Thanks for the lift!

Our trip to Weston-Super-Mud seems destined not to happen. I postponed this weekend's re-arranged trip on Thursday because of the approaching snowy weather and by the looks of the South West today it was a good thing that I did.

So I am sitting here looking out of the window at the freezing, snow covered garden wondering what adventures this Saturday will bring the Werewolf.

Well it won't be a football match that's for certain.

Boro's home game to Bath was called off yesterday afternoon and the only game on the TV at lunch time is St. Mirren v Ross County!!

The decorating is finished (although there are worrying rumblings about the state of our bedroom) and a visit to the allotment would be totally pointless in these conditions - at least this year I did have the foresight to remove the netting from my fruit cage earlier in the week.

So it looks like another afternoon of intellectual, stimulating and thought provoking conversation down at the Fox.

Hopefully it will finish up better than last Saturday afternoons debacle.

Originally we were going to Weston-Super-Mud last weekend so I turned down the chance of a ticket to the Cardiff v Ipswich match with the Welsh Bard and his brother-in-law.

I then had to postpone the trip because Janice hadn't finished decorating so as it turned out I could have gone but it was too late to get a ticket.

Instead, I decided to go to watch Boro at home to Dover. It was freezing cold and starting to sleet when I left and I called in the Fox for the customary one on the way to the ground.

The public bar was so warm and welcoming with the second half of the QPR v Spurs game on the box. I had a second pint, then a third and before I knew it was 3.15pm. The bar was getting lively - just one of those occasions where everyone was up for good drink and plenty of 50's and 60's music on the jukebox.

Bonnie, the land-ladies daughter, who was on bar duty and incidentally who I know from her school days with Karen, couldn't believe her eyes at the sight of the over sixties singing, falling over and generally having a good time.

Cooperman, a good friend of mine, called in on his way back from work and joined in the fun and selected a batch of Bobby Darin and Doris Day records. I have a nasty recollection that at one point photos were taken of the two of us performing a lively little duet to "The Deadwood Stage"!

At 6 (ish, I think) I prepared to wobble home in the cold and sleet but Cooperman, who had his truck outside, kindly offered me a lift home.

Janice was in the kitchen when I fell indoors, so I quickly de-togged and got comfortable in front of the tellie for a lazy night.

I was awoken almost immediately by "Where's the shopping?"

"Shit, shit, shit!", I was supposed to call in the Coop on the way home.

"Sorry dear, it was so cold and wet that Danny gave me a lift home", I offered as some sort of pathetic explanation.

"Well you just better get yourself back down to the Coop then!" was the icy reply.

Realising it was my only chance of getting anything to eat I re-togged and made my wobbly way back to the Coop in the icy sleet, shopped, queued up with all the lottery hopefuls and when I finally got to the till - "Shit, shit, shit!" - I hadn't got my wallet!

I wobbled back home, in the now driving sleet, collected my wallet and wobbled back once more to the Coop, re-queued behind even more last minute lottery hopefuls, collected my shopping and paid.

Eventually, 45 minutes after first arriving home, now very cold and wet, I returned to the comfort of my sofa and sent a text to Cooperman, "Thanks for the lift!!".

What I don't understand is how women can be so unsympathetic.

And to top of it all, Boro were 5-0 at half time going on to win 5-2!!!!

The best thing that could happen this afternoon is that I get snowed in the Fox!

Well, I'm off to do the shopping, BEFORE, I go down the pub!!

I leave you with a video of a typical Saturday afternoon down the Fox public bar:


Hey Ho!

Beyond the sea

We were thinking of going away to Paphos for 3 weeks in January but Janice has at last got wise to my decorating and house maintenance avoidance tactics and decided to start giving the house a facelift instead.

Worse still she has also imposed a calorie controlled diet regime!

Rather than having to prepare and cook my own meals and, somewhat inspired by the Hairy Dieters TV programs, I have been forced to join in and show that I am shedding the pounds.

If you didn't watch the programs there's a book:



In case you are interested I have added a link to the recipes from the series at the end of this blog entry.

As you are all aware by now,I didn't get where I am today without a game plan so I have formulated a cunning four point fall back strategy:

Plan A - Low Calorie Nosh but normal liquid intake.

Plan B - Low Calorie Nosh but 50% reduced liquid intake.

Plan C - Low Calorie Nosh but 75% reduced liquid intake.

Plan D - Suicide!

Day one also saw the house facelift starting in earnest with a completely fruitless 3 hours of wandering around B&Qs trying to satisfy madams shopping list only to find either most items out of stock or failure to get two party agreement on choice. Returning home, totally stressed and starving hungry, I was presented with a bowl of clear green vegetable liquid and a Ryvita!

On day three I started a "Guess the Weight" spreadsheet which revealed I had lost 3¼ lbs, so come early doors, flushed with this success and a new found enthusiasm to "do better", (something that apparently I could have done a lot more of in most subjects over 50 years ago, according to my school reports), I jogged to the Fox.

Well I call it  jog very loosely - it was more like a geriatric shuffle and is not to be recommended for the slightly overweight, very unfit over 65's.!

On arriving at the door to the public bar I found that my legs had given up the ghost. I fell through the door and had to be propped up onto a stool in the corner of the bar where I remained, attempting to regain my breath, for a full 10 minutes before recovering sufficiently enough to thank the land lady for presenting me with a pint, pay her and take the first delicious mouthfull!

Needless to say I walked (wobbled) home.

The Welsh Bard offered this encouragement:

They’ve had enough of Baltzer! Their paths have reached a fork:
He’s started using silly words like ‘diet’.
Now, when it comes to fitness, he’s hardly one to talk,
And, at the Fox, there’s danger of a riot!
Yes, Chris has started jogging, when he can barely walk,
And they don’t believe that Janice is watching like a hawk,
So fans have reached consensus, from Yately up to York,
Requesting that, in future, he keeps quiet!

They don’t want Baltzer slimmer – he’s scarcely gone to seed
(Apart from seed potatoes...), but all this talk of jogging,
And other crazy concepts are not what people need –
It’s time to stop the blasphemies he’s flogging.
As all of them are devotees of indolence and greed,
His fans may be in danger of taking what they read
As gospel, so they think it’s time that Chris should take the lead,
To concentrate on loopy lunar blogging!

It's now day 6 and I've just weighed in at 13st 5lb, making it 5 lbs I have managed to lose so far.

Only 19 more lbs to go!

It's going to be a long six weeks before we go to Portugal again!

Tomorrow we are off to Weston-Super-Mud for a long week-end, a place that we have wanted to visit since watching "The Cafe" comedy series on Sky One last year:

Let's hope Cyril's Cafe is open.

I was a great fan of Bobby Darin in the 60's and the song "Beyond the Sea" is used as the theme song for "The Cafe" series, sung delightfully by Kathryn Williams.

Here's another version by Jeff Lynne, the final track from his new CD "Long Wave":

Pop music at it's best (IMHO)! He's singing and playing every instrument on this CD except the strings.

Hey Ho!

LINK TO HAIRY DIETERS RECIPES:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/search?programmes[]=p00vq8c6

Once more unto the Plot, dear friends, once more.........

On New Year's day, spurred on by the blue skies and sunshine, and full of New Year's resolution your intrepid allotmenteer ventured forth once more unto the plot to do battle with the out of control cultivated blackberry plants that were threatening to crowd out my raspberry canes and take over my soft fruit bed.

As usual, as soon as I arrived, I discovered there were many other maintenance jobs that needed doing, so morning visits have been scheduled for every day this and next week while the weather remains dry.

I have to count myself lucky that I can actually do anything as my plot is on a slightly raised corner of the site unlike several other plots that are completely underwater.

Despite the awful Spring and Summer weather resulting in a poor return from the normal banker crop, the potato, and the constant attack from the monster slugs which even gorged themselves on my beetroot, some of the other crops have flourished.

None more so that the humble parsnip, a vegetable that I have consistently failed to grow successfully since I took on the allotment. I have spent hours raising parsnips in the greenhouse in root trainer cells then carefully transplanting them into individually prepared conical shaped holes filled with sifted soil. All to no avail. The results were invariably the same - stumpy tops and "forking" roots sprouting out in all directions.

This year I took no special care at all. I sowed  3 seeds in a group at intervals direct into the ground and forgot about them. To my amazement they all germinated and I was left with two rows of healthy seedlings.  On harvesting some for the Christmas period I was amazed at how difficult they were to dig up, as it turned out not through frozen or compacted soil but because of their size.

I dug up two with a combined weight 3¼ pounds. Now that's what you call parsnips!

We were going to go to Cyprus for 3 weeks in January but decided we should spend some time re-acquainting ourselves with our house and all the outstanding jobs that have accumulated over the last two years. Needles to say I am still at the "Planning" stage.

The Fox made the front page of the local paper again last week for all the right reasons.

Community pub thrives after time called on food plans

It would appear that after nine months Greene King have finally got the message. The Fox is where local people go to have a drink NOT to sit down and eat. Even their final pathetic attempt to drum up some food trade by installing a hot cabinet on the bar, armed with over priced Peter's Pies, failed miserably. All it was used for was warming up the hands of the boys from the building sites when they came in from work and the unsold produce, which hadn't been nicked when no one was looking, becoming the staple diet of the now quite portly "Who Ate All the Pies Roger", the Landlord.

I am now reading the fourth of the Brentford trilogy novels by Robert Rankine, "The Sprouts of Wrath", in which there is a wonderful passage describing exactly how a pub should be:

"Not one hundred yards due North of Norman's shop, as fair flies the griffin, there stands a public house which is the very hub of the Brentonian universe. Solidly constructed of old London stocks and fondly embellished with all the Victorian twiddly bits, The Flying Swan gallantly withstood the slings and arrows of outrageous brewery management. It's patrons have never known the horrors of fizzy beer or pub grub that comes 'a-la-basket'.

    The Swan had grown old gracefully. The etched glass windows, tinted with nicotine and the exhalations of a million beery breaths, sustained that quality of  light exclusive to elderly pubs. The burnished brass of the beer engines shone like gold and the bar top glowed with a deep patina. The heady perfumes of Brasso and beeswax blended with those of hops and barley, grape and grain to produce an enchanting fragrance all of its own. Only a man born without a soul would not pause a moment upon entering The Swan for the first time, breathe in the air, savour the atmosphere and say, 'This is a pub'.

    But of course, for all its ambience, redolence and Ridley Scottery, a pub is only as good as the beer it serves. And here it must be said that those on offer were of such a toothsome relish, so satisfying in body and flavour as might reasonably elicit bouts of incredulous head-shaking and murmurs of disbelief from the reader.

    Nevertheless the eight hand-drawn ales available were of a quality capable of raising eulogies from seasoned  drinkers, their bar-side converse long hag-ridden by cliches of how much better beer tasted in the good old days."  
                                                                                               Robert Rankine - The Grapes of Wrath

As this particular story unfolds Brentford is chosen to host the Olympic Games, not  at Griffin Park, but in a soon to be erected purpose built stadium supported 500 feet in the air by four large columns. In preparation for the great event the Brewery, (it's got to be Greene King), have unveiled grandiose plans to convert the Flying Swan into an upmarket Hooray Henry 'wine and dine' bar, changing its name to "The Pentathlon Bar". The locals are NOT happy!

Remind you of your local? It reminds me of mine!

When I heard this story I must confess it made me laugh and the Welsh Bard quite rightly felt strongly about it as well:

Another fine day, so once more unto the plot dear friends, once more!

I leave you with this video of Jeff Lynn's new group, appropriately named "The Jeffs" with a track from their latest CD -

Clever! That's a real 'one man band'.

Hey Ho!