life

being back in a school brunged (brungt?) back all sorts of memories. I had forgotten that schools had their own sort of bins. I was delighted to see this specimen in exquisite surrounds

I went to Potters Bar today with a chap called Harry. Here is Harry Potter’s Court (see latest harry potter book to see if he aquitted or not)

i’ve just reminded myself of scratch and sniff stickers. it’s no wonder my generation is messed up. we were encouraged to sniff chemicals which vaguely smelt not totally unlike strawberry etc. at the time we thought we were living in willy wonka’s chocolate factory. now we realise it was more like nuclear research.
of course things are much better these days. my daughter puts flourescent sparkly makeup on herself which makes her look like a robot and I zap the family home with WiFi, DECT and a microwave oven.
and my mum used to buy dodgy bits of old scrag end meats from the CJD butchers in Queniborough when i was growing up. Hasn’t effected me of course. [this last sentence is appropriate for use in my obiturary]

i looked through the postoffice window in Aldwych and saw Diana and William picture postcards. The Prince Williams were going like hotcakes

we went to a party this afternoon and had a quick walk round Dinton Pastures on the way back. was looking very nice.

we started esther’s fourth birthday party by makling the kids stand in a line as if in detention. we had to assert the ground rules and a little fear never hurt anyone.

There was a bit of a stampede when the Pin The Tail On The Donkey competition opened. (click photo for bigger version – everyone is in motion!)

the excitement got a bit too much for one of the parents

the girls were made to sit in line for afternoon tea. standards couldn’t be dropped just because we had friends round.

jane made the cake which took her ages. it was brilliant and a pile of pooh.

the birthday girl with new hat, sunglasses and face tattoo (hopefully not permanent)

today this station was very busy because of the Henley Regata. The picture doesn’t really show how stupid busy it was.

Quote from Thames Trains:
Around 25,000 more passengers will use the Henley branch line during the 5 days of the Regatta, with a staggering 10,000 users expected on Saturday 5th July

i went to the house of commons for a work meeting yesterday. how exclusive i thought. when i finally got in to the building i got lost in corridors looking for my meeting room.
what i did find was loads of school kids everywhere. the last thing they need in the house of commons is commoners. oh well.

now, it appears to me that colour is an anagram of odour. if you cut the d of odour with some scissors, then you can get a c and an l as in oclour, which is an anagram of colour. easy.
you can try this trick with other words. simply take the letters, straighten them out in to one long black line and reshape them in to new letters. (you may have to make the letters slightly smaller if you haven’t got enough length). this way anything is an anagram of anything else.
whilst we are on the subject of colour and odour, why are smells depicted as brown ? Bisto is an obvious example of a positive brown smell, but of course brown is the official colour of bad smells too. makes you think.

it’s esther’s birthday 4th birthday on the 9th july. she’s having her party this saturday.
she’s been counting down the days since, well, she turned 3.
my mum (her nanna) phoned up yesterday evening to see what esther would like for her birthday.
after a nice conversation between esther and her nanna, the phone was passed to jane to discuss the present proposal (not as in ‘current’ proposal – we are not thinking of getting esther old shrivelled grapes. not this year anyway).
esther obviously heard half the conversation as she asked “what’s nanna going to get me for my birthday”. The answer came back “a bucket of mud and an old sausage”.
esther’s reply was “don’t be silly, nanna wouldn’t get me a bucket of mud and an old sausage”.
perhaps esther is going to get a surprise present from her nanna afterall !

i don’t know about you (actually I don’t know anything about you, except maybe your IP address and some other techy details from the access logs), but i like to have nonsense arguments with my wife. (perhaps i should just ask my wife if she has nonsense arguments with anyone else. that would save all the waffle above).
anyway, last night, over the tea table (we have a different table for every meal – it makes cleaning up easier as you can just clean up the day’s debris from the various tables at the end of the day), jane and i were discussing the potential opportunities around the house for our children to injure themselves.
this wasn’t a real argument, we were just being hypothetical in a comedy kind of way. esther and kezia looked on in their usual bemused way.
we join the climax of our conversation as it homes in on one key issue: leaving stuff in the hallway at night so the kids find it in the morning.
(Not that our children every come downstairs on their own in the morning anyway, but there we go)
jane: “well you leave guns and chemical weapons at the bottom of the stairs”
dave: “well you leave razor blades and knives everywhere”
jane: “well you leave lit bonfires and petrol in the house when you go to bed”
dave: “well you leave bonfires too, AND thousands of lit fireworks”
esther: “don’t be silly daddy, you can’t have fireworks in the house.”
dave: “very true esther. i must have got that wrong”
esther: “you probably meant roadworks”
dave: “you know what esther, i probably did”
[ends]

i have been asked several times today if the tie I am wearing is made out of wood. The answer is yes. i bought it for 5 euros. It’s elasticated so you don’t have to tie a piece of wood in a knot.
not that knots don’t appear in wood. not that sort anyway.
my only concern is it’ll get woodworm and drop off.
for info on where to buy your tie go here

a 2 hour journey to work in the drizzling rain this morning. welcome back to real life.
i’ve been putting my new found tourist skills to work though. i’ve been reading out road names loudly in silly accents and taking photos of everything. (actually i used to do this anyway)

very hot. no photos as computers don,t recognise my memory stick reader. coming soon hopefully.

sometimes you just have to say enough is enough. of course ‘enough’ is only realised after you’ve had too much and by then you can’t back up.
so there you go.

got home. people everywhere. hid. too busy. too awake. too tired. need holiday.

i cycled down to my local chemist to pick up some drugs. i haven’t been on a bike for at least 2 years so it was very exciting.
I asked for my prescription in the pharmacy and confirmed my name. whilst they nipped out back to find it, an elderly gentlement with a neck brace and no teeth said, in a very gummy way, “you have the same surname as me”. he had just asked for his prescription too.
i could see some comedy mix up was possible. luckily for me (and unluckily for you the reader) the inevitable mix up did not occure and was therefore not inevitable after all.
and this whole story is a bit boring. sorry.

the local scouts had a village fete today and got some old planes to fly by. maybe if they earnt some more money bob-a-jobbing they could afford to get some new planes to fly by.
maybe if they looked in to the sky more instead of doing good deeds they would see that there is always numerous commercial jets flying over throughout the day thanks to our proximity to Heathrow airport.
the last thing we need are more planes (or more scouts)

Following serious technical problems, the essence of these files were lost.
This page alas forms part of those which were unobtrusive.
Please accept my excuses for this nuisance quite independent of my will.