One more sleep....

I thought I might do a 'round robin' this year just to boost my blog numbers. My efforts to exceed last year have failed, and my target of 50 or so has been woefully missed. Hey ho, will try to do better next year.

So lets start almost a year ago, when I made a New Years resolution, and I am pleased to say I have kept it for 12 months, and shall be extending it into 2014. The resolution was quite simply to buy no new clothes except for socks and underwear. I have masses of NWT polo shirts in my cupboard, trousers and jackets that barely see the light of day, enough jumpers to knit a sheep and coats, scarves, windcheaters and waterproof clothing, that I need for nothing in the wardrobe department.

During the year we have been blessed with two new additions, GC3 and GC4, aka Archie Beet and Nell Harris, and both are progressing well. Nell is three weeks old now and Archie is fast approaching the crawling stage. GC1 will soon be bossing them around, and I now communicate with GC2 in London, by Skype. Technology eh!

It was good to have GC2 and her parents visit us a couple of times this year and she is now beginning to know who we are and where we fit in. She has also visited her Great Grandmother Joan  who lives up the road in Hoylake, and GGJ will be joining us for the turkey tomorrow, one of 17 adults and budding adults around the table.

Holidays have been sparse this year. The two week trip to Mexico was a disaster as SWMBO broke the elbow joint and six months down the line is still in considerable pain  with no end to it in sight. I had a few days with the rugby chums, London branch, in Norfolk during October which was a blast.
Maxine did her family holiday in Tunisia in August, and we had a long weekend with her sister in Hong Kong where we saw the British Lions play the Barbarians.

We also visited Turkey for a week in February, just as the season was opening up.

Number one son did the London to Monte Carlo bike ride in the Summer, which included mountain stages of the Tour d'France. Number two son has been made head of history at his school, but has still to embrace life outside Hill House, despite me turning the heating off on his floor,  Might try putting his rent up next year.

I have been busy with extra curricula activities as much as I am able. Woodwork classes, Photoshop tutorials and Pilates have all been and gone during 2013, and I have stopped my piano lessons as I really was not on the same wave-length as the teacher I was allocated, so I will have to find a new one for 2014. I am also hoping to join a magic class in January.

With all this time on my hands you would expect the garden to be a picture, whereas in fact it has been a period of stability as most of my efforts went into completing my shed. This is now done, and together with my new book shelves and wine rack it shows me I have some DIY skills which I have been able to use productively and not just to fix fences.

My golf has improved  although my handicap remains 16, so it would be good to knock a few shots off that next year, and get my name on a trophy if I can.

SWMBO is nearly nine months into her sabbatical now, and she may well start to look for some part time work in 2014, we shall see. She continues to support Bridge to Aid and hopes to go back to Tanzania in October.

We also have a two week holiday in Turkey with 'the mad crew' to look forward to in May, I have a stag weekend in Lisbon in July, and we hope to get to the Dominican Republic in September. Add to that the fact that we are seeing in the New Year at Slaley Hall in Northumberland and 2014 already has a good feel to it.

So a Merry Chriustmas and a happy new Year to all my readers, and may 2014 give you everything you wish of it......Ho! ho! ho!

Hail and farewell

Thursday was a momentous day. At roughly the same time of night GC4, was born into the world as senior statesman,  Nelson Mandela,  passed away. As a poignant gesture, GC4 has been named Nell, although her sister, GC1 seems to think Isabella is a much better name and calls her that at every opportunity.

Mother Emma will now face a life challenge as she must bring these two girls up without the help of their father, the pub singer. After a season in Spain he has decided he would rather have the life of a tour rep than the responsibilities fatherhood brings. He has now consigned himself to the ranks of 'day care dad'. A book is open as to how long before he can't cope with that and disappears altogether.

Hardship and commitment are two things he could learn a lot about,  from the life of Mandela. His transformation from terrorist to diplomat has been well documented in a way which will never be reflected in any obituary of  Martin McGuiness or Gerry Adams. It will be interesting to see what South Africa, and the wider African continent will become going forward without him.

Life is cruel though when Mandela is taken from us but a person like Mugabe can continue to rule with an iron fist. His time will come and then there will be some wiggle room in the large expanses of Southern Africa.

Welcome Nell, sleep well Mandela.

Honey Fungus

It's hard to believe that I am approaching the end of my first year in retirement, but as the nights grow darker and the days get cold, I am reminded that the next few months are the most challenging.

The Summer has progressed well, I have played too much golf, but have won a tournament and come second in another so that has served to keep my handicap stable. I have played some great courses and met a lot of new people so no complaints there.

The garden has been my other source of activity, as I see my running days being put on hold for a bit longer. I gave the grass its final Autumn cut this week, and built the latest folly. It's a grass bench modelled on a design spotted at the RHS Tatton Park flower show, and it works well in a troublesome spot behind  the rhododendron's . Only time will tell if it gets enough sunlight to be sustainable

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My other Summer project has, of course, been the new shed, and
here it is finally completed save for the final coat of paint. Given the size   of it, I am quite amazed that it is now appears to be full. Three  bikes, loads of garden furniture, paint, a marquee, two gazebo's, hordes of car boot sale items, old golf clubs, spare pictures, ladders, wood offcuts  and several cases of wine have seen to that.



The down side to the gardening this season appears to be the fact we have honey fungus.  Here is the mushroom style evidence which I am basing it on, and it has killed this Silver Birch. A similar fate befell our only apple tree. That was the sole survivor of when the site was all orchards, so it might have been on its last legs anyway, but it is still a great loss to the landscape.

 Two Hornbeam's also had to be felled this year, although they have no mushroom infestations in evidence, nor does one of the larger Holly tree's which is also looking distressed, I am just keeping my fingers crossed that we have no other species which are susceptible to honey fungus, although I am nervous that Acer is one such and we have a fair few of those, one of which travelled with us from London and would cost over £1000 to replace size for size. Seems like I must do some more research  as the fungus is resilient to treatment and can only be contained by physical barriers. This might be the  first Winter project I am looking for.

So onward into the wet season, that of rugby internationals , long lunches and Christmas cheer, with a new Grandchild to look forward to any day,  ( herein referred to as GC1, 2 or 3 as appropriate) and 18 round the festive  dinner table.  Note to self, must win that Turkey Trot at the golf club again, we will need the food. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Biffa bear

I have gone to print previously about my fear for rugby once it became a professional sport. I was particularly concerned about the introduction of 'gamesmanship' of a style similar to that endemic in football, and the lowering of the IQ level of players as youngsters see a career in rugby being a replacement to a solid education. This latter trend would very much see the game become one  divest of vision, imagination and spontaneity.

At the moment the former has not come to prominence, however,  the antics of the England centre Manu Tuilagi have certainly highlighted the real danger facing the game when amoeba-like players take the field.

That said, his offer to send an apology to David Cameron did make me laugh. I suspect he would need to use a ghost writer.

Magical Mystery Tour

I agreed to see a friend for a few beers yesterday. We decided to meet at The Farmer's Arms in Wallasey Village in the hope that they had Fullers London Pride on draught. My friend, Steve, is a fellow exile from dan South and we play golf at the same club. The Farmer's Arms has a good range of real ale, but on this occasion the Pride was replaced by Timothy Taylor's Landlord, so we drank that....no hardship there.

Now that I have a free travel pass I decided to go there by bus. Big challenge! The Wirral bus network is very difficult to understand and is designed and run by people who , in their infancy, must have been limited to playing with train sets and buses in the confines of a very small bedroom. They must have also been tucked up very early at night.

Wirral buses seem to run in very small circles and start and end at the most obscure and inconvenient times. Take my journey last night. I needed to take two buses, the first of which conveniently stops out side the house. I needed to be at Wallasey for about 7pm, so decided to get the 6:15pm bus to Liscard where I would change.

Unbeknown to me, the 6:15 bus was actually the last bus on this route that night, but it got me to my change stop by about 6:35. I then had ten minutes to wait before my second bus arrived. This turned out to be the first bus of the day which arrived at 6:48pm and dropped me right outside the pub.

All sounds easy, until you work out that I could not get home by the same means, at a very reasonable 9:30pm. So I had to get the train back to Birkenhead and hop in a cab, so defeating the object of avoiding transport costs.

Further research indicated that the first bus was primarily a peak time bus for commuters and school children so it actually does not run after 10:00am or before 3pm. The second bus starts when the Wallasey loop bus finishes. While the loop bus runs all day, it stops at 6pm.

The ,majority of Wirral buses run in and out of the Birkenhead bus depot, either at Laird Street or Conway Park, and also call into Arrowe Park hospital. So if you are going shopping or are ill it's great. If you need to get from A to B particularly at night, its a nightmare.

We have a new bus which runs from our door to Liverpool, but guess what? The last bus back is 6:30pm, so no good if you plan a night out. The other popular bus to West Kirby (Cougarland as it's locally known) only runs every hour, so you have to be spot on to get there and back.

So it is no wonder I am having to drive much more than I used to, and when I study the bus map and find I can get to my destination, I then have to check that I can actually get back as well. Couple that with the fact the drivers are not exactly local, and I begin to realise where The Beatles got their inspiration from.

My day in Court

The long running battle I have with the local police and council concerning their overly aggressive use of speed camera's reached a new level on Friday when I had to appear in court to defend my position not to identify the driver of my car when it was flashed in early January.

The car was travelling at 38 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone, the road was an eight lane carriageway, and traffic was minimal. I was seriously annoyed when I found out I had been 'flashed'.

How did I find out? Not by the usual process of summons, but by a policeman visiting the address in late March or early April. He was there to check I lived at the address in question, but when I informed him this was the first I had heard of the offense, he indicate he would resend the summons.

This arrived towards the end of April and I wrote indicating I could not be sure who was driving so could they give me photographic evidence to help? No, they said, the photo is only for car identification. "Oh" I said, "see you in court then".

I was duly summoned and warned that a guilty verdict would result in a 6 point penalty. My in-house legal team attended court three times on my behalf, arguing , that I had not received any notification until April, that I had co-operated to try to identify the driver and that I should be acquitted. The CPS were having none of it, so I was wheeled out in person to face the bench.

Three magistrates sat in judgement, and after my new solicitor put the case for dismissal, the young CPS lawyer asked a few questions and pushed for a guilty verdict. The magistrates then retired to consider their verdict.

After 15 or 20 minutes they returned to find me not guilty and, on application, awarded me and the team costs. So six points avoided, a lot of tax payers money wasted and a vindication of my bloody minded attitude towards the Liverpool road policing policy.

I got flashed again in May this year while taking my mother to hospital for a check up so I still have 3 points on my license, but what I am now exploring is a bolt-on for my sat nav and to see if there is a governor facility on the cruise control. I really must accelerate way from traffic lights at a much slower speed as that seems to be my undoing.

So I am leading 2-0 on contested cases at the moment, and have also used up my driver awareness option. If they had all gone the other way I would be facing a ban with twelve points totted up in less than a year. Compared to London,  Liverpool is really not a good place to get around by public transport, but with my old gits bus pass I must try.

Men at Work

This is Mark, working diligently at his bench in the heart of Liverpool city centre. Mark is a furniture restorer and is married to one of  SWMBO's girl friends. He invited me to the workshop to look round, and I must say it was a bit of an Aladdin's Cave.

The workshop is on the ground floor of an old cotton warehouse. Chris, an upholsterer, works on the first floor beside the stripping and varnishing sections. There is work in progress all over the place.

Next door is the showroom where all the restored items, and some originals are displayed for potential buyers. Mark pointed out the restoration work on some items, which to the untrained eye would be impossible to spot. Some areas of the showroom were fitted out as period rooms, such as an Art Nouveau lounge and a country kitchen from the 1950's. I was interested to see one of the artefact's was a vintage  Totopoly set, but only had paper horses so was not in the same league as my cast iron version.

While the market in brown goods has hit the floor over the last few years, good pieces like chaise longue, desks and dining chairs still continue to command premium prices. Wardrobes and tables though don't.

We have some dining chairs which need repair so Mark and Chris will be on the case for those soon, and Mark very kindly offered me some bench space and the use of the industrial saws, for when I start to do my own work. I have enrolled at the local technical college to do a basic carpentry and joinery course so will welcome access to some of his tools.

The basement area is suffering from damp, so is not used for the furniture, but they have set up a 20 metre shooting range to pass the time in their lunch breaks!!

My shed is progressing well,  to the point where there is lighting and  bike storage available so just a few shelves to put up and I can finish the sides. Just need a good downpour to test out the internal drainage system now.