I'm the luckiest man in the world...

My darling wife died last Friday.

For all our married life, she'd had to deal with Type 1 diabetes, and never even murmered about the task of keeping herself balanced and active!

When I first plucked up the courage to ask her out to a party - in fact, it was just a piss-up, a get-together a week after my rugby club had returmed from a tour in Holland, and the others thought we ought to compare notes and find out who made the worst mistakes, who'd 'scored' - that sort of thing...), We immediately bonded in a gorgeous way. We'd been on friendly terms for some years, and in fact, we first met on my birthday at another party in Winchelsea, and she was with an old chum from school back then! We often met up in the pub where her mum and dad worked their socks off to make their place the best pub in Rye, 'The Bell', and when she was at home during college holidays, we'd always sit and chat.

So times went on. There we were, a couple, living and loving, and we were an 'item' from then on! I was going to marry the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen and spoken to, and she said that was fine by her! God, I was so lucky being there at a time written in the heavens...!

We raised two beautiful daughters, found our haven in our village, and after retirememt, realised we had so much more time together, and that was just fabulous.

But her diabetic issues surfaced with a vengeance some time ago. On top of all that, she'd only recently been diagnosed with inoperable cancer and she began a decline which she fought daily, sadly having to admit defeat last Friday. 

I'm heartbroken, but know now, that she has no more issues and pain, and that the above picture, taken on the 21st October, 1972, shows how fortunate I was in marrying the most beautiful girl in the world!

Laurie tells the story...

Some time ago, I mentioned that a piece of music had so much inside the words, that it was more than ...

The piece by Laurie Anderson was to me, a true definition of why and how people view art, and to be honest, I'm not really into that sort of thing, although I can stare at a Canaletto for ages, or hear some perfect music by Vaughan Williams or Butterworth until I'm a dribbling wreck!

But the other night, I was working on a quandary which was a simple miscaculation in the Scrobs Spreadsheet of The Turrets Accounts...

These accounts go back over ten years, and I built the programme for the simple reason, that I always want to know where our dosh is at any particular time, and even after 7,500 lines of numbers, it still works!

But I did a rash thing. 

I'd found a discrepancy of just over 80 quid between income and outgoings, and it was driving me mad! So I set in motion all sorts of checks and balances, which entailed trawling through each month since 2013. As the mouse finger was getting a bit tired, I started a downward scroll using my left hand, across the computer keys.

This all went well until absolute hell let loose, and the figures started dancing around all over the place, and were unstoppable! The dreaded word of 'Ref' appeared on 90% of everything, and I realised that the cuff of my jersey had caught up on the Ctrl key, and with some other key-strokes, the whole programme began to self destruct - including all my thousands of accounting lines!

Luckily, a few glasses of red had relaxed the frame more than somewhat, so I had to think more logically. It wasn't easy to find the antidote to the issue, but I kept remembering the words, 'And the voice said', from Laurie Anderson's piece above...

I just managed to restore a previous copy of the accounts, even though persevering with Chrome took several minutes, almost enough time to open another bottle before I completed the task of getting back to the present day's input.

The voice said - 'Leave it Scrobs, you'll muck it up again in your relaxed state, so LEAVE IT'!

And she was right!

Brie addiction...

For some reason, we seem to have accumulated a huge stock of this delicacy, and by generous coincidence, we  also received two separate pieces of this gorgeous cheese!

We're currently addicted to both the French variety, and also the English one, usually from Somerset - where the cider apples Grooooooow...(hang on, that's the Coates cider advert Scrobs - Ed), and even last evening, a pleasurable brace of wraps with English tomatoes from Thanet Earth became a banquet beyond compare!

Many years ago, Don McKenzie, the publican of a favourite watering hole, 'The New Inn', in Winchelsea, wrote to the Daily Telegraph, and they published his letter, in which he expressed concern that the French were soon to be producing cheddar cheese! Of course, outrage ensued, and several apolectic missives were in abundance! 

I have a tender memory of the man, because it was purely down to him that I met with the future Senora, and the rest is history, so he really was right!

But back then, who'd have thought that this lovely comestible would become a future prority on the regular visits to Tesco, and half of it would not have to come across The Channel...

..............................

Of course, there's always this...

Pie in the sky...

A.K.Haart has posted a piece that explains much of what is wrong with these people, using their wealth to scream around the world, yelling at others about their peculiar belief in 'the science' which only exists in the bank accounts of those who get involved in the scam and milk the money from the system!

A chum sent me this the other day, which makes sense...

Grandad...

Scrobs is a normal bloke.

Being the latest exulted member of the cultural experts of Martin Scriblerus, I'm enabled to see the writings of many posters, who are far more interesting than me, but I wish to bring the attention to everyone who knows this ol' grey head, to Grandad's site.

He's having a crap time. Herself is in need of care, in a bed, far away from her home, his dear dog Penny ended her days last week, and now he's got some serious decisions to make about how he's going to deal with the next several weeks.

Throughout today, I've felt really miserable about our friend's predicament - it could suddenly occur with any of us, but about now, at an age when things can sometimes start to go wrong, I want to be with the guy, chat with him, have a glass of whiskey with him,  and generally do what old Scrobs do under the circumstances.

I've cried for you today, Grandad, you have to beat the shit out of all this...

Painted green...

Around 1973, soon after Scrobs and Senora O'Blene plighted their various troths, the rugby club was becoming second, or even ninth in our lifestyles, and pretty soon I would be giving up the game...

But around then, as the club still had a thriving singing culture after each match, we decided to prepare a 'cabaret' for the Annual Ball. I had several friends who wanted to contribute, so around seven of us collected a script of some sort which included a few songs as well!

One chum was a Welsh teacher, and as he was a big fan of Max Boyce, he knew all the words to his songs! We incorporated several of these songs in the programme, and one particular song has always stuck out in this ol' grey head, as I've never heard it sung live - still haven't in fact...

But I've only just found the actual words we used!

Thanks to Will Garood, he has reproduced the whole song HERE and I can now remember the lines in all their glory, with my 12 string guitar belting out the chords, and a bunch of drunken hooligans my fellow troubadours singing their hearts out!

My chum Paul, tactfully avoided explaining why, as the comments show on Will's piece, that one of the lines wasn't as printed at the end of the first verse, they were supposed to be as Maldwyn said in the comments!

So you can see why I never understood that line, and now I know!

(Actually, I still have the original script, all crossed out and altered, and without the words to the songs sadly, together with a reel-to-reel tape copy of the dress rehearsal, all wrapped up in the roof...)

.......................................

Thank you Will, I hope you don't mind me crediting you with this gem!

The stuff of life...

 

I don't really know why, but of late, I've been buying bread, and instead of just using it until it gets a bit stale, I've been freezing it in four-slice bags and taking them out as we need them.

A loaf of Hovis costs around £1.40, and that works out at around 7p a slice. If anyone had told me when I was a kid, that each sandwich with the butter and a bit of cheese I devoured would be costing around seven bob in old money in the future, I'd never have believed them!

So probably, I do know why I freeze those crumbs...