Raining ! (again)

I would blog but it's rained.  Nothing exciting has happened because of the rain.  Nothing exciting WILL happen because of the rain.  British Summer-time has ended.  Official.  Bloody rain !

Customer Service vacancy ?

So ...  the phone rings today.  I answer it.  Immediately, by the way the guy is talking I know it's either a scam or it is someone trying to sell something.  I think the guy may have been Indian.  No offence to anyone from India reading this, but he did have a very strong accent.  My surname is quite a simple one.  It has an 'e' on the end of it but it's not pronounced.  I knew we were in trouble when the guy on the phone said 'is that Mr' and he pronounced my surname as if there was 'ay' on the end.  I just said hello again.  He then says 'oh, is that Mrs ...'.  I say yes.  The guy then says that he is from the technical department of Windows and that he can tell each time I log in that I am having download problems and that I am probably downloading some malicious files and that he can help eradicate these problems.  Uh-huh.  I've had one of these before, or maybe five before.  I know all about the scam where you log in, they give you a password, then they hack in and steal all your personal details from your computer.  Normally with these calls I play along a little and try to get them to give me their phone number in case I get cut off and I can always phone them back as I really do need their help. 

I couldn't be bothered to play the game today.  I just told him that I knew of his scam and that I wasn't going to log into my computer and let him steal all my personal data.  I think I may have flustered him a little because he began to talk so fast that I really couldn't understand him.  I thought I did hear one word in particular though, so I asked him to repeat what he had just said.  He said 'Mrs, fuck you and fuck your family'.  I said pardon.  Again he said 'fuck you and fuck your family'.  I think he might have put an 'a' on the end of the word fuck each time.  It sounded now like he could be of mixed race - possibly Italian and Indian.  It probably didn't help with me ending the conversation by saying 'and how fucking rude are you'.  After the call I dialled 1471 to see if a number had been left so I could make a polite phone call back to them.  It said 'you were called today by telephone number 000000000'.  Odd.  I phoned my mum afterwards to warn her about this scam, again.  When I say warn her, I don't mean that the phone call would shock her, I was just warning her that perhaps if she gets the same guy on the phone she can tell him to fuck himself and fuck his family before he gets in there first !!!

Splash !!!

I had no fear as a child.  I didn't realise the dangers of the river.  We now see images of kids jumping in rivers and either getting sucked under with the current or just getting off lightly (as opposed to dying) with a few broken limbs or nasty cuts.  The picture below is of the river in the town where I live now.  It pretty much stretches all through the town and you can get to different parts of it at various points within the town.  The part of the river in the picture is now full of old shopping trollies and other very dangerous bits of metal.  I guess it was just as full with rubbish when I was a kid.  Large holiday boats also travel down this stretch of the river as the river pretty much stretches quite a way through the county.  That means that most of the river is full of shit too.  People on a boating holiday have toilets installed in the boats.  They don't save it and take it home !!!

Cars used to travel over this bridge years ago.  See the part between the arches on the right hand side of the picture ?  Yeah ?  We used to wait for the cars to go over the bridge, then stand right on the top, balance as best we could, wait for the boats to pass then leap into the water.  We had to make sure as we jumped that we missed the wall completely and that we jumped further enough out to miss the brickwork construction on the bottom of the building as it entered the water.  I think I was about 10 years old at this point.  No fear !

Growing Up - Part I !!!

The London riots got me thinking.  I wasn’t perfect as a kid, far from it, but when you see the kids nowadays it makes you see things now how your parents did when you were younger.  I called this ‘Growing Up Part I’ because there are so many tales I could write, but the blog would go on forever.  Maybe another day I will bore you with another tale from my childhood.

I done bad things as a kid.  Okay so I thought they were bad things and of course they were for children of my age.  I’m talking about things like stealing sweets from the sweet shop when I was about eight years old.  Don’t look at me and shake your head.  I’m sure every child, at some point in their youth, stole sweets.  There was a tiny sweet shop in the village where I used to live as a child.  I think it must’ve originally been the front room of a house and then that room was just used as a sweet shop.  I know this because the old lady that owned it had to walk from one room into this sweet shop.  When I say ‘old lady’ I really do mean that.  I think she must’ve been at least 70 and not very fast.  Us kids knew that if we got to the door of the shop and then prepared ourselves by emptying our pockets, we could get into the shop and stuff our pockets full of sweets before the old lady had managed to hobble from her house into the shop.   

We’d then spend about 5p on penny chews and go out of the shop knowing we had enough sweets to last us a good couple of days.  I know that was a very bad thing to do and we never knew if we would be more scared if it was the shopkeeper that caught us or whether, if we did ever get caught, they chose to tell our parents.  It was a small village and everyone knew everyone and kids our age were still scared of our parents !  I think this shop might even have sold cigarettes, but in my days the kids just weren’t interested in them.  Young children didn’t smoke like they do nowadays and we didn’t even think about stealing the cigarettes to sell to the older kids. 

Now we see the London riots with youths picking up any large objects they can find and then smashing them into windows of shops to gain access and steal whatever they can.  Stealing handfuls of penny sweets really doesn’t seem that bad now.  The 70 year old lady would stand no chance against todays eight year old kids.

Lambrini Girl ???

No, I'm not a 'Lambrini Girl'.  Okay, so you need to be British and need to have seen the Lambrini advert to know what a Lambrini Girl is.  But I assure you I'm not one.  I just happen to quite like the taste of Lambrini and quite like the fact that it is only £1.23 per bottle at Tesco.  See - for less than a fiver I can get quite merry.  That's all there is to it really !

Tipple of the Day !!!

Everyone is talking about the riots happening in London.  I'm not.  Not because I don't care, but I think it's been on the news enough that everyone in the world knows what is happening.

Instead I will show you my 'tipple of the day'.  I'm still trying to find a nice drink.  I went off lager many years ago.  Even with lime in it some of the lagers still taste vile.  I do sometimes just top my glass of lager up with a little lemonade but apparently I'm killing it !  So I'm back to cider.  This one is 'Jacques'.  It says on the back 'a deliciously refreshed blend of lightly sparkling cider and the concentrated juice of orchard fruits - enjoy Jacques over ice'.  Okay, so I forgot the ice but I'm thinking if I drink it quick enough I won't need the ice because it won't have had the chance to go warm !

There is another 'Jacques' cider.  The other one is deep red in colour and I think it is made from forest fruits as opposed to orchard fruits.  I think it might actually be the forest fruits one that I like best.  Although saying that, this one isn't going down too bad.  I'll let you know in due course which one I prefer !

Holidays are over !!!

As it says – the holidays are over.  Well, they are for my parents and my aunt.  For my parents I have fed the big fish, fed the little fish, watered the runner beans and fed the wild blackbird.  Yes, this is a wild blackbird and has special food bought for it.  Tubs of worms !  This same blackbird has been visiting their house for the past, hmm, at least 5 years.  It has been known to walk into the kitchen before.  It gets very impatient and taps on the window with its beak if it is hungry.  If that fails it begins to sing until someone pays it attention.  Well, it’s not the attention it wants, just the worms.



Big fish food, little fish food, blackird food !



We did check the post and water other parts of the garden, but really it was the runner beans that mum needed watering most.  Today she is having roast pork for her dinner.  She has managed to get an apple from a small tree in the garden for the apple sauce, she got enough runner beans to have with her dinner and she has picked loads of plums from her plum tree (we did confess that we ate two).  She says she is going to put some apples and blackberries (also from the garden) with the plums then freeze them in bags so she can just take out a bag at a time and make some form of dessert from them.  Good thinking Batman.  She bought us a stick of rock each back from her holiday – one is pineapple flavour and the other is banana flavour.  HE thinks he’s getting the banana flavoured one.  HE can think what he likes.  It ain’t happening.  I think he’ll like the pineapple flavoured one.  She also rewarded us with a little cash too !  Thanks mum.

As for my Aunt ...  we watered her plants, checked that her electric stayed on and watered the vegetable patch in the back garden.  Oh yes, not forgetting the sunflowers – they were the biggest concern.  They lived.  Phew.  I was ‘responsible’ for them but I don’t really like being responsible.  I always think that makes me a proper grown up and I don’t think I want to be a grown up either.  My aunt gave us a card with a sheep on the front of it with the words ‘ewe are my sunshine’ on it.  Inside she wrote ‘thank you so much’ but had she have been thinking cleverly, she could have put ‘thank ewe so much’.  Never mind.  The sheep is also made of some kind of fabric – I’ve never seen a yellow sheep before.  She also rewarded us with a little cash.  Thanks aunty.

So ...   now all the duties are over, I think I can find enough time for myself to sit down and enjoy a Bulmers Cider 'with crushed red berries and lime'.  Don't mind if I do !!!



Sunflowers and frogs !!!

I couldn't think of anything else to call this post.  It's about sunflowers and frogs so I thought why not call it just that !!!  Anyway, as you know I've been on 'watering' duty this week.  I've done this before but this time the conversation with my aunt and her saying 'we're worried we could lose the sunflowers with this hot weather' kind of scared me.  Great.  That meant I was solely responsible for two big sunflowers.  We've been watering them since Monday night.  They looked okay all week.  We gave them a good soaking again last night but then since the early hours of this morning it's been raining so I think they'll be fine now.  My aunt is back today (probably as I type this she has arrived home) and I'm pleased that I will no longer have such a great responsibility.  How long do sunflowers last for ?   Uh-oh, I hope my aunt isn't going away again any time soon !



They lived !

When we went to do the watering on Tuesday night it was a bit damp.  It had rained a little during the day but not really enough to actually give the plants a good watering.  So while we were there doing the watering we noticed the flowers kept moving.  Then all of a sudden a big frog hopped out.  I think they must've been disturbed by the sprinkler going in their 'house' !  Of course, last night I went back armed with my mobile phone and was ready to take a picture.  There he was again, the big frog, Freddy !  I'm quite sure it was the same one.  Okay so I'm not, I think we saw at least three big frogs while we were there and anything up to 20 baby frogs all hopping around, taking in the damp air and moist grass.  Freddy hopped about and I just said 'please stay still, let me take your picture' and he did.  He was quite obliging.  I'm not sure if he wants a modelling fee for sitting pretty !



Freddy the frog !



Summer has been ... again !!!

I might have told you in a previous post that we seem to be getting two days a month of hot weather.  Maybe I didn't tell you.  Maybe I just thought I did.  Anyway ...  we had two hot days in May, two hot days in June, two hot days in July and we've just had our two hot days in August.  They are now forecasting rain and thunderstorms for tomorrow so it would appear that Summer is over again.  I wonder if the weather will run to two good days in September ?  I sat in the garden for maybe an hour yesterday and again today.  It was a bit of a job to do as we had to dodge the clouds yesterday and then a few drops of rain today.  Never mind.  It also poured down with rain yesterday evening just after we had watered the entire contents of my aunt's garden.  Oh well, the rain is good for the garden I guess.  My mums plums are doing well.  See for yourself ...

See, they are quite red aren't they ?  We still daren't eat one though.  She might know.  She might be on holiday but she has this sense of knowing what's happening at all times.  I once thought she had eyes in the back of her head.  Of course I know this isn't true because when I was about six she woke up while I was routling in her hair looking for her eyes.  We won't eat the plums but they ARE nice and red.  I think my arm might be catching up in colour too.  Wanna look ?

The End.  And possibly the end of Summer too.

My garden !!!

Okay, so I'm not exactly telling the truth.  These pictures didn't actually come from MY garden.  As some of you know, my garden just really consists of a lawn with stones round the edge and a few pot plants, but hey, that does us.  These pictures are from the gardens I've been looking after for the past few days.  So for now I think we CAN call them my garden(s).  I'll apologise now.  I know the pictures aren't very good.  I do need practice in taking better pictures and it didn't help that I just took these quickly on my mobile phone.  It was getting dark and we had watering to do !

My mums plums !  These are on a tree in her garden.  When I say tree, it's more twig looking than tree looking but it does produce plums.  I bought her it for Mothers Day in 2009 (I think) and it produced plums last year too.  We thought about eating one as we were watering the garden but we daren't, just in case she's counted them !!!

The pigs arse !  This is an ornamental 'thing' that my aunt bought for her garden.  We don't really ask WHY she bought it, but I have to say, she was very excited the day she bought it and couldn't wait to get it out of the box to show us.  I'm not sure the neighbours were too sure about it after watching HIM water the garden last night and then blasted the hose over the pig and said 'just washing the pigs arse' !!!

Oh, and the last picture is of Buster.  This has nothing really to do with the gardens but I just downloaded the other pictures from my phone and found this one on there.  I thought I would share the picture with you guys because I hope you will all agree, what a handsome lad he is !!!  I have no idea why it cut the bottom corner off the picture either !

Summer is here .... well, for a limited period only !!!

Well today it is 01 August and we are still waiting for our Summer.  The weather forecasters are saying we are going to get another mini heatwave, lasting from today until Wednesday.  Wow.  Three days.  When is the rest of summer arriving or is this it ?  I went out in the car this morning and it said 'outside temperature 27C'.  I now know that is 80.6F - I've done my homework and found if you multiply the temperature in C by 1.8, then add 32, you get the temperature in F.  Although judging by the weather at the moment, it might be better just to think of a number, times it by 1.8, add any other number of your choice, take away the number you first thought of and then pretend that will be the temperature for the day.  Okay so the forecasters might have got the temperature right but it's still quite breezy and there is no sun to speak of.  I had big plans for today.  I was going to have a day in the garden.  Oh no, I don't mean 'doing' the garden, digging, planting, that kind of thing - just lazing.  Doing nothing.  It didn't really happen.  I made us a sandwich for lunch and sat out there and ate it.  That was it. 

Now we just have to hope that the weather stays fine for Saturday and we will have a boozy, lazy, barbecue day.  Yes, this is the same barbecue that we've been waiting to have since the beginning of May.  I'm quite looking forward to a nice day in the garden with plenty of wine.  I think I'll have deserved it by then as I'm looking after two of my relations houses until Thursday/Friday.  Seriously, our weather has just not been good enough to enjoy a nice barbecue.  So watch this space.  I'd say 'pics of the barbecue to follow' but I'm still not holding my breath !  So here is just a picture of the barbecue, sitting in the corner, not getting much use !