HOLIDAYS?

On Friday we decided it would be a good idea to buy some slabs for the garden then at least I could lay them over the holiday, so I got my tape out and measured the distance I needed to cover.
7 meters something I got, but the slabs are sold in either 2feet square or big 3 feet by 2 feet ones I thought better get the 2 feet square ones (easier to carry) well I worked out I needed 12 of them to cover the length I needed to make a path to the green house so we didn’t get muddy,
So the conversation went like this.

ME,,,, I need 12 of them slabs
Partner,,,,, no you don’t need that many.
ME,,,,Yes I do I just measured it
Partner,,,, never! let me do it(so without a tape and using a broom handle) you don’t, you only need 8.
ME,,,, Yes but you just measured the big ones they are 3 feet long what is 3x 8
Partner,,,,24
ME,,,, So I need 12 of the 2 feet square ones it will cover the same distance.
Partner,,,, but I want the big ones.
ME,,, Have you ever lifted one.
Partner ,,, no
ME,,, Ok then lets go see how much they are.

Builders yard
ME,,, How much are them 3 x 2 slabs( now he knows us“ we have been before”)
Man at yard,,, I know how long your drive is and if I drop them at the end of the drive you wouldn’t want to carry them far would you.
ME,,, No
Man at yard,,, you would be better off with the 2 feet square ones.
ME ,,, Looks at partner “see I told you “we only need 12
Partner,,,When can we have them?
Man at yard,,, Saturday or Monday
Partner,,,, Oh Saturday please
Man at yard,,, I wasn’t giving you a choice it is either Saturday or Monday.
US,,, We would prefer Saturday
Man at Yard,,, well we are busy it will be one or the other.

At least we are getting our slabs ,,,, sometime,,,,,and she now owes me 50 pence because we had a bet on how many we would want.

Friday night we went out, now we don’t go out much, no really we have all the comforts we need at home, but we did make the effort and after what seemed like a lifetime waiting for the bloody bus thanked God (and I am an atheist) for getting off alive ( no point in taking the car I will be drinking and it’s murder to park) we got to Broad St still in one piece, the bus drivers here are all homicidal maniacs.

Well we went to the first place we had thought of going to it was packed and very noisy and they didn’t have a table which is just as well because I would not have enjoyed my meal with all the bloody noise.
So we decided to walk to the Chinese Quarter and have one there ( big place Birmingham) My partner who has lived here all her life showed the way we didn’t pass a bloody pub is what she did.
So any way we went to a nice restaurant and had a really nice meal yakked for about two hours drank beer and then made our way back for the bus.





this is where we went








Note to all women never wear high heels if you have to walk more than 2 steps.
She whined like a good un all the way back.

Another wait for a bus until some kind constable told us if you are waiting for a bus here you will have a long wait you will have to walk at least 2 bus stops because the buses are diverted, so anther bloody hike with beloved Partner whining and cringing at every step.

Got to the Bus stop and waited and WAITED AND WAITED watched all the revellers and cars bumping into each other beggars wanting handouts ( the best way to deal with them is say NO and look the other way) anyway I was so tired when we eventually got home I was in bed for
10 – 30 knackered.









Broad St









Next time we will pick somewhere closer to home is what we will do.

Saturday
We gardened, then the slabs turned up (yippee), and I chucked them down on the grass and said I will do it proper later, but at least we have a path now and can reach the greenhouse without getting muddy




nice view of slabs and my shirts on the line









Sunday
Bloody Knackered is what I am, all this high life and going out has took its toll.
I am am an old bastard so today I am doing,


NOTHING!

today

I have decided that it is to become Tit day it has suddenly got warm whilst we were at work the sun is shining, its nice and warm, and all the girls who went to work this morning wearing winter clothes the jumpers and big coats had to take them off to go home.

they were all over the place I didn't know which way to look I am suprised I didn't crash the car, the saying chapel hat pegs doesn't even come into it.

roll on summer I say.

oh and the best thing is ,,,,,, I am on HOLIDAY,,,,,,,,,,,,YAAAAAAYYY,,,,,, 4 bloody days off, great way to start the weekend I say.

talking about films

well we have lots of films, I think at last count over 400.
because I am sad all the films that start with THE will be listed with next word alphabeticly
the film I like best out of A are and I will only pick one.

Apoclalypse now
Ben Hur
Cape Fear
Dances With Wolves
East is East
The Full Monty
Gladiator
Hannibal
Independance Day
Jaws
The Longest Day
Matrix
Nothing to lose
Once Upon a Time In The west
Papillon
Rita Sue and Bob Too
Schindlers List
Thelma and Louise
Unchained
War of the Worlds
Young Guns
Zulu
that was the the best in my opinion of some of the video's
from the Dvd's
The Alamo
Braveheart
Cold Mountain
Dirty Harry
Falling Down
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
In the Heat of the night
Kingdom of Heaven
The Long Riders
Master and Commander
Nevada Smith
Open Range
The Patriot
Riddick
Saving Private Ryan
Tombstone
Unforgiven
Van Helsing
The Wild Bunch

There you are just a few of what we have
and I am still sometimes stuck for what to watch

A Whinge

Today I thought I would have a whinge, not that I normally do (liar), but then why not, I am old I am entitled.

I normally wake at about 4.30am to get to work for 6.00am. I don’t like to do this but I have to work and that is the time I have been told I have to start.

So I try to get everything done at night before the morning so I have as little to do as possible, so tonight I went for some Petrol or Gas or whatever it is you want to call it.

We have about 500 yards from us a gas or petrol station which is open 24 hours. Now to say they are slow at serving you is an understatement, all I want to do is get the Gas/Petrol, and bugger off. I have been there at 5.30 in the morning, there is always a queue. 2 bloody cars to serve and you have to wait, so bloody slow if I tossed a ball to my pet tortoise he would have brought it back before I got to the till. I have seen paint dry quicker.

Tonight was no exception. There was when I pulled into the place 3 cars. I thought great, no waiting, pulled straight to a pump, put in my gas/petrol, pulled out my cash
(cash mind you). There were three people in the queue in front of me.

Now who the bloody hell pays with a cheque nowadays? Well you bet my bloody luck, if there is someone, I will be behind them. So you get the picture, they are slow and the old dear in front of me is paying by cheque. I have the cash in my hand and all I want to do is go home.

So I wait AND WAIT AND WAIT. She can’t see, bless her (what the hell is she doing behind the wheel of a car) and struggles to sign the cheque. The teller is as slow as she is and he double checks her every spelling. By this time I am getting very agitated and the once crisp notes have turned to shredded bits of toilet paper and are falling to bits in my hand.
I have grown a beard and my life is slipping away, and I’m going to flat line any minute.

“I hope she doesn’t ask for anything else”, I think.
I hope I don’t need to go to the toilet. I wonder what God is doing today, could he make them go just a bit quicker. Suddenly my daydreaming is jolted by movement. She’s moving, she is going to leave the till. I am next, I AM NEXT. Nope, not my luck. She turns back to him, “Could I have a receipt please?”

My heart sank. I will go into a coma soon, the car will run out of road tax before I leave here, they will have changed the bloody currency before I get to the till.

Then it happens. I’m next. I give him my £30, say pump one thank you, and leave.

It took 5 bloody seconds.

I think its here

Spring that is.
the grass is growing
we will have blossom soon on the apple tree
and at last we can hang out our washing to dry and pretty soon that green house will bulging with all sorts of stuff

what do people belive in

a bit topical this one

but I believe that whatever you reap you will sow.

that organised religion breeds vilolence.

that being a christian does not mean you have to go church on a Sunday you just have to be a good person.

that some people are so involved with sport or watching it it is like a religion to them, its not nesessary, like religion.

I don't believe in sending cards to people like at Christmas or when on holiday.

I believe that if you want something then work hard towards your goal and you will get it.

I believe that some days I am a very good driver and then some days I am crap.

I believe in love to another human being.

I believe that if I have another can of lager I will be pissed

I also believe that I have just wrote a load of bollocks

oh well

The ride out or near death experiance

(The Mailbox building near Gas St Basin)








On Monday we decided the pair of us to go out on the bikes, good idea to get out and practice for our marathon biking holiday where we intend to cycle all the way down to London using the Grand Union Canal.

So having checked the bikes over we set off a nice easy couple of miles through the park and we are on the canal. It was nice day sunny with the odd shower thrown in, it is after all April.

A couple of miles down the tow path towards Birmingham City centre partner does her normal thing and catches hold of my arm and gets a free tow.

Does it feel much different she asks, well I said, yes it actually throws me off balance quite a bit, surely not says she.

Let me try pull you, so she comes up my right hand side, and as she passes me I catch hold of her arm, this throws her completely off balance, our handle bars clash, my front wheel turns sideways and we both go head first over the front of our bikes onto to the hard gravely tow path, its not wide a tow path about a metre at best and as I am passing through the air expecting this is going to hurt real bad. I still had hold of partners arm she was heading for the water so I pulled her back towards the tow path and on top of me.

With a thud we hit the ground and what seems like minutes we pick ourselves up,
Any injury’s, we check ourselves over, partner got off lightly with a graze on the palm of her hand both elbows grazed and bruised knees, I look at my self both knees grazed and bleeding, took the skin off my knuckle and a grazed right elbow.

We quickly look round “DID ANYONE SEE US” there was no-one about so aching we got on the bikes and carried on.

By the time we had reached the City Centre my hand wouldn’t stop bleeding, the blood trail must have been for miles.

(Edgebaston tunnel about 100 yards long)

Lets stop and have a coffee and maybe I can use the toilet to clean up I said, so we went off down Colmore Row to Starbucks we ordered coffee and I asked if I could use the toilet, “we don’t have one in this shop” was the answer, well do you have a first aid kit I could use then please, I asked, "Oh have you hurt yourself" the young assistant replied the blood was streaming from my hand and covered most of it.

Here she says use the sink and points me to the back of the counter where I clean up the blood from my hand elbow and knees, the first aid kit was brought out and a suitable plaster was found for my knuckle, I thanked them for helping me and left.

We drank our coffee on a bench in St Phillips square and laughed at what we had done vowing never again to act like children in what could have been very serious we should act our ages and not the shoe size.

On the way back home we stopped and had a burger outside one of the many canal side bars that are down there it was delicious and cycled back home.

All in all we had had a really good ride out and on checking our speedo’s we had done 20 miles.

I will wait till I stop aching before I go out again.

At night

around our house we have Bats, not big one's like fruit bats just little Bats.

sooooooooooo I built a Bat Box, so having got all the scrap pieces of wood out of the shed I set too and did it and there it is.

So whilst looking out of front window tonight the conversation went like this
"Me " I have just seen BAT, a big one

"partner"how big was it

"me" ohhhhh about the size of a pidgion

"partner" a bit pidgionish was it

"me" could have been.

so no Bats just yet then, but watch this space.

something is happening

to me, about a month ago I woke in the night with my heart pounding and the normal ryhthem of my heart was all over the place, I wasn't too worried I just thought silly old bugger, shouldn't have had that curry,I felt sick and eventualy went back to sleep.
7 days a go it happened again, again not too worried but I thought what the hell is happening to me.

Last Monday night the 10th it happened again, it was then I started to tie things up.

Now this is my opinion so even though I have been to the Doctor and he can't say what caused it,I think this is caused by stress, it creeps up on you like a preditor and then hits you BANG.

Stress is everywhere we all handle it different, it just so happens that again in my opinion I have 3 bosses who are crap at their jobs they might be good at what they do BUT as for man management they are crap, again in my opinion.

They only want to listen to you if it is something they want to hear if you say something they don't like then it's all bollocks, reasons for things going wrong are not listened to and I am personaly felt responsible for things beyond my control even if I use my own initiative I am scalded like a small boy for doing it even though it was in the best interests of the company for me to do it.

So I tied all the dates up and all the problems I have been having are related to meetings I have had with these three men.

So in my last meeting even though I protested that I was feeling very intimidated it was dismissed.

So what do I do leave, I have been there a long time, pension is involved here, I have 10 years left to do, I think I may have to leave, I have a lot of skills and maybe some new company would actually appreciate them, only time will tell.

But I know one thing they are not going to kill me!

I don't have many comments, but I would appreciate any on this one

Talk about

stating the bleeding obvious


<<<<<<<<----------












even Cadburys is at it










<<<<<----definatley contains lager

putting aside

The fact that its pissed down the last 2 days I have had a very nice 2 days holiday off work.

Today I got all the rubbish and rotten wood from the old shed and took it to the tip where all the big skips are and got rid of it and then went to the bloody great Garden Nursery close by and got a new pot for my favorite palm tree ( its out grown the old pot and is in serious need of a new home) .

We then went for a lovely drive round the countryside near us,(Birmingham is not all Industrial)
and came home and just chilled.
Well I fell asleep actually but I was chilled, nice to do that at 3 pm in the afternoon.

So now I am back to it.

I like holidays.

shed

I have fixed the shed today.
I have taken 2 days holiday today and tommorrow, this has had to happen the shed is over 25 years old and our now passed away Labrador Leo, bless him, used to pee on the side of it all the time and the one side was rotten.
this is what it used to be like, I have knocked down the bbq had to to get to the side of the shed and now it's all new, should last a few more years now.

I could have picked a better day to do it and I got pissed wet through doing it
all the inside was rotten as well had to change all that.

also as this is a Bike Blog my partner and I have decided that this year for just a week we will be off on the bike's and go down the Grand Union Canal, the whole way from Salford Junction where it starts which actually is not in Salford Manchester but under the Spaggetti Junction in Birmingham then travel down to London where it ends.
more on that one later.

post script

don't forget this weekend to knock the clock on one hour on Saturday night, for me it is good for the last few months my body has been running on summer time and look forward to waking at 5.30am instead of 4.30am.
A few things to look for will be
you will see the dustbinmen
birds will sing
it is light when you go to work and get home
you can sit outside the pub
the south east of england is short of water(so drink beer instead)
everything will start to grow(apart from my bank balance)
you can stop spending money on de-icer
yaaaaaaaaaa

its my free turn

Once a fortnight two of my work mates and myself go to the pub after work we have two pints only and then go home.

That means that everytime we go one of us gets a free drink, it's my turn this week and they try everything to make me forget, but, I am a yorkshireman they have more chance of me losing my free turn than they have of winning the lottery I am tighter than a Scotsman and have deeper pockets, so deep my loose change is around my ankles.

Like an Elephant I will never forget, it is forged in my brain like a diary of my whole life.

This Friday it's my turn and don't think I will ever forget it suckers.

Today we have done hump day, we have done half the week and not unusally nothing much has happened at work or home but I did explain to my new Boss I have Carte Blance to say or do anything I want at work. don't want to go into too much detail but I am too bloody old to care.

HMMMMMM

Where is spring??? come on anyone just tell me .

Its been too long since I blogged but there have been a lot of things going on, work has been just as busy as normal so no change there and we do have our new works manager, a young chap but then everyone is young to me.

He doesn't has the big S on his chest like I expected or wear his underpants on the outside of his trousers, but he is making lots of changes, some for the better some, I think, would be better left as they are.

But then he "IS" the boss now and will be obeyed, it's entertaining at least.
I have 2 days off work next week I have to fix our Shed the whole of one side of it is rotten so I am looking forward to the break of the boredom of work. If I do a good job I will print pics if not I will hide it with plants.

since I was last writing here I have had the flu and it has taken me a full month to get over it but I feel better now and am looking to the warm weather I have had the bykes out oiled and greased them and blown up the tyres just need some sun now and we will be off.
I will be buggered if I am going out in this weather.

nothing much happens in January

So on that note there is not a lot to say.
It really is a bloody awfull month short days long nights and cold, I feel sorry for the people of central Europe at this time bloody cold there, when you consider our weather in the UK to theirs we have it almost tropical.

At least we have been paid now and can look forward to the spring,
today we went to the garden centre and got some seeds so we can start to plant next month.

At the minute I am sat here looking at the days sun fading and sipping on a really good Irish Whiskey.

Give me summer.
Oh and can I win the lottery please.

daffodils

In January, well I don't know much, but could it be that I shoved a load of leaves on top of them in December and they got warm and forced through.
Oh well at least we know now it's not long before we get in the garden again and start to grow stuff.
I never did like January much I am always skint after Christmas.
Anyway seeing them has brightened my day
Sad old bugger I must be

painting

I would like you to see a view from our study window on a cold and frosty morning











well this is it my first effort for 15 years I enjoyed doing it and lets face it I can only get better.



So don't get confused which is the painting.

Got back to work this week and everything is the same so no change there,but we finaly have the house to ourselves now, middle son has gone back to University and we can reclaim our study.


PS. I have already booked the week before Christmas off for this year, nothing like planning ahead is there.

yaaaaa

after all the resolutions I promised myself,
I still smoke,
not been on the bike yet,
but dragged my sorry arse to work this morning,like millions of others,
and ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, did not work so hard,,,,,, YAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

I did all what was expected of me I didn't scive just did my job and didn't run around trying to sort out all the problems.

See I can do it.

So I got home not feeling quite as tired we had our meal and then watched TV one of those programs wich tell you how bad the food you eat is.

Well apparently the first six I do
Smoke
Drink
Eat chocolate
Take salt in food
Take aways
Sugar

Well I am sorry if the schrivelled up speciman of a Woman who presents the show is an example of what I should be, I am stopping as I am.

Been doing it now 40 years,
I may be over wieght, but at 6.2" and 15 stone 7lbs, I don't think so.
To do the stuff she wants you to you would drink water eat lettuce and other raw veg stuff,
I would rather be dead.

So do it my way, have a little of everything in moderation, then enjoy your life.
(is 8 cans a lot every night)

later Dudes.

The End

This year seems to have been going on forever now it’s almost done, just a few more hours and that’s it.

Well what have we done just about the same as the year before really.

I read a few bits from my blog from the previous year and you know what I was complaining about the same stuff this year as I was last, boring old bastard I am.

So now this is the time for change, I must do more exercise and get out on the bike,
I must stop smoking.
I must go on holiday this year (no big time decorating)
I must stop working so hard.

I did do a painting and am going to do another and when they are dry(just how long does oil paint take to dry) I will take pics and post them and you may laugh or whatever but it’s my work and I enjoy it.

So for now I would like to wish everyone a very happy New Year and all who may be going out get home safe, I personally have been on a few new years eve’s and got home absolutely smashed out of my head and spent the next day regretting every mouthful, so tonight we are stopping in having a nice takeaway from the local Chinese and relaxing.

Come on 2006 give your worst I can take it.