11 April 2020

With lockdown going beyond normal haircut range, things got drastic enough for us to order a set of hair clippers.  Once they arrived, my Missus decided she could sort out Number One’s hair.  Her confidence, and his for that matter, was badly shaken 15 seconds later when the first clump of hair fell away, revealing what was now a new bald spot.

I arrived on the scene looking for the source of screaming thinking some bad accident had taken place but rather than having to carry out first aid, I was called as Chief Coiffeur to remedy the situation.

Having seen the local barbers in action over several decades, I soon had number one’s barnet restored to former glory, even if he did resemble the fifth Beatle now.  He duly started hacking at mine following a softly-softly less-is-more approach and I too soon lost that Stig-of-the-Dump look.

Honestly!  Eventually things had calmed down to such an extent that I wouldn’t have been surprised if my 11 year old son had stood there post chop, with a hot towel over one arm, nonchalantly asking me if I required anything for the weekend.

20 April 2020

I was awoken late the other night by a sudden bang followed by a crash in the garden.  Leaping out of bed, I reached for the blunderbuss and flung open the window.  Poking the barrel into the darkened greenery, aimed down the barrel to see if anything was there whilst trying to remember if I had filled the thing up since last time. It had been a while since I had hunted round the house for the hardest items I could find that would fit down the barrel – bolts, nuts, bits of dried Wheetabix chiselled from number ones breakfast bowl. Silently, I moved the tassle to one side so I could see better and scanned the under growth.  Hmmmn, nothing there but suddenly there was second quieter crash which knew to be the cat flap.  Bloody things, cats.  Thank goodness I didn’t need to be up early eh?

06 May 2020

The Gov’t are beginning to think about how we come out of it and one way is a useful app for your phone to warn you if you have come into contact with someone with Covid-19.  In order to perfect it they have chosen the Isle of Wight, perfectly sensible – decent size population, contained on an Island, etc.

So when news crews arrived on the IoW to ask people opinion it got a bit too predictable.  First of all a couple were interviewed saying not many people on the IoW have smart phones.  The sneering comments about in-breds were barely out of my mouth, indeed my Missus had just shot me a filthy look not to be so nasty, but had no time to admonish me because a second person promptly came on the telly to inform us that she didn’t want to be a guinea pig for some Gov’t experiment!  “I rest me case, m’lud!” I was able to exclaim which did cause some mirth to us both.

22 June 2020

Life under lock down is starting to become a tad tedious.  It’s taken a while but the little things that didn’t matter before have suddenly become massive.  Fighting over who’s turn is it to feed the deer in the lower field, for example?  The sprint to the tractor was won by Master Poshboy (it is legal for an eight year old to drive on private land, right?).  The rest of us were gutted, we all love driving ol’Bess!  The point is, the Lady of the Manor decided to put the dishwasher on early (i.e. during the day) as it was full – has she not heard of Economy 7 for goodness sake?  Muggins here got lumbered with sorting it out when the bloody thing started with its needy bleeping.  Sadly, I opened the dishwasher too soon and promptly steam cleaned my face.  Luckily I don’t suffer from blackheads otherwise it would have been new tablet job and door closed again.

With the shops opening last weekend following easing of restrictions, The Lady of the house and no. 1 daughter practically wheel spun off the driveway in their desperate delight to empty the coffers in exchange for cotton items.  They only went shopping last December, why the need to go again?  Shock and Awe for us chaps and our credit cards it may be, but Shop and Score for the ladies.

28 July 2020

Despite lock down for the best part of 4 months, The Lady of the House has had me spending like we have developed a sudden allergy to money.  With Covid still around this maybe true of cash but not with contactless and the internet.  We have, amongst other things, just sorted out a new bed and mattress – in fairness the old one was 10 years old with stains to match.  One thing we have yet to buy is some sort of contained, high pressure toilet cleaner.  The kids maybe posh like me, but when they carry out their ablutions they have no qualms about leaving behind more skid marks than the whole of the M25 and then exiting the block followed by a weapons grade smell.  We are talking proper Mattessons ham packet.  We then have to demeanor ourselves sorting it out before the cleaner can go in and do the proper clean.

16 October 2020

Just when we thought Covid was under control, humans got in the way as per usual.  So we are going into a second wave now…  Which reminded me last night, as I did an emergency booze run (just in case), of a comment one of my friends recently said when they mentioned that when they open a bottle of wine they have to finish it.  Some people reading this might be nodding at this point and thinking what’s wrong with that?  Actually everything, and its probably why the planet is in such a mess as it is.  In this age of plenty, the idea is you can have what you want, when you want it and as much as you want.  If I open a bottle of red for a glass and that’s enough for me, then I can stop.  For my friend though, he has to empty it, so I was wondering whether this is extended into other areas of his life?  When he opens a packet of cereal does he suddenly have the urge to eat 8 bowls of cereal, lest the open box might have to go in a cupboard or something?  Good job he doesn’t open a 240 bag box of tea; he wouldn’t sleep for a fortnight, the electricity bill alone would be crippling and that’s before we get onto toilet rolls.  Packet of three anybody?  Probably best leave it there.

We recently said goodbye to the Cooper S recently, a fun car it may have been but with all the bad backs going on round here it was crippling to drive.  So we have been testing cars with electricity, one car with two types of engine was so quiet I couldn’t work out if the petrol one was on or not so I wound the window down and even at 30 mph all I could hear was bird song…..  Nice. 

01 November 2020

After suffering from a bad back for a few months, I finally seem to have turned the last corner.  The incremental nature of recovery means that  I have turned more corners that a dodecahedron to get this far.  Still the misery is finally fading as I’m able to do more and can get back to normality, much to Lady Missus delight.  Thank goodness for Mr Hamilton (Sir Hamilton?) and his record breaking win of 92 wins to lighten the mood.

I was in the barbers recently and after the usual chat about football, motor racing and cars, conversation turned to the 1970s – probably on the back of the radio playing songs from certain years that you have to guess.  The 70’s was a distinctive decade in many ways, bad taste being the foremost, but  for some reason we fixated on smoking.  Back then of course you could smoke anywhere; home, car, office, public transport (including airplanes of course) and cinemas.  We reminisced about when smoking in cinemas was moved to the right hand side so non-smokers could enjoy a smoke free zone on the left.  Right, because that would work!  The 70’s therefore had a certain smell about it then, go to a shopping center back then and the concrete stair well would smell of stale smoke and urine. Pretty bad, at least us kids could chomp on our candy cigarettes.

07 November 2020

The Americans have had an election now and rumour has it that it could take some time to find a winner.  In this Country we have election night and usually, by the early hours of the morning, find out who got over the line first.  In the US, they will end up with more election nights than an Arabian story teller. Looks like its going to be Biden though, and for once, maybe the human race can start going in the right direction on the major issues of the day.  Who knows, once we get a winner, we’ll find out soon enough.

02 December 2020

I’ve had a few issues persuading number one to knuckle down and keep his education on track.  All this lockdown earlier in the year has got him in the routine of wearing out his X-box at every opportunity.  I’m all for getting my moneys worth but its getting in the way of, well life actually.  I think he’d have a controller surgically implanted at the end of his arms if he could.  I’ve tried explaining the fact that an education is a gift worth all the games consoles in the World but due to instant gratification issues, he’s not seeing it. I even explained that he’ll end up leaving school to work down at the municipal, where the only things he’ll have to worry about is “Where did we park the Dennis?” and “Is it the brown ones or the blue ones we are doing today?”.

The old back is finally nearly there.  The consultant looked at my MRI scan and described my back as an HGV drivers back.  The issue for me is I don’t have a matching diet so am likely to live a lot longer so am introducing more stretching and exercises to get it back to normality.  Out of all the lockdown gym equipment I splashed out on at the start of lockdown, the pilates matt gets the most use – I use it to lie on when watching the telly. 

15/12/2020

With Christmas around the corner, I took number 1 for his last barnet chop of the year.  While he was in the barbers I thought I’d do the right thing by dropping off a few old batteries at the recycle point in our local supermarket.  As it turned out they have either stopped doing it or its off for emptying.  No matter, I thought I’d pick up some stamps while I’m here.  I wandered over to the tobacco counter and asked the chap if he sells stamps.  He looked at me and said “We’re a bit low on stamps” – to be fair he wasn’t ever going to be a candidate for salesman of the year, so I narrowed it down for him, “Got any second class stamps?”.  “We are out of stamps”….. so not low then, just out.  He then just stared which was a little unnerving, the conversation cut-off switch in my head at this point started screaming “WALK AWAY, WALK AWAY!” so I did.  Once outside, I thought I’d try my luck in WHSmiths.  They do stamps and might also recycle batteries.  Five minutes later, I’m at the checkout and sure enough the stamp transaction goes well.  However my curve ball to the assistant asking him if they recycle batteries hasn’t appeared on any training script he’s come across.  “Batteries, yes over there” he says pointing to the nice shiny new ones on sale.  “No, batteries to recycle!”, “Ah, yes but the box is full”, he says.  Its all a bit too much effort so again I cut my losses and run away.  

I have to say, if machines really do want to take over the World, they don’t have to get too much smarter before they are in there.  It seems there are plenty of people out there who struggle to remember to suck oxygen into their faces, let alone process anything else. Chances are they wouldn’t even notice.