Treading

Wake up.... do some jobs.... go to the pub..... come home..... be tired.... repeat as necessary.

Trying to enjoy my week of solitude but not really finding much time to relax and do nothing....

This morning I've brought some washing in and folded a few pieces before unceremoniously dumping it on one of the kids' beds.  I've cleaned out the cat litter tray and fed and watered the cats (outside today) while I cleaned the cat feeding area in the kitchen.  I've repacked all my fishing gear that's been strewn around the kitchen in various states of wetness due to downpours on the last two successive fishing trips to Tatty Watter.  I've re-tensioned the sagging washing line and washed it down.  I've cleaned my scruffy coffee jar that had a crust of melting coffee granules all around the top of the lid.  I've bleached all the cleaning cloths, brushes and scourers.  I've made a cup of coffee and somehow managed to lose it.

It's now time to start on the lounge (which after last night's activities - i.e. me being late home and slightly drunk looks like I had a party in there) and then I can start thinking about some lunch and a late shift at the pub (tea time until closing time - on a Tuesday, which is renowned for being, well let's just say quiet).

So, this week of "home alone" despite me eating prawn crackers from the bin and finding some crumbs of what appeared to be biscuit(?) that had gathered in a fold in my jeans......  I'm living on vegetable curry that I managed to make and when I don't have the inclination or time.... it's cheese and crackers all the way.

I've just noticed that my bedroom looks a mess now too..... groans..... right... no time to say "hello, goodbye" I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.......

Time to hit the lounge!

More of the same.

Sunday searches start here.....

I could go on, at great length, about the fact that my bowling cam is up and running again.  I could tell you how I was on the verge of going up into the loft to look for my webcam when I found it in a packing crate on my desk, just in the nick of time....  but I won't!

Where does the Arctic fox live

Apart from the lovely capitalisation contained within this particular search..... the answer is, of couse, glaringly obvious.... the Arctic you numbskull.

SKYMAN Bernard Kops

An old favourite of mine from my O level English Literature classes, was this crazy little poem, that goes a little something like this.....

My God I'm dead--
the young man said
when he saw his battered head
petalled on the crimson sand
--oh mother come and meet me now
and take my hand--
his body like a fountain played
along the empty esplanade
a coca-cola sign winked on
and when the moon came he was gone.

www.arctic fox.com

Oh where to begin??  Firstly, I have no idea why you would ever type a url into a search engine.  Secondly, I don't think a url should have a space in it..... so if you were looking for me.... you found me.... if you were looking for Arctic Fox cold weather products??.... it's over here - Instead of a space there's a hyphen in it...... i.e. arctic-fox.com

pete burns plastic surgery

The guy's had lots of it.... and I'm not really going to go into that.  Move along now.... nothing to see here!

www.articfox clothing.com

Oh no.... my pet hate..... first up, it's arCtic.... second up..... oh, it's you again isn't it from higher up this page..... typing urls into bloody search engines again......  there are no spaces in urls.....  if you want to search Google for "arCtic fox clothing" then that's all you have to type in, ok?  Well, me being generous and all, here's the link anyway!

Vicious circle

Stuck in an anticyclonic tango with bad health and bad weather.

Miserable outside... miserable inside.

Not even the chance of watching a hitherto unseen movie or playing a video game could lift my dank spirits today.

More of the same antibiotics... more of the same alarm bells signalling mealtimes.....

I decided I'd fix myself a nice big pan of stew, the ultimate comfort food, but of course, when I got there the cupboards were indeed bare.  In order that this poorly dog shouldn't have none, I decided to get dressed and head on out for supplies.

I picked a suitable gap in the rain and made a dash for the car.  To my surprise, something you can never really gauge from your armchair caught me unawares, and I found it was actually quite warm outside.  Warm to the extent that the road was actually beginning to steam.

I set off in one direction, changed my mind, took a detour, got stuck in some traffic lights and ended up at a local Aldi.  Now I've nothing against Aldi, but I find that you need to prepare yourself for a visit when you decide to go there.....

a) I've got no change.... not one single coin.... no trolley and they don't have hand baskets at Aldi either.

b) No shopping bags.  Usually I carry a few bags in the car for such emergencies.  I'm a big fan of reusing bags and we have a plethora of jute and canvas bags for such occasions.  Not today though.

c) Car parking.... whenever I go to Aldi there's never a car parking space and I had to do two circuits of the car park turning round by the recycling bins at one point before I finally parked in the loading bay!

Ok so I've parked.  I can't get a trolley.  I've got no bags.

First thing on the list.... bread.  I pick up a cheap brown sliced loaf.  Then on to the fruit and veg section, picking up a tin of tomatoes on the way.

It's about this time that my lack of energy due to lack of food decides to kick in and I get that unmistakable shuddery feeling inside, which I presume is low blood sugar or something.

So, a family pack of mushrooms..... a turnip... some potatoes.... some carrots..... some onions.....  by now the loaf is getting slightly squashed......  I put the turnip in my jacket pocket, like some weird shoplifter and carry on..... to the till..... feeling like I could faint for lack of nourishment at any given moment.

It's turning into a weird episode of Double or Drop (if anyone's old enough to remember that Crackerjack classic?).

To add insult to my injury in this unpleasant shopping experience.... I have to pay three pence for a carrier bag.  On the plus side, I DO remember to take the turnip out of my pocket and I don't get charged with shoplifting.

I DID forget to buy Greek yoghurt - and that scuppers my plans for teatime tomorrow.....

I think I will go to Morrison's next time.....  Stew is finally cooking away as we speak.

Life without meat

A long time ago, in a curry house not so far away.... I sat and ate a fine lamb curry.

The curry house - Sapnas on Venn Street in Huddersfield.

The time.... probably 3AM (eternally) and perhaps the year 1990 or thereabouts.

It was the last piece of meat that I ordered.

The next day I was vegan.... stopped buying wool, silk (not that I ever bought silk anything anyway), leather, milk, cheese, meat, eggs..... the list goes on.  The Friday big-shop went from being a pleasant 1 hour saunter through the local Tesco's to being a frantic four hour marathon of ingredient listings, E number translations and painful scrutinisation of lots of small print.

Retrospectively I tried to justify my decision to become vegan by applying the principles of karma and the concept of yin yang.... really it was just about me trying to balance the forces of good and bad in my life.... I was a pretty bad guy doing lots of bad things and I needed some sort of good thing to balance the scales.

For eight years I managed to avoid animal produce..... it was a harsh time and it was difficult to go on holiday anywhere or to eat out anywhere.  It was a DIY culture where everything had to be cooked from scratch at home and one which mainstream society had no clue about - times have changed since then and people are much more aware now.  It is not uncommon to walk into a pub and see items on their menus that are even labelled as "vegan" - this would never have happened in 1990.

The Vegan magazine was a helpful publication at the time, and you could, if you shopped around find a guesthouse with vegan catering, and I do remember vegan breaks in The Lakes, at Blackpool, and we even found a vegan restaurant on the island of Zakynthos (tucked away behind Greece's answer to Blackpool).

During a weekend break in Whitby, it was decided that I would start to eat fish again... probably 1998 or thereabouts, and what better place to do so than the famous Magpie restaurant on the harbour front.  I tucked into a fish supper of immense proportion for the first time in many years - and no doubt it was fried in beef dripping as well as is the Yorkshire wont.

And that's it.... I eat fish and seafood and I'm none too fussy if something contain gelatine.  Once I accidently picked up a slice of pizza that had meat on it and rather than waste it I ate it....  the Chinese takeaway once served me sweet and sour chicken instead of king prawn and I still ate it.....  I'm not fussy.

My choice is.....  I don't eat meat... that's it.... you can call me a half-arsed vegetarian.... a pescetarian.... a tree hugger.... call me what you want....

I'm NOT fussy!