First of all, apologies for the delay putting up this weeks pages. I have worked the past 2 weekends (but I have this Friday off, so it should all balance out).
Lyndsay’s birthday.
Congratulations to a close colleague and friend, Lyndsay, who celebrated her birthday last week.
Not only did Lyndsay go to Oxford, maintain a significant role in the accounts department, is captain of a sports team and qualifying as an accountant, but she can also bake (as you can see from the delicious cake, featured in this picture).
From everyone here at johnsunter.com (which these days, is basically, me) happy birthday.
Final episode of Last of the summer wine (whine ???).
On the subject of time passing, the final episode of Last of the summer wine aired recently.
My stepfather used to make me watch this tired rubbish when I was a teenager (and that ship sailed long ago !)
I just wish I could find the people who made this rubbish, and find out what was going through their minds ?.
No actually, I wouldn’t like to speak to them. In silence, I would like to load them all onto a bus and then drive it of a cliff. The loss of my own life, would be a small price to pay, to rid the world of these media criminals.
In a perverse way, I actually prefer the hated Big Brother. At least they are trying to do something modern and different (though failing miserably).
Simplified life. The joy of a small garden.
A lot of people are critical of my garden. They say unkind things, like “it isn’t really a garden at all” or “why don’t you cover over the windows on your back door, so you can’t see that thing”.
Well, I’m quite fond of my garden (despite the fact that its a bit noisy, because of the generators used by the Mill Hotel).
I have spent many years, trying to simplify my life in as many ways as possible. My garden has one additional advantage. Take a look, at the picture above.
Now look at the picture bellow.
I think you’ll agree, that in this picture, the garden is a lot tidier.
It took me 25 minutes to maintain my garden, after 4 months of neglect. Can you sort out your garden more quickly ?.
The cost of good outdoor gear, is never wasted.
I recently had to work the bank holiday. It involved coming into work early on a Sunday morning (6am). Although the Government, constantly bang on about the environment and public transport, sometimes, they just don’t provide an alternative.
In this instance, the first train to Warrington from Chester, would have got me there at 9:30am !. No good at all.
I decided to sleep over the night before. I set up my bed rig as you can see above. I also got some microwave pizza’s for supper, and relaxed watching the Sopranos on my laptop, before retiring to “bed”.
I was up bright and early, and everything went to plan. Unfortunately, it has been pointed out, that the building isn’t insured for tenancy, and it wasn’t the cleverest thing I’ve ever done. Obviously I’ve promised not to do it again.
Talking of trains. I got up last Saturday, to get the 6:13am train (yes, 6:13am). I was standing on the platform, and it was cancelled. Can you imagine how annoying that was ?.
More walking and adventure.
Well, we’ve been out and about walking again. The weekend before last, we did a circular walk around Frodsham, to find the source of the Manchester Ship Canal.
Last weekend, we walked from Frodsham to Delamere forest, along the Sandstone Trail route, I walked some years ago, with Frank.
We usually wrap up a walk, with a couple of pints in the Helter Skelter pub in Frodsham (that’s if the walk actually ends in Frodsham 🙂 A lot of the other walkers and cyclists there, sport beards, and for a brief time (about 3/8ths of a second to be exact) I considered growing one myself.
I occasionally wander around Warrington at lunch-time. Some people are a bit snobby when it comes to visiting places like Pound World. I popped in the other day, and got a superb luggage scales, which I’ve wanted for ages.
I nearly paid £15 for some in Capetown airport, so you can imagine my delight at getting exactly what I wanted, for a £.
If you get a minute, read Simon Calder’s website. It really is excellent.
Unusual surprise about Newton Heath.
While growing up, I lived in a place called Newton Heath, in East Manchester. I don’t like to do the place down, but lets just say, with the exception of a few close friends (who have mostly moved out themselves) I’m not sad that I don’t live there anymore.
Everyone knows, that Man United’s original name was Newton Heath football club, and played at the Loco (pretty much 100 metres behind where this photo was taken).
What I didn’t realise, was the number of interesting and famous people (in addition to myself) that came from there.
Mike Atherton – Famous cricketer and OBE, actually went to Briscoe lane school.
Alfred Morris – Barron of Manchester. I didn’t even know that Manchester had a Barron !
Sir Harold Matthew Evans – Former editor of the Times.
Judy Finnigan – born and brought up on Amos avenue, where I delivered papers.
Mather and Platt the international engineering company (now owned by Germans) was founded here.
Okay, its not exactly Who’s Who, but its a lot more inspiring than I had expected.
Near and far, the search for adventure continues…