Message in a bottle...

The ever-wonderful Terri tagged me for this meme.

Write a message to go into the bottle. Easy! Or so I thought. I pondered a range of possibilities as I cycled home last night, in the end settling on this:



I won't tag anyone but please feel free to edit the picture below to show your own message!

Boys...

The move is complete, done and dusted, never to be spoken of again...

So, on to the main story for today.

Number 1 Son has a girl that he really likes. They chat and hang around a bit at school, but their main time to meet up is a Thursday Youth Club where they play pool, table tennis, Wii games, etc against each other. They get along really well.

This morning, Number 1 Son came down for breakfast looking like Death warmed up. He munched something and then declared that he was too ill for school. We didn't argue about it as he did look pretty bad.

The our daughter saw an openning, reminding him of our "no school - no clubs"policy. He would not be able to see "her"!

At this point, Number 1 Son stood up, held out his hands and asked for his uniform. He was off to school....

Looking up!

Had a call today - it seems that my dad's birds have been moved by one of my brothers, so tomorrow will be a much nicer day clearing stuff from the old garden instead. Collecting up old garden ornaments, bird baths, digging up some plants that are to be moved to the new garden, etc. In an odd way, I am rather looking forward to it. I am not really a gardener but I find the thought of transplanting things rather exciting - will they live or die?

The thing that I find most encouraging is that we should finally finish tomorrow, leaving the weekend clear which is great because it is my wife's birthday on Saturday and Mother's Day on Sunday. A whole weekend of official spoiling and pampering, which will be great if we can pull it off. Maybe we will just disappear so no-one can find us, he, he. Well we will be disappearing for at least part of Saturday as I intend to take my wife to a really great art shop that I have found so we can stock up on stuff for her paintings. We will all have to go for a nice meal somewhere too, but we tend to play that off the cuff as planned restaurant visits almost always go horribly wrong for us.

Changing the subject completely, I have been thinking about doing some work on my V bass guitar - a new pick up or 2 to boost the sound, a new paint job, something like that. Maybe just having "Rock Chef" written across it in silver? Something more exciting? Suggestions welcome!

Just shoot me!

What a weekend. My dad moved house, 2 doors down on the same road. We went around to help him move - my job was supposed to be to move his dog's kennel and the fencing around his run, but half of the planned help did not arrive so we ended up spending Saturday moving the house contents, hardly any of which had been packed!

By mid afternoon my wife and I seemed to be the only ones around actually doing any work (and my wife is still supposed to be taking it easy after her operation) but by around 6 o'clock the house contents had been moved and things were looking livable.

Sunday was spent doing my Saturday job - dismaltling, moving and rebuilding the kennel (formerly our children's wooden play house) and then fencing in an area around it so that the dog could not take itself walkies when outside.

I have now booked Wednesday as holiday so I can do the final job - moving the birds and their aviary from the old garden to the new one. This was supposed to have been done on Saturday too, but...

Oh, almost forgot the final bit of excitement - he had not informed anyone that he was moving, so we are having to inform the utility companies, banks, doctors, etc, etc for him too.

Jeez!

Last night as I collapsed onto the sofa I told my kids that if I ever tried anything like that they should shoot me. They readily agreed.

Oh SHUT UP!!!!

This morning I struggled to get out of bed. It was so warm and cozy as we cuddled up together and the mornings have been so cold lately.

But the clock ticked on mercylessly and eventually there was no getting away from the fact that I had to get up and take Custard out for his morning walk. As I got wrapped up to face the frost and fog that have been standard fare for the last week, Custard bounced around excitedly, eager to get going.

I jammed my hat on, clipped on Custard's lead and walked out into the back garden, down the path and off along the road, heading for the fields that are nearby. As I went I slowly became aware of my surroundings, waking up and coming off auto-pilot.

No fog. Hm, that's good.

No frost. Even better!

I took off my hat and undid my coat. It was not actually COLD! (Cold by South East England standards, that is, which does not compare in any way with what you guys in Canada and the Northern USA have to put up with, of course!).

The ground had thawed, making it soft and squishy, Custard's belly quickly turning a nasty brown instead of his usual pale gold.

Finally, my ears started working.

CHIRP CHIRP!!!
TWITTER TWITTER!!!
CRARK CRARK!!!
SQUORK! WHO'S A PRETTY BOY THEN?!!

OK, I made up the last one up, but you get the idea. The birds had decided that Spring had come and were singing their little hearts out. Every single one of them. Hundreds of them. They hurt my ears!

"Oh, shut up" I muttered. Confession: I am not a "Morning Person".

Custard stopped sniffing and gave me an odd look. He was clearly oblivious, but if I made that much noise with one of my guitars at that time in the morning there would have been trouble!

There is no justice!

EXCELLENT!!!

I don't know, he had such a promising start with this movie and he ended up doing those dreadful Matrix movies! Oh well...


Anyway, the lovelly Marie has decided that my blog is EXCELLENT and gave me this cool award:

Thank you for giving me this award. I am never quite sure I deserve things like this, there are many others out there who have far more interesting and exciting blogs than I do, but I get a few regular readers so I guess it can't be that bad.

Now I am supposed to pass this on to someone else - always a hard choice!

First I will choose Princess of the Universe, who has been tackling some tricky personal issues on her blog and deserves a pat on the back and a big hug from everyone.

Secondly I will choose Terri because of her amazing mix of real-life problems, humour and wonderful photography.

Finally I will choose Ali who should be having the time of her life being pregnant but is instead contantly ill and feeling dreadful. Poor girl, maybe this will help a little?

Right, time to cycle home through the cold, dark evening in search of dinner!

I'm Worth it!

On Friday I visited my local guitar shop.

Wandering around I spotted a new bass guitar hanging on the wall:



OK, now I confess that I have wanted a guitar like this for many years. It is a classic rock guitar shape, not often seen in bass form.

No price. This is sometimes a sign that if you need to ask, you can't afford it.

I unhooked it from the wall and had a quick thunk on it. Very nice to play too. Hm.

So I asked the guy how much it was. He had no idea. The manager had no idea. He rang head office - THEY had no idea.

They looked on the internet and found a discount place selling it for a silly price.

He offered it to me at a really stupid price. He knows I love a bargain.

How could I refuse?

I tried to phone my wife to ask permission but she was in a supermarket where the building blocks the signal.

I bought it.

I love it.

It is my new baby.

PS my wife was OK about me buying it.