Well midnight had passed and as mentioned yesterday so far no earthquakes or reports of nude person flying upward. I wasn’t until shortly after midnight that I was advised that in fact the rapture wasn’t due to begin until 6pm and there was still six hours to go before it was that time anywhere in the World. During the remaining hours the Twittersphere continued to be full of people taking the piss but one could feel the tension increase as 6PM in New Zealand approached…not. Nothing happened and then it became apparent that apparently God time is in line with one of the US time zones so the rapture wouldn’t occur until then. You could almost sense the senile old fuckwit back peddling with each passing minute and low and behold as Saturday arrived in the USofA old Harold did a disappearing act leaving his credulous followers to face their disappointment alone. Imagine what must have been going through the minds of those practically stupid followers who had spent their life saving promoting this non-event; people like this man:
What A Wanker
A New York man spent his entire $140,000 life savings advertising his prediction that the world will end May 21, the New York Post reported Friday.
Robert Fitzpatrick, a 60-year-old Staten Island resident, said he spent at least that sum on 1,000 subway-car placards and ads on bus kiosks and subway cars.
They say, "Global Earthquake: The Greatest Ever! Judgment Day May 21, 2011."
In a self-published book, "The Doomsday Code," Fitzpatrick said the Bible offers "proof that cannot be dismissed."
Others had spent their children’s college funds, quit their jobs and spent all their funds thinking (?) they would have no further need of worldly goods…what a complete bunch of fuckwits and how are they going to explain to their kids what they did..
There were lots of piss take photos uploaded on the web and below are thirty of the best.
I couldn’t stay on Twitter all day, much as I may have wanted too, because after Deb had dropped Hannah off at DanceTrain for the morning she, Nat and I were headed to the allotment to do some weeding and planting and sundry other tasks.
We were there for about an hour and a half but on the way we stopped at the raliegh Bicycle shop and used my Bike4Work certificate to buy a new bike…ostensibly for me but in point of fact for Nat. He’s out grown his bike and needed a new one. This cost us about £230 with mud guards, green foam and a stand bought as added extras. These were fitted while we were at the allotment and so on our way home we dropped Nat at the shop to pick up the bike and ride it home. I think I can say, judging by the look on his face when he arrived home, that he liked it…a lot!
We left to pick up Hannah from Brockington and while there saw Josh who was with Turkey Sue and her kids. Seeing Josh, who immediately grabbed Nat for a hug (there are very close) and told Hannah to stop hitting him caused Deb to relate another tale of Paul and Sian’s awful behaviour toward Donna. If she’s not careful that girl is going to drive her Mum to suicide at this rate. Donna is not very stable at he best of times these days and it wouldn’t take much to push her over the edge, she’s come close a few times already!
We stopped at Fosse Park for lunch and while there both Nat and I purchased a Cricket Box (groin protector) in anticipation of tomorrow’s paintballing session.
I spent much of the rest of the day and the early hours on Twitter enjoying the post “Not-Rapture” tweets while adding many of my own. Indeed I didn’t realise what the time was until I glanced at the clock and discovered it was 4:30 on Sunday morning and I had to be up by 8:00 if I was to get to go paintballing. I crawled on to the sofa and fell fast asleep.
Today I uploaded the Loughborough Fair photographs and Videos with a few to including them in this blog. As you’ll see they are now linked into the previous post. Deb picked up Nat from Jacobs and as mentioned stayed to speak to Chris who burst into tears. We also popped up to the allotment to let them know we were still alive, still interested, pay our annual rent and see about buying enough covering material to cover our plot. We were advised that there was a gentleman who would, for a few quid, plough our plot and subsequently rotavate it. The lady who’s taken over from George as site manager was going to telephone us later with his number but must have forgotten to. When I got to work I discovered that the monitor at the new desk I’d moved to was broken so, instead of going back to my old work station I moved further away even though that entailed having to use a CRT old style monitor. I considered this but a small price to pay. Interesting to note, three of our team were already there doing o/t on EA...how did that happen back to the good old days of the four guys monopoly perhaps, I don’t think so! We had a team meeting and it was decided that in order to provide the necessary early evening staff for EA, it’s that or leave it to Geoff (!) from now on we’d change our hours to 8pm - 7am...to start next Sunday 21/11.
Nat was still at Brandon’s house when we left to try and clear the allotment. So with Hannah in tow, along with her bike, Deb and I headed for Rosamund Ave site. We’ve not had a chance to go there for a number of weeks, commitments and weather, so we weren’t expecting to find anything edible there. Low and behold, (see photos) it was a jungle. If we were going to archive anything it was down to Deb and me because Hannah was as much use as a chocolate teapot. I don’t mean she was useless at helping no I mean she immediately got on her bike and buggered off to explore the site. Oh my poor bleeding (that’s not a metaphor) hands; Deb had gloves but not muggings and the only way to get a lot of the weeds up was to pull them out of the ground with your, in my case, bare hands. After three hours of doing this my fingers and forearms were on fire. As for my finger nails, three days later I was still trying to get them clean. Well we’d done what we could so it was time for home where we could sort out what, of what we’d picked, was possibly edible. Han turned up and as I was attaching her bike to the rack on the back of the car I heard a piecing scream. Hannah had, again, slammed the car door on her fingers. Unlike last time, when she broke her thumb, this time she managed to slam the door on to her four fingers. Jesus, she went hysterical; in order to calm her down I had to act really cold toward her and kept telling her to stop screaming. I felt terrible doing it but I know from past experience that if you cuddle her at times like this she just gets worse and ends up freaking herself out. Eventually she calmed down enough for us to drive home. Nat was back and preparing to head off into Town, with his mates, to play at the GamesWorkshop. Deb ran Hannah’s fingers under the tap while I got a bowl of cold water for her to put them in. Deb decide to play safe, as I said last time she broke her thumb, and take her to A&E to have her hand X-Rayed. There wasn’t any point in my going with them so they left, just after Nat was picked up by Zak’s Mum, and I was alone for a couple of hours. They came back a couple of hours later and it seemed that Han had got off lucky this time, nasty bruising but nothing broken. It means no boxing and no homework for the next week or so…she was well chuffed about the homework!
Nat got back home just after 6:00 with Brandon and Zak in tow and the three of them, accompanied, surprise surprise, by Hannah went up to his room to paint models and watch dubious DVD’s. Deb made them pizzas while she and I had the chilli, with fresh buttered bread, I’d cooked earlier.
Brandon and Zak stayed until 9:30 by which time it was peeing down and very dark; Brandon lives across the road under the subway so Hannah and I grabbed a large umbrella and walked him home. Zak who lives on our side, of the road, walked himself home. Shortly after everyone but me went to bed; I stayed down stairs to catch up on some recorded TV then (everyone after me) FELL ASLEEP ON THE SOFA!
Nat was off to Castle Head in Cumbria this morning on a DoIt4Real course. We were due to drop him off at Leicester Railway station at 9:00 to pick up the coach that would take him, and the others kids, to the central organising point in Burnley where each of them would get a coach to whichever centre they were going to. We left home around 8:20 and were at the station by 8:40. The coach was already there but with time to spare Nat and I went onto the station platform to see what renovations had taken place. I can’t say that it seemed at all different to how it was when I used to commute to London in 1988. Back at the coach we got chatting with a few of the other parents and realised how lucky we were. It seems that Leicester is the only pick up point in this area and some of them had travelled from as far as Milton Kynes that morning. The coach schedule had a built in lateness component and would stay until 9:30 in case anyone had been delayed on their way. Because Deb and I wanted to get some work done on our allotment we eventually left leaving Nat happily sitting on the coach chatting to his fellow travellers.
Hopefully he had an uneventful journey because it’s Thursday as I’m typing this and we’ve not heard from him to date. Deb then drove us to the allotment where we started making an attempt at clearing some of the accumulated mess. Because of my hip operation we’ve not really done much this year and even the covered over areas were overgrown. Eventually after a few hours backbreaking work we made some headway and cleared this area and an adjacent one which we then also covered over. The photos below don’t really show what we did but our muscles certainly confirmed that we’d done something. On the upside, I finally managed to listen to the first two of Dan Carlin’s three Hardcore History Podcasts dealing with the Punic Wars; so that was nice! When we left we took a basket of beans and marrows plus a large bag of plumbs we’d picked, with permission, from Terry’s (a fellow allotment holder two plots down from ours) trees.
Later, 2:30, Deb left to pick up Donna and together they went and fetched Hannah and Josh from camp. Hannah had been sharing a hut; it was too wet to stay in tents, with Charley who she met at camp the last time she was there. Unlike Nat she’s had the wherewithal to get Charley’s Facebook address and made contact with her when she got home. The gossip, she told us, was that Josh had been snuggling/snogging with Charley while they were away and that she was now his girlfriend!!! His girlfriend…for God’s sake they are only nine years old; what are they doing having boyfriends and girlfriends at that age? I told Hannah that she wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend until she was at least twenty! Apparently, according to Josh, all the boys in her class fancy Hannah but they’re also all afraid of her! Hopefully, this is state of affairs that will continue for a long time… I wish.
Today was the annual allotment open day and I’d hope to attend; unfortunately I was full of cold, well I had a slight call centre induced sniffle, and it was pouring with rain. In the end I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and slept in. Nat, once again, was away at the Vipers ground for the second day of rugby school and I don’t recall where Deb and Hannah were, shopping most probably. Nothing much happened during the rest of the day and I think I’ll leave it there.
I spent the day at home with the kids. I complete forgot (didn’t realise as I’ve lost all track of time) that today was the first Tuesday of the month and so, once again, I didn’t attend the Allotment committee meeting to show off web site. I must, finally, do this next month. I’ll have to ask Donna if I can borrow one of her family’s many laptops as the screen on Hannah’s netbook is far too small to be of practical use. Given that most of the Committee are retired I very much doubt that they’d be able to read the screen on Han’s netbook.
We didn't really do very much today. Jacob was round and he and Nat spent loads of time upstairs on the X-Box before actually coming out into the Sun to shoot each other, and everyone else, with their water guns. Deb bought a "one-off" BarBQ from ASDA and we had beef burgers, turkey burgers, lamb thingamajigs on sticks; I made two veggie kebabs from onion, pepper, mushrooms and tomatoes for me and Deb. The little BarBQ was quite effective; the turkey burgers, however, were far too thick and so the outsides got incinerated whilst the centres remained uncooked. We solved this problem by cross slicing each burger and making two thin burgers. After we'd done this the turkey burgers were rather nice. The kebabs were a bit hit and miss and next time I'll give more thought to the size of the individual items. Shantelle had gone to York, for the day(!), to see relatives so Han played pestered Nat and Jacob instead.
At one point the kids were stupid enough to mess with Deb:
BE AFRAID
BE VERY VERY AFRAID
Don't Mess With This Mother
OR
Your Arse Will Be Grass!!!
Later that evening, when it was cool enough, Deb and I went to the allotment to water our "small" area of planting. While we were there we had a look at the covered areas where weeds had grown on top. These,in the main, had rooted into the lumps of earth I'd thrown there and were easy to rip off the covering. We had a deeply satisfiying ten minutes doing just this and afterwards the allotment didn't look quite so jungle like.
Nothing, basically we have done absolutely nothing over this Bank Holiday. This was in part due to the weather in the main was due to a lack of cash. We did have a small BarBQ on Monday afternoon but that’s about it. Stayed up too late and slept in too long. Deb managed to get an hour in at the allotment on Sunday morning whilst the rest of us slumbered in the arms of Morpheus. I did post some stupid jokes to Facebook and Twitter based on different European Countries Terror Alert Status’s and these picked up a few likes on FB. Other than that Sod All … aren’t we a Fricking Boring Bunch of Barstools!
Whoopee; Deb’s just bought me The Hanged Man as my present “from the kids” for Father’s Day! I keep telling Nat that I expect his Blog entries to be a minimium of two hundred words. it would appear that at present I’ve not lived up to my own standards! What on earth am I to do, should I stop now in the hope the the day will provide more to say later or should I waffle on to the two hundred repeating words unnecessarily repeatedly whenever the opportunity to repeat them presents itself. That would seem to be a very underhand strategy especially if I used it repeatedly! Hold on; the last word in that last sentence was the Two Hundred and Twenty Fourth Word so the debate is moot! I’m so glad I didn’t have to cheat, I mean what kind of impression would that have made?
Sat 1 - AM – Finished work for a few months and took home a big bag of clothes from Dawn’s daughter Sam for Han. She was delighted and we spent much of the morning watching the Han Show. I wanted Han to call dawn to say thank you but when I went into my mobile directory for her number I discovered that this was one more entry where the phone had kept the persons details but deleted their number so we weren’t able to ring her. I’ll have to get her number after my Op from someone (if you’re reading this Dawn text me your number) and Han can give her a call next week. Most of the rest of the day just passed quietly I tried to stay awake so that I could go to bed at night and try and break the night shift sleep cycle. As a result I was extremely tied and can’t recall anything about the day. I know that for some reason we didn’t watch Doctor Who went it was screened that evening, either Nat was at a friends or his friends were here upstairs on the X-Box. No it’s because it’s a two-parter and we hadn’t watched part one yet…Han was too scared to watch last week because the episode features the horrible angle statues who only move when you’re not looking at them
Sun 2 – Last game of the season this morning and the last time I’ll see Robin who can’t play rugby with the lads anymore; thought I’d see her one last time at the presentations next week but I’m not sure that the Vipers stairs, hip surgery and crutches is possibly a good combination. The teams were playing a match against Preston Grasshoppers who were on tour (from Preston surprisingly).
Great match both teams were very closely matched and Preston just managed a last minute try to win 15:10. of the two tries scored by Vipers, one was scored by Jacob and the other was scored by…wait for it…NAT…yahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Home from game around 1PM Deb put joint in oven and we chilaxed. Sent Nat for shower and when he was done we all sat down to watch both episodes of Doctor Who back to back. Like the Doc’s future wife but I’m sure the Angles in this story don’t behave in the way in which they did in the original story in series two. Though that just might be me and my crap memory…NOT!
Later that evening I watched, and made the family watch too, Dispatches: Election Secrets what the parties aren’t telling you about the cuts to come. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know but I think the kids may have got an idea of how tight things are going to be over the coming years. The years when they will both be in secondary education.
Mon 3 - We spent the morning at the allotment weeding and clearing ground for our peas and beans. What with my operation enforcing me to by physically inactive re gardening for at least the next 8 weeks we are agreed that the allotment, this year, will be a very piecemeal affair, we’ll do what we can, grow what we can and cover over for next year what ground we can’t use this year.
Briefly said hello to a few people on site inc: Margaret And George (who’s no longer in charge of the site though Margaret is still secretary to the committee). Margaret told me that there was a committee meeting tomorrow night if I wanted to come along and show them the allotment website I’d built but I explained that I would probably wait until after my Op. There’s a committee meeting on the first Tuesday of every month apparently so I’ll have to put a reminder on my phone for the next one. Spent the rest of the day chilaxing again; my how my thumbs hurt after all that…on my knees weeding I had done earlier. Needed to keep an eye on my intake of alcohol because they advise you not to drink anything for 72 hours before the Op. Mind you as I’m having and epidural and not a general I’M NOTON QUITE SUCH A STRICT TIMETABLE; but its best not to turn up pissed I would imagine!
I almost forgot to mention this!!!!!
Rugby Match and Car Breakdown…Prat
Deb had been online a few days before and downloaded free tickets for the development teams game between Leicester Tigers and Harlequins for this evening. The match started at 7PM and we needed to be there before then if we were to get reasonable seats; we were going to leave the car at Deb’s works car park, which is about half a klick away so we also needed to build in time for me to walk this. We left home around 5:45 and from the outset the car didn’t sound right and the wrong sounds rapidly got worse as our journey continued. We literally just made it to the car park before the old heap went and died on us completely. There was nothing we could do, lifted bonnet and topped up water reserve because over heating light kept coming on then left it to cool down while we watched the match. We walked, I hobbled, to the new Welford Road Caterpillar Stand and managed to get seats down toward the NelsonMandelaPark end. It was a great match which was won, narrowly, by the Tigers the final score being 29:27. Christ theses guys are good and the physical contact is awesome. Two guys continued fighting even though the ball had come out of the ruck and play had moved on down field. It’s no wonder that they won’t let Robin continue playing with the boys if this is how rough it’s going to get once they hit puberty and all that testosterone gets pumping.
Nat disappeared just before half time and finally return just before the second half started clasping a Tigers Pie in his greedy mitt; that boy and food!!!!! The match finished at around 8:40 Pm and we made our way out of the ground and walked back to the car. The car started but lacked any power, Deb managed to nurse it along and got it restarted when it cut out until finally , as we drove onto the grass in front of our drive it gave up the ghost for good and died completely; Nat Han and I pushed it onto the drive. Once inside Deb called out the RAC, we have home start, and an hour later their chap turned up. Great news…the head gasket completely gone and will need to be replaced and we’re looking at a bill of One Thousand Pounds approximately to have this work done. The Guy got the car started and Deb followed him to a garage he recommended and there they left it on the forecourt until morning. The nice RAC guy dropped Deb back at home.
So, I’ve got to get to hospital by 7:15 AM on Wednesday, it’s now Monday night and we have a broken car that’s going to take at least 3 days to fix…anyone else see a problem here?
Tues 4 – Happy Stars Wars Day – May the Fourth was it with you… well was it? Note to self remember to register religion as Jedi next year during census or else start a campaign to get everyone one to register as Flying Spaghetti Monster. Kept waiting for the Fourth to be with me but no apparent luck “strong the fourth is not in this one” as the little Fozzie Bear sound alike would say.
We’ve sorted out the car situation, Deb is going to borrow Donna’s car and so spent much of the evening at Donna’s online getting herself put on Donna’s insurance as an additional authorized driver; at least that’s one less problem to worry about. I passed the day mainly doing little or nothing checking that I had everything that I would need the next day and packing separately those items that Deb would bring in after my Op. I’m taking the bare minimum, Dressing Gown, PJ’s, Slippers, couple of books, MP3 player (in case my phone batteries die) and N82 mobile for pods and twittering (see separate entry above for - A Tweeting View of a Day in the General).
We received the May issue of the Braunstone Life (the Community Newspaper of Braunstone Town) this afternoon and there was a special two page spread entitled “Millfield Mercury” featuring items from Han’s (and formally Nat’s) primary school. There, slap bang in the very fist column, was the Millfield marathon badge that Han had designed for the marathon run they were going to do at school to support their teacher Mrs. bates who was running in the Brighton marathon to raise money for guide dogs for the blind (Mrs. B completed it successfully).
Wed 5 - Hope yesterday that everyone had a happy Star Wars day and that the Fourth was with You!
Anyway it's currently 01:41 on the 5 May and today's the day of my operation. Why am I up so late? well I've got to be at the General by 07:15 this AM and I figure, if last time was typical, that'll I'll be waiting round for a few more hours before going under the knife. Now after that's over then the last thing I want to be is wide awake so if I'm tied already hopefully I'll sleep through the worst of the post-op pain. Anyway that's my plan. In sixteen minutes time I pass the point of ingesting anything other than water, I've a cup of coffee here that I'll finish before then after that it's nothing but water up until 06:00 and after that nothing at all. I'm going to bed at 02:00 then getting up at 05:00 because despite the fact that I can't have breakfast I have got to have another shower with the "special" cleaner in order to try and avoid infections. Anyway, since the kids and Deb went to bed I've been able to check that I've got everything I need to take with me and everything Deb needs to fetch over later...thank God for Donna we've got her car as ours went tits up on Monday (see previous entry for weekend and Bank Holiday) night, we barely made it home, , head gaskets gone and we're looking at approximately a Grand in repairs and no car for three or even four days, talk about great timing!!! I'm taking my phone, creative MP3 player (charging cables) and a couple of books. Hopefully Deb will fetch over surge protection multipoint extension cable, net-book and portable hard drive (with their charging cables) and, finally, some additional books.
Anyway, it's time to sign off now; hopefully I'll be back to tell you what my time in hospital was like...fingers crossed everyone, please : )
Today was the first day that we have spent on the allotment this year. Hannah and I did the digging and Nat did a little light weeding, but he did mend the compost bin. The cabbages are a bit battered and have been well nibbled by something, the broad beans have caught the frost but the onions look OK. Nat has decided where he wants to put a small pond and we found a frog - so lets hope he stays to enjoy it this summer.
I'm back at work tonight (I work 4 nights on/4 nights off) so I won't be going up to the plot today. However, my new library card and pin have arrived today so when I've finished this I'm popping up there to see what books they've got on allotment growing etc.. Whilst I'm there I must remember to order the Neutronium Alchemist for the holiday.
I didn't go alone today. Nat's got his extra lessons on Tuesday, so I thought it might be nice if Hannah and I went up together whilst he was there and did a bit of digging together. She did her best, bless her, even though she's got quite painful stomach ache from the constipation she's suffering from. Whatever else, she's great at filling daddy's hat with water, which was very cooling and much needed. We started clearing the weeds about the patch we had covered over on Sunday and made fair headway. Deb and Nat arrived later and we carried on until about 05:30 then went home for tea. Thephoto'sof today are included in yesterdays post as unfortunately I forgot to upload yesterdays photo's separately from todays so their all togheter (if that makes any sense). Here's a couple of photo's of Hannah doing her bit.
Saturday 28 June 2008. Well, it's time to make a start. The four of us arrived mid morning with good intentions ready to being turning this overgrown piece of land into something that will provide us with fresh wholesome food for the foreseeable future. With the price of food rocketing as it is and with no end to this in sight this could be the best decision we've made in a long time. We got started, I did the digging, Deb did the weeding and the kids did what they could. I think the photos will show what we managed to get done.
Our plot at Rosamund Road in Leicester is 10 yards by 30 yards and gives us a whopping 300 square yards of growing space.
View Larger Map
Unfortunately, as you can see from the photos, we're going to have to do a bit(!) of digging before we can contemplate cultivating such a large area. We didn't do anything this first day, just got shown around the site by George (The Allotment Manager) and had choose which of the 3 available plots we wanted. The one we picked looks very over grown, but, luckily, has only just been let go by the previous occupant, so clearing it, hopefully, shouldn't be too difficult! Anyway, we're coming back on Saturday to make a start. Whilst we were there, we met Terry who was the previous manager and who has the plot next to ours. Apparently he's had it for over 50 years and it looks great - one day perhaps so will ours. He gave us our first produce when he presented us with one of his beautiful lettuces (see photo's).
