A Christmas poem I wrote for a certain white-bearded, ex-Leeds United owner…
Christmas morning did arrive
Young Kenny could not contain his grin
He scampered down his bedroom stairs
To see what his wife had bought himHe passed Susannah a gift from him
She opened it with glee
A piece of coal lay in her hands
How generous was he!She thanked her hubby for the gift
And smiled for quite a while
“You’re so thoughtful, Ken”
Susannah said
Before adding to the coal pileKen asked where abouts his present was,
Susannah said outside
“You’ve always wanted one of these”
His devoted wife repliedKen looked outside right away
A grin grew on his face
For where a push bike once was stood
A private jet lay in its placeLater on, that Festive Day,
Ken asked to watch The Queen
The reception on his Freeview box cut out
Why had be been so mean?A satellite dish from B Sky B, would have cost some money
But would have worked and done the trick
Instead the Her Madge looked quite funnyUp on the roof Ken did climb
To fix the aerial
He remembered not to trip and fall
Like he poor Emu fellowJust as he fixed the thing
He heard something that shook his soul
Turning round, he saw Santa Clause
On his way back to the cold North Pole“You’ve been a naughty boy”
Santa said, in an angry tone
“I’ve listened to your podcasts, and you always bloody moan!”“Arabs this, taxes that, competitions I never win
I don’t know why I bother, Ken
I’m the only one who tunes in”Ken mumbled something about refugees
Which wasn’t very nice
Santa picked him up and held him high
He grip was like a vice“Put me down, you moron”, barked old Mr B
Santa ignored the old man’s demands
And threw him in the seaI don’t know what became of Poor Old Ken,
After he got wet
The rumour is Susannah left with Santa Clause, in a private jet
Last week, we got Sky Broadband. Today, Sky TV was installed. Our new home is coming together. Granted we have no running water, or gas to heat the place during these cold winter nights; but at least we now have the essentials.
Moving house is probably the biggest thing that I have ever done. Almost three weeks on, and there is still lots to do. The last week or so has been a little frustrating to say the least, but there have been plus points too…
The Good
We finally have broadband! Living without access to the internet for as long as we did was hard. There is only so much you can do with a poor 4G signal, on your mobile phone. When we told Sky that we were moving home, we took them up on the offer of an upgrade to fibre broadband. Wow. It was worth the wait!
Web pages which load instantly, superfast downloads and no buffering during videos. I remember when we first got internet access in the late 1990’s. It would take half an hour to download a single MP3 from Napster – when it was free and illegal. This was when you didn’t lose the internet connection, because your sister picked up the telephone downstairs. This new broadband will download an MP3 in a second!
The Bad
Two companies – Argos and Yodel. Since moving, I have been living out of cardboard boxes. This is because I have no wardrobe. We decided to put our faith in Argos and entrust them to deliver our new furniture. Claire’s wardrobe was arrived without too much trouble – besides a rude delivery driver, with a bad attitude. My wardrobe was also delivered. It came in two boxes. One box contained Part #1 of the wardrobe. The second box was a television stand. Fucking marvellous.
One week, and many heated Twitter and telephone conversations later, the replacement was due to arrive. In the morning, Claire checked Yodel’s delivery status. There were over one hundred deliveries before ours. ONE HUNDRED! How can one delivery driver deliver that many parcels in one day? Even Father Christmas would struggle. Needless to say, my wardrobe did not arrive. We realised this at about 7pm. This was confirmed a couple of hours later, when Claire received a text message, which read something along the lines of “We’re not delivering your parcel”. It may as well have read “FUCK YOU”. Thanks, Yodel. I am not in a position to speculate about working conditions for these drivers, but giving them such huge delivery targets (100+ in a day) is worrying.
The following day, Part 2 of the now hated wardrobe arrived. At this point I was expecting to see the ghost of Jeremy Beadle. Yodel had only given me the same fucking box as before! Yes, that’s right. Two boxes, both of which containing the same pissing parts! To add insult to injury, the Yodel delivery driver refused to take away the old boxes, containing the original wardrobe and TV stand.
Sigh
I’m getting bored of writing this. I am sure if, by a miracle, you are still with me, you are too. So, let’s just say we bought a new wardrobe from a shop. The original boxes of crap are due for collection tomorrow. Fancy a bet if anyone will turn up?
The Ugly
Nothing ugly. Quite the opposite. Our new house is beautiful. I am still yet to believe it is ours. It is a wonderful home and will become even more beautiful once we’ve finally settled in and all the boxes are gone. Once this has happened, I’ll upload some photos – including the wonderful view from our bedroom window, which looks onto the Cotswold Way countryside.
Saturday night. We arrived home from football, freezing cold, having endured a 0-0 draw against Bognor Regis Town. We were greeted by what looked like a scene from The Bill – police and dogs everywhere. A neighbour told us how a man was wrestled to the floor by an officer, less than an hour earlier. A door mat and step outside our house had been disturbed, and the back gate unlocked! By this point, I was getting more than a little worried. What the hell had happened?
After carrying out a lot of checks on our house, it was clear that we had not been burgled, nor had anyone even attempted to break into our house. Whatever crime had taken place was unrelated to our home, and we just assumed our garden was involved in some kind of a chase between the police and criminals. Despite this, we still went to bed a little nervous.
The next morning, a police officer called round to ask if we had seen anything the previous evening. We gave our account and I keenly asked what had happened. Without giving too much away, we were told that the incident was not a risk to homes on our street, the criminals were locked up and not even from this area. We can now rest at night. Just…
You know how I said the other day that moving house was hard? Well it just got one step harder…
Everything has been moved from the old house to the new one. The removal firm – AJ Removals – were incredible; packing and moving our possessions and furniture. Had we not had this help, it would have taken months to move ourselves. Now comes the tricky part. Unpacking!
There appears to be hundreds of boxes everywhere. We have started to unpack, but working out where to put everything is a nightmare. My clothes are all in boxes. Until I can buy and build a wardrobe, I can’t move the clothes; but until I clear the boxes, I can’t get a wardrobe! Aaarrrggghhh!
My coffee machine is lost, which is causing great distress. We don’t have Sky and while I found my old Freeview Box, the aerial is shit. I could hardly watch I’m A Celebrity, last night due to poor reception.
I did discover some useful finds on the Freeview box… recordings from 2013. Amongst some interesting documentaries I saved, over four years ago, are old episodes of The Football League Show and Match of the Day. Watching bits of them, I can see that Leeds were shit back then and shit now!
Right now, with the mountains of cardboard boxes, it looks like a task we will never complete. I am sure we will… in another four years time.
About Me
So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?
If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.
However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.
You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.
All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
