The debonair Basil Marigold's

For many years now we have been storing firewood in our house. As you can see from the photograph below the poor chair begged for the cleansing power of a state of burning.  Grim, and unappealing it has sat displaying its ugliness to every room it has been in. The depressing covers and pattern having seen better days at the height of the Suez Crisis. However, my wife has a strange love of the chair and so for a bit of a treat it was decided that maybe fire wasn't the only recourse. Might it not be saved and loved again, as new! And so, after a few weeks of sweet parting the sad pile of firewood returns to the bosom of its family and boy, has it had a great new face lift! Ta-da Clearly unrecognisable! The once hidden wings, have been allowed out to fly again! Therefore the matches and the petrol have been put back!

We recently had to replace the toilet seat. I bought one on amazon and as with most manufactured product it was flown directly from the orient. As with these things they come with a plethora of instructions. I do not expect the instruction sheet for a toilet to be overly arduous. However, there were a few oddities that I struggled to entirely get to grips with. Clearly it is important to have a neat toilet seat. My main worry here is over the taste of the surface. I am not one to encourage the licking of toilet seats to ascertain the flavour of the seat. My children have so far refused this experiment.  One of the reasons the children have refused to lick the toilet seat is clearly demonstrated in a further section about safety. Children should not be allowed to play with the toilet seat. This can result in hurting fingers, and 'other' accident. I do not know what the other accident might be but if you look close enough to the tiny child who is not to scale does utter the words

 For many years now we have had a tiny mirror that we bought with us when we moved. We put it up in the hallway of our new house. The hallway swamped it, and I was the only one who could see in it, because that was were the hook went. We have been in the house for nearly two years. I found myself in B&Q this week. I have been on annual leave and we have been doing some DIY. Before I went I mentioned to my wife that I'll have a look at mirrors while I remember! And I did remember! There wasn't a huge selection available in all fairness and after I thought long and hard I found one which seemed really good.  Here, therefore is the start and the finish. I can now safely say that my entire can fit within the mirror. Indeed, according to my wife, most of the street would fit in! And I quote my wife here with the following quote, 'Do you think we would have bought a mirror that big if I had been with you?' hahahahaha Here is the old mirror sat underneath the new hallway m

 I had forgotten to mention that a few weeks ago we required some plumbing work to be done outside. A pipe had been caught by a piece of falling masonry and seemed to have got cracked, when another piece of pipe was sliced through. Hadn't noticed the crack until we experienced a smell in the bathroom. We then discovered that there was a u-bend on the end of the pipe outside. When taken off and cleaned out the pipe cracked some more and then began to leak. The issue was the pipe was just a fraction to high for me with our current step ladders. We bought them when we moved in. They have been useful, but they were never the tallest stepladders. In the end we bit the bullet and looked at buying some more practical ladders that would allow us to go higher if needed. I found ladders of the telescopic variety. They are lightweight and push down to a smaller size than even the step ladders we own!  Like the vast majority of items that are physically made nowadays they arrived from China, a

Yesterday, the nightmare scenario happened to my wife. She went to turn on the heating and...Nothing. It was dead. The thermostat wouldn't communicate to the boiler. We had water, we just had a sullen, non-responsive white box refusing to 'engage'. Her poor little face. Within 5 hours she'd been out the house to see a friend. Clearly leaving me to cope in sub-arctic conditions while she sat in a warm house. When she returned home, a portable, three bar heater was in her possession, like some artful dodger! It helped, but the drawback of an open plan living and dining room is the difficulty to heat that kind of space with a portable heater. It is, however, better than nothing.  Fortunately the plumber came out fairly quickly and fixed the transmission issue between the thermostat and the boiler. Hey, Presto! we have normal heating back and the joy of having the warm under floor heating in the kitchen was wonderful. All for the bargain price of £40. At some point we'l

 Friday afternoon, after work we were surprised to discover an ambulance parked outside of our home. Right outside. W e couldn't figure out why, or for whom it had been called. It remained here for a good 20 to 3o minutes. A mystery to us all. We looked out of ground floor and upper floor windows to get a better view, or to try and figure out what was going on! All to no avail, sadly.  However, my wife was due to return relatively soon. This was noticed by one of my children who used their ingenuity and suggested that what I should do is go and lie down, prostrate on the drive when we spotted my wife's car in the distance. On her arrival past the ambulance she will then immediately see me lying on the ground. We put this to a vote and agreed that this was a brilliant idea! One of our very best in fact!  Sadly things went wrong; 1) The ambulance drove away about 10 minutes before my wife arrived  We thought this a shame as we felt this would have been an amazing prank. Unless of

 I think with my poor mental calendar my daughter, the first born, has been in secondary school for 5 weeks now. Maybe 4 full weeks and a couple of days. It is the beginning of the most crucial period of her growth as a human being. 11-20 is quite a time of fundamental change. From child to adult. For most that is. I have stretched mine out a bit longer than that, some would argue. Here she stands on this monumental threshold, the shadow she casts now is very small and not so far into the distance, but it will grow and then stretch further as she becomes a woman. It's a brand new start for her. I think she is currently enjoying it. I think, personally, that this current pandemic has helped her by keeping the older children away. The school will be less of a bear pit than they inevitably are, or can be if you are in someway timid, weak, or daft. Teenage children can have a proclivity towards being hurtful. You kind of want to keep them safe and protected from it all, don't you?

This evening my wife and I went out for a walk in Brixham. We reached a T junction where we would normally turn left and head along to Berry Head and the Napoleonic forts. This year we took the right hand path. This is also part of the south west coastal path that circumnavigates Devon and Cornwall. From Brixham it takes you towards St Mary’s bay, and Mansands and the next beach along, the nudist beach,Scabbacombe beach.  Most of the pathway follows the coastline quite rightly, but here was the initial pathway along towards the first beach of St Mary’s. From this point onwards you get pretty close to the headlands and cliff edges. This walk from St Mary’s to Kingswear (approximately 7 miles) can at points be fear inducing from the narrowness of the path to the fact that a metre lunge to your left and you have 200ft to meet your maker. However the very necessity of taking your life into your hands leads you along the path to Mansands and the views of my hometown go from pretty nice to a

I was sat outside the library in the town I was essentially brought up in until I departed in 2001. I was waiting for my daughter to come out as we’d been in to get some books for her. My son was in urgent need to not wait for her, so we’d headed outside to wait where he could regale me about something. He is afraid of silence.  A lady in a nurses uniform walked past and looked straight at me. ‘Hello, Tony.’ She said as she carried on past. In the proceeding 28 years I, to my shame, had misplaced her name in my head. I recognised her, but the name is somewhere between the lips and the abyss. It was so strange that she said this as she carried on as it was delivered like we had seen each other a couple of days ago in a pub or a cafe. As opposed to having last seen her when we’d left school in 1992.  Have I not physically changed enough in these last 28 years so old he could literally pick me out by walking past a bench in 2020? It would seem not.  I don’t know why it made me feel so hap

We’ve wondered down to a little out of the way cove while on holiday. It’s called Churston cove and is on the south west coastal path just past Brixham and before Goodrington. When I was a teenager we used to come here in the evenings for barbecues and beers, the odd swim. I was never a huge swimmer. Actually, I was technically, I was a huge swimmer in the physical sense.  It’s a pretty little cove. It reminds me of Greece, this little part of Devon, carved out of solid rock millions of years ago.  Today I had a bit of a dip with my son who has discovered that if he uses me as a taxi he can go further out to sea than on his own. Fortunately he’s quite buoyant! He seemed to enjoy the experience of being in deep water. I enjoyed my little swim too. It has probably been a couple of decades since I’ve swum in the sea. Swimming with a tidal mass is hard work.  As you can see it is pretty calm around here and fairly well shaded compared to some of the more touristy beaches you can go to. Thi

So, it has finally happened. It seems only five weeks ago that our daughter began her journey through Primary school. Yet, now, somehow, rather unexpectedly she has come to the end of her first school journey and will be heading into secondary school this coming September.  How quickly time has flown in these years. It is beyond comprehension just how fast it has been, and how fast, she, too, has grown from a toddler to to a child. Now to make the step from Primary to secondary school. A huge jump in a life experience at such an early age. They can be tough times from 11 to 15. I guess we’ll find out how well she copes with all the changes. 

On Monday our daughter returns to schooling. It will not be the schooling she is used to and I can't bring myself to use the horrible phrase that's being used at work, and on the media of the 'new normal.' She was given the choice herself whether to go back or not. She is mature enough to know her own mind and has probably had enough of being at home for the last three months. The class sizes seem to be very small, in single figures. It'll be like experiencing a private eduction.  She'll be missed though. I doubt she'll miss us once she is in the swing of it. Her brother will miss her the most of course. He's like that. I am sure once he's used to it he'll cope with her being at school and him not. We'll go from a 2 person school to a single attendee on Monday. He'll be our sole focus...Poor thing. Hopefully in the last three months she has kept up enough for when she gets back. She's bright enough I'm sure, and apart from some ge

Easy to say, but I am fairly sure that my daughter was only born, at best, 2 years ago. I can clearly remember driving her out of the local hospital in the back of the new car we'd bought just before because we knew we'd need more space. It had only been 7 months or so since I'd learnt to drive. Everything felt new at that point, but no more than driving her home that day. Like I said this was, at most 2 years ago. However, it seems that she somehow celebrated her 11th Birthday a few days ago. How this happened I have no idea! Definitely 2 years. I am convinced of it. Who's wrong? How has eleven years passed so fast? I have found children do have some way of accelerating time. She has grown up so much; She's almost as tall as her mother! Amazing really. How you can be given a baby by a nurse and then told it's time to head home and away you go! They don't give you any advice, or in fact, any formalised instruction manual. Nothing. And we haven't

Ever since we have entered this period of extended lockdown the ability to exercise has also been somewhat reduced too. We now have a daily allowance to provide exercise (Though of course that in the strictest sense is also open for debate, as is the entire government advice). We have therefore kept ourselves to a once a day approach. We are also fortunate in where we live as although we are in a fairly urbanised environment beyond this area there is quite a large expanse of reasonably well connected walks to be had. You can, for instance walk a few minutes from our house and wander into countryside. Of course, if you lived here maybe 60 or 70 years ago you'd not see this as what was there before was coal mines in full production. What we are now walking in is a healed landscape. The scars of this industry such as pit tips and railway lines have removed, ripped up, etc. Nature has reclaimed so many areas of Ashfield. We are able to take advantage of this on our daily exercise. It

One of the byproducts of being in lockdown is witnessing my daughter bounce around the house wearing a single foot muff seemingly intent on becoming some human-hybrid monopod.

The United Kingdom is on 'lockdown' if you follow the news, and read the papers. It isn't of course. I detest the use of the term 'lockdown.' For one, it's another creeping americanism that the world can do without. There it is used as a prison term. Here it's jarring and unhelpful because it means nothing happens, which is patently a position we are not in. I would for clarity refer to it as a partial shutdown at best. You can leave the house. You can leave for health reasons; ie: A run, or a walk. One even imagines cartwheeling down the road is acceptable provided you maintain the physical distancing. This takes me to another term that flabbergasts me, 'Social Distancing.' This is very much the last thing we should be doing. Humans are by evolution, social animals. What they are asking us to do is 'Physical' distancing. I believe it should be a minimum of two metres, so, virtually, a horizontal me in every direction when you are outside.

As the current crisis continues to sweep through this island, and people decide that only an average of 100 toilet rolls per household will suffice, we now face the prospect of opening our own private schools. We have discussed this with our children and we have decided on the following 6am - wake up 6:30 to 7:30am - Cross country run 7:30 to 7:45am - Shower (cold) to invigorate 7:45am to 8:30am - Breakfast. A choice of Kippers, or Eggs 8:30 to 9:30am - First Lesson: Mathematics ( NO BODMAS!) 9:30 to  10:30am - Second Lesson: English (NO DICKENS!) 10:30-10:45am Break - 10 laps of the garden 10:45 to Noon - Handwriting lessons Noon to 1pm - Lunch Menu Monday - Fish and boiled Vegetables with semolina pudding Tuesday - Fish and steamed Vegetables with spotted dick pudding Wednesday - Fish with roasted Vegetables with Tapioca pudding Thursday - Boiled Ham and mashed potatoes with Blancmange pudding Friday - Lamb with boiled potatoes with cold rice pudding and jam 1pm t

ARGGGGHHHH...cried the people as they were soon made aware that despite there being enough food in the shops they decided that this would not do and they needed that food in their houses  Not for any sensible reason, but because then they have the food and won’t need to share it.  And so, Britain, so clearly persuaded of Brexit because we they keep telling us that we survived the war we can survive Brexit and No-deal Brexit. It turns out at the first signs of a social problem they cannot survive without a collective panic. They do not have that survival mentality that the crazy brexiteers think is an inherent British value.  The current British value being highlighted is idiocy. Idiocy and selfishness.  This is both Morrisons and ALDI swept clean like an episode of Dale Winton’s supermarket sweep.  First they came for the pasta, toilet rolls and rice, now they come for the biscuits and squash! It also happens to be the first year in 43 years that I have received three emails from the C

I haven’t visited this part of the walk in centre before. These places tend to be fairly grim. I seem to remember that my last visit was over 8 years ago when it turned out I had broken some toes. I remember it involved a long wait. Hopefully with an appointment it may not involve a geological wait, like last time. However, these places tend to be invariably busy, don’t they. The major illnesses and the minor malaise all congregates into this green floored waiting area it seems.  The building is clearly too hot, hospitals always resemble baking ovens in my experience. It’s worse when you visit someone and in their room or there is just warm air and no respite. I hate that claustrophobic feeling it imparts. I have never coped well in heat so hospitals are really not places I wish to find myself in. Yet here I am, after 8 years taking advantage of the National Health Service. Truly one of the most civilised creations made by the human spirit. Something to be treasured.  No ch

It does seem when I really think about it that our daughter was born only a few years ago. Maybe even two, three years at a push. Imagine my surprise when we received the confirmation email that she has been offered a place at secondary school! And, to add to the shock, that place was due to be taken up this year! She’s going to be eleven by then!  Now, as I have said, this cannot be possible because that would indicate that our daughter was born eleven years ago and that would seem a really long tine ago. It’s truly frightening. Good job our son is only 1 years old. Plenty of time before we need to worry about him!! 

I went to Manchester today. It did not rain at all.  This counts as a miracle.

Good news. I was stood at the side of the train platform this morning and an older fella joined me. We were the only two and I obviously had my ‘come and talk to me, I’m approachable face on this morning.’ Like I do every morning of course. He began talking at me, and how I can’t recall but the subject moved onto this current hysterical inducing pandemic. The one were everyone in England seems to think that they now need to buy up all the toilet roll and hand gel in the country.  However, he then went on to explain to me how it has occurred.  Chinese people eating bats. Because of course, he continues, they’ll eat anything out there; dogs, cats and now obviously they have turned to bats.  With the cause of the current virus now known to me, I began to curse all the bat eating people of Wuhan.  Why could they not eat horses, instead? 

It has taken less time than I had planned for, mainly due to the fact it was a child friendly show so I could watch it at any time, but I have now reached the end of my newest challenge: watching the Blakes 7 series. All 4 series in fact, from 1979 - 1982. 14 episodes in each series, so about 56hrs of Science Fiction from the BBC.  My first impressions are that it was quite incredible. Admittedly the fashions may well have been from the future, but of course the future was seen from being in 1978. I refer you to the below. 70s future clothing is quite like 70s clothes.  As you can see, the effort was made but still not quite futuristic. The other great oddity was so much wanted to be futuristic but in fact there was a hotch potch of Middle Ages too. Future and past  All gauntlets and tunics. Then there was mr 70s funk star.  All fine, all proper and all a tad barmy.  And there is a theme of barminess running through it. A classic English show with that odd English trait running through

This is a grim and unnecessary story full of sadness and pain. Sadness if you love animals, and pain if you are an animal.  Our street, in fact, our entire county is riven with pot holes in the road systems. We are one of the worst counties for this issue. Road investment is one of the lowest in the country among county councils. Nottingham has never seen roads and educations as important investments when compared to civic events and subsidised dinners for councillors at county Hall.  However what they appear to have done is set out for their daily chores without the hedgehog removal tool. As you can see below, this means that they have the physical inability to remove the dead hog from the hole before they applied the tarmac too it! One two levels this is appalling; the first level is you’ve obviously seen it but cannot be bothered to do anything about it; and secondly, you just carried on anyway and filled the whole the best you can. It’s awful so I reported it to the council. Let’s

It had started so well, as a day. A normal day. I had arrived at the gym at 7am and had a good hour building up a sweat. Afterwards a lovely hot shower but very much the icing on the cake. All ready for work. Until, I went to put my trousers on!  The zipper was completely broken! A zipper that can’t be zipped shut becomes an issue. Not as big an issue if you don’t have any pants with you, but I did so that was okay at least!  I had pants. But they were technically my only line of defence. My first thought was Asda, which is just around the corner won’t be open for a good 40minutes, and I couldn’t be bothered to drive to Tesco during rush hour.  The choice became simple. A trip to boots and a box of safety pins seemed the cheapest option!  And so it was throughout the work day the safety pin secured both my trousers and my dignity. Not the ideal start to the day.  Though it didn’t even end on a high note as I ended up cancelling a valid passport to get a new one. But that’s another sad

My son has grown up with darts in some respects. It's mainly been the fault of sky that we have access to loads of Darts tournaments and he has watched them avidly, because, well, I have too. I adore darts. It is unquestionably one of the purest forms of sports. You cannot really cheat! You can't take performance enhancing drugs, because you don't move, you stand. So true athleticism isn't really required and growth hormone or testosterone isn't going to give you the edge either. If you could buy laser eyes then maybe... ...I played in a pub team, the Orchard House for quite a few years before I left Devon, and my game kind of withered as there wasn't the friends or the locations to play in the village I moved to. It was a shame, but I always carried a torch for the darts and one day I knew i'd get a board somehow. Moving to a larger house has helped. My son picking up an interest also as now we could share the board and a pastime we both could enjoy toge

I have a particular skill at being the poorest user of the Coventry City bus network. I am sure this isn’t helped by the fact the network is run by the stagecoach, that company being the worst bus company I have ever experienced. Many years ago they took over Barton Buses in Torbay and then proceeded to, in an impressively short space of time and in the height of irony ‘drive’ the bus provision into the ground. Last year when I came back from Coventry city centre I stepped onto a 16 bus. This bus I saw took me to Binley where my car was. What I didn’t know at the time was it took a rather long and winding route. It took 40 minutes to travel to my destination as it proceeded to take me through all the tiny suburbs on my way, reminiscent of travelling from my house to Mansfield on the 3A where the bus would be diving diving down the side streets. The quicker alternative would be the 3 which goes on the main roads and takes a more direct route. In Coventry these buses are the 13’s. As I h

If you find yourself driving up and down the motorways with any frequency you may notice that German engineered cars seem to have, when purchased, a free pass to choose the speed with which they can go over and above the speed limit. When you pay lots for these cars I guess it is a part of the added extras.  However, as a motorist of a non-German car I do not have one of these speed passes. In the main this is because my car can’t get up to those speeds unless it’s a steep descend!  On the way home from work I was following a very large BMW estate, we were quite contently near 70mph as per normal when another German engineered car beginning with the first letter of the alphabet, flew past. Same old, same old thought I. Today though it was different as once the car had passed me, and the BMW there occurred an incredible transformation. Almost immediately after passing me and the BMW, the BMW suddenly developed lots of flashing blue lights.  Now I’m not sure how many seconds it took for

Yes, they can, because on Monday, Western Power will be digging up our driveway to try and fix an earthing problem. This is basically a metaphor for our life currently. You try and get a tiny job done and then that brings something up that becomes even bigger!! It started when our house alarm was replaced. The fitter tested our earth system. I wish I knew why, but when he did he had a really high reading and suggested that when the electrician came in to fit our conservatory lights (and let me tell you, those are lovely! So bright!!) he also test it, just to double check. The electrician did and he had a high reading too. His advice was to ring Western Power who is responsible for our power supply. I did. She took the message and said she'll pass it across to the team and they'll get back to me. They rang while I was having a pub lunch with a friend. We arrange to meet up at about 2pm. When I pull up at the house the van was already there. I arrived at 1:45pm! He continue

Today was the day I truly noticed that winter is really arriving. The day started out quite grey and dark. As we walked the children to school, I noticed it was remarkably cold as well. Kirkby is not a great looking town when it is grey and overcast above. The shadows thrown highlight the sad decline, and neglect of shops and houses. The walk up through town from the council to the school is enough to view this; the old and tatty shutters still being used; the misaligned paving slabs; the tired shop fronts. We have a new Domino's Pizza store in the old Natwest bank. Personally, I would prefer the bank to be there still as if Kirkby is blessed with one thing it is fast food takeaway outlets. Maybe not with as good a reputation as Dominos perhaps, but it remains one of very many places in a tiny town. We are still waiting ti see what happens to the current eyesores. The now vacant old Farmfoods site and the bar and grill that has been opening soon, it has been for about a year no

It has seemed to have taken a lot more time than we thought, but finally, the conservatory project is nearing its end. When we moved in we knew that the conservatory was not what you would call a job well done. The odd leak here and there soon revealed itself to us. The final straw was a heavy, heavy shower that revealed the odd leak would be better described as raining on the inside.  The roofer was called in first (He had previously replaced the garage roof). Instead of replacing the plastic roof, like for like, he explained we could try a felted roof with a couple of windows to let the light in. This seemed the most practical solution though did involve ripping off the tiled section and joisting the roof underneath our daughters bedroom. This would also increase the pitch which would help with run-off. It was a plan, and can be marked off as part 1. The resulting work looked incredibly messy. As you can see! The roof and tiles were well beyond their sell by date, or