Leap Year

Dear Pinky,

It's Leap Year and today is 29th February, the only time in every four years that this date occurs. So I'm not going to remind you how bare my finger looks without any bling on it,

nor am I going to point out that although you proposed that we should (re)marry about four years ago, we still haven't set a date.

Nor am I going to point out that we don't actually have to sell our houses and buy a bungalow together before we (re)tie the knot. After all, at the rate we move, we could be dead before we achieve these goals.

Just saying...

Much love from your ador ed ing,

Black Cat




P.S. Does my bum look big in these shorts?

If you have snow...

...read this and have a laugh! (Warning: some of the language might not be suitable for young furries and beans)

Does this not bring back memories?

December 8 6:00 PM

It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!

December 9

We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the whole world? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had! Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life!

December 12

The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment! My neighbor tells me not to worry-we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.

December 14

Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.

December 15

20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.

December 16

Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.

December 17

Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own livingroom.

December 20

Electricity is back on, but had another 14 inches of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling! Took all day. The damn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.

December 22

Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it's so cold, it probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again. I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter, but he says he's too busy. I think the asshole is lying.

December 23

Only 2 inches of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she, nuts?!! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she's lying.

December 24

6 inches - Snow packed so hard by snowplow, I broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a bitch who drives that snow plow, I'll drag him through the snow by his balls and beat him to death with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy watching for the damn snowplow.

December 25

Merry f---ing Christmas! 20 more inches of the damn slop tonight - Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God, I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she's a fricking idiot. If I have to watch 'It's A Wonderful Life' one more time, I'm going to stuff her into the microwave.

December 26

Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.

December 27

Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze; plumber came after 14 hours of waiting for him, he only charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.

December 28

Warmed up to above -20. Still snowed in. The BITCH is driving me crazy!!!

December 29

10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?

December 30

Roof caved in. I beat up the snow plow driver, and now he is suing me for a million dollars, not only for the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove the broken snow shovel up his ass. The wife went home to her mother. Nine more inches predicted.

December 31

I set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.

January 8

Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?

Some of you may have already read this as I received it via email so it's probably doing the rounds. It did make me laugh though so I felt like sharing it with you:)

Wordless Wednesday

Easy Life for Sergeant Podge

Shame about the Lizards

Sorry guys, I should have looked at the terms and conditions (which I just have) but they do say "download", not that you can't watch it as a streaming video, but I guess they mean both. Bummer! It's sure to be shown in Mericky, Canada, Australia, and other countries, at some time in the future hopefully.

Some new friends have asked who Pinky is. Here is a portrait of him:




Handsome devil, ain't he? You'd never know he's actually a bean, ha ha!

Lizards!

For Daisy and All Other Lizard Catchers Likers

This is a programme I watched on TV last night. It was fantastic and you can watch on the innernets by going here. Enjoy!

A First for Sunday

Well I'll go to the top of our stairs, for the very first time Pinky has commented on my blog, yay!!!

Speaking of which, you were all right; both (a), (b) and (c) apply (and (d) and (e) which the lovely Diamond Emerald Eyes added, heh heh!).

BTW, Echo Falls wine comes from California and it's nice (or at least the red is, haven't tried the white or rose). JB asked me this. Storm's Bean has tried the rose and found it a bit vinegary. The red is a little that way too, but paupers can't be choosers, I have to go for cheap and cheerful, ha ha! There are three websites mentioned on the label but they're all sort of directory sites and don't have any info. on Echo Falls at all, as far as I can see.

Hope you're all having a fab weekend and will have a great week:)

P.S. Sorry the print's so big. I only wanted the first paragraph big but try as I might, Blogger insists on making the whole post big. Still, that might be helpful for other visually challenged people!

Easy Like Sunday Evening

Cheers evfurrybody!




Why am I drinking wine out of a tumbler?

(a) Coz I'm clumsy?

(b) Coz it's difficult to video while raising a full glass?

(c) Both?

No prizes I'm afraid!

Have a good week evfurrybody:) xxx

I can't believe it's Friday again!

Is time speeding up or what?!? It seems like just a few hours ago I was taking these videos through my (shut) bedroom windows. You may want to turn your volume down a tad...

I can't believe I took these on Tuesday! Anyhoo, this is what is going on in my street at present. New plastic gas pipes are being fitted to replace the old metal ones, which corrode. Usually the workmen arrive at some uncatly hour of the morning, like 8 or 8.30 a.m. and start drilling very loudly (much louder than whatever this guy is doing). Well, actually, they can't really drill quietly, now I come to think of it, but to add insult to injury they usually only work till about 10.30 or 11 a.m. and then they bugg bog off! By this time I'm thoroughly awake, though still feeling tired, and my head feels as though eleventy-twelve dentists have been drilling holes in all my teeth! Now I know this is necessary work, but where do they go after only about two hours' work? To another job? Home? Dunno, but it seems to me that if they did a whole day's work each day the job would be finished much quicker, but then who am I to question the working hours of the British workman?! I only know that if I'd put in so few hours at my job, I wouldn't have had the job for long... ::sigh::.

Anyway, I digress. On Tuesday they did work (almost) all day (except for a very long break at around about lunchtime) and they cut off my gas (which was probably a good thing, you can't be messing with gas when the pipes are being changed) and put a card through the door saying I needed to be "purged and relighted (sic)" with a number to call for this to be arranged. So I rang the number, only to be told I'd rung the number for another area. The lady I spoke to gave me the right number for my area, which I duly rang. When the lady who took my call had taken my details, I asked how long I would have to wait and she said anywhere up to four hours unless they got a call-out to a gas leak, in which case it could be longer. By this time the house was getting pretty cold. Anyway, to cut to the anticlimax, the engineer arrived about one and a half hours later, thank goodness, so I didn't quite have icicles hanging from my nose (ewww)!!

I don't know why I've rambled on like this, I can't imagine it will be of much interest to you, dear readers, but there you go, I'm obviously having a fit of the verbosities, lol!

On a completely different note, I would like to thank all those who have commented on mine bloggie and/or signed my guestbook. I really love reading your comments and looking at all your lovely faces and messages on the guestbook. I will try and catch up with you all over the weekend. One person who signed my guestbook but didn't leave a comment was Amanda C of Reno, NV. I don't know if she has a blog or website and I can't find anyone from Reno in my stats or through Google, so if you read this Amanda, please leave a comment if you have a blog or website so I can visit you. Meanwhile I'd like to thank you for saying my blog is nice:)

I hope you all have a super duper weekend:)

Lovely Lunch and Washed Up Wood

Hi there! I'm way behind on reading blogs and blogging myself. What on earth do I do all day that makes me get so far behind? Well, I sleep a lot, but sometimes I do actually get out of the house! For example, on Wednesday Pinky and Grumpy took me out to lunch.

There were meant to be four of us but Maggie couldn't come, unfortunately. She lives in Portugal so we will have to wait until she comes over again.

We had lunch in a pub restaurant near to where Grumpy lives. The food was delicious. I forgot to photograph it! I had rump steak with a Jack Daniels sauce. Actually, if I'd only thought about it, I should have videoed it because it arrived on a metal platter and was literally sizzling and still cooking; awesome!

Grumpy had a massive burger and Pinky had chicken carbonara.

After that we went down to see the wood that was washed up on the beach a week or so ago. It's amazing, it goes all along the coast from Southampton to Hastings or something. A long way anyhoo. We stopped near another favourite haunt, Carats, and took pictures. The public are forbidden from taking any of this wood (surely that must contravene maritime law? Dunno) and quite a lot of it has already been cleared by the authorities, but as you can see, there is still a lot left! In defiance Grumpy took a piece for his brother, who is building a new garden shed. I think he might need quite a bit more wood than the piece Grumpy took, ha ha!



After that we went to Carats and had a cup of tea (each, that is, not one between us, haha!).

Hope evfurrybody is having a great Sunday:)

BTW, there will be more about Grumpy in a future posting. He is a very talented bloke!