Shit Happens!

Dear Marmite

Up high and spotting VERY big "dogs"

Here we are and only just into the New Chinese Year and already things are looking down. When they do, this makes other things worse too. Let me start with the fitting of my new balcony French windows and three other windows. I ordered them in the hottest month of the year and they were finally fitted on a really cold day when the temperature didn't rise much above -2c. What bad timing, eh?

To give the fitters their due, they worked really efficiently and I kept them supplied with incredibly sweet tea by the gallon. When they left, my house took a whole 24 hours to reach a comfortable temperature. Now that that part of my house is back to normal I am so pleased I had it done.

While the fitters were doing their thing, I had Ezra-Mae for a couple of hours. I usually plan my time with her so we do lots of different things. My options with the workmen around were limited. We started off dancing to Alexa nursery rhymes, then dressed up warm and  went to the swings and slides - not the best idea with icy steps and slippery equipment but it filled a while. Ezra-Mae has umbrella names for things - "car" is everything that drives along the road. She says, "Car" I say, "No, van".. easy.... She says, "dog" I say, "No, horse"... I am working on it....

It was all happening at the same time = while the windows were being done, my handyman was back to sort out the flaky paint on the ceiling and fit a carpet offcut in the mezzanine area. The carpet is now fitted and looks lovely. It is now a very cosy place to camp out! That certainly doesn't count as a shitty outcome. Originally I thought of it as a place for my grandsons to hang out but they are now back in Australia so that won't happen.

The carpet is sorted but the paint job will take a bit longer. The rafters under the roof are wet and the insulation is damp too. So now I am awaiting the roofer who fixed my ridge tiles last summer to come and check out the problem. As the plaster took so long to dry, the handyman knew there was something amiss. Job remains undone.

So with all these things happening I start to notice how other things irk. I get annoyed when someone says, "See you later." I have started to reply - No, you won't... I won't be back for some time. What is it with this over familiarity in shops? errrr.

Added to this, I am annoyed with the Israeli rhetoric after the murder outside a synagogue. I totally agree that it is sad but demanding revenge on all Arabs when they don't expect Palestinians  to want revenge for all the bad they have had done to them is pathetic and ridiculous. I know where my sympathy lies.

There are so many things in the news that irk. I Think it would be a good idea if all Tory MPs and their cronies could be supplied with a gun so they can shoot themsleves in the foot and shortcut this long drawn out path of self - destruction. Just a thought. Sadly the strikes are not weakening the resolve of our heartless leaders. I am beginning to see this as having the same outcome as the General Strike in 1926. The miners lost and ended up with less pay and poorer conditions back then.

There are ups amid all the downs. I think there there is an elephant in Flitwick. I went to Diane and Jeremy's for Burns Night. That means a meal of haggis and other things Scottish. Jeremy says he made a clootie pudding but I think an elephant was had a hand in it, so to speak. As they say, Shit happens! Actually it tasted fine with custard. Thank you, Jeremy.

Freshly caught haggis..clootie image censored

So, Marms, life is not a bed of roses but I do manage to smile at my adversity. 

Love you

XXX

Gong Xi Fa Cai

 Dear Marmite

Happy New Year of the Rabbit. May it bring great fortune to you. I spent most of New Year's Eve getting whatsapp greetings from all over. I felt quite connected even though I didn't have a celebration. I even played Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi ni ya on Youtube to get in the mood. This song is an earworm as it is played in all the supermarkets around this time. I'll NEVER forget it. Never.

Today I have cleared the living room as I have a workman coming to fill the cracks made before the roof was repaired. I got up early and moved the furniture around. Behind each piece lurked spider webs and fluff - a  year's worth - and I thought I was good at cleaning. Obviously I am dillusional on that front.

I am sitting writing this awaiting his arrival. He is very skilled but equally unreliable. This I find quite frustrating. Added to this he is not good at responding to texts so I feel I am left hanging somewhat. 

The weather over here remains the wrong side of minus. Yesterday I played tennis in -6c. This wasn't too bad once I got moving and there was no wind at all. The sun smeered the sky so I congratulated myself for braving the weather to have a hit. 

I also took Shadow for a long walk back to my place the other day. The puddles are now skating rinks but at least more of the flood plain is accessible. Shadow doesn't like the ice any more than she likes water. She delicately tiptoes around the glassy bits. Some of the narrow boats throw out choking smoke which makes walking along the canal less than enjoyable. I can appreciate how cold the boats must be. The ice sits right up to the hull.

It remains for me to wish you all the best. Don't eat too many pineapple tarts! Enjoy the parties and the fuss you are getting. It will only last for 15 days!

Love You

XXX

New Year Niggles

 Dear Marmite

Weather bad!! It is either cold and windy - not nice for trying to hit a ball or incredibly wet. Whichever way you look at it, going out over here definitely has its drawbacks. Yesterday I tried to play tennis with the wind howling straight at me at one end of the court and the wind behind me at the other - exhausting to say the least. Also with 35mph winds, tennis becomes a game of chance. 

Last Friday I set off for more tennis. I travel by the back roads to the club - less traffic and more direct, I reckon. I got to the humpback bridge and there was a queue of cars and vans. This I thought was most unusual. The other side of the the bridge was flooded for about 100m and because of the narrow road only one car could go through at a time. I began to get nervous - I knew how to deal with deep water and cars with a manual shift but my car has lots of electrical bits which I figured don't work well in water. There really was no way back. behind me was a single track humpback bridge with a van on and ahead was the water. When it came to my turn I imagined getting stuck at the deepest part and spending the day awaiting rescue. Kevin - my car - ploughed on through. Yay... 

On Saturday I set out for a walk. I got to the Iron Trunk Bridge and then down onto the flood plain - it was flooded. It was flooded in both directions so I climbed back up to the canal and walked home. Short walk. The other day I tried to go down the Buckingham arm of the Grand Union Canal. Much of it is yet to be excavated and the path is not well trodden. Just a little way along I stopped walking and started slipping and sliding. I had trouble standing up at times. I then thought about turning back. I was about half way along so thinking it couldn't possibly get any worse, I squelched on to the bridge and then up through the field to the road. I had mud right up to my thighs. 

This trip reminded me of our 14km Green Corridor CNY jaunt to Keppel Railway station which was equally as messy - if not more so. That one also had the added excitment of escaping from a restricted area via a drain. You, Marms were traumatised. I was mucky from head to foot and it is probably still on action replay on the CCTV cameras. I am sure people would be amazed how unco-operative you were getting into a drain with me.

Once one thing begins to niggle, others follow. Besides the mud, I am becoming more and more irritated by TESCO self checkouts. They don't work properly. I put my bag of the counter and then the system needs a TESCO worker to approve. I scan my items and sometimes they don't scan. This again needs human support. So with half the tills, queues twice as long, I feel agrieved at the time I waste waiting for support to help me pay for the things I want to take home. errr...

Also EE are annoying me. I changed provider before Christmas and I am now getting threatening emails and sms's from EE to pay my bill for a service I terminated. They are threatening to cut me off. I have contacted them but human support doesn't seem to be able to make any difference. errrrr...

I am still going with my 30 days of yoga. I am a little behind as I have been away and have done other exercise. I still roll around like a hippo on my mat and laugh at myself. As it is in the privacy of my bedroom, no one else can laugh at me - thankfully. You used to lie underneath me when I did my stretches back in Singapore  - remember? I think that was because I gave you a guilt trip for you not wanting to exercise. 

I have done a jigsaw too. It is a long time since I did one. I was lent it by a friend at the tennis club and it was a tennis cartoon picture. For most of the time I was convinced that key bits were missing. There was a couple of edges that didn't seem to fit until right near the end I realsied I had put some bits together wrongly... errr... The end result - me with smug satisfaction that it only took me an evening to do. I had a bit of a chuckle at the picture. I think I have met most of the players depicted in it.

So life isn't all bad. I have longer days to look forward to as well as some planned holidays. 

Keep smiling Marms,

Love you

XXX

New Year, New Beginnings

 Dear Marmite

I have got to Day 9 of my New Year and I am still on track with my fitness regime. Besides my swimming, table tennis and tennis, I am now struggling to get into new and contorted shapes on the yoga mat. 

These shapes all seem to have animal names; frog, cat, cow, cobra, down dog are now part of my new daily routine and at the moment it does hurt a little. I suppose this is par for the course as my body does things it is not used to doing.

I am also having a dry January or sorts. I am not drinking in my house. I seem to have rather a collection of good wines and a few spirits lying around so all these will just have to gather dust til February now.

The down side of this time of year is that it is pretty muddy and after my bike accident I am a little more cautious about cyling through squelch. At least that doesn't stop me from going out. Today, I managed to cut back the dead stuff after the really cold snap. This means my compost heap is bursting at the seams and I am glowing from pottering around outside. 

Compost heap!

Sammi left last week for Scotland so I now have the house to myself again. Last weekend I spent in Stevenage with Ann. We went to the local Panto. This was sort of fun but not a great panto. The scenery and costumes were really well done but the main characters were weak and the script was poor. Still, pantos are what we do at Christmas time so I can tick that one off my list for this year. Now it is just another year and another day. 

It looked much better in the flesh.. so to speak

We still have a lot of disruption because of industrial unrest - all because the government won't come to terms with what they have done to the country. All in all, it is not a good place to be. You have the sunshine. You have the good life. You are a very lucky old man. If only we could start again and look at this whole mess with people at the centre instead of capitalism - what a better place 2023 would be.

Love you,

XXX

On being sprinkled by fairy dust

 Dear Marmite

Christmas is over and it is the season for new resolutions and plans for the year ahead. Apart from aiming to be a lot slimmer, a bit richer, more charitable etc... I plan to visit you in the Spring. That time cannot come fast enough. I am saving all my hugs up already.

Christmas celebrations, visits and New Year's Eve are now a distant blur. Sammi came down from Scotland to visit so for a while we had both Shadow and Lucky flopped on the floor - quite a hazard. We got competitive at Canasta, Scrabble... and so on... it is what we do. Each time we went out it rained. This is the really wet type of rain that doesn't fall, it hangs in the air so you really feel totally soaked. Fortunately the temperatures were around 10c so it wasn't too cold. Apart from the rain, there was the mud. The towpath was one joined up puddle so we got plastered on our treks; and the fields are still underwater! 

We even went out for a game of tennis at my club in dry but windy conditions. It is always fun to play with Sammi, if only for old times sake. To think I used to beat him and he cried because I spun the ball. Oh, how time have changed. 

My other bit of Christmas exercise was when I danced the New Year in at my local pub. This was the first big Christmas since COVID so the pub was heaving, the music was "my era" and, because it is a very small village, everyone seems to know each other. I know people from table tennis at the hall, coffee mornings, the pub and church. I know I have chosen a lovely, friendly place to be even though some people say they are newcomers because they have only been in the village for 10 years. It seems to be a village joke known to all.

Not only have I had dogs lounging around the place this past week, I have also had the pleasure of a fully weaponised Ezra-Mae. To tell you all the things she has got up to would run into pages. Suffice to say, I found her with two brussel sprout sized marbles in her mouth  - so I tipped her upside down and slapped her on the back to see if there were any in her tummy as well. Luckily not! I also told her not to touch my eggs as some of them are marble and they could break her toes if they fell on them. Then I found her sitting on the floor trying them out by hitting different ones on her feet. Oh boy, she is a full time job. 

Keeping Ezra-Mae out of trouble

Life really isn't that bad. I spend my time smiling and now I have my "Ring" doorbell up and running again, I feel I have been sprinkled with fairy dust each time I lock or unluck my front door as the bell recognises movement and tinkles on my phone. Ahhh!

So, feeling truly blessed and having another year to look forward to, I send you all my love and hugs.

Love you, as always

XXX