Introduction...

Rain, meet Manflu.... Manflu, this is rain.....

Now if I can only persuade them how good they are for each other they might just get it on and piss off into the sunset and leave me the hell alone!

A quick walk round the garden this morning reveals that the last week of continuous rain has rendered my normally slow growing lawn into a veritable green jungle.  Too wet to cut and too long to be of much use to anyone.

My daffodils have just about given up the ghost but my tulips are all starting to come out.... it's truly amazing how much this rain has brought things on in the past week....  I know the gardens really did need it.

I suppose I can thank small mercies in that I've been stuck inside brooding and stewing with a fevered brow and the weather really has not done anything that would suggest I could have been doing anything else but watching films anyway.....  I certainly wouldn't be walking or fishing in THIS stuff, or at least that's what I keep telling myself, knowing full well that I've done both in much worse!

I took a quick drive down Grimescar Road today which is a little back road through a lovely bluebell wood, and I always like to have a look at this time of year..... the sheer quantity of bluebells there does not and in this case DID not disappoint - a real local highlight.  I've even got some "bells" coming out in the garden although I'm inclined to think they are the foreign invaders - probably Spanish - and should be composted really but they add some colour for now!!

So, if this rain would just do one.... and I could shake the tail end of this man flu.... I might actually manage to get out of the house..... do some gardening..... get back onto shanks's pony...... and catch a few fish!

Give us a break, please.

Flu-nami!

Hurricane Mucus has reached land, somewhere around the Bay of Arctic Fox at 11:00hrs today.

Scientists predict high blood pressure, gusting sneezes in excess of 300 miles per hour with prolonged showers of snot.  Extreme periods of abject frustration and intense seismic activity are highly likely sometime around bedtime!

Local residents have been warned to stay out of the path of this flu-nami and to seek shelter at the earliest opportunity and start panic buying (amongst other things) petrol; Kleenex (mansize); beer; and Beecham's Powders.

The Met Office have issued a severe bad mood warning for the rest of the week.

Fiddlesticks!  Don't forget to see what films I am managing to stay awake to watch - and here's a picture of brighter, happier times!

Wet firework.

Well, razzmatazz it ain't.

The latest series of Big Brother is a complete damp squib. We're just a few days in and.... I've already lost the will to view.

The episode tonight was embarrassingly bad.

I've even lost the will to write down or explore all the failings of the current show.

You've been saved from a real diatribe then!!

I've resorted to downloading a whole heap of Clint Eastwood films to keep me company through the dark hours where I'd normally be watching the Big Brother live feed and making my own mind up about what's really going on in the house.

I suppose I should be paying more attention to the local elections and the European elections......

.... or maybe not!?

What goes.....

White, red, blue, red, white???

Answer: Me, in the snow, walking, and then catching man flu!!

I'm officially dying of man flu.

My lungs feel like I have started smoking again.... my temperature is all over the place.... I have the most feeble broken glass cough..... sleep pattern's gone to the dogs..... can't even raise the enthusiasm to stay awake long enough to watch a film (that being said, I've managed to watch (with some cunning rewinding over the bits I fell asleep in) Horton Hears a Who (very good); Bee Movie (Very poor); and Ratatouille (OK)) = lovely nested parentheses!!

On the plus side of being so desperately ill, I've managed to spend some time organising the mountains of digital media that I manage to accumulate in such a haphazard fashion. Electronic spring cleaning, you can't beat it!!



Early morning New Hey Road - This was Tuesday morning, but it's a shot I like. The streetlight phosphor orange glow is quite tasty.

Here's a meme.

Many thanks to Yorkshire Pud for tugging me senseless!! You don't often get to utter a sentence as intriguing as that one, do you?

It's all about meme!!

4 movies I'd watch again
Evil Dead (all three of them, but I will generously count this as one choice).
Whisky Galore.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (just to spot Yorkshire Pudding charging over the horizon).
Mon Oncle.

4 places I've lived
Pole Moor (in Huddersfield).
Outlane (in Huddersfield).
Birkby (in Huddersfield).
Edinburgh (briefly, for work, not in Huddersfield).

4 TV shows I watch
Difficult to say,as the seasonal programming changes what I watch on an almost weekly basis. I NEVER watch soaps. Currently:
Dexter.
Harry Hill's TV Burp.
Keith Lemon's World Tour.
Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

4 people I email
Anyone who gives me bad customer service.
Anyone who gives me good customer service.
Sometimes my mum and Fred.
I don't really use email...... I use messenger and I text from my phone a lot.

4 things I eat
Bread and all associated bread-type products (muffins, crumpets, teacakes, currant teacakes, croissants etc etc).
Cheese (it's my downfall in life.... I was much thinner when I was a vegan!!).
Marmite (I bloody loves it).
Liquorice (in all its shapes and forms - allsorts, pontefract cakes, poor bens, those whirly wheel things etc etc).

4 places I'd rather be
Hmmm... this is tough because the answers are fluid and don't remain the same for more than a mere fraction of a second at a time..... right about now I'd rather be:
With the missus, curled up on the sofa with a cuppa and a bun, watching some of the programmes mentioned previously.
At the Riverhead in Marsden drinking a pint of Sparth Mild or Cupwith Sepcial (with the missus of course).
In a noisy video game arcade, like the ones that used to exist in the good old days (not sure she'd want to accompany me there).
Although I've never been there, I'd like to be on a Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee plantation (as a visitor, not a poorly paid, exploited worker of course!!).

It is customary to perpetuate these "memes" by tagging or tugging a given number of people in return for being tugged. I'm far too non-conformist to oblige, but I'd like to hear Rol's movies or TV answers..... spice the cat's places he'd rather be........ Polgara's list of confidential email addresses...... and Pixie's places she'd rather be....... so if any of you can be arsed..... or need something to blog about..... get on with it!!

Banana? Vanilla!!

Nothing much to report.

I've applied for a job.....

I've been riding my bike......

I've been playing on the Nintendo Wii......

I've been baking bread, of which my latest creation is a date and pecan loaf.......

I've been playing my Nintendo DS......

I have requested another two job application packs (against my better judgement - I really don't want to find myself back behind a desk being a computer jockey again!!) for computer related jobs!!......

I am feeling curiously introspective......

Another week.....

... another episode of The Mighty Boosh.

... the chickens retire to their dwelling earlier than ever (somewhere around the four o' clock mark).

... The penultimate day of "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!" and I haven't even written about it, although I've watched more of it than I'd care to mention or indeed remember.

Most importantly, I am on the evening of the start of the final week of chicken husbandry. The folks return one week tomorrow!! Hen shit, cat puke, cat food, cat hair, feathers, all begin to fade into the distance. The remaining time spent dealing with the animals and multiple residency is now just a bite size chunk.

Thirty one days and counting down... the end is in sight.

Twenty four.

I must write something, I know that I oughta,
But these past few days I've just been treading water.
The words won't come because there have been no actions,
No highs and no lows, nor between them no fractions.

Watch The Mighty Boosh.... It's good for your soul.