Month: April 2025

Tradional pub skittles

My wife is a fantastic organiser. The family owes an awful lot to her as she always arranges meals and get togethers keeping us all in touch. Without her doing this I very much believe we’d all lose contact quite rapidly. She keeps the family together. And she is brilliant at what she does.

Today is one of those days, Easter Saturday, she has hired the Skittle alley at our local pub and we are all meeting there for a meal prior to throwing our “Cheeses” at the skittles. No perfectly round balls here, these are good old solid wood, full of splinters and shaped more like tin cans to be honest. And they can go off in any direction, there is no way to control them. Just don’t get in their way!

We play it differently up here in the East Midlands as can be seen here:

In the East Midlands, people play Long Alley in which the projectiles are rough balls or small capsule shaped logs called “cheeses” and a score is only made if the cheeses bounce a single time just in front of the pins.

Wikipedia

It can be quite brutal. But that’s how we roll in the East Midlands 😂

Our local

It’s a beautiful old pub, and we kind of adopted it when we moved up here. A right old traditional pub. I think there is about 22 of us up there tonight from all different areas, so it should be a nice evening.

Tomorrow is a different story when we will all be off to watch our home football team get slaughtered at home to our visitors- Liverpool.

But let’s not get too depressed about that, here’s how today has gone instead.

Paul wins the skittles
Winner and his prize.

4 rounds of 3 cheeses each and we had sorted out the final four of the contest, cousin Paul wins outright and wins the first prize a Cadbury crème egg. Highest score of the evening went to niece Julie who managed to down eight skittles in one round.

Overall winner Paul, and high scorer Julie.

The remainder of the evening was just people talking and catching up. It was a lovely day and My wife has already sorted out the Christmas party dinner. She’s so damned organised.

The day started at our house earlier when everyone went down our garden pub to play darts, have a drink and kick the day off in a really fun and friendly fashion. It’s ended around 12 hours later when the tiredness sets in and people start to make their excuses and gradually filter off into the night.

In the bar, after.

Tomorrow we go again when we meet at my nieces home for her house warming party. It’ll be a little more subdued as some are back to work on Monday, however I’m really looking forward to meeting up with them all again.

Good times. Good company. Nothing beats it.

Bread and Dripping

What is the weirdest food combination you enjoy?

To me, honestly, I don’t believe any food combination I enjoy is weird. And that’s the thing with this question, with most people they would view their awkward combinations as totally normal.

Some choices early in life are made for you purely as a result of whatever was available at the time and in many situations as a result of what money was available. My early life had some really strange combinations that would be looked on as awful nowadays, but back then it was totally the norm.

I give you bread and dripping as one example.

All the fat that was accumulated from cooking during the week went into a big bowl on the kitchen window, it looked just like the layers you’d find in the earths crust as every layer of fat had its own colour and consistency, so if you wanted a snack, some toast and a scrape of whatever was in the bowl was the order of the day. How bad does that sound now?

In comparison to what went on then, my current combinations are quite tame, here’s a few:

  • Marmite: with or without cheese is glorious, in a sausage sandwich it is another level, cooking mushrooms in it is something else. Not everyone’s favourite taste.
  • My family’s pet hate with me is that I always have red and brown sauce on a Sunday roast. I get the feeling they’d rather see me eat on my own than in their company.
  • Beer and ice cream. I just love having an ice cream if one is available when I have a beer. I think the tastes are super complimentary.

Well, that’s a few of mine, what combinations do you enjoy. I won’t judge, that’s not me I’m just genuinely interested in what you class as a weird combination. You never know it might be something I’m willing to try.

Have a great day everyone.

No. It’s not just a mirror

There’s a little story that has developed here. Spring cleaning the house today and a mirror appears out of a cupboard and my wife has said,” You don’t need that, that can go.”

The mirror

At this statement I jumped up and unusually for me I gave the wife a firm reply of, “No” and told her it’s not going anywhere, there is a story behind that mirror and I then poured it out to her. Just as I am about to do so now to you all.

The mirror was a purchase from a Sunday magazine sometime in the mid 80s, nothing overly expensive but it always made me smile.

I’d just left home as my father’s abusive behaviour had taken a more violent turn. I was ashamed of myself for deserting my sister and mother, but I was just so fed up of being attacked both physically and mentally that I just snapped and left home.

I was about 18, I sofa surfed for a while, occasionally I sneaked into my workplace at night and slept there, I was all over the place and then found a spare room for rent in a property close by to where I’d originally lived. I had some stability in my life at last and was learning very quickly about moving on in life and the new responsibilities I’d now taken on. I then purchased this mirror, and would smile when I looked into it, it gave me some much needed fun and laughter in my life. Something that had been in very short supply for a while.

Then one night I broke when my sister appeared at the door, to tell me my father was attacking my mother, I grabbed the nearest thing to me that just happened to be a metal pole from an old photographic enlarger and I ran like the wind to their house. I charged up the stairs to their bedroom and stood over my father telling him just how I felt, and what a B***ard he was. I was about to bring that pole down on him when I realised he was in such a drunken stupor, he didn’t even know I was there, but beside him my Mum was reaching out to me weeping and calling my name. What she told me whilst we were embracing there is highly private and will always remain so, the crux of it was that she never wanted me to leave and begged me to come home.

I was back in that house before he’d even sobered up the following day. And that mirror I’d brought was on my bedroom wall where it stayed for a good few years.

I told my wife the story, and that the cheap worthless mirror was a subtle reminder of the time I started to turn my life around. I’d overcome fear of a tyrant and become the protector of the two most important people in my life at that time, my mum and younger sister. And I stayed with them until they both stepped away from this horrific existence.

A cheap mirror it maybe. But it still makes me smile. The wife has now said it must stay and be prominent in the house.

This picture was taken today, look, I’m smiling as I’m deciding where to put it up.

May it see many more smiles.

Punctures up a mountain

Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.

I’ve rarely stumbled across a stranger where they’ve had a positive effect on me but I’ll turn it around the other way where I may have had an encounter where I have projected a positive attitude to them.

I loved going on long mountain bike rides when I used to holiday in Cyprus. We used to base ourselves in a town called Pelathousa, about 6km up into the mountains away from the seaside towns of Polis and Latchi. A beautiful little town with very few occupants and stuck in a time warp, a wonderful peaceful existence, we stayed with friends there and it was a wonderful place to spend some time.

I used to strike out on some rides from here and this particular one on June 14 2015 was probably one of the most beautiful, hilly and memorable rides I have ever done. It was an epic ride.

I retrieved this information from Strava

I started on this particular ride well stocked with energy snacks and plenty of hydration, with the plan to meet with my wife and her friend who were going to be my support team at about the halfway point to serve the purpose of giving me a lift home if I was tired, or to give me some more substantial food should I require it, to continue.

My support team at the halfway point

After about 15 miles of mountains, very quiet roads and superb scenery that I just drank in, I finally dropped down into a small town called Stavros tis Psokas, a small town at the foot of the mountains. Here the elusive “Mouflon” a wild sheep can be seen if you are very quiet, and this was an exceptionally quiet place, you had to keep making little noises just so you could assure yourself that your ears were functioning. I found a little cafe, where the elderly owner didn’t speak English, but I was able to get across my requirement for a coffee in broken Greek/Cypriot. I just love Cypriot coffee, it was a much needed boost.

Cypriot Coffee

It was time for my return and it was a hellish mountain climb back out of the valley, however I was meeting my support team at the top for that much needed refreshment, I already knew I wasn’t going to give up, I was going to continue on.

I pulled into the lay-by at the top of the valley and was pleased to see the girls. It was lovely, I had the customary half way photo taken.

About halfway with my support team

It was here that we then became away of another vehicle in the area parked up on the opposite side of the road with the two occupants now walking over towards us. A conversation began, but no one understood what was being said. Us being English and the other two people being German, we were totally lost at what was trying to be communicated, until they motioned me towards their car, and off I went with them.

Flat tyre

It was plain to see that they had a flat tyre, they had no idea how to change one, and it now became obvious that I was their only hope, as there wasn’t a garage anywhere remotely accessible in this region. So after a tiring long ride I now changed their wheel for them, intimated to them that they turn back to where they came from, as it was only one of those temporary wheels, they shook my hand, I understood them saying thank you, they turned around and off they went on their way.

I returned to the girls now covered in dirt from the old wheel, washed my hands had a drink and some food and told them to head off on the way, they would stop every few miles and wait until they saw me in the mirror and then move on again until we eventually arrived home a few hours after the adventure began.

So that was my random meeting with a stranger. And what was positive for me is that no matter what the boundaries are we can always help and assist. And that is what was the big positive for me. I’d hope in a similar position of need that someone would kindly offer me similar assistance. It’s just being human isn’t it?

Have a great day.

Watch out, I’m the pilot

If you weren’t afraid of failure, what would you do differently?

Love this question, such a simple answer for me. If I wasn’t afraid of failure I’d train to be an airline pilot. I know I’d fail miserably in real life at it, and it probably wouldn’t be such a good thing for you as paying passengers, but wow, it would be one hell of a flight for me. I’m a bit scared of flying you see…

It would probably be your last flight, but I guess that’s why we always have a fear of failure, as in truth you only want a super confident individual in such a position of trust.

As an aside, we should never be afraid of failure, it’s always disappointing to fail, however it’s one of the ways that we learn to avoid future potential failures. It’s hard when you fail a task, but you are never a failure, you won the biggest lottery of your life when you were born. The odds of you getting to this point in life and reading this post are apparently an eye watering 1 in 400 Trillion.

Refer to this post I won the lottery…that day to see what I am going on about.

You’re most definitely never a failure. You’re always an achiever, a pupil of the university of life.

Happy days all…

Sausage yob

Anyone who follows football and knows the dress code will get this picture. Made me giggle.

Courtesy of t’internet

Chewing gum wrapped heart

What was the most outrageous lie you believed as a child?

I remember one lie that was told to me around the early to mid 70’s by my parents, of all people. And I don’t believe that they were the only ones, as it seems my gang of friends around that time had also been told the same. With no internet on the horizon for at least the next 15 years at the earliest, I can only assume that our parents had some kind of “Parents jungle network” that they used, to actively spread such untruths.

That lie was, “If you swallow chewing gum it gets wrapped around your heart and can kill you”. Blimey. As an easily influenced 6-10 year old this would have been shocking information to receive from our parents who always talk nothing but the truth! Honestly they do!

I guess they didn’t approve of chewing gum.

It worked though, I never swallowed it, and that’s probably why in the late 70s and early 80s there was so much of an issue with discarded chewing gum on British streets during that period.

It was our parents fault 😂

To be honest it probably was not until we started doing biology in our senior school years that we uncovered the fake information our parents had given us, and when questioned about it, there was always the denial, “I didn’t say that, stop your lying.” You’d never win that argument.

Apparently it passes through the digestive tract as per normal as the body can’t digest it. However swallowing large amounts could potentially cause blockages but that would have to be some serious amount of gum.

Could be worse though, this was what one curious five year old was told by his mum. Courtesy of the Guardian newspaper:

According to my mum, when I was younger, you blow a bubble out of your bum. Why that was supposed to deter a curious 5 year old is beyond me.

Gareth, Graham UK

Enough said. Parents of the 70s – you have been rumbled.

I still never swallow it though 😂

Have a super day.

Overrun by AI images

Why does almost everyone on WP have the inherent need to use over processed AI images?

Of all the many trillions of photographs already out there, it surprises me that people become reliant on images that look false, are patently over processed and that don’t look the slightest bit realistic.

Technology is a good thing but in my opinion this is a step too far, it’s unreal, it’s not realistic and people are preferring to create a life in photo form that they would like to see, rather than what they do actually see. Life unfortunately isn’t as perfect as the AI gods would have us believe.

I guess my many decades in this particular trade amount to nothing and I just see it as pure laziness to use such techniques. In a few words I can have a perfectly presented representation of a smiling cherub like child in the most perfect sun infused and idilic environment, that in all seriousness is as false as a suspended ceiling in a Victorian property. It’s just not right.

Yep you’re right I don’t like it, condone it and will never use it. My choice, my blog. I’ll never see it differently I’m afraid.

Take the time to either obtain a picture that someone has spent good time composing, and working hard on to get right, or just go out there and do it yourself. But that’s the problem isn’t it? Technology has made us lazy, let’s leave it to someone/thing else.

I know let’s use a faceless blind computer with overactive memory banks.

That’s A.I in my view.

Have a peaceful day.

Gone with the wind…pfffft

I was asked a really strange question today by a work colleague, god knows why and what even came over him to ask such a question, so why not share it on here. Its probably now that people will decide to dislike me en mass, and desert this blog in droves but hey, its probably a better question than what WP ask us on a daily basis.

If people suddenly got paid for bad behavior, what habit would make you a fortune?

Windy

As I’ve got older I’ve become a lot “Windier” probably my poor diet or just something that happens when you start to peak in the age stakes. If I was being paid to fart on demand than I guess that’s probably the bad habit that would earn me the most income. It would probably go some way to preserving the countries gas stocks, and the wind turbines would be spinning for quite a while longer.

Anyway that’s enough of that.

Stupid question 😂

Have a great day.

Ironing running shorts


What is the oddest way you ever accidentally hurt yourself?

I had this question my head and thought it would be good to post here. My mum, bless her soul was a beautiful presence in my life but her cooking and ironing skills were questionable. Back in the days when it was fashionable I brought a lovely parachute effect baggy shirt from “Top Man” these shirts were made fashionable by the likes of Rod Stewart and David Bowie in that they were baggy and naturally very creased. I think I paid what was about £25 for it at the time and that was quite a layout in the early eighties, it used a fair amount of my wage packet for that time. I had one use of it at the local nightclub before it went in to be washed, mum did the business on it and it came back totally creaseless as she had ironed every single crease out of it killing the shirts appeal instantly, and now making it into a grossly oversized formal shirt. “That was a bugger to iron” she stated, only for me to inform her of how it should look and my inherent disappointment of what I now possessed. Her reply was short and simple, “You can do your own bloody washing and ironing from now on then.” And that was how it turned out. From that point on I became an independent teenager.

Here’s where the story starts.

One night I was doing the ironing, I was standing with nothing more than a pair of nylon running shorts protecting my dignity, whilst happily singing along to the radio ironing my latest batch of washing. At some point i foolishly leant across the iron to pick something up, when the hot iron made contact with the crotch area of said running shorts and all I remember is howling like a wolf, and running around screaming at the top of my voice that I had burnt my privates. This brought Mum and Dad into the room, and howls of laughter from the pair of them as I had successfully welded the pair of shorts to the most sensitive area of my body. They were no help to me at all. As we had no car at the time father spoke to a next door neighbour and he kindly offered to take me to the A&E department at the local hospital. I now had two grown men in the car laughing at my misfortune.

A similar pair of 80s nylon running shorts

At hospital things didn’t improve much as the nurses were also laughing at my misfortune, I did however get the offending material “Peeled off” and that was not a pleasant task.

Arriving home later, slavered in ointment i was on the road to recovery. It was another one of those stories my parents enjoyed telling people of for many years to come.

I learned my lesson and made sure that from that point onwards I was always properly dressed when ironing. Underwear and a good pair of jeans are always used, and remain so to this very day.

Believe me the scar that remains is not one you can show off and boast about unless you wish to be arrested for indecency.

And therein lies the lesson for today. Us teenagers back then, very likely just as now, knew it all. We didn’t and they don’t. 😂

Have a super day everyone and be careful.