Home from work, our Juliet...

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Back when Scrobs was a working man, the three days beween Christmas and the New Year were always spent back in the office!

It was a simple equation, I wanted the three days holiday to be spent, well away with my family in the Summer, when they were younger, and not sitting huddled around the fire in winter with the presents, the blasted BBC etc.!

So, I always elected to go into the office, and prepare for the coming year, by organising diaries, programmes, work charts etc., and spend - oh - about an hour doing this until my Senior Partner would always pop into my room and ask if it might be a good time to sidle next door for a snifter or three!

And so we did! Every year!

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We did more work then that we ever did during the year, what with planning, working the details of the development sites, getting paid, getting sloshed, and we always felt an achievement from those few days of calm and introspection!

I somehow miss those days, as we were very good friends, and he was a generous man who appreciated the graft I put up for our business. 

I wish you well, Roger!

Dear ol' Christmas...

I guess it was always going to happen...

I even planned a spreadsheet to work out the best days to go shopping, to get the best discounts etc., and all looked well - on paper...

So, after getting the worst cold I can remember, plus the mother of coughs, I generously passed this on to Senora O'Blene. Luckily, I managed to get the antibiotics (Wendy, you're a Starlet, and I owe you), to allay the infection which normally occurs after three weeks, and yours truly was well away, but not the Senora! She succumbed major-big time and was very, very poorly.

Just about then, the washing machine succumbed to the 10 year stretch, and after finding the kitchen with an inch of water all over the tiles, a quick investigation showed a leak in the water feed, and I assumed everything would be okay after getting a new hose.

A management Guru once told us that, "Assume means 'You make an ass out of me'" And he was bloody well right, as the water leakage had plunged the electrics into inconsistency, and kicked the whole shebang into touch!

So...

Senora O'Blene had a fall and landed up in A&E with the nasty infection, I stayed at home with the detritus resulting from no washing facilities, and now the dear little dog has the squitters, and refuses to eat!

Scrobs takes charge - well, something to ease the pain, and a new washing machine is planned for delivery on Saturday. Senora O'Blene is at home again, but Lily is still being sick everywhere! And to add insult to injury, I decided to clean the carpets with the Vax machine. The downstairs carpets are ravishingly beautiful now, without a stain! The decision to use the stairlift to get the Vax upstairs (it's a bit heavy), proved to be quite wrong, as halfway up, the handle hit the ceiling, (building regs for staircases were not as good back then), and cracked the handle very badly...

Out into the shed, and a bit of Heath Robinson glueing and a splendid Jubilee clip, and somehow, it seems, (the operative word), to be OK! I sodding well hope so, as two big appliances being fucked up in just a few days is a bit of a bugger to be honest! And I have all this soiled stuff, cushions, rugs and the carpets to clean and wash on Christmas Eve - if the new washing machine works that is, and the Vax still does the business?

And ED, (Elder Daughter) is supposed to be coming over tomorrow, we're so looking forward to seeing her, and all the food and drink has to be lined up by 11.30am...

Bugger!

Spike to Ned...

During WW2, Spike Milligan often wrote to Harry Secombe, and as usual, his manic humour filled every paragraph!

Here's a taste of just one of these short passages, which still brings tears to the eyes!

April 22nd

Invited to cocktails with the Captain. He's a real son of the sea. He first became interested in ships when his mother approached him.

"John, your father wants you to build a boat at once!" She said.

"Where is father?" Inquired John.

"In the middle of the lake, drowning." Was the reply.

---------------

It's not difficult to imagine the great man telling this story, and I wish I could see him now, with that fabulous grin...

The football racket...

During dry weekends, there's a sort of baying sound coming from the football field a couple of hundred yards away. It means that the game has started...

I don't really mind it much, because, after all, I used to turn out on a Saturday but made a smaller noise, rather like muscles being stretched, legs being bent the wrong way, the occasional tearing of the blood-soaked shirt etc., but that's rugby for you!

One issue I have though, is the way that every player on both sides starts yelling and shrieking from the whistle! Up close it is a cacophony of curses, yelps, and worst of all, the awful bedlam coming from one player, who is possibly the captain, as he keeps it up for the whole eighty minutes!

A good friend near here is a rugby correspondent for a national newspaper, and he writes particularly well too! I'd like to think that the following statement describes Mr Noisy in the most acceptable way for readers...

"Team Captain Sid Bloggs continually displays a gutteral, staccato monotone of 'advice', assuming a surmised managerial presence in some imagined state of the moronic interrogative"!

There - what about that!