UKA

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. ‘think of a number, double it, add fifty two, divide your answer by two, take away the number you first thought of and your answer is 26 ‘. Try it, it’s true!!!!!!!!!!!!!  My sums at University did have a use after all?

Why did this Godiva Harrier suffer from the ‘cycle crash’? Why did he move South?? What National medals did he win? What world record did he hold? Where is his grave??

Dear Blog,

I have been pretty busy this last couple of weeks as I may have mentioned, hence my neglect in keeping you informed about my interesting life and times!!! So what I have been up to, you are desperate to ask but are too shy? Well, I think I told you I have decorated the staircase which also involves the halls at the top and bottom. This was a mammoth task as the walls were covered in distemper ... not the doggie type but the Victorian covering although the former would have been easier to remove.   How to shift it?????????????? ‘The internet will tell you’ went up the cry! At this point I usually shout out a very rude word which begins with A and ends with S and is nine letters long but because you have had such a cloistered upbringing dear Blog, I shall refrain!! Every ones answer is ‘tinternet’ but like most slightly unusual bits of required information, it was USELESS with a very capital ‘U’. Basically a Stanley blade scrape was the only solution. So six days of damaging my highly sensitive lungs with the dust produced and a constant barrage of abuse for my wife for the mess being produced, I lost my rag a little, even my granddaughter’s stuffed dog covered in the corner! Then I had a considerable amount of plastering to do. As Mike Angelo will tell you, plastering is OK if you have someone to keep stirring the plaster for you .... but if you haven’t, it is bloody hard work, especially when you are climbing up and down ladders. Well, I got that done, then I had the task of fixing the light fitting. An easy task you may think. Well for a normal light fitting you would be perfectly correct in this assumption. But there are light fittings and there are light fittings and this was a light fitting. Half a dozen years ago, we went on an extended camping holiday to Holland. No fixed plans, just a wander round. Now everyone knows that everyone speaks English in Holland, don’t they??? Well everyone is wrong, WRONG. There are basically three types of camp site in Holland. The type we are used to in England, a private farm/field site and a woody type which are a latter-day hippie communes, peace brother, love sister. We ended up at a site which was a cross between the last two. I didn’t see any free love, however. In fact I thought it was quite expensive.  And not an English pidgin in site to talk to. We wos definitely out in de steeks. After a couple of days, I discovered a notice for a Dutch jumble sale to be held at a farm the following night. It was the stuff holidays are made of. A once in a life time experience. Again no word of English, but we did manage to buy a lamp fitting. A monstrous gothic wrought iron contraption straight from the set of a Dutch horror film ... and we all know about those types of Dutch films, don’t we Blog. Even you must have heard them mentioned in the cloisters? 2 euros it cost. 2 euros?? Anything costing 2 euros had to be bought, whether it had a use or not. 2 euros. We went Dutch and paid up. It was so horrible as to be rather exquisite. It was so hideous as to be quite beautiful. There was another two different designs, both equally large and ugly, which we should have bought with hind sight but we had difficulty getting the one we purchased in the car as it was ... and we still had all our camping gear at the camp site ... how to fit it all in?? Big question. My wife got quite cold hanging onto the roof rack on the journey back to England but at least she warmed up on the ferry crossing. My daughter got very fit running alongside the car! Back to the decorating. Two days it took to hoist the light fitting into the stairwell. Block and tackle job with no block and tackle. The joists had to be reinforced to take the heavy weight of the light. During the whole of the fitting struggle, the vision of the chandelier sketch from ‘Fools and Horses’ was very much in the fore front of my mind. Its up, its working and it looks brilliant. Brilliant. But then the bookcase on the top landing was not suitable, was it?? So I spent the next week plus, designing and building a mock art deco seven shelved bookcase out of reclaimed wood to blend in. Well ‘blend’ is the wrong word. It had to stick out like a sore thumb to be effective. It is and it does. So Blog, my trudging has suffered. In fact it is gnigdurt, to coin a phrase!

I think I have three pledges outstanding for my two charities Tiny Tims Children’s Centre and Newlife. As they are substantial, I have still not wrapped up the accounts!!

More on Monday Blog.

Colin