A picturesque village in our neighbourhood was displaying its flower gardens today. Ambling peds and parked cars for two or three miles. Herself was keen to go so I dropped her, said I would pick her up in the same place and went off to replenish supplies of this and that in a nearby town.
I came back and waited half an hour parked in the shade reading an old Elmore Leonard novel. Eventually herself turned up. She wasn't through yet! There were more gardens she wanted to see! Why didn't I come too?
It's difficult for me to imagine a more purgatorial experience than standing in the sun getting hot looking at other people's gardens. I said I'd carry on waiting. Herself said oh go on, I'll walk back. It's a good couple of miles and I demurred, but she insisted. So I mimsed politely back through the ambling peds until they cleared and I could drive at a thrilling 40.
She got back soon after I did though. The other two women who do gardening here gave her a lift. Thanks to them, and to herself, I can see as many terrific flowers as I want just by looking out of the windows on three sides of this room, with nice lawns among them.
Village life, I can take it or leave it. Perhaps there's something wrong with me.
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My wife is constantly buying plants and things and tries to encourage me to participate in their nurture and ongoing well being. I have no objection to them and will concur that some of them are indeed easy on the eye but I have no desire to develop any kind of relationship with them.
Takes me a great deal of effort to even mow the lawn and were it not for my dog's need of it as a facility and the undoubted inconvenience of a combination of his short legs when combined with long wet grass I would do that far less often than I do now.
Going to look at someone else's controlled horticultural results would also be catatonically boring for me I'm afraid.
I do have a soft spot for forests though. The more unkempt the better.
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Sun 8 Jun 14 at 17:38
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I don't do small detail in gardens, I like the broad concepts, the sweeping drives, the secret arbours, the ornamental bridges. Capability Brown stuff.
My greatest regret on moving to the country was not buying a JCB and doing some real gardening. Instead of which it has all been hard digging and wheelbarrowloads.
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>> Takes me a great deal of effort to even mow the lawn and were it not for my dog's need of it as a facility and the undoubted inconvenience of a combination of his short legs when combined with long wet grass I would do that far less often than I do now.
Hasn't your short-legged pooch learned to stot when in long grass Humph?
I too quail from mowing my bit of lawn (other bits are the responsibility of other people one of whom ponces enviably about on a small old sit-on job). Unfortunately it hasn't rained as much as I hoped it would, so today I have done two stints and mowed about four-fifths of the back lawn here, a bit scrappily round the edges but now showing pleasing diagonal stripes and a lot more yellow than yesterday.
Whether I will have the strength and dedication to do the rest before drinky-poos in an hour's time is still uncertain. I sweat when it's hot and drinking water alone risks giving one heatstroke.
:o}
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We've had this 'stot' conversation before. Quite a long time ago and perhaps in other lives but we have discussed it for sure.
I do know you mean stotting as in a gazelle like manner but being of a certain extraction I can't help thinking of a 'stot' as anything other than a Glasgow kiss or to give it it's Sunday name, a headbutt.
As in, "Ah wiz chust mindin' mah ain business like, when this radge came up tae iz an' lamped iz. Naturally, ah stottit him by the way"
Roughly translated, "There I was sipping my second or third G&T in the wine bar when a bit of a fracas broke out and a chap struck me. Embarrassingly enough I seem to think I may have head butted him in a reflex response."
;-)
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>> We've had this 'stot' conversation before.
Of course I remember it. How could one possibly forget?
More to the immediate, self-absorbed point though, I did finish mowing the lawn and am now knackrit, so the quite large vodka and orange in the glass here feels more well-deserved than usual...
Naturally herself was burning weeds and crap about 100 yards away. Guess what the wind direction was? Now I need a cigarette to clear my lungs.
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This morning, we had 6 large ( maybe 10' tall by 4' wide at their bases ) leylandii ( is that how you spell it ) bushes in our front garden.
Now we have none. I have broken my garden fork and I am also personally quite badly damaged.
I have always mildly disliked them but now I have nothing but hatred for them. However, they are now gone so I won in the end I suppose.
At one point around lunchtime I was reduced to attacking them with an electric jigsaw, an angle grinder and a hammer and chisel.
Several trips to the tip with their remains have left the inside of my car resembling an undeservedly assaulted compost heap but they are gone.
Sodding things.
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Tsk.
Never heard of gelignite obviously.
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>> At one point around lunchtime I was reduced to attacking them with an electric jigsaw,
>> an angle grinder and a hammer and chisel.
>>
...
>> Sodding things.
>>
It's time (tick, tick, tick) to invest in a man toy. Chainsaw.
On a separate note, in Northumberland, to stot or be stottin' means to be slightly over the limit with alcohol i.e. to walk down the road stottin' of walls, lampposts, parked cars, chuck wagons and friendly Police officers offering free board and lodgings in return for some DNA and fingerprints.
Last edited by: gmac on Sat 14 Jun 14 at 19:33
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Well, you know gmac, they do say the Geordies are not especially like the other English. More like unsophisticated versions of Scots in fact.
;-)
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Thank God Northumbrians are not Geordies then ;-)
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Sound much the same to the outside world.
;-)
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A Fife accent is quite unique, I couldn't begin to imitate one, although Ken Stott, ( the actor while we're on a stot related tangent ) did manage a very passable one while playing Rebus.
He was a few years above me at school so I know his own accent would be similar to mine.
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Having consulted the boss (SWMBO) who herself is an Edinburger of private school upbringing, I do apologise for comparing you to someone who may be particularly mindful when toying with the purse strings. Bit like calling any Englishman a Yorkshireman.
Geordie accents and Northumbrian are very different also. Northumbrian accents vary by village from guteral pit-yacker to the rhythms of the inland areas.
How did we get to dialects from Flower gardens ? Reckon we could get winter tyres in here too ?
Last edited by: gmac on Sat 14 Jun 14 at 21:57
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It's Lud's fault, it was he who started with the stotting business.
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>> It's Lud's fault, it was he who started with the stotting business.
>>
It sounds as if it ought to have indecent connotations:
" A man identified only as AC has been apprehended and charged with stotting in a public place"
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Try frotting instead. :-)
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>This morning, we had 6 large ( maybe 10' tall by 4' wide at their bases ) leylandii...
Large?
The damn things down the side of our garden were taller than the house before we had them cut down. It took four guys with chainsaws and Iron-Man outfits a whole day to get rid of them.
>Several trips to the tip with their remains have left the inside of my car...
Covered in horribly sticky sap?
Last edited by: Kevin on Sat 14 Jun 14 at 19:44
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No it's not too bad really. I don't think I've ever mentioned my Greek rug on here? No, it's not a wig it's a real rug. Mainly shades of blue but with a few other random colours here and there.
A lifetime ago, I was backpacking for a summer around the Greek Islands. At some point I lost my sleeping bag and this was back at a time when buying stuff was a limited experience on the smaller islands. So, I bought the rug on a market stall and used it as bedding for the rest of that trip.
Well, I sort of became a bit fond of that rug, it was a light weight thing, possibly cotton and easily rolled or folded into a back pack. So much so I never did buy another sleeping bag and to this day the rug goes with me on any excursion which would require one.
It has been used as a sunbathing mat and as a boot liner in all my cars and today it was lining the inside of my car to protect it from the worst ravages of the cut leylandii.
It may be due for another wash soon although it was last done as recently as the mid 1990s so it's not too bad.
It is no longer allowed in the house but when I first met my current wife it held pride of place as a wall hanging in the stairwell of my house but eventually she won the battle for my affections and it now lives in the garage unless it's needed for something.
It'll be used again tomorrow though, as indeed it is most weekends to line the boot of my car against the muddy stuff we'll sling in there after mountain biking.
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Sat 14 Jun 14 at 21:01
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>> It may be due for another wash soon although it was last done as recently
>> as the mid 1990s so it's not too bad.
I bet if you called "here, rug" it would be able to walk into your house.
Phew!
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As I am also a born and bred Northumbrian so the word stot to me means to bounce as in stotting the ball .........
Also to chip in to the quiet here innit thread.....I have not been contributing because SWMBO and I are now retired and currently lurking in Crete busily deciding which beach or restaurant to visit ...... and keeping an eye on my investments.
Pat said that after three months retired I would be bored to tears......but it aint happened yet
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>> Pat said that after three months retired I would be bored to tears......but it aint happened yet
A well-stocked mind is a great blessing helicopter. But don't rob us of the benefit of yours just because you're wallowing about in the sand.
Great oranges they grow in Crete. Best I ever tasted (my late father went there and brought some back). It had a gritty role in the second world war and the Greek civil war that trailed after it.
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I doubt if you normally speak with a Northumbrian accent helicopter (sorry if this is wrong) but I remember that accent for its French Rs. Doubtless there are other characteristics but I don't remember them.
I say this because someone was saying the other day that Northumbrian and Geordie were different. They certainly are, although there's an overlap too.
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>>>Pat said that after three months retired I would be bored to tears......but it aint happened yet <<
Give it time;)
Pat
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To return to the original theme of the thread, a few weeks ago we visited the beautiful flower garden of Monks house in Rodmell, near Lewes , the home of Virginia Woolf now owned by the National Trust , recommended if you are interested in the Bloomsbury set. It was from there in 1941 that she walked to the nearby river, filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself...
The invasion of Crete and the resistance of the mountain men and martyrdom and massacres of many mountain villagers by the Germans is still very much in the memory of the current generation AC We have visited both the German cemetery at Maleme and the British cemetery at Souda and the most shocking thing is the youth of the dead ...
Pat - I was so bored with life without work today that SWMBO and I have been to one of our favourite beaches for a swim followed by a full body massage from the magic hands of Sara ( a German lady married to a Greek ) in her cabin among the rocks, Chatting with her about whether she enjoyed gardening , she replied ' no ,'because her dogs just dug everything up. I was amused by her description of her four dogs when I asked what breed they were .... .....'b******s 'she replied... I have now acquainted her with the word 'mongrel'!
This was followed by a liesurely lunch of Cretan Meat pie , potatoes stuffed with peppers and bacon and Greek Salad.... it is a hard life in retirement......
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....it will come Helicopter, trust me.
You'll wake up one morning yearning for that mental stimulation, that sense of purpose and indeed, that reason for just getting out of bed!
....and don't try and make me jealous, it won't work:)
I'm off on holiday on Friday and Cretan Meat Pie doesn't stand a chance beside a proper hot Cornish Pasty sat on the harbour wall while eating it.
Saturday at daybreak I shall be at The Hurlers, watching the sunrise and visiting the stone circle at Duloe as well as the ancient church.
I know how to live too, you know!
Pat
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>> Cretan Meat Pie doesn't stand a chance beside a proper hot Cornish Pasty sat on the harbour wall while eating it.
I mustn't. I really mustn't.
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Go on, you know you want to...
;-)
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>> >> Cretan Meat Pie doesn't stand a chance beside a proper hot Cornish Pasty sat
>> on the harbour wall while eating it.
>>
>> I mustn't. I really mustn't.
>>
Leave her alone, AC ;-)
Last edited by: Roger. on Mon 16 Jun 14 at 20:09
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I've decided to sit on the fence.
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Not good for your haemorrhoids.
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....I'm off on holiday on Friday and Cretan Meat Pie doesn't stand a chance beside a proper hot Cornish Pasty sat on the harbour wall while eating it.....
Enjoy your holiday Pat , don't get too wet in Cornwall and keep your eyes peeled for mad Dogs....
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>>proper hot Cornish Pasty sat on the harbour wall while eating it.....
>>
It's easier and more hygenic to hold it in your hand.
:)
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Is that very thinly disguised pedantry Cliff?:)
Pat
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OK, so tell me how I should have written it then!
I gave you pedants an amnesty over the weekend while I was working but what I didn't tell you was pedantry is banned for the next couple of weeks.
I shall post as and when I'm chilled and relaxed, caught up on some sleep and sitting on the cliff top having finished my good book (Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab) so you'll just have to put up with it however it reads/appears/types!
Good grammar will be the last thing on my mind!
Pat
Edit: That applies to ALL the pedants on here.
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"hot Cornish Pasty sat ....."
OK, I'll rise to the bait - it should be "sitting".
Mind you Pat, you have the mark of a well educated person 'cos you spelt (spelled??) "grammar" correctly rather than "grammer".
And normally I wouldn't be pedantic unless invited!
Enjoy your pasty and your book and the chilling and relaxing!!!
I will be doing the same shortly. One of the joys of having retired 6 years ago is that Mrs W found me a job delivering cars (only about 12 hours a day!!) but I am self employed and can take time off when I want to. Hence I can stay active doing the job and earning money but also say I want July and August off and go and spend that money on French food and wine.
Love the job - get all over the country (up to Scotland and back yesterday; tomorrow down to the south-east), keeps me active both physically and mentally and love the time off - perfect!
Much the same for you, Pat?
P
PS No doubt lots of grammar/punctuation mistakes above - don't bother!!
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Cretan Meat Pie doesn't stand a chance beside a proper hot Cornish Pasty, sat sitting on the harbour wall, while eating it.....
OR,
Cretan Meat Pie doesn't stand a chance, compared with a proper hot Cornish Pasty, eaten whilst I am sitting on the harbour wall.
OR, Tiddy-Oggies are better!
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It was the image of Pat trying to eat a pasty off the harbour wall, like bobbing for apples, that made me do it.
I'm a sucker for jokes based on deliberate misunderstandings - like the rhubarb/custard joke.
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>>I'm a sucker for jokes based on deliberate misunderstandings <<
There's the crunch Cliff, only the pedants understand the jokes so everyone else looks at you laughing and thinks you're slightly mad!
PhilW, it is exactly the same for me. I never envisaged being this busy at work. It really was only meant to be very part time and casual and 'something to do' around gardening and retirement.
I soon realised I loved it and wanted to be good at it and of course , the income is always handy.
Here's a warning for you of things to come Phil....
Last Friday evening Ian had an horrendous journey back from South London and ran out of time just before the village we live in.
Rang the TM to be fetched in and was told 'Can you park it in the layby in the village and Pat can bring it in tomorrow morning , she's training at 5.30am anyway?'
5am and in we jumped, me saying 'this will be the last time I drive a lorry on the road as my medical is due again next month'
Ian...I've heard that before!
No, I'm really not going to bother again.
Get out of the village and on the bypass and he said 'Enjoy this because I don't think even you could ruin my fuel bonus for the month in 12 miles back to the yard'
Wanna bet? :)
Well, enjoy it I did, fully freighted empty roads, power mode on in the Renault and a bit of a tussle with a flying fridge!!
Medical is booked already! It's addictive and I forgot to add I told Ian to shut up and put some Bob Segar on very loud too:)
Pat
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"Last Friday evening Ian had an horrendous journey back from South London and ran out of time just before the village we live in."
I'm not surprised Pat. I always hate picking up cars in London area on Fridays. You can guarantee the M25 and M1 will be horrendous so I do all I can to avoid them (Staines, Windsor, bit of M4, M404, M40, A43 etc back to Leics)
I had same problem as Ian on Weds aft. Picked up a car in Battersea to get me home (then take it to Edinburgh by 8.30 next am). Took me 1hr40 mins to do first 15 miles. M1v was closed Northbound near Luton ish, M40 closed near j9/10 so ended up going cross country (easier for me in a car than Ian in truck!!) to pick up a colleague stranded at Porsche Towcester. Seem to remember Aylesbury, Buckingham and various other places. Trouble was, everybody else must have been doing the same - took me 5 hours to do 100 miles back to Leics! :-( Thank goodness I wasn't on a tacho!
What I don't understand is:-
Why so many cars in London - public transport is excellent and relatively cheap (Oyster card etc)
How do people put up with these traffic situations everyday on their commute? Would drive me mad!!
Drive up to and back from Glasgow the other day was a pleasure - via A1/ A 68 - empty roads at 6 am, but had to overtake a truck once! and very quiet coming back through borders helped by having a Porsche Cayman! (Bit quicker than your truck??)
Off to the civilised North tomorrow - beautiful Wigan and Bury!!
Keep on enjoying the work ---- and the pasties!
Regards
P
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M404??? that's a new one on me.
I think you may mean the A404(M) - A404 then M40....
.
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"M404??? that's a new one on me.
I think you may mean the A404(M) - A404 then M40...."
You are, of course, absolutely correct. My mistake!
But, ........
pedant!!???
;-)
Best wishes
P
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Flower gardens - Runfer D'Hills
