continued
Whoops. First mistake of writing in bed. Don't lean forward with your finger on the keyboard!!!! I was trying to fix the spelling on wifey by the way but I wanted to become more comfortable and in the process of things it happened. I will have to be more careful if I want to do this agin in the future. After all this waiting et al I am very pleased that I have got this far with it even though I am still trying to get used to the keypad. You have no ideas how many other mistakes that have been made during this session. Manfred Mann have just started on the radio. Mighty Quinn. Sixties music, my favourite. Todays music doesn't do much for me nowadays. No imagination. Somebody once said that all the great musical ideas happened in the sixties and early seventies. Wifey has just come into the bedroom and has quite catagorically put her foot down. I am not to use this in bed. I better go now as I don't want to upset the wee squidgeon. Also the dogs want up on the bed as well and then there will be no room to work. Dog sloobers don't go well with puters. Cheers for now
Posted :: Monday 9/25/2006 3:24:00 PM
If you are reading this
If you are reading this I am lying in bed listening to my favourite radio show and thinking, yes, he's got the hang of this thing at last. The thing being the new first time ever laptop notebook computer thing that I bought myself last week. It really does work and the instruction manual was right after all and not written by a complete moron living in the back end of stupidsville. Sorry to all the stupidvillians around the world. No offence meant. Anyway, lying on my back propped up in bed writing this stuff is good fun. (note, can one lie on their back while being propped up?)(answers in a plain brown envelope please to the king of stupidsville) Yes, lying on my back while doing this is a totally new experience for me. Apart from actually doing this , you must also realise that this is the very first blog to come from my bed. Will there be more? It all depends on what wifet has to say
Posted :: Monday 9/25/2006 3:07:00 PM
Feckin puters!!!
Feckin puters indeed. Something technical that was / is beyond yours trulys control or understanding happened to my, note MY, computer last week shortly after number one son had downloaded stuff and shortly after darling daughter had been using it for stuff. Coincidence or what? Anyway. I have, with the gracious help of my puter buddy who knows whats what around a motherboard and a c drive and a blether thing that does this and that for the f drive to control everything else including the washing machine next door got some sort of a reaction to my constant crying and gnashing and swearing at the thing, to work!! Wahay. By the way, I have also got my new laptop / notebook and i am still trying out all the buttons on it to see what it can do. It looks quite dinky and is so small and slim that I will be able to take it anywhere I want with ease except the lounge where wifey watches the TV. She has informed me that i am not allowed to watch TV and tap away at the laptop as well. She wouldn't be able to concentrate on more important things like whats happening in Eastenders or Coronation Street etc. While i was waiting for my puter buddy to come this morning I started to dismantle the Summer garden. You know. The table and chairs and the tent / tarpaulin thing that you can walk through and shelter under when it's raining or snowing. We now have a furniture free deck out the back and we can now see all the way down to the bottom of the garden. All the better to see what the two mutts are up to. Sorry, pure bred Golden Retrievers. Wifey would not like one to call them mutts. Even tough they are as stupid as. Although to be fair, one of them is a silver medal winner, and the other is a bronze medal winner. At what I can't seem to recollect. Shitting maybe. Big dogs, big turds. Sorry, for a moment i was becoming a bit crude there. i do apologise. My dogs are lovely girls and daddy loves them so much. I remember when the first retriever we had had to be put down after nearly fifteen years we both cried like babies. It was definitely worse than losing a member of the family. Wifey has refused to make shepards pie since as that was the meal that we were going to have that night. It was all ready but we went to the vets first. We came home without the dog and i was the one who had to tell the kids. i can remember even today what darling daughter looked like when i told her, just half a second before she burst into tears along with wifey and myself. Number one son, it didn't really phase him as he was so much younger at the time but I could see out of my tear stained face that he was upset as well. It has been so long now i can't even remember what shepards pie tastes like now. Think of all the beef cattle that have been saved for us not needing the mince to make the pie with. Only if everyone felt the same way if McDonalds had been on the menu that night when Di died they might have gone out of business by now. I wonder? Hmmmnnnn!!! More stuff and nonsense later next week. All the boys are coming to visit. So far, only one cancellation due to pressure of work. Feckin' bosses. Do they not realise that my friends are more important than their profits? I was really looking forward to seeing this guy as well. He knows who he is. There will be a next time mate. Oh yes!! Enough ramblings for now. TTFN
Posted :: Saturday 9/23/2006 1:22:00 PM
Did you get the potatoes?
Did you get the potatoes? I hear from my wife as i come in the door. Oh frig. says I (to myself of course. Never swear in front of or to the wife. It makes a good marriage) No dear, we were so busy in the nursery that I forgot all about them. Today, Sunday, is home made soup making day. Our stocks of lovely home made soups are depleting and we need to make some more. In order to do that, i needed to bring some home grown veggies home from the nursery. We grow these during the summer months for something else to do apart from growing trees and also to help feed ourselves on the cheap. I was meant to bring home potatoes and onions for the potato and leek soup. (we already had the leeks) We are also in the process of making carrot and coriander soup but the crop of carrots this year was not good so we had to buy them from the greengrocer. I personally find that home made soup tastes a lot better than the tinned stuff that is available in the shops / supermarkets today. For a start, i can control the amount of salt that goes into it. I can get a way with putting just a smidgeon of salt into the pot that will make up to 10 servings unlike the tinned stuff that probably has something like a spoonful in each spoonful. (slight exaggeration there, but you know what i mean) Anyway, after a dash up to the nursery to get the necessary veggies required we started to get things going. Well, I started to get things going. My wife got the recipes out and I started the preparation on the materials. i have just finished making the potato and leek soup and it is on the boil for a wee while to get the flavours mixing well together. After that is done we / I start on the carrot and coriander soup (my favourite) and it should be ready by this evening. When all is done we / I separate the soups into individual containers ready to cool for the freezer. That done we / I won't have to make soup again for the next 3 months or so. I often wonder if everybody made home made soup would it mean the downfall of the tinned soup industry or better still, the supermarkets. Who knows. Anyway. To change the subject. I have just ordered my very first laptop. Wahayyyy. It will be arriving on tuesday next to the office. Why the office? i hear you ask. Because, through the IT guy that works for the organisation I was able to get the details of the guy who supplies us with all the puter stuff. I got talking to him and through asking him straight out, can I buy this laptop off you for the same price that you charge the organisation he said yes, Sure, No probs. As a result i ordered it straight away and it turns out that i am paying suillions less in pounds and pence that i would be elswhere. some wise arse will probably tell me that he could have got it cheaper elswhere but i am happy, very happy with the price I am paying for this one. And, it must be a top of the range one. Reason. The Director of the organisation uses one exactly the same. So there. Next blog to come from my new laptop (hopefully) Ta rah
Posted :: Sunday 9/17/2006 8:55:00 AM
Yes dear, I've sobered up
YeS dear, I've sobered up. Just stop the dance band going round the bedroom please. Las tnight, or to be precise, yesterday lunc time i received a call to say that a friend was coming up from the south to visit for a while. Well, he was up to go to a funeral actually. Anyway, he was going to call round to see me. Great. I haven't seen him for a month . Yes, he was one of the gang that i met up in London with only a month ago. That's two meetings in 20 years. Not bad. i am looking forward to the next one. anyway. We went out for a jar as one does in the circumstances and came back home at about 2 o'clockish for a cup of coffee before he went on home to his mothers who only lives around the corner from me. It was a very good night. We met up with loads of mutual aquaintamces and friends and work collegues et al. The strangest one was when we went into the first bar (we sort of did a pub crawl sometime during the time out) and i said hello to a guy that i knew. He said hello back. My friend said, 'do you know him'. Yes I said. My friend then mentioned that this guy was a very close friend of his cousins who lives out in Toronto. He told me his name. I looked in amazement at him. i told him that this was the very same guy who wrote into this web site last year for a while and then suddenly stopped. Small world or what. Anyway, turns out that this guy in Toronto is coming over to visit in November sometime. Weird ot what. The world is definitey getting smaller. Anmyway, back to the drinking. There was plenty to be had and there was plent drunk. I even had the pleasure of number one son for part of the evening. Him an his friends were in the bar next door. We joined them for a while. All the time i was there my number one son never bought me a single drink. Plenty for himself. not one for his good old dad. Typical. You bring them into the world. you feed them, clothe them, give them money, buy them toys. And they still won't buy you a drink. Oh well. From memory it was definitely a good night out. This morning i called round to my friends house and caught him having breakfast. After that we went out. Back to the pub again. (check. Ask someone about social drinking and the problems associated with it) To change the subject matter to closer to home now. The other day darling daughter was doing her driving test for the third time. Feeling confident that she would pass this time i was gearing up to taking her out and looking at cars. After all the tears etc I was told that she had failed yet again. Oh dear. Get another test booked and practice, practice, practice more for it while i go out and buy a laptop for myself.(I have been wanting one for a while now but never had the money, now i do) If I get one maybe the upper case I will work better than on this thing that i am using at the moment. i think that I might lay off the drink for a while now as i feel that I need a clear head to do all the other things around the house that need done. eg housework and small DIY jobs. Either that or sit down and read some of my recently aquired books from the car boot sales. After all. IU can't leave them there on a pile on the floor, can I. So i might as well read them first. I will get darling daughter and number one son to do the housework. The DIY can wait until Springtime when everyone else does theirs. Buy for now
Posted :: Saturday 9/9/2006 12:18:00 PM
all graduated and nowhere to g
Well. What a day to remember. My wee baby girl got up on the stage all by herself and got a piece of paper. The signicance of this piece of paper is, she is now graduated from college and now the fun begins. What am i going to do for the rest of my life? By the way, she is not a baby anymore, far from it, she is now a 21 year old woman of the modern age. She still wants to be a homebird though. Youngsters nowadays seem to want to saty at home longer than they did when i was young. I left home at 17 and never looked back. I travelled as much as I could. i had my own business at 23. I was bankrupt at 39. But I enjoyed every minute of it. Kids today seem to want the security of the nest. They seem to be scared in case something goes wrong in life. i made plenty of mistakes. I lost plenty of money. I nearly lost my house. But I am still alive and fighting fit, as far as my health will allow me, to meet every day as it comes. Coming back to darling daughter's big day. We all had a great time. It was a lovely sunny day and all the students, well most of them, really made an effort to present themselves as people of today. Just remember folks, these are going to be the future of our country as one of the long winded speech makers said in about 10,000 words or more. i don't really know, I had fallen asleep by this time. Then came the presentation of the certificates / diplomas etc. I was disappointed to find out later that it was only a piece of blank paper tied up with a ribbon. I have been under this allusion all my life that it was a real diploma / certificate that the graduands got. But no. After the ceremonies were over it was time for the photographs, the strawberries and cream, the champagne, the bucks fizz etc. I had a chance to speak to my number one sons lecturers while they were there.as i was concerned about his attendance at college last year and he might not get back in this year. It turns out that his attendance was fine but when he got there he didn't do anything. As a result he will have quite a bit of catching up to do this year if he wants to stay on at college. He is studying engineering. If he can just finish that and get his piece of blank paper at the end of it, the world will be his oyster so to speak. i understand that China are screaming out for all trdes at the moment. That would really be an interesting country to travel to. I have one of my customers going out there today for a 3 week holiday. i am soooo envious. I look forward to his return so that he can tell me what it was like. Anyway, back to darling daughter's day. After the photos etc we went out for a meal. Not just us but her girlfriends and their families as well. There were 14 of us and the girls had booked this reataurant in Belfast that i had never heard of but was supposed to be the bee's knees. At least that is what darling daughter'sd friends had told them all. It came highly recommended. Well! The service was great. Although one of the barmen was a bit on the cheeky / funny side of things. i saw him looking at the girls. I know what he was thinking. i was his age one. I should have taken him aside and told him to put his tongue back in his mouth. Anyway, come the food. I wanted this particular dish that was on another menu. So cheeky / funny man went to the kitchens and asked could I have this dish. Yes. When the food came out it looked wonderful. My dish came out. What the feck!!! My dish was supposed to be, well it was, duck with black pudding and poached quail egg. i was really looking forward to this dish. The duck was superb. The meat just fell off the bone and melted in ones mouth. The poached quail egg was cold!!!! the black pudding was all mushed up and mixed in with lettuce leaves and it was cols as well because of the lettuce. Very disappointed I was. Very. But we all had a really good time. The drink was flowing all night. Oh, did i forget to tell you, more drink was flowing all night. I'm glad i don't drive. I had too much to drink in case i didn't tell you. By the time we got home I think we all had had a really good day. Darling daughter was still on a high and went out to her friends to do girly things with one of her friends older brother. What they did is anybodys guess. Lucky brother. I hhve been writing this while i am waiting for the plumbe rto arrive. There is still no sign of him. Tradesmen. huh!!!
Posted :: Wednesday 9/6/2006 2:55:00 AM
Well here we are and hello aga
Here we are and hello again. i am just back from a day out down the country at a friends country fair. She is a very nice and understanding person who just happens to be the rector of a parish in the country. She has been inviting all of us down for some time now and today we all thought that we would go and support her fundraising spectacular. i am glad that we did go down. I managed to bag afew good bargains at the stalls while we were there. not only did i get hold of some CD's but i also got some more good books to keep me in more reading material for the winter. Homemade jam was also purchased, the best. Better than the stuff that is to be bought in the shops anytime. We also had some fun on the other stalls. Daughter dearest tried her hardest to knock a coconut off it's holder but to no avail. She gave up after six goes. The guy on the stall gave her an orange for her efforts. The rector showed me around her grounds and was proud to show me the trees that she had bought from me last year. She also took me to the other side of her garden and showed me a particular tree. I sort of recognised it but wasn't sure. She put me out of my misery. She thinks it is a Chinese Tulip Tree. a very rare tree indeed. I got a leaf to take home with me to show to the head gardner in the estate that I work in. If anyone knows he should. After all there is another tree that is very similar to this rare specimen. It is called the American Tulip Tree. Not as rare but still an interesting species. We will have to wait and see. Todays great day out was just that. And it only cost us (me any way) six pounds. I think my wife and darling daughter might have spent some money as well. It all counts in the end. Today made a change for me. The Car Boot Sales are over for another year and it means that my Saturdays are free again. In fact, my Saturdays will be free in the future for years to come. I tended my resignation from as co-ordinator of the boot sales as of yesterday. I have been doing it now for the past seven years and i definitely think that someone else should have a bash at it. New ideas etc. All in all me and my very dedicated team have raised over £45,000.00 pounds in the past years. not bad for people wanting to sell their unwanted rubbish to someone else. On Monday coming I have to attend daughter dearest's graduation day. Already I am being told to behave myself, wear this and not that, no don't wear a hat etc. I'm paying for everything, why can't i wear what i want? Life is not fair. There is a meal in one of Belfast's posh restaurants to attend after the ceremony. This has all been organised by darling daughter. All I have to do is pay for it. i saw the menu and there was nothing that really took my fancy. Do i still have to pay for it? i notice reading through all my entries that the upper case I seems to be giving a bit of bother. I needed to tell you that in case you thought I couldn't type proper. you know, like. I will reveal all about the graduation afterwards. Ta ta for now
Posted :: Saturday 9/2/2006 10:12:00 AM
