July
31 - Up around 7:45am.
PCd a bit. I don't want to go out. There's nothing out there for
me any more. . walked . . back to bed but couldn't sleep -
mentally trapped in the middle of the bottom of a big black
twister. Pretended until after midday. . PCd the bull video only
for it to immeditaely be censored for the audio track again . .slept
for a couple of hours . .. rang mum and said not tomorrow . . TVd
drank red wine. . ate a banana . . BB called . . ate a microwaved
tin of stewed steak with bread rolls around midnight - which is
pretty much 24hrs without food, and that after several days of
hardly any food!!. . TVd until bed around 3:30am. ads
30 - Up around 8:30am. Wish i wasn't..walked the
woods, just trying to stay away from everyone. Felt 'disconnected'
in a very real way - almost suprised to look down and see my legs
walking along!. .A couple of planes flew over - 'vampire' and
hurricane ? as big storm showers blew across the bay . .TVd . .
back to bed until around 5pm . .TVd . . drove to walk . . TVd . .no
appetite still. forced down corned eef and cheese sandwiches,
crisps and chocolate. . BB called but I have nothing to say to
anyone . . bed after midnight
29 - Up around 8:20am. .drove to walk .tales
from a dog walker of of broken wing mirrors on parked cars after
the fun day. sadly my angry knee jerk response was - Good. To
hell with them all..big rain! Surfed property a bit . . tried to
pc and got rid of the 'lane' video. immediately censored by
youtube for the soundtrack! Dodged that by downloading one
already on youtube and substituting it. . ate corned beef
sandwiches and crisps . . slept . . TVd . . forced down biscuits
. . to bed after 2am. s
28 - Day zero!!!!!!!
Up around 8am. . walked and back via town . .
tearful and despairingly down. I'm in a bad way. It changes my voice!? Haven't been this bad for years. God HOW I wish I could end it. There's no place for me in this world. Never has been, never will be.
I defy anyone to live with the stigma of having been falsely accused of being a paedophile like I have been, now an unbelieveable three times!!!!!!!???? - the 'Bristol' torture, the 11am on the 11th of the 11th war memorial incident, and now this fun day thing.
Once suspicion is cast on someone like this, there is no escape. The shadow of suspicion will remain for evermore. There is no way of proving your innocence. It's like burning a witch.
. . ate ham rolls . . napped . . TVd
. . s
27 - Up around 8:15am feeling awful from lack of
food and sleep . . walked in showers and sunny spells . . tried
to PC but I'm just not feeling up to it . . walked with Sally
back down town in the showers heading for the little local police
enquiry office, to hand in the bracelet I'd found at the fun day
. . bumped into JK just outside the police office and had a breif
conversation, but what the hell have 'I' got to say about
anything?! . . handed in the bracelet to the policeman at the
enquiry counter and got my official receipt. If it isn't claimed
within one month of today, I should be able to ring up and make a
claim for its return to me. (It is normally my habit to include a
photograph of such finds. On this occasion however, such is my (dis)trust
in people (particularly after the events of the 25th), I am NOT
going to include the photograph. It would not suprise me in the
least, if someone should read this, see the picture and then
decide to go and attempt to fraudulantly claim it as theirs!! I'll
put up a picture at the end of the month!) . just going through
the motions, I toured a couple of charity shops. Scored a white (with
just a bit of an inlayed check textured pattern) king size duvet
cover and two pillow cases for £6.50. Yayy. I DO hope it's ok -
hard to tell examining it in the shop. Pretty much couldn't check
much else other than all the poppers were still popping. VERY
rare to find white bedding in a charity shop. I'm particularly
pleased to have scored that. I only have one king sized duvet
cover and it's always a hassle to wash and get straight back on
the bed. I've been meaning to get another, somewhere, somehow for
years! I prefer plain, but that textured check patterning I can
live with. . scored bones for Sally from the butcher. . sheltered
from the rain and had to chat with an innocent suprisingly
eloquant little girl cooing over Sally! Ended up carrying on
walking in the rain and getting soaked, just to get away because
it felt uncomfortable and unsafe! That is SO wrong!!!!!! SO wrong
I've been made to feel that way!
drank three quarters of a glass of
wine and ended up PCing a bit of this . .cooked and ate the big
Mum donated pizza . .lay down to nap but tossed and turned for
ages unable to get to sleep! Eventually managed just an hour or
so . . touched base with Mum/Sis1 and then drove to walk with
Sally and Sis1. (Yet another occasion of a refuse bag of litter
having been fly tipped by the poop bin and the seagulls pecking
through it and spreading the rubbish all over the gardens!) Sat
around in BGdns chatting a bit before eventually back for a cuppa
and chats . JK called. Called him back to touch base once Sis1
had gone . . touched base with BB . . TVd eating a banana and a
few chocolate mini rolls before to bed around 2am. Once again
tossed and turned for ages unable to sleep!?
26 - Up around 7:45am. again. .drove to walk.
Ended up hanging around in BGdns for ages, having a bit of a poke
with the camcorder at a tall ship coming in . . PCd transferring
recent footage to the pc . . Mum called to say Sis1&Co had
arrived . . once finished on the PC, left Sally at home and
walked in the rain up Mums to 'do my duty' and see everyone and
have some bites (ham rolls/crisps etc) to eat etc. .dabbled with
the idea of going down to see the lifeboat demo that was supposed
to be on around 5:15pm but eventually decided since it was
drizzling, I wouldn't bother . . returned home around 5:30pm and
immediately had to lay down for a couple of hours nap . . woke
with the alarm at 8pm . . skipped the evening walk. . TVd . .
touched base with BB . . TVd . . PCd video projects until around
4am or later, but everything I touched made the PC freeze and
crash!! a
25 - Up around 7:45am. . . walked. Popped Mums
birthday card in on the way out. Hot and sunny. . PCd working on
the difficult parachute video . . Mum called in with food
donations (and a pork pie for Sally of course), for chats etc.
She said she really like the card. :o) . . as soon as Mum had
gone I called a halt and finished off and uploaded the harbour
jump video. I like that one, poor footage or not - because of the
neat music - the 'pace' of the thing. . walked with Sally to the
green to have a look at the 'Fun Day' I'd seen advertised, on the
lampost flyers when down filming the parachute jump the other day!
If not for those flyers, I'd have had no idea something was
happening (apart from having noticed a 'rock climbing wall' being
driven past BGdns earlier, horizontal on the back of a trailer)!
How lucky they've been with the weather. Tomorrow is all forecast
for a big rain band moving in! . . wandered around through the
crowds with Sally, just getting a feel for what was going on
where and what may lend itself to being filmed. Turned out, from
a videoing point of view, there were actually several points/events
of interest going on, never mind a stage area which apparantly
was going to have bands playing. Carefully let Sally have a bit
of a look at the donkeys before heading off to a mostly deserted,
slightly raised area of the field, trying to find a vantage point
for an 'overview' shot with the sea in the background. Climbed
the low bank and looked back but sadly there wasn't anything to
be gained from the position. It just wasn't possible to get the
whole thing in, in one shot. Just then I spotted something on the
ground. Oh my god! It turned out to be a bracelet. A proper
silver one with nothing on it to indicate who's it could be.
Slipped it into a 'safe' pocket to have a proper look at later. I'm
gonna have to hand THAT one in I think.
-/unfinished/-
sat with Sally on the grass
next to my tripod and camera I was confonted by up to half a
dozen walkie-talkie-armed event organisers/staff and told to stop
filming the children, because parents had allegedly made
complaints - the overt implication being that I was a paedophile!
An 'event' in a public space!
In front of hundreds of people, some glaring unpleasantly, I was forced to stop filming and felt obliged to pack up and leave
what unfathomable ignorance/stupidity! Unfit parents!
. publicly humiliated and deeply upset - AGAIN!!
-/unfinished/-
. . sat in BGdns fuming and
despairing before eventually crawling home feeling afraid to look
anybody in the eye!. . TVd feeling angry and down, and yes - I
admit it - having strong 's - ideation' - again!. No appetite
despite not having eaten all day . .guitarred/PCd for hours
desperately trying to shake off my darkness of mood, and ended up
watching the parachute video over and over and over and over and
. . !!!? My 'current' favourite. Shame I didn't get better
footage - but I think given it's only two minutes, it pretty
adequately conveys a taste of the event. I do SO like Glenn
Miller music! I can't help it - there are times when I reckon,
despite what everyone else may think, whatever it is I'm doing
with this video thing, I reckon I'm pretty good at it! Some of
them are like little mini feature films to me! lol Hours spent
adjusting the edits to get a seagull flying across in time with
the music there, a helicopter disappearing there etc. No one
knows or sees it but me! lol. . touched base with BB and ranted
despairingly, about everything far too much. Poor BB! . . ate two
mini pork pies, a bag of crisps and some chocolate. . TVd until
bed around 1am. s
24 - 
Restless sleep then finally up around 8:30am.
. walked . . PCd and spent hours doing a special Mums birthday
card for tomorrow. Because Mum has gotten into the habit of
ALWAYS treating Sally to a pork pie whenever she comes down, it
amused me to eventually do a picture of Sally on the front saying
'thinking of you on your birthday', with an image inside of Mum
holding an enormous pork pie (actually based on an image of her
actually holding up Sis1s fifty year old christening dress she'd
found in a box in the attic, which I'd taken a picture of a while
ago so I could e-mail it so Sis2 could see it!) Took me hours to
make up that image. Had to 'make up' half the room in the
background beneath the pie, and then graft Mums fingers back on
at different angles, and - and - oh it's HELL being such a
perfectonist about such things! Worked out pretty ok in the end I
reckon. Should make her smile I think. Does me. Even the printing
of it actually went pretty much without a hitch. :o) . .worked on
the parachute video. Poor footage or not, with 'that' choice of
music I'm determined to make 'something' of it. It's just SO
right - but tough to edit down the half an hour or more to two
minutes, especially given all the poor shakey rubbish I shot.
Fiddly. . .drove to walk and sat on top my favourite gun
emplacement drinking a redbull. Horror as a young seagul flew
past overhead with a plastic bag wrapped around one of its legs
fluttering in the breeze! :o( That REALLY upset me greatly. WHAT
suffering! Just imagine what'll happen when it lands in the sea!!!
Really, REALLY upset me that. All because of some f***ing idiot
tossing their litter!!. . ate pizza . . touched base with BB . .
TVd. . ate cornflakes . . to bed around 1am. as
23 - Up around 7:30am. . . walked . . mowed the
lawns and trimmed hedges etc. in the sun. Very hot work! . .ate
corned beef sandwiches, crisps and chocolate . . did a bunch of
laundry and managed to get it all dried on the line in the sun
during the day. . TVd/PCd . . drove to walk . . TVd . . ate a
bowl of pie and then biscuits . . TVd and watched the second of
the two BBC2 programs on the 'Death of Respect' . . to bed around
1:30am. s
22 - Up around 8:15am. Overcast and breezy.
Difficult to imagine the Lifeboat-week, Navy display team
parachute drop into the harbour will go ahead tonight! . .Just
about to walk when a big shower hit. Drove to walk and arrived at
BGdns just as the rain stopped. . PCd this for hours. It's the 'thinking
about/analysing it all in my mind' that takes the time - not the
typing! . . did the 'yobiera' boat video and got it uploading. .
.left the PC uploading and walked with Sally (much later than I'd
intended) down to the harbour to see if the parachute jump thing
was actually going to happen. It had actually brightened up to
sunny spells, but I still figured (with my arrogant 'expertise'
from having once done a jump! lolol) it was unlikely they would
be jumping because of the wind, which was actually strong enough
to have all the flags out horizontal. Well - so much for my
expertise. They WERE going to be jumping, and by the time I got
down to the marina walk, there was already a big crowd and
nowhere decent to squeeze in with Sally in tow, set up my tripod.
Figured I'd just stand behind everyone and just watch - just
watch - JUST WATCH - arrrrggggh - no - I just couldn't help
myself! Ended up pulling the camera out and sticking it on the
tripod and then just holding the thing up in mid air peeking over
people heads! Inevitably all the footage I DID manage to get was
really poor and shaky. . suprisingly they actually jumped maybe a
quarter of an hour or so later than billed (tut, tut. lol) , at
around 6:15pm or so - maybe because they had to circle around and
throw streamers out to suss out the wind. 
They ended up
actually exiting the helicopter somewhere way to the west over
town to compensate for the drift - which meant having to turn
around and try and shoot with the camera immediately overhead and
such like, making for even shakier, poor footage. I even missed
the 'money shot' of one of the jumpers hitting the water because
he disappeared behind the head of the woman stood in front of me!!
Hmmph. My usual obsession with trying to zoom in on everything,
which is particularly difficult with anything in the air from a
focus/follow-it point of view, meant by the time the sea king had
done a flypast (it came so close, so fast, and I was zoomed in so
much, I completely lost it in the veiwfinder and missed the best
bit of the shot while franticly zooming out to re-find it) and
the thing was over, I was convinced I'd got absolutely no footage
whatsoever worth doing anything with. Ended up consoling myself
by eventually plonking the tripod on a piece of harbour wall when
it became vacant, and having a cigarette while letting the camera
keep runing, doing a possible timelapse sequence of the
significant crowd dispersing. . eventually back via BGdns . .
felt really iffy and wobbly!? All the walking and lack of food/sleep
stuff again I think. . ate a bowl of K donated meat pie . . TVd
until bed around 11:15pm . .woken by Sally needing the garden
around 2am.
21 - Up at 6:30am, woken by wind and heavy rain
lashing the front of the house . .drove to walk early. Sally did
NOT poop!? I trust that is a good sign and her stomach has
settled back down again? . TVd and ate a bowl of muesli. As usual,
as soon as the food got to me I had to go lay down again. Good
greif - didn't wake until shortly before 1pm!!! Still raining.
Headachey. . TVd . ate a pack of K donated scampi with all the
remaining salad type stuff from the fridge . .TVd. . felt
headachey and yucky and actually ended up having to go lay down
again, but I couldn't sleep. I dunno - I seem to recall feeling 'less
than good' the last time I ate scampi! I wonder if there is
something in that stuff which disagrees with me in some way? . .
PCd a bit of this as the rain finally stopped . .K called by
around 5:15pm on his way home and dropped off a large carrier bag
of meat pie (which should apparantly be fit for human consumption
- but 'avoid the pastry because the chef made a mistake')! . .walked
a little early and did the long walk through the woods to the
cove etc, making the most of the dry spell. BIG old boy fat seal
visible in the cove for a while! Kids throwing a couple of stones
soon put paid to that! :o( Climbed the huge flight of steps and
explored making our way out onto the rocky point for a bit. It
was steep going in places and I eventually figured Sally wouldn't
be able to do the required climbing to get there. Suprised me
that - with the number of people you get out there drinking/drunk,
I'd always imagined it would be easier to get to! . . Sat on my
favourite gun emplacement and drank a tin of Redbull. Eventually
returned via town. . Mum called breifly to say put the TV on -
program about police dogs. .Sally seems back to normal so took
the risk of giving her all the rest of the best-left-overs salmon
for her meal . .TVd . . guitarred. . touched base with BB . .
microwaved and ate a bit of the K donated steak and ale pie.
Yikes - he was right about the pastry!! Awful (maybe I should add
it to the rubble in the lane?) - but the meat part was really
nice again. . TVd until bed around 1:30am. asa
20 - Up around 8:15am . .walked. . left Sally at
home and drove to Ks with gloves, big plastic containers and
buckets to pick up more tarmac/rubble. Somehow managed to get the
whole lot in the car in one go - some in the containers, the rest
still in the large 'ton' bags. Dumped it all on my 'breaking area'
under the carport before quickly returning the empty bags . .
crushed rocks for the next four hours or so. Eventually dumped it
all way up the lane, in front of the one neighbours driveway that
hasn't yet benefitted from any. Ended up with the usual handful
of blisters despite having worn gloves! . . showered off the
layers of black dust and then ate salami and lettuce rolls with
some chocolate . . lay down to nap, only for Sally to soon after
let me know she needed to use the garden with an upset stomach .
. fitfully napped for only an hour or so . . TVd . .poor Sally
seems to suddenly have a VERY upset stomach again! . . drove to
walk. Sally seemed in fine spirits in herself, but pooped (or at
least tried) every couple of minutes along the way - even passing
a bit of blood!! Not the first time she's done that with an upset
stomach, so I won't start worrying too much just yet . . TVd but
absolutely nothing on worth watching yet again, so I finally got
round to watching one of the DVDs PS had loaned me. 'I Am Legend'
with Will Smith. Turned out to be not at all the film I'd thought
it may be, but what was particularly entertaining for me was the
first part of the film, where they really seemed to pay a great
deal of attention to the relationship he had with his German
Shepherd dog. Very much 'a partnership' which seemed very
familiar to me and made me project and identify with the
character, much. Given the nature of the film (actually 'zombie'
genre I guess), it was pretty obvious from the outset that at
some point the dog was going to be killed off, so it came as no
suprise when they did so, nevertheless there was something about
the way they did it after having spent quite a while portraying
their intimate relationship, which got to me loads. I ended up
crying my eyes out and actually had to pause the DVD and go and
stroke Sally and make coffee and such to recover. (When Sally
goes, I'm gonna be in a really bad way. There's no avoiding it. I'm
actually a little frightened by the prospect. :o( She's been my 'raison
d'etre' for quite a while now.) . actually being able to pause
the DVD and take a break in the middle of the program here and
there, is a rare novelty for me, and was actually quite a
pleasure. I can see why having one of those fancy digital boxes
that'll enable you to do that, is atractive to people with a life
. . ate a Mum donated sponge cake, banana and chocolate while
watching the film. . . . touched base with BB . . guitarred a
little and TVd until 2:15am before bed. as
19 - Woke earlier, snoozed on then up at 7:30am
. .walked . . guitarred briefly. . pottered around a little
trying to force myself to actually 'DO' something! I seem to have
almost unnoticed sunk deeply into a 'non-functioning' ,'what's
the point state' of mind again. Loads of stuff needs doing on the
house/garden - but the 'Bristol experience' , where everything I
ever did turned out to be a waste of time, is preventing me from
being able to face doing any of it (and the ££s of course).
What makes things worse is that SO much of what needs sorting out
here, is EXACTLY the same stuff as I spent all that energy/years/money
sorting out on the house in Bristol! All the windows and doors
need replacing; the old back boiler/central heating/main gas
supply pipe require replacement/removal; bathroom needs tiling -
electric shower needs wiring/plumbing in; remaining old electrics
need re-wiring; roof needs repairs; etc, etc, etc. Took years to
get all that sorted in Bristol. I just can't face it all again. I
won't even be here as long as I was in Bristol! :o( . . tried to
be rational and work out what, from all that needs doing, would
have the most immediate and beneficial effect on my standard of
living. . (Not counting the damned noisy fridge freezer on its
last legs) - I guess it has to be the shower. This business of
having to put the main gas back boiler on, to heat up the water
so I can have a shower from the bath mixer taps, is a real pain.
It means having to plan ahead - and of course means wasting money
heating up a huge tank of water just for a shower. I've lost
count of the number of times I'll start heating up the water
intending to have a shower, only to somehow while I'm waiting
become too tired to bother, or get involved with a TV show or
something else, and then not actually get round to having one!
This sort of problem with having to 'plan ahead' keeps getting
repeated, and all of a sudden I realise I haven't showered for
days (and days!!!!!)!! Its a REAL bugger! I NEED an electric
shower!! Just like I did in Bristol, somehow I'm going to have to
tear the place apart and try and put one in at some point - which'll
lead to having to alter the fuse box, alter plumbing and re-tile
the bathroom!!! Ugggh!! :o(. . . managed to muster the energy to
actually removed the bath panel and had a look under the bath for
the first time since I've been here! That was something of a
suprise. I'd thought the ugly rust and chrome shelf thing I'd
inherited in the corner of the bathroom, was actually disguising
the cold water feed to the expansion tank in the attic, and as a
result I'd been afraid to touch it since I'd moved in. Turns out
it was nothing of the sort and was actually presumably something
the previous owners had actually WANTED to be there!? What a
relief to be able to quickly just wrench it out of position and
get rid of it (temporarily dumped in the garage) after all this
time. . this business of having expansion tanks in the attic and
gravity feed of water supplies is something alien to me. Even the
old one I eventually removed from the house in Bristol was a
sealed pressurised system without anything in the attic! This old
system is far more complicated (and potentially fragile and ready
to break down in some way!). I need to spend more time crawling
around the house trying to trace pipes and stuff. I may be wrong,
but it looks to me as though the cold water supply to the bath,
is actually gravity fed from the tank in the attic via pipes
hidden in the bathroom wall - whereas the cold tap on the sink is
direct from the rising main via the kitchen (albeit from hidden
pipework plastered into the kitchen wall!!!)!??? Why would that
be I wonder? There isn't a problem with water pressure? What was
particularly intriguing was there was even a 'stub' of blanked
off cold water pipe left directly under the bath, which it should
be possible to join onto, to take a run out to a new shower. Had
they maybe had one some time in the past? Blah blah. At the end
of the day, putting in an electric shower is going to be a major
upheaval and substantial dismantling/re-tiling of the bathroom (never
mind the other glaring issue of trying to make a spare fuse
position available in the electrical consumer unit to accomodate
the heavy duty wiring/breaker required. I don't even know if you
can simply change/buy the breakers for a heavier load on THAT
consumer unit!!!) :o( . . PCd surfing plumbing info and shower
sites etc etc for a few hours . . drank half a glass of wine and
ate a Mum donated large pizza with extra cheese . . napped until
around 6pm . . TVd . . drove to walk . . TVd . . BBd . . ate a
mini cheesecake, a bowl of cereal, crisps, banana and chocolate.
. TVd until bed around 2am. da
18 - Up at 8:15am . .walked . . pottered around
and finally had a proper go at sorting through the collection of
solar lights I 'salvaged' from the tip, which have been sat
around cluttering up the place for weeks! Experimented and
soldered here and there but, not really having a clue what I was
doing, in the end I just ran out of patience and put the whole
lot in the bin. Terrible waste. I suspect with many of them it
was just the daylight sensor which was faulty. At the end of the
day, I think I've ended up only keeping one which works. . Mum
called in with food donations for chats and a cuppa. . all walked
back with Mum to have a bit of a look at both of her TVs.
According to Mum the portable in the kitchen seems to have an
intermittent potential fault with the on off switch, and her main
one is apparantly telling her it has a software update that
requires installing!? . . re-read the manual and messed around
with her kitchen TV, but no way could I get it to act up like she
said it occasionaly does. Nothing much I can do about that then.
That's the trouble with intermitant faults - until you actually
experience it for yourself, it's hard to believe there is a fault
and are more inclined to put it down to 'operator error'! . her
main TV issue was simpler. A menu appeared telling you there was
an update available - press ok to update. What the hell - I
pressed ok. It updated and all appeared ok. Haven't a clue what
it did or why. Clever these new TVs ain't they. . ate pepperoni
and lettuce rolls and half a pork pie . . napped until woken by
Sally barking. It was K calling at the door on his way home,
dropping off a mass of left overs salmon for Sally again. . drove
to walk. As soon as I parked and got out of the car, I could hear
some really loud music coming from somewhere. Unusually loud.
VERY loud. Couldn't for the life of me figure out where it was
coming from. A rave in the woods maybe? Nothing on the beach. . A
couple of guys were sat on one of the seats drinking beer from
glass bottles, with more in a carrier bag on the floor next to
them. I can't explain how, (general demeanor and overheard
snippets of 'dumb' conversation?) but with some people, you just
KNOW that in the morning you'll be picking up broken glass and
the mess they've left behind. These two were a case in point. (I did overhear one saying to the
other they should try and do something different tonight, because
he was bored with doing the same thing over and over. Tempting to
contribute they should try staying sober, or better still, clear
up after themselves when done!)
. unexpectedly, only a few yards further along the path, next to
another seat, was a discarded carrier bag and two empty glass
beer bottles (of the same brand as those the two guys were
drinking from)! Seemed pretty obvious it was theirs! Grrr. Out of
their sight, I bagged the bottles and other rubbish and carried
it with me to eventually put in a bin. Sat on top of my favourite
gun emplacement for a while, watching the impressive clouds/sunset
- but all the while trying to figure out where the hell the loud
music was coming from. There WAS a 'gay pride' event being held
in Torquay over the last few days of this week, and it was
tempting to imagine that somewhere along the coast was some big
outdoor event, and the wind was blowing in just the right
direction for the noise to come across - but I couldn't see
anything and the noise was MUCH louder than anything I've ever
heard before. . Eventually a ferry/booze-cruise boat appeared
from an inlet in the far far distance. Good greif! I don't
believe it!! Those horrible booze-cruise boats make quite a noise
at the best of times, but being it's part of the tourist trade
scene down here, you have to just put up with it and try and
kinda ignore it as best you can. But this was exceptional. I've
never heard one so obnoxiously loud - and to cap it all, the DJ
was some foul mouthed yob type, regularly using the 'F' word!
Awful awful awful! Those ferry operators should have their
licence reviewed!!! Seemed absolutely outrageous to me that the
entire coastline of Torbay was being subjected to it. Absolutely
OUTRAGEOUS!!! I even dabbled with the idea of actually ringing
someone up and making a complaint, but figured that would be just
too 'old manish', and of course such a complaint would be
immediately dismissed, given the nature of todays booze Britain
society. I couldn't help pulling the camcorder out and having a
bit of a poke at the scene, but the camcorder microphones always
do that sound levelling thing, and with a bit of a breeze and
whatnot, no way did the recording do justice to exactly how loud
that boat was. You had to be there - or actually, preferably NOT!!
After having moved down off my sitting place and tried a bit of
filming, walking back I passed the seat the drinking guys had
been sat at. Sure enough they'd moved off and left a carrier bag,
rubbish and empty bottles littering the place! As they appeared a
short distance behind me, I cleared up the mess and couldn't
resist the opportunity of asking if they had any more they wanted
me to take to the bin for them!!!! Once again thankfully I got
away with that, without any unpleasant confrontation. . It
suprised me the booze-cruise boat actually carried on and cruised
into the inner harbour (note to self: do NOT buy million £ waterfront home
if you win the premium bond!),
although I think they 'may' have turned the volume down just a
little as they did so - before certainly turning it way back up
again when they re-emerged. All in all, it was totally anti
social, utterly horrible, and I ended up driving home all upset,
angry and outraged - again! :o( I dunno - it's gonna be hard not
to upload at least a bit of that footage, just to vent my outrage.
You know what - all these videos I've uploaded to Youtube. In
some small way, in the back of my mind,
I've been tempted to imagine they could actually be a positive
thing for the tourist trade down here. Who knows - maybe one or
two people have seen a couple of them and thought, yeah, we're
down that way on our holiday, lets take a look at that place. If
that's true - if I've done ANY good like that with any of them -
then I figure uploading a bit of that outrageous, nauseating
noise, booze-cruise footage will undo all of that tenfold, and
rightly persuade most to stay away! :o( . . PCd . .touched base
with BB . . TVd . . ate a Mum donated chocolate sponge cake . .
TVd until bed around 2am. s
17 - Up at 8:30am . .felt pretty yucky, couldn't
face the walk and drove to walk . . felt pretty down and somehow
ended up just guitarring away pretty much the whole day!!. I'm
really, really, very, VERY 'schizoid' /reclusive at the moment. I
can hardly bear to be around ANYONE for anything other than the absolute
minimum these days! I've even developed recent urges to start
looking at property again - like I used to - fantasising about
buying some little tumble-down shack absolutely in the middle of
nowhere!!!!!! I won't of course, because that would mean having
to 'deal with people' to acheive it! Although not 'easy', life
seems SO much easier when alone. In some way, this has something
to do with somehow 'taking on board' other peoples woes. If I
acheive any sort of freindship/relationship with anyone, I'll
inevitably at some point to some degree get 'unsettled' and 'envious'
of their 'normal' social skills and the 'good things' they have
happen as a result. If not that, then I'll get exposed to tales
of all their troubles, difficulties and upsets, and somehow
absorb and be negatively affected by that! Either way, I end up
feeling increasingly negative about myself, all others and
existance in general!! Catch 22. So - the only rational answer is
- avoidance! That's what I'll be doing then! Oh dear. . .drank a
little wine. . ate scampi and chips . . napped . . guitarred -
yet more. My fingers are pretty achey!. . touched base with BB .
. ate biscuits . . guitarred/TVd/PCd until around 5am before bed!!
Popped on Youtube at some point and 'undid' the ambiguous title
on the blackbird video. It didn't seem to get any 'spurious' hits
as a result of my experiment, and I ended up feeling
uncomfortable about leaving it named like it was. ads
16 - Up at 7:45am . .Damn! One of the shoe-lace
eyelets on the walking shoes PS gave me, has pulled clean out of
the leather! That's a blow. I'd only just walked them in enough
to have them feel comfy. :o( . . walked in clearing drizzle, hung
around in BGdns until around 10am, and then back via town. Handed
over the DVDs to the pirate. . PCd and finally got round to
knocking up the birthday card I'd said I'd do for Mum. It's
apparantly UncleTs 80th birthday soon, and she'd sorted out some
old photos for me to scan in and make a card from. Time consuming,
but it all went ok (A4 single fold) - UNTIL I tried to print it
out - as usual!! Got through and wasted several pieces of
expensive photo paper before concluding that there was simply no
way the printer was able to make any sort of a decent print of a picture
on the BACK of the paper (i.e. for the inside of the card).
Something about the non porous nature of the back of that paper.
It's always been a hassle getting words to print ok on it, but I
seem to have mastered getting round that by printing in 'draft'
and then very carefuly allowing the wet print to dry. Doing a
picture in the same way was just not gonna work. My failed
attempts actually ended up putting a load of ink on one of the
printer rollers - which had the effect of ruining with a big
splodge, everything I tried to print from then on, until it
eventually dried up!!! Arrrggghhhh!!!! Ended up ringing Mum up
and attempting to explain the problems I was having, and tried to
explore if she'd be satisfied with various ways around it. SO
hard trying to explain to Mum when she has no idea of computers/printers
etc. She eventually said she'd pop straight down to see what I
meant. . to cut a long story short, we eventually settled on and
succeeded in doing the inside of the card as an 'insert' - a
piece of normal A4 paper folded and glued inside the photo paper
at the fold - which is of course actually how many of the shop
bought ones are produced (glossy on the outside - regular paper
inside). Mum seemed pretty happy with the result - and me too
from a 'technical' point of view. It was only after Mum had
returned home with the finished article that I found she'd left
£20 on my PC desk, to cover the cost of the paper and ink etc!!
That's a costly card!!. . . drank a half glass of red wine and
ate a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, onion and pepperoni . .
napped as it rained, and somehow slept through until 8pm!! . .
drove to walk in a dry spell. . ate kipling apple pies and Mum
donated strawberries and cream . . touched base with BB . . TVd
until bed around 2am. s
15 - Up at 8am . .walked . .PCd . .Mum called
and then popped down with some food, left over from the spread
she'd laid on for her visit yesterday from aunt/uncle m&c. .
.ate ham rolls . . PCd/TVd . .skipped the evening walk . . TVd
reality shows all evening - including Seaside Rescue which
featured quite a bit of the local lifeboat crew, filmed during
last year. Made me laugh in parts - especially one scene shot on
board the lifeboat in some rough weather. As a huge wave which
would have probably terrified the rest of us, bore down on the
boat and eventually hit, the adrenalin-junky crew all cheered
with excitement. lol . .ate mum donated devon tea style scones
with jam and cream and then some kipling apple pies. . touched
base with BB . . to bed around 2am. s
14 - Up around 6:45am . .PCd a bit of this . .
walked the woods and back via town. . PCd and messed around for
hours with the footage I'd filmed on the 'Pirate Record Attempt'
day - yet again! :o( I've been mailed asking "would it
be possible to have another copy of your Pirate festival DVD
please? Would you mind if we use a part of it to go onto our own
version, we are attempting to put together a saleable buccaneers
dvd to help raise funds". Eventually cut the entire
unedited footage into two, and burned it to a couple of DVDs. I've
not replied to the mail as yet (as with all the rest I get!!) ,
and probably won't, and will just hand deliver the discs to
someone/somewhere in due course - Thursday probably if I can. .
ate ham, mayo and lettuce rolls, crisps and a week-past-sell-by-date
mini cheesecake followed by a couple of squares of chocolate. . .
napped until the alarm at 6:30pm . . drove to walk. Dabbled with
the camcorder on the rocks, filming a couple of boats etc. The
top of my favourite gun emplacement was occupied by a loud group
of youths 'smoking', etc. Filmed this and that for a good hour or
so before just as I was folding up my tripod to leave, all of a
sudden there was a very loud thud nearby. One of the idiots on
the gun emplacement, who were also making to leave, had launched
a half-full large plastic bottle of fizzy drink into the air,
presumably in a failed attempt at throwing it into the sea - a
distance of probably a hundred feet or so! It'd landed within
fifteen feet of Sally and I!! Grrrr. I glared (actually pure hate)
at them as I walked up from the rocks. I think they all looked a
little uneasy. I made eye contact with the thrower and (rather
lamely) sarcasticly sneered 'I'll put that in a bin for you then
shall I?' as I picked it up from the grass next to the path. He
avoided the possible confrontation and replied along the lines of
'yeah - nice one.' Probably a good job there wasn't a
confrontation - from HIS point of view. Aside from anything else
- at the end of my filming out-in-the-bay stuff, because they
were making so much noise on the roof of the gun emplacement
behind me (the bottle thrower in particular at one point had
inexplicably started making weird loud animal-call type noises)
and because it looked like they were doing some drugs, I'd
breifly experimented (actually I think for only the fourth time
EVER) at discretely filming something I really probably shouldn't
have. If there had been any serious unpleasantness, I could have
easily identified them all from that small bit of 'back-to-them/
filming-back-over-my-shoulder' footage!! Doing that is absolutely
NOT something I make a habit of !! (The last time I recall was
when I filmed the group of strung-out drug users waiting to meet
up with their dealer in the playing-field back in Bristol! I did
NOT YouTube THAT one!!)!! . . PCd headachey. . BB called breifly
. . PCd this at length until early as very gusty winds battered
the house! . .touched base with BB . . ate half a Mum donated
battenburg cake and bowls of cerial . .TVd drag racing until bed
around 3:30am! a
13 - Woken by Sally needing to use the garden at
4am and again at 7:30am at which point I got up - feeling sleep
deprived again!. . walked . .dumped the remaining left overs food
which could be past its best and cleaned both of Sally' bowls as
best I could (without using soap), in an attempt to make sure her
stomach upset isn't about her food! . . PCd the 'weird'-choice-of-music
blackbird video. It's quite a common thing for that blackbird to
sunbath on the grass in the front garden. I've seen it a few
times, and managed to grab just a little poor footage of it
through the glass of the window one day, without scaring it off
straight away. Couldn't resist doing the video and then uploading
it with the deliberately potentially ambiguous title - just as an
experiment to see if with such a title, it'd get a bunch of hits
from people looking for 'other things'! lol . . paid a couple of
my webspace/domain hosting bills (£60ish). To be honest, I need
to sort that out and cancel it given my current circumstances,
but at the moment I just can't face the work involved, so it
seemed easier to just throw the money away!!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually
- I seem to recall having made the same decision the last time
the bills came in! Next time! Definitely next time - maybe! . .
cooked and ate two burgers with onion and chips followed by a few
squares of chocolate . . napped for a couple of hours . . drove
to walk in the rain. Ended up sitting under the roof for ages (as
did several others) as torrential showers drifted through. HEAVY
rain, completely obscuring the other side of the bay . .
guitarred/PCd . .touched base with BB . . ate half a Mum donated
battenburg cake . TVd until bed after midnight.
12 - Woken by Sally needing to use the garden at
6:30am . .walked and filmed HMS Chatham leaving the bay after
presumably sheltering from last nights storm. Those Navy ships
always strike me as being rather 'spectacular', and I find it
awfully difficult not to film them and then try and make a video
out of it, EVERY time I see one in the bay. Returned with a bone
for Sally from K . . PCd as the Hapnin stage was dismantled and
taken away in the blazing sunshine . . ate Mum donated salami and
lettuce rolls and then some cake . . napped for a couple of
dreaming hours until around 6pm. . poor Sally still has a runny
stomach and had to use the garden again. What's left of my grass
is suffering badly! . . drove to walk. Typical - been sunny all
day and then when I walk it rains! A heavy rain shower. 
Sheltered in the gun emplacement for a while,
only to find all the walls had been freshly grafittied by someone
- complete with a couple of names and phone numbers!! :o( I'm not
so weird as to do so normally - but on this occasion I was 'intrigued'
and uncontrolably found myself turning 'CSI' and taking a few
photos of bits and pieces of the brainless idiot's repulsive
scrawl (NOT including the seemingly obligatory poorly drawn
ejaculating penis, which such jerk-offs always seem to have to
inexplicably include!)!! What got my interest was how much
information they'd actually potentially given anyone who may want
to try and take them to task over it (police/council? - but of
course they wouldn't bother would they! They'll just leave it to
the good guys from the Battery Heritage group to go buy some
paint - again - and have to paint over it all - again - and again,
and again ad-infinitum!) . A whole list of 'names', presumably
visiting from Birmingham - and then there were those two (mobile?)
phone numbers! Is it actually possible the guy used their real
numbers?!!? (The fact that an attempt had been made to obliterate
the 'TC' one (looks like 07887772039 to me), suggests he 'may'
have!) In fantasy land, wouldn't it be cool for someone to track
'em down and go get 'em and force them to re-paint the place -
but then again, in fantasy land, I reckon it'd be even cooler if
they were all found floating face down in the bay!!! . Actually,
this sort of thing features in a debate I keep wrestling with in
my mind. This business about how the tourist industry is
apparantly vital to the local economy/community, and how we
should all support that, seemingly without question or hesitation.
I'm really not sure I buy into that argument any more -
particularly in view of the recent expose of government/business
greed and corruption, etc. Just exactly how DOES a bunch of
sucessfully profitable marina, hotel, wine bar, souvenir 'tat'
shop, etc businesses mean that we're all gonna be doing ok? Those
business owners may be happy with their lot if the place is full
of visitors, but I'm not sure I can see how that in any way
benefits me, or most of the other people who live in the area,
particularly in view of the demographic (largely elderly/retired?).
What is little reported ever is the negative impact tourism 'can'
have on many of the locals 'quality of life'. Come the school
holiday season proper when all the visitors descend, the whole
place will be constantly covered in litter and dog faeces;
drunken unpleasantness, vandalism and anti social behavior will
abound; parking and traffic issues mean commuting to work/driving
anywhere is almost out of the question; popping out to the local
shops for food means fighting your way through dawdling, abruptly-stopping
crowds and standing in queues (many will admit to NOT going out/down
town much in season); etc etc. Water rates are the highest in the
country - allegedly because the locals have to pay for a 'clean
up of the beaches and water outflows' etc, to ensure good bathing
quality for the visitors. Property prices are inflated beyond 'normal'
reach because of all the empty second homes and holiday rentals.
Oh - blah blah blah. Once again I'm not intelligent enough to be
able to work it all through in my mind and find 'the truth'. If
an economy has to rely on something to drive it, doesn't it make
more sense for it to be something more stable and solid than
tourism? With an allegedly increasingly aged/care-requiring
population, and particularly so in such an area, doesn't it make
sense for THAT to be the economy focus? All I know is, I'm
increasingly convinced that this modern 'consumerist' way of life
we are stuck with and conditioned to embrace (like complicit 'slaves'),
is fatally flawed and benefits in relative terms, a very small
wealthy few. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! . . walked on in the
rain to get away from the unpleasantness of the grafittied gun
emplacement and then sheltered under the roof for ages until the
heavy rain passed . . PCd some more and eventually uploaded the
HMS Chatham video. . touched base with BB . . ate cake . . TVd
until bed after 1am.
11 - Up around 7:15am . .drizzly misty out . .
walked . . did dish washing chores . . Mum called in with food
donations for chats etc. . ate half a Mum donated gala pie,
crisps and chocolate. . napped as the drizzle got worse and
turned to pretty heavy rain . . skipped the walk. Guitarred/TVd
as torrential rain poured. Pretty obvious by now that the Hapnin
- wasn't. MUST have been cancelled because of the weather. All
that planning and organising, all that money, all that setting it
all up - all for nothing!! Poor devils. :o( I don't remember it,
but I have it on good authority, that's the second time they've
had to cancel like that in the last three years! How many times
can they take a loss like that before it's just wound up for good?.
I WAS actually VERY tempted to drive over there and try and do
some filming. Would have made for an interesting image - a big
stage, rows of portaloos, etc etc - in a deserted field with huge
amounts of rain pouring. I just couldn't face going out in it! .
.BB called breifly . . TVd . .ate a bowl of the nutty cereal Mum
had brought me to try . . ate the other half a Mum donated gala
pie and chocolate. . to bed around 1am. s
10 - Dreadful fitful couple of hours sleep then
back up around 7:30am - which actually appeared to be about the
time that trucks appeared in the park to start setting up for the
Hap'nin. .walked . . felt SO tired and woozy I actually returned
to bed but couldn't sleep and got back up . . mowed the lawns and
pottered in the front garden trimming a little hedge growth. Some
of that stuff must have grown an inch a day! . . ate K donated
beef with chips and chocolate . . napped for a couple of hours. .
drove to walk in the drizzle as the Hap'nin was getting under way.
Plainly audible even from this distance away . .guitarred/TVd and
ate a packet of almond slices. . touched base with BB. Breifly
stood on the doortsep during the call, listening to the sound of
the loud music drifting over. Loud enough to even be able to
identify what the band was playing. Sounded pretty good - some
funky rockin Stevie Wonder number. Hard to tell from here, but it
really looked like there weren't many people over there at all in
the drizzle. SUCH a shame for the organisers. . .ate beef
sandwiches, although Sally ended up eating most of the beef which
I think is past its best now . . guitarred/TVd until bed around 2am.
s
9 - Up around 8am . .walked the woods. Very
calming and peaceful down there. Filled a carrier bag with litter
along the way, although there was actually suprisingly little of
it around. It's been nice to find that plenty of like minded
people (mostly dog walkers?) pick up around here. One dog walker
I exchange pleasantries with (an ageing hippy he once described
himself), has undoubtedly more of an issue with the litter than I
do, and ALWAYS seems to have a carrier bag with him, and clears
up LOTS more than I. There's plenty to go around! . . PCd this .
.ate corned beef and mayo sandwiches, sausages, crisps and a
banana . . napped . . guitarred. . PCd breifly and found someone
had rated and commented-on the sponsored walk video. "ha
ha! my daughter was in this somewhere, i live in cheshire so esp
nice for me to see". I'd begun to feel it didn't really
work and I'd completely wasted my time with that video - but then
that one comment seems to make all the hours of work worthwhile.
:o) . . touched base with BB . . guitarred/TVd. .had a go at
filming the moon rising behind the TV up to midnight, but as I'd
predicted it didn't really work . .ate bowls of cornflakes . .
TVd . . touched base with BB and PCd until finally to bed after 4am,
only to be unable to sleep for ages! Not enough food I think. s
8 - Up around 8:30am . . walked. Council
workers had laboriously cleared up the rubbish mess - again. .
PCd, surfed and confirmed what Mum had said. It IS the party in
the park 'Hapnin' this weekend. Despite feeling the desire not to
miss anything worth videoing, I think I'm definitely going to
have to give that a miss this year. Although I bagged a bunch of
some pretty neat video of the stage performers last year, I
really didn't enjoy being there at all, what with all the
drinking and drunkeness that was going on. I can't face the
thought of exposing myself to all that again. Also, at the moment,
unfortunately for them, the weather forecast doesn't look too
good either! . .wound up the 'sponsored walk' video and got it
uploaded early afternoon. Did some vacuuming around the place
during the processing/upload 'down' time (no mean feat with all
the masses of hair coming out of Sally all the time in the warm
weather!! Overfilled the vacuum twice, just skimming over two
rooms!). Actually, despite all the hours working on it, sadly I
don't think that video really works particularly well. It does
however, give something of an insight into what it means to
actually walk any distance along that coastal path. It's got
nothing to do with the 'as the crow flies' distance. It's all
about the up and down!! It really IS like a bit of mountaineering
(there is some statistic apparantly worked out by someone, that
if you do the entire South West path, it's like climbing Mount
Everest several times over!)!! There was a girl I passed the
other day, who'd stopped for a sit in BGdns, with a big
overloaded rucsack with pots and pans and a bottle of milk
hanging from it. Obviously a 'serious' 'doing-the-south-west-coastal-path'
walker (risky for a single woman?). She had rings of support
bandages wrapped around both knees, and walking behind her at one
point it was very noticeable that she looked kinda knock knee'd!
I bet she wasn't when she started out. Good luck to her. Wish I'd
done that when I was younger and physically able . . ate a couple
of Mum donated sausage rolls, crisps, a few K donated sausages,
banana and chocolate . . napped heavily dreaming until shortly
before 6pm . .PCd a bit of this . .drove to walk. Another sack of
refuse left by the poop bin!!! Grrrr . . . fed Sally K donated
best salmon! . . guitarred/TVd . . touched base with BB . . ate
salami and lettuce rolls and chocolate . .TVd until bed around 2am.
s
7 - Woken around 7am by the sound of heavy rain.
Well - the water ski video hasn't been censored yet. . walked in
a sunny spell but then had to sit for ages under the roof in
BGdns as a VERY heavy shower fell. Eventually made it back home
mostly dry. . .pottered around and then somehow spent almost the
whole day just messing around on the PC. Weird how that water-ski
video seems to have had so many hits so quickly. When I say 'so
many', I mean that in relative terms of course. As these things
go, with one or two exceptions (most notably the Emiel trawler in
rough seas), I get hardly any hits on my videos at all. After a
few weeks, if I've got a mere forty or so hits on any one of them,
I figure its doing well (some are simply not viewed by anyone,
ever!). That water-ski video somehow got a hundred hits in the
first few hours after it was uploaded!?? I must confess, I did
stop and study the title and tags I'd used on it, just to make
sure it wasn't being picked up by people searching for porn for
some reason, but as far as I can tell that won't be the case. Oh
well - I guess maybe 'water-ski race' is simply 'one of those
types' that lots of people look at for some reason (just like
timelapse videos of washing machines!!) Go figure. Over two
hundred, probably disappointed people as I type this. . dabbled
with the weeks old 'sponsored walk' video footage, and after
checking, figured since the music was already fully available on
Youtube, I'd take the chance of actually 'doing' the video. .this
(fully anticipated) business of having all my videos censored
because of the music, has really gotten to me of late. I've
become more accutely aware of how the music IS being used. It's
all about the money (of course). The big companies that buy up
the copyright simply sell rights to the tracks, to whichever
marketing company has the big budget. I can't easily put into
words how this feels. It's something like, some of those old
pieces of music and records that are 'standards' and all time
classics, are 'cheapened' and partially ruined by being sold out
like that. Despite the fact I am
highjacking them and putting my own silly videos to them, I would
hope I'm doing so in such a way that doesn't in any way actually
detract from or devalue the actual music in any way. I am of the
opinion that the same cannot be said for the way they are used
for advertising. A current example is with the Booker T and the
MGs 'Green Onions' 'soundtrack of my life' classic (used by me on
the video of the bio hazard suit firemen training - censored by
YouTube!) which is now presumably synonymous for a whole
generation with Birds Eye easy cook fish products! Or Bob Dylan's
'Blowing In The Wind' (they don't come much more 'classic' than
that!) now being an advert for the Co-Op! I dunno - it all seems
pretty yucky to me - and as I've said before, ESPECIALLY when the
original performer of a piece is long dead and isn't even getting
paid for it. .another funny thing about all this (which I seem to
wrestle with in my mind), as it is with SO much these days - it's
a uniquely recent thing, never before
been any part of a long human history. Human history has been
going on for a VERY long time, and much of that dealing with the
same sort of basic survival issues. This (for many/most? of us)
is a uniquely VERY different period in time. Arrrggghh - all too
much to think about for my tiny intellect! . . . drove to walk.
Very blustery and cool beneath the clouds. . 
yet again,
entering BGdns was a disappointingly unpleasant business. Someone
(Tea(bag) drinkers - tempting to assume the occupants of one of
the campervans that is permanently parked on the road up there.
Surprising the local council allows people to live there like
that?) keeps dumping bags of their household refuse on the grass
near the dogpoop-only bin. Too lazy to actually go and stuff it
in a proper covered refuse bin (of which there is one within
fifty feet), they just dump it inside the railings on the grass.
As soon as they do, seagulls descend and peck away at the bag
until all the contents are strewn around and covering everywhere
in the breeze! (Too much and too disgusting for me to attempt to
pick up I'm afraid!) A day or so later, the poor council workmen
have to come along and try and pick it all up again from all over
everywhere it's ended up. God only knows what wildlife has been
killed as a result of trying to eat it or getting caught up in it.
Happens time and time again - and it really bloody angers me that
someone can be SO self centred and irresponsible. The grass in
that area is permanently now covered in little pieces (too small
to pick up) of plastic and all manner of disgusting debris,
making it resemble a partially covered land fill! :o( . . . fed
Sally her bowl of K donated left-over best salmon, beef, chicken
etc. from some expensive carvery or other, and made do myself
with the rest of yesterdays sausage and potatoe goo, re-heated.
See - see - Sally really DOES eat more and MUCH better than I do!
lol . . guitarred/TVd with chocolate and kipling apple pies. Was
treated to another 'moonrise' behind the TV again. Damn - I wish
I HAD taken a photo of that last night. Pretty stunning view. .
touched base with BB . . TVd until bed around 1:30am. s
6 - Woke earlier, snoozed on then up around 9am.
Badly aching lower back again, for no apparant reason! . .loaded
Mums planters and brooms into the car and then drove to walk.
Stopped off at Mums on the way home and dropped offh er planters
etc. . . PCd the water-ski race video. Actually a nasty one to do
because of all the little brief bits of 'almost' usuable stuff,
and because I didn't really put much effort into filming it 'properly'
as I could have. So - have I wasted my time anyway? Is it gonna
be censored? I DID actually go on Youtube before I did it, to see
if that music was already up there, and it WAS - with adverts, so
I figured I'd take the chance. .walked . .Bb called breifly . .
drank a glass of red wine and cooked a sausage stew type
concoction . . ate with four pieces of bread and butter . . TVd .
. ate a couple of kipling apple tarts . .watched another of the
programs on one of the BBC channels about the Apollo moon
landings. 40th anniversary apparantly. I do NOT remember where I
was when it happened. As I watched the show, with all its
breathtaking footage of the guys walking on the moon, just above
the TV screen, through the window and rising above the trees was
a huge golden full moon! Weird - kinda hairs on the back of your
neck stuff. One of those mind expanding 'putting things in
perspective' moments. Oh HOW truly insignificant we are! Even
dabbled with the idea of running to get the camera, because it
would have made a freaky photo and even a better video, but I
eventually decided the camera couldn't have captured it - and
certainly not the 'atmosphere' it created. Shame . . eventually
to bed around 1:30am. d
5 - Up around 8:30am . . walked. One of the dog
walkers mentioned the boats were all getting ready for the water-ski
race later. Huh? Damn - I'd missed seeing the adverts for that.
Hmmm - worth a look with the camera maybe? Returned home with a
couple of packets of frozen scampi from K. Apparantly one of the
freezers where he works had stopped working the other day and
there were tales of huge amounts of perfectly edible stuff being
thrown away!!! :o( . . screwed the glued handles on Mums brooms
and then put coats of paint on both plant pots . . walked with
Sally, cameras and tripod around miidday and headed out to the
breakwater, too late for the start of the ski racing. Wow - some
fancy looking speed boats and motor homes on the breakwater hard.
Walked out along the breakwater in the very
blustery wind, looking for a place to have a half hearted dabble
with the camcorder, as the boats and water skiiers were racing
their huge circuit out in the bay. . filmed a little, just
playing really, experimenting with trying to do close ups on the
skiiers as they raced by. Figured it was just too difficult
because of the speed they were going, and pretty soon gave up. .
Hung around for a while and filmed a little more as that
particular race ended and the boats motored past and returned to
the marina. Big threatening sky saw me rapidly head for the end
of the breakwater and the cover of the entrance to the car park.
Put my cameras in plastic poop bags in my pockets before braving
the rain and heading back. Actually rained pretty hard for a
breif while, and we got drenched! Sheltered under the old Fish
Market roof and had a cigarette, before the rain eased and we
walked back to BGdns to sit on top of my favourite gun
emplacement. Whiled away an hour or so, filming some more of the
racing, but further away now it was really a waste of film. I
hate to say it, but to be honest, once you'd watched the racing
for a little while and got used to the impressive spectacle of
lots of boats and skiiers in formation roaring across the bay at
extraordinary speeds, it got to be a little boring. They kinda
went round and round, and as far as I could tell, there weren't
even any crashes (which is of course what the 'Homer Simpsons'
amongst us, look for in a race!)! lol . . . eventually returned
home to do another coat of paint on one of the planters. .cooked
and ate scampi and chips . . PCd the water-ski footage. Lots of
footage - very little of ANY use! . . Mum called to touch base .
. Blimey! K called in on his way home from work, to give me
another huge pile of food - some for Sally, some for me (a huge
pile of cooked sausages was ok for me to eat apparantly. :o) ) It's
gotten to the point I've so much food around the place at the
moment I can hardly keep up, given I'm still not eating as much
as I should. I'm very grateful. Just incredible what that place
throws away. The whole of K's trunk was absolutely full!! I saw
at least three bin liners of stuff in there ('badger food'
apparantly!?). . guitarred . . touched base with BB . . felt a
bit iffy (NOT because of gone-off food! lol) and just ate a
couple of bananas and some chocolate before finally to bed after
1am. s
4 - Up late around 9:30am, stiff and achey! . .
drove to walk. .messed with mums brooms in the garage, cut off
the bad bits of handles and then used wood glue to initially
attempt to fix them back on. Left them to set in the desert like
heat of the garage. . sanded and wire brushed a bit of the worst
of Mums planter pots and got a coat of paint on it . . Mum called
in with food donations for chats etc. . tried calling Sis2 and
the phone played up again!! Before I knew what was going on, I
was being asked by an operator which 'service' I required!! Of
the some seventeen digits in total I'd dialled, it had ignored
all but the three nines in the middle!!! Felt awful to have
wasted their time, and tried to explain and get off as quickly as
I could, all the while apologising profusely! Eventually got
through to Sis2s number, only to get the ansaphone anyway! Humph.
. ate pork pie, sausage rolls, crisps, banana and chocolate . .
napped . .drove to walk and sat on my favourite gun emplacement,
despite all the litter and debris left up there by last nights
camping youths. I don't think they were 'used' in the
conventional sense, but strangely they seemed to have had
somethiung of a 'condom' party up there!!! Looked like a whole
pack of different types of condom had been opened up and then
just strewn around all over the place! Eeeewwww! There was also
what appeared to be possibly the remnants of a dirty magazine. (A
porno mag dumped in the bushes? Wow - how 'oldy world' that seems
nowadays. It used to be pretty common when I was a kid - but not
these days. Haven't they heard of the internet? I mean - that's
what it's for these days isn't it?!!!! Full on hard-core,
available on demand, direct to your mobile when the 'need' arises?)
Not such a pleasant place to sit now, but I insisted on doing so
nonetheless! . Lots of 'youths' carrying the seemingly obligatory
bulging carrier bags of booze passed by below as I sat there (overheard
conversation - 'Lets sit on the grass and get drunk'), and
several groups of them ended up all around the place drinking.
Just sitting quietly watching the view and the world pass by, it's
impossible not to get sucked in, to listening to some of the loud,
trivial and generally unpleasant conversations of such people.
EVERY other word is a swear word these days! . One loud group in
particular, drinking from bottles on top of a nearby gun
emplacement (used as their private toilet!) was impossible to
ignore, especially when they shouted out to a crowded passing
party/bay-cruise boat, 'GET YOUR TITS OUT!'. I was upset and very
close to reaching for my camcorder to record the idiot, after one
of them spotted a rabbit on the grass topped cliff below them,
and commenced 'seriously' throwing stones at it! They are always
so full of themselves and presumably profess to being young 'adults',
but when you hear them talk and see them act like I so often do
down there, they are revealed for the nauseating, stupid little 'children'
they actually very much still are! :o( . headed home after what
ended up being a thoroughly unpleasant sit! . fed Sally and then
quickly slapped another coat of paint on one of Mums pots in the
garage . .guitarred/TVd. . touched base with BB . . .ate salami
rolls and chocolate . . TVd/PCd until bed gone 2am. s
3 - Woke earlier, snoozed on then up around 8:30am.
Looks like straight back to sunny . . drove to walk. Stopped in
at Mums on the way back to pick up the cement plant pots she'd
said she wanted painted, together with an old pot of her house
paint. . a collection of half a dozen refuse sacks of Mums garden
waste were all sat awaiting collection by the council on her
driveway. It really does seem awful that we aren't 'allowed' to
put it in the wheelie bin and have to pay extra down here to be
able to dump garden waste, when all over the country elsewhere
there are garden waste collections along with the normal refuse.
They charge a minimum of £6 for the removal of 8 bags, which
seems pretty extortionate to me!! It horrified me to find Mum
hadn't filled her full compliment of eight bags (because the rain
had prevented her from gardening yesterday), and was wasting
money by paying the full £6 for a partially filled half a dozen.
Persuaded her to let me have a quick bash at trimming some more
from her hedges before the council truck turned up - which was
likely to be soon. Ended up with Mums help, racing to get as much
of the overgrown 'pyrocantha' hedges cut, as quickly as we
possibly could. Rushing to get the stuff all cut down and chopped
into bag sized pieces, I didn't notice the damage I was doing to
my bare arms. That 'pyrocantha' stuff is absolutely lethal! Just
a mass of needle-sharp, inch-long spikes everywhere. If it isn't
just scratching you to death, it's leaving the tips of all the
spikes in your flesh as splinters! . at some point along the way,
the little concertinad spring which keeps the scecateurs open,
disappeared from the ones I was using! I imagine somehow it 'sprang'
off a distance, when it became dislodged by the awkward branch I
was chopping up. No amount of searching (some literally on hands
and knees) revealed where it had gone, so I'd managed to ruin one
pair of Mums scecateurs! :o( So much for me helping make the most
of her £6. (She ended up going out and buying an expensive new
pair for £12, a day or so later!!!!!) . . we'd just called it
quits, with most of the eight bags suitably full, and were sat
having a coffee in the garden when the truck turned up to collect
them, so it worked out pretty well overall, and Mum seemed pretty
happy to suddenly have much of her garden work done. Had a breif
good natured conversation with the guys, when one of them picking
up a bag immeditely got his hand spiked by the lethal pyrocantha.
They said they were used to such things, and went on to relate
how one of them was collecting an old toilet pan the other day.
He'd lifted it up to put it on the back of the truck, and as he
did so, all the foul water from a full u-bend had poured out all
over him!!! Eeeewwwww!!!. . chats and coffee and a little more
pottering for Mum here and there. I really should do more of that
for Mum, but I feel I have more than I can cope with, with all my
own! In comparison to the enormous amount of trimming that is
required on all the massive hedges around both of my gardens, her
little rather manageable plot would be like a five minute job, if
not for how particular she tends to become with it! (I had to
screw a couple of curtain eyes to her fence and attach pieces of
wire, to hold certain branches of pyrocantha back, in 'just' the
right place!) . .eventually returned home with plant pots to
paint and brushes to fix, with badly scratched arms and splinters
all over my hands! . . . ate corned beef, mayo and lettuce
sandwiches, crisps, a banana and a couple of squares of chocolate
. . PCd and e-mailed a handful of photos of Mums garden to Sis2
as had been requested. . napped late for a couple of hours until
around 7pm . . Mum called to touch base, just as I was about to
call her, to ask if she fancied accompanying us on the evening
walk. Drove with Mum to walk. Sat in BGdns chatting for quite a
while, but it wasn't particularly pleasant because of the
somewhat rowdy group of youths camped and drinking on top of my
favourite gun emplacement, a short distance behind where we sat.
Eventually drove Mum home . . touched base with BB - eventually,
after at least three tries! For some strange reason the phone was
acting weird! Every time I tried to make a call from the memory
allocation, it seemed to lose the first few digits of the number
while it obtained a dialling tone. Never had anything like that
happen before. If I was one of those paranoid/conspiracy-theory
types (which generally I'm not), what with that and all the weird
echoes and clicks I often get (when talking to BB mostly), I'd be
all convinced the phone was being monitored by someone! . .ate
salami rolls and chocolate . . guitarred/TVd/PCd. s
2 - Woke earlier, snoozed on then up around 7:30am.
Drizzle in the air already. . walked in the drizzle and managed
to reach the cover of the roof in BGdns before a torrential
downpour. The rain eased off and I managed to get back home
mostly dry. . PCd this. One thing I've not mentioned here but HAS
become increasingly noticeable to me, is how this year there seem
to be VERY much fewer seagull chicks around. A tiny fraction of
the number I saw last year!? I'd even picked out a nest on top of
one of the holiday chalets, which may have afforded me a decent
vantage point for some filming of chicks etc, and had
occasionally stopped in passing to watch the female sat there and
to get them used to the idea of me being nearby and no threat.
Eventually one morning they seemed to have just given up and had
abandoned the nest. :o( Worrying and particularly so if that is
an indication of how birds in general are doing. . .ate salami
and lettuce rolls . . napped . . skipped the walk . . guitarred/TVd
. .ate corned beef and mayo sandwiches, crisps and kipling apple
pies. . touched base with BB . .TVd but nothing on again and I
ended up on the PC late, aimlessly surfing. Somehow, just for
idle curiosity I ended up surfing looking at boats for sale!
Apparantly I could pick up a huge beam trawler, of the type I've
endlessly filmed, second-hand for around half a million £s. Then
there were those 'rich mans toy' cabin cruisers the marina is
full of hardly used, with the smaller ones starting out at around
£40k!!! What suprised me a little was how much the 'proper' working
fishing boats were in comparison. For some reason I'd imagined
they'd be 'relatively' cheap, but as far as I could see, they
absolutely weren't! Some of the more modest boats I see down
there every day, really were a hell of an investment for someone!
. . eventually to bed around 2am. s
1 - Up around 7:15am . . drove to walk to get
it done as quick as possible. . dropped Sally off at home, loaded
the car up and then headed for the tip, to get rid of all the
garden waste from these last few days. . almost no queue! :o) . .
did a big shop at the supermarket on the way back (£93.05 + £57
on smoking stuff!!) . . did laundry and cut my hair. TVd/PCd the
rest of the day away, having a much needed break from pointless
potting! . .walked. Felt quite a bit cooler this evening - and
kinda quiet. The TV weather forecast has been showing horribly
hot temperatures in London, up around 32 degrees C and suchlike.
It's certainly been sunny and felt hot, but it's been nowhere
near that down here, presumably because of the effect of the
surrounding sea. Been mid twenties most days I think (and around
twenty in the house at night. Sleeping under just a sheet.) - but
quite warm enough for me thank you. . Came home with a large
refuse sack of left overs for Sally, and a lump of beef fit for
me from K. :o) . .ate chips and a huge lump of beef followed by a
couple of kipling apple tarts! Very full . .touched base with BB
. . TVd until bed around midnight. a
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