Author: christinaosborne

It has all been a very peculiar winter here.  The weather has been rather coldish and wet with interminable rain but nary a snowflake to be seen, not one.  Then all of a sudden, it stops, gets 20 degrees warmer and full on sunshine!  More like all of sudden it is a different planet!

Of course none of this is to do with ‘global warming’, it is just the usual oscillation of the Pacific doing its El Nino/Nina bit, we have one like this every 5 years or so.

I too have had a peculiar winter to say the least, last Autumn I complained to the doctor of a persistent pain in the back.  Always wanting to know the worst and anticipating a healthy dose of lung cancer after smoking for literally 50 years I manned up, or rather womanned up and presented myself for the usual battery of tests.  Lo and behold, more bloody gall stones!!  Of all the gall! Only about 15% of humanity manage to get them more than once evidently, these are made in the liver on a deo ex machina basis and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it but fish them out!  These beasts were the size of rocks, they were duly fished out but had caused massive reflux through blocking the tubes.  All this was done without any real inconvenience but then the real kicker!  The reflux had been aspirated into my lungs at night and gently acid etched the whole surface!  The pulmonologist assures me the condition is reversible, so off we go with various drugs etc to put it right.  Then the Damocletian blow! Normally the putting it right is accompanied with large doses of antibiotic to keep other diseases away but I can’t use them as I am totally allergic to virtually ever oral antibiotic.  So being in a very delicate condition, I must not be breathed on by anyone or else I’ll end up in the local Lazar house(hospital) in an oxygen tent!

OK folks, you know the drill, retreat, load for bear and mine the drive!  No visitors, cancel everything, go nowhere, do nothing etc etc!  Now this all gets very very boring, so to keep busy I have been growing things on in the greenhouse awaiting the day to get planting outside.  Then the weather broke and a frenzy of activity has taken place, well I’ve got so much in there it all has had to be moved along the system at a great rate of knots.

Early peas, broad beans all out and going.

Continue reading “Happening now with Optional Acid Etching”

Never have I read of such total incompetence.  A la DM.  The need for troops and helicopters to ‘rescue’ rural people.  (We already know town dwellers are witless wonders!)

What is wrong with them?  If you live in remote rural places you take great care to have sufficient stocks of everything thereunto!  Admissions of running out of fuel and food for man and beast after 4 days is ludicrous in the extreme.

Anyone that relies on anything but coal and a solid fuel central heating system wants their heads examining as all other fuel systems require electricity to drive the furnace, most solid fuel systems will still work on convection!  Coal is delivered in the Autumn by the ton!  You can guarantee that the electricity will go out, so oil lamps with sufficient spare wicks and oil are de rigeur, (yes, they are still made as are old fashioned mantles!)  If you have any sense a small generator just to run the freezers.  Sufficient box milk, flour and yeast and you are in business!

Continue reading “I really do get so bloody angry!”

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll is responsible for a grave error, they weren’t ‘toves’.  They were ‘tofus’

This lamentable lexicography has permitted the ongoing perpetration of an unimaginable horror in the borogroves of Seattle. (For those of you lacking in the intrepid exploring gene, they are similar to mangrove swamps but MUCH nastier.)

Officious, officiating officials sent forth by the Imps of ‘elf and safety’ have seized some wretched Oriental female in her den and accused her of the cardinal crime of butchering tofus stolen from the borogroves. To boot, her heinous crimes are worse. She is accused of  mistreating them in their death throws! Heating them as they die, prolonging their throes, shipping their still quivering bodies in warm death carts for human consumption and allowing their poor tortured bodies to be set upon by vermin, (four and six legged, we will come to the two legged in due course!). Continue reading “A Diatribe On Errors in Jabberwocky!”

Answer your email!

Wool has arrived for wolfie second skin and I need a couple of answers before I start!

Sometimes, you really do get what you actually wish for!

I have spent ten years here in this house regarding the shack next door with great disfavour every time I set eyes on it.  It was built illegally, not up to code and has spent its life being rented by some pretty scrofulous peasantry with poor credit records, savage dogs and half witted female companions.  Some idiot judge allowed it to be grandfathered in to the irritation of the County who wanted it demolished.  But finally nature has had its way.  Condemned by the County, deemed unfit for human habitation due to leaking roofs, black mould, insufficient drains and God knows what else, it has finally had its day!

Continue reading “Pyromaniacs delight!”

Quote from the DT comments section-

The doctor said I should watch what I eat-

So I bought tickets to the Grand National.

Whilst the two blogs below are amusing do they really have any point of contact with reality?

I just have never had these discussions and were I to do so I’d be out the door in a flash with bags packed! Union rules are declared before one even contemplates a relationship, there are your jobs and my jobs and get out of my bloody way.  Forget dates, presents, celebrations, shopping trips I don’t do them.  If you do, do it by yourself, no reciprocation.   Just make damned sure there is a never ending supply of red wine and cigarettes in the house, failure to do so incurs all night shopping trips and displeasure!

No discussion is to be tolerated on the mundane, boring or tedious.  If you can’t be amusing, witty or verbally vicious, keep your mouth shut!  AND GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!  Only the boy was ever allowed in the kitchen as he was used to the speed of a commercial operation. lumbering sclerotic attempts to help, not appreciated if you want to eat today!

Every husband has been fully appreciative of the need for an extremely large greenhouse to keep himself out of the divorce court, they need not know anything about plants but are allowed to admire them from afar, much more appreciated than personal comments which are not allowed. (Comes under tedious!)

I have never understood this constant need for compliments, flattery, clinging and ego bolstering.  All should stand on their own two feet with supreme indifference as to what any other thinks of them. If that floats your boat, fine, if not, fine! Piss me off once too often and I’m out of here!

And finally do not accommodate sexual peccadillos of partners. I once allowed a  shack up with some advertising executive in Henley, he committed a solecism beyond.  I got home first to my apartment.  Threw every one of his possessions out of the window including his stereo. Once he collected it all and stuffed it in his car I threw rocks at his car and managed to break all his rear lights and back window, a splendid evening’s work!  Subsequently he came unstuck in South Africa by banging a coloured woman and ended up in jail and being deported, all very entertaining!

Personally If I were to suffer such crap as below for about 15 minutes I’d change the model so damned fast it wasn’t true, or , even better, live by yourself!

I know I have mentioned buying a house here with less land to which to retire. Well, we did.  I had sold my house in Wales the past summer and wanted to tuck up the money, no point putting it in the bank, that’s for sure! The bastards want to charge you to keep your money these days round here.

So, we buy this house, about the same size house as here but on a small town plot.  The plan being sell this and move into that.  Well, when we viewed several times the place was as quiet as the grave, suited me fine, I hate noise.  Immediately we made the purchase and handed over the filthy lucre all hell lets loose!  The hard rock music from next door vibrating the walls of our place and then another time bloody bongo drums!  One could be forgiven thinking one had been transported into the Congo basin and missionaries were aboiling!!

Continue reading “Be careful for what you wish!”

I have just received my first Christmas card from the UK, needless to say I do not anticipate many more!!  It cost £1.90 ($3.05) to send it here and exactly the same size card to go to the UK costs $1.05!  THREE times LESS!

You have no doubt seen all the hoohaa about legalising the smoking of pot in WA?  Yeah, well, they legalised the smoking but you aren’t allowed to buy, grow or deal in it!  I am awaiting the falling of pot as manna from heaven! I swear these people are as daft as they come!  Last year they voted to privatise the sale of liquor and the prices roughly doubled, vaguely reminiscent of turkeys voting for Christmas!

Continue reading “Random Lunacies.”