Crimble

Just a quick blog to wish all you lovely people a very Merry (see heading). As some of you will know (well, those of you whose telephone numbers I have will know because I’ve rung you) I have already spoken to you (not all of you, obviously, as I don’t have all your numbers, although I’ve got all the numbers of the numbers of those of you I have got). Is that clear so far? Good.

I have continued to be conspicuous by my absence, as you will continue to have noticed, and this has been caused by enormous amounts of work that have been arriving in my IN tray - well, I haven't really got an IN tray as such, I've got one of those five-tray tower thingies which are full of, erm, well, I'd better check, actually, and none of them is marked 'IN', even though new incoming work starts off in the very top one and either makes its way to my desk or falls out of the back and down into the cobwebby detritus that infests the floor behind the little table on which the tower thingy sits (shouldn't that be stands?) and where several extension lead sockets are located - aha! is that what the smoke is?

Are you still with me? Good, because I send all my very best wishes to you and hope that next year is going to be roaringly better than this one, even though this one may have been roaringly good for some of you, or even all of you; well, anyway, roaringly better has got to be good - hasn't it?

Love from me.

Health scare 2

You remember I told you about my visit to the Medical Centre recently and my worryingly seamless integration into the New Forest Society Of Infirm, Tetchy and Wizened Old Buggers? In a smallish market town like Ringwood, Hants, lots of people know lots of other people and joining a gathering of local folk in a public place like a surgery will mean you are very likely to bump into someone with whom you are acquainted. Such was the case with me and a few others on that day.

I know it is only a platitude (like the French "Ça va?") but why, oh why, do people say "You all right, then?" when they meet you in a place which you would patently avoid unless you were not all right? "Yes, I am quite tickety-boo healthwise, thanks, but as I had a bit of time on my hands, I felt like popping in to pick up where I left off in the March 1999 issue of Mongolian Paperweights Monthly." I then make the fatal (not literally, of course, but at least I am in the right place) mistake of asking how they are and sit there for half an hour experiencing varying degrees of nausea as they regale you with a vivid description of the particularly repulsive medical condition from which they are suffering, sometimes even showing you the affected part of their anatomy. I am filled with an overwhelming sense of relief when I hear my name called and wonder if there is another way out of the building which avoids passing through the waiting room. I'm not bloody well going there again if I can help it; I'll have to e-mail Mongolian Paperweights Monthly and order a back issue.

Health scare

The other day, I went to our local medical centre for a retinal screening. As you will probably know, it's a common precaution to check for diabetic retinopathy and I have it done every year. The point of this account is not to mention the tiny white splurge near the centre of my left eye which the optometrist (I am making an assumption here – she might have been an ophthalmologist or just a retinal photographer) couldn't identify and said the image would be scrutinised and a report sent to me in due course (I wonder if I'll be able to read it). No, this is about something which began to worry me greatly as I sat musing amid the coughing, sniffing, wheezing, dozing, limping, overweight, twitching, wrinkled throng.

I fitted in.

(makes note to contact highway authority with a view to becoming a road hump)

Knock, knock...

So, after a pathetic absence of bloggage lasting some three and a half months, you may think I've got a bloody nerve, springing back on the scene without so much as a friendly warning to alleviate the shock. I still read all the blogs, leave the odd comment or two and add the occasional limerick line but I haven't been in the chat since before MMM went to live in Merkinland. I can't explain it but I almost experience a sense of discomfort sometimes when I hover over the Chat icon (I always check who's in when I peek at the Limerick Thingy) - oh, boy, do I hover - but, as you know, I rarely go in - something holds me back and it's as if I'm afraid I've got nothing interesting to say any more. I could use the excuse that I don't enjoy the amount of free time that I used to have because work is keeping me very busy and domestic life has taken a turn for the normal following the sale of the pub (spending a lot more time relaxing with family) and that I have become a terminal grump because of the continuing physical problems (not serious, but enough to cause frequent pain and constant irritation) but, well, that would just be, er, an excuse. Also, I haven't spoken to some people for ages who I used to phone occasionally - I can only ask that you accept my apologies. Did that sound trite? I didn't want it to. Would somebody please give me a friendly kick up the arse?

Unnerving questions in Barcelona

The sun shone in that fair city last weekend (32° and counting, with generous helpings of Factor 20 for the top of the head) when I attended Episode One of my niece’s fiancé Charlie’s stag efforts (it was largely a family affair – he is having another one with about 35 of his mates in September, after he’s married!) and a good time was had by all. Imagine, though, the anxiety engendered by the following questions which were asked during our stay:

1. Ten bottles of Magners'. It’s your round, isn't it?

2. The bus to the airport leaves in three minutes. Where's Mike?

3. Does anyone know where I put my passport?

4.Why has that gorgeous lady got an enormous Adam's Apple?

5. My bag's been stolen and I've run out of credit on my phone; can I use your mobile to report my credit cards lost?

6.[This was asked of my brother-in-law by the Visa lady in Calcutta] Are you sure your name is Clarke?

7. Have you noticed the poster of a rather fit-looking bloke with his hand down the front of his pants at the front of the queue to get in this night club?

8. Have you noticed there are only men in the queue for this night club?

We did the northern route on the open-top tourist bus, because we wanted to see the Nou Camp and it stops there. You can get on and off any of the buses up to 9pm. It’s an ideal and comfortable way to see the main attractions and landmarks of the city and there are many impressive sights, all accompanied by an English commentary which you could listen to by plugging in the earphones supplied when you first got on. Nothing, though, can quite prepare you for the amazing Sagrada Familia designed by Antoni Gaudi. We walked up and down La Rambla (of course), had an All Day Full English Breakfast at a port-side café, watched two scantily-clad ladies playing football on the beach, marvelling at their skilful display of ball control (honestly), befriended a young waiter called George at the café next to the hotel; he kept apologising for the fact that my brother-in-law had had his bag nicked whilst sitting outside there and plied us with late night snacks free - we slipped him a folding tip on our last night.

Oh well, back to the weather. *is quite concerned about the possibility of webbed feet*

Attack of the Hundred Foot Caterpillars

I mean they had a hundred feet, not that they were a hundred feet long, of course. Or is that centipedes? Anyway, are you sitting comfortably, mes enfants? Thaumetopoea processionea is a complete bastard, whether it has a hundred feet or not. The Wikipedia article does not actually refer to the Oak Processionary Caterpillar in those terms but you may take it from me that it undoubtedly merits that base epithet - and probably a lot baser. It inhabits oak trees; guess which type of trees were growing next to our mobile home in France? Ooh, good guess. As you will see if you bothered to follow the Wikipedia link, they have up to 63,000 fine hairs (the caterpillars, not the trees) which are easily shed (usually in the direction of holidaymakers from Hampshire, a fact unhelpfully not reported by Wikipedia) and which contain a substance poisonous to humans (and holidaymakers from Hampshire). Most of us only came out in several tiny spots on arms, legs and neck (strictly speaking, necks, I suppose), but my younger son is more susceptible to allergies, being a hay-fever sufferer, and I ended up having to take him to the local doctor who prescribed some cream, anti-histamine tablets and – to the boy's horror – some special soap to be used in the shower twice a day! It was fun watching firemen shinning up ladders, though, with a kind of mini-flame-thrower, burning the nests. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear the inhabitants screaming, probably because they had already been killed by the chemical spray administered prior to our arrival at the site. In other holiday news, it only rained twice: once from the 14th June (the day of our arrival) to the 18th (the 19th was dry and sunny) and once from the 20th June to the 27th. I went in the pool once and we barbecued once. Guess which day? Ooh, good guess. My older son had organised a tournament for everyone to take part in, having drawn up elaborate rules for each individual element of it; there was table-tennis, pool, petanque, two separate mini-golf games on the site (the brilliantly conceived Birdie Seeker and the Best Score From Three Rounds), a team guessing game called "Who's In The Bag" and the Apremont Open (a mini-golf game at Apremont next to a café at the inland lake there, traditionally played every time we camp in the Vendée); we even had a cup for the eventual winner. Well, the weather put paid to the petanque and the hairy bastards mentioned above put paid to the mini-golf on the site, which was closed off because it is surrounded by certain kinds of tree; guess which? Ooh, good guess. Apathy and late rising on the part of some of the competitors (I'm not saying which) and, to a lesser degree, the rain, as the tables were under cover, although your balls got wet when they shot out of the covered area through the open side – stop sniggering, Omally - put paid to the table-tennis, which involved playing everybody twice. Next year, we may continue with the tournament, but include some more appropriate events, like The Least Time Taken To Suck Out Snake Venom, perhaps, or The Most Number Of Festering Boils On Two Arms. Au revoir!

Eggscuse me?

For what it’s worth (and to fill a gaping chasm on my blog), I thought I would share this with you. My niece is getting married in August and she recently held a hen weekend in Edinburgh which my wife attended. One morning, at breakfast, she (auntie/wife) decided she would just have scrambled egg on toast and duly placed her order. The waiter returned, saying that, unfortunately, they were out of scrambled but she could have fried. Hmmm…

Phone a friend

No matter how much you press me, I am not going to launch into a long diatribe on the appalling circumstances surrounding the upgrade to my mobile phone. Suffice to say that, if your network is 3, you will soon be without service because I am going to torch their headquarters to keel all their employees dead. I suppose I’ll have to nuke India, too.

Teach!

I really like this one!

She wasn't wearing a toga, though...

I was watching the BBC News at lunchtime and an item about a housing development in Rochester, Kent, was presented by an attractive young lady reporter. Her name? Julia Caesar. I'm just going to telephone her Mum and Dad and have a right go at them!

I love Paris in the springtime

Well, we spent two nights in Paris last week (Tuesday and Wednesday). It was a special offer brought to our attention by those very nice people at Travel Zoo. It turned out to be an offer we couldn’t refuse and we duly called in several favours which resulted in our children transporting us to and from Bournemouth station firstly for the 10.59 to London Waterloo on Tuesday and then from the 19.05 from London Waterloo on Thursday, arriving at 21.10 (bloody pathetic – nobody got on or off at Sway, Hinton Admiral, New Milton or Pokesdown). We took the Eurostar to Paris via Lille and, being interested in seeing how fast the train went and following the map to see where we were, I took my lovely brand new Garmin 60Csx and shone it out of the window at the sky. It hadn’t worked on the South West Train earlier, presumably because of the double-thickness-specially-coated-with-satellite-signal-destroying-material carriage windows, which prevented me from recording the mind-numbing speeds sometimes almost exceeding 50mph, I shouldn’t wonder. Killjoys. On the high speed stretch of track in Kent (there is another in course of construction, I gather – no doubt, Hutters or Hoggy could confirm or deny), the driver put his foot down and I watched the numbers on the Garmin slowly going up: 120…150…160…163…167…169…come on, come on…… yes! 170mph! And it was smooth. However, when we emerged from the tunnel on the French side, he really let himself go and, at one point, I clocked him at 191mph! Fantastique! Mind you, there was an announcement at one point informing us that it was the last time that particular driver would be piloting the Eurostar, so perhaps there was a leaving do going on and he was pissed. Anyway, we arrived (and returned home) in one piece. My niece and her partner both live and work in Paris and she had booked a table at a restaurant for Tuesday night; I had foie gras followed by confit de canard, one of my favourites, and at the end of the evening my niece’s partner performed a clever subterfuge by pretending there was an error in the bill and then going to another part of the restaurant to pay it! An entirely unexpected and generous gesture and he flatly refused recompense. On Thursday, we had lunch in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and spent the evening lurching this way and that on a train journey that felt like riding a bike with no tyres along an endless cobbled street. *sigh*

Play Your Cards Wrong

I went to Brighton for four days last week, attending my employer’s Annual Conference, during which, I'll have you lot know, I had to give an after-dinner talk to 488 people! It seemed to go down rather well even though I say so myself - well, the Azerbaijani delegation enjoyed it, anyway.

When I came back on Wednesday, I needed to transfer the 60 or so pictures I had taken whilst there to my peecee, which has four assorted card reading slots on the front to facilitate this process. I pushed the CompactFlash card into the relevant orifice but it deliberately lifted itself too high and ended up above the actual bank of slots in which it should have been inserted. I now have a CompactFlash card living inside my peecee. I tried (a) tweezers, (b) a tiny drop of glue on the end of a long matchstick and (c) a cunning device comprising a clothes peg, paper clip and sellotape, but the only consequence of all these efforts was to ram the damn thing further in. Fortunately, other people had provided me with pictures which I can make use of, and I’ve got another card, but I really wouldn’t mind getting the first one back. I think I heard it laughing earlier and I’m worried about becoming rubbish.

In other exciting news, I’ve now got a lovely Garmin 60Csx (thanks again to those responsible!) and, over the weekend, I’ve been busy cluttering its electronical innards up with maps and waypoints. Shame I haven’t been able to use it for geocaching yet. It’s been pissing down since the postie delivered it on Friday! And there’s more to come, apparently. Bah!

*keeps pressing buttons and fidgets*

About time, too

Bless me, for I have sinned. It has been almost a year since my last geocaching expedition but …BUT, on Wednesday, I headed for the forest complete with wife and dog and found my twentieth! How great is that? I’ve only been caching since the middle of 2003. I’ll soon catch that Gottle chap up. Anyway, Sophie’s Secret was the one. It involved a fair amount of yomping across a thoroughly soggy landscape but it was no match for my super‑duper waterproof walking boots. At one point, we reached a wide, quite deep and fast-moving stream and the track was blocked with cones and red plastic safety netting where the bridge was being repaired. A large sign said: “If you squeeze past the netting, you could probably walk gingerly across the half-dozen or so pieces of 8x6, although if you have a stupid dog who refuses to put his foot on them you might have to carry him.” Ahem. Good job the Forestry Commission blokes had gone for a cuppa. Sadly, my GPS is ailing as, even though there was little or no tree cover for much of the way, the arrow was swinging around all over the place. I think I need a new one; I must speak to those extraordinarily nice, handsome, lovely people at Garmin. *rehearses begging speech *

A lovely spot in the forest

This is to appease MMM, who, since my earlier posting, has been acting like my mum: she used to be keen on squeezing blackheads on people's backs etc. Sorry about the lack of shaveage, by the way, but I'm frightened of making a mess on the bathroom floor.

Suffering

Currently, I am suffering with: (1) a stinking cold and hacking cough, (2) a particularly bad bout of back pain which is (a) hindering upright movement and (b) causing me to seize up after being sat down for longer than about 20 minutes and (3) the after effects of cryotherapy (on Monday) to a blemish on my left cheek (the face, the face) which has caused it to swell up and fill with fluid – it looks revolting but is, according to the helpful notes issued to me after the treatment, an expected consequence which must be pricked with a needle (to release the fluid) and a dry dressing applied for a couple of days. Having told a friend on the telephone about all of this, he advised against buying a lottery ticket tonight.

*has generous swig of Glenfiddich purely for medicinal purposes*

The Pelican Brief

See what I did there? Well, it was Breakfast in Picasso, Lunch at The Pelican Conservatory and Supper in the Grantham Hilton. It sounds like a day at the Cannes Film Festival, doesn’t it? Allow me to explain. As you (not you if you are a chance visitor looking for donkey porn and don’t know anything about SimonG) will know, the belated SimonG Christmas Meet was held yesterday at The Pelican in Addlestone, Surrey (about a couple of hundred yards from the Charlotte Rose’s mooring – shame on you if you didn’t go and marvel at her). It was great, of course! What else could it have been? I was so determined not to be late and, as I had got up just a leetle bit later than planned, I rushed over to Tesco Express and bought a couple of Sepcial K cereal bars to eat for breakfast in the car on the way; I’ve got a Citroen Xsara Picasso – with me so far? I arrived at the Crouch Oak (the pub where I, Merman, Mermaid and Maris Piper were staying on Saturday night) at about 10.35am and, whilst on the phone to Maris to ascertain her whereabouts, was verbally accosted from the driver’s window of a magnificent motorhome which turned out to be inhabited by Merfolk (it’s got Hilton painted on each wing) and is lovingly (if somewhat grandiosely) referred to as the Grantham Hilton – it turned out to be a fine temporary retreat later in the day. And it also turned out that my room had been occupied on the previous night by Sparkle Princess and Marshmallow! The cleaner hadn’t finished with the room but she let me go in and change before we set off for the meet. The empty Pot Noodle tub was still on the bathroom floor! Oh, and Marshy, I’ll post on to you the (ahem) item that I found under the bed – it didn’t fit on my head either! We were allocated the Pelican’s conservatory which overlooked the Wey Navigation, of which you (again not the other you) will be aware, Cap’n Henry Not The Thirst is the master. Amanda had apparently allocated the conservatory to our party without telling me, and others were aware of this despite my several (ahem) liaisons with her prior to the event. Oh well, I got over it after a few pints of Southern Glory! Anyway, it seems that everyone had a good time meeting folk for the first time (although it almost didn’t seem like the first time) and seeing old friends again. I achieved both! We (that is, me, Maris, Merman, Mermaid and gsyhiap) set off from The Pelican at about 10pm and walked back towards the Crouch Oak with a view to getting some fish and chips from the purveyor of same opposite the Crouch Oak. Well, he was closed but, fortunately (although not, as it turned out, for Maris - see her blog), the kebab house and Chinese takeaway were still peddling their wares to the masses (actually quite conspicuous by their absence, although, of course the pubs hadn’t yet chucked out) so, having acquired our respective dishes of nosh, we all trooped over to assemble in the Grantham Hilton and scoff it. Thanks , Chris and Rosie! A perfect end to a perfect day and you can see some piccies here.

Casey's Tool Works

Or so the saucy postcard said. I wonder if it really does. I love English, y’know, and I feel really sorry for anyone from forren who’s trying to learn it. There are such subtle nuances in the pronunciation and spelling and so many things you can do to manipulate it.

I mean, you can pepper food with salt, ponder whether Jonah did in fact have a whale of a time, consider that a good way of making the Vatican smell nice might be to spread a good bit of pot-pourri – go on, say it out loud quick! There are many questions which you may think don’t need answering, but, as I’ve finished a batch of work and have a few spare minutes – and I haven’t blogged for absolutely ages – here are just a few:- 1. If the Prince of Wales had his name put on an item of laydees’ underwear, would you have an Heir On A G-string’? Pardon? No, ‘Basque In The Sun’ does NOT work 2. Are Girls Allowed to sing? 3. If nobody knows about it, would you be able to hear a Secret Policeman's Bawl? 4. Should I feel privileged to have been able to listen as a child to Billy Cotton’s Banned Show? 5. Should a large baby be given a Wide Birth? 6. Should young swans become members of a Cygnet Ring? 7. Would a hymn dedicated to Wyatt Earp’s famous battle be called ‘Gunfight At The OK Chorale’? 8. Could pigeons topple a government by means of a Coo d’Etat? 9. Is ‘Boyfriend in a quiver’ a reasonable clue to ‘Beau And Arrow’? 10. Should Gorilla Warfare even appear on this list?

Right, in closing, remember, if you support Liverpool and smell, you know what they’ll chant at you? ‘You Never Wore Cologne’. Buy for now!