| oooo yes, I've always wanted a toy train |
[Dec. 7th, 2005|09:47 am] |
 Dear Santa...
Dear Santa,
This year I've been busy!
Last Sunday I helped ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) headrush100 across the street (6 points). Last Monday I gave change to a homeless guy (19 points). In March I ruled Asscrackistan as a kind and benevolent dictator (700 points). In September I donated bone marrow to tweedy_girl in a life-saving procedure (300 points). Last Thursday I set wickedfox's puppy on fire (-66 points).
Overall, I've been nice (959 points). For Christmas I deserve a toy train!
Sincerely,
Ashtonian |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 27th, 2005|04:27 pm] |
Oh lord - is this me?? If so, it'll ruin my reputation for being a hard-nosed bitca for ever.
| Your Birthdate: May 6 | 
A birthday on the 6th of the month adds a tone of responsibility, helpfulness, and understanding to your natural inclinations.
Those born on the sixth are more apt to be open and honest with everyone, and more caring about family and friends, too.
This is a number associated with responsibility and caring - this birthday lends a degree of concern for others. |
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| Ain't life grand? |
[Jul. 29th, 2005|08:20 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  grumpy | ] |
Much to our astonishment yesterday, we discovered that on one side of a door frame in the sitting room, the paint had suddenly blistered, split and started to peel off in chunks!!!! Underneath the paint, the wood was soaking wet and Himself's immediate diagnosis was that the heavy rain was coming in under the eaves (been there, had it happen before!). Of course, this called for immediate action, so I offer you .......
The Patented Shep Method of D.I.Y. (which in this case, stands for Divorce Initiated Yesterday)
Step 1: Erect step ladder under guttering, behind huge fuscia bush. Ascend ladder, leaving helper-wife holding ladder and standing in an ant-run.
Step 2: Check guttering and confirm that it is full of a very soggy mixture of moss, soil and decomposing leaves.
Step 3: Take trowel, conveniently passed by helpful helper and loosen said soggy mixture, then flick it over your shoulder onto head of said wife. Repeat as required, ensuring complete coverage of head, face, neck, arms, tshirt and flipflop-shod feet of helpful-helper. Ignore yells of protest.
Step 4: Take hosepipe and flush out emptied guttering, ensuring that cold water overspill lands on head of helpful-helper. Ignore threats of said hosepipe being inserted up leg of your trackies.
Step 5: Take care not to fall off ladder when laughing, after turning to look at state of helpful-helper. Note: giggling "you've got mud dripping off your chin" is NOT a safe option at this point.
Step 6: Dash indoors, leaving soggy helpful-helper to tidy up, and grab camera with the intention of taking pics to be posted on the Tweedy Gallery.
It's a damned good thing that the camera needs new batteries!!!!!
It also shows how easy I am that the threats of divorce could be averted by a pressie of a large tub of choccy icecream with honeycombe bits.
Sheesh
And if he thinks I'm going to let him anywhere near my carpets with a paintbrush ........ |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 1st, 2005|07:36 pm] |
Having a very introspective day today, cos it's my father's birthday and he would have been 85.
It always rather shocks me that I remember Dad as he was in his prime, rather than the frail old man, riddled with Parkinsons and ankylosing spondylitis, that he became in his later years. Joy, on the other hand, when looking at photographs I'd brought back from mothers, didn't even recognise him in pics taken in his 50/60s. I suppose Joy must only have been about 5 years old when the anky-whatsit hit and he went from being a young-looking 60-something, to an 'old man' virtually overnight.
From my childhood, whenever we had talked about 'the millenium', he always insisted "well, I won't be alive to see it" and the stubborn old bugger was right - he died in February of 1999 (& I find it rather frightening to realise that that was more than 6 years ago!)
There was a lot about Maurice Barber that I didn't like; even more that I loved to pieces and vast chunks that I admired beyond telling. The minister friend of his who spoke at his funeral described him as "a godly man" and I always admired his quiet, unshakable faith. Being a practical man, that faith found an outlet in church organisation and I fear that I've inherited the 'never mind the talking-shop committee thing - let's get things *done' attitude from him.
According to the Rev Dr Bounds (said minister friend), Dad's second passion in life was growing tomatoes (& yes, to the rest of the family's mortification, Joy did heckle during that eulogy!). He was wrong - Dad's second passion was "his girls".
He would quite cheerfully have put his life on the line for any one of us and even though he believed that our lives should be lived 'his way', he was actually rather chuffed when one of us had the bottle to stand up to him. It took me a lot of years to realise just how difficult it is to let children go.
Oh dear, I *knew* this LJ was a bad idea (says she, sitting quietly by herself, nearly in tears and chuckling at the memory of locking myself in the bathroom, at the age of 4, with a birdcage, and refusing to let him drown my budgie! - not nastily, I would hasten to add, but because the poor creature was suffering).
He would have been so proud of the boys - he only got to see Orren. I have a photo on the wall of Orren sitting on Dad's knee, the day before his first birthday - and will never forget the look of sheer wonder on Dad's face when his Parky-wrecked eyes cleared for a few moments and he could actually *see* his great-grandson.
85! Good lord, that's nearly 'old' - it's strange though that mother's only 3 years younger and she's nowhere near 'old' yet. Talking of whom..... I'd better stop typing away to myself and phone her to make sure she's coping with the day ok. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|06:31 am] |
Not sure that I really wanted to know what 'duck type' I am ..... but .....
Sheesh |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 7th, 2005|09:58 am] |
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear
I suppose that much nooky takes it out of one, when one gets to my age! Good thing world save-age isn't in my hands, isn't it? |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 5th, 2005|07:50 pm] |
Star Wars Horoscope for Taurus |
You are a dependable creature, but you do tend to be stubborn.
You like material possessions and love to win at games.
You hate being bossed around or losing.
You may succumb to your physical strength when upset.
Star wars character you are most like: Chewbacca |
Well, really!!! That's nothing like me at all ...... is it? ;) |
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| What a *&%% couple of days!! |
[Jun. 4th, 2005|10:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  relieved | ] |
Hopefully, the next time I mention the words "major system upgrade" .... one of you will just shoot me and put me out of my misery before I even start.
I'll not go into the sordid details of trying to set up the bloody software (hardware was no problem at all really), but suffice it to say that whilst XP would boot up beautifully whilst the two hard drives were swinging in the breeze by their power cables - the minute I screwed them in place, powered up the pretty illuminated side fan and fastened the case up - the sodding thing threw a complete wobbly and wouldn't boot at all!!!!
Of course, my ancient 'bare boot disk' couldn't be read any more (and several hopeful phonecalls were all met with "you want to borrow a disk to boot in what????") and to make my life complete this morning ... all the spyware/hijackers/trojans that Shep had invited onto the laptop stopped me doing anything constructive with that!
And why hadn't I noticed before that XP won't let you do a 'step-by-step' setup???? Without that facility, what could have been done in 10 minutes or so, took me about five hours. (And I *know* that someone will suggest it would have been easier to reinstall XP - without going into the long and doubtless boring explanation, let's just say it wasn't possible).
BUT...... as of 3pm, I now have a fully functional, truly awesome system AND I've managed to find a cure for the laptop (infuriating though it was, a pile of crap that can get past CCleaner, HijackThis, Spybot, CWShredder, AVG and Registry Mechanic, has to be admired) ........so I'm now one happy and very impressed bunny - who's positively drunk on processor power!!!!!
And when the processor-power hangover sets in .... I've also got 36 bottles of a very nice Chardonney which Shep brought back from his foray to France, as a 'hair of the dog' |
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| Thank you Kat |
[May. 28th, 2005|07:29 am] |
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Oh Lord! So now I've got to stand up and confess "my name is Jules and I'm a bookaholic"
Ok, here goes:
Total number of books I've owned:
Quick calculation - say an average 2 books a week (& let's ignore the quarterly booksale at the village hall when I can easily walk away with too many to carry back to the car in one pile), 52 weeks a year, since the age of 14 or so - that's 3,952 - plus college books, the 200 or so gardening/cookery/history books currently adorning one section of my bookshelves, plus all the gifts for various birthdays/Christmases. Not to mention the childhood collections of Blyton (Mallory Towers/St Clares/Famous Five/Secret Seven, anyone?) I suppose we're getting to around the five thousand mark. <blushes> I've always had the annoying habit of 'discovering' an author, then consuming everything they've written in a frenzy. I feel vaguely cheated when one of my favourite authors stops writing, just because they've died.
The last book I bought:
The Story of Grampound with Creed - sounds boring, but it's a history of one of the villages from which the pre-T's came.
The last book I read:
Oh dear, do I have to admit to Simply Divine by Wendy Holden? It's of the Bridget Jones oeuvre - I have no excuse, she makes me giggle.
5 books that mean a lot to me:
Winnie The Pooh - my battered copy of Pooh & The House at Pooh Corner was originally a Christmas pressie from a favourite uncle when I was about 8 and has now been multi-generationally devoured, as I read it to Joy as a child and all three of the boys. At least my grandsons know that Pooh wasn't created by Disney! I love that, as a book intended to be read to a child, there are lots of quirky subtleties to amuse the adult reader.
Wuthering Heights - my all-time favourite book ever - nuff said.
The Ka of Gifford Hillary - the first 'grownup' book I ever read (my father was a great Wheatley fan) and certainly the first book to make me stop, think and re-read chapters. I devoured Wheatley's entire body of work <g> at a frightening rate of knots. Having worked my way through the Childrens Library by the age of ten (the age limit in those days for joining the adult library was 13), the rather snotty librarian was not impressed when I cited Wheatley as proof that I could cope with long words and lack of pictures and therefore should be allowed access to 'proper books'.
Anything by Tom Sharpe - whereas Wendy Holden can make me giggle, Sharpe wipes me out completely. I refuse to read any of his books in public, after a particularly embarrassing episode when I ended up crying with laughter, holding my stomach, on a commuter train, reading a book called "Ancestral Vices". And whereas I'm not generally a great fan of films/tv progs "of the book" (still can't think about the film Catch22 without shuddering), Sharpe's books always seem to film well - Geraldine James' portrayal of Lady Maud in Blot on the Landscape was beyond wonderful!
EEEk - I nearly forgot about Catch 22 (can I slip this in as an extra?) I read it in my teens, when WWII was still all too real and the Vietnam thingy was doing its worst to ruin another generation. The copy I had was borrowed from a friend and it wasn't until I got to the end that I found the last page of the paperback was missing!!!!!! It was donkey's years before I got around to buying a copy and actually found out how it ended. But oh the joy with which I fell on Closing Time, the 'sequel', in the 1990s.
England in Ashton under Lyne - a 1500 page tome of the history of a town from Roman times to the 1950s which would mean nothing to anyone else but which regularly leaves me awestruck, as it's one of the most readable pieces of research I've ever come across. Thanks to my father blowing the equivalent of a weeks wages when it was published in 1963, I'm now privileged to have inherited a first edition and it's probably the most read book on my shelves.
Ok, I'm stopping now - and missing out books like Pride & Prejudice, War & Peace, Cranford and Wild Swans, not to mention authors like Rutherford (awesome), Plaidy (from whom it's possible to get a good grounding in european history in nice bitesize chunks), E.V. Thompson (who writes fluff novels of historical Cornwall like no-one else) ..... ok, really stopping now.
And I'm flunking out on the tagging thing - cos everyone I know has already been tagged <g> |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 5th, 2004|10:02 am] |
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Posting on Kat's instructions! |
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