Sunday 27 July 2008

Two turtle doves

A couple of weeks ago we discovered a nest in a grapevine that we have which grows close to the house. We've now got two juvenile collared turtle doves just about ready to leave home:


All together now, aahhhhhhhhhh!

Friday 25 July 2008

Fashion statement

It was warm as I walked to the station this morning. Possibly one of the warmest we’ve had this year. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and a youth was dawdling in front of me. The afore mentioned spotty Herbert was wear a woolly hat, jeans that were falling down and shoes with the laces undone. Not a good look in anyone’s book me thinks. Why youngsters want to walk around with the waist of their jeans half way down their arse is incomprehensible. It shows off their poor taste in knickers (I suspect that they are rarely Marks & Sparks), and the leg bottoms of their jeans drag on the ground, consequently fraying the edges.

Haven’t the young heard of braces?

There is no way that this look can be comfortable, but of course when has fashion ever been comfortable?

On the fashion statement of life I’m well in the red. I’m just glad that I’m a grumpy old git!

Tuesday 22 July 2008

Alcohol ban

This week I will mostly be not drinking alcohol.

I’ve not had any alcohol since Saturday, and I plan to go without until Friday evening. In a normal week I like to have two or, preferably, three days without the stuff so as not to ‘overload’ my system. Of late I’ve not been having those days of abstinence. Hence it’s time to stop.

I firmly believe that it is not good for the body to consume alcohol every single day. I’m convinced that having some days without helps to detoxify the body. I suppose that it could be argued that having booze everyday helps preserve the body in a pickling sort of way, but I’m not prepared to risk that approach.

This week is not going to be easy as I’m partial to the odd glass of beer, as you may well know. I blog about real ale, and it certainly helps if you can drink the stuff. If nothing else it acts as inspiration.

My self-imposed booze ban is down to the fact that I’ve consumed rather too much recently and I’ve noticed my waistline disappearing under the dreaded beerus gutti.

Down with middle-age spread!

Tuesday 15 July 2008

Mint Monday in Mustard City

As the train approached Norwich station last night the carriage was filled with the effluvia of mint.

Guess what sort of sauce Coleman's were making yesterday?

Monday 14 July 2008

Accident

As I was walking from the train station to work this morning, I came upon an accident. It was on the main road, in front of the trading estate that I work on. As I reached the scene the ambulance was arriving. It was hard to make out what had happened. Some poor soul was lying on the path, with another citizen crouched over him. In the road there was a two car shunt. A car, not sure what make, had run into the back of a Rover. Not wishing to intrude into other people’s misery I carried on walking, rather than stopping to gawp. It was not clear if the person lying on the ground was a pedestrian, a cyclist, or passenger in one of the cars. I suspect the former, but it’s so easy to jump to wrong conclusions. My immediate thought when seeing the Rover was that the accident was probably caused be the driver being the obligatory dozy fucker one needs to be when driving this make. And despite wearing tracksuit bottoms the injured bloke (I do hope he wasn’t badly hurt) is somebody’s loved-one, be it son, father, brother, husband or lover.

This comes on the day of the funeral of the daughter of a work colleague. She was killed in a car accident.

Events like this make you stop and think about your own life. Well they do for me. It brings home the fragility and precarious nature of life. It makes me reassess how I treat those around me. How I live my life. How I should do more to confront my own prejudices. The trouble is that for me, these feelings will no doubt fade, as they usually do, after a relatively short time. If only I could distil the compassion and appreciation that I currently feel, and place it in a phial. A phial to hang around my neck, to act as a reminder about the person I should be, and to use in times of need.

Sunday 13 July 2008

A thought

”It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our team members and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue.”

I don't know who originally said it, but I received this quotation last week in an email from the CEO of our parent company. I'll leave it with you.

Monday 7 July 2008

Communication breakdown

Isn’t e-mail a wonderful thing?

I’ve just received a reply to an e-mail I had sent to someone supporting them as they had asked me to do. They have replied rebuking me!

I’m confused, we are probably now both aggrieved, and neither of us probably knows why. The written word is my preferred form of making contact with people but it is oh so hard to make yourself understood without the emphasis and inflections that the spoken word affords.

It’s Monday morning and life seems far too complicated!

Tuesday 1 July 2008

(K)nickers off ready when I come home

You might have noticed that I’ve somewhat neglected this blog over the last few months. Life’s been quite hectic so something had to give, and this blog has been a casualty. I have been blogging, but only over on my RealAleBlog.

A couple of months ago we move to Norwich, a very fine city even though it is in Norfolk, and we are most certainly enjoying living there. Moving from a market town to the big city broadens one’s horizons, opening up a whole new world of choice. Norwich has an Arts Centre as well as an Arts Cinema. Masses of music events and more pubs than you can shake a stick at. Culture by the bucket full! I just hope that we can find time to avail ourselves of all these facilities. Something else that I’m not used to, and still can’t get over, is the fact that you have two or three of certain chain stores or restaurants. Having moved I am now able to go to work by train. A double edged sword if ever there was one. So it’s been change, change, change in the Of-Course household.