Author: Smokehouse

Whew, what a week! Monday 29^th October. A sad day in my calendar, it marks the anniversary of the passing of my oldest friend. Billy Whiz. I have known Billy since were both 8 or 9. We shared the same birthday although he was born a year earlier. We both went to the same schools and both lived in the same vicinity. We both shared a love of motorbikes and for a while we both worked in the same place. Later on during the financial meltdown of the late 80’s and early 90’s we bought a house together with my girlfriend at the time as none of us could afford to buy one outright. It was while he lived there that he met his second wife, Little Miss Sunshine. He became ill during the late 90’s and sadly passed away in 2000. Since then LMS and me have got together on the anniversary of his passing and reminisced with a glass or two. I have many fond memories of BW and far too many to write down now but I am sure he will feature in some of my posts at a later date.

Oct 31^st, All Souls Night. Over the past few years I have brought together a few people at my house for the event known as Halloween. Mainly for my mums peace of mind so she was not in the house alone when “trick or treaters” arrived but also as a good excuse to frighten the life out of the kids. As mum is no longer here I had thought to cancel this year’s event but as a few people pointed out, would I have gone ahead if mum was here? So I thought about it and said yes. A small bonfire was set up in the grounds of Château Ghastanbury and I grilled burgers and offered sweets and hot food to any one who ventured into the grounds. It was quite a success with over 40 people here at any one time, many in costume to get into the spirit of things. I suspect it will be the last one I have but we will wait and see what the New Year brings.

Friday 2^nd November. I awoke to the tell tale signs of an impending cold. My muscles ached, I had a headache and I was shivering one minute and extremely hot the next. I ventured into work, came home and went to bed.  After a few hours in bed I woke up and went to BC’s house. Saturday morning came and I could hardly move. I arose at about 12 ish and Bean counter and I went back to Château Ghastanbury. As Ted Magnum is leaving for South America in a few days time I had thought to combine a farewell party with some fireworks and a barbie at my house. After Tedstock, the management of the venue have decided they are not taking any more bookings for an extra long time. (His mum has said we are not buggering her garden up again) So I set the grill up, cleaned the patio area and during the course of the evening we set off some rockets and fireworks. It is something I have not done for a long long time and I had forgotten just how enjoyable it is to watch money go up in smoke. I guess all men are young boys at heart, I am no exception. I still get excited about train sets and motorbikes, bonfires and outdoor cooking.

It was quiet evening with around a dozen people or so in attendance and I am sure it was a good send off for him. It was during the course of the evening whilst we were talking to Ted and filling him with confidence about all the things that could go wrong and hoping he did not feature in any future episodes of “Banged up Abroad”, that I realised just how quickly time is flying by. Ted is counting the days until he sets off and for me over a month has passed since I made the decision to sell up and travel around the world. Work has started on the house although it has ground to a halt due to my feeling less than sparkling. I did not get up at all yesterday and last night I made the decision I was unfit to go to work. I am hoping I will improve over the next day or so. Not only do I want to go back to work but I want to start working on the house again.  Before I know it, it will be March 2009 the date I set have set for putting my house on the market.  Right now it feels like the final countdown.

I went to the doctors this morning for an appointment with the Lovely nurse C. It’s almost worth being ill for a visit to her as she is that cheerful. Anyway I digress; I went for an MOT basically. The results could have been better but I am not exactly at deaths door. My blood pressure is high, my triglycerides (whatever they are) are very high and my red blood cell count is also high and the plates are enlarged added to that is a disturbing body mass index of 30 plus. So an action plan has been formed. I have to stop smoking, give up drinking, take more exercise and watch my diet. Basically I have to give up most of the things that make life worth living. I think it was Mae West who said everything I enjoy is illegal, immoral or fattening. I now know just what she means!

Work on the house has started and this morning a couple of electricians came along to fit a new main circuit board and hand me a certificate for electrical safety. Something that I understand, pretty soon every house that is going to be sold will require before it can go on the market. Well unlike me my home now has a certificate of electrical good health. Another job that will or should be completed before Christmas arrives is new guttering, fascias and soffits. This job is the hands of The Beast and I expect him to turn up one day with implements of destruction and plastic pipes and other such stuff and rip my house to shreds.

While the electricians were busy beavering away in the cupboard under the stairs I went out to the bank and knowing the kettle would not be useable for a couple of hours at least wandered into a local café not far from my branch. I have been in many cafes and indeed at one point myself and Riker were going to set up a website featuring the best of them in our area. We were both beaten to it by some bloke who is really into it and has made a fantastic site about cafes. He has done an amazing job and after seeing his site I knew that nothing I could build would compare with his. There is a link to this site on my links page but for the benefit of those of you cant wait to get there take a look at this. http://www.breakfastliverpool.blogspot.com/  Again I am digressing but I use this merely to illustrate that I know a thing or two about Cafes. Well this one looked nice and clean from the outside and I sauntered in and ordered a coffee and two rounds of toast. I expected it to be priced at about one pound 50 pence, toast normally costing about 30p a round and coffee about 80p. Imagine my surprise then when the lady behind the counter asked me for three pounds and ten pence. I was so flabbergasted I meekly handed the money over and went and sat down at a table and read the menu.

It was then that I noticed the prices, toast 80p a round and a mug of ground coffee one pound and 50p. I mean yes the place was nice but it was hardly Claridges or the Hilton. The waitress brought my coffee over with a large plate containing two rounds of toast cut from corner to corner and two small pots of jam with a couple of portions of butter and all on a doily with a serviette. Very nice it looked too but it was hardly worth 80p a slice and the toast was thin. The moral of the story is always check the prices before you order or buy something.

On another health note Commander Riker has gone off sick, he has a suspected ulcer and I immediately felt sorry for him when I heard of this so I rushed around to see him. He is genuinely ill and can’t keep anything down. A couple of days later when I had thought about him and his condition I became rather agitated and then angry. How come he has an ulcer at 27? He is a clean living soul who never drinks to excess, has never touched anything other than prescribed drugs, does not smoke and would be the last person in the world that you could say lived a Rock ‘n’ Roll lifestyle. I had to work hard to get my ulcer by the time I was thirty and that amounted to a lot of lung and liver abuse. Invariably it meant imbibing copious quantities of alcohol and smoking or sniffing “substances” that you could not buy at Boots the chemist. I also lived what could be called a hedonistic and Devil may care lifestyle to get it and yet here was CR with an ulcer and he had not put in any leg work to get or deserve one. Along with me he also has to change his lifestyle and diet radically and I can’t wait to give him the good news that we are going jogging every morning before we set off to work. I imagine his face will light up when I tell him of the diet plan I have worked out for the pair of us. Porridge in the morning with steamed fish and boiled cabbage for dinner and an evening meal of mixed lettuce leaves and salad!

Saturday morning and Beancounter and myself loaded up the car and set off for Treardurr Bay in Wales to scatter Elsie’s ashes into the waters of the bay. This popular holiday resort on Holy Island off Anglesey in North Wales had been a favourite haunt of both my mother and father for over 40 years. Indeed they once bought a caravan there shortly after my father retired and they would spend up to seven months a year in the caravan and I have many happy memories of holidays and weekends that I spent at that location. So it seemed rather fitting that mum should request that her ashes were scattered in the place that she had spent many of the happiest years of her life.

The journey down there was quite uneventful and after two hours we arrived at the motel that was to be our accommodation for one evening. Clean comfortable and relatively inexpensive with a bar next door and just a short walk to the sand it had everything we could have wished for. After a quiet drink in the bar we decided to get changed and have a meal before we set off to the beach. I ran a bath and poured the complimentary bottle of bubble bath in and when it was full tested the temperature. I decided it was far too hot and so I switched on the Jacuzzi machine to obtain more surface area for the water to cool down and then went outside for a cigarette and a cup of Bacardi and coke (there were no glasses in the motel only cups for the complimentary tea, coffee etc). After what seemed only a short time I wandered back into the bathroom and was met by bubbles pouring over the top of the bath and attempting to cover the floor. In blind panic I scooped armfuls of bubbles up and stuffed them into the toilet bowl and then into the sink and watched in horror as they went no where at all and decided to take their time about it into the bargain.

Having eventually bathed and cleaned up the bathroom we went for a meal and then headed in the night and onto the beach. The tide was going out and I waded as far out as I could to the waters edge and let the contents of the urn go. When it was empty I took out my hip flask and swallowed a large draft of neat Bourbon and said good bye to mum again. I immediately rang my brother so he knew what was happening and when and then had a quick drink via mobile phone with him.

At this point and deciding the night was still young BC and me walked up to the caravan site and had a couple of drinks with some of the people who had known mum and who still stayed at the site. Leaving the camp site club house we set off in search of further refreshment only to discover that there wasn’t any. All the pubs had shut at 11pm and it was now the quietest seaside resort I had ever seen. I did not expect a Blackpool like orgy of late night drinking and tacky kiss me quick hats but I really did not expect the resort to go to sleep after 11pm.

North Wales, for years had a history of abstinence on the Sabbath and it was always difficult to obtain a drink in Holyhead on a Sunday unless you were a member of one of the many local clubs that would not take memberships from non permanent residents of the island. However I always remembered Saturday nights to be leaping and full of life until the early hours. Now it was like a ghost town. I expect mum to be quite at ease in somewhere really peaceful with a bog full of bubbles.

 

 

For what seems like the first time in Ages me and the Bean counter went to Manchester and stayed overnight. “The occasion?” I hear you ask, A concert by Rush to celebrate 30 years together and what a concert it was. The best light show I have ever seen in an indoor arena. As for the music well it was everything that rock n roll stands for. Self indulgent solo’s, long complicated tracks and deafening noise and a blistering 3 hour set. The tour was to publicise Rush’s new album “Snakes and Arrows”. While the new material is excellent the loudest applause was of course for the old stuff such as “Passage to Bangkok”, “Spirit of Radio”, “Tom Sawyer” etc. To be fair it was not about sex, drugs and rock n roll. If you want that kind of stuff go and see ACDC or The Who.

The only downside to the evening was the venue. Thrombosis inducing seats, no room to stretch or carry out any of the exercises the airlines advise on long haul flights. You can no longer stand at seated arenas for fear of the wrath of the Nazi Elf n Safety marshals threatening you with ejection if you don’t sit down again and then there is the design of the building. The main corridor is a circular affair with the toilets and food stalls and merchandising stands spread out along its length. This means that if there are queues at any of the stands you can’t get past to walk around with any ease. Added to this the marshals will not let anyone leave the building even to obtain fresh air and it was stiflingly hot in there. If you do you will not be allowed back in again. It was my third time at the MEN and it will be my last.

Beforehand we had checked into our hotel, OK for an evening but I would not stay there for more than one night. We went to the local Wetherspoons in Piccadilly plaza for a meal and then on to one or two drinking holes, the later being similar to the Titty Twister from Dusk till Dawn. We left there in a hurry as most of the occupants seemed like extras form the Hills Have Eyes and I felt a little intimidated. (Read scared shitless) Afterwards we took a long stroll back to the plaza, (long because I managed to get the pair of us lost) and had a drink into the early hours of the morning before retiring back to the barracks, sorry I mean hotel.

Manchester has changed an awful lot since I was there last and it now seems so cosmopolitan. There are plenty of places you can drink out of doors on the pavements and just watch the world go by and a large amount of the world did go by. More nationalities than I could name, pretty young things with long legs and killer heels, groups of very friendly guys holding hands (read into that what you will) buskers, tramps, vagrants, tourists with suitcases and an assortment of the young and not so young heading into the night either home if they had one or to somewhere more exotic. Whatever you might say it was more akin to sitting on the Ramblas in Barcelona than the Manchester I remember of years ago. Maybe the “Café culture” will spread throughout the rest of the UK but I doubt it will for many years if at all but Manchester (Madchester as it’s affectionately known as) is worth a brief visit any time in my book at least.

Morning came and we set off to do some shopping before heading home. BC went off in search of some weapons grade stilettos, (just what is the attraction to shoes, handbags and shiny things for women?) and I pottered about window shopping and looking at the baby PS3 and fingering my credit card with intent. In the end I resisted and BC re-appeared with just a small bag of “bits and bobs”. Apart from the Arena and the hotel I will remember with affection my 24 hours in Madchester!

Following on from the idea of setting up an eatery on some foreign shore with Chef, I have been looking at recipes. A common dish in olden times was called a Turducken. This consisted of a de-boned turkey, with a de-boned duck inside of that and a de-boned chicken placed inside of the duck. In between each bird a layer of sausage meat and spiced bread stuffing was placed and then the whole thing was sewn up and left to cook for a minimum of 8 hours and then left to cool for an hour or so before being carved.

 Never one to be outdone, my favourite chef, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall made a similar creation using ten birds, which consisted of a turkey then a goose, large chicken, farmed duck, guinea fowl, mallard, pheasant, partridge, pigeon, and finally a woodcock. The programme was shown on channel four a couple of years ago in 2005. I have never attempted to make either of these two creations as they seem a bit fiddly to me.

 However after a few drinks the other evening in the company of LMS and Chef, I decided what we needed to do was something big. I mean SPECTACULARLY  BIG. So I have dreamed up what I think will be the ultimate challenge to any cook or pitmaster. I want to take one de-boned Asian water buffalo weighing in at around 1.5 tons and place inside it an American Bison weighing in at around 1.25 tons and then a domestic cow followed by a wildebeest and then a wild boar. My estimates come to around 5 tones of meat or the world’s biggest roasting joint. Naturally finding an oven to cook this in will be almost impossible so it will have to be spit roasted and should take around 6 days. If the sight of that monster being spit roast in front of any restaurant did not draw the crowds in I genuinely do not know what would.

 On the subject of big, I stepped on the bathroom scales this morning and almost had a heart attack. I thought the scales had broken but sadly they work just fine. I am now the heaviest I have ever been in my life and an exercise and training programme is now a necessity. Losing weight, getting back to peak fitness and restoring my health are now the order of the day and my number one priority. In fact I am going to have a really good think about it as soon as I have finished this bacon and sausage butty. (Sandwich to my foreign chums) I will let you all know how I get on with regular updates but for now I am thinking BIG

Ok, I have been asked why I don’t have any adverts on my blog site. I don’t need them, I have not sold my soul to the devil for readership or numbers to make me look good or obtain higher Google ratings! There I have said it. I know the more pessimistic of you will say “You don’t have enough numbers to host any adverts or attract sponsorship”, but I do and the web logs confirm this, so there!

As I mentioned in my last post the TV is rubbish with repeat after repeat and loads of adverts (commercials to my American chums) every ten minutes or so. I watched one programme the other evening and the adverts started as the opening credits finished. So with this in mind I have started to listen to the radio in earnest once more. I reckon radio is about to enter a new golden age with good old “Aunty” showing the way. God bless the BBC and radio four and three and even two. But for sheer indulgence for a gentleman of my advancing years you cannot beat Planet Rock. This station plays all the tracks I listened to when I went to school. You will not hear any tracks by Wham or the Osmond’s on Planet Rock and the adverts are minimal. If you do not have a DAB radio then you can catch them on the net by going to http://www.planetrock.co.uk/Default.asp

Music invokes memories and Planet Rock have had a Rush week. I am going to see Rush at the weekend and I have had pleasant memories about the Printer whilst listening to Rush. As far as I know he was their biggest fan. Having made up my mind that I will be selling Chateau Ghastanbury within the next couple of years I have made loose plans to go travelling around the world and I hope to visit the Printer and all my other friends in the land of the kangaroo and the Koala.

The Traveller contacted me some time this week from the Baltic Sea and informed me that he would not be going to Belize this coming autumn but would instead be going to Spain and Croatia. Consequently we have made plans to go and visit Belize in April of 2008. I have no idea what we will find when we visit but already friends and wags have dubbed me the 21^st century Tarzan and they have informed of their images of me swinging from trees in the south American jungle and befriending Jaguars and Anacondas whilst talking to the parrots and exotic birds that live there. If only life was that simple.

On another note I have been blessed this evening, Bean Counter came with me to look at some furniture which I bought, Always good to have a woman’s thoughts and comments when furnishing a house. BC had to leave as she had engagements elsewhere but LMS and her friend the Chef arrived with some meat and exotic vegetables and proceeded to cook me tea or evening meal for those who don’t understand the vagaries of working class meal times.  The Chef is a real qualified chef and not a mere amateur cook like me. She can do amazing things with vegetables and taught me how to make a Cassoulet? Anyway it was a stew of smoked bacon, tomatoes and lots of beans with herbs and spices and tasted delicious. I have decided if I ever open an eatery on the lines of a barbecue and music joint then I will employ her to do all the fancy stuff, leaving me to cook all the big joints of meat and come up with sauces and bastes to compliment them. I actually think this would a good combination and after a few drinks so did she. LMS shook her head and sighed a lot but watch this space!

Things have seemed strange of late; the house is unusually quite with no doors being opened, no television on and no movement save for my own. In fact my whole life and routine have become rather disjointed. I went into the shops the other week for the weekly shop, which is something I have done on a regular basis for years and then spent an hour wondering what I should buy. Items that I would have popped into my trolley without a second thought were no longer required and I finally came home with a bottle of milk and a litre of Gin.

During this period of adjustment of not having a great deal to do or at least not knowing what to do or in what order to do it in, I have been watching television. The Sky box was always in my mums room and I never used to watch it but out of boredom I have been flicking through channels of late and to my horror I have discovered that there is absolutely nothing worth watching. Hundreds of repeats or programmes that stop every ten minutes or so for adverts have driven me to distraction.

On the plus side, it is not all doom and gloom. Many friends have been in touch either directly or vial email, phone or snail mail. BC has been an absolute blessing and has put up with my mood swings and all else with not a murmur of discontent. Some time ago my kitchen was rebuilt with new units and tiled by my good friend the Tiler. Due to mums illness the kitchen was never finished and the ceiling required replastering. Imagine my surprise then when I came home the other evening to find water all over the kitchen floor and the walls and ceiling black. My first thought was that a pipe had burst. Frantically I ran upstairs to find the said pipe and gave up after 15 heart-stopping minutes. I came back downstairs and noticed plaster dust on the walls. It was only then that it dawned on me. The Beast had been in and plastered my ceiling for me and finished off the kitchen when I was out at work. The water on the floor was left over from where he had mopped up and the walls and ceiling were dark in colour due to new wet plaster.

Its things like that, that make my day and remind me that things will get better in time. I am sure the blog will be added to very soon

Hi folks, mums funeral passed off on Thursday 20^th September. It all went just as we wished it to. There were no dark clothes nor gnashing of teeth or rending of cloth and no professional mourners. The church was packed and almost every one wore light and colourful clothes and for those who did wear black, outlandish ties compensated. I wore a light coloured jacket, my Pink Panther tie and my leather cowboy hat, the service was brilliant and the minister and reader injected as much humour as they could into what could have been a sombre occasion.

From the church we went to the crematorium and as we all filed in, Monty Pythons “Always look on the bright side of life”, boomed from the loudspeakers. It was hard not to smile and as we filed out we were treated to a rousing rendition of Vera Lynn’s “We’ll meet again”. The wake was held at a nearby club and by 7pm those who could still stand came back to Château Ghastanbury where we had a final bonfire and a barbecue in her honour. It all ended in good humoured chaos at around 2am. I feel sure she would have been proud of the send off we gave her.

Today has been spent attending to all the official details such as paying for the funeral service and suchlike. I attempted to find the building society that the mortgage was held with only to find they have closed down and the solicitors I used for transferring names on the deeds have moved. It has been a frustrating day with lots of leg work and little to show for it. Attempts to ring banks direct were met with call centres and I experienced many accents I did not understand

Ok what happens next I hear you say? Well life goes on and I have decided not to make any decisions for at least 12 months. I don’t want to take any rebound action that I might regret for the rest of my life; however I am going to start travelling again next April when my holiday allowance and my finances are both up to the strain of it. I feel fairly certain that within 2 years I will have sold Château Ghastanbury and will be moving on somewhere else. For now the traveller is going to Belize in November to check on some things that we both think are too good to be true. I would be going with him but I don’t have many holidays left. Depending upon what he finds I may fly out there in April to check things out for myself and start globe trotting again.

It has been a busy time with friends, family and well wishers stopping by to express condolences and share memories. Chateau Ghastanbury is awash with cards and the phone lines have not stopped ringing. The funeral arrangements are; service to be held on Thursday morning the 20^th September 2007 at 10-30am at St Chads Church followed by a short service at Landican Crematorium.  In memory of a wonderful and colourful lady her family respectfully ask that no black is worn. We have no wish to mourn Elsie’s passing but would rather celebrate the eventful life she has lived. I feel 100% certain she would not want to see people in mourning or for them to be sad at her passing. For as long as I have been able to recognise when mum was sad, I have very few memories of her actually being so. She was a cheerful and colourful lady who lived life to the full as much as she was able.

Indeed she had seen many things that no one else will ever see. For example she was born during the Great War, lived through the depression of the thirties, was active in the Second World War with the land army, saw, the first atomic bomb, the rise and fall of the Berlin wall the first man on the moon, lived through a century and saw the birth of a new millennium. During all of this she got married had two sons and managed to outlive her brother and sister and travelled extensively. She was one of the happiest people I ever knew and was a wonderful mother and an even better friend. I have placed an album of photographs within the main gallery and this album will be added to over the coming weeks.

For those of you who cannot attend the funeral service would you please raise a glass and drink a toast to Elsie, The Marchioness of Ghastanbury.

Mum pased away peacefully in her sleep at 23-10 on Wednesday 12 September 2007.  Myself, BC and several of mums friends had gone in to see her prior to her demise at approximately 19-00 hours and we left at around 20-15. At that point she genuinely believed she was getting better and coming home. I am glad that she went peacefully and in the belief that nothing was drastically wrong instead of being frightend because she was connected to tubes and machines and fearing the worst. The hospital rang at 23-20 to inform me of her departure and I went back to the hospital to see Mum and gave her still warm body a last cuddle and a hug and said my final farewells. This mainly consisted of telling her how wonderful she had been and how much I would miss her.

I will be writing a tribute and eulogy at some point over the next few days and a selection of photographs will be posted in the gallery. For now the flag is flying at halfmast over Chateau Ghastanbury. Details of her funeral and wake will be posted as soon as I have made the arrangements. Until then I hope that there is a God and she has genuinely gone to a better place.

RIP Elsie Born 22-06-1916 Died 12-09-2007