The magic word in the kitchen...

 It's very simple - it's 'Bugger'!

Yup, possibly unacceptable in some circles, but it is the single word beloved by our superhound, as she can hear the from every room in the house, and sometimes the garden in Summer!

Let me explain...

I rather like cooking these days, my daughter is always trying new ideas, and follows several sites where recipes abound, and it's a delight to be able to create new items indoors when there's three inches of snow outside and the shed is like a fridge, so it's inside duty as a must!

I'm still tackling a few leftovers from Christmas, and new ideas are always welcome, but who can beat a home-made pizza with a decent salad? You also need a bottle or two of Leffe beer to create one of these for some reason, but that's another story...

So with salad building up on a plate, there becomes more limited room for adding each item, and the inevitable happpens - something drops to the floor, with a solid version of that 'word'! Yesterday, it was half a lettuce, and after the echoes of the expletive, (actually, is it an expletive or just a rude word?), have subsided, there is a rush of paws and like lightning, the vegetable vanishes from the kitchen!

To find it shredded all over the place at a later hour is neither here nor there, but if it had been - say - fillet steak - that would have gone in half a second!

So, dear reader, you can see why I rarely have to wash the kitchen floor, I just shriek, 'bugger', and the job's done in seconds! I reccomend it to the house!

Crane story...

It had been ages since I'd met my oldest friends in the neighbourhood, Gloriette and Elias Sagtrouser, for one very good reason; 'The Bells' has been closed for some time, as the previous landlord finished up in court after letting in the pikeys, and also allowing them to continue drinking until 1.00am, when PC Lumbersnatch decided that enough was enough and raided the place with the help of Policewoman Fyre-Cracquer! So the old place had been bereft of customers for some time, as the owners couldn't find a tenant, and as I had no need for any concrete bollards, or brass screws at his Builders Merchants, we'd not bumped into each other recently!

But a few days ago, after posting my Christmas thank-you letters, I noticed the huge 4 x 4 parked outside the saloon of the newly-re-opened pub, and couldn't resist a quick peek into the bar. Once Gloriette had seen me and waved furiously, Elias came over with a huge paw extended, and led - or rather forced me - to the bar where a huge hug and several pecks with Gloriette completed the mission of seeing my great friends again! 

After a few inconsequential comments about Christmas, I mentioned that Elias must be glad to be back selling building materials at high speed, which was his custom, and he agreed that it was indeed the case that the customary ten days of boredom away from building sites had meant that he was on the verge of going out and actually building something himself, just to justify the position he was in, but as Gloriette had told him in no uncertain terms, that he should enjoy the few days in the year that they ever have off, he'd damned well make the most of them with good grace, and several bottles of Chateau bottled red wine!

As is usual, after Elias had offered his card to the new landlord for refills all round, he immediately launched into a frightening story of an incident which occurred on the second day back at work.

His company is supplying the development of a large office block in the town, and while Elias doesn't sell ready-mixed concrete, he arranges for the deliveries through an agent, as there's a lot of timing to be considered so that the stuff arrives at any particular time. There had been some considerable rainfall over the Bank Holiday. and the site was awash with mud and debris, such that the concrete lorries were having a hard time negotiating the site easily. There was a tower crane hoisting various items all over the site, and one of its jobs was to lower its hook close to the area where the concrete lorries were trying to move around, so the crane driver offered to help when a lorry actually got stuck!

Elias actually became serious at this point, and I wondered if there might have been some repercussions with his involvement, but Gloriette winked at me, so I naturally felt a bit better, because a wink from my dear lovely friend sends shivers just about everywhere on my physical being!

Elias went on to tell me that the lorry driver's mate had leapt out of the cab, and attached the hook of the crane to the back of the concrete truck, so it could be lifted clear of the deep puddle of mud which had engulfed the back wheels! All went well for a short while, and the lorry struggled clear of the quagmire and slowly headed for the gate, with the hook still attached to its rear.

Now, said Elias, nobody understood what actually happened next, but somehow the driver, seeing his mate jump into his cab, assumed that he was free of the hook from the crane!

But he wasn't...

The lorry began to trudge forward to the site entrance, and there was a sudden shriek from the site's emergency hooter that something was amiss, so work immediately stopped! And it was just as well that work did stop, as the lorry was half-way out of the gate, with the crane's cable still attached, and getting quite taut to say the least! The consequences would have been catastrophic!

Elias admitted that his agent had been on site at that moment, and had turned a blind eye to the health and safety issues concerning the 'hoist', and after offering several bollockings, and a few well-chosen words to the unfortunate man, who had at least seen what was happening and pressed the alarm before rushing out to wave down the lorry, the incident was quietly swept aside, thank goodness!

My third pint of Sheps' 'Winter Bastard' 6.3% ABV shook slightly at the thought of a hundred-foot crane crashing down on a site full of carpenters, brickies, and various Portacabins, and decided that it was perhaps better to be retired from all that, and lead a quieter life with my dog and some plans for the garden...

It's the supermarket 'Rictus' day...

Christmas Eve...

This is the day when tradition demands that we visit as many supermarkets as we can, and count the number of customers with a manic fixed grin on their faces!

If you study the Rictus Day syndrome - as we used to in years past, you were able to arrive in the car park and spot the four-by-four being furiously parked, and most of a family of a mother and three children would spill out. The mum was already gesticulating to the children to stay close by. The Rictus is about to kick in, but not quite yet...

On entering the supermarket - we'll make it a Waitrose, but it could be anywhere, except for some of the cheapo budget shops - the grin begins to appear on the mum's face, especially as she can't find her loyalty card to unlock the zapper which is just by the door. A small queue builds up, and a man at the back begins to mutter!

After snatching the zapper from its cradle, (always on the bottom row for some reason), the grin develops into anguished, teeth-baring desperation, as the shopping list is right at the bottom of the voluminous handbag, and the queue for the coffee machine watches with interest as the various contents are spread all over the empty shopping trolley. The list is discovered tucked into another purse the size of a Pears Cyclopaedia.

The Rictus has now extended to the neck muscles, where it will remain for the rest of the shopping extravaganza, and while the children happily inspect all the chocolate stacked up by the first aisle, the quest for comestibles becomes a murderous race rather like the chariot scene in Ben Hur, which by coincidence also has Charlton Heston riding with possibly the first rictus grin ever shown on the wide screen, but there again, he didn't have to brave the fury of Waitrose customers!

So we pass the fruit and vegetable aisle, taking an armful of any salad stuff with a yellow ticket, and the hunt for Manchego and Comte cheese begins in earnest. The various decibels of 'NO NO NO' are heard by other shoppers by the bread shelves as the group passes the pizzas, and the next aisle becomes bereft of Kalamata Olives and Miso Paste. 

The grin is now beginning to attract the attention of the staff manning the CCTV cameras, as the trolley enters the final phase of the expedition with a wild-eyed, gasping grimace extending to the carefully knotted Prada scarf, and also now affecting the hands, which have developed claw-like characteristics as the eye-brows contract to a fair Clarke Gable impression, but with additional French accents, and word goes out to the floor staff to check her trolley 'as a precaution'!

That final dash to the self-checkout till ends in a shuddering crash, and the monster bag of crisps, thoughtfully added by one of the children, splits open to the vocal equivalent of the Rictus, which is a sort of strangled shriek, combined with steam-train sound effects!

The scramble is over as the bank card whistles past the machine, and the Rictus is still maintained right up to the door, when there's a momentary lapse, and the shoulder blades start to droop!

That's until the trek back to the four-by-four is categorised as 'Rictus Extra-Violent', when it is discovered that they've forgotten the Tamarind paste...

Tales from Christmases past...

 

The annual trek to the attic, to collect up all the Christmas decs which were chucked up at the end of last year, and cart them down the ladder to display yet again, has started in earnest!

This year is going to be very different, with Scrobs acting solo, after my dear Senora popped off in the Summer, but between me and the Houndess, we're going to light up the rooms and blaze away, as The Senora would have threatened me with all sorts of torture, if  I didn't, and loss of tinctures was always going to be at the top of the list!

We've only been here in The Turrets for about thirty-five years, but the amount of clobber which accumulates in the attic still seems to grow, witout any rhyme or reason, and of course, there is always something up there, which you just cannot throw away!

Here in the pic, are two Christmas albums I was given nearly seventy years ago! The Brer Rabbit book came from my dear sister, who was about eleven or twelve then, and still going strong! I was an avid fan of Brer Rabbit, and the stories were all informative, fabled and easy for young impressionable children  to read and admire! I would have been seven then...

The Kit Carson album of  1956, arrived when we'd all moved to the new house that dad had bult built. It would have been our second Christmas there, and I was well into owning several cap guns, dad's old army bush hat, holsters made from cardboard, and all the paraphernalia that comes with being a cool cowboy! (Come to think of it, that was quite a change from the other book in just two years, but we all grew up playing outside, getting muddy and driving wooden carts around the woods back then, and life in the lanes and fields was a necessity...)!

Reading the stories again opens up such a huge chasm of how children absorbed fiction back then, the drawings were all there of course, but the writers always seemed to capture an eight-year-old's imagination, and ensure that the stories, however beyond reach, were still understandable, likeable and so really captivating!

And I haven't even started the rapture on finding all my Rupert Bear albums yet...

After all this time...

 

As some chums know, some of my formative years were spent in a Category C prison boarding school in Wales, and despite all that, I left with many friends, good memories, a prize for music, some rugby skills and some experience of a tougher life ahead, and how to deal with it.

On one occasion, a friend asked me if I would like to go and have Sunday tea with one of his aunts, who lived not far away. Visits such as these were forbidden of course, but, like buying five Woodbines, we all did things like this anyway!

So there was a scrubbed Scrobs, sitting by a roaring open fire, chatting with all my chum's relations, and having a great time! They were all lovely people, and were extremely kind to a new face at their tea table!

Welsh cakes were in abundance, and I'd never had one before, so it was a new experience for me, and of course, absolutely delicious, being home-made!

Visiting my local Waitrose recently, there on the shelf, near the crumpets, muffins and buns, (watch it Scrobs, stop describing the staff - Ed.), was this packet of the delicacies, so they went straight into the basket, and off we went!

And until only a day or so ago, did I realise that they can be fried, grilled, or presumably toasted, and that really is the answer for a perfect delicacy, which has now become a staple, especially for breakfast, with yet more coffee...*

*see Scrobs last week!

A garden centre not called Alta Rica...

"Well, here's a turn up for the books - I only wish I knew which comic it was", as Rachel Reeve's boss might have exclaimed when she was promoted to Senior Stapler Monitor at Sodden Prickney's village sub-branch visiting caravan on the 'Basil Kalshnikov Field of Glory" car-park, (2.00pm - 4.00pm, Wednesdays and Thursdays)!

Yes, the Earth has moved, Saturn is in the Despondent, Mars has Groils for each strumlical legend, and Jupit...(get on with it - Ed), and Scrobs has started partaking of coffee again!

Yup, it is a new era!

Some years ago, around March 2015, Senora O'Blene and I had taken to the habit of visiting a large garden centre just outside Tunbridge Wells. They were in the process of refurbishing and extending, and like a lot of them now, they were intruducing the through-wave of having to walk round every single section, to arrive, tired and exhausted at the exit with a plastic gnome, some fake snow, and a pot plant of dubious quality, but at least it had Latin name!

One day, the GC decided that all loyalty card members could have a free cup of coffee, which was normally a couple of quid, and as we'd been there for some time, buying an electric fence cable, some barbed wire for the garage roof and the plans for an air raid shelter, we decided to succumb to their brand new speciality coffee, which had some sort of Italian name, but I can't remember it.

Resting tired rear paws against a blue plastic-sided raised rose garden, I risked a sip of the stuff, then another...

At that monent, I gave up drinking coffee for nearly ten years! It was utterly disgusting, with a sour, unpleasant smell coming from a turgid grey/brown slurry surrounded by a rather weird looking foam which seemed to creep everywhere over the cup, down the sides and dangerously close to Senora O'Blene's handbag! The taste was nothing like coffee at all, and was downright foul!

It wasn't worth complaining, it went to feed the plastic roses, and we left soon afterwards, with me quietly exhibiting the occasional shiver and whimper! I haven't touched a drop since then, well, one very small Gold Blend, but it just reminded me of the nasty stuff!

So there you have it! Coffee has just made a comeback today, as several dietary issues demand a bit more diversity, and that goes for drinks etc., as a scoop of chemo every three weeks for myeloma makes partaking of comestibles go somewhat awry, but we're winning, and thanks to Mr Alta Rica, it's been an even better day!

A new era, and hope for the residents of our favourite village...

 

There was indignation and uproar at the voting table in Sodden Prickney Parish Council hall last Tuesday, (reports Tarquin ffarquin Larquin of 'The Bugle').

In fact, it was more like a battlefield scene from Henry V, or The Crimea, or the Som...(get on with it - Ed), as the several piles of votes were clearly showing one outright winner, with Cllr. Amelia Newt carefully holding the stack down with a house brick!

The entire committee had assembled in the hall to find out who was to be their next chairman, and recriminations between the various parties had already begun, with Cllr. Cynthia Molestrangler, fresh from an assignment with her gardener, who has been putting up a new pergola in her arbour, (so that what it's called - Ed), and feeling slightly flushed, announced her arrival by banging the door back with such ferocity, that the picture of Queen Victoria's Coronation, situated close by, fell with a crash, and sent glass shards everywhere, much to the annoyance of the caretaker, Arthur Grumble! 

She immediately accused Cllr. Basil Kalashnikov of cheating by voting for himself three times,and began to harangue everyone she could see through her bloodshot eyes, which, had they not been seeing double would have noticed only a dozen or so bored citizens of the village, sitting around and gawping at their mobile telephones!

It was clear that Cllr. Trumpet was going to be the winner, as the small pile of votes, with fifteen spoiled papers paper-clipped to last year's calender, was the sum total of his nearest rival, the redoubtable but statuesquely diminishing figure of Cllr Molestrangler!

Cllr Norman Wibble, together with Dr. Iodine, began to try and placate her tantrums, which had now risen to a sound resembling a turkey farm around Christmas, and her harsh cackle began to reverberate around the room, to the point that two citizens left in disgust, and visited the local pub to wait for the result!

It didn't take long, before the vote was finalised, and the 1,245 votes for Cllr. Sid Trumpet made a welcome fanfare to a new era of Sodden Prickney Parish Council's hopes and. aspirations, and all he got was a great clonk in the face with a bejewelled left hook, before his beaten opponent stormed out of the room, shrieking obscenities, and by slamming the door, knocked the painting of King George VI to the floor, causing great shards of glass to fly everywhere, to the continuing intense annoyance of the afore-mentioned Arthur Grumble!

It was a night to remember, and to celebrate, someone produced a bottle of Asti Spumante for some odd reason, as it hadn't ever been entered on the inventory for the council expenditure, so the recriminations had started almost immediately, with Cllr Basil Kalshnikov sidling towards the door to escape, and uttering only the mildest of ,'Sod the lot of yous', and scrunching the broken glass at his feet, causing Arthur Grumble to throw up his arms in utter despair...