I thought seagulls ate everything

Apparently not dead frogs you've chucked on the lawn.

Headless body found in grounds of Bristol hospital

Quote from BBC Bristol website today:

"A headless body has been found in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital in the Brislington area of Bristol......It is thought the body, and the head found nearby, are those of a man and they had been there for six months.

An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said the death did not appear to be suspicious ........"

Really? Not even the teensy weensiest bit?

Jamie, our fishman, came yesterday. He'd been ringing up before Christmas on the offchance but I didn't have room in the freezer so I never got back to him. But he rang again yesterday, so I was pleased to tell him to call.

He's got a new van (which in all honesty looks identical to the last one, but I didn't like to tell him that). And somehow, between changing vans, he's left his zipzap machine in the old one so couldn't take debit cards. Have I got a cheque book? Fortunately the answer is yes, so I head out to new van complete with cheque book and card (er, no I don't need card, apparently).

Problem. Inside he has a big freezebox made of 2" thick polystyrene. He goes to open door but ... ah! freezebox has inexorably shifted an inch or two to the right, so he can't open freezebox door. After about 5 minutes he manages, using full boot strength, etc, to shift the freezebox enough that he can carry on trading.

I'm trying to support a local independent trader but... oh well you only have to look at his website to see what he's up against. I can't find it at the moment, but one of the offerings when he first started up on his own was the "Cock'o'van" - I kid you not.

In other news, the arrogant bastard has opened up another shop in the area - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-16423230 .

This is the story of Stuart Montgomery, an arrogant shit who thinks he can just open his Costa Coffee branches anywhere he likes. He already has branches in Portishead and Henleaze and then he opened one, without planning permission for a change of use, on Whiteladies Road in a premises which used to be a newsagent (and I have indeed shopped there myself in the past). Another local coffee shop has already reported reduced takings since Costa opened.

After that he decided to open another branch on the Gloucester Road (notable for being possibly the last real high street in the country). Despite a petition of 3,000 signatures, and a refusal of planning permission (not least based on the 18 coffee shops in the vicinity), he decided to open up here anyway.

And now he's opened another one in Westbury-on-Trym. He seems determined to walk rough-shod over everyone else for his own gain. Bristol City Council say they are investigating, but as they are the most useless council in the country I don't hold out much hope.

Happy New Year to you all!

Let's hope 2012's better, eh?

Hands up all those whose Christmas involved a dead frog

Or how to deal with a demented MiL at Christmas.

Having arranged that older son (who is a chef) will cook Christmas meal and we will take it to MiL's house just leaving the parboiled potatoes to roast when we get there, we load the car up and set off down the motorway. Slightly later than I would have liked as none of the children want to get out of bed.

Tried phoning MiL throughout the 40-mile journey to tell her to put the oven on to heat up (in the full knowledge that 10 minutes later she'll go out to the kitchen and switch it off again). Constantly I get "User busy". She doesn't talk to anyone that long, ever. When we get there we discover upstairs extension has been left off the hook "so that no-one can phone me up at night", or during the day, or ever.

We arrive to find her eating soup. "What are you doing here?" We've brought your Christmas dinner. "Oh well, when you didn't come yesterday, I thought you weren't coming. It's Boxing Day now." No, it's Christmas Day, and we've brought your dinner.

Older son and I head for kitchen, and proceed to make full use of antibacterial spray, J-cloths, washing up liquid, rubber gloves, etc. before we even attempt the dinner. I ask younger son to bring me all the cutlery so I can wash that before we use it, and he comes back to say there are no forks in the sideboard drawer. The corkscrew has also disappeared.

OH goes upstairs and announces that toilet needs severe attention. Seems like having a water meter means you shouldn't use any water. We leave that area to him, whilst we battle on downstairs.

I hunt out all the so-called "clean" towels and facecloths, etc plus the dirty ones and put them all in the washing machine.

After lunch, older son takes remaining scraps out to put on lawn for seagulls to fight over, and comes back in to say drains are blocked and washing machine is discharging over the path and garden.

Whilst I'm washing up and trying to find pegs to hang washing out (Aren't they hanging up in the cupboard in the kitchen?" Er no, that's had a fridge/freezer filling that cupboard for the last 25 years. "Oh well I don't know where they are then.") OH and older son find drain rods and clear some stuff but there still seems to be a blockage at the U-bend bit. Turns out to be (quite a large) dead frog.

Add to that the fact that when we arrived she was sat watching the TV with no signal, just a large figure 1 at the top, having disconnected the set-top tuner and all its cables, who knows how long ago she'd done that. She seems to have thrown out recently: a salt and pepper set, a TV remote control (she was found recently trying to change channels with a calculator), the panic alarm in the hall - all things she saw no need for.

So you see, Tim, 24 hours and I get back to normality. Hope you all had a lovely day.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Just think - in 24 hours it'll all be over!

In which my faith in the spirit of Christmas is restored

Picture the scene, dear reader(s). We are driving from Bristol to Castle Combe, a well known racing circuit, because S wants to get some jiggery pokery done with some hoses for his TR6. On the way we overtake an impossibly large "Smurf** Kappa" wagon.

We arrive at a small village in Wiltshire called Burton (according to Wikipedia, a place with only 96 households) and spy a pub that looks a possible lunching spot. S turns into the carpark but decides there is not enough space so comes out into the road to turn round. Remembering that there is this large blue Smurf due to come round the corner very shortly he smartly puts the car into reverse. Except that the gearstick broke off in his hand, right at the bottom.

We are now stuck in the road, in neutral but unable to engage any gears, with a large wagon about to come round the corner any minute.

Leap out, energetically push car on pavement, breathe.

Possibly fortuitously we discover that we are actually on the forecourt of a garage (as in mending, not as in fuel) which even has an RAC sign. Mechanic comes out, but says cost for transporting dead vehicle back to Bristol will be at least £100 and that I should phone RAC and see if they will pay.

Phone RAC who accept my call, but say it will be about 2 hours. I point out that a snapped gearstick is not really repairable roadside but I'm told that it will be up to their man to make the shout as to whether we need transporting, or not.

Things are looking rather bleak, but then the garage owner comes out (having finished his lunch) and decides that the gearstick can be taken off and welded back together again which will at least get us home (via Castle Combe, obviously).
And then, when he's finished and reassembled the car, he refuses to take any money for this - "Happy Christmas", he says.
There, see, goodwill does still survive.