Pathetic excuses

As reported recently in the local paper;

" Local man grew cannabis to avoid meeting dealers!"

You may as well say I robbed the bank to avoid going to work. Its not much of a defense really is it?

Manchester Earthquake

Only the English would report an Earthquake of 2.3 on the Richter scale (a mere wibble on the surface of the earths crust) on the early morning news. Our front row would make a bigger impact if they leapt up and down. (If they could leap up and down that is.) Apparently its the sixth this week. Mrs BW says she thinks she felt a low rumble early this morning. I hate to disappoint her but I think it was a more local disturbance, much more local.

More interesting things on our shopping list

"Dried Cats foot."

I tried Waitrose and the local organic wholefood shop and they don't sell it. Looks like someone is going to be disappointed. I wonder if it is nice grated on salads?

"Hampster (sic) potty " I just ignored. I am not asking some overworked, stressed shop assistant if they sell Hamster potties. Now I think someone is not taking this list seriously. I shall have to have words.

I need not have worried after all!

While Mrs BW was up in Edinburgh on a hen night, not hers obviously, I was left i/c of the fledglings for a whole weekend. And it was with some trepidation that I saw her off at Buxton Station on the Saturday morning I can tell you. I must have cut a forlorn pathetic figure waving sadly as the train disappeared leaving me in charge.


I had agreed to allow our youngest to have one of his friends to stay on the Saturday night. I had also agreed to take them and friends to Ponds Forge in Sheffield on Sunday. Ponds Forge is, if you don't know the venue for Sheffield's International swimming pool and has a fun pool with slides and a wave machine as well. They were all looking forward to it. To me it was a major expedition. There was a time a few years ago when driving into Sheffield would have filled me with as much concern as putting the milk bottles outside our front door. I used to happily negotiate my way across London map less and with out a tom tom or what ever it is people used to get lost nowadays. Now however, the thought of any town or God forbid city larger than Buxton fills me with dread. So I spent an uneasy Saturday evening worrying about finding my way into Sheffield. And then there was the problem of parking! There used to be a large open air car park next to the Pool. It has been closed, presumably so that they can build yet more luxury apartments. We would have to use the underground one beneath Ponds Forge assuming I could find it. Of course being a bank holiday weekend the place would be seething with people. By Sunday morning I was dreading the whole business. I was snappy and short tempered and as I loaded them into the car I was unhappy and worried about the whole wretched trip

As it turned out we breezed into Sheffield, found everything first time and the place was positively deserted. The slides were great, and the hour and a half we had passed in a blur of crazy wild fun and excitement. I even let them have a KFC afterwards. Why do I worry so much.......? Oh God I have to go to London on Tuesday!

Highs and Lows of Camping

Part one of our holiday, we decided to go and do a little camping. Now I am the worlds worst camper and having put up a stout and well reasoned argument as to why we should not go camping this year, (and lost) proposed a compromise. In view of the awful weather that we had been having why trek hundreds of miles across the UK when on our doorstep we have the Peak National Park. Surprisingly this went down well and we agreed to have a week in Edale camping and a week in a cottage on Exmoor.

I guess this was one of the highs. Its the view we had from the front flap (we had a back flap and even a tradesmans entrance). Not bad bad view to wake up to really. We had hardly any rain and did lots of walking interpersed with trips to the pub. I could almost be a convert. It was a mistake to send the fledglings out to get "something for our packed lunch" though. They came back with a tin of ham. It was very unpleasant. Soft and spongy wrapped in a thick protective coating of jelly. They were not the best sandwiches we have ever made.

The second week in the cottage on Exmoor was okay. The cottage was billed as sleeping four. It was true that there were four beds, but because of the low (very low) ceilings it helped if you were challenged as it were in the height department. Both Mrs BW and I nursed sore heads for much of the week and that had nothing to do with the pints of "proper job" that we drank at the excellent Exmoor Forest Inn, which just so happened to be across the road from the cottage. The cottage was surrounded on the other three sides by trees. At night the trees were full of Owls. I counted four different calls, though on reflection it might have been three and one with a cough. They liked to come to the tree nearest our window and sing to us. I am not that fond of Owl song to be honest and after a week of listening to them I discovered that I am not that fond of Owls!

We saw Red Deer and the Exmoor ponies and had a memorable day on Woolacombe beach trying to put a family sized shelter up in a howling gale and then having to shelter under it in a down pour (it was not water proof) The shelter never really recovered from this treatment and looked as if a herd of elephants had trampled all over it. The only way it would stay up in the end was if someone sat in it and held it up. No one else on the beach seemed to have had this trouble. Its a minor miracle that we managed to get the tent up!

Shopping Lists

We have a sort of centralised shopping list. It sits on the kitchen table and when someone realises that we have run out of something vital, like quails eggs, they can pop it on the list and the next person to go shopping can purchase it. It seems to work. No longer do I return from the Supermarket burdened with bags only to find that I have forgotten such trivia as milk or bread or both.



The fledgelings contributions can be confusing however. What is musilli? Does it mean Muesli? Or is it some sort of makeup or cosmetic used only by teenagers? More importantly will the helpful assistants in Morrisons understand what it means? Or will I have to come home without musilli and feel the full blast of teenage scorn and contempt.