Sheila's Wheels

I have never known much about cars - and whilst having secret (ooops!) ambitions to own some flash red sporty number, (or even a car like a Aston Martin DB9) I have never been, nor will ever be, in a position to afford one.

My knowledge of cars is also confused by some of the terminology. Take 'brake horse power' as an example. If a car has 285 bhp - does that give me a lot of brakes? a lot of power? or enough horses to greatly enhance my chances of being the winning trainer of a Grand National winner? (and indirectly more likely to afford a DB9).

It appears to be a totally nonsensical combination, which could just as easily be - Stop, Cow, Go or Left, Pig, Right!

Consequently I have tended to own reliable, but somewhat boring modes of transport.

However, people's attitudes to cars differ greatly, and many years ago, some of our neighbours in Wiltshire used to seem to derive more satisfaction from mending, or "dabbling " with them, than actually driving them.

Not mentioning any names but, due to the above, some cars - often owned or driven by the wives of the above mentioned male "dabblers" - barely ever made it off their drives, with the respective Sheila (used in the Australian sense of one woman's name - Sheila - being an expression used to refer to all women, rather than anybody actually called Sheila!) actually having to use public transport, rather than be able to use her own "Sheila's Wheels".

Hopefully, the insurance company of the same name, hasn't based it's statistics on such individuals because a claim that: -

"Women make the safest drivers,
We could save a bunch of fivers"

could be found to be somewhat misleading given that its hard not to be safe when your car doesn't ever get on the road!

How black is black?

If I had to assign colours to the days of the week there is always a chance that Monday, depending upon the range of colours that I was able to choose from, would always be black, or at least a shade of grey.

Contrast that grey/black Monday morning feeling with a Friday afternoon in June which most definitely has a golden yellow feel to it.

Or the green of a Thursday, the red of a Saturday, the blue of a Sunday or...(as some would say) "whatever" colours work for you.

However, whether signified by an association to colours or not, one's views of how good or bad a specific day is, will also be dependent not only upon your outlook but also upon your circumstances.

If you are homeless, jobless, friendless, and penniless - every day may be grey or black (or yellow for that matter), and are less influenced by outside events.

A fall in house prices - matters little when your "home" is a cardboard box! A rise in unemployment - is potentially an increase in neighbours!

The 3rd Monday of the year (as yesterday was) being the day when apparently more workers are off sick from work than any other, has been scientifically"proven" to be the "blackest" day of the year.

However, this means diddlysquat when you are absent from work every day of the year, being one of the long term jobless, and would swap with anybody for just one day of paid employment to be able to buy a coffee or a hot evening meal.

As for the stock market crash and the prospect of recession? "Bring it on!" they shout.

A fall of 323.5 points on London's FTSE 100 in itself may be a source of warmth. More headlines and "column inches" dedicated to the world's financial woes, mean more newspaper pages and with them more protection against the cold as one lies in a doorway in a City somewhere.

So as you sit and moan about the reduction in your "net worth" or paper asset value, look around you. If you see four walls, a computer screen, a TV, a hot meal (or the remains of one) a friendly and familiar face and a glass of wine....then whine no more.

If you see a doorway, empty fast food containers, a cardboard box and a sleeping bag then...

...Well you won't actually because readership of this Blog has barely reached the affluent masses, let alone street people, and even if it had, you don't see many of them with a BlackBerry!

Cue music playing in the background - Ian Drury and the Blockheads -Reasons to be cheerful, 1, 2, 3....

Christmas Time, Superglue & Port...

The above title should be sung to the tune of Cliff Richards' "Mistletoe and wine..."

I have previously - albeit in the dim and distant past of Academia (where the words dim and distant where used in a more personally descriptive manner!) - been tasked to make up a story out of 3/4 words, such as Scalectrix, Superglue & Port.

Such exercises were meant to test both our creativity and literary skills, and usually left me "wanting" on both counts. Had I known of the incident that was to occur later in my life, such exercises would have been "...a breeze"!

The incident which occurred approximately 20 years ago at Christmas time actually involved the aforementioned items.

I received a call from good friends of ours, on (as I remember it) Christmas Eve. It may not actually have been Christmas Eve, but if I said it had been 23 July, the story would lose a certain degree of impact. But actually I do think that: -

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

(when the call was received)

and when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St.Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

Well actually I may digress because what was certainly in the heads of our friends' sons, was a brand new Scalectrix set!

What was the reason for their call you might ask?

Well, there had been a motor racing disaster that dwarfed the recent minor spat between McLaren and Ferarri, which in a similar way had also involved a misinterpretation of the instructions.

On our friends 'practice lap' - they had attempted to construct the track so that it was ready for their boys to play with on Christmas morning. A great "plan".

Unfortunately the instructions stated that to join the pieces of track together the tabs on the end of each section should be "...turned, twisted and snapped" into position. Having turned, twisted and snapped each tab on each section of track, our friends were lefts with forty unconnected sections of track and 160 seperate, twisted pieces of square plastic.

After some careful application of Superglue, we actually managed to re-fix the tabs back to the track and re-create the circuit so that - whilst not perfect, it was, in the short term, operational & so Christmas wouldn't be ruined.

What of the port? Well being a naive young (ish) thing, I hadn't actually drunk Port before, and therefore didn't realise that it wasn't drunk out of a tumbler - although I would have thought that my, more worldly wise host would have done. Most of the bottle of Port was consumed as we stuck the track back together.

I can attest that having left the house, the Port "kicked in" within the short time it took to get home...after which time I couldn't remember whether it was Christmas or Easter

A little mischief making

Having "lifted the lid" this weekend on my previous life in Wiltshire, I thought it would be a shame to close it again without further recollections of those distant days.

In fact "distance" is a somewhat relevant word, as not only does it "...make the heart grow fonder", but it also makes me, now safely ensconced back in Sussex, feel safer - from any potential threats of physical violence - should the "subjects" of my recollections, not wish such tales to be re-told.

There are many stories to tell, such as the tale of Scalectrix and Superglue at Xmas; or How to get a piano on a double-decker bus; or the story of Paul and his car repair (?) business - but more of these another time.

Today's tale from the days of "yore" concerns a holiday that we took with the our close friends the B family (alphabetic not insect).

Following the holiday, which had been in the south of France, I decided that there was an opportunity for little mischief.

Whilst away, although not exactly a case of "...when in Rome, do as the Romans do" - mainly because we were in France and not Italy- the "women" did partake in some topless sunbathing - please see Blog entry of 10November 2007 for photographic evidence!

Well at the time in question (which co-incidentally was around the time that Twin Peaks was on TV) both of the aforementioned "women" worked at the local primary school, which both children in both families attended, and where I was on the Board (bored?) of Governors.

Now, whilst not totally ethical, my position at the school, gave me access to school 'headed paper', which when combined with a topless photo and too much spare time equals "mischief"!

So it was that I penned a letter, purporting to be from the school Headteacher, advising S that (something along the lines of)

"...due to the fact that pupils had been circulating topless photos of her in the playground, the Board of Governors would have no option but to consider her position as a member of staff due to potentially bringing the good name (?) of the school into disrepute...."

I must say that the letter did look official and it was delivered (most probably under cover of darkness to S's house. I'm not sure how long we left it before announcing that the letter was hoax, but I know it wasn't long as I didn't want to risk any potential double-bluff involving claims from S that she'd already rung the headteacher to apologise.

The letter had "worked", at least momentarily, and my life became a little less safe from that moment on!

PS I am ashamed at those of you who paused from reading this story to go in search of the topless photos in the 10 November entry - I know who you are!

As if I would do something as underhand as that...

A step back in time....

This weekend we experienced an extremely enjoyable, albeit somewhat surrealistic at times, couple of days in Wiltshire. The primary reason for the visit being the (shhhh 50th!) Birthday Party of Sheila (who for confidentiality reasons we shall use the surname of "Savoy").

Prior to the party we had visited the picturesque village of Cranford, as seen in the recent TV documentary. It was clear that they were about to use the village for either a film or TV drama, as everybody was wandering around in costumes a million miles from those worn by Miss Matty Jenkyns and others, and had quaintly re-named the village "Lacock", so that people wouldn't know exactly where it was.

Upon visiting one of the local shops, which I'm not now sure whether it was real or part of the film set, I saw a sign on top of a stack of shopping baskets which read: -

"Please use a basket to help you select your shopping"

Being a compliant soul, I picked up a basket and held onto it for a few minutes but it proved to be useless in helping me to select anything, so I just had to put it down and leave.

It appeared as though "Lacock" was being "made" to appear in the film as though it was an island as they seemed to be flooding the surrounding area whilst we were still there, and rather than risk being trapped in the middle of the film set for some time we made a sharp exit back to Chippenham to prepare ourselves for the party (well relatively sharp, in that we had to have a quick drink in one of the film set's local "pubs" - which we thought would be a bit like drinking in the "Queen Vic", or "Rovers Return", but no actors were to be seen!).

Now, it must be said that there were a few reasons for me thinking that as we had entered Chippenham earlier in the day we had actually passed through some strange space-time continuum/"portal", that took us back at least 20 years in time. (Actually due to combination of a wrongly programmed SatNav, and the town's one-way system, we may actually have gone through the "portal" a number of times!).

At the party, most of the adults - especially "birthday-girl" Sheila Savoy - looked just as they had done when we last lived in the area 13 years ago. Sheila, in fact looked no different to when we had celebrated her 30th birthday with an impromptu party in our cul-de-sac, in 1988.

It's not as though I don't have proof - the following picture evidences how time has stood still in this area - which has become known locally as the 'Tropenell Triangle'. One thing that has improved over the years however is the standard of the catering. This weekend the food and drink was in plentiful supply, however it appears that in 1988, we had: -

• A birthday cake
• A bottle of port
• A bottle of gin
• A bottle of wine
• A can of beer, and
• a bottle of Ribena - presumably for the kids

which wasn't exactly a lot for 50 people. (Apparently, experiments had been undertaken with some water, barley loaves, and some fishes in the preceding days but these had been largely unsuccessful.)

Now what made this weekend somewhat strange was that whilst the majority of the adults had retained their youthful looks, their offspring had grown up into mature, intelligent, (as evidenced by their numerous university degrees) friendly, (what can only be described as) "adults". Thus appearing to narrow the gap between their own age and that of their parents - weird!

The evening was one of catching up with (not) old (looking) friends, with excellent entertainment, the aforementioned good food, and a few drinks...some dancing....and then a few more drinks....and then etc.

Debs & Steve (that name doesn't ring a bell!), Nigel (Five Sheds) & Sue, Paul & Sandra, Bev & Rob, Sue, John & Marie and many others who we knew were there all enjoying themselves - dancing (to the partial embarrassment of the "yoofs" present) - drinking , chatting and generally having great fun.

In fact the only person who I thought looked slightly older than he used to was Paul, Sheila's husband - until I realised that it wasn't Paul that I was speaking to, but Paul's father!