Bear blog

Such is the way of things these days that in order to buy ourselves a house, we had to pick one that was in a semi-dodgy area. Knowing this, we consider ourselves rather lucky that the owners of the house we're attached to turned out to be a very nice young professional couple in the same position as ourselves. It gives us someone to commiserate with when the neighbours on our other side exceed our expectations of their scummy, chavvy, lazy and ignorant natures by deciding that they want to clear their garden.

 

Fair enough, yes. It's nice to see a spot of home improvement going on, and it's high time they actually got off their fat collective arse and did something constructive with their time, rather than spending seven hours a day standing in their front gardens shouting at each other and eying us suspiciously as we come and go FROM OUR JOBS. Where we EARN our money.

 

Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, and chavs being what they are, the neighbours have decided that it's much more convenient for them to throw their newly cut down garden waste over the fence into the back of our garden. Under other circumstances, I could be quite blase about it and say that, well, our garden is rather an overgrown tip at the minute, they probably didn't realise they were dumping their rubbish on a part of our property. But having had them stand gawping at us as we cleared and shifted and hacked and hefted our own garden waste to the tip, I'm feeling slightly put out by it all.

 

Thusly, I'm now playing with the internet, looking at stuff like this. And this. Ooh, and I like the look of this.

 

All pretension of socio-political understanding I may once have portrayed has now been blown completely out of the window. 

We went for a quick jaunt round Carsington Reservoir on Sunday with Stu. It was the most abismally unpleasant and displeasing ride I've ever been on. And I wasn't even on a unicycle.

 

I thought reservoirs were meant to be flat. This one decidedly wasn't. We started off along a long open stretch of path that ran along the side of a wide expanse of jaggedy looking rocks leading down into the water. And it was windy. Windy enough for me to fear the expanse of jaggedy rocks, at any rate.

 

But having fought our way through the side-winds we got to the end of

the path. A bit of snappy-snappy camera action and then we were off again. And it was fine. For the first minute or two. Before the hills got us.

 

We were outnumbered. They were everywhere and we had nowhere to hide. Our only option was to carry on straight into their ranks. They made me their bitch. The rest of the ride was spent panting, wheezing and complaining in turns.  The unicyclists, meanwhile, were doing very well. P in particular was just cruising up and down without really stopping for breath. Oh he of the gigantic manly thighs. 

 

Just before we got halfway round Stu, Lizzy and I stopped for a geocache. It was my first one. We had to trudge through a bit of brackeny undergrowth to find it but it was shiny and filled with goodness. Lizzy left a lizard puzzle and a porcelain duck. We took a peg and Stu took the travel bug. I've decided geocaching is a good way to periodically get rid of all the tat that builds up in the house.  

 

After that it was back on the road. Alan was feeling rough and was worried that his car was going to get rained on so we bikey ones raced off ahead and left the others to their own devices. They eventually appeared back at the visitors centre, slightly sweaty and worse for wear, but not before we'd sat down to chocolate and chips and had to put up with hordes of screaming middle class children. Shudder.

 

We stopped off at the Knockerdown for a pub lunch before heading home. Alan gave up at that point and returned to his sick bed. The rest of us chowed down. P ate about three pounds of meat, Lizzy paid for an £8 meal with a £10 note and got £6.10 change from it. I had steak and chips. Nyum nyums.

 

I'm never going back to Carsington again. It's a horrible place designed for fit and active people.  

We went to Reb's first birthday party yesterday. It was rather tedious but we passed the time with some juggling and  Reb seemed to enjoy herself.

 

I made friends with James who is a rather hyper and poorly disiplined little boy. He is surprisingly good at juggling for a four year old though. And he has a wicked little ride-on car thing that can hold up to 18 stone. Pete and I tested it. The claim was good.

 

Me on the car

 

And I met Will who is a one year old metrosexual Boris Johnson lookalike with poor social skills. He was wonderful. I wanted.

 

Then we took my parents back to Sheffield (mother is invalided with RSI at the minute) and went out for Thai at Siam Inter on London Road. It was alright. I had fish cakes which weren't as good as Siam Garden's and sizzling beef which was rather tasty. The phenomenon of good Thai places letting themselves down with crap processed puddings continues to plague us though. We didn't bother.