Patience!!

I am not a patient person...

The above statement suitably encapsulates the feeling of severe despair that is currently hanging over my head like a big grey cloud, brought on by the disintegration of my Nintendo DS.

New parts ordered.

New parts arrived.

Tri-wing screwdriver...... of course missed off my original order.

In a concerted effort to get my project underway - immediately - I set off to find a suitable screwdriver....

DIY store in Marsh - never heard of them.

B&Q in town - "Have you tried Screwfix Direct?"

Screwfix direct - Confirm for me that they are indeed called tri-wing screwdrivers but don't have one.

End of the line......

Back to the internet shopping.....

Choice 1 : $1 but comes from Hong Kong with free postage 10 -12 working days?.....

Choice 2: Same place I got the case from - £6 + £2.50 postage - 1 -2 days.....

Normally I'd have gone for the fastest. Call it credit crunch, or a lesson in patience and thrift, but I went for the cheap Hong Kong one!!

I miss my Nintendo.



Smashed.... bloody design faults!!! Cue weeping fox.

What a difference...

... a week (and a bit) makes!

A week punctuated sparingly with medium jinx.

Highlights (and lowlights) have included:

My Nintendo DS falling in half - played to death, RIP little buddy.

New walking boots finally purchased, arrived, and totally loved.

Cooking a good curry (low fat, meat free, slimming world friendly) for the lovely Dawn.

Getting my car MOT'ed (not by my usual choice of the Honda dealer - the credit crunch is upon us - sorry, "global economic downturn").

Walking through Merrydale (above Slawit) with a pair of stupid dogs, and finding the last of last week's snow hiding under a wall at Cop Hill (see picture).

Beer - The King's Head in town is rapidly becoming one of my chosen few, purely for their beer - certainly not for the ambiance!!

Gardening.

Mario Kart Wii - finally smashing the time trial records and unlocking the last few elements of the game - right down to the point where there is just one record that remains..... untouchable thus far!!

Celebrity Big Brother final - Abject disappointment - Despite myself, I wanted Terry Christian, Verne Troyer or Coolio to win...... defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory, and for some strange, unsavoury reason, Ulrika "bloody" Jonsson won it!! Who saw that one coming??

The memory fades beyond that lot.....



A veritable small continent of snow nestled in the bilberry bushes above Marsden. Freezing cold winds whistle across Cop Hill. Hats pulled down hard, in direct contrast to the still, breathless, sticky climb up Merrydale packhorse road that led us here.

Cool, wet grass.

Apparently, or so I am led to believe.... Monday the 19th of January is the most depressing day of the year.

As for me, well it's been a pretty good day.

Apparently, or so I am led to believe.... the fire walker's mantra is "cool, wet grass.... cool, wet grass...." - We've got no shortage of cool, wet grass today. It's been snowing, and it's come damn cold again.... scuppering my walking plans along the way. If I could figure out how to get my "bowling cam" back up and running then I wouldn't have to write weather blogs all the time!!



Love me, love my canal. Anyone who knows me or knows the canal between Marsden and Slawit, will know this particular stretch very well indeed. It's a place I pass often whilst walking and it's also the most photogenic part of the route.... the light was lovely on this day when the canal was frozen over.

Peril.

The perils of pressing shift-delete.

For those of you that don't already know, you can avoid your files making their final shuffle into the Recycle Bin by holding down the shift key while you press the delete key. This deletes the files instantly, thus bypassing the security net of the bin.

For those that don't know, I've spent 310 hours playing Pokemon Diamond (since October 18th to this morning). It's been a real labour of love and my creatures were just starting to really like me... I mean REALLY like me!!

For those that don't know - I am a complete idiot and accidentally shift-deleted both the Pokemon game and my progress save file.

D'OH!

Struggle.....

I ALWAYS say I should never drink and blog.....

I ALWAYS find material that I consider to be bloggable whilst drinking.......

Quandary.....

Is it the fact that I am drinking that makes life more bloggable, or is it that drinking makes me more perceptive to bloggable material..... or is it, as I suspect, that drinking simply makes me consider the mundane to be hilarious blog matter?

Cases in question.....

Drinking in the Jug and Bottle AKA "Drug and Brothel" with the rastas trying to sell me weed - I thought he said "do you want a wee?" to which I replied.... "No I'm off for a shit!!" - only joking!!

A young girl on the back seat of the bus, perturbed that I dare to sit there, moves her sprawled legs from the seat and proceeds to pretend that the bus is her office and her friends are her business clients on her mobile phone - "and if Jody asks, tell her I arranged it last Saturday and I didn't tell you 'til today!!" thereby incriminating her accomplices in the lie. I did particularly enjoy the ten minutes she spent pressing buttons and pretending to be texting or doing something with her phone when nobody was bothered about her.

Watching a young lady flicking through a book of guitar tabulations.... she was reading the classic Oasis hit - Don't look back in anger ..... she then flicked through to Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge over troubled waters - as she closed the book, I noticed, with immense kudos, that she was reading "Ukelele Chart Hits".........

Judge for yassen!!



Although this duck appeared outside the Riverhead in Marsden, my mum swears blind she saw it in Slawit..... I think it was a cuckoo!!!

C C C C Cold......

Apparently, and these are not my words, but apparently last night was the coldest night in Yorkshire.... ever, or at least since the recording of data was established, a trifling forty some years ago. Ironically, I couldn't tell you what that temperature was!!

Crisp day, crunchy, a bit frosty, a bit snowy, very icy.

Went for a walk down the canal from Slawit to Marsden.... Mum's just started walking as a new year resolution, so given the tricky conditions underfoot and inadequate walking equipment we did quite well to make it to the Riverhead public house for a stunning pint of American Pale Ale with its staggeringly good alcohol level - a fitting reward for the journey.

Spent the rest of the afternoon taking care of those twelfth night logistics.... ripping up christmas cards and burning down the christmas decorations..... saves on the loft space!!!



Self portrait at Scapegoat Hill!!

Rather randomly....

... and even more trivially......

Whilst catching up on some Pogo badges in "Trivial Pursuit Daily", I have come across some interesting but entirely useless information....

Hitler's favourite film was King Kong.

Winston Churchill smoked two cigars a day.

The kookaburra is the largest of all the kingfishers.

150 years ago, Reuters began as a line of carrier pigeons, carrying banking information between Aachen and Brussels (a two hour flight).

Orville Wright flew for 43 years without a pilot's licence.

Go figure...... It snowed last night and it's bloody cold now - The peak temperature for the rest of the whole week is four degrees (C)!!!

Magnetic.

It's been said that I have a magnetic personality.... not just any old magnetic personality, but a very special one that only attracts bloody weirdos!! Case in question, in the time it took Dawn to pay a little visit to the ladies' room, I'd attracted conversation with three Belgian beer fans, one of whom proceeded to tell me about the specific dose of antibiotics it had taken to clear up a leg infection he contracted whist swimming in Samoa!?!?! Try as I might, I simply could not get out of the door fast enough....

Anyhoo.....

Managed to get out walking today, and that's something that pleases me very much. We walked a section of the Pennine Way up to Black Moss Reservoir and back down into Marsden. It was so cold out there on top of the moors that we actually managed to walk out onto the surface of the frozen Black Moss itself - Don't try this at home, we're both highly trained idiots, and the dog looked funny skidding about out there!!!

A few weeks ago, sitting stupidly, as I so often do, on the floor, with my feet and legs screwed up underneath me...... The upshot of this is that my feet end up going completely dead.... When I stood up and walked, my foot sort of folded up beneath me so that instead of pointing forwards, it pointed backwards, with the sole facing up....... ouch!

I am sure I've broken something, and today's walk has highlighted this very fact. Like a typical bloke, rather that going to a doctor or hospital casualty department, I'll try and walk it off!!

Warming up.

Well the thaw has arrived and the sun's been out. Everything back to normal.... or is it?? I've still got roses that are blooming in my garden and the frost certainly hasn't stopped their unseasonal display!!

They say simple thing please simple minds, and if that's the case then I must be very stupid.... case in question:

Whilst playing Tiger Woods 2008 on my Wii today, I suddenly found myself laughing out loud as the commentator announced "Aphrodite Papadapolus looking for a birdie". It's most certainly not the kind of sentence that you hear uttered every day. Suffice to say I eventually won the tournament and had the last laugh as I was declared player of the month!!

I need a life/beer (delete as applicable).

Cold....

It's so cold (by dear old Blighty standards at least). Yesterday, for the first time ever, I witnessed freezing fog. A veil of icing sugar drifted down across the misty slopes of Huddersfield for the entire day. On the local weather last night I heard that the peak temperature during the day had been a chilling minus four degrees (centigrade) which is fairly rare in this place!!

Dry cold is nicer than wet cold, and cold weather is not so bad when your central heating is working and you've just gotten shut of a nasty strain of flu. All this being said, I enjoy the scenery when it's all coated with a deep, hard frost.

As for the rest of it, we went and got a bit pickled at the faithful Barge and Barrel - I was drinking a couple of really excellent beers - Phoenix's Black Bee and Durham's White Amarillo - very nice indeed - Dawn managed to stay off the cider bus for a night and got a bit merry on Leffe (a giant killer of a brew!!). We came home for just after 11 o' clock and I cooked a few snacks and we saw the new year in with a cuppa and a game on the Wii.

White rabbits..... pinch and a punch..... happy new year...... apparently Alaska and Hawaii are the last to experience the turning of the page? correct me if I'm wrong.

Are we there yet?

Almost done.... just the piffling matter of New Year's Eve to get out of the way and soon, very soon, things can start to get back to normal.

So what's been occurring?

Christmas - spent recovering from flu. Had a few beers (on my own - not something I do very often) at the excellent Drop Inn in Elland - Treacle Stout makes for a great chrimbo tipple. The rest of the day I spent cooking up a storm for my own christmas dinner - A fake chicken roast thing, a sublime cauliflower cheese, cabbage, carrots, roast potatoes, stuffing, gravy, honey roast parsnips and the obligatory brussel sprouts - I am still trying to work out why my folks are so fixated with people eating or not eating brussel sprouts - I know my mum doesn't like pineapple so why would I force her (under peer pressure) to eat it?

Fell asleep in the afternoon with a bottle of excellent Leeds Pale Ale in my hand.

As for christmas gifts.... I wonder why I bother!! Dawn and I both agreed to only spend a tenner on each other and that worked quite well..... I got a keyring, a Woman's weekly cook book and a cowboy story (possibly the most costly postage of tat ever???) from the Australian relatives - A DVD from Dawn's kids..... Socks from my Aunty Jan..... chocolate coins, socks, liqueur chocolates and some love hearts from mum (presumably they ventured no further than Slaithwaite chocolate shop) and that's it!!

My flu has finally effed off..... Good old Cock o' the North have had a beer festival..... been for a walk around Scammonden Dam......

Much ado about naff all!!

Quickie.

Hello world.

I am alive.... just.... battling the flu!!

My boiler is fixed.... slurp.... now for a hot... cold... hot... cold.... feverish christmas!!

Shopping.

Well, I've sort of knuckled down to some serious christmas shopping. I always find the task very depressing.

I hate crowds of people that amble along with no sense of purpose or intent, like zombies in the shopping mall of a George A. Romero flick.

I hate buying things for people based on the fact that it's bad form not to, even when you know that in a couple of weeks time you could get twice as much "crud" for your money.

I'm not religious in any way, shape or form, and even if I was then I'm unsure that christmas shopping would form any part of my beliefs.

I hate seeing the same old crap that was on display at this time last year being wheeled back out onto the shelves for us to have another crack at.

Christmas socks, mugs, hats, shirts, cardigans, jumpers, decorations, in fact anything christmas "branded" that will never see the light of day until the same time next year.

I always see loads of stuff that I'd want to buy for myself, but I know nobody else will see those things and unless I DO buy them for myself, then I'll never receive them (examples of this, today, were: Electric toothbrush heads; Deodorant; Clothes; Shoes; Walking boots).

Even a dose of Michael Caine in Muppet Christmas Carol has failed to thaw my icy mood.

HUMBUGGERY!!



Not a great photo, but a nice example of a spider in my living room. I love spiders because they eat flies.... and I HATE flies!! There are also some good examples of dust bunnies in this photo, the kind that blow across my floor like tumbleweeds in Dead Man's Gulch.

JSQDUAOTT.

I'm upset.

I'm not sure what upsets me more:

The fact that, after twenty six years uninterrupted service, Carol Vorderman, the thinking man's crumpet and all round letters and numbers queen, has been forced to step down from her job on the popular, old ladies' favourite game show - Countdown.

Or.....

The fact that I can only make a six letter word out of the final letters selection of the final game.... I'd have liked to send Carol off with a nine letter salute at least, but ADJUST will have to do.

At tea time tonight, Des O'Connor and Carol Vorderman aired their final show. A sad time for telly, and me. The early evening slot will never be the same again.

RIP Countdown. God bless Carol Vorderman and all those that sail in her.



Proof indeed that the old ones are the best. A dog just after it had fallen in, crossing the famous stepping stones at Bolton Abbey, during warmer sunnier months, earlier this year. I watched this dog all the way across, it struggled to reach across some of the gaps, but it didn't panic as much as Dawn did when it was her time to cross. I kinda like the rippled reflections on this one and the skinny wet dog's legs.

Let me just say: With reference to tonight's full moon..... Let someone else say it, but DO take a look here.

Dark night.

It's a dark night, and a good night to watch the Dark Knight.....

I've been up to my elbows in films again. Spent a bit of time watching some old black and whites, watched a few episodes of John Shuttleworth's 500 Bus Stops, and crowned it all off with a viewing of the Dark Knight movie.... the one with Heath Ledger as a crazy arsed Joker and Christian Bale as a Batman with a Samuel Tweetesque speech impediment!!?? (anyone remember Thamuel Thweeth?)

At two and a half hours long it's a bit beyond my standard concentration levels and there were a couple of moments where I felt it was going on a bit but I stuck it out and thought it was a good film, albeit quite brutal and much too harsh for the younger eyes that I might have liked to lend it to under normal circumstances.

As for the rest of the day..... well.... gas fires were quite important..... Pictureka (a game like "Where's Wally") played a large part.... waiting in my car playing Pokemon while my mum attended various health centres..... ginger wine.... parkin pigs..... cherry scones..... usual stuff.

Perhaps I've got room for a beer tomorrow?



Perplexing: 3:38pm (last Saturday afternoon) in Albert Square..... I thought it was Coronation Street in Manchester, not Eastenders!! A very busy European Christmas Market and a giant illuminated santa.... what more could you ask for? The more eagle eyed amongst you may spot Sally Webster wandering about like she's just been discharged from a mental hospital complete with straightjacket (or perhaps you won't?)!! I might be wrong about this being Albert Square.... Sally Webster may not be in this picture.... I've still got that one-leg-shorter-than-the-other trademark tilt!!

Never return.

Never return to a firework that's gone out. Even if the firework never properly ignited, it's not the best solution to go and stick your eye over the top of it to see what happened. We all learn these little rules of life, and they go along just fine until......

Even a broken boiler can burn you.

Having thwarted my usual boiler repair man and having soured our relationship by him having to back away from the deal seriously out of pocket..... I contacted the boiler manufacturer......

Here follows their reply:

As your appliance is now out of warranty, should you wish for our engineer to visit your property, we can do so for a fixed charge of £215 which includes most parts, labour and VAT. The only parts not included in this fixed price are the heat exchangers and expansion vessel, therefore should we find that any of these parts are required, our engineer will quote separately on site for the completion of the repair.

I would advise however that we do reserve the right to charge an abortive call out fee of £82.25, should our engineer be unable to gain access to the appliance, where parking is not available, where the appliance is deemed beyond economical repair or find the fault to be external to the appliance. This may also apply if the visit is cancelled by yourself with less than 24 hours notice.

Ouch..... burned again. What happened to my eyebrows??



My recent trip to Manchester. Not only did Sally Webster from Coronation Street try to buy some amaryllis bulbs from me in the market, but my good friend Shaun Ryder bought me a pint in the Marble Arch. If you look carefully you might just spot the lovely Wally Dawn in this picture.... Sally Webster's phone number goes to the first correct guess.

The boiler man cometh.....

... and invariably he faileth to fixeth my boiler.

The boiler repair man has suffered a severe defeat at the hands of my obsolete Gloworm Fuelsaver F 55F broken down machine. Parts were replaced, earths were restrapped, connections remade, circuits tested, voltages measured..... we even tried turning it off and on again!! For all intents and purpose, the boiler should be working... it goes through its routine and the final step is the spark which ignites it... and that's where it fails.... all other preliminary stages are present and correct.

Upshot, it's still f-f-f-freezing.... my boiler repairman has suffered a devastating cost in spare parts which he can't return or charge for.... I think it's new boiler time..... insert groan here.

We are all very disappointed but only one of us is cold.



Manchester Eye and the Arndale Centre - After a few beers and a trawl around the festive markets in the city centre on Saturday afternoon and evening. Spent some time in the Marble Arch (my first but not last visit there) and the Briton's Protection (where I struggled to get through a very fine pint of "hung, drawn and portered").

Jack Frost.

Man, it's officially VERY cold.

Update: Bath - fixed; Shower - new one installed; Boiler - waiting spare parts (possibly a week and I am not convinced that it will fix the problem when it arrives!!).

The gas fire is working overtime, and I am cuddled up with a quilt and a carbon monoxide alarm in case my quest to live in a draft free, superheated, micro-climate, should end anywhere near the wrong end of the disaster scale.

Snow came.... I got up for the customary post drinking, forgot to turn my electric blanket off, five AM whizz!! The ground outside was frosty.... the ground inside wasn't much better!! I went back to bed with a tshirt wrapped round my head like some sort of turban. Woke up at seven thirty.... lo and behold, it's been snowing.

I took an eight AM ride across town to get a new shower with my uncle.... the normally congested journey, was of course simply exacerbated by Joe Public's complete disregard of common sense and highway code.... when snow falls, it's motoring anarchy... It took a while!!

I'm not holding my breath that I'll have central heating again before Christmas now.



Quite literally - Up the garden path at seven thirty in the morning. A snowscape of small proportions. This here bunch of white stuff probably added thirty minutes onto our five mile trip this morning. Not the sort of thing you really want to wake up to when your central heating boiler's acting the lemon!!

Send three and fourpence.....

... we're going to a dance!!

Bloody hell it's cold in my house without a boiler. Corned beef legs and sore throats are the result of sitting too near the dreadful gas fire that I am reliant upon.

On the plus side, my uncle (the cavalry) arrives tomorrow lunchtime to remedy any number of "household maintenance" items.

By my reckoning, today is Saint Andrew's day - To any Scots that know me, don't get too drunk the neet!! Enjoy your "new" bank holiday tomorrow - NB: We still don't have a Saint George's day bank holiday in England!!

I've watched a lot of films lately...... Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium; Kung Fu Panda; Indiana Jones; Prince Caspian; Iron Man, to name just a few that currently reside in my "rewriteable" dvd collection!?! I totally loved Kung Fu Panda - Didn't expect to, but it contains some great kung fu elements and serves as a great tribute/homage to some films I have loved over the years.



A weekend of dog-sitting culminated in an early Sunday morning frosty walk around Pighill Wood - A place I love. I take this same picture from below Nettleton Hill in all manner of weather and all times of day just because it's a good view across to Castle Hill. What you get here is (fore to back) Golcar, Milnsbridge, Crosland Moor, Newsome, Hall Bower, Castle Hill - All in one go...

If I could only learn to hold the camera horizontal.

Get well soon Dawn X.

Victor!

As I get older, I am constantly reminded by those around me that I have an increasingly similar disposition to that of Victor Meldrew. I have an alarmingly shortening fuse, terminal bad luck, and an immeasurable amount of bile which seems to spout forth from my vocal chords under its own angry volition.

Things happen to me and I have no tolerance for it to simply wash over the top. I used to be quite laid back.... I was one of those horizontal people.... If I laid back any further you'd have called it a cartwheel.

So what's my gripe today?

I took the plunge and ordered some carefully researched walking boots from an online store. The delivery went fine, the communications were acceptable, the product is in good working order....... they are just a whole size too small for my feet. I look at my trainers.... size 11.... I look at the boots.... size 11..... I look under my feet.... size 11...... ah well, I'll just roll over, accept that not everyone's definition of size 11 is the same, return them (at my own expense) and get the next size up.......

Insert blue air here!!

So, there's a size 11...... and the next size up is...... 12.5!!!!

Oh crimminy!!

Need Assistance? Live Chat - Offline.

Say no frinking more!!

(I also payed for them using PayPal so the refund won't be simple either)



Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling? - I love the blue skies that we get as we head towards winter. Clear, crisp, low slung, powder blue. I also have a fascination with power lines and pylons. When you really take time to look at things like this (the picture) it makes you realise we're a funny species on this planet! Nettleton Hill power lines and a starling.