Fascianation

I have been off this week doing a number of undercover and over cover projects. The undercover (by the very nature of the title) will have to remain secretive at present, but may (lets say) fall loosely into the category of Art and Design and shall be mentioned at appropriate times in the future. The over cover project has been to replace the fascia to my Mum and Dad’s bungalow, that has been ravaged by time (a little bit) but mostly to stop the’ knock, knock, point’ of passing fascia and barge board salesmen that hang around Leighton Buzzard dealing their over cladding services OR predicting a doom laden future for people too stupid to take up their highly discounted easy payment schemes. So the plan was to circumnavigated these scammers and avoided the national DIY (stack em high, sell em expensive) outlets and purchase the products from a local, open to the public, trade supplier which worked out very reasonably indeed. In fact it all went swimmingly well until rain stopped play on Tuesday afternoon and then again on Wednesday, before I got the guttering back up.

Of course I do these things because I love my parents dearly, but really it’s due to the little pearls of wisdom that would be lost to overpaid contractors if I didn’t. Here is one such fact that was imparted over a cup of tea and a cheese Bap. When my mum was growing up the man next door used to wash both his feet and socks at the same time in a bucket in front of the fire. I’m sure I do not need point out that this was many years ago in more austere and less privileged times and to drip dry your socks in front of an open fire was all the rage, and the idea of putting your socks in the microwave to dry like we do these days would have been regarded as witchcraft. The other thing about visiting my parents is, as practising Herbivorous (they like to call themselves the more socially acceptable Vegetarian Freaks) that their total reliance on cheese and cheese based products is virtually like religious fanaticism. On Monday I had a cheese roll and then on Tuesday it was cheese with a little bit of onion. Wednesday, however they started playing some mind games and mixing it up by serving up one small cheese roll with Branston and the other without. I am absolutely sure that somewhere in a previous life they must have been Mr & Mrs Smorgasbord who started the cheese Moonies.

I, Sweary Pat and others donned two toned shoes to skip the light fandango on Friday night to bowl again at the Enormo dome. The trouble all started when the barren status of the Guinness pump first hit Pat and the realisation that the bowling bar staff’s resolution to this calamity was to advise us to walk some 100 yards or so to the First Base bar and then return to the bowling with his favourite tipple. Pat would be best described as quite Irish, and little bit sweary! Don’t get me wrong he knows when NOT to swear, I’m guessing he would do really well when He’s sleeping or under anaesthetic, dead, etc. Anyhow, after much discussion and due to our stout inconvenience, he has now received a number of free bowling tickets. Unfortunately for City Limits or to give it its correct title; Spirit Pub Company I am reasonably sure that this is not the last that they have heard of this.