1 May 2010 (Saturday)
- Off on In a novel break with tradition, ‘er
indoors TM didn’t drive us to Fleet services were entertaining, featuring
contingents of SuperTeds and Teenage Mutant Hero
Turtles. I can only imagine there was a fancy dress contest somewhere along
the M3. As we drove through the rain we listened to an annoying rattling in
the car, which we eventually traced to the passenger side sun shade. I shall thump
that later. We knew we weren’t in We eventually got to our home for the week –
Auntie’s caravan in And then we watched a film – 2012. I say “watched
a film” - I watched the film. Everyone else fell asleep. |
2 May 2010 (Sunday) -
I was up relatively early, and as is often
the case when I’m on holiday I got stuck into a crossword puzzle book. I
rarely do crosswords, except when on holiday when I never stop. The puzzle
book had an advert for something I might just add to my Xmas list. They were
selling illuminated
John Wayne Cuckoo clocks. A bargain at only one hundred and fifty
quid. A smashing bit of full English breakfast (with
me on the kiddies table), and then off to We arrived in Local shopkeepers all told me the festival
has steadily grown smaller over the last twelve years, and none of them
seemed to think it did much for the area. The local kite shop owner told me
she wouldn’t go as the organisers would charge her over a hundred quid to set
up a garden-sized gazebo. And from a purely personal point of view, I
wasn’t overly impressed to be blanked by the organiser and (so-called)
friends from White Horse Kite Fliers and Avon Kite Fliers. These people all
want to add me as their friend on Facebook, but won’t even speak to me when
they see me in person. I’m finding myself very inclined to write a
rather scathing review of the festival for Brighton Kite Flier’s magazine. I
wonder if it will get published…? And then we crossed the harbour and climbed
the hill to the Nothe Tavern. I’d done my home
work. It’s the sort of pub that looks very “Royston Vasey” from the
outside, but is actually *the* place inb We then mooched up to Nothe
fort – a local fort which has been used to repel invaders for hundreds of
years. As well as being really well done and interesting, they’d hidden toy
mice all over the place in order to make it more interesting for the kiddies.
I spent quite a bit of time looking for the mice. I found several. It was
only on the way out that we were told we were supposed to count them. Back to town, and into the Red Lion for a
crafty half. They had a band playing outside who were doing all sorts of
stuff from the fifties and sixties, and we listened to them over a pint of “Jurassic”
from the Dorset brewery, before scoffing ice cream and making our way back to
the caravan where, after a kip I wrote out some postcards, had a bottle of
Oyster Stout and then amazed myself at scrabble where I played the justly
famous “McDonald Move”. It didn’t help me…. |
3 May 2010 (Monday) -
After a bit of brekky, some crossword puzzles
and a morning ablute, we set off to We then drove down to Portland Bill. Regular
readers of this drivel may recall that two years ago we walked from Littlesea to Portland Bill. Having done this trip both on
foot and in a car, I can confidently recommend the car. We played tourist and
looked at the lighthouse and the monument until the wind got so cold we were
turning blue, and then we adjourned for tea and cakes. It was at this point
that I realised my watch had stopped. Having got a watch with hands on is
something of a novelty for me, and earlier in the morning I managed to bash
my wrist. My watch was stopped at that time. I took my watch off and clouted
it on the table, and it started going again. So I set it to the right time
and hoped for the best. I set about my tea and cake as quickly as possible
before the resident spanner came to talk to me. Wearing a cycling helmet
whilst cycling is a good idea. You look stupid, but being on a bike you get
away with it. Resident spanner was wandering around in his cycling helmet,
but with no bike. It’s the sort of thing I’d do to wind up the normal people.
Perhaps he was on a wind-up. If so, it worked. It was at this point that my new camera
bleeped and asked me if I would like to update it’s
firmware. I told it I would not. I have no idea how I might do so. Let’s hope
I don’t need to. And then back to And then as the weather was clearing up we
popped into Matalan for warm jumpers and then went back to base. Whilst
Chip cooked a smashing roast dinner, I set about crosswords. After the
washing up was done we photographed a glorious sunset and settled down to
watch a film – “Master and Commander”. Again I watched the lot, whilst
listening to everyone else’s snores…. |
4 May 2010 (Tuesday)
- Abbottsbury An hour was spent doing crosswords (it’s a
holiday thing) before scoffing brekky and setting off to Abbottsbury – a nearby village with several attractions.
They had a deal where we if we bought tickets for two of the things, we’d get
the third one free. And we didn’t have to do them all on the same day. So
today we went to the Swannery. We started off by playing around in the maze.
There were six questions on posts at various places in the maze, and I
reported back the answers. I don’t know if we won anything, but hope springs
eternal. And then to the swans. There were hundreds of
them. Literally. I think we’d picked the right time to go. At any other time
of year they swans would probably be doing what swans do – swimming about on
the ponds. But today was part of egg-season, and the swans were all on their
nests. About a hundred nests, and all built wherever the swans wanted to
build them. Several being on the footpaths. Every nest had an upturned
dustbin lid by it, into which the staff would pour food and water on a daily
basis. Those swans were spoiled. We made a point of going to feeding time,
where one of the keepers gave a really good talk, and then we wandered back
the long way to the café. I had the soup, which was served by a rather “special”
looking chef (bless). I was tempted to have a bottle of the local beer
with my soup, but at four pounds per bottle I thought better of that idea. In the afternoon we went to the second
Abbotsbury attraction – the kiddies zoo. This zoo was particularly good, with
pigs, goats, budgerigars, rabbits, lambs and guinea pigs all available to be
mauled by the children. I can only imagine this place must have a very high
attrition rate, and must have regular deliveries of new livestock judging by
the way some of the animals were being mauled. But Emily seemed to enjoy
poking the rabbit in the eye, and I liked feeding the goats. I think I caught the sun today, and on
arrival back at the caravan I had a few minutes kip before tea. And with
littlun asleep we settled down to watch “Beautiful Mind” – a really
good film about a genius who was barking mad. |
5 May 2010
(Wednesday) - Slobbing About For a change I was the first one up and about
this morning, and after the obligatory crossword session and some brekky and
some telly we found it was mid day. We’d got so engrossed in CBeebies that
the time just flew by. It’s quite amazing how kiddies TV has changed over the
years. Gone are the days of Rosie & Jim and the Riddlers.
Postman Pat now has an aeroplane. Thomas the Tank Engine has been replaced by
Chuggington (good!!), and the whole lot is
introduced by a unidextrous fit bird. Woof! We wandered down to the campsite complex to
have a look-see. The bar wasn’t offering anything I’d go mad over, but it was
a decent enough place to be in, and after a bottle of brown ale we went
swimming. There were rumours of a fit lifeguard, but every time I looked
there was only a scruffy spotty speccy oik on the lifeguard podium. After we
came out, I went back with my glasses on (so’s I could see) but was
unable to find any fit lifeguards. I’m thinking it was all a wind up. Whilst littlun had a snooze (swimming had
worn her out) some of the bigguns walked along
the footpaths to Chickerell where we got artistic with the cameras. On the
way back we walked back to our caravan the long way, and had a good nose at
some of the other caravans on site. I have this vague plan to get a caravan…. And then up to Alf’s chip shop to
get some tea. Alf does the best chips for miles around, has won awards, and
it’s worth visiting just to hear him arguing with Mrs Alf and the children.
This evening his daughter’s mate was getting stick for not visiting the
dentist. Alf was encouraging all his customers to reprimand the poor girl. I
joined in – it would have been rude not to. A minor bit of excitement – when we got there
was a strange looking child outside our caravan. Said child was performing
weird dances. But he seemed happy enough, so we left him to it and scoffed
out cod and chips, before I wandered down to the complex to fetch ice creams. Fish and chips and ice cream. Being on
holiday is hard work…. |
6 May 2010 (Thursday)
- Ponds and Gardens I didn’t sleep well last night. I had a
nightmare about being forcibly drafted back into the cubs to take command of
the pack’s latest acquisition. A man-eating alligator. I’ve been told to
blame this mental aberration on the vast quantities of port and cheese I
devoured last night. After brekky we set off back to Abbottsbury – on Tuesday we got tickets for the
sub-tropical gardens, and today we thought we’d use them. On the way I made
comments about sub-tropical being a cactus under a foot of water. If only… “Daddies Little Angel TM ”
sometimes describes her life as being “one tedious ordeal after another”.
At the risk of being an old sourpuss, Abbottsbury’s
sub-tropical gardens certainly qualify as a tedious ordeal. I’m sure that for
those of a horticultural bent the place is wonderful. But I couldn’t tell one
plant from another, and it was only finding a fish pond that saved the place
(for me!) Having played with the posh hand driers for a
few minutes we went into the café. We laughed at the wierdie-beardie’s
inability to pour out a bottle of beer. Mind you if I’d paid the four pounds
they were charging just to get a glass of froth, I wouldn’t be very pleased
either. We scoffed our jacket potatoes, and set off to Bum Point.
Bum Point is the furthest extreme Billed as a series of ornamental ponds, I’d
been looking forward to having a mooch around this place. And was
disappointed. The highlight of the place was a rather tacky bridge which had
been ceremonially opened by Paul Daniels. Clearly there was still a lot of
work to be done on the ponds. And I consoled myself with the thought that the
ponds were a work in progress and they would be nice when theu
were done. On the way out there was a museum of the place. The ponds have
been going for fifty years. They were rubbish. I’m sure that given a gang of
volunteers I could have had the place looking far better in only a few weeks. From the water gardens we could see a sign in
the distance advertising a kite shop, so we drove over and had a look.
And a chat with the nice lady. We came out with some kites. It had been
rather windy all week, so we thought we’d play kites. As is always the way,
at that moment the wind stopped, and did not blow again all weekend. Back
to the caravan site, and whilst the girls did girl things, we had a go at the
crazy golf. I think I will use poetic licence to gloss over my score, but we
had fun, which was the main thing. We again took a rather circuitous walk
back to the caravan so we could have a nose at other people’s caravans, and
then spent the evening watching Shawn the Sheep on DVD. |
7
May 2010 (Friday) - Back into Weymouth We
spent the evening photographing the sunset, and watched various comedies on
the telly until we managed to blow the fuse on the caravan’s lighting
circuit. Woops! |
8
May 2010 (Saturday) - Home Again |
9
May 2010 (Sunday) - Bluebells I
think I shall do a tad more research before committing myself to anything. And then I went back to NeverWinter. I wonder what’s been going on in there…. |
10 May 2010 (Monday) - Back to the
Grind |
11
May 2010 (Tuesday) - Little Bit of Politics I’ve
voted Dithering Democrap for years. Never again. |
12
May 2010 (Tuesday) - This n That I’ve
booked a table for mid day on Sunday. I’ve left the time deliberately vague,
as my cycling speed is also deliberately vague. If any of my loyal readers
fancy coming along, do let me know… |
13
May 2010 (Thursday) - Loadasmoney It
all makes my dodgy coppers (that I mentioned yesterday) seem very
small change. There’s been a new addition to my ever-growing world of friends. Molly’s not a well dog – she’s diabetic which has left her blind. And she has Cushing’s disease. But she has found some wonderful people who will look after her. And if any other wonderful people would like to give a quid or two to help cover the not insignificant cost of her medications, please click here. |
14
May 2010 (Friday) - Not Feeling Well... |
15
May 2010 (Saturday) - Watching Telly |
16
May 2010 (Sunday) - Tweeting from Pluckley |
17
May 2010 (Monday) - Bit Dull, Really I think something’s gone awry with the blog
software. According to my Blogger dashboard (some high-tech thingie I use
behind the scenes), yesterday saw my three hundred and sixty fifth blog
entry. However bearing in mind that I started blogging here at the beginning
of June last year, I wasn’t expecting that landmark until the end of May.
Odd! Twitter
update: I’ve tweeted three more times
today. I think it fair to say the novelty is fast wearing off… |
|
19
May 2010 (Wednesday) - In The Shed |
20
May 2010 (Thursday) - Bike Lockers |
21
May 2010 (Friday) - On The Beach |
22
May 2010 (Saturday) - Bethersden I
like our weekend days out on the bikes…. |
23
May 2010 (Sunday) - The Bike Locker |
|
25 May 2010
(Tuesday) - Rather Dull I now have the filler, but I lack the
motivation to use it to fill the hole in the ceiling. Oh well - the hole has
been there for some time, and isn’t going anywhere in a hurry. It will be
there waiting to be filled when my motivation returns. I also need to find
motivation for another tip run. Various garden projects have left me with a
collection of timber fragments which I really need to take to the tip.
Sometime over the next week or so I shall be needing to put the top box onto
the car, and once that’s on, it stays in place till September. And with the
box in place, I can’t get under the barrier at the tip. So
I need to do the tip run this week, or it ain’t
going to happen. Some
days are eventful, others rather dull... |
26
May 2010 (Wednesday) - Filling the Hole So
in years to come “Daddies Little Angel TM ” will
have no excuse for not financing her old dad….. |
27
May 2010 (Thursday) - Another Pond |
28
May 2010 (Friday) - Sellindge |
29
May 2010 (Saturday) - Beer & Eurovision But
a good evening was had by all. Was it really three years since the last time
we had a Eurovision party…? |
30
May 2010 (Sunday) - Lazy Sunday |
31
May 2010 (Monday) - Bank Holiday I
hope he’ll appreciate it. I somehow think he won’t. |