Maysinder Collies

9th. June, 2010
Well, we are now 48 hours from the 4-yearly hype fest that is the World Cup. Hundreds of thousands of people that never usually watch a football match any other time are getting dragged along by the euphoria, and gagging to watch overpaid, undertalented people kick a ball about. And the number of cars flying England flags from their car windows - until little Johnny in the back, or the front seat passenger forgets themself, and opens the car window for ventilation, and 5 Quid's worth of cheap plastic and badly printed nylon fly off and go under the wheels of the artic right behind them. Don't you just feel so happy when you see that happen - well I do!! And how much money has been spent on the mega-expensive replica England shirts, that you'll be able to pick up for 50p to a £1 on a car boot in a year's time? I think my apathy towards football stems from my schooldays, when we had the lunchtime kickabout. The two best players in our year would pick sides, and guess who was the one always picked last? And I wonder just how many of these new-found fans will still be watching it when England's participation in it ends well before the final? All I can say is, that even if England make the final, I won't be watching any of it - I've too many other interesting things to do with my time, such as sticking red hot needles down the inside of my fingernails! But good luck to the guys anyway.
Being unemployed is starting to be a real pain. It means the memsahib is away in Manchester nearly every weekend trying to earn a crust, and it severely restricts what we can do show-wise. In six weeks time, it will be a year since I switched my works PC off for the final time, and said goodbye to all my workmates. A whole year!!!! I haven't given up trying though - one day I'll get something ....

21st. May, 2010
Is it just me being paranoid, or are bees getting bigger? There was one so huge in the conservatory this morning, I really thought it was gonna land on its hind legs, beat its chest, and shout 'Tell them about the honey mummy'. I could have jumped on it's back and ridden it .... It's now splattered across two of my conservatory windows courtesy of the local weekly paper. Bollox - that means I have to clean them doesn't it?
As Spring is now well going, we are enjoying the inherited joys of the garden of our new house. Loads of flowers springing into life. Unfortunately - they are all BLUE. I hate blue ....
OK. I'm in grumpy mode. Unusual for me you might say (not), but I was unfortunate enough to have a very young rabbit run out in front of the car tonight. I couldn't avoid it ..... The sound of it crunching under the front wheels made me feel really sick ...

3rd. May, 2010
It's Bank Holiday Monday, and the sun is beating down outside, the beer is chilling in the fridge, and it's a perfect day to relax, yet I'm not that happy a bunny. It's two months since we moved, And I STILL don't have broadband. I won't bore you with the details, but it's been a series of cock-ups by my provider, including a new telephone line which was faulty, and took another week to put right, and a dispute over what constitutes FREE broadband, yet I'm being expected to pay a monthly fee for it. It's not MY fault that the telephone exchange can't cope with the free version, so I don't see why I have to pay when they sold me the package as FREE. Fair do's because of the cock-ups, they have paid for me a 30 day Mobile Broadband dongle thingy. But it doesn't bloody work most of the time, and when it does, it's slower than the slowest slow thing in Slowtown ....
On a happier note, I looked out of the window this morning to the sight of THREE Kestrels hovering over the field at the back of my house, and on a recent trip out I spotted a Red Kite. I'm not too keen on the bats that whizz around the terrace at twilight, but they are harmless enough, I suppose.

April 2010
I can't believe it's been EIGHT months since I updated this page! So much has happened in that time, about 90% of which I'd rather forget.

I still don't have a job despite hundreds of phone calls and job applications. Why don't people have the courtesy to at least acknowledge an application that you have made? You hardly ever even get a 'thanks but no thanks....' letter these days. Still, I live in hope that somebody will recognize that just because I'm approaching Sixty, I'm not past it, and there's many years left in me still.

Solicitors. Why do they not communicate with each other properly? Our house move was the third in a chain of six properties. Five of them - including ours I might add - all arranged for completion on the 4th. March. One of them, who was impossible to contact by my solicitor, was working on the 15th. Because we'd exchanged contracts, we HAD to vacate on the 4th, which left us homeless for 11 days. Have you ever tried living in a caravan with minimal heating, and three dogs, and all the other caravans unoccupied? It was a bl**dy nightmare, and to cap it all, those 11 nights were the coldest in March for many a year!! Oh, and if that wasn't bad enough, TWO days before we moved out of the house, Mary fell heavily and broke her wrist, so in that 11 days we twice had to make a 200 mile round trip with three dogs in the car to keep Mary's hospital appointments ....

Since we moved, we have discovered more of the beauty of Mid-Wales, and particularly the unspoilt countryside. And let me say that we have found everyone (so far!!) to be very friendly and helpful. It's not all been plain sailing though. I split my head open on an up-and-over garage door that decided to close while I was walking in, (gales of laughter from Mary again), Mary twisted her ankle and was hobbling for a few days, and I several times had to pull Meka out of an ornamental pond that she just dived into, and couldn't get out of. Suffice it to say, it's now been filled in and gravelled over!! Oh, and we were without a TV for two days, when our 8 year old one inconveniently decided to give up the ghost at 5 pm on a Saturday - just after the shops had shut, and all the repair people uncontactable. And Mary was away on a course, so I had no transport anyway. Saturday night, and all day Sunday on my own with no telly .... As the cost of repair made it not viable anyway, we decided to buy a new one. In the shop, I eloquently fought a reasonable case for a 48 inch one, but 'er indoors ruled the day and I had to settle for a 32 inch one. I did however manage to convince her that a Sky subscription was a good idea though!! So, we now have a fantastic load of channels to browse through, most of which are churning out complete dross, like the terrestrial channels do.

August 2009
What a month it's been so far! On our way to the Champ show at Paignton, I slammed the car door on my left thumb. (Yes, Mary thought it was funny as well!) On the 12th, I fell off a ladder and broke the top joint in my right thumb. Mary thought that was funny too! What is it with wives? You hurt yourself, they wet themself ....
And to cap it all, I've been made redundant. 58 years old and on the scrapheap!! Ah well, retirement may be coming earlier than I wanted it to, but I'll keep looking. Still, I've got TWO websites to maintain, and I'm working on a project that might scrape in a few pennies here and there. I've also got a huge back garden that you could hide elephants in at the moment, so I shall be spending some time in there trying to make it look like somebody owns it. You never know, I might give Mary more cause for laughter by sticking a garden fork through my foot ....