Week 188

Friday 8th October 2021 to Thursday 14th October 2021

It’s been a bit hot so I’ve spent a lot of time in the shade down by the pool

😀

I now have two cats to butler for…

the ever hungry Yellito

Managed a couple of trips out; to Lagos for lunch…

Lagos Marina

and Burgau for a stroll and an ice cream…

The slipway at Burgau

Just when I thought football couldn’t get any more immoral or ridiculous the Premier League board of directors decided the butcher of Riyadh, Mohammed bin Salman, a man well known to send death squads to kill and cut up his critics had passed their a fit and proper owners test and could buy Newcastle United. What could possibly go wrong?

 

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Week 187

Friday 1st October 2021 to Thursday 7th October 2021

Friday we headed further south to stop at a vinyard near Bordeaux.

They’re a bit late harvesting this year

The vineyard provides free parking for motorhomes and they give a chat and a tasting of their various wines. The wines are good too. The lady tells you that such and such wine goes with oysters and another goes well with duck liver. Myself I’m more interested in what goes with a bag of prawn cocktail crisps in front of the telly.

Cfor loves the Bordeaux terroir

Saturday it was into Espagne. Possibly the worst country a vegetarian could ever visit.

Like my Dad the Spanish think vegetarianism is an affliction best cured by jambon

The weather in Northern Spain was a little windy then on Sunday it was filthy with rain but the further south we travelled the better the weather became 😀

Monday afternoon we landed at Touriscampo.

This is what I’ve been missing 😀

 

 

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Week 186

Friday 24th September 2021 to Thursday 30th September 2021

After weeks of faffing around the big day finally arrived and we set off early for Portugal…

but not as early as these poor sods queuing for petrol at 6am; FFS Boris can’t you sort anything out?

We managed to avoid the eco-loons blocking the motorway and despite all the dire warnings the French customs guards at Dover didn’t even want to look at our vaccine passports let alone search the van for any rogue cheese and onion sandwiches or heaven forbid M&S Best Ever Sausage Rolls!

Nelly and contraband safely onboard the ferry 😉

I do hope it’s still here when we get back but you never know with Boris.

After driving 7 hours from Calais we finally arrived at Camping OnlyCamp in Tours at 7,05pm. The reception had closed at 7pm and there were no instructions on what to do if you arrived 5 minutes late. I guess we were supposed to just fuck off but as we were completely blocking the entrance a French gentleman kindly swiped us in and we were able to get a set up with electricity.

This campsite in Tours reckons it’s 4 star but I think if you don’t even provide toilet seats then you’re not even worth 2 stars

I once asked a receptionist at a very nice French campsite why there were no toilet seats and was told because they keep getting stolen! Really? Who the fuck wants to carry around a used public toilet seat in their van?

One thing the French do have though…

Petrol stations without hour long queues!

 

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Week 185

Friday 17th September 2021 to Thursday 23rd September 2021

A quiet week. On Wednesday it was Paul Humphreys’ funeral.

St Nicolas’ in Bockenhurst

It was a beautiful sunny morning in the New Forest and it was good to see some of the lads from Swanwick there. Paul would have appreciated that.

I’m not sure I want any fuss when my engine finally seizes up and I cough my last breath. Think it would be best to have a no service funeral and send people £50 so they can have a takeaway with a few drinks and ask the question ‘Do you remember him? I always thought he was a bit weird’

From 28th September GB is out and UK is in…

On Thursday panic swept the country as everyone rushed to petrol stations to fill up their jerry cans.

everyone except those smug gits who always have a full 19 gallon tank  😉

I had an ultrasound guided subacromial injection in my shoulder. It didn’t hurt too much but then again I haven’t seen the bill yet!

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Week 184

Friday 10th September 2021 to Thursday 16th September 2021

Mixed week weatherwise. To Brighton…

The West Pier

My right shoulder has been painful since February. I tried resting it for a couple of months, I tried building it up with exercise, I’ve seen an osteopath, my GP and a physio but I still have to wipe my arse with my left hand.

With this pandemic there is absolutely no chance of getting a hospital appointment let alone  some treatment so I booked a private consultation with an orthopaedic surgeon – expensive but not as expensive as having your boiler breakdown. Even then I still had to go all the way to Brighton and wait a month for an appointment as a lot of people in pain are going private nowadays.

it was £129 extra to find our it wasn’t all down to arthritis

The surgeon’s verdict; I’ve had a frozen shoulder and now I have tendon impingement and I need ultrasound guided injections; god knows what they’ll cost. If that hasn’t fixed it by Christmas I’ll have to have an MRI.

While I was in Brighton I visited my fave falafel shop…

can’t beat a falafel wrap and a bottle of cold beer on the beach

Thursday was a day out to National Trust at Cliveden to meet up with Julie’s sister, Sally. This was a little brave because to get there we had to use the M25 and eco-warriors had blocked the M25 in multiple places on Monday and Wednesday.

The actual house at Cliveden which used to belong to the Astors is splendid looking but as it’s now a 5 star hotel the front view of the house is ruined by an Range Rover car park.

The rear terrace of Cliveden House

There were half a dozen old Bentley’s there.

this was the pick of the bunch, real concours condition 

We had a nice day walking around the grounds.

the Long Garden

Cliveden is where John Profumo met Christine Keeler…

the fountain of love

In 1930 someone stole the statue of the Duke of Marlborough that used to be on this plinth

These two will get barred

a Heron waits patiently for his fish supper in Cliveden’s Water Garden

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Week 183

Friday 3rd September 2021 to Thursday 9th September 2021

A big improvement in the weather so managed a trip down to Worthing.

The beach and pier

I gave the seagulls the last of me chips…

😀

We are off to Portugal on the 30th so I have been getting the van ready. I spent a good morning wading through French, Spanish and Portuguese government websites checking out what COVID related hoops we need to jump through to travel down to Luz and back.

The biggest pain is our government want us to pass a PCR or antigen test in the 3 days before getting on the ferry at Calais. If we fail it then we have to spend 14 days quarantining in France.

With 88,8%  of over 16 year olds having had their 1st COVID jab and 79.8% having had both jabs, with 100,000 people having attended the Reading pop festival the other week, with football grounds packed to the rafters and pubs and nightclubs open why on earth do I as a doubled jabbed UK resident have to take and pass a PCR or an antigen test to return to the UK from France.

As I told my MP, it’s a fuckin’ joke.

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Week 182

Friday 27th August 2021 to Thursday 2nd September 2021

Considering it’s August the weather has been a bit cold but I’ve had a few walks in the countryside

Box Hill, look at that glorious August sky

a Harebell

Had a stroll on Headly Heath

Ronaldo re-signed for United: 36 years old and reportedly being paid an obscene £25m a year or £480,000 a week.

Monday we went to Godstone for their  village fair 😀

a bit of a super spreader

The donkey derby

Booked the ferry to France this week and started to get all the COVID paperwork together. Portugal here we come! I am really excited 😀

 

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Week 181

Friday 20th August 2021 to Thursday 26th August 2021

To East Sussex for the day. First stop Lewes…

Lewes

Lewes is a nice little town but…

the people who live out in the Sussex countryside can be strange

As well as it’s book shops and the bonfire Lewes is also famous the John Harvey brewery

I popped into the John Harvey Tavern…

I don’t normally drink before noon…

Sussex Best Bitter, lovely stuff

After Lewes  it was on to pretty little village of Alfriston…

Britain as it was in the 1960s

Finally it was on to Seaford for a late lunch

Seaford Beach

Sunday I got the news that Paul Humphreys had died. Even though he’d been ill for a long time it was still very sad news.

Wednesday we went to Polesden Lacey to have a look around…

Polesden Lacey

The House was left to the National Trust in 1942 by Margaret Greville. It was bought for her in 1906 by her father William McEwan the Edinburgh beer brewer. So it was effectively bought with the coppers earned from Scotland’s pissheads.

The famous rose garden had gone over but there were still some happy flowers

After lunch it was onto Boxhill and the stepping stones.

During the 1st lockdown when the pubs and shops were all closed this place was like Oxford Street on a Saturday. Now it’s deserted.

New cases up, hospital admissions up & deaths up: this virus is not going away.

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Week 180

Friday 13th August 2021 to Thursday 19th August 2021

Had a lazy week…

Went to Brick Lane for some curry

I wanted a proper Dopiaza

Tuesday we went to watch Crawley v Salford

Salford were dreadful. There was nearly a fight between their goalie and a defender 😮

The pie shop was atrocious. I paid £3.50 for an ex-British Rail vegan slice!

Somebody call the police, I’ve been robbed!

Wednesday I had an ultrasound on my dodgy shoulder. They found nothing so I’ll probably have to have an MRI scan. Half an hour in a narrow metal tube; what fun! Bring on the diazepam 😀

 

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Week 179

Friday 6th August 2021 to Thursday 12th August 2021

It was my birthday!

but that didn’t stop the rain 🙁

63 years young, how did that happen!

curry & chips and lager in front of the footy, City lost too; a perfect birthday tea 😀

By paying players £100,000s a week football has always been mad but this week it went extra mad.  Over €1.1bn in debt Barca had to finally admit they couldn’t afford to pay Messi’s wages and will have to give players away to trim their wage bill. Things are no better in England where City paid a record £100m for Jack Grealish and his hair band even though in 96 Premier league games he’s only scored 15 goals and has only 16 assists. Bonkers.

On Tuesday the rain finally stopped 🙂

Most wild flowers have given up by August, not the Hawkweeds

Lily came home for s few days 😀

At the Giggling Squid

The exercises the physio gave me to fix my shoulder made the pain worse. Seriously worse 🙁

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