Hey ho again
Went to work last night, diverted a potential 'push out'. A mother and teenage daughter combo pushing a loaded trolley my way when the young security colleague radioed me to confirm that they hadn't paid for the goods and would I ask for a receipt.
She spoke so loudly the suspects heard and panicked abandoning the trolley in the middle of the foyer.
This was the intention of the colleague as she was on duty alone and had only just spotted the culprits on camera.
A diversion is good,
£400's worth of goods recovered and fabulous photos for the "rogues gallery" (i.e. mug shots)
If every potential thief was arrested there would be no room in prisons for the rapists, murderers etc!!!!

Re-open the derelict dungeons; that's what I say.

It's been a long time since Olive and Popeye's last little outing, last April/May I think, so when I stumbled across them lost and forgotten in their parched desert I had to act quickly and decisively.
An oasis must be found and hey presto there one was...on the kitchen window ledge.
The cool crystal water tasted like nectar

Hey ho, what a pleasant day again. T'old man's mowed the lawns, pruned everything in sight (his favourite pastime when he is both bored and excited).  I've cut his hair,washed his dirty clothes, got a travel bag out ready for his departure from this homestead once more .

His contact in Norway phoned resulting in the "Three jolly sailors" going back to the Fjords again on Sunday to do a month's work.
He did a little skip, I secretly clapped my hands.
He said gleefully " there aren't many blokes just turned 65 who are going back to work abroad after 2 years not working at all!"
I thought "No and I bet there aren't many wives of 65 year old men who don't mind either".

It feels a bit like history repeating itself 'cos a week after he has gone I will be in Spain again just like last month

I've been waking up tired in the mornings so i'm trying to discipline myself and go to bed before 11.30. Just been to the kitchen and made my cup of cocoa night cap. I can't sleep without it
Old and boring, that's me and I don't care

Right i've got ten minutes to drink it then it's curfew time.

I went into Aldi this afternoon and bought three packs of 'offer price' grapes and a packet of apple strudel cookies.

Feel sick now.

First I tied him up and made him read his birthday E cards, then how he laughed

 hahaha.
 "well I never" he said " electronic  birthday cards now, whatever next?"

Then after he heard it play it's happy birthday tune he leant over and gave me a kiss.
"What's it like having an old aged pensioner swarming all over you?" he asked.

EEeek....let me outta here

After my last post I thought i'd lift the mood a little.

On reviewing my friends list I took a look at she-shimmies blog as she hasn't posted for quite a while. It appears that she has opened an on-line shop selling belly dancing accessories. her scarves are displayed on mannequins and one scarf looked not dissimiliar to one of mine.
I decided to replicate the pose with my digi ( not easy on one's own)

WHICH ONE IS THE MANNEQUIN? LOL

What we girls get up to for fun

Don't call for the men in white coats YET, LOL

I know it's Saturday night and most folk want to have fun at the weekend but i've just finished my eight and a half hour working week so forgive me for having a little moan. I promise to try and not moan again 'til next Friday at the earliest.

I spend the week cocooned in my own little "suburban" world full of milk and honey (or as near to it as I can make it) then come Friday I take my place in the supermarket foyer, my window to the world.

The young asian who used to work in the fruit and veg dept. comes in shopping and eagerly tells me that life is good for him, he has gone back to Uni studying religion and education.

The group of male East Europeans who arrive aimlessly looking at the stock on display wondering when they will be able to afford it.

The old Yorkshire fella comes up to me on the way out and lifts his trouser legs up to show me some insect bites which have recently appeared. He insists on making a report 'cos the bites weren't there when he first came in so it must be some alien hovering around the fruit and veg dept. that must have bit him

The usual rabble buying, stealing beer Cd's etc.
The gypsies/travellers who have parked up in the field behind the warehouse and keep hopping over the warehouse wall and stealing empty pallets for firewood (and probably anything else to hand).
The wives and kids of these self same travellers who come (with their dogs) to the customer restaurant for breakfast and get shirty when you ask them to clean the dog poo up and NO, DOGS AREN'T ALLOWED IN HERE.

Then, I hear about the distressed state a close female friend is in; She looked out of her bedroom window late at night(on a main road on the edge of town) and witnesses two youths and a female attacking a middle class, middle aged male who had confronted them when they tried to break into his parked car. They broke the bottles they were drinking from and slashed his face viciously, he will probably lose the sight of one eye.
She called the police and tended the gentleman 'til they arrived and now she is afraid in her own home.

We all know that these incidents are happening all the time in this mad bad world of ours...don't we read about it in the local paper every week.
What we don't want is for it to happen on our doorstep (or anybody elses) 'cos it breaks that little cocoon we wrap around ourselves.

The autumn term began again last week after a 10 week break and I will be shortly be going to my weekly "dance" class. I will be travelling the mile and a half to the hall on my push bike (aren't I doing well, tenth time out this year)
No doubt great fun and frivolity will be had by all who venture down there as is usually the case.
I can just about remember how to do a 'camel' and an 'egyptian walk', the 'figures of eight' are easily recaptured and I never stopped practising my 'shimmies' lol.

See you later

I'll let you into a secret..I threw my deep fat fryer and the dreaded chip-pan away when we moved into our house over twenty years ago. I told the family it was because I was concerned for their health and didn't see any point in adding extra fat to the diet by deep frying. This was true in part but really I was thinking more of my new cooker and the monotonous job I would have cleaning it after each fry-up. I never did return to frying food except for the occasional egg for T'old man but I do admit to putting bags of crisps in the kids lunchboxes quite often.

Reading this article today is what reminded me of this.

Pictures of a girl drinking cooking oil with the caption "What goes into crisps goes into you" will appear nationwide shortly.

Half of UK children "drink" almost five litres of cooking oil every year as a result of their pack-a-day crisp habit, experts warn.
Nearly a fifth of children eat two packets of crisps per day, says the British Heart Foundation.

Its Food4Thought campaign aims to expose hidden salt, fat and sugar in common foods.
A typical 35g bag of crisps contains about two-and-a-half teaspoons of oil.
For the rest of the article read here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5367822.stm

There's been all this hoo haa about children eating "chipshop" chips at lunch time, first in Rotherham where mothers passed the orders through the school gates and now in Leicestershire where there has been an increase in parental requests for the children to leave the school grounds at lunch time only to find them all queueing in the local chippy.
The headmaster said that they shouldn't be there and that the permission was granted so the pupils could go home for lunch.

Pardon me for being stupid but surely they can eat chips at home too!? I am in total favour of educating children but more specifically parents about healthy eating but we live in a democracy and you can't force people to eat what you say, no matter how noble your intentions are.

When I was growing up we had fish and chips from the fish shop about twice a week but we also had sunday roasts and lots of green veg. We had domestic science lessons at school which taught us the basics of nutrition and we prepared shepherds pie and Lancashire hotpot.

It seems to me that education and moderation is the right way to go, not being dictatorial.

The George Bush Virus - Causes your computer to keep looking for viruses of mass destruction.
> > >
The John Kerry Virus - Stores data on both sides of the disk, and causes little purple hearts to appear on screen.
> > >
The Clinton Virus - Gives you a permanent Hard Drive with NO memory.
> > >
The Al Gore Virus - Causes your computer to keep counting and re-counting.
> > >
The Bob Dole Virus - Makes a new hard drive out of an old floppy.
> > >
The Lewinsky Virus - Sucks all the memory out of your computer, then e-mails everyone about what it did.
> > >
The Arnold Schwarzenegger Virus - Terminates some files, leaves, but will be back.
> > >
The Mike Tyson Virus - Quits after two bytes
> > >
The Oprah Winfrey Virus - Your 200 GB hard drive shrinks to 100 GB, then slowly expands to re-stabilize >around 350 GB.
> > >
The Ellen Degeneres Virus - Disks can no longer be inserted.
> > >
The Prozac Virus - Totally screws up your RAM, but your processor doesn't care.
> > >
The Michael Jackson Virus - Only attacks minor files.
> > >
The Lorena Bobbitt Virus - Reformats your hard drive into a 3.5 inch floppy ... then discards it through windows.

Whilst the "nearly of pensionable age" one, takes to his bed early (due to belated celebrations of Hank's birthday), I have taken the bull by the horns (metaphorically speaking) and emailed Valladolid family to say that I can stay for a month from end of February 'til end of March. The die is cast the next move belongs to Spain.

I've not felt like blogging much.

Since visiting the lovely Dr Franco a couple of weeks ago the inflammation and pain in my ear has cleared up but I have been left with a fuzzy and muffled effect between my ears (hope it's not senility). I have still got a sniffly nose, my eyes ache and now this morning I have a sickly feely in my stomach. It's probably the same bug doing the rounds of my system.
T'old man is fed up of hearing me moan 'cos every two minutes I am stating how lousy I feel even though I know it's only a "bug" passing through.

He, on the other hand doesn't complain openly about his ailments, in particular his persistent back ache, he just goes to the doctor with a request for blood tests to rule out Postrate cancer!!!
Fortunately the results came back with nothing sinister to report so now he is a happy bunny, he thinks he has had a lucky escape when there was nothing wrong with him in the first place.

Anyway, I am going to give my ears a couple of more days to return to their normal hearing state and if they don't then I will be making a return visit to the charming Dr Franco

BRAIN MOULD FOR SALE

Fill the clear brain mould with a customized gelatin mix and a few hours later, out pops an edible, life sized, anatomically correct brain.

Impress your friends.......would your friends be impressed?

Great for parties .........which sort?

Delicious!.................We'll take their word for it!

Recipe included............That's good, sounds complicated.

Brain Size: 8-1/2 x 9-1/2 x 3-1/2........

This could well have been my brain dished up on the plate the way I've been feeling today

I'm not a prolific "blog friend" collecter and until recently I have only ever had around 16. I want to keep my figure down to around a respectable 20, so..to any blogger who i've recently deleted ..no offence, it's nothing personal, it's just that we've probably had little or no blog contact since we became "friends" so I didn't think you'd mind
You probably won't notice anyhow.

happy blogging everyone

The Foyer and restaurant refurbishing is complete and looks very nice indeed.

Meanwhile they have moved the stack of hand baskets from one side of the foyer to the other.

A customer approaches me and says "The baskets were better when they were over this side, we can't find them over there.

"Sorry madam, it's probably because it's your first time in the store since we moved them, but now you have seen where they are you'll know where to find them the next time.

In 'Customer is always right' mode she retorted back that if one came through the other set of doors one had to turn round and go back to collect a basket (all of four paces).

"Yes, Sorry, is there anything else I can help you with?" smiles sweetly

"No" she snarled and trotted off to the customer service desk to make a complaint there.

Honestly, are some people so pathetic and with so little going on in their lives that they resort to such pettyness

Come to think about it, are some people so pathetic that's all they have to blog about?
.............

Yawning is contageous you catch it like the flu....oh no, sorry that's Smiling

Flaming job! It's becoming more trouble than its eight and a half hours weekly are worth!

Back on 19th April I blogged about a really crap shift I had just done encountering shop lifters, verbal abuse et al

Well, the woman who they arrested for shop lifting has only gone and pleaded not guilty hasn't she

I received a letter from the Criminal Justice Systems office this morning,(from my own witness care officer no less) thanking me for making my statement back then and seeing as the case was now going to trial would I be so kind as to let them know of any dates I won't be available to attend court in the next six months

I'm only a GREETER, I don't want to go to any "druggie's" trial and how the hell do I know when I won't be available, I haven't finalised my plans yet
I will probably be spending a month in Valladolid with the spanish family in March and T'old man is talking about us going somewhere different for a few weeks in February.

I know, I will just write back and say I am unavailable from mid January 'til late March..they probably won't call me anyway....

I don't know if you will be able to make this out very well as the rain was beating down on me when I filmed this video. This was the view from my gate this afternoon about four o' clock. The storm didn't last for long but the road was covered with flowing rain water. The drains coped admirably and within five minutes the road was visible once more. The reason that the street became a temporary river is because in the stone wall below where the cars are parked a large stone has been removed to enable excess rain water to flow out. only this time there was an awful lot!!
The sky is clear now with a hint of fading sun.

You can hear the rain pitter patting and the sound of a police siren from down the road about half a mile away.

I love my little blog, not because it is anything special but because it is my own little space where I can play
I came across the Tickerfactory site and thought Whooo I will have to try and put a chart on my blog. What can I chart? I thought.

When T'old man was a little boy with 6 brothers and sisters, apparently his family were so hard up they never used to mark birthdays in any way and this has carried on throughout his life. He has never ever bought a card (even for me), he would give the kids the money to go buy me one when they pressurised him. It is the same with our wedding anniversary, we have often missed the occasion and then a couple of days later said "oh yes, it was our anniversary the other day." However this is probably due to the non-event of the wedding day itself 23 years ago...but that's best left alone for now.

Back to what I was saying "What can I chart"
Well, soon on September 25th, T'old man reaches the ripe old age of 65 and will officially be an old age pensioner so, as he WILL NOT commemorate it with any special celebrations I will give him a special chart

I have no idea how this chart works...I am assuming the pointer moves until the big day is reached. I will have to look in a couple of days time and see if the pointer has moved.lol

IT MOVED

Quote:
"Laughter is the finest medicine in the world and thank God I have provided it."

Charlie's funeral is being held today at 1pm at St Mary's Parish Church in Barnsley (it is probably going on right now) followed by cremation at Ardsley. It was a novelty when I first saw Charlie Williams on the tele, a black man and not only that but one with a yorkshire accent like my own
He became Britain's first well-known black television comedian, a regular on The Comedians and at the time his approach to race and colour was seen as revolutionary.
"I've always believed the best way to tackle racism and bigotry is to make a joke of it" he would say, Don't confront people's prejudices, make them funny because once you can laugh at something it's not frightening or threatening any more." Charlie's good nature and easy wit were a shining example to everyone.
"Eh up, flower, eh. Hey, have you ever been to supermarket where they have the broken biscuits?" he would say; this was normal conversation in the villages but when Charlie Williams said it then it was hilarious

RIP

Talk about not having confidence in your own ability...or is it just plain greed?

GEORDIE duo Ant and Dec have taken out insurance -in case the other one dies.
One of the stars, who have worked together since meeting on kids' drama Byker Grove, gets a "massive payout" if their TV partner is fatally struck down.
Dec, 29, admitted he was in for some cash if something happened to his 30-year-old pal.
He said: "I just know that if he kicks the bucket, I get a massive payout."
And when asked how much he could expect, he said: "I don't know. We have people who look after that." But Ant said it was unlikely either would benefit if they merely "grew apart", saying: "I don't think we're insured if we fall out, though."

I should hope not!!!, it would so easily open to fraud. "Let's hatch a plan Dec, let's fall out and get a big pay off, we can make a come back in a couple of years time "lol

Are you bored of reading about Spain?... Well, hard cheese!

I have just attended the doctor's surgery as I seem to have developed an ear infection which is making my left ear tender and painful and it has impaired my hearing slightly. Well, the new doctor down there is called Doctor Franco and he is sooo lovely. He looked at my good ear first, then my bad one and he agreed that yes indeed there was inflammation etc. and he wrote out the prescription and gave me instructions for use. His accent was lilting and his smile was endearing in a rugged sort of way, so after my consultation I couldn't resist asking him where he was from.
"Seville" he replied
" Oh, a lovely city" I said "
I then proceeded to tell him that I had just purchased flight tickets for my friend and I to visit Granada in October (also in Andalucia) for £33 each, tax included.
" Have you visited Granada before" he asked
"Yes I have but my friend has always wanted to visit the Alhambra so I volunteered to escort her"
" It is a wonderful city, she will enjoy it" remarked the Doctor.
Before we ventured further into conversation I remembered that there was a surgery full of people waiting to be seen so I hastily added.
" Thankyou very much Doctor, It's been a pleasure meeting you".
Fortunately I remembered NOT to offer my cheek for the continental kisses my friends from Valladolid insist on departing with
I will have to make a point of requesting Dr Franco's services the next time I have any minor ailments.....I wonder if he teaches spanish too.....no of course not, silly, he's a doctor!!

Are things normal?..No. Does life go on?...yes.

The two phone calls I received this morning were from two female friends both having to deal in their own way with their every day lives not quite running as smoothly as normal.
The first one from the lady who gives me a lift to the Wednesday morning spanish language class to say she wouldn't be going this week as her 93 year old father is in hospital and was not expected to live for more than a couple of days. She had prepared herself for this time due to the old gentleman's fine age but the emotion in her voice belied the pain she was feeling and the fact that she has to deal with it the best she can.

The second call was from the wife of one of the contracters my husband went to Norway with. She called me to find out if I knew the exact time that they would be arriving home today. She wanted to do the normal everyday thing like have a Sunday dinner ready for him when he walked through the door. This was her husband's first overseas trip so she wasn't sure if he would be making a diversion before he got home. From previous experience long ago of my husband's trips abroad with like minded contracters, I know that if a pub is passed on route then who knows what time they will arrive at the door.
My advice to her ..."Do the same as I am, make a cold meat salad for tea" That's what will be waiting for my nearest and dearest.

So, I strolled into the staff entrance and threw my bag into my locker. "Hello Isadora, how's your bad back then?"
"I haven't been on the sick " says I "i've been on holiday and I only work eight and a half hours a week you know!!
Stupid manageress, she can't even pass on the correct info about my absence to my colleagues. Ah well she'll be leaving soon, she's handed in her notice as apparantly she got a roasting from the "main man" for not getting the queue busters on the tills when it was really busy. Rumour has it that she has got a new job at the local vets.... she should do well there as she treats everyone around her like DOGS anyway.

One down, one to go

This is the last post associated with my recent trip ( promise )

A Peña is a circle or group usually of artists or musicians for example, a peña folklorica is a folk-music club. Sporting clubs, flamenco clubs and all sorts of other activities often form their own Peñas.

During fiesta time in most towns and cities in Spain lots of social clubs in the various barrios (districts) form their own Peñas for the purpose of providing a basic structure for its members during the heady times of the fiesta. In Valladolid these groups marauded around at all times of the day and night and at times they seemed to be an example of pure anarchy. They were out for having a good time but there was hardly any visible aggresion despite the copious amounts of alcohol drunk. I came across various Peñas during my walkabouts and they just loved a photo opportunity.

Here are a couple(or three) photos I took.
Can you spot the newest recruit in the first photo? lol.
with hair pulled off the face spanish style

I nearly joined the peña with the red and green strip 'cos I was impressed with their innovative use of the shopping trolly..i.e. for transporting the vino and agua around

The good thing about Ryanair being the only airline to fly the Stanstead to Valladolid route is that it has a varied and select clientel on board
There was I, insignificant little store greeter Isadora, sitting on the Ryanair plane next to a male about 38 years old on one side of me and a female just a few years younger on the other.
We were all three, solo passengers, and we bonded straight away. The two hour flight just flew by as we chatted away.
Tom Baker (yes, that really is his name) lives in Cornwall and is a chemist who owns a small testing and research company and was flying to Valladolid on business to look into expanding his business in Spain.
Rocie had something in common with Tom apart from their age as she too had a degree in chemistry and was a secondary school teacher in her native city Valladolid. She was catching a connection from Limerick where she had been on a three day EU "Youth" course which included a lot of outward bound activities.
Tom and Rocie talked about chemistry,lack of work opportunities for chemists in Spain, lack of food and lack of sleep etc.
Tom and myself talked about names, places we had visited, about his mother who had been brought up in the east end of London and went to school with Michael Caine and the fact that she knew those "lovely boys" the Kray twins. We talked about age and memory and how his neurologist friend had explained to him about brain compartments etc.
Rocie and myself talked about Valladolid, how it was fiesta time that week, she asked me if I had been there before, I said yes once, last year. I asked her if she lived in the centre of the city, she said yes. I told her about my friends,the family I stayed with last year who lived in a village some 40 kilometres away. I told her the name of the village and she said that was a co-incidence as she had a cousin who lived there. "Oh", said I "they probably won't know him as they live on the edge of the village in an old converted water mill".
"Is his name Angel"? she said animatedly "and do the family own a florist shop in the centre of the city"?

MY word we couldn't believe it, Valladolid is probably the size of Manchester or Birmingham and of all the people I should sit next to it happened to be the cousin of a person who I would be visiting the very next day. Rocie hadn't seen her cousin Angel for over a year so Tom took a photo of us together on my camera so I could show Angel the next day

Tom promised to take a look at my blog sometime (so Tom,if you do set up that business in Valladolid, don't forget that job you promised me as the office cleaner/tea lady ) and Rocie gave me a lift in her car from the airport to my hotel.

All in all, a very enjoyable flight.

Hello from the 35+ degree heat here in Valladolid, even the Spaniards are calling it a heatwave.
To any family and friends who may just look in here, I just want to say that you know i´ve stopped sending postcards (especially for a short break as this) so don´t expect one¨ Everything has gone according to plan with my hastily made travel arrangements and the hotel here in Valladolid seem to have given me an upgrade as for the price of a single room I seem to have got a mini suite with the most enormous bed you have ever seen.
My plan to surprise my spanish friends who own the florist shop in the centre of town went perfectly.
It took about 10 seconds for them to realise that it was me who walked into the shop, then they gave me the best hugs i´ve had for quite a while. I am in a cyber cafe near their shop and in an hour I will be meeting them to go to their Finca in the countryside for Dinner.
I am so looking forward to having dinner served beneath that lovely 17th century fresco that is in their dining room (a photo of this that I took last year is currently the header picture on my Snippets blog).
I have so much to write about already, the fiesta is in full flow and the spaniards are living it large!!! I just love it here.
I´ll soon be home, it is such a short time but i´m glad I came, it´s better than not coming at all.

hasta luego

isadora xx

I'll really have to go do something practical as I seem to have been sat here browsing for ages. I will be leaving for London again tomorrow before going on my little jaunt to Valladolid on Sunday.
I ache all over due to the fact that when my train was delayed the other day and it arrived in at 1am I decided to leg it to the taxi rank in order to beat any potential queue. I somehow forgot that I wasn't a proficient sprinter and I went sprawling face down in the station resulting in a few aches around my rib area and a couple of bruises on my knees.
I have rubbed some in some Arnica (did you hear about it's new status on the breakfast news this morning?) my lesson's learnt (no more running when tired) and i'll survive.
I have lots to do yet due to fact that I have been a lazy so and so in the house since T'old man's been away but I still had time this morning to get done the important things like having my legs waxed, now i'm going to go and give my hair a colour refresh then....I really must pack.
See you later...hasta luego.