A slice of bad luck

Picture the scene: you're enjoying a bit of James Bond on DVD (Casino Royale no less), with your best friend. You've enjoyed a fab, gut-busting meal and the world is a happy place. Then you decide to make it just that little bit more perfect. Melons. Yes, you suddenly remember that you have a ripe one, nestling in the fridge between the Onken yoghurt and the 2 litre bottle of Strongbow. I'm a classy geezer you know.

So, without a moment's thought, the DVD was paused (no, not the bit many of my female colleagues get all excited about - Daniel Craig emerging from the sea in his pants) and I leapt over the sofa, did a forward roll into the kitchen and threw open the fridge door with gay abandon. Er...

Seconds later, the juicy melon was at my mercy, held down upon the chopping board by my manly hand. I whipped out my knife and got to work. Slice after dripping slice of sweet melon fell away as I powered through the powerless fruit. The it happened.

I think I may have said something along the lines of "OH F*CK!". This was because, in my haste, I had almost sliced the end of my thumb off. That knife was terrifically sharp and I had sliced two-thirds of the way through the tip of my innocent finger. The second I felt the blade slicing through one of my favourite digits, I knew I was in trouble. Bravely, I called out to me lovely friend that I was in a fair bit of pain, before almost fainting. Well, when I say fainting I mean that my natural defence system kicked in and decided that the best way to help me would be to make me sweat profusely, develop tunnel vision, tinnitus and a desire to rest my head on the cold floor. I obliged.

After several agonising minutes and a fair amount of horror-film-style blood splattering (the bottle opener and salad bowl took the brunt of it), my friend had stemmed the flow and helped me administer a rather nifty looking bandage. I knew my First Aid training would come in handy one day. Finally, we cleared up the red mess, tidied up the blood-soaked pieces of kitchen roll and headed back to the telly to resume our film. Then I remembered the melon.

Look, you have to get your priorities right. I may have nearly lopped the end off my thumb, experienced exquisite pain and bled like a halal pig, but food is food. Just because you've suffered a major, life-threatening trauma (am I exaggerating a tad?), it shouldn't mean you have to neglect your tum. So I zipped back into the kitchen, grabbed the plate of succulent (and blood-free) slices and returned to Jimmy B and his trunks. Life was once again, good.

But now I have a phobia of melons. The fruit that is.

Hairy business

I had my first haircut in four years today. Yes, really - four years. Now obviously it has actually been cut in all that time - just not by a professional. I did it myself. Oh and this is NOT a picture of me. Dear God - give me some credit.

Not only did I do it myself, I did it with real style. I utilised a pair of kitchen scissors for my cutting implements and the metallic lid of the flip-top kitchen bin as my mirror. Mind you, I often managed a quick trim without the aid of the bin-mirror by simply finding a clump of hair that felt longer than the rest and just sort of lopping it off.

I'm actually chuckling as I write this because I have amusing hair (where it exists) anyway and my long-term mutilation of my locks just added to the overall hilarity of my hair 'style' - often compared to a mad farmer or an Open University TV presenter from 1974.

Now though, I cut a dashing figure and even my slaphead has taken on an air of quiet confidence despite my less than hirsute bonce. It's been a long and sometimes rocky four years of self-coiffeuring but I finally realised that my 'special' hairstyle was doing me no favours, especially as I'm so naturally good-looking ... at night, in the shadows, from 1000 paces and facing the wall. So, my DIY barbering days are over and the bin lid is just a bin lid again.

I might try home dentistry instead though.

A ridge too far

We had a tornado. Yes we bloody well did. Yesterday morning at about 6.20am. Honestly we did. It may have only been an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka-dot bikini of a tornado but it still happened.

And even if it wasn't a tornado, it sounded like one - a great roaring noise followed by the terrible sound of utter destruction and devastation. Yes, we suffered damage to our house. One of ridge tiles was ripped from its' very foundations and smashed into a billion pieces ... on the drive next to my wife's car.

This was all very exciting and scary. Not quite hurricane Katrina I grant you but this is Britain and we have to make the most of dangerous weather. It was quite rainy too. In fact there was a major flood at my work. A large area of carpet got soaked when a drain outside overflowed. It was total chaos ... until the maintenance man got the wet-vac on the case. Again, not exactly the Indian ocean tsunami of 2004, but still ...

I am mourning the loss of that little ridge tile

VFM day

I've got a real thing about not wasting your days off from work. You know how some days just seem to fly by and when you look back, you feel like you've not done really anything at all? And then before you know it, it's bath-time and up the wooden hill to beddy-byes.

These sorts of days are bad VFM - Value For Money. I bloody hate 'em. So, bizarrely, on my days off I get up at the same time (or even earlier) than I do on work days, just so I can make the most of not being at work. Is that mental? Possibly. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This is because it's all very well dragging yourself out of your fetid pit at 7am, but if you just waft around the lounge in your pants for three hours, you're not exactly giving yourself an action-packed day.

So today, as I'm not working, I'm up early and have plans: have a light, yet nutritionally balanced breakfast (peanut butter on toast and a pint of coffee); head down to Tesco to buy ingredients for making a big, homemade pizza for tea; go the gym for an hour; phone the council about an erroneous postal voting thing they sent us; write and send a 'congratulations on your engagement card' (which I should have done before today); finish writing my presentation (more on that tomorrow); phone Microsoft and complain even more bitterly than last time about my deceased Xbox 360; go to the toilet; iron the cat and have a shower. Oh, and make, bake and eat the pizza with my wife.

Now I reckon that's a pretty full day. Some of it is fun, some mundane, some tiring, some irritating and some a pain in the pooper. Nevertheless, it will be a really good VFM day and I'm sure I shall feel a real sense of achievement when it's all over.

Or I may just waft around the lounge in my pants for thirteen hours.

Football fever

I always promise not to talk about football and I have to say - I'm pretty good at sticking to that promise. So I have no qualms about giving you some footie news today because it's really important. Well to me anyway.

My team - Birmingham City - could be promoted back to the Premiership this weekend. Oh yes. However, being Birmingham, we'll probably be lucky to escape relegation. Jesting aside and for those of you who actually care (that'll be just me then), if Derby lose at Crystal Palace tomorrow and we win at home against Sheffield Wednesday today and if it snows more than 7cm on the high street in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland - then we WILL be promoted.

Exciting isn't it? No? OK well in other news: On Thursday I found myself standing next to a bloke at a cash machine who was holding a full-size Scooby Doo costume, the other night. On Tuesday my wife and I sat in an Apple store watching a demonstration of Garageband which was being given by a member of staff. This was especially amusing as we were the only two people watching (they brought out seats for us) and it was our wedding anniversary. I know how to show a lady a good time. Mind you we did have a posh meal out that night so I'm not a total gonk.

And finally today - my car has it's MOT. A sense of dread and foreboding is sitting in my lower regions as I write because I am confident that it's going to be an expensive day. I haven't had anything major go wrong with mons petit voiture since I bought it and I've just got a feeling that today will be payback time. I shall let you know the outcome.

I still have a bicycle in the garage.

A good leathering

You can't beat a bit of leather. No, this isn't a kinky segway into a posting about thigh-length boots, S&M and dodgy lederhosen. It's simply letting you know the we have entered the world of leather sofas. Oh yes. Excitement abounds because we had our new leather suite delivered on Friday and it's luvverly.

Now I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of leather sofas previously. I think they're a bit like Marmite (or Vegemite for my Australian readers) because you either love 'em or hate 'em. Of course cheap leather looks like a rhino's arse but the good quality stuff looks, feels and even smells fabulous. Mind you, I didn't realise that you had to actually look after leather. It's like suddenly having a couple of children. You have to clean them and 'feed' them, otherwise they get grubby, dried-up and ancient-looking. Rather like Judith Chalmers. However, I've now totally changed my mind about leather sofas. They are so comfy, luxurious and (once the initial chill has gone) warm. Yum.

Well enough chitty-chat. I'm off to the lounge, to lounge on the three-seater before moving over to the two-seater and finally giving the big pouffe a bit of attention. The problem now is, I don't know which sofa is my favourite so I guess I shall have to spend hour after hour lazing around until I'm happy.

Dunno who'll do the housework...?

More tea vicar?

My mum and dad are moving house. The house they live in is a cottage that's about 400 years old and full of history. However, some bizarre history turned up the other day which is truly amazing.

My mum had a call from the estate agent telling her not to worry because the woman who is buying their house "has taken out indemnity insurance" against the church demanding payments for repairs. My mum explained that she hadn't got "the faintest bloody idea" what she was talking about. Well, it transpires that the woman who's buying the house has a very efficent solicitor who uncovered a bizarre element in the original deeds of the house.

In short, the owners of the house are legally bound to pay for repairs to the local church (which is nearly 2 miles from the house) as deemed neccessary by the Church of England. Seriously. It's just about the wierdest thing I've ever heard. My parents have lived there since 1979 and all that time, the local church could have demanded cash to pay for a new roof, some groovy pews or a spanking new font. My mum reminded me of a case from years ago in a nearby village where this happened to another homeowner who actually lost a court battle to avoid paying his local church thousands of pounds in repairs. Unbelievable.

I suppose you could plead aethiesm...

Under pressure

My wife and I were out in her car yesterday. We were just loading the car with shopping when I noticed that one of her rear tyres looked pretty soft. Thus, we headed off to a nearby garage where we sidled up to the air pump.

The first three tyres all needed a bit of topping up, but then we got to the fourth one. On her car, the pressure required for the rear tyres is 28psi. We attached the air hose to the tyre nozzle. Instantly, you get a readout of the current tyre pressure on the machine. It said '7'. I thought there was a digit missing. The readout blinked and displayed '7'. The tyre, which should have been at 28psi was at 7psi. That's a quarter / 25% of what it should have been. Spectacular. I asked my wife if she'd felt like she'd been driving a boat recently and she admitted that the car had seemed a tad "spongy". A tad spongy? It's a surprise the bloody car wasn't cornering on it's sills.

Well, it's all inflated now and we actually suspect a slow puncture which we'll have looked at this week. So here's your safety tip for the week dear drivers. Check your tyres. And your oil. And your screenwash. And your lights. And your wipers. And your power steering fluid. And your shock absorbers. And your exhaust. And ...

Oh just get a bicycle.

A great lay

Sad but true. I'm excited about a carpet. Let's be honest though, our gorgeous new bit of floorware has not only been laid perfectly, but it looks the canine's love-spuds to boot. The photo shows the carpety lovliness sans furniture, in all it's glory. And the best bit? It's not royal blue. Yes, our previous carpet was a deep and disturbing blue. Blue, like the sea. Sometimes, when we were sitting on our sofa, it felt like we were on cross-channel ferry.

Now however, the lounge feels more like a room than a busy shipping lane and that's just great. The only downside is we still have 2 months to wait for our groovy new leather sofas to arrive from, er, Singapore. Fear not though dear reader, we shall be dragging one of our ageing sofas back in from the garage so that we don't have to go all Japanese and sit on the floor.

There's a pouf on its way too. Oh yes.

'Bob on' boiler

Hooray! It's like the bloody Maldives in our house now. The boiler is fixed and it didn't cost a penny. Boiler repairs is one of the dullest subjects known to man but when you've had no heating or hot water for a couple of days, it becomes a truly wonderful subject.

It was actually a tiny problem caused be, er, me. I should have checked the pressure on the boiler rather more than 3 times in two years. A simple thing but I forgot. Anyway, the boiler ended up with a bit of low pressure and .. and *yawn*... Anyway, the good news is that it's all fixed and working beautifully. The two chaps who came to sort it were great and a real credit to their company - Worcester Bosch. They got here dead early too. When I rang cuzzer services they came out with that standard (and dreaded) phrase "any time between 8am and 6pm". That always means hanging round the house for the whole day, only for them to arrive at 5.57pm. These chaps were different though. 8.24am they arrived. I was still in my pants. Mind you, I didn't greet them at the door in my trolleys, I did dress first. I'm no 'baked beaner'.

Well after a jolly half hour they were all done and they even gave the boiler a really good 'once over' before departing. Now being three blokes, at first, there was a lot of silence amongst us as one bloke checked the boiler, the other bloke checked the bloke checking the boiler and I checked the boiler-checker and the boiler-checker-checker. However, we soon found a common subject which resulted in some long, humorous and lively banter. Yes, we talked about footie. Fear not though dear reader, I won't re-live the football chit chat as I know some/most of you have no interest in 'the beautiful game' at all. Apart from the ELF Cup of course. Either way, the chaps and I had a good natter and I soon felt my feminine side evaporating. I didn't even offer them a cup of tea.

Suffice to say, the whole visit was very jolly and the blokes were really efficient and friendly. The other bonus of course was that our house no longer feels like 1970's East German warehouse in mid-winter and, apart from the cat vomitting this morning, the world now feels a whole lot warmer and more wonderful.

I think I'll just sit back and relax in my pants.

Off the boil(er)

It's winter. It's cold. We have gas central heating. Our boiler broke. Oh dear. Well, actually, it's not such terrible news. I was just being dramatic in the hope of some sympathy. OK, here's the exciting details: yesterday morning we found that the boiler (a very compact 'combi' boiler) had cried during the night. There was a fair amount of water on the kitchen work surface, but not enough to make you shout "quick, run, tsunami!" Anyway, we had to switch the thing off to prevent anything serious happening to it and of course, as a result, off went the heating and the hot water.

The good news was (and is) that a) it's pretty mild this week (about 52F in the day and 48F at night) and b) we have an electric shower and c) a gas fire in the lounge. This is all very good news. So yes, the house is a a tad chilly but really not that bad at all. Anyway, I called a recommended plumber/boiler company and arranged for them to come and 'do their thang' on Weds morning. This was the earliest they could come out. We didn't bother to call the manufacturer as we'd had the boiler for nearly two years so it would be well out of warranty by now.

However, I decided to have a quick look at their website and discovered that they cover their boilers for 24 months. Tentatively, I called their cuzzer service department and joy of joys, they confirmed that it is still covered under the warranty. They are sending a little chap round tomorrow who will hopefully fix the leak and we'll be back in business. Obviously, I may well post tomorrow saying that it's all gone horribly wrong, will cost thousands and we'll have to make a camp fire out of the cat, just to keep warm. Oh well, either way, I'm off to have a lovely warm shower now.

Oh God, I hope there's not a power cut.

Happy car

Oh happy day. My motor is all better, thanks to the nice car doctors. I'm well chuffed, especially as now I won't have to rely on public transport/cattle trucks to move me around the city. Of course, car-mending comes at a price. This time round it was a rather hefty KRW 332,886. You may notice that I've not given the price in £'s. I just thought it would oh so exciting to give it to you in South Korean Won's. I could just have easily given it to you in Venezualan Bolivars (Be 755,066) which is fine if you live in Venezuala. Not so good if you live Bury St Edmunds.

Anyway, the car is back and my freedom has been restored. Mind you, I have to admit that my rather fabulous wife has actually chauffered me to and from work a couple of times this week. I felt like bloody royalty being driven door to door. The only problem was that my wife felt the need to take the chauffeur role to heart. She's invoiced me for £119.

That's VND 3,574,744.93 (Vietnamese Dong) if you're interested.

1.5 x 2 = 7

My wife and I decided to go for a nice walk in the countryside the other day. We went to a place she and her family used to visit years ago. They used to hire bikes and enjoy a leisurely cycle ride. Lovely.

The only thing is, my wife got her memories and details a bit mixed up. We were supposed to walk for a mile and a half until we got to the cycle hire place and a car park. Then we'd have a nice mile and a half stroll back to where we started. Unfortunately, this wasn't exactly what happened.

After 45 minutes walking, I expressed extreme surprise that we hadn't managed to walk the 1.5 miles already, especially considering that normal walking pace is 3-4 miles per hour. Anyway, we trudged on and on and on. Finally, we arrived at the (now) legendary cycle hire place and car park. Ah. We seem to have walked 3.5 miles.

A small oversight. However, this meant a 3.5 mile return trip and although the scenery was really picturesque and the weather gorgeous, 7 miles was a tad more than we had planned. We made it back OK, but were just a teeny bit fatigued. Mind you, we had a cracking time. We met plenty of people (mainly on bikes though) and chatted constantly the whole way.

We didn't discuss maths though.

Zoo's are great

Well I'm back from the barren spell of not posting. This was entirely due to having 12 days off work and spending loads of time having fun. This included going to the zoo with my wife - and several hundred other people.

So, the zoo was great. It's a lovely place with no real commercial feel to it and is surrounded by countryside so you feel at one with nature. And elephant poo.

There are a couple of things I really like about zoos. Firstly, the way 'wild' animals are allowed to become ever-so-slightly domesticated. For example, the gorillas have TV's in their enclosures; the orangutans have old cardigans and sheets and the chimps have plastic bins and Ribena bottles. Wouldn't it be great to see a group of mountain gorillas watching an episode of 'Strictly Come Dancing' in the middle of an east-central African rainforest?

The second thing I like is the large open enclosures that are filled with tree stumps, huge mounds of earth, vines, burrows and exotic vegetation, but not one sodding animal. The poor punters gawp for hours in the vain hope of actually seeing an albino hunting-shrew or a nine-footed sloth but to no avail. Just shrubs and dirt.

However, the best bit about our visit was the bonkers-mental monkeys and gibbons who, at regular intervals would go completely bananas (see what I did there?) and start whooping, screaming and "ooh-ooh aah-ing" like furry psychopaths. It was really funny and they seemed to be goading each other in to making more and more extreme noises. Sort of primates with ASBO's.

Oooh, they're little monkeys the lot of them.

Busy holiday

Well I'm on holiday. My wife is too, so that's good. We've got plenty of stuff lined up for the next week or so and, as we're not actually going away on holiday, I'm glad we've got things to do.

It starts tonight with some friends coming over. Then we've got a big family do on Sat, my wife goes 'up North' for a Hen night on Sun and next week we've got meals out, friends to go and see, movies to catch, a wedding to attend and some other stuff which I've forgotten because I've got a memory like a ... a ... er ...

Well anyway, I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff to write about over the forthcoming days. Oh yeah, I watched 'Dog Soldiers' today. It's a cracking little British horror film by the same guy who wrote and directed 'The Descent'. Lots of werewolves and British swearing. Always a winning mix I reckon.

Well, have to dash - our chums will be here any minute and I've got to do my hair. Hold on, I don't really have any hair. Never mind, I'll just fluff up what few tufts I have left and see how it looks. You have to make an effort you know.

Now where are my curlers?

My wife is great

I realised yesterday, that my wife is even more fabulous than I originally suspected. This is good news as I already thought she was rather top-notch and a unique and wonderful person. So imagine my joy when I heard her utter the following two statements:

1. "I'm going to buy a portable DVD player".
2. "I really want to see more football this season".

This was not a dream. It really happened. For a lady/woman/female to actually choose to buy a non-essential, electronic gadget is almost unheard of. For the same lady/woman/female to then add that she wants to see more footie is a miracle on a biblical scale.

For these reasons, I now know for certain that my wife is truly great. Obviously, she's great for a myriad of other reasons, but none are quite as impressive as these two. I am indeed a very lucky man.

I hope she thinks she's a lucky woman.

Some things I forgot to mention

Blimey. Sometimes I'm such a numpty. A blog is supposed to be a regular update of ones life and the events therein. Now, those of you who've trawled through my various ramblings since last December, will be aware that I often go for weeks on end without submitting a post. Now although I have been a little more regular (not in the toilet department) recently, I've still omitted a couple of things from my posts. So here's a summary of them now:

1. My wife got a brilliant promotion at her work. I'm extremely proud of her and reckon she's just great.
2. England got knocked out of the World Cup by Portugal. I shall say no more for fear of legal action due to slander and/or defamatory remarks I may make.
3. Our cat slaughtered three birds in two days, leaving our back garden looking like the aftermath of a professional pillow fight. It was feathery hell.
4. It's been very hot in England for the last few weeks. I have even got used to the sensation of rivulets of sweat trickling into every crevice of my interestingly-shaped body. Picture that if you will.
5. Some of my chums have stopped emailing me. This could be because I've stopped emailing them. It's OK though. We'll just resume communication at some point in the future and there'll be no hard feelings whatsoever(unlike girls who get all upset and feel betrayed when this sort of thing happens). Chaps just carry on where they left off. It's a bloke thing.

That's the update then. Hope you found it as thrilling as I did. Mind you, I think I could do with posting items with a bit more edge to them. Perhaps a tad controversial or even bigoted? Hmmmm. I might just try it on my next one. Something dangerous, daring and socially unacceptable.

Like wearing a thong back to front.

Blast from the past

Well sometimes life really does conjure up a surprise. I bumped into some people today who I haven't seen for about 15 years. They didn't recognise me at first and that was weird because I recognised all three of them immediately. How does that work then?

It's funny when you suddenly encounter people again after a huge amount of time has passed. Obviously you have the cries of "I can't believe it" and "It's wonderful to see you" but the funny thing is that you try to catch up on 15 years in an equal number of seconds. I found I wanted to catch up with everything that had happened before I felt I could just talk to them 'normally'.

An unexpected emotion I experienced afterwards, was a tinge of sadness. At first I didn't know why but then I realised that I wished I could have kept in touch; shared our experiences during those years. Even if it had just been by email or text message - just something that kept the connection between us. I'd missed that and it wasn't something I could get back.

Time to ensure it doesn't happen again I think.