More from a busy week....

Yesterday (when not dealing with black bricks) I went Edinburgh. On the journey I noticed my washer bottle was in need of replenishing.

At the first opportunity I went into a garage and paid a fiver for a large container of screen wash.

"Where is the water tap?" I asked.

"We don't have one."

I tried another garage a few miles further on. They had no tap either. Suspecting a new post-brexit water tap shortage I formulated a new plan. Into Morrisons and out again toting a huge great bottle of water.

Back at the car I decided to read the instructions to make sure I had the concentration level correct for the - 5 C temperature and read the following,

"Ready to use, no need to dilute." 

Black Brick

Last night at 2.00 a.m. I woke up with a feeling in the pit of my stomach...I had forgotten something. What I had forgotten was now a black brick, a smoking black brick. It wasn't meant to be, it was meant to be a loaf of bread. As I have found out before, when a loaf of bread is overbaked by 5 hours 30 mins it will turn into a black brick.

How did this happen? I was distracted by a programme on television when I had just popped the would-be loaf in the Aga. As a result I completely forgot about it until....

What was the programme that had me so engrossed?

Masterchef.

Chicken Feed

The last post I put up referred to "chicken feed". This may or may not mean something or anything to readers depending on their chicken experiences. For the sake of clarity here is what constitutes chicken feed for the Blogs' chicken...

• Layers pellets
• Corn mix
• Bread
• Rice
• Various fruits
• Jaffa cakes
• Bourbon biscuits
• Abernethy biscuits
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Fairy cakes
• Butterfly cakes

We have a chicken fast heading towards type 2 diabetes running around the garden like a crack addict.

Hissy fit

Am I the only one in this world who is picked on by inanimate objects?

I wouldn't be posting this but in a moment of weakness I promised Mrs Blog that I would. She spotted that the garage was in a little bit of disarray last week. Wondering what could have caused this, she asked me if I knew anything about it.

"Yes," said I, "I was in the garage a couple of days ago trying to get to the leaf blower."

It was leaning on a wall, in front of which, was the garden furniture (safely tucked away after summer). On one of the garden chairs was a heavy sack of chicken feed. Two other garden chairs were expertly balanced one on top of the other. In front of this Tracey Emin-esque work of art was a rake and a box full of black, garden rubbish bags ready to be re-used from last year.

I pulled out one of the garden bags, knowing it would be needed when I started using the leaf blower. Out came three, one of which was full of soggy rotten leaves that managed to fly all over me. I gave up and tackled the furniture picking up the bag of chicken feed. It had a hole in one corner, a bloody big hole, out of which poured a couple of kilos of the stuff. I set it down and went to move the chairs. One of them decided to fall on top of me without warning.

I took my revenge by kicking it and hurting my toe.

Election marketing

If like me, you have had an inbox full of updates about the impact of the Trump election result, you might like this...

Ryanair sent an email advertising a stack of deals, one of which was....

"Comb over to Europe"

Masterchef Audition

Yesterday I went about making an omelette for breakfast as usual. A diagram below of the omelette in question is attached since it will help with the explanation of what happened next.

You can see that I have marked the different parts of the omelette with numbers. This is because the pan was a bit unhelpful and stuck to the omelette in these four places. I tried to loosen the concotion with a spatula but was only partly successful. I realised I had only option - to toss the damn thing.

I did. It didn't work.

Piece 1 ended up in the sink.
Piece 2 wrapped itself around the handle
Piece 3 stayed in the pan
Piece 4 flipped up, hit me and landed on the floor

What did I learn?

• Buy a non-stick pan
• Egg is damned difficult to get off a pan handle
• Mrs Blog thinks I'm "sweet"

Plea for forgiveness

I want to make an apology and appeal for forgiveness.

Yesterday I went to the jet car wash up the road. I loaded the machine with pound coins and set about cleaning off the yew berries and muck that made my car look like a black forest gateau.

After five minutes of concentration I noticed something move out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look at it and it stopped.

"It" was a very large vole.

The reason I need forgiveness is that I inexplicably, with no forethought and no malice intended, pointed the jet wash straight at it.

The result was a very fast moving, very wet, very large vole.

In honour of the poor creature I captured the image below,

Mr Magoo

Yesterday I went to see the optician. I felt my sight was improving for reading but worsening for distance vision.

The optician carried out a series of tests and then agreed with my diagnosis adding that my eyes were "interesting". Today she was proven to be correct.

I made use of a public convenience this morning in the charming small town of Biggar. Having washed my hands I held them under the dryer. Nothing. I wondered if electrical supply might be intermittent, Biggar is a long way from any metropolis. But no the lights were working perfectly. I examined the dryer more closely and discovered it dispensed paper towels.

Should have gone to Specsavers!

Thoughtful Gifts

Last week a team leader (TL) left the project I was working on. It was decided that, because he wasn't a complete plank, that we should have a whip round. With a tidy sum in his paw the organiser went off to buy a present.

It will help to know what the team leader looked like so...

On the final day we huddled around to surprise out TL. And he was suprised ...by the upmarket, gentleman's shaving set!

Pub quiz

Last Thursday I was in a pub in Leeds minding my own business when they started their pub quiz.

A young couple were sat at the table next to me and paid their pound each to take part. First question:

"When is Burns night celebrated?"

They thought about it and thought about it until one of them said,

"I've got it!"

"When is it?"

"November the 5th!"

Ho hum.

Wonders of the wine bar

It has been too long since my last blog. Thankfully Yates' Wine Bar in Leeds came to my rescue last week.

In search of a glass of wine (or two) myself and a colleague popped in to their establishment, and after checking the prices, decided to order a bottle of red. The young barman (pictured below) was wearing what could only be described as fashion-statement oversized glasses.

He wandered off and then wandered back before wandering off again. He repeated this process several times and appeared to be patrolling the length of the bar. No-one else was waiting to be served so we knew we had his undivided attention. After several minutes he came back and said,

"Do you know where they keep corkscrews in wine bars?"

It seems it was his first day. We suggested that behind the bar was probably his best bet and off he went again. Several minutes later we called him back and asked if we could have a glass of wine while we were waiting for the corkscrew to be found.

"Have it on the house," he said. We warmed to him at this point.

He turned around grabbed an open bottle and a measure and... found three corkscrews at the same time. We got our free glass while he opened our bottle. As he pulled the cork from the bottle I said,

"You should have gone to Specsavers!"

He replied,  "I did"

Parking problems

Over the years I have, I freely admit, transgressed parking bye-laws. I have been done for parking on single yellow lines, out-staying my welcome, parking across the white lines of a parking bay and even for having a flat tyre which seemed to upset  Edinburgh Council's finest traffic brains. My accumulated knowledge of parking misdemeanours means I am pretty clued up on the subject ... or so I thought.

I parked in Leeds a couple of weeks ago. Having booked online and paid for the full day I was confident that my car was violation-free. It came as a surprise, when at 5.15, I returned to find a ticket stuck on the window. Eager to see what I had done wrong I ripped open the envelope. The wording was...

"The driver was seen walking away from the car park, leaving his car on the premises."

Call me old-fashioned but I thought that was the whole bloody point of a car park!!

Seemingly, having paid for the day's parking I should have sat in the car from 8.00 till 5.00!!

Important information update

I work from home. Sometimes this can beneficial, I choose my hours, fit work around other things in my life and so on. At other times it can be quite challenging. If a courier turns up and knocks on the door and rings the bell in the middle of a conference call, it can be awkward. Occasionally Mrs Blog bursts in to my office to tell me the latest bit of news, as she did this morning.

"I can't speak, I am on the phone!" I hissed muting the microphone with my chest.

"Oops. sorry!" said Mrs Blog.

Ten minutes later I finished the call and went looking for Mrs Blog to find out what was so important and so urgent that she needed to interrupt my work.

"I wanted to tell you that I've moved the potatoes," she said.

Lobstergate

For many years now Mrs Blog has wanted to try lobster to see what all the fuss is about. As neither one of us knows the first thing about preparing, cooking or smashing apart a lobster, her wish has remained unfulfilled ... until now.

Last weekend she discovered a pre-prepared lobster that you simply pop into a pot of boiling water for five minutes and bob's your uncle!

We decided that Valentine's day was the day to enjoy this little treat. As dinner-time approached, the anticipation reached fever pitch. Mrs Blog took off the wrapping and things went downhill, it smelled really fishy. Fearing a bout of shellfish-induced, food poisoning we proceeded cautiously.

Having boiled it thoroughly we set about trying to get at it. I attacked the claws with a nutcracker and soon there was nothing left of them that looked remotely edible.

Mrs Blog tried to pull off the inedible bits and then delegated the job to me. I went for it with all a bloke can muster and pulled all sorts of bits with gusto. Soon we were left with a bit of shell and a suspicious looking lump of lobster meat. After a health and safety meeting we decided it too was inedible.

After all the anticipation, preparation and effort, all that was left to eat was the wedge of lemon we were going to squeeze over it!

I'm a fire-starter

Night before last I was busy in the kitchen making a sweet chilli dipping sauce. Somehow I spilled a big load of sugar on the hotplate of the Aga. No problem - I simply mopped it up with a piece of kitchen towel.

This led to a series of important discoveries,

1. Spilling sugar on an Aga creates a nasty smell
2. My curry did not mask the smell of the burning sugar
3. You cannot concentrate on cooking when there is smoke billowing in the kitchen
4. Despite there being no naked flames on the Aga hotplate it can still cause a kitchen towel to spontaneously combust
5. A plastic recycling bag isn't best place to put a piece of paper that is going to burst into flames

Hunger games and hairstyles

A week or so ago Daughter-blog was staying with us. One morning she wandered into the dining room with her hair tied up in massive curlers. A little like this...

Having recently seen the last film in the Hunger Games series I mentioned that she looked a bit like Effie Trinket. (For non-Hunger Games fans see below)

She was not totally bowled over by the comment. A short while later she said she was going back up stairs to finish her hair.

Son-blog offered the following support, "May the odds be ever in your favour!"

Blog Christmas

Christmas in the Blog-house was peppered with mis-speaking. Here are some samples...

"We can have Christmas rolls on sausage eve." (Mrs Blog)

"Oh, lovely! Spam hand lotion!" (Grandma-snoop-blog referring to a spa hand lotion)

"There's an Agatha Crispie on tonight." (Mrs Blog)

So we are looking forward to a nappy-new-hear....

Five a day?

Mrs Blog has been on a mission for sometime to make sure I get my five-a-day of fruit and veg. She is deaf to my pleas that bread, cheese and chocolate, (being non-meat) should count towards the five a day total.

Last week she served up broccoli,which I can just about cope with, but had a surplus of it after serving. Not the food recycling bin for us, we have chickens! Mrs Blog was convinced that chickens like to get their five-a-day and so she scattered the left over broccoli on the grass for them.

A week later and the scattered broccoli is still there. Not only do chickens not like it, nor do any other animals that roam the blog garden. Foxes, squirrels, rabbits, (to say nothing of birds that have no issues eating the less pleasant parts of roadkill), all turning their noses up.

I'd like to think this evidence would be enough to let me off this element of my "five a day" plan but I suspect Mrs Blog will have other ideas.

When tea and bread taste funny

This morning I had two slices of bread (a homemade loaf of which I was particularly proud) liberally spread with butter. Instead of the yummy flavour of bread and butter, all I could taste was flavours that hinted of the dishwasher.

My first thought was that I had mixed the flour etc in a bowl which had not been washed properly.

Then I sipped my tea and it too tasted of the same foulness.

Perhaps the dishwasher is faulty I thought. Or perhaps I was coming down with a cold and it was affecting my sense of taste?

Readers will be pleased to know that Mr Bog doesn't have to fork out for a new dishwasher or prepare for a bout of man-flu. Mrs Blog had bought a new type of butter which had found its way into the butter dish (I couldn't read the label properly without my glasses) - garlic butter!

If I had warned her in time we would not have had garlic omelette, garlic mushrooms and garlic bacon for breakfast.

Nearly lost the wife...

Mrs Blog works at a local emporium from which she likes to be collected after work by yours truly.

Yesterday evening I duly set off to pick her up outside the shop and waited patiently for her to appear.

After a few minutes I saw her cross the road and head towards our car.

She grabbed the door handle and pulled open the door saying,

"Hello Darling. How was your day?"

I didn't hear her say these words though. Is Mr Blog going deaf in his dotage? I hear you ask. No, I am not. Mrs Blog was trying to get in the wrong car and make off with a complete stranger!