Just follow the damn recipe
Those were the words said to me by Wifey the other day. I was my first time trying to make home made tomato soup. After trying to get the ingredients, (you try getting hold of 1 kilo of ripe tomatoes in a supermarket. Every single one of them was as hard as a brick. Do they not know what 'ripe' means nowadays?) Anyway, back to my quest. I managed to get all the ingredients together and started to prepare. 'Read the damn recipe first' I was told. I did. Who needs a recipe. Try your own method first. Gung ho spirit and all that. Huh. Disaster at the last hurdle. I didn't understand the last part of the recipe. I went ahaead and did it my way anyway. 'WRONG' Read the damn recipe seemed to appear in my brain somewhere. I made a boo boo and ended up with a pot of lovely, oh so lovely tomato soup. Not red tomato soup like it showed you in the recipe but a bright orange tomato soup. Nobody would eat it except me. This is now the fourth day in a row that I have been eating it. It will soon all be gone. Wifey wanted to throw it out. But me being as stubborn as I am refused to let her do that.( I hate to see 'good' food wasted) I think I am turning a bit orange myself now. Who knows. It might be a good thing with Halloween nearly upon us. I can scare the bejeebers out of those annoying litte kiddies that keep coming to my door begging for money for the guy. The GUY!! I always thought that that was for the English crowd who celebrated Guy Falkes Day. Not for Halloween. Ah well. Things change as one gets older. At least when I went begging around the doors I was dressed up and the money went to buy fireworks. Not so nowadays, as they are only sold under licence here. Is it to buy sweets maybe? not a chance. More likely alchopops. Moan moan moan and still more moaning. Old age seems to do that to a body nowadays or was it always like that. All those older people that you saw when you were young always seemed to moan about everything. No doubt it was the same for them in their young days. Who cares? I am off to the south for a few days to see my friends and to enjoy myself for a few days. I am going to see if the Vodka down there can match the Vodka up here in the North. It probably does but it will make an interesting debate in the pub. Do you not think? It can be debated along with all the other nonsense things that are talked about the more you have to drink. I am looking forward to it anyway. Who knows, i might get a blog in while I am down there. I might even be drunk at the time. If I am then please excuse me in advance. I will read it the next day and wonder what was going on. Cheers and clink clink!
Posted :: Tuesday 10/24/2006 6:42:00 AM
Just to let you know
Just to let you know that I am still around. Not much happening here. Although yesterday there was an event that made me realise that all is not well in the world of retail. I happened to be looking for a part for my fire. The shop that I went into was probably the only specialist fireplace shop in the town, so I thought that this would be the place to go. STOP RIGHT THERE. I went in with wifey and we stood around for a while. There was a salesperson talking to customers about gas fires. Thats OK. He was busy. No sign of anybody else. Now you have to imagine that this is a rather large shop with lots of fireplaces on display. We went further up towards the back of the shop and I noticed an office. As I went towards it I noticed movement. I thought, maybe they will come out to us now that they know we are here. No. Nothing happened. I went closer to the door of the office and then, only then did someone get up off their chair to come out to see what we wanted. I showed the salesperson what we wanted . i was then told that they might have one in the shop. They went and got the item but it was not the right size. I was then informed that they had one in the back store bt it was locked up. we stood there in anticipation. Is this salesperson going to go to the back store and open it up for us so that we can get our part and be on our way. NOT LIKELY. We are told that if we go up the street to the local hardware shop we might get one there. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Not only was this person turning down a sale but they were referring me to the competition up the street, to the very shop that I used to own a number of years ago. Is my money no good? Am I an undesirable that must be got out of the shop at once? I told the salesperson that I used to own the shop that i was being referred to. There attitude changed somewhat. They realised that I was a salesperson as well, albeit a retired one, and that maybe my money was as good as any other mans. When I was in retail I would have sold my Granny if it meant keeping the customer happy. The customer is not always right but it is their money that pays the bills. First rule of business according to Arkwright's Law of Retailing. OK. So I wasn't going to spend £1500.00 on a new fire place. I was only going to spend £15.00 on a part for a fire place. If my memory is correct. The profit margins are far greater on spare parts than the new item. We ended up going up the street to my old shop and having a great chat with the person who now owns it. Not only did we got the item but we got discount as well. It's nice to go to the small businessman. The big ones have too much money. That's patently obvious if they don't want yours. Ta Ta for now
Posted :: Sunday 10/15/2006 9:07:00 AM
What to eat - what not to eat
That's it. I've been told. It's on the record and no going back. I have been told by the renal dietician that i am now not supposed to eat any of my favourite foods. I can eat any of the foods that i don't like but what about the ones that I do like. I can now go into the supermarket every week and go to two places. The fresh fruit and veg and then straight to the checkout. I can do without the canned foods as I don't really eat much in tinned foods anyway. The sauces might prove a bit more awkward but the biggest place that I will miss will be the deli counter. No mre cheese. No more bacon / ham / corned beef / pork pies / black pudding------aaaarrrgggghhhhh--NO BLACK PUDDING!!!! I will start to feel like what's his face out of Big Brother. The Welsh one who couldn't boil an egg. All this is to help reduce my blood pressure so that my kidneys will work better and I might be able to keep off dialysis for a while longer. The good part of the meeting was that there is no ban on alcohol----YET!!! Thank god for that. Anyway, as I have always maintained, there is always someone worse off than me. There has to be. What is worse than not being allowed cheese. No more midnight snacks of cheese on toast for yours truly. White bread is another one. Sometimes I think that these people sit in a circle in a room and think of all the nice things that they like and say "We'll tell them that they arn't allowed these foods anymore, that means there will be more for us ----eh!" Not much point in going on about it. They have got my best interests at heart after all. I just need to moan every now and then. Join me if you want to, it does you good. I am feeling better already. I have to feel better for the big party coming up at the end of the month. Where there is drink, drink and more drink. There might be some healthy food as well. If I drink enough I might be able to eat some of it. One always gets hungry after a good night on the drink. To change the subject. After the big disappointment with the Ebay auction at the weekend. I managed to find another CD on another site. The only problem is that they want more that I could ever afford to pay for it. Even as an investment, I couldn't afford it. Looks as though I will just have to wait for another one to appear on good ole Ebay again. If ever. For all you ex pats out there, did you see the pictures of Barry's on the front page? Can you remember the good times had in that place. Did you ever play the ice hockey machines. One of my summer jobs was to run the Dodgems and Speedway Track. My friend did the Roller Coaster on the pier. Those were the days. Huh! The white barrels in the pictures were put there to stop the car bombers. Some job they did. One of my shops suffered the consequences of one of thse feckin' things and the white barrels didn't stop anything. Anyway. Better go. I hear Wifey coming up the stairs. Don't want to get told off for using the laptop in bed again. After all,` what is the point of having a wireless connection when I can plug it into the mains downstairs....eh eh! Cheers for now.
Posted :: Tuesday 10/10/2006 3:13:00 PM
It happens from time to time
Yes, indeed it does. It happened to me this morning. There i was, sitting on an item and ready to pounce. I was so excited I could only quiver with it. Then the last few seconds arrived and I was all ready. Then POW! I put my bid in. WHAT'S HAPPENED. My bid did not go through. My finger had slipped on the keyboard and i missed the opportunity of a lifetime to get my hands on one of the rarest Rolling Stones CD's to ever come up on Ebay since it began. AND, AND, my bid would have won. (I checked this after i ran up and down the stairs a dozen times to vent my anger at myself for being so stupid. Oh well. It happens sometimes. Wifey turned to me and said 'Just look at all that money you saved' That is not the point dear. Again wifey and my collection are two things that don't seem to understand each other. Anyway. I am now having a great time calming down to the music of mountain. I picked this particular band to listen to as i love their music. I am listening to Mountain Live. Possibly the best live album ever done. apart from Colosseum Live or Johnny Winter AndALive or Grateful Dead Live or or or. The list can go on. I do like the live albums over studio ones as they have more of a party feel to them especially when they are turned up full volume on the 25 speakers that are banked against the wall. I think the neighbours like my type of music as well. They have never come round to complain. Nantucket Sleighride never sounded so good as it does up loud. For those of you who know this music you know what i mean, don't you. Some of the parties I had in my parents house in the nineteen seventies were quite legendary. And this was the sort of music you would expect to hear. No thing else. Just good ROCK music was all that was on the menu. I feel now that i am over my major disappointment of earlier on. It's not Ebays fault that my finger slipped. It was earlier, but not now. Who knows, another copy of this mega rare Japanese CD just might appear on there again. Who knows. I will be keeping a keen eye out for it. I am not that hopeful though. Am I being too pessimistic? I'll go to the pictures tonight and take my mind off things for a while. After all, I did promise wifey a night out. Who knows, there might actually be something worth watching on. TA ta for now.
Posted :: Saturday 10/7/2006 8:44:00 AM
45 minutes 13 robots
Yes, 45 feckin' minutes, 13 robots AND the complete works of mozart in between. That's how long it took me to make contact with a human on the other end of the phone the other day. Even then. Even then I was given a direct dial number to ring and i would get straight through to the person I was told that I really wanted to speak to. Why don't they just put me through. After all my phone call so far has paid for the whole bloody annual leave and Xmas party all rolled into one. Who am i trying to get through to? The feckin' telephone company called BT. (that stands for BLOODY TERRIBLE by the way) I did the direct dial that would take me straight through, guess what, I was put in another feckin' queue. I slammed the phone down and immediately burst into tears. It is not a pretty sight seeing a grown man cry. Anyway, I am sure you are all wondering how the great get together was. It was great. I think I drank my annual supply of vodka all in 4 days. The orange juice wasn't bad either. There we all were sitting in my local, remember that all the others haven't been here for a while so it had to MY local. It was brill. Every time we went in the same table was empty and the same barman was on duty. Spooky or what. It made it a lot easier to order the drinks though. Every time we went through the door he started to pour the Guiness for the Guiness lovers and then the Lager was poured and then the Vodka in ice came along. It was really a well oiled machine, just like us by the time we left to go to the club to watch the local band and the local talent!!!!! One of the boys made a comment. He had worked it out that it was 32 years since we had all been together in the same place. Although i have seen all of them from time to time in either ones or twos I have never seen 9 of us in the same place for that period of time. Not bad for keeping friendships alive. eh? Come the end of this month I will be going down south to visit one of the boys . He informed us all that he has an annual Halloween party and that any of us will be most welcome. I am going down to see that part of the country because I haven't been there sine the early 70's. The big problem is getting there. It works out that I can travel to my friend in Toronto in about 7 hours or less. That is over 3,000 miles away. I can travel to the South in the same time if not longer and that is only 200 miles away. Explain that if you can. Even going to London is quicker and that is 300 miles away. It must be the wee windy country roads that are down there. I am looking forward to it anyway. I must remember to take some fireworks with me as apparently you can't get them there legally. I am now getting really excited about an item that i am hoping to bid for on Ebay. It is a rather rare CD by my favourite band. Yes. It is a Stones CD. Yes, I have all the songs at least 20 times over. But this one comes from Japan and i don't have it in my collection so I MUST have it or life isn't worth it. At least that's what I tell Wifey. She doesn't really understand the memtality of a man and his collection. Neither do I for that matter. But it's fun and it keeps me out of the pub. Mmmmmmm pub, pub mmmmmmmm. Must stay out of pub. I think it will be a while before I am in the pub again. Too much vodka in the last wee while methinks. That's it for now. Cheers.
Posted :: Thursday 10/5/2006 5:13:00 AM
