, and expect to go back if the investors say so. Even if they don’t, I’ll bash them to submission…

There is so much to do there, and there is a collective will to contribute to a huge hearted city, some splendid old buildings and a bucket load of history.

And it only cost me way under twenty quid to get there with my ‘Old Tarfs Card’!

Soaring like an eagle...Grounding completed...

Daaaah, dah dah dah dah-de dah dah,
Daaaah, dah dah dah dah-de dah dah,
Daaaah, de-dah dah, daaaah, dee daaah;
Dah dah dah-dah; de daaaaah......!

Inner sedentary fenestrated situation…

This evening, I experienced a new sensation!

Yup! A new one,,, No, don’t laugh…Noooooooh…it’s not that funny… yet…

Would you believe your correspondent, (I like this hackneyed term and may well use it again – well; it’s my blog…), had to go to London Bridge station for the start of the trek back to Scroblene Turrets.

Although grounded still, the train and bus service is OK, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, Corney and Barrow are better off for me finding reasons for not driving!

I hate London Bridge Station, because many of the trains cruise through with their destination terminus mentioned on the front; but, I get off before then, and they don’t really need me at all, as I am an intermediate person. Even not ‘The Vagrant’!

So I wait for the next one.

Anyhow, we all crowded on, me with sad southpaw held aloft for sympathy (bugger all received), and a queue for the last remaining seats. (We’d sunk a few reds previously at the development meeting and a miniature snooze was an important requirement at this stage).

Your Correspondent (nice isn’t it...), had a small glance to the right, paniced, looked to the left of the queue, and just saw, from the corner of a tired eye, that another passenger was sitting ON AN AISLE SEAT!

With an authoritative, quivering finger pointing to the window seat, he immediately acquiesced, bowed down, smiled, gave me an OBE for good measure, and ‘Your Correspondent’ had the best seat on the journey! Window leaning, glazed expression, Chislehurst was a blur, Peter Gabriel on the new Ipod...luxury!

Still had to catch the bus home though, and it’s a twenty minute walk uphill to the Estate…

Small items of good news like this become very important for 'CORRESPONDENTS' who have to have their stitches out tomorrow!

Bloody well laugh, or else, I’ll publish a photograph of my massive wound!

MOT...

As 'anyone who is anyone' knows, I'm grounded and can't drive at the moment.

So just when I thought it was safe, we checked the date of Mrs S's MOT on her Ferrari GT Monaco Continental Super Doris.

Bugger, it's due on Monday, so we scoop off to the garage to get the sodding documents done. All a pain in the arse, as we missed the post prandial 13% infusion - but there you are, Ferraris don't last for ever!

After leaving it with 'Mick', we offed to do some post prandial shopping, and bought sod all. Back to Garage, they said the MOT had failed because the plingerment-grounding-on-the-gudgeon-lunge-flange had gone green, so we needed to get another one - sodding quick like!

Now Ferraris don't have 'B and Q' on their spares list, and three-hundred odd calls on the mobile couldn't trace the bleeder at all. We were all in a humph on the way home. I stared out of the window and felt guilty about upsetting Mrs S; after all I am Vice-President - Vehicles; She is President - Lady of the Manor and superb at it.

Got home and all went quiet. I sat on the phone and worried like hell as you do. Nobody there to help!

And, an inner voice shrieked 'BOLLOCKS'! Do it yourself you stupid arse!

So with Black and Decker's favourite screwdriver in hand, your correspondent took the whole bloody lot apart, found the offending part, and got the toy drill-set in the shed going, found the old ring spanners, shouted to the sun, laughed at the £1,000,000.00 bill facing us if I failed, cleaned it all up and turned on...

Mrs S sat in the driver's seat, and on turning the computer key (they are on Fiat Punto 65s-Ferraris...), the whole bloody lot came on as it should!

Well you could have knocked medown with a glass of red! I'd had every bloody garage telling me it was serious dosh and more notes just to get an order in, and that was money I've kept that for Mrs S's new hat.

Sometimes I listen to the vibes my Dad and Mum send in these circumstances - they'd have done that.

Investigate...

Both Hatfield Girl and Tuscan Tony have got me up on my hind legs tonight.

They quite rightly berate the timid failure of UK politicians, and commentators.
I’ll leave it to them – they’ve got good posts going!

Grounded...

I went to my GP yesterday, to have the elephant's leg bandage removed - (Hell, it really did look like one of these steamy beige smelly things in a kebab shop window...the bandage, not the southpaw), and the Nurse, who is an absolute sweetie, had an 'Assessment Supervisor' in attendance.

Now I'm all for getting value for NHS dosh, but my Doc is great (he is a Genesis fan too), and has several good colleagues including a rota of nurses, who bandage eldely idiots like me, and take readings from the others...!

The Nurse, (Sweetie), did everything right as usual, but had to keep asking Cruella De Ville, if the procedures were acceptable. Well, of course they were, but Nursie's been doing this sort of stuff for years, and knows her customers very well. (If I said intimately at this point, there could be a sharp intake of breath from certain readers, but I can safely say here that she is Mrs S's favourite Nurse too, so any surreptitious injections wouldn't get past the 200 yard exclusion zone would they...)!

After a clean up rather like Pirbright is going through now, (No 3 sandpaper, industrial disinfectant etc); I vaguely referred to the fact that I had work to do next week, and was immediately stamped on by C de V!

'Oooooh no! You can't drive for two weeks and your insurance would be invalid if you crashed; you've still got stitches man! You can't drive at all; DO YOU UNDERSTAND'!

So there we have it; Mrs S has offered to drive me to the station each day, (which will help Balls Brothers at lunchtime), and my business partner will be taking the reins on all the site visits that I have lined up! It's Chester next Thursday...

Bugger for some isn't it!

Doddle...!

Thanks so much to everyone for all those comments yesterday, and please forgive the 'blanket' (ha, ha, ha), 'cover note' (ha ha hah) to show my appreciation for everyone's concern!

As usual, the Girls showed concern, compassion and just a tinge of worry across those little brows, and the Blokes just got worse and worse with all their various minor-to-major wounds until Kev mentioned the snip!

Then everyone piled in; so no change there!

It was so easy! Mrs S driving the ambulance, the best NHS care one could wish for, and in and out in a few hours! The Staff at Crowborough are a lovely group, their kindness just heals by itself, and Sister Carole got a peck on the cheek, just because I felt like thanking her like I would anyone else, for her goodwill and highly respected skills!

The south-paw has a bandage the size of an elephant's foot with an industrial boiler insulation jacket on, and I'm back home for a few days hols until I can drive, and then will be as fit as a fit person' s fit bits!

(presses wrong button on laptop...deletes all...says 'bugger'... starts again...)