My Christmas

Just got back from a week spent in Malvern for christmas. Had a lovely time. Last week I went out with some of my old colleagues on their xmas do, then met up with my mum, dad and sister to stay at 'The Forge' cottage in Hanley Swan (below)The Forge is in Hanley Swan, just down Gilberts end. It really is a lovely place to spend christmas
They even put you a tree up, so technically, you don't have to bother putting one up at home!
The fire plave is great! I have decided that Im going to build one in my living room and get a wood burning stove. They seem to give more heat that an open coal fire.

Christmas dinner turned out to be a little bit fraught. I think the writer of 'The Vicar of Dibley' might want to borrow this plot, because it was certainly a lot more funny than the tripe I had to sit through over xmas.

Anyway, my dad always does the christmas dinner, but as I have mentioned before on this blog, I think senility is setting in.

My dad got the turkey ready and put the oven on. Just before we set off for our usual xmas drink in the Swan, he put the turkey in the oven. However, he realised (in the nick of time) that he had infact put the grill on, and not the oven! It was only when the tin foil caught light that he realised his mistake!

Once we got back from the pub, the boiled potatoes for the mash seemed to be taking forever, which put the dinner back about an hour or so (I think the filament on the steamer is knackered) So my dad tried to transfer them to a pan, but he had already put the butter in. Of course, he spilt quite a bit of the water and got it all up his new trousers :-) Of course, there were a few 'Jesus Christs' eminating from the kitchen, along with the odd 'F*&kin B@$%^&*%s' I went into the kitchen to help out....

I boiled them up and put them in a bowl to enable my dad to mash them. However, he got a bit carried away, and ended up getting the buttery water all over his new jumper he had got for christmas!! More choice words followed....I mashed the spuds...

Then dinner was serverd, but my mum was worried that she had the wrong stuffing (apparently cranberries arent good for people on statins for the cholestorol). It was now 4pm

Just as I sat down and had my first roast spud, I heard effing carol singers. The kitchen windows were open, and the two people must have heard my language. I jumped up to give them a piece of my mind, but it turned out to be two friends of mine (Helen & Ian) who had called to say hello, and hadn't quite expected the tirade of abuse that awaited them :-D

It gets better.....

Later in the afternoon as the affects of the filling dinner was wearing off, my sister, Claire, decided that she would cook us some christmas pudding. She took the two puddings out of the cupboard, read the instructions and proceeded to microwave the two of them.

Sometime later she shouted 'Oh no, there's smoke coming out of the microwave - should that happen'

'Yea don't worry Claire, its probably steam'

I couldn't even be bothered to turn my head away from Deal or No Deal. It wasn't until I smelled a horrible acrid smell that I turned around and noticed things were very wrong.

Claire had read the instrctions wrong. Instead of 45 seconds in the microwave, she had tried to do them for 45 minutes! This is the result after around 5 minutes....


I think it just must have been a bad 'planetary' alignment for cooking that day....!

Garage Pics

Took some pictures of the garage...here they are

I will be (hopefully) finishing off the brick work this week, and maybe getting the felt on!

Questions

Just to stir things up at this time of the year...I have some questions, which I hope you, the reader, can answer

1. Mary and Joeseph head off to to Bethlehem for the census, only to find there is no room at the inn. Surely there are no Inns in ye olde worlde Bethlehem?

2. While shepherds watch their flocks by night - tish and pish, I say. What are shepherds doing watching over lambs and sheep in December? Surely thats more of a job in the Spring time

3. Three wise men, my arse! Following a star on the off chance of finding a new born baby. Haven't they ever heard of maternity hospitals?

Full of glaring inconsistancies, that nativity story is.

Discuss......

Busy Week

What a busy week its been. Was supposed to have had last week off, but had to go into work on Friday to get some urgent stuff done.

Managed to get (most of) my Christmas shopping done on Sunday. I tried not to moan too much, and I didn't do too badly, but the whole stupid season does my head in.

The garage continues to get closer to being finished! I only need to get the felt on, and then tile it. I wish i wasn't so impatient, but I just can't wait to get it done. I started to put the foundations in for the wall Im building at the front the other day. One of the neighbours came out in her coat to tell me she was so pleased progress was being made on the house!

Tony Blair never ceases to amaze me. This is the 'honest bloke' who came to power on a ticket of trust almost 10 years ago, and this week we have him being questioned about the Cash for Honours scandal. Do you remember how he ravaged Major's government for being sleazy and corrupt? He warned his MP's they must be 'Whiter than White'. Fair enough, he wasn't questioned under caution, but the whole seedy affair is all about New Labour, and their values.

And of course, under the 'New' Labour regime, corruption and blackmail is absolutely fine, as long as there is a 10 billion pounds defence contract at the end of it.

Roll on the general election, I say.

Beta Blogger Problems?

I have just tried to comment on one of these new Beta Blogger sites (Phillips) that blogspot are trying to get us to switch to.

I click the sign on as google/blogger radio button, and it tells me that anonymous postings aren't allowed on that site! I tried again this morning, and it said that I wasn't recognised

I think Blogspot need to hire better 'web monkey's' or at least test the code before releasing it.

Prozac in the Water

Read this on the BBC website.

I think this explains why I always feel great when I drink 5 litres of water! Would that now be considered binge drinking by this government? :-)

Play D'oh

Got invited around to the neighbours last night for a Christmas drink. My mum and dad came around too. We were all sat there and the youngest girl decided she would make us all some 'treats' out of play doh.

My dad didn't actually realise it was play doh and proceeded to try and eat a 'chocolate biscuit'! He said he thought it tasted a bit funny, but was more worried that the stuff was sticking to his dentures :-D

I think senility is setting in, to be honest :-)

Michael Barrymore

Im saying nothing! But is this the 'new evidence' the police came across that made them re-open the previous enquiry?? :-D

Easy Peasy

I had no idea just how easy it was to put a garage roof on! Just got to put the last three trusses up then its done. We had to give up due to bad light. Can you believe that by 3:30pm the light is faded?

Oh well...felt on next, then brick up the gable ends and then tile it all. Job done!

I'll post some pictures later

40% Off!

Thresher are doing a 40% off deal...you just present this voucher, apparently and you get the discount when you take it into a store

No promotion, just word of mouth it seems, blog to blog....

Get your cheap ale ticket here

Update

Just an update on life really...
Was up at Malvern at the weekend for Bazza's birthday do. He's 36, the old get. He hired the West Malvern village hall and had a band on too. I think everyone got quite squiffy and had a jolly good time. Bazza is looking even more like a ZZ top reject these days, but it kinda suits him.

I have ordered the rest of the bits I need for the garage roof, so that will be going up this weekend. I have also been deciding what door I should buy. Whooa I hear you say "Excitement overload"!

I can't believe its so close to christmas, I don't really know when Im going to do all my shopping. I think I hate this time of year the most...Bah Humbug! If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!.

Its not cos its not a nice time of the year when you get to see all your mates etc, but its the rampant commercialism of the thing. I don't even beleive in the whole nativity malarky, and I don't have any kids to enjoy the season through - in fact I made my neighbours 6 year old daughter cry the other week, by telling her I knew father christmas personally, and he wasn't going to be coming down our street because every one had been naughty -oops! I thought I was being amusing, but I didn't realise kids take it seriously :-) I think there is only one person down our street who doesn't deserve any presents this year - and thats me!

Oh well, Im sure Jacob Marley is having serious 'chain envy' down there in Hell at the moment, as my shackles are being put together.

Bah Humbug

More Principles Gone

Ho Hum, it seems the principle of being innocent before being proven guilty has gone now. That Stump sucker, Blair, wants us all to be finger printed if we get pulled over for traffic offences now. Well thats not actually true - yet.

He wants it to be voluntary, for the moment.

I can apparently refuse to give my prints. Id like to see me try! If you do that, you get arrested and carted off to the cell's to be finger printed anyway, and your dabs are then entered onto the national database. I say, if they want my prints, go find them - I leave them all over the place, with everything I touch.

Of course, people are saying that if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear, but this saying is attributed to George Orwell in 1984, and to Goebbels. Nice.

This 'initiative' will apparently help us catch illegal immigrants, and criminals.

Well, an illegal immigrant by their very nature, wont show up on any databases. They are illegal - ergo invisible. And if you're a criminal, why worry? The prisons are full anyway, and you just get let out after about five minutes these days anyway.

I'll surrender my fingerprints when Blair and all those other crony bastards in Westminster volunteer their own DNA, Finger prints, iris scans and other biometric data they preach to us. Lead by example, you twats.

Hmmm, if they want my DNA for their database, then they can send a lady officer around to my house (they probably know where I live) where she is quite welcome to extract some of my DNA in the more 'adult' and fun ways. I might as well enjoy giving up my freedom.

Im a law abiding citizen, but I would still like to enjoy personal freedoms without this 'government' eroding them further.

*** I wonder just how long it will be before calling the prime minister of the day a 'Stump Sucker' will earn me a long spell in the cells anyway?! ***

Todays work

My brother came down today to help me finish off the garage brickwork. As you can see from the pictures the trusses are hanging upside down on the walls, so all I need to do is swivel them around and clamp them into place.

I decided that the 'soldier' bricks across the lintel were pants, and they needed to come off to be re-bricked. My brother has more patience than I do, so I got him to do them, but his were as worse as the effort I had done. Neither of us were happy with them. So, we decided that soldier bricks were lame anyway and we pulled them down and just bricked it up horizontally. They look miles better :-) And straight.















Anyway, the breeze blocks are all done now, so all I have to do is finish the bricks across the lintel. The roof will be assembled either next weekend or the weekend after...almost there now!

Comedy These Days

Was in Hell, sorry, Hull last night to see Mitchell and Webb at the City Hall, with my friend Mel. It seemed like Hell actually because the christmas lights were being switched on, and the city centre was packed.

Anyway, I had never actually heard of this comedy duo, so there were a few scetches when the crowd whooped and cheered that I didn't get. On the whole, I thought they were pretty good. There were some lame moments, but I probably just didn't 'get it' - I am getting older you know, so Im not quite as 'hip' as I used to be :-)
However, comedy these days seems to be based around the one liner catch phrase, and the short sketch, which I think show like 'The Fast Show' have a lot to answer for!

Take a look at 'Little Britain' for example. As much as it still makes me laugh, I often wonder how long catch phrases like 'yeah, I know' can be funny for? Every Andy and Lou sketch falls into this formula:

1. Lou wants Andy to do something
2. Andy take the opposite view
3. Lou turns his back
4. Andy gets out of his wheel chair and does something amusing
5. Andy sits back in the chair and the status quo is returned.

Its getting to the point were it actually writes itself...Messrs Lucas and Walliams must be laughing all the way to the bank! Good on 'em.

The catch phrase show could also be a sign of our times too. In this time of short attention spans, the political sound bite and the fast food culture, people can't be bothered with the comedy drama and having to invest time and thought into their entertainment. Anyone got an thoughts on this?

Maybe I should think of some amusing catch phrases and write a sketch show?

On a different note...my roof trusses turned up today - whoo hoo!

See...short attention span :-)

Truss-tastic

My roof trusses are turning up next Friday! They have been quicker building them than I expected. There are 11 of them, all to be spaced at 600mm intervals between the two walls.

I can't believe that I have managed to get this far. When I got the place, I was wondering how much it would cost to get a builder in to finish it, but Im glad I've done it myself. I've saved myself quite a bit of cash, and I've learnt quite a lot in the process.

I now have to learn how to get the roof fitted, because I have absolutely *no idea* how its supposed to go on.

Once its on, all I have to do is:

1) Nail the tiles on etc
2) Get the doors and fit them
3) Do the guttering

Of course, once the garage is done, I will need to build a drive way, a garden wall with wrought iron gates and dsecide what to do with the area at the side of it.

Looks like 2007 will be busy too!