Monday, 19 October 2015

Don't moan, Colin, have an apple.


Photographic Quiz.

Photo No. 244.
 

Question:- What is so unusual about the photo of this particular Godiva runner and the photographer? And at his funeral, what didn't his relatives understand??

Dear Blog,

              So after my moans and groans in my last missive to you Blog, I promise that this letter to you will be a moan free posting.

               Proud to say that in the local Horticultural and Whatever Show about three weeks ago, I managed about half a dozen thirds, same number of seconds and ONE FIRST for my various fruit and vegetable entries!!!! So a big well done to me for all the careful attention and time and loving care I have lavished on my fruit and veg during the year.

BUT.

AND A BIG BUT.

              My only first was for my desert apples, that is, my eating apples to you Blog. Was I chuffed you ask me Blog. WAS I? Well I have to admit to you Blog, that I was given the apple tree from which the 5 apples were selected by a family friend because the tree was a nuisance and got in the way of her washing line. I dug the tree up about 4 years ago, not expecting it to survive the up- rooting!! Survive it did. Flourish it did. Win a prize it did. So I spend hours and hours on my produce and do sod all for the fruit tree. And what wins???????????? The sodding apple tree for which I made bugger all effort!

             I did offer the lady the certificate and the prize money, but she declined my kind offer! Story of my life --  a lady rejecting my offers!! Tell me about it, Blog.  Am I irresistible or am I irresistible to the opposite sex??? Tell me about it Blog.

          I do tend to criticise the local authority when I feel criticism is due so it is only right that I redress the balance when I feel the opposite is true. Such a case occurred over the weekend at Lake View Park when the Coventry  Parks Department (?) mounted an Apple Day. Most interesting .... and the important gentleman using a fruit press and promoting a display of many apples recognised me from the days of yore ... 40 years at least!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the following day, just the opposite occurred.  Out 'running' (shuffling, trudging and so on and so forth to you Blog) on Sunday morning I saw a runner approaching me whom I have know for 40 odd years. I said 'hello' and asked after his health as you do in such circumstances, but was met with a grunt ... and that was it!!!!! Puzzling or what??? Was it because he was with a posh friend and preferred to not let on about the company he kept? Was it because I smelled????  Was it because I hadn't paid my council tax or was it simply a case of him being  bedazzled  by the sheer beauty of my stylish running?  It was a mile or so later that the penny suddenly dropped. For the last quarter of a century , he had got used to seeing me with a  face full of hair and a mouth full of teeth .... as of last week, my facial hair has been shorn and I now run without my false choppers in. Looking in the mirror when I got back to the changing rooms, I didn't recognise me so he had no bloody chance Blog.

        And a little more pluses for the Council. The previous week they mounted a public meeting on the Thursday evening at 5pm for an hour when everyone was struggling home from work, to explain what measurers they were being taken on traffic calming at the junction at the bottom of our Lane. Basically they are turning both my Lane and the on opposite lane, a cul de sac, into the preferential main routes and sticking a traffic island in the middle of the cross roads ... quite ingenious. They do not seem to understand, however, that we have 18 wheeled lorries delivering up the narrow country lane to the farms, the furniture factory and the animal food suppliers. It will be impossible for them to turn 270 degrees on the traffic island. But what do I know? The same situation arose when the council built the high concrete retaining barrier along the lane six months ago to stop erosion and flooding. I told them that the barriers would merely channel the water along the Lane and cause worse flooding in the winter, worse than we usually have. But what do I know?? I was wrong, however. The barriers have been in place for 6 months and they did channel the water and cause flooding worse than we usually have ... and it is only autumn and it was only after a single day of heavy rain. So Blog, I shall write to you by the first class postal system when the traffic island is destroyed by the heavy goods vehicles, given that it hasn't been  washed away by the flooding first!!!

                                                    Colin

P.S. OK Blog, I did not quite stick to my first terms of engagement. So there is no surprise there then!!!

 

No comments:

Post a Comment