Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[RED-DOG]

I have decided to enter into the spirit of Christmas. I did a 4 hour Live TV Show last night, dressed festively.

RobertHM, Cottonbud, eat your hearts out.

Enter into the spirit? You've got a face like a ten pound summons.

[tikay]

I have decided to enter into the spirit of Christmas. I did a 4 hour Live TV Show last night, dressed festively.

RobertHM, Cottonbud, eat your hearts out.

Enter into the spirit? You've got a face like a ten pound summons.

So would you, if you had to wear that jumper.....

[Laxie]

At least yer smiling a bit on the blonde banner up there ^   

[Big_D]

Tonight your obviously playing online and getting owned Gramps but what are your plans for tommorrow? Will you treat it like a normal day? Will you be donking off online as per usual?

[Hawk]

Tonight your obviously playing online and getting owned Gramps but what are your plans for tommorrow? Will you treat it like a normal day? Will you be donking off online as per usual?

I imagine you will have him in your pocket yet again. That is unless he eats all the biscuits first

[vegaslover]

Bah humbug gramps
All be over in just over a week, thank fk

[Laxie]

Happy Saturday Gramps.  xx

[TRIP5]

Hope you had a tremendous rest day mr t...enjoy the peace cause soon orford will be back..

Xx

[archiecoles80]

In our day to day life, we need to use some stationary products. Among all, diaries and planners are the best tool to carry out the successful management. These will help you make the right decision when it comes to ordering and updating.You can keep the record of each and everything by keeping diary. There are many kinds of 2011 diaries are available in the market. Such as desk diaries, pocket diaries, business diaries and lot more. So, you can purchase it as per your convenience. Even for personal use, it's a terrific way to record the little occasions, the anniversaries, the weddings and the kids' birthday parties.

[Claw75]

In our day to day life, we need to use some stationary products. Among all, diaries and planners are the best tool to carry out the successful management. These will help you make the right decision when it comes to ordering and updating.You can keep the record of each and everything by keeping diary. There are many kinds of 2011 diaries are available in the market. Such as desk diaries, pocket diaries, business diaries and lot more. So, you can purchase it as per your convenience. Even for personal use, it's a terrific way to record the little occasions, the anniversaries, the weddings and the kids' birthday parties.

but there's no link?

pretty sure you'd have been better off posting this in tighty's diary anyway

[tikay]

In our day to day life, we need to use some stationary products. Among all, diaries and planners are the best tool to carry out the successful management. These will help you make the right decision when it comes to ordering and updating.You can keep the record of each and everything by keeping diary. There are many kinds of 2011 diaries are available in the market. Such as desk diaries, pocket diaries, business diaries and lot more. So, you can purchase it as per your convenience. Even for personal use, it's a terrific way to record the little occasions, the anniversaries, the weddings and the kids' birthday parties.

Arguably, the oddest ever entry on my Diary. Guess he saw "Diary" & thought it would work. Very odd.

Meanwhile, a "tikay" google Alert reported this, attributed to "tikay".....

Iii got a new pierrrcing! Went in intending to get the double nostrils I've been lusting after for years and somehow emerged with an over-the-eyebrow microdermal !

It'll turn heads at Luton - scarf, manbag, & an over-the-eyebrow microdermal.

[tikay]

Apologies to all those awaiting replies to PM's.

I'm a bit inundated, & I want to have a Diary hour before I gird my loins & get stuck into the replies.

I hope you all had a peaceful Xmas, by the bye.

[tikay]

I left London bright & early on Xmas Day, to drive home, then head over to Ralph's for our traditional Xmas Dinner, where we annually blather away & put the world to rights.

The weather was extraordinary - driving through Oxfordshire it was -11c at 11am! The variable amounts of snow in different Counties is quite something, too.

Contrary to popular belief, I really like Xmas Day, the peace & quiet, & knowledge that there'll be no difficult PM's, phone calls, or aggro. It's the cheesy build up that does my head in, same old same old.

I am old enough to actually remember 60 (SIXTY!) Xmas's, (so yes, I'm a bit older than 60.....) but the odd thing is, I can barely remember any of them. I struggle to remember a single Xmas Pressie in all that time, just odd ones here & there, or many Christmas parties or whatever. It's all just a vague blur, really. I've been teetotal since I was 21, so another Xmas tradition - getting bladdered - bypasses me, too.

As a child, Xmas was spent at my stepmother's parents, so that was frying pan & fire, really. It was all about if Dad was at home or not, if he was home for Xmas, great, if not, it was the same old problems & distress. Dad was a Train-Driver, & in those days, trains run a normal service at Christmas, so he was often absent. I remember him not being there more than anything, to be honest. It's hard to explain, but I was trapped in my own little world, seemingly a dumbass, but actually, I could feel & sense every slight.

In later years, when I was in my thirties & later, I escaped Xmas every year by going abroad. Hawaii, The Canary Isles, The Gambia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Kenya. But eventually, Xmas would be celebrated there, too, for the Tourists, so the "escape" failed, & then I started to suffer from a peculiar form of heat-stroke, or allergy to heat, so that was that. 

In Gambia, I fell in with some dodgy Italians who ran all the Casinos along the West Coast of Africa, & eventually, I stayed as their Guests every year, in a posh Villa. For Xmas Day, we'd go to a huge slap-up meal. In a Lebanese Restaurant........Marv.

I went every Xmas for 15 years to Gambia, even when they had the Military coup, & the Foreign Office advised not travelling there. My Italian friends were "well-connected", & various Government Ministers would join our party. But we had a real scare one night during the Coup when we were out after curfew, & the Military stopped us at a Roadblock, & I thought my number was up. The Italians all got arrested, but I was treated OK as I was a British citizen. I never returned after that, & I never heard another word from the Italians. I fancy they may had faced a little grief.......

Despite what convention would have us belief, large parts of West Africa are not in the least pretty, it's brown, parched, arid, & the poverty is appalling. Gambia has spectacular birdlife though, especially adjacent & on the River Gambia. It had the most peculiar Airport, too - Yumdum International. Good grief! Banjul was very colonial, Cricket Ground & everything.

I adored Kenya - so green & lush, rolling hills, very much like England in the summer. I usually stayed near Mombasa, but it is extremely Touristy. I don't recall when I was last there, but I vividly recall picking up a British newspaper from an inbound Tourist one day & reading about the Pan-Am Lockerbie disaster. Ugh, what a dreadful thing that was. And now the geezer who plotted it is free, & back home.

The last 10 or 20 years I spent at home. For the first 10 years, I spent peaceful Xmas days with Wendy, but that all ended just after I retired, & she dispensed with my services. I've just laid low on Xmas Day since, & I reminiscence, & really enjoy it in a peculiar way. It's the solitude I enjoy most, I think, & the silence. My trouble is that I am very content with my own company, I don't get lonely, or down, I'm at peace, & nobody can hurt me. Very odd, yes, I know. I enjoy a little company sometimes, as long as I am free to come & go as I wish, & am not "obliged" to conform.

I hope nobody takes offence at any of this. It's hard to explain.

[tikay]

* I used the spell-checker for that Post, & it highlighted "Train-Driver". It gave one alternative suggestion - "Dandruff".

WTF?

[tikay]

So, en route to Ralph's for dinner, I popped home first, to sort a few things, feed the cat, pick up some clean clothes, check the mail, da de da.

What I found was to turn out to be the most memorable Xmas I have ever had.......

Angell was outside, crying. Not like him, I thought. And the windows were all steamed up. Eh? Heating failed? Please God no.

I unlocked the door, & momentarily, I could not comprehend what was seeing. Water. Lots of it. Everywhere.

What? WHAT?

It was pouring through every light fitting. Down the walls. The carpet squelched underfoot. The sofa & armchair was sodden, & water was still running onto it via a ceiling light fitting. Everything - everything - was covered in water. Only one room had escaped - the front bedroom, which is my "office/wardrobe/ironing room". Everything else was ruined.

I just stood, transfixed. What to do, what had happened?

I eventually collected my senses, & turned off both stop-cocks, one in the kitchen, one in the loft. The latter was awkward, as the lights had all fused, obv.

Meanwhile, I was due at Ralphy boys in 15 minutes, & he'll have spent all that time carefully cooking the meal.

I could not bring myself to let him down, & there was not much I could do at home now anyway. The place was totally ruined, top to bottom.

So I went to Ralph's for Xmas dinner.