Saints Alive

/ masher / 2 Comments

Every year, Paddy’s Day (or Saint Patrick’s Day, to give its proper name) provides an excuse for hundreds of thousands of Irishmen to get off their tits, drinking large amounts of alcohol and indulging in all sorts of drunken revelry.

Of course, it’s well known that the Irish know how to party. For them, it’s all about the ‘craic’.  Apparently. Getting together and drinking as much Guinness and Caffrey’s (God, I love Caffrey’s) as they can; dressing up as leprechauns and jumping in the Liffey (if one happens to be celebrating in Dublin).   Parades fill the streets and the festivities have been known to go on for several days, in some places. Wearing green is – I think – the law, on Paddy’s Day.

But what about the other saints?  Are they celebrated in the same way? What about Saint George, who had his own significant day only yesterday?  For some reason, good ol’ Saint George doesn’t seem to be revered in quite the same vein as Saint Patrick.  And yet, he killed a fucking dragon, for chris’sake.

To go someway toward remedying this situation, my old BT pals and I had a gathering down at our local ‘spoons last night.  Our glasses charged with various English ales, I proposed a toast to Saint George. “To Saint George!” everyone chorused, raising their glasses in the air.

And then we got back to our various topics of conversation – in the main, who had had the biggest operation on their prostate.

I think the English craic and the Irish craig are very different beasts.

Late

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Last weekend saw the current Mrs M and I travelling down to Bournemouth, to attend a family funeral.

Sadly, our south coast contingent has suffered in recent times, this being the third funeral in as many years.

As such, I kind of know the way now… and also how long it takes.  On a straight run, this journey will take two and a half hours of your life away.  But once we have factored in a couple of pit stops for Mrs M then a further half an hour needs to be added.

I’ve never known anyone drink as much as she does when travelling: constantly guzzling down overpriced bottles of water… or Diet Pepsi – her cold beverage of choice. Consequently, any journey we take requires hourly stops at a service station so that she can then empty everything that she has just drunk.

This stop also gives her the opportunity to purchase a stupidly expensive café latté  – her hot beverage of choice – from Costa or Starbucks or whichever tax-evading coffee seller resides there.

Anyway… Bournemouth. Not knowing what the Saturday traffic would be like, I decided to err on the side of caution and leave at 10:30.   That gave us plenty of time and allowed us to take a relaxing drive down there.

So, with funeral togs laid out on the back seat and with the passenger-side footwell stocked with several litres of water and fizzy drinks, we departed dead on time at 10:33… to be fair, that was pretty good for us.

The M1 was busy but the traffic flowed freely.

The M25 also flowed freely… for about ten minutes, but then decided to jam up.  We crawled along, stopping and starting and I constantly kept one eye on the clock, but I wasn’t too worried, we still had plenty of time. “The M25 is always bloody terrible”, I said to Mrs M. “The M3 will probably be much better.”

It was, and so we made a stop at Fleet Services, so Mrs M could do her thing and then we got back on the motorway. I did some quick head calculations and realised it was starting to get a bit tight, time-wise. To use some F1 parlance, I decided that we needed to switch from a two-stop stategy to a single-stop.  Mrs M would have to cross her legs.

Back on the M3, it was good to put my foot down and try to make up some time. But, it didn’t last long. Once again, we slowed down until we were at a standstill.  Stationary traffic stretched out before us, as far as we could see.  Mrs M decided to check on Google Maps to see how far the hold up went.  “It’s red”, she said.

“Which bit?”

“All of it.”

We crawled along until we eventually reached our turn off – the M27 – and I was able to put my foot down again.  It didn’t last long and roadworks eventually brought us to yet another standstill.

I grimaced as the ETA time on the in-car sat-nav, ticked its way ever closer to the time of the funeral service.  We were going to be late. Not late like my Uncle, whose funeral we were attending, but late as in walking into the service half way and having everyone turn round and look at you, shaking their heads in disbelief. I mean, who’s late for a funeral, for chris’sakes?

Finally, we came off the M27 and onto the A31. “Nothing can go wrong now”, I said, jokingly.  Three minutes later, stationary in yet more roadworks, I started chewing the steering wheel out of sheer frustration. We had allowed four hours, to do a two and a half hour journey… and it still wasn’t enough!

We arrived just a minute before the service was about to start.  I very quickly said hello to those members of the family who I’d not seen since we were last in that very same crematorium.

Mrs M made a hurried dash for the loo.

The Village Pub

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It was Daughter’s birthday this week, so last night we decided to go out for a meal, to celebrate.

We pondered for some time as to where to go.  “How about The Chequers?”, suggested Mrs M, referring to the pub in the next village. We’d not been there before, but had heard good things, so I gave them a call and booked a table.

We arrived at 7:30pm to find the place was empty, save for three women in one corner who were just finishing their coffee.  By the time we had got ourselves seated and looking at the menu, they had gone.  We had the entire pub/restaurant to ourselves.

Whilst there was a range of foods on the menu, pies seemed to be the speciality.

I started with Root Vegetable Soup, which was quite obviously homemade and was bloody delicious.  I followed that up with a Chicken & Wild Mushroom Pie.

With chips and peas.

And gravy.

That too was homemade and was also bloody delicious.    In fact, the four of us each had different meals but we all enjoyed them immensely… the food was really good.

The barmaid who served us our drinks and meals was most pleasant and very attentive to our needs.

Contemporary music played out of some loudspeakers fixed to the walls, but it was set at a perfect volume: loud enough to enjoy, but not so loud that you had to raise your voice to be heard.

The bill at the end of the evening was also most reasonable, I thought… certainly for the fare and service that we’d enjoyed.

And yet, we were there for just over two hours and, in that time, not a single person came into the pub.

We’ve made a promise to ourselves to go there again sometime soon… hopefully before they close down due to a lack of trade.

Stoned

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Back when I was a kid, Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men liked Little Weed.

And today, it seems that just about everybody does.

It’s impossible to go out for a walk with the dog and not catch a whiff of it at some point. Groups of youngsters on park benches are the biggest culprits.  Whenever we walk past, there is always a sickly sweet smell hanging in the air around them… and it’s not Lynx Africa.

A chap walked past me last night on the footpath and as soon as he had gone by, a pungent, sweet, minty aroma hit me full in the face.

To be fair, it’s not as bad as getting a facefull of fag smoke, but nonetheless, it’s not to my liking.

Of course, I say ‘weed’, but I’m not really sure what that even is. Cannabis? Marajuana? Skunk? Ganja (is that the same thing?)? I suppose I could look it up, but I can’t be bothered.

I’ve never been interested in – or dabbled with – drugs, any drugs… apart from that one wild time in my youth, when I tried some Junior Disprin.

I don’t understand why these people want to walk around stoned all the time… what’s the attraction?

And this morning, as I was taking the dog on her daily drag along the meadow, I found a small blue pot laying in the grass (pot… grass… you can see where this is going). I picked it up and had a look inside. That’s it in the photo.

Inside was a small plastic bag containing what was undoubtably weed. Out of interest, I weighed it: quarter of an ounce.  Now, I know from watching the brilliant Ideal on iPlayer, that this stuff is sold in quarters, eighths and sixteenths, but I have no idea what it actually costs.

But I bet that someone out there is kicking themselves for having lost it.

They can come and collect it from me if they like… it’s in my rubbish bin.

Look Out Al Capone, I’m Coming For Yer!

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My daughter is currently in the process of buying her first house.

Now, unless they are particularly wealthy or well paid, it’s not easy for most youngsters to get on to the housing ladder, these days, so – as a doting parent – I want to help out, of course.

To that end, I have gifted her a sum of money to pay off her car loan and to put down a deposit.

As I say, the sort of thing that doting parents do, if they can.

I thought that doing such a thing would be simple: just transfer the money over. But no: I now have to prove that I am not money laundering!

Yes, you read that right: I now need to prove that I’m not a money launderer!

The only time I have ever laundered money, was that time I put my jeans in the wash and forgot that there was twenty quid in the pocket.

Anyway, to prove I’m not part of a major crime ring, I was asked by her mortgage provider to supply several month’s worth of bank statements to show that the money was in my account before I gifted it to my daughter.  This, I did and I thought that would be the end of it. But, no.  I have returned from holiday to find that I now need to prove that the statements that I sent off, are indeed mine.

So, I have been referred to a company that specialises in ID checks.  I have to provide them with ‘biometric data’ (a photo of me); scans of my passport, driving licence and utility bills (not so easy, since I went paperless several years ago). I also have to wet sign and scan in several documents stating that the money is my own and that it hasn’t come to me via any criminal means.

Jeez, all I wanted to do was help my little girl out.

Hi Honey, I’m Home

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Well, after yesterday’s excitement, we are back to earth with a bang.

A cold bang.

Relatively.

Our ‘preponed’ flight out of Mauritius was a bit bumpy, but once out of the way of the bad weather, it was OK.   The flight home was an hour longer than the one that took us there. I assumed that was because we were going uphill, but I think it’s because the pilot had to take a slight detour to avoid the worst of the cyclone.

From what we can gather, there was just one more flight to the UK – an hour after we took off – and then they closed the airport. It’s expected to be shut for a few days, so we were lucky to get out when we did.

At Gatwick, we were through Passport Control in under a minute, thanks to those e-gates that they have for British nationals, and our suitcases came off the conveyor pretty quick, so we were out in record time.

Then we came unstuck at the train station: our tickets (pre-booked and paid for, because it’s so much cheaper that way) wouldn’t allow us through the barriers. This is because they – like us –  were a day early. I explained this to the guy manning the barriers.  He nodded, in an obviously uncomprehending way. “Show me your tickets, please”, he said in broken English. He looked at them for a moment and then: “Ahh, these are for tomorrow. You cannot use them until tomorrow.”

Again, I explained why we had had to come home today, rather than tomorrow.  He shook his head. “You must use these tomorrow.”

“Look…”, I was getting exasperated now and explained it all to him again.

He opened the barrier and let us through. I think he had just lost interest.

Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long for the train, but, having been up for nearly 24 hours now,  it was an effort for both of us to stay awake for the 90 minute journey home.

Falling asleep and missing our stop would have been the last straw.

Alarmingly Different

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Whenever I have had to get up for an early start, I have always taken care not to wake The Current Mrs Masher™ – she’s not at her best, first thing, and being woken before it’s actually time to get up, adds a whole extra level of misery to her morning.  And if she’s miserable then…

When I was a call-out engineer, I would sometimes get up at  2 or 3 in the morning to attend an outage. I would quietly dress and leave the house, returning a couple of hours later and slipping back into bed.  When Mrs M got up at 7, she would be completely unaware that I had even been anywhere and would often ask if I’d had a good night’s sleep!

And even now, if I have to get up early, I wash and clean my teeth in the dark, so that the light from the bathroom doesn’t wake her and I’ll gather up my clothes and get dressed in the spare bedroom, so that the noise of me dressing doesn’t rouse her from her slumber.

However, it’s very different when the roles are reversed.  Sometimes, Mrs M has to get up early for work.  The alarm clock will go off at 04:30 and will then be snoozed. It will then go off again 8 mins later, when it will be snoozed again.  I’ll kick her out of bed when it goes off for the third time. She then goes in the bathroom and bright white light will flood into the bedroom, forcing me to hide beneath the covers.  Then the bedroom light will go on whilst she rummages vociferously through her wardrobe, coathangers clattering loudly on the rail as she tries to figure out which one of her twenty or so tops goes best with the black trousers she plans on wearing.  Drawers will be noisily opened and closed as various undergarments are selected and then she’ll sit on the side of the bed and start drying her mop with the hairdryer.

After fifteen minutes listening to this racket, I am wide awake, which is when she then comes round to my side of the bed and whispers (yes, WHISPERS!) that she’s off to work now.

Jeez.

Weather Report

/ masher / 4 Comments

Well, today I expected to be regaling you with tales of our trip out to one of the small islands that are dotted around Mauritius. This particular island (I can’t remember the name of it) has a pure white sandy beach, dotted with palm trees and looks like it is straight out of a Bacardi advert.

Rather than a speedboat – like earlier – this time we were to take a more leisurely trip, by catamaran.

Mrs M and I dragged ourselves out of bed this morning at 6.30, so we’d have time for some breakfast before departing, only to find that the excursion has been cancelled due to a category 2 cyclone .

A cyclone! Wow!

The nearest I have ever been to a cyclone, is vacuuming the carpet with our Dyson.

It’s currently 9am, local time, as I sit here on our balcony, typing this up. It’s hot and humid and the sun is beating down… as can be seen in the rather rubbish photo at the top of this post, that I have just taken.

It certainly isn’t looking like cyclone weather at the moment, but if we get evacuated (which could happen if it gets updated to a category 3, apparently), I shall let you know. 😊

+++UPDATE +++

It’s 22:00 local time and we have just found out that our flight has been brought forward  12 hours and we now need to leave here early in the morning.  Best get packing!

Flashmob

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Flashmobs were all the rage some years ago, but you don’t see so many of them nowadays. Another fleeting fad, maybe.

But it’s a fad that I quite enjoyed… whilst it lasted.

Much to my annoyance, I’ve never been in a flashmob. There’s a good reason for this: all the ones I have seen, involve having the ability to dance, or to sing, or to play a musical instrument. I am sadly lacking in every single one of those departments.

And, I’ve never even seen one, which again, is quite annoying.

There are plenty to watch on that YouTube thing though and I’ve enjoyed most of them, I think.

But this is my new favourite.

Should I ever get married again, this is definitely happening.

It Was A Riot

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I didn’t mind doing football duty, as there was usually some excitement to help the afternoon pass by. We would often have to escort visiting fans from the train station, walking the mile or so to the ground and then back again after the match had ended. Of course, the bulk of these fans were well behaved: fathers and sons, husbands and wives, all proper football enthusiasts. But some of them were just idiots, who had come along for the chance to cause some bother.

Back in the eighties, Millwall’s fans had a reputation for just that and we were all pretty nervous about them coming to the town for an FA Cup match. We expected them to be trouble.

They didn’t let us down.

Patrolling the streets before the game, in groups of three or four, I remember my colleague suddenly falling to the floor right next to me. He ‘d been hit on the head by half a brick that had been lobbed from a group of Millwall fans standing outside a pub, drinking beer. There were four of us (now down to three) and about twenty of them, all jeering at us, so there was little we could do except drag our unconscious colleague round the corner and out of the way whilst we waited for backup.   By the time it arrived, they had all disappeared.

My job was to patrol the streets during the game (along with many others – I wasn’t on my own!) to provide a level of law enforcement outside whilst the majority of the force were inside the stadium. But trouble started inside and the police were losing the battle, so we were redirected into the ground to help.

I arrived just as the second half was starting and was told to stand on the edge of the pitch with my back to the Millwall crowd along with a couple of dozen other coppers.  I’ll readily admit that I was pretty scared. We stood there – a very thin blue line – as the crowd threw abuse at us. Then they started throwing missiles: small stones, pens, sweets, anything they had to hand. The recently introduced pound coin had enough heft for it to make a perfect missile and several of these bounced off the back of my head. Of course, as policemen, we couldn’t pick them up, but I remember seeing one of the stewards doing just that, the pockets of his yellow hi-vis coat bulging with thrown money.

At the end of the match, things worsened as the fans rioted, breaking down the barriers and invading the pitch. Seats were ripped from the stands and hurled at us.

We ran away.

As the battle ensued inside the ground, a small group of us were redirected outside, to ensure the safety of the real fans as they tried to make their way home. Pockets of trouble kept appearing all over the town centre and we were run ragged as we legged it from one side to the other. Usually, by the time we got there, the troublemakers had scarpered, leaving behind a trail of broken windows and whatnot.

It was a long night. When I got back to the station I took off my coat only to see the back of it plastered with dried spittle and slimy phlegm, and I questioned myself as to whether I really wanted to be doing this job anymore.

A Life On The Ocean Waves

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We went on a trip out, yesterday.

On a speedboat.

It was a lot of fun.

We visited some of the surrounding islands and did some snorkeling.  We went inland, up  river, to see a waterfall and to feed some wild monkeys which was fun.  Then we had a BBQ lunch on a small beach on one of the islands. And on the way back, we saw some dolphins.  Which was nice.

Of course, the problem with being out at sea and going snorkeling, is that despite applying copious amounts of sun cream, you are going to catch the sun.  Or rather, the sun is going to catch you!  We both have faces the colour of lobsters and my head is very sore.  The copious amounts of rum punch that they plied us with, probably didn’t help 😊

Today will be spent in the shade, as much as possible. In fact the weather forecast suggests a big storm is coming… which will be cool: I love a tropical storm!

Not Going Out

/ masher / 4 Comments

In a post, only a short while back, I mentioned how much we love going to the pictures, but also how I’ve noticed a gradual fall in attendance.

Well, we – as a family – have just contributed to that decline.

We have long been members of Cineworld’s Unlimited club, which – for a monthly sum – allowed us to visit our local cinema as many times as we wanted and, indeed, in the early days, we used to go on an almost weekly basis.

But now, as the kids have got older and their viewing tastes have changed, we found we weren’t going as often as we used to.  So long as we went at least twice a month though, our Unlimited membership was still worth the cost.

But, of course, that too has been steadily going up in price and when they announced another price hike last month, we decided that enough was enough and we cancelled our membership.

In my cancellation email, I explained how these continued price rises are making it hard for people to afford to go to the cinema nowadays and I suggested that a drop in price might actually increase cinema attendance… which would benefit all.

Sadly, I didn’t even get a reply.