What are You up To?

It's Sunday afternoon here in the UK. Late Spring and it's warm. The missus and I are drinking coffee and eating cake with an elderly friend.

🥮

If it's Sunday still or Sunday gone, what are you doing or what did you do readers? 

Christmas is Saved!

 The good news is .... My mate Mark has saved Christmas! 

The darn plumbers never showed to fix their mistakes but Mark grabbed his tool bag ( and his young son!) and came to the rescue! 

A couple of hours later, both leaks fixed! 

Yay!

💦💦

With the house warm and dry again I've been relaxing with my new NASA 2001 Space Glider, the unusual blue one. It's a real Austrian beauty! 

Our plastic Christmas gnomes think so too! They'd like a ride home! 

To Finland!

(At least I think I they're Finnish looking at the label!)

My old Mum and Dad are with me in spirit too. Mine was a difficult entrance into the world 65 years ago today, but I'll be forever grateful to my old Mum for going through hell for me, spending weeks recovering  in hospital once I arrived that Christmas in 1960.

Thanks Mum!

❤️

Leaks, Lost Videos and Missing Gliders

 Well my last day being 64 has been somewhat stressful so far it has to be said.

I'm meant to be going out for a Chinese buffet in a couple of hours but I'm sat waiting for a plumber who is already 4 hours late! The work is to re-fix a radiator leak he repaired already last week and deal with another one his workmate caused, another leak we only discovered on return from holiday to find curtains and carpet wet through! 

To add to the frays of the day, a parcel I was expecting last week got sent back to the depot as we were away. First of all Royal Mail said it was returning it to the sender, in Austria! Then they decided the address was legible and said I could have it redelivered. This required downloading their app and lying about their postman's calling card, which was never left. This familiar tale of postal Xmas woe does have a happy ending however. The parcel was redelivered today and I am the proud owner of a rare blue NASA 2001 Space Glider!

Alas, further fraying of my already frazzled brainpan ensued when I thought another parcel was lost. It arrived minutes before we went away last week and I shoved it somewhere. Looking today I realized I had no idea where! (Similar to my missing toy radar tale in 2012!). 

To find it I had to eliminate every possible place it could be: attic, recycling bin outside, packaging store, cupboards, shelves and dark corners. I even double checked eBay to see if it had actually been delivered or was I dreaming!

The final place was my wife's big secret bag of my birthday goodies stood on her chest of drawers behind her mirror. And there it was! I'd put it in there for safe keeping! How odd but Phew! 

So, I'm reunited with my new Tenebrae VHS video, united with my new NASA Glider but as yet, still no sign of the plumber!

I may have to kiss that buffet goodbye!

Do you lose things? Have things redelivered? Have leaks readers?

Unreal Estate

 In an estate agents window in Huntingdon the Missus and me had to look twice at these! 

All price on application, check out these festive homes! 

Which would you want?

Treating Yourself in the Run-Up to Christmas?

Have you ever treated yourself to something this time of year? You know, with Santa gearing up and money being tight? Have you still gone ahead and got something for yourself anyway?

I'm in two minds. I collect VHS horror and I'm tempted to get one I've seen on offer. Very tempted. But that old black dog Guilt is bugging me and time is running out!

How do you feel about personal treats this time of year readers?

Sometimes a Great Lotion

 After rescuing all my four JR21 books from the waste compacter of Blurb's spring-clean, I was feeling understandably pleased with the prospect of all four files now being saved from corruption or deletion and reformatted to look the same like a fresh minty box set.

Yep, contentment swept over me like a bag of Haribo, but alas the gremlins hadn't quite finished!

Laid up yesterday in my sick bed nursing a bad dose of lurgy and Vick's menthol lotion on my chest,  I kept myself mentally busy writing a short story. Open to innovation I tried a Speech to Text app for the first time and happily warbled away with not a care in the world. Unfortunately after about five hundred words the app simply deleted the content! I should have heeded this obvious bad omen.

Fed up with innovation I switched back to typing on my phone, using draft Gmail as I always do.

Over several hours the story progressed and progressed, paragraphs being regularly saved and before I knew it I had a fully formed tale on my hands of about 5,000 words, about 10 pages and just short of the grand finale.

I was pleased with it and it was at this point I aimed my finger for 'save' once more but for some odd reason, which I can now only attribute to my cold, I pressed the 'discard' tab instead!

Now, if like me, you thought discarding a draft was like deleting onr, you'd be wrong and disastrously so.

Discarding a draft is like instantly shredding it and feeding the strips to the Pit of Sarlac, where they are dissolved forever.

After frantically searching my trash, junk and spam folders, only to find nothing, the terrible realisation began to dawn on me that I had lost my work for good.

Speech to text was just the opening act. The discard button, fatally positioned immediately below save, was the main event and no matter how much I tried the various desperate measures other discarded victims listed online, my story was gone.

With the bittersweet tang of Vicks vapour rub reddening my wide eyes I laid back and submitted completely to the abject misery of technology's wrath. 

Have you lost anything important readers?

☠️

Situation Normal all FIMO'd Up

In an attempt to make a repro shin guard for Conan's horse I used some FIMO. It formed well and I was pleased with the look so it went in the oven.

Mistake! It wasn't FIMO. It was air-drying modelling clay and melted like plastic! 

Drat!

I'm now keeping things simple and making a guard out of Baco-foil!

That can't melt!

Ha ha! 

Under thier Wings

 The smiling couple at the back are my late folks. I've no idea where they've been or going to or the date, but I assume it's the late Sixtie's, early Seventies.

Anyone recognize the bag or the lettering? Looks like a British Airways plane to me.

*

Update!

Hi,

Just saw your post with the photo of your parents getting off a plane (Great photo). Did a quick Internet search and I think this is that exact aircraft!

Cheers,

Kevin

You Know You're Getting Older When ......

 When you unwrap gifts slowly and save the wrapping paper for later!

You Know When You're Getting Older When .......

You flatten bread bags and save them for re-use another day!

Zwei Dinge: Litfass and Die Haard

A little off-piste, a couple of late reflections of our trip to Germany last Autumn.

Borrowed from the web, an old still in black and white, this recalls all the Litfaßsäule [pronounced Lit fass zoiler] I saw on many German street corners.

The tall tubular advertising columns were everywhere and posters and flyers to be seen on all sides. They were invented by Ernst Litfass in 1854.

Personally I think they're really cool and a delightful element in the German street-scene. Some even have secret doors!

Exported to other countries, I don't think they made it here the UK, where fly-posting on walls still prevails.

One famous example is the Litfass column on the 1929 Walter Trier cover art for Erich Kaestner's book Emil and the Detectives.

Another memory of our trip is this picture and map showing the local forest near Recklinghausen. I had to chuckle. 

Die Haard! [pronounced Dee Hard]

It's like a extended version of the film title Die Hard. As in, don't just Die Hard, Die Haard! ha ha. Maybe its just me!

Have you any strange observations from the world around you readers?

Flat Battery in Thackley

Well, we are finally away from our daughter's snowbound Thackley Hill, but it wasn't easy.

After abandoning the car on Tuesday half way up the hill, we returned today to find the battery flat.

Being members of the RAC we asked for assistance and five hours later (we went back to our daughter's!) a very amenable RAC chap arrived in the dark. Sadly the battery was shot and a new one was needed. The RAC mechanic fitted it, helped us dig out the tyres and reversed us into a much safer downward hill start position.

£150 paid and we were away! Yay! 

A quick stop at McDonalds for some grown-up food and we're Moonbase bound!

Phew!

Have you ever had car battery problems readers?

Dream Stopping

Dreams are strange. Like a drunk projectionist staggering round your brain, you never know what's going to be shown on those juddering spools.

Unless, of course, it's a recurring dream that's topping the cranial bill.

I'd love to dream about running toy stalls or Thunderbirds or my Grandchildren.

But the projectionist has other ideas. My top billing is always the same. My old job.

I worked for a urban charity for 20 years, working my way slowly up to the position of deputy dog. I enjoyed the first - sort of - 15 years but the final 5 were horrendous. Stress Central and then some. I hated it and dreaded every single day. My health suffered and couldn't wait to get out, which I did in 2005, thank God! 

You would have thought that nearly twenty years later I would have got it out of my system. Dreamt it out like sweat.

But no, my dreams, the ones I remember, are most often back there, with me facing the same interminable problems I faced in reality: my beleaguered team, the pompous Board, a skeptical City Hall, ambitious colleagues, ailing funds, headstrong personalities, bitter rivalries, major cock-ups and abject failures.

Usually, at some point, after the palpable tension peaks, I get sacked or walk out and the night's dose is thankfully over.

As I say, I'd love to dream about nice stuff. I've been running this blog for nearly as long but never dream about it. It's obviously too nice! 

C'mon Thunderbirds! I need my dreams rescuing! Send in the Mole!

A new dream for a new year! 

Do you dream readers? Are any recurring? 

Ruby Ruby

 It's Mrs MoonBase and my Ruby Wedding today.

Forty years over the moon.

Just want to wish everyone a very pleasant day.

We got wed in 1984. It was Orwellian. Our witnesses were our friends Pete* and Cath. We had Knickerbocker Glories in Penmaenmawr and honeymooned on Skye.

What were you doing in '84?

🍦

* Pete tragically died in 2021 in Oz. We dedicate our Ruby day to him.

DON'T MOVE MY STUFF!

Yesterday morning Chewbacca went missing.

It was one of those classic moments where the Missus moved some of my stuff in the front room and Chewwy vanished.

The Chewwy in question was a tiny plastic game piece from the Sarlacc Pit game 1983, which I picked up at the local boot sale a week ago, together with a Luke and two Gamorrean Guards.

I actually heard myself saying 'Why did you move my stuff?' like a fifteen year old!

The Missus was inevitably defensive and reposted with 'I needed to get to my own stuff!'

An hour later, the front room turned over, my need for Chewbacca's return ludicrously real, the wookie emerged from a bag of Matchbox track it had fallen into, in the hall!

In the end my Missus had nothing to do with it. I'd moved the Matchbox track bag! I was suitably humble when I said said sorry to the Missus for accusing her!

Does this sound familiar readers?

A BOY WITH ANTLERS AND SHARKS IN PARIS

Watched a few things of late on the telly. Here's a few thoughts. Wonder if you've seen them?

1. Travellers - the Missus and me really enjoyed this, like we did Manifest. A longer box set challenge with lots of episodes, the central premise of time travel was really interesting. Its talky for sure but the characters are worth it. Quite an old series now, pre-Covid.

2. Eric - this is a recent production. A sort of adult Sesame street set in a dingy 1980's New York, its quite a sad tale of loneliness and decay. Not everyone's cup of tea, we sort of enjoyed it, if that's the right word. The 1980's American sets and props were fabulous though and the acting was brilliant.

3. Sweet Tooth - our current watch, a long series about a boy with antlers. A sort of dystopian viral fairy tale, we'll see how it goes. Enjoying it at the moment.

4. Under Paris - a film. The title should have been Sharks in the Seine because that's what it is. A novel idea but a complete Jaws rip-off [can a shark movie be anything but?], even including yellow barrels being dragged forcibly through water. Having said that, the Missus enjoyed it.

5. DC - my own late night telly watching when the Missus is in bed are currently DC flicks. I do love the modern Superman trilogy. For some reason I'm re-watching it in reverse order. Zack Snyder's 4 hour epic The Justice League is simply phenomenal; Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice in the middle is a real diamond and the film I'll watch again next week, Man of Steel, is goosepimple perfect. My favourite Super Hero trilogy.

What are you watching readers?

The Rain... its a Killer!

Like many of you I love Sci-Fi.

But, what can I say about  a show we caught this week on Netflix called The Rain. Well, its a Danish Sci-Fi series about a deadly virus thats in the ...rain! Its a great premise and promised much. Or so I thought.

Seldom have I been so incensed by a TV series opener than this. Within the first few minutes I was shouting at the telly 'how can you be so *ing stupid!' Alas, this was only the beginning and after another half an hour I was hoarse from shouting!

Clearly the writers decided that from the off the two main characters would be called Stupid and Moronic. They make Dumb and Dumber look like geniuses! To add a further layer of sheer annoyingness the two main characters are children, one about 6 and the other ... well, a teenager. Enough said!

Why the writing team had to make the youngster and the adolescent quite so lethally imbecilic I cannot fathom. Within minutes people close to them start dying around them and not because of the viral rain. No, its because of their monumentally selfish decisions. I won't expand on who dies just in case you feel the need to torture yourselves with this ordeal.

Trying to understand my anger towards the two children, especially the teenager, I've come to realise that I don't really like them. Teenagers. The girl in the show is portrayed as incompetent and non-resilient, the epitome of the snowflake generation. But my antipathy seems misplaced. I too was a teenager and no doubt just as selfish and irritating to everyone around me back in the 70's. So why this angry am I? I get equally antsy in McDonalds when the entire outlet is staffed by pubescents. There's just something about them.

I wonder if something is going on with Nature here. After all, I am 63 and retired, officially on the scrap heap of Society. Are OAP's and the teenage generation meant to stay apart, to give each other space to do what needs to be done; The Young carrying the torch, the old, like me, passing it on and basically slowly passing away! Never the twain shall meet [unless you're a teenager's parent or teacher/ teaching assistant like I was for my sins]. 

Yes, I wonder if I'm so peeved by the teenage ineptitude in The Rain because I'm jealous and I want to be an inept teenager again myself?

Evolution theory over, I had to check if I was alone in my outright dislike of this series. After all, I had only watched half of the opening episode and found it so unbearable that I cannot conceive of how there are 3 whole seasons of this dross! Still, this is my personal opinion.

I'm not alone though, thank God. The Rain garners either deep love but mostly intense rage in the many many reviews there are online since it was released in 2020. Some poor souls even watched it all because there was nothing else to do during Lockdown! 

Yes, The Rain is the Marmite of Sci-Fi and I for one can't stand the savoury spread. The Missus put me out of my misery and switched to Travellers, a much more enjoyable and altogether more adult effort.

Rant over.

Have you seen The Rain?

Das Boot Sale 2

 We had a stall at a large local German car boot sale, a Flohmarkt,  this morning in our continuing bid to empty my Wife's parents' full apartment.

We did OK and aim to do at least three more whilst we are here, though we have enough stuff for at around ten more sales! At 92, my Father in Law had accumulated a lot of things and never threw anything away!

I managed a wander round too and bagged two old Hot Wheels, an unusual 1998 motorised one and a blue 1979 Corvette Stingray.

Amongst the vast quantities of Playmobil, Some of the other toys I saw included these (photos from the net). All quite dear.

Lehman RIGI boxed cable cars.

A GAMA shell petrol station.

A GAMA mobile crane.

Did you or do you have any of these?

Nobody Does it Wetter

 I'm pretty sure my Missus was a secret agent in a previous life. She has field craft. She just knows stuff.

Last year she left matches in a caravan loo we were sharing with friends. Apparently lighting one rids the smallest room of unwelcome nasty niffs! Who knew!

This year I am looking at wet paper balls.

 What are they? Well, turns out that soaking sensitive documents in water and rolling them shredded into balls renders them impossible to read. Once dry they can bec Chucked in the recycling bin! 

Obviously if you have a shredder or incinerator then the above wet work is unnecessary.

I am planning on issuing my Missus with a Secret Sam Attache Case before SCMURSCH blows her cover!

This post will self-destruct after a short nap.

The End of a Collection

We are currently beginning day one of our second go at sorting out our late Father in Laws flat on the Continent. A very sad necessity. 

We are not here long enough to eBay stuff, so the selling - sorting routes will include local FB Marketplace, car boots, charity shops and specific dealers.

It's so sad to be faced with someone's possessions and collections like this. Persian rugs, Brasses, huge copper kettles, grandfather clock, oils, furniture, vitrines, old glasses, coffee services, bric a brac and a record player. 

My wife's Dad was a magpie and it's a bit like a dusty cobwebbed museum.

We haven't even touched the cellar yet. There's white goods, a thousand tools, a fox scarf, hundreds of coats, religious ornaments and a fondue set.

Have you had to empty a relatives home readers?