I have a new problem in my life. You could call this problem a “menace” – although the menace is almost certainly an unintentional menace.
Confused? I’m not bloody surprised!
My ride home from work has been delayed over the past few days. The reason for this is a particularly slow person.
Now, I know that this sounds like an amazing example of the pot calling the kettle black, so hear me out.
Yes, before getting my scooter I walked slowly. Very slowly. So much so, I probably made the aforementioned sluggish person look like Usain Bolt.
There is one major difference between me and the the slow subject of this blog post. I’ll explain…
Before I do, I’ll give you some background on this individual…
Firstly, I have never seen them from the front – therefore not knowing what their face looks like. Their figure and hairstyle makes it impossible to decipher whether they are a man or a woman!
They are of a slightly large build, but observing from behind, you would not class them as obese.
I would place their age as being late fifties. This is based upon their hair. Not wishing to sound unkind; this mysterious individual has long, grey locks, which look like they haven’t seen a bottle of shampoo for quite some time.
They carry a woven bag in their right hand. This bag looks so empty, that I wonder if it has any contents at all.
The fact that it has only been the last couple of weeks that I have seen this individual is strange – added to by the apparent coincidence that they have been appearing from the same side street, during every encounter.
A local hospital and school are in close proximity to where this stranger emerges, meaning that they could work there, or they could simply be a local resident, who fancies a stroll every evening.
I hope that by now you have a perfect image in your mind of what this person looks like.
If not, this is how I imagine them to look from the front…
The Pigeon Lady from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. She was scary at first, but turned out to be nice in the end and saved Kevin’s life – proving to all kids during the 1990s, that despite what your parents and teachers say, not all strangers are dangerous. In fact, if an odd looking person approaches you in a park and invites you along to see some puppies – or pigeons – it’s perfectly safe, and may even save your life! Therefore, you should definitely follow them – especially if they have Opal Fruits and Tootie Frootie sweets.
I hope you enjoyed the mention of 1990s confectionary!
What I haven’t mentioned in detail, and what is one of the reasons why I am blogging about this individual, is his or her behaviour.
For the remainder of this blog post, I’m going to assume this person is a ‘she’ – like the Pigeon Lady.
I have already mentioned that she is on the slightly wide size. This, coupled with the fact she seemed to walk along the street, directly in the centre of the pavement, makes overtaking a particularly difficult operation.
Being on a mobility scooter, I take up a rather spacious amount of pavement myself – therefore making any attempt to overtake this individual most difficult.
I am sure that many of you are wondering why I can’t make my approach and ask the ‘path hog’ to “excuse me please”. Something about the person’s mannerisms made me wonder if it would be that straight forward. After observing an incident from a safe distance, I decided to continue giving Sranger Danger a wide berth…
A young lady, also presumably on her journey home from work, walked briskly along the roadside, approaching Miss Slow.
As the girl made an attempt to overtake, her slower and wider counterpart made a large step to the right, blocking the simple, everyday passing manoeuvre.
It was from this point the apparent younger individual had no chance or opportunity of getting around this now rather strange person, who had clearly decided that “you shall not pass!” – I believe from watching South Park, that this is a quote from one of the many Lord of the Rings movies.
This story has a happy(ish) ending. The pavement hog, young lady and myself all arrived at the top of my street.
Luckily both other parties carried on their walk along the main road – therefore allowing me to escape the madness. The quicker individual was able to use the road on my rather quiet street to race in front of the frustratingly slow person.
I don’t know what happened next. Perhaps the supposedly sluggish one stopped and sprinted her way, back to the start of the road, only to repeat the entire exercise again, forcing more poor sods to get delayed in their walk home and therefore apologise to their other halves for their tardiness.
To celebrate the 35th wedding anniversary of Alison and Paul – Claire’s parents and my in-laws – we were treated to Sunday lunch at The Bath Priory.
After hearing about this place from work colleagues, as well as reading about it in the local newspaper, I have been keen to attend for some time.
I was expecting good things from the food, especially as, until recently, The Priory was Bath’s only Michelin Star restaurant – only losing the award because the chef left and apparently not due to a decrease in quality of the food.
Alison put a lot of work into organising the meal – where we were seated in our own private room – not least liaising with The Priory staff, to ensure that each of the eight party members had meals to meet all their (sometimes complicated) palates.
As well as Claire, her parents and myself, the other party members included John and Jess – Claire’s brother and his wife; along with Jennifer and Alasdair – Claire’s aunt and uncle.
I am personally grateful for all the menu negotiations made, considering that I probably caused the biggest issues of all. Not only am I a veggie, but the list of cheeses I eat is restricted to mild cheddar, edam, Dairylea, Philadelphia and Babybel.
Clearly, the chef of a five-star establishment was not going to serve me a Dairylea Dunker, telling me to shut up and enjoy it – although I would have probably deserved it.
Before the three course meal could be served, we were all presented with canapes. I have only ever had these once and they were bloody awful.
I was first given them while with Claire, on our honeymoon, crusing on Ventura – the same ship we sailed on last week. We left them in our fridge, until they developed mould and our cabin steward took them away.
Today’s canapes couldn’t have been more different to those four years ago. Apple, avocado, melon and garlic were just some of the ingredients that were used in the creation of the four different very tasty appetisers.
My starter was soup. Nothing special, you may think. Wrong. This was no cream of tomato or minestrone – today’s offering was pea and mint.
There was originally feta in the dish, but as I have restricted myself to only eating cheeses designed for five-year-olds, the chef left my soup cheeseless. I originally held high hopes for the starter and I was not left disappointed.
The main course was where I caused all the trouble. The vegetarian option was a pasta dish filled with cheese. As this cheese wasn’t a Babybel wrapped in red wax, an alternative had to be created especially for me.
Compliments to the chef, who cooked me a butternut squash risotto, sprinkled with truffles – not the chocolate variety, but the thing like a mushroom, that pigs sniff out. Therefore, I feel that I should thank Babe and his snout, for contributing to my dish.
Dessert was my favourite course of all. A raspberry souffle, with sorbet on the side. Not only was it my favourite part of the entire meal, but the only dish which I ate every last mouthful.
You can tell that the meal is finished – nearly everyone has run off!
All in all, a very enjoyable meal and afternoon; plus an experience I’ll probably not have again for a long time – it’s not every day I get to visit such a prestigious restaurant.
Thank you very much to Alison and Paul for organising the afternoon and many congratulations on your 35th wedding anniversary.
When Claire and I reach that milestone, I’ll be 68! If I’m still blogging then, I’ll post a report on our return visit to The Bath Priory.
My weekend didn’t get off to the best of starts. When I left work, the rain was incredibly heavy. It was a scenario where I just knew, that no matter what I did, I was going to get very wet. God had his Super Soaker water gun out, and was determined to get me drenched. Was this penance for cursing to myself, after dealing with a rude and frustrating caller?
Donald Trump would no doubt tell me that I have angered the spirit in the sky, by placing a rainbow arc, in support of LGBT, on my Twitter handle.
Either way, if I was getting wet, everyone else was too, which makes me think the rain was simply a result of the hydrologic cycle and not a vengeful higher being.
A nasty event which did happen solely to me, was to occur when I arrived home. My lovely wife had spotted me, riding my scooter up the path to out house. By this point I was predictably soaked. A drowned rat, as some might say.
As I approached the front door, disaster struck. Driving up the ramp, towards the house, my scooter veered uncontrollably to the right. Part of the scooter was hanging off one end of the ramp. Had I been riding at speed, I would have gone straight off the edge, resulting in damage to the scooter and worse still, another stay in hospital for me.
Despite being shaken by the ordeal, I reversed back off the ramp and back onto solid ground. Maybe I hadn’t been concentrating and had driven up the incline at an angle. I rode my scooter back up towards the house. Yet again, I somehow ended up almost riding straight off the edge.
By this point, I had forgotten all about the rain, despite it continuing to pour from the sky. I was just a few feet away from the sanctuary of home, but being unable to climb the ramp, I may as well have been in Dover. So near, yet so far.
After much panicking, I calmed down enough to climb the ramp, with Claire at my side, supporting the scooter to prevent me from losing control again.
Slowly, we made our way towards the house. Garden snails, out in numbers due to the sodden conditions, looked on, no doubt bemused at my speed and how I could be overtaken in my ascension to the front door.
I made it home, safe and well, if not a little shaken and dripping with rain water. I went upstairs, changed into pyjamas, before returning downstairs, to sit on the sofa and feel sorry for myself.
Home sweet home
I stayed there pretty much for the rest of the evening. So, if you ever wondered how your favourite blogger spends his Friday nights, now you know. Ozzy Osbourne is green with envy at how rock and roll I am!
THE END
When it comes to the whole ‘America v Canada’ thing, I always thought the Canadians were the clever ones. After all, the Yanks voted for Donald Trump – and, yes, I am more than aware that 51% of my fellow-Brits voted to leave the European Union.
I may have to reconsider whether Canadians really are clever, having read this story online today.
According to the report, Canadians are contracting salmonella and falling ill, after… get this… cooking frozen chicken nuggets in the microwave.
Just to clarify – for fans of ‘TOWIE’ and the 51%ers – you CANNOT cook frozen, raw chicken in the microwave – however tasty the breadcrumb batter looks frozen solid. It even states on the packaging, to heat the nuggets in an OVEN.
See, by comparison, the Trump thing doesn’t seem so daft now, does it?
If he’s being “cooked” in the microwave, the uncle will be having the last laugh!
Poor Foghorn Leghorn – he never stood a chance
The whole chicken in microwave story reminded me of a time in my early-twenties. I was still living at home. I must have been writing my blog, under its original name – Sparkster.net. Heaven knows why I didn’t blog about this…
Anyway, I’m still a young whipper-snapper. My brother is an even younger teenage whipper-snapper.
As far as teenagers go, he was relatively ok. Not as goody-two-shoes as me, but there’s very little trouble you can get into, if you spend the majority of your teenage years, locked in your bedroom, playing Donkey Kong Country and Crash Bandicoot.
The only problem I had with my brother, was the behaviour of some of his friends.
Now, I am sure they have all grown into very kind, caring, respectable young men. However, at the time, they had a habit of winding me up…
I would be in the kitchen, making a sandwich or perhaps just getting a packet of crisps – maybe even preparing a crisp sandwich, if I was feeling adventurous.
While in the kitchen, my brother’s friends would march in from outside, before proceeding to search the cupboards, fridge and freezer, like the police carrying out a drugs raid.
Luckily for my mum, they were not searching for drugs. Unluckily for me, they were searching for food. Food, which I would have probably wanted to eat.
My brother’s associates would perform this search, without permission from my mum, or even acknowledging me, despite the fact I was stood, staring flabbergasted, in the middle of the kitchen. Why, oh why, didn’t someone buy my brother a PlayStation and a lock for his bedroom back then…
This blatant food theft would get to me, as it happened frequently over many months – I would like to say years, but fear that I would be exaggerating.
One particularly bad day, one of the food thieves – let’s just call him “Friend A” – was raiding the fridge, when he pulled out a large chicken drumstick, covered in barbacue sauce. I was horrified. Not at the cheek of the food theft – I had sadly become used to that – but the fact the chicken was raw!
For someone who has always been over-the-top, to the brink of OCD, when it comes to food hygiene, I was mortified. What made things worse, was Friend A started eating the chicken. The raw chicken.
He ate the rare poultry, as if he was an animal on a David Attenborough documentary, about life on the Serengeti. Except this wasn’t the plains of famine-stricken Africa. It was a kitchen in middle-class suburban England. Plus, I am yet to see a hyena, eating a gazelle, marinated in Heinz BBQ Sauce.
I allowed Friend A to eat the chicken. Maybe I should have said something, although it wouldn’t have made any difference.
My next worry was that Friend A might be sick on our carpet – or the stairs! I also had a vomit phobia and if he was sick on the stairs, I would be trapped – unable to pass the scene of the incident, until the entire area had been sterilised and cleaned using the acid of a Facehugger, from the film Alien.
Luckily, there was no puking in our house, and as Friend A returned for more of my food, across the days that followed, I can only assume he had an iron stomach and had not fallen foul of the fowl – sorry!
Wow. I can really digress when I get going. This was only meant to be a short post about stupid Canadians. It’s nearly 1am – I’ve been writing for an hour and a half!
Why is it that our council – BANES – send us binmen – or Waste Management and Disposal Technicians, as they are now known – who frequently leave behind large piles of our recycling?
Their latest ‘epic fail’ (as the kids would say) is to only take half of our cardboard recycling.
Imagine if other professions took this ‘half-arsed’ attitude…
BANES Hairdressers. A rip-off at half the price.
BANES Beer. The drinks will go to your head.
BANES Trains. Taking you all the way to Newcastle. Terminating at Birmingham.
AFC BANES. The most ‘rubbish’ team in the league. Only ever play 45 minutes of the allotted 90.
I was going to include BANES Heart Surgeons, but the accompanying image was too gruesome!
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.
