Cover of Frank SinatraGood Morrow, dear Reader from yours truly,
Yes, believe it or not, everything I tell you is true, with no embellishment. Just like Rupert Murdoch and James, I have had it all verified in advance by my ‘bank’ of lawyers, well, in my case, one very twitchy lawyer. I tell him to relax, as my ‘poetic license’ is fully up to date!
It was difficult to choose a title for these diary meanderings, as so much has happened, but I came down on the ‘fence’ in the end. (Very painful! I needed anti-inflammatory pills. Very appropriate! Better get out of parenthetical hell..). You see, as you may recall, the neighbour threw up a fence and I nearly ‘threw up’! It’s all wonky and it’s so big it can be seen from space, like the Great Wall of China, only next-door’s is wooden (Just like his brain!). I feel like he’s put up a second ‘Berlin Wall’! A cold war is developing in my backyard. I sounded just like JFK there, didn’t I? I might have to get David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff in to sing or something and sort out my ‘Bay of Pigs’ fiasco!
Anyway, until ‘The Hoff’ gets here, I tried my diplomacy skills. I told my neighbour that the fence was awful, that he was blockading me out and asked if he had employed cowboys. I gave him my sketch of what it should look like. He calmly said he would look into it. I think I’m a loss to the Diplomatic Service. Clearly that calmed things down and no shots were fired. Mind you, I’m sure I heard the sound of tearing paper, followed by muted shrieking, but my hearing, like the handwritten plan, is a little ‘sketchy’!
What can I tell you next? Oh yes, it’s good to say you’re from ‘Norn Irn’ (Northern Ireland to the uninitiated.), after Darren Clarke became the third Ulsterman to win a major in short order. These guys have ‘putt’ us in the limelight for the right reasons for a change recently. By the way, do you notice the way they warn you about ‘flash’ photography coming up on TV? Well, I know some have to take care, but I think the photographers are just showing off! ‘Flash’? Please yourselves, as Frankie Howerd used to say. I’m a bit of a photographer and bird-watcher. You’ll often find me behind a bush with my ‘box-brownie’ and a cloak over my head, trying to get the perfect shot of a rare ‘Greater-Crested’ tit! (It’s all in your own minds and anyway that misunderstanding has all been cleared up!) Yes, I like birds of all sorts. They even call me ‘The Cock of the North’, which reminds me that my favourite soup is Cock-a-Leekie. Yes, it really is called that. (You’re writing your own script again, reader?) Thing is, sometimes I ‘cry into my soup’, because they rarely serve it piping hot in restaurants. I’ve had the hottest stuff India can provide (Stop that!) and my mouth is made of asbestos!
Talking about birds and cocks (I’ve warned you about this!), my daft son-in-law had to look after the vicar’s chickens for a few days. Firstly, the dolt got a jolt off the electric fence. I hoped it might shock some sense into him, but alas… Then he brings me an egg as a show off trophy and it turns out to be the ‘china’ egg for the clocking hen. I could have ‘clocked’ him after I cooked it and it exploded all over my kitchen! He tried to say it was it was free range. What a twit!
Did I tell you my feet were hurting again? Went to the podiatrist after she got over her bout of flu. Just politely asked her if she was still infectious. You should have seen the glare. She needs to work on her ‘bedside’ manner! Took the feet to my doc, Ima Gunna-Killya, she said it was probably stress, then the nurse took more blood than Dracula after 5 days in the Sahara! Mind you, stress has been my daily bread for a while. There was the saga of the Saga car insurance. When the renewal didn’t arrive I feared that the misunderstandings about lampposts and minor collisions had blotted my copybook. Turned out to be an oversight, but I still have paid the price of a small house each year, just to stay on the road! I was so financially fraught that I allowed the son-in-law to buy my lunch. That will cost me dear down the line!
Next thing was the ‘oilman’ arrived just after dawn for my delivery. He said he waited till I opened my blinds so as not to disturb me and asked if I had enjoyed my lie-in! I thought if he didn’t want to disturb me, he could fax the oil or talk to me through a medium! Everyone’s a critic! Then there was the stress of a family funeral. The daffy son-in-law was doing the eulogy and guess what he did? Firstly, he accidentally e-mailed the rev my last diary entry, where I slagged him off for texting while ‘meeting and greeting’. Then he only goes and delivers the eulogy with his mobile switched on. Yes, it rang and he made light by saying it was the deceased asking him to get on with it. What a wally! Never mind the deceased, we all nearly died when the phone went off! It was a lovely service. They played the deceased’s favourite and most appropriate song at the end, Frank Sinatra, singing ‘My Way’. The church was packed. It was empty at the start, then ‘The Word’ got out! (Just my little pun). By the way, flowers intrigue me. They are like life. beautiful, but inevitably wilt and die; they bring joy and colour, but fade…many meanings…all good in the end?
Back from the maudlin and sublime to the ridiculous. A lady asked me if I had a ‘bob or two’. I said I was well endowed. She raised an eyebrow, but seemed impressed! I mentioned to my daughter that a 30 something had caught my eye (No, I hadn’t dropped my glass eye!) She hissed between clenched teeth that the young lady was younger than my granddaughter. I had to do some serious back-pedalling! Did I ever tell you about the nurse in a Dublin hospital when I was 18. I got my tonsils out, but she got more than that out for the bloke in the next bed. Now that is personal care. The good news for me was she sent me a saucy pic of herself, yes; she was in the ‘nuddy’. I kept it with me in the army in India. I was very popular with the guys when I passed that round, for a small fee! What a goer! Not Goa, although that was close by, I think.
Any road, got to fly, literally. Going with my daughter to my younger daughter’s and other ‘rellies’. My lady ‘what does’ did my suitcase packing and I’m waiting for the son-in-law to collect me. Hope it’s not like last time, when he forgot to remind me to lift my ticket and passport and we had to zoom back here and get it. We were virtually on 2 wheels at times and I had to close my eyes. He drove like a madman. Well, if the cap fits… Unlike me, he’s not a good driver. Wish me luck! I’m sure there was something I had to remember to bring with me…..!
Yours sitting ‘on the fence’, yet always ready for lift-off,
The blogging Gogfather
Yes, believe it or not, everything I tell you is true, with no embellishment. Just like Rupert Murdoch and James, I have had it all verified in advance by my ‘bank’ of lawyers, well, in my case, one very twitchy lawyer. I tell him to relax, as my ‘poetic license’ is fully up to date!
It was difficult to choose a title for these diary meanderings, as so much has happened, but I came down on the ‘fence’ in the end. (Very painful! I needed anti-inflammatory pills. Very appropriate! Better get out of parenthetical hell..). You see, as you may recall, the neighbour threw up a fence and I nearly ‘threw up’! It’s all wonky and it’s so big it can be seen from space, like the Great Wall of China, only next-door’s is wooden (Just like his brain!). I feel like he’s put up a second ‘Berlin Wall’! A cold war is developing in my backyard. I sounded just like JFK there, didn’t I? I might have to get David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff in to sing or something and sort out my ‘Bay of Pigs’ fiasco!
Anyway, until ‘The Hoff’ gets here, I tried my diplomacy skills. I told my neighbour that the fence was awful, that he was blockading me out and asked if he had employed cowboys. I gave him my sketch of what it should look like. He calmly said he would look into it. I think I’m a loss to the Diplomatic Service. Clearly that calmed things down and no shots were fired. Mind you, I’m sure I heard the sound of tearing paper, followed by muted shrieking, but my hearing, like the handwritten plan, is a little ‘sketchy’!
What can I tell you next? Oh yes, it’s good to say you’re from ‘Norn Irn’ (Northern Ireland to the uninitiated.), after Darren Clarke became the third Ulsterman to win a major in short order. These guys have ‘putt’ us in the limelight for the right reasons for a change recently. By the way, do you notice the way they warn you about ‘flash’ photography coming up on TV? Well, I know some have to take care, but I think the photographers are just showing off! ‘Flash’? Please yourselves, as Frankie Howerd used to say. I’m a bit of a photographer and bird-watcher. You’ll often find me behind a bush with my ‘box-brownie’ and a cloak over my head, trying to get the perfect shot of a rare ‘Greater-Crested’ tit! (It’s all in your own minds and anyway that misunderstanding has all been cleared up!) Yes, I like birds of all sorts. They even call me ‘The Cock of the North’, which reminds me that my favourite soup is Cock-a-Leekie. Yes, it really is called that. (You’re writing your own script again, reader?) Thing is, sometimes I ‘cry into my soup’, because they rarely serve it piping hot in restaurants. I’ve had the hottest stuff India can provide (Stop that!) and my mouth is made of asbestos!
Talking about birds and cocks (I’ve warned you about this!), my daft son-in-law had to look after the vicar’s chickens for a few days. Firstly, the dolt got a jolt off the electric fence. I hoped it might shock some sense into him, but alas… Then he brings me an egg as a show off trophy and it turns out to be the ‘china’ egg for the clocking hen. I could have ‘clocked’ him after I cooked it and it exploded all over my kitchen! He tried to say it was it was free range. What a twit!
Did I tell you my feet were hurting again? Went to the podiatrist after she got over her bout of flu. Just politely asked her if she was still infectious. You should have seen the glare. She needs to work on her ‘bedside’ manner! Took the feet to my doc, Ima Gunna-Killya, she said it was probably stress, then the nurse took more blood than Dracula after 5 days in the Sahara! Mind you, stress has been my daily bread for a while. There was the saga of the Saga car insurance. When the renewal didn’t arrive I feared that the misunderstandings about lampposts and minor collisions had blotted my copybook. Turned out to be an oversight, but I still have paid the price of a small house each year, just to stay on the road! I was so financially fraught that I allowed the son-in-law to buy my lunch. That will cost me dear down the line!
Next thing was the ‘oilman’ arrived just after dawn for my delivery. He said he waited till I opened my blinds so as not to disturb me and asked if I had enjoyed my lie-in! I thought if he didn’t want to disturb me, he could fax the oil or talk to me through a medium! Everyone’s a critic! Then there was the stress of a family funeral. The daffy son-in-law was doing the eulogy and guess what he did? Firstly, he accidentally e-mailed the rev my last diary entry, where I slagged him off for texting while ‘meeting and greeting’. Then he only goes and delivers the eulogy with his mobile switched on. Yes, it rang and he made light by saying it was the deceased asking him to get on with it. What a wally! Never mind the deceased, we all nearly died when the phone went off! It was a lovely service. They played the deceased’s favourite and most appropriate song at the end, Frank Sinatra, singing ‘My Way’. The church was packed. It was empty at the start, then ‘The Word’ got out! (Just my little pun). By the way, flowers intrigue me. They are like life. beautiful, but inevitably wilt and die; they bring joy and colour, but fade…many meanings…all good in the end?
Back from the maudlin and sublime to the ridiculous. A lady asked me if I had a ‘bob or two’. I said I was well endowed. She raised an eyebrow, but seemed impressed! I mentioned to my daughter that a 30 something had caught my eye (No, I hadn’t dropped my glass eye!) She hissed between clenched teeth that the young lady was younger than my granddaughter. I had to do some serious back-pedalling! Did I ever tell you about the nurse in a Dublin hospital when I was 18. I got my tonsils out, but she got more than that out for the bloke in the next bed. Now that is personal care. The good news for me was she sent me a saucy pic of herself, yes; she was in the ‘nuddy’. I kept it with me in the army in India. I was very popular with the guys when I passed that round, for a small fee! What a goer! Not Goa, although that was close by, I think.
Any road, got to fly, literally. Going with my daughter to my younger daughter’s and other ‘rellies’. My lady ‘what does’ did my suitcase packing and I’m waiting for the son-in-law to collect me. Hope it’s not like last time, when he forgot to remind me to lift my ticket and passport and we had to zoom back here and get it. We were virtually on 2 wheels at times and I had to close my eyes. He drove like a madman. Well, if the cap fits… Unlike me, he’s not a good driver. Wish me luck! I’m sure there was something I had to remember to bring with me…..!
Yours sitting ‘on the fence’, yet always ready for lift-off,
The blogging Gogfather
"Good fences make good neighbors". Besides, you can just pitch your rubbish and lawn clippings over on their side. They can't prove where it came from. :)
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, i like the pictures.
ReplyDelete