Foreign Holidays

Blog,

I don’t know about you Blog, but I do love going on holiday to foreign countries; the excitement of the airport, the smell of kerosene and boarding the plane; or driving into the depths of a ferry boat, the smell of the sick on a rough sea crossing; passing through customs watched by those beady eyed officials making you feel a pang of guilt although guilty of no offence; the new smells and sounds of a foreign country; the different foods; the foreign language and the struggle to be understood. For an autumn break the decision was just where to go. Ferry to France? A flight to Florence? We decided on a visit to Wales. Most of the natives speak a sort of pigeon English, so making oneself understood is not too difficult if supplemented with a few hand gestures. The border crossing is simplification itself, never are you asked to show your passport; I suspect that may be more to do with being fellow citizens of Oceania that cross border cooperation between King Offa and Queen Boudicca? None of this Euro business, when buying supplies in shops. Slip them a couple of new pence here and a quid there and they are quite happy. They are fascinated by all the corners on a fifty pence piece, they spend hours in competition with each other trying to stand the coins on their edge, something to do with the squashed ball syndrome they caught playing football I suppose. The food is similar to ours with a few notable exceptions … you should see what they do with a rabbit, a rare treat if you are into that sort of thing. However it does tend to rain about twenty five hours a day and the sheep do wear wellies as well as thick woolly coats. Why that Dick Llewellyn bloke asked that stupid question is beyond me. The answer is bleeding obvious. Your valley matey boyo, is green because you get so much bleeding rain; the grass hasn’t a chance to stop growing. The green, green grass of home. Never heard of it?

That nice Mr Cameroon’s friend at school, Mr Gorse, could learn a trick or two from the Welsh education system. The Welsh combine learning to drive with learning a foreign language. Multi-tasking in lifelong learning! Is that clever Blog, or is that clever? As the Welshes drive along their roads, the English equivalent word is explained to them on all the road signs. It is the same in shops; the Welsh shoppers are told what the English word is for each item. I suppose that is why most of them speak that sort of pigeon English, enough to make themselves understood to the jonhny foreigners without getting their feathers ruffled.

 They do have a great many bridleways, I suppose the natives still use them for their packhorses when the villagers trade with each other. Steep to trudge up and a bit dodgy to trudge down … gives you shin soreness after a couple of days!!!

Marathon tip for you Blog … remember you heard it first here, tomorrow you can read it in one of those running magazines things but never will it be recommended by one of those full arm badges whollhas.        TIP=> If you get shin soreness Blog, in one or both legs, usually caused by unaccustomed downhill running, buy yourself a couple of elasticated ankle socks from the chemists, the very tight elasticated supports. Used these on your shins!!!!!!!! Not your ankles!!!!!!!!!! Pull them up and over the ankle until they are all used around the calf and shin. Tight .. yes. TIGHT. Keep these in place all day. Only jog on grass for a couple of days to give the muscle membrane chance to knit back onto the bone, for it was the vibration of down-hill impact that caused the periosteum  to become slightly detached from the bone which is causing the injury problem. DON’T keep the socklets on when you go to bed [cramp and circulation restriction]. And watch for swelling in the feet caused by the tight bandages. Don’t be conned into the usual use of those pathetic elasticated bandages for support, they are not tight enough. In simple terms the tight ankle socks are helping quicken the re-sticking process of the flesh and bone …... cough up quids to see these blokes who give you a quick rub down if you don’t believe me Blog. It’s your quids and weeks of appointments rather than my three day cure. Please yourself Blog. Sustificutes are impressive when framed and hung on the wall? But do not forget where you first heard this advice at a cost of no quids!!

My latest quids making scheme Blog, is to start up an export business to Wales. I am unsure whether to buy a fleet of lorries to trans ship the goods or hire out the required number of lorries in case the Welshies are short of cash in these hard Financial Times. I am going to crate up thousands and thousands of vowels. They should sell like hot cakes. If you have ever been to Wales Blog, you will realise how short they are of all five vowels. Vowels are a scarce commodity. Rather than send all five at once, I thought I would test out the market, dip my toe in the water, see what the demand is, so to speak. So I thought I would send a few bundles of I.O.Us to gauge what response I get. And the really clever part of this scheme is that, for the return journey, I will fill the lorries up with bags of local ‘L’s. The Welshies have millions of the things. Whenever they see a word, they dash up and slap an extra ‘L’ on it. It’s a nationall complllaint, I don’t think they can help it!! In fact, I don’t think that they even reallllise that they are doing it. The only downside to this scheme is that I might have a helluva time getting them across the border, passed the customs officers; especially if someone leeks to the authorities what I am trying to do. It is not unusual for certain Welshies to sing to the authorities over such matters, some boy from nowhere wanting to make a name for himself.

                                                               Colin