Three weeks ago United Utilities (those nice people who supply our water and charge us extortionately for the privilege of doing so) announced there was a water shortage and that there would be a hosepipe ban, Guess what? Yes it has rained every day since the ban was imposed. Flash floods have taken place and one or two areas have had a month’s rainfall in a single day. The company’s response? It has not rained in the right areas. You could not make this shit up.

Due to all of the rain the grass and the weeds in particular have acted as though they are on steroids and as you can’t cut grass when it is wet, (particularly with an electric mower) the gardens are starting to look like jungles again. Work on the outside of the house has ground to a halt. This is the most important work as it needs to be done during the hours of daylight and in dry weather. Fresh paint tends to be washed away during a downpour and it won’t stick to damp timber in any case. As summer rolls by in an endless torrent of rain and grey skies that shorten the daylight hours, my dream of having the house finished by September has all but gone up in smoke.

The cuts announced by the government have not yet taken place and the stock markets and money lending banks are on a knife edge watching to see what will happen. Of course all of this is affecting the housing market with few people buying in case they lose their jobs. I did start to wonder if I will ever get away. There is an age factor to be taken into consideration. If the financial gurus are to be believed then by the time the housing market recovers I will be over 60. Naturally I got rather depressed by all this and my SAD kicked in 5 months early. Not since Elsie passed away have I felt so demoralised and unable to plot or plan my own destiny. It is no exaggeration to say that on more than one occasion I have gone to bed not caring if I wake up or not.

But enough of this sadness and despondency some of my friends have been great. The Driver turned up to see me last week and stayed for a couple of nights. Much merriment was had by all. The Traveller is away in Gibraltar looking at yachts and Bean Counter has been there to cheer me up and remind me that things could be so much worse. She is right of course but that is the thing with depression, you don’t see things the way other people see them.  But yet again I digress.

Some of the things that have made me chuckle over the past few weeks is the state of our education system. One of my colleagues, a young rising star, and myself were in a discussion about tyranny and after the usual conversations about Hitler, Chairmen Mao and Stalin, I mentioned Pol Pot. He looked at me quizzically and said isn’t he the guy who won Britain’s got talent? I then put him straight and mentioned the Khmer Rouge, he thought it was eye shadow but had heard of Cambodia although had no idea where it was.

It does make you wonder, what the hell are they teaching kids in school?

Finally my computer is now back up and running. I have in the last few years gone through more hard drives than any one I know. It would appear they fall to bits just days after Microsoft updates and have to be either re-formatted or binned. Either way it stops me from compiling my blog and adding photos of events that have taken place. The fact that my old faithful machine is back up and running is in no small part due to Roger Moor. Armed with only a bagful of second hand spare bits and a bottle of Buffalo Trace we set to work rebuilding the mighty Green Meanie and only managed to finish when the bottle was empty!

So what has been happening over the last few weeks and months? I along with Bean Counter and Ted Magnum stayed at my brothers one weekend in May and I took Ted along to the Dukes pass. Photos and a detailed description of the event should appear in the travel section in a few days. I also went camping to a HUBB meeting at Ripley and again another write up will appear in the travel section as soon as I can upload the photos.

Rhonda has been given a service with some replacement parts and photos and details to appear in travel. I finally believe she is ready equipped and with all the modifications I require for long distance unlimited travel. Indeed it has been some time since I last saw anything and thought I need one of those.

More work has been completed on the house and Animal has replaced some of the plaster on the hall stairs and landing that had come away from the brickwork. The rear windows are in the process of being stripped back to the wood and stained and should be finished in around another four days weather pending. The garden is looking great after much sweat and toil and the greenhouse is positively blooming.

All of this sounds so positive what could go wrong? Well I keep finding things that require either work or money spending on them. Last week I decided that the bathroom needed tidying up and came up with a cost of a couple of hundred pounds and within the last two hours the garden shed has become damp again despite the new roof and guttering. The cause has been tracked down to a leaking ball cock valve in the toilet cistern. As it is a non serviceable item it will have to be replaced and usually this is not a big job. The cistern though is not in a usual place it is so high up the wall access to the inside of it requires a feat of contortionism.

I still have hopes of having the house completed by the end of September this year and ready to go on the market for Easter of 2011. This will in large depend upon financial events around the world as the UK has set a large austerity budget with massive cut backs. The cut backs may not affect my own job but if the jobless total rises then people will not be in a position to buy houses and those who are employed may be put off by the fact they might lose their own jobs at some point soon.

I am not alone in this position; a few people that I met at the HUBB meeting in Ripley are in the same boat. They have had houses on the market for a few months with little sign of them shifting at all. I fail to see why the bankers who caused most of this doom and gloom are not the ones picking up the tab for this mess. Instead the governments of the world have bailed them out, they are still awarding themselves massive bonuses and it is the little man on the street that is paying the price for it all with job losses and loss of spending power.

We may have a new government but as far as I can see nothing has changed at the top despite the assurances of transparency. What is absolutely transparent is that as usual the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Nothing changes does it?

It should have been a glorious occasion. England were in a comparatively easy group for this years world cup and our opening game was against America a country who have only recently started playing. What happened? A team that we were supposed to roll over with apparent ease held us to a one all draw and that was only through a horrendous error by our goalkeeper.

No matter the second game should be easy, we are playing Algeria. Unfortunately the game was a nil nil draw and a spectacle of such dross. Animal and Roger Moor who had turned up at my house to watch the match left after play had finished instead of staying on and partying all night long as we were supposed to after our “slaughter” of the Algerians.

Shortly after, the texts started; “The wags could have done better in high heels” and then “If we cant beat a bunch of camel shagging rag heads from the third world we may as well come home now”. They became a lot more extreme after that one and I wont print them. All of this anger was compounded by Mr Rooney’s comments of “being booed by your own fans is not good”. Well Mr Rooney some people have been saving for an awful long time and made immense sacrifices both emotional and financial to be over in South Africa to support you and your boys and with the display you gave what do you expect? To be showered with rose petals and have dads offering to name their next child after you was never going to be on the cards after that game.

Now is not the time for drowning sorrows and slashing wrists, we are not out of the competition yet but I think as a lot of my fellow country men do that we are entitled to expect more from our overblown, overpaid, pampered and preened “Superstars”. They have fantastic salaries and lifestyles that the rest of us mere mortals can only dream about. Who is it that allows them that lifestyle? Us, the long-suffering and paying supporters. It is time for them to give something back and a little sweat and effort would not be unappreciated.

We are not the only team in this state. France are perilously close to going home as are a few other nations and the ball seems to have come in for some particularly harsh criticism. To be fair it is not harsh at all, the ball is rubbish and as most of the coaches and a lot of players have said it does not go where you want it to go. Even the makers have said different altitudes affect the qualities of this particular ball. It is almost as annoying as those damn vuvuzelas or horns that have no note and sound like a swarm of bees. Some players have said this affects their concentration. Most notably the players on the losing sides are saying this and not the winning ones.

Our world cup is not over yet but never has so much been owed to so many by so few. For gods sake England get your fingers out.

Although it seems like forever since the last one it is only four years since but so much can happen in four years. Much of my life can be traced through foot balling events. I was in London at the Hyde Park concert during the last world cup when England were unceremoniously dumped out by Portugal and the little winker himself Ronaldo.

In 1986 the day of the FA cup final between Liverpool and Everton I made a life changing decision and left the home I was living in at the time. I was in Bulgaria when Liverpool lifted the European cup for a historic fifth time. So what has happened since the last world cup?

My mate the Tiler left for Australia, the Marchioness of Gastanbury is sadly no longer with us, an economic recession the like of which has not been see since the end of WW2 is still reaping havoc around the world and in the UK we have a change of government to mention just a few of the important events that have happened to me. The damage to the economy caused by the outgoing government has (according to the incoming one) been catastrophic and will require years of hardship before the countries books can ever be balanced again.

The UK is not alone by any means in it’s struggle to get to grips with a runaway economy. Greece is in deep shit with at least one economist predicting that a coup or overthrow of the government will take place within the next few years followed by a few other south European countries and the break up and death of the Euro, a currency that should never have been born. Strangely a well respected financial newspaper revealed only the day before that the arms industry was the only industry that most countries had not cut back on and indeed in some parts of the world were positively surging.

There is no doubt there will be stormy seas ahead for some time but for now let us hope that the tournament in South Africa can bring a sense of calm and peace to an otherwise troubled world. That is until your team loses!

It is April 8^th and the elections are well and truly over. I have resisted posting anything about the elections over the last few weeks but with the results in and nothing like them having happened for over forty years it is time to comment. To refresh the memories of any one who does not remember the last hung parliament, it was a total and embarrassing disaster. This is only the fourth occasion in almost 130 years that we have had a hung parliament, the previous ones being in 1885, 1929 and 1974 None of them lasted very long and in each case the country was in a worse state than before that particular Governing body took over.

It has only taken two days since the results came in to see that sterling has fallen and is likely to continue to do so and government bonds and gilts have fallen through the floor. The country is effectively being run by bankers, financial institutions and money speculators. Looking at our continental neighbours such as Greece shows what may happen if a strong government is not in place soon.

What has been heartening is the turnout for the elections with many young people attempting to vote for the first time. I say attempting to vote because in a bid to keep expenses down the polling stations did not have enough officers in them and many were short on polling booths. This had the laughable (sadly) result of some stations closing at 10pm, when they are legally required to do so, and there still being queues of people who could not get in to vote. At my own polling station there were queues such as I have never seen before. If this had of happened in some third world country the UK would have been condemning the legitimacy of the election and the competency of the country involved.

For all the wisdom of the political pundits no one can say for sure what will really happen in the short term to the UK, but history shows there will be another election within 12 months. In the meantime there will be the usual horse trading between politicians desperate to either gain or cling onto power. There will be favours promised for favours to be given and no one will really be better off in the long run. If it was not so serious it would be funny. Sad isn’t it?

Work on Chez Ghastanbury continues apace with the front windows having had a first coat of paint applied this week. The greenhouse is brimming with seedlings and plants and the ongoing saga of the shed roof enters another phase with the pointing on the brickwork walls nearing completion. Just the weatherboards and the guttering to go up and that will be another job from the long list of items on my task list that can be crossed off.

It has helped that the weather has changed for the better, but it is not as warm as it looks. Sadly some of the plants, mainly herbs, have died off due to the cold weather of an evening. You would think I knew better by this stage in my life but I keep making the same mistakes year after year.

One mistake I won’t be making again is to believe that I could go on a bouncy castle. The Animal recently held a birthday bash for his eldest daughter daughters 18^th birthday.  As well as plenty of liquid refreshment there was the obligatory Barbie and a bouncy castle. After a few large Bourbons supplied and poured by Roger Moor I decided it would be a good idea to have a go on the bouncy castle. I clambered on and was sent crashing to the floor by some two year old flying from one side to the next. It would seem from reports given to me days later that I subsequently flattened another five year old as I collapsed. I still have my teeth although they are a little loose but the blood will never come out of my shirt. As ever it was fabulous day and evening. See photos.

An event that I should have written about and posted at the time but did not was Ted Magnums 30^th birthday.  Yes my riding companion has now reached the dizzying age of 30. To celebrate he came up with the idea of a men only wood and whiskey night in the grounds of Tedstock. The plan was to have a bonfire with a Dutch oven hanging over it containing some stew or chilli and for the boys to sit around drinking bourbon and talking bollocks all night. At the end of the night those who wanted to would camp within the grounds.

All went well until the food was served and we noticed some crunchy bits as we ate. It appears that Dutch ovens require seasoning and breaking in before use but no one had read the instructions. Consequently the food had stuck to the bottom of the pot and had welded itself to the sides. No matter, it tasted great although it could have been the copious quantities of alcohol numbing the taste buds. As usual a fire of Nero proportions was lit and fuelled by wood from nearby trees. Needless to say Ted has less pruning to do this year than last!

After a wonderful evening in which Ted had imbibed just a little more than he was capable of holding he retired to bed feeling poorly and with the world spinning. Us hardier types chose to sleep in the encampment of tents that had been assembled for the partying masses. There were only three of us left and still standing! After my experience at Cropton a few weeks prior I had bought new sleeping gear for my tent and I can report that I at least was toasty warm all night. Unlike one of the lads who was too caned to find a sleeping bag and woke up in the early hours of the morning freezing and went home.

As ever the experience with the bouncy castle, my tyres, plants dying because I put them out too early and sleeping rough at my age show there is no fool like an old fool.

Yes I know it has been some time since my last post, however I can assure you that I am not dead! Indeed I have either been too busy or so overwhelmed that I have not found the time to write which really defeats the object of this blog. The clocks went forward a few weeks ago and spring is finally in the air with the temperatures on the way up and the sun is shining at long last. It is all so different from the last time I made an entry on these pages.

Over the years there have been so many revelations and changes that have just changed the way I view everything I ever used to know and believe in. For example I took two weeks holiday to make some repairs and improvements on the outside of the house and it rained every single day. Not a single job was completed although some were started and called off when the rains fell. As the Traveller remarked, “the clocks may have gone forward but all it means is another hour of grey skies in the evenings”. During periods of sitting there feeling down and growing ever more depressed, only those who suffer from SAD or live with some one who has it can truly appreciate how much the last few weeks have got to me, The traveller and myself attempted to put the world to rights over a few beers. This is when he dropped the bombshell.

It would appear that Her Majesties Warships no longer carry a ships cat. Now I have always understood since I was a little boy that ships had cats to keep the rats down. It was always an essential part of the ships crew and second in importance only to the Captain himself, but it seems they have not been around since Nelsons day. I knew that the rum ration had been phased out and I can sort of understand that. I mean you really don’t want a boatload of pissed up Matelots playing around with nuclear warheads. Oh no!  But for Gods sake come on, the ships cat? It is PC and elf’n’safety gone mad.

I discovered just how much the world has changed when I recently went swimming with the Prince Of Darkness. When I first went swimming many years ago the men went into one room to get changed and the ladies went into another. Roll forward 40 years and we now have communal changing rooms. All well and good you may think but no one told me. Neither did they tell me that the showers are also communal.

I only discovered this when standing in the shower and rinsing my trunks out, as me and everyone else did all those years ago when the showers were single sex, when a woman walked into the showers. I do not know who was more shocked her or me. Fortunately she did not scream she put her hand over her mouth and walked out. For a split second I panicked and visions of a long stretch inside a sex offenders unit sharing a cell with Mr Big the bottom burster and bull buggering Mad Jack ran through my head. I quickly left the sports centre and have not been back to that one.

We have all learned that politicians, bankers and estate agents cannot be trusted. It takes some time to become cynical but when the truth finally sinks in it hurts none the less. It is a bit like discovering the truth about the tooth fairy and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. So discovering that I could be arrested for getting a shower in my local sports centre and the truth that ships no longer have cats has been an eye opener and possibly a revelation too far.

Spring is almost here, well it is if you listen to the Met office but officially spring starts on the vernal equinox which this year happens to fall on March 20^th. The Met office which likes to keep dates in simple order decided that spring started on March 1^st but as lunar or astronomy records have been going for far longer than the Met office, I like to use the old system. No matter I digress, the weather is warming up and hopefully I will soon be out in the garden and attending to all those jobs that require seasonal attendance. Work on the outside of the house should recommence as well.

I recently discovered my garden shed was becoming damp. The problem was traced to rain water falling off the roof and onto the brickwork. A simple solution seemed to place guttering around the edges of the roof to divert water away. All well and good, but the guttering needs to be placed on a fascia board that has to be screwed to the brickwork first. Not a big problem but the walls have to be pointed before the woodwork goes up. Again this is not a huge imposition but it does require warm weather to stop the pointing from freezing and dropping out. However before any of this can take place the roof itself needs sealing with a bitumen like substance and that does require warm weather. A relatively simple job with a simple solution has now turned into a large multi part task that can only be completed when the elements allow. Roll on spring!

It all seems a far cry from last years Halloween and bonfire night; the weather was crisp and the company fantastic. All of the usual suspects turned out in fancy dress for the Halloween party in the grounds of Chateau Ghastanbury. Most of it is a bit of a blur as I was on medication for pain relief and I had been out of hospital for a mere few days, but the photos show I had a good time on both nights and I was well looked after by everyone who turned up. A big thanks to everyone who went to the effort of dressing up and the evening resembled something from a hammer house of horrors film set and the cast of the rocky horror show.

That show reminds me of the time at Christmas just gone when I became an inadvertent cross dresser. Bean Counter had bought me some silk underwear for travelling as the properties of silk make riding a bike for long distances far more comfortable and much more practical than cotton. As I came down the stairs a couple of days after Xmas clutching a small pile of laundry for the washing machine BC asked me why I had her knickers in my hands. I asked her what she meant and she said I had her knickers with my pile of laundry. Looking down all I could see was a pair of black silk underpants along with some socks. Apparently the underpants were knickers right down to the frilly lacing around the edges and they were not mine. It would appear I had picked up the first set of underwear from the clean pile I came across that was clean, about my size, the right colour and looked vaguely like my own. Hopefully I won’t get her stockings and my socks mixed up or I will be auditioning for the part of Dr Frank-n-Furter.

To keep me on the straight and narrow I gave up alcohol for lent after having a final blow out on Shrove Tuesday. Roger Moore, Sophia Loren, her mum and BC were in attendance. It all started swimmingly and then the non stick frying pan decided to stick. Pancakes that should have flipped did not. I made the decision that as the frying would not work for me then it must personal and I would make sure it would never cock a snook at anyone ever again. After a few beers I took the pan into the garden and flattened it with a very large hammer. There is something completely satisfying in destroying something that refuses to do what you want it to do. I still hark back to my period of technic cleansing when my PS3 ended up in the garden pond. Expensive? Yes. Satisfying? Completely and I am still chuckling about it.

It seemed like a good idea at the time and so I spent part of Thursday evening thinking about an exercise programme having already gone swimming with the Prince of Darkness only the night before. And so before I knew it I was on the floor attempting press ups. I managed two before my stomach decided it did not want to do this and I crumpled into a heap and stared at my cat that was looking at me with bemusement and contempt in the way that only cats can do. What had I done to deserve this contempt I can hear you asking.

A week ago Genghis came into the house with blood pouring from his chest. As it was bleeding over the carpets and showed no sign of letting up me, Roger Moor and the Traveller investigated. There seemed to be a single puncture mark which was where the blood was coming from. After a beer or two we decided that boxers when they are cut use Vaseline to stop blood flow and after a few more beers we decided that an application of Savlon would not only stop the blood flow but would disinfect the wound at the same time. Wrapping the cat up in a towel I held him on his back and with RM stroking him under the chin to soothe him the Traveller proceeded to apply disinfectant cream. Satisfied with our attempts at first aid we all had another beer and marvelled at how good a job we had done. Genghis licked off the cream and started bleeding again. I did what any normal person would do and let him lie on the reddish carpet in the living room in front of the fire. The blood would not show up as much and the fire would make the wound scab over. The three of us agreed that this was a brilliant plan and that neither Christian Barnard nor Sans Frontieres could have drawn up and executed a better plan. We had another beer!

Fast forward a few days and it was apparent that Genghis was not at all well and he would not eat or drink and wanted to sleep a lot more than usual. I made an appointment for the vets and after an investigation it was revealed that he had six puncture marks on his chest and that they were from a cat bite. It had become infected and this was compounded by the fact he had licked off the Savlon cream and the cream was toxic to cats and not for ingestion in any way shape or form. A couple of injections of antibiotics and 50 quid later I took him home. He perked up in a matter of hours and I fed him a piece of raw sirloin I had bought especially for him. By the following day he was back to his old self. The vet had suggested I took him back in a few days for a check up and to give him his booster jabs and worming tablets.

As I walked in cat box in hand the vet said he looked fine and that it would be a good idea now he was here to keep him at the surgery and perform THE OP. I was horrified, I mean I always knew that he would need it but I was not going to be the one who took him there and that is exactly what I had done. It felt like I had taken my best mate out and led him to a butchers shop with sinister intent something along the lines of the butchers in the League of gentlemen. I mean I had always figured that if responsible cat owners put lady cats on the pill then Genghis would not have to have his bollox chopped off and all because some brazen hussy could not keep her tail between her legs.

I picked him up several hours later and he looked sorry for himself. I do not think he knew what had had happened as the anaesthetic had not yet worn off but I figured it would not take him long to figure out that something was missing. So not only was he looking at my pathetic form with utter contempt but he must have been thinking it’s payback time.

And the news is…. Yes, Commander Riker, on bended knee, finally proposed to Miss Décolletage on Christmas day and she graciously accepted. The happy couple are now engaged after an eight year romance and set to tie the knot sometime in 2011. Of course the idea of a private wedding on a beach somewhere in exotic lands has for now gone out of the window with the world and his dog wanting to attend the ceremony. I have of course come up with a proposal that will meet all of their needs and at a budget they can afford. As most people know I am a Bona fide Jedi priest and as such I have offered to perform the ceremony for them on the local shore at low tide and throw in a hog roast on the local common and all for only 2 cases of Stella. To my surprise this did not provide the undying gratitude I had initially hoped for but they have said they will get back to me.

So what else is new? Well Roger Moor knocked at my door the other day clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels and said take a look at this. He had the bottle in one hand and the top in another. The top had a spike in it and the bottle smelt of fruit. Emails to JD headquarters in Lynchburg Tennessee resulted in a phone call from the top man at the UK head office. It would appear that the latest wheeze is for someone in the distribution chain, IE at one of the supply warehouses in the UK, to implement the brilliant idea of drilling through the stopper of a bottle of JD. They then siphon the JD out of it, replace it with apple juice because it is the same colour and seal it up with a section of cocktail stick and disguise the offending wood with black marker pen. The end result was that RM received two bottles of JD as compensation and the offending bottle was taken away for forensic examination.

This is hardly a new idea but the ingenuity of disguising the hole that was drilled is. I well remember someone telling me a long time ago about bottles of whiskey that had the same treatment. As the top was a cork that did not need drilling a syringe was all that was needed to draw out the contents of a bottle. Cold tea was then injected into the bottle to make up the contents and the cork would self seal. It is the reason why many bottles now have metal caps with a tamper proof seal however it seems JD has stuck to time and tradition and is still using cork with a plastic cap.

As I mentioned in my last post I am now back at work and after four weeks it feels as though I have never been away. This is in no small part thanks to my colleagues who have been wonderful. I still get pains in my stomach and I think it will be some time before they subside if they ever go completely. I finished off the work in my shed at the weekend just gone and as I was putting the tools away I lifted a toolbox to stow it in its home and I felt what can only be described as a tear in my belly and I felt sick almost immediately. The pain went a couple of hours later and I decided that I could not let it run my life for me or dictate what I could or could not do. So I arranged with the Prince of Darkness to go swimming last night. The first length was ok and the second one was not bad but after that it went downhill. I got out of the pool after only 20 minutes and came home. This morning I could hardly move and my stomach muscles felt as though a cannon ball had gone though them. The pain is easing off as I write but I think only a course of gentle exercise will toughen me up. I intend to go swimming again and it may turn out to be a regular event. I will know more in a week or so.

So far the year has gone well and it has certainly been an improvement on the last few years even at this early stage. As usual I have splashed out on my credit card as I always do in the January sales. (More about that in the travel section) A plan of work for the house and dates for that work to be implemented has been completed and work has already started. The shed being one of the many jobs to be completed by the end of September has already been finished. It is now leak free and tidy. A gutter goes up around the shed this weekend coming and new blinds are being fitted to the windows in a fortnight’s time. The Traveller who has just gone back to the South of France has a drawn up a plan and timetable of when each room is being decorated and that will start in March.

In spite of the pains in my stomach I feel good about myself and the prospects for this coming year. I feel full of hope and things that would have got me down last year now seem like a challenge that can be taken on and completed. With the news that the recession is finally over in the UK maybe things are looking up!