Skiing Uphill

There is the slightest chance that I may have got this wrong !

I’m talking dishwashers, and I’m not referring to the poor sods earning minimum wage in the back of the Greasy Spoon café whom we all rely upon to receive sanitary food, but about the actual appliance.

I enjoy cooking and eating a meal and then afterwards the absolute convenience of dumping all the dirty stuff, the pots, pans and plates etc into the machine whilst I retire to the comfy chair with a nice glass of wine and wait for said dirty stuff to become clean & dry.  Ergo, the dishwasher is one of my favourite kitchen appliances, running a close second only to the microwave, which incredibly lets me get stuff from frozen to hot without having to really cook anything.  Now that really is what I call convenient. 

However, there comes a time when the actual cleaning machine is in need of a clean itself and today was that day. “Simples” I thought, as I proceeded to unblock the filters and then spay the inside with a “Multi-Action cleaner” that proudly boasted that it “Cuts Grease & Soapy Scum and Kills 99.9% of Bacteria”. I then Loaded the dishes, inserted a dishwasher tablet (plus a second one for good measure) and set the machine going, starting with the Pre-rinse cycle obviously as it needed to rinse the “Multi-Action Cleaner” away before it actually washed the dishes. 

However, my plan, as you may have deduced, was a bit like skiing uphill, it just doesn’t work no matter how hard you try…

 So, two rinses and a full wash cycle later I still have a major superfluity of Suds.

Weddings & Stinging Vegetation

"Sorry I'm late but I had to collect a parcel from the Post Office and the couple in front of me were getting married and didn't have any ID with them, do you like my new gloves, you'll never guess how much I paid for them from the Pound Shop, shall we go ?"

I was confused but thought better of asking Dale for an explanation.... undoubtedly it would be long and convoluted and would involve a new App he had downloaded.  

I have absolutely no idea where we went, as usual. Highway, Byway, Alleyway, Bridleway, Pathway, Subway, Passageway, Driveway and tracks, but we ended up in Ironbridge and crossed said bridge to see where a track he had noticed some weeks ago actually went.

I quickly tried looking secretly at Google earth on the phone ('cos I don't have a mini iPad like Dale)  mini iPad day , but all I could see was a jungle. 
 

Through a gate, it didn't say keep out like I hoped it would, and the track descended steeply through 8 foot high stinging nettles and brambles before ending abruptly on the narrowest of paths some 50 foot above the river, obviously a smugglers (or perhaps a fishermans) path, but certainly not something any sane fool had attempted to cycle along before. We met this challenge head on, well Dale did, literally. Miss Mantle reared up and gave him a brief but loving kiss on the nose and in the process converted his new black bell into a hooter.

Emerging, via some posh-nobs driveway, back into Ironbridge we retired to the cafe for a coffee (the 'Pub' App wasn't working) and to remove the accumulated thorns, fauna and the inevitable leaches from our persons.

Suitably refreshed we sped homeward, without further event but with a plan to 'Explore Wellington' next week, which I thought might be a tad too far for a daytrip even for Dale.

.

The Mistmantle Chronicles

I've put a new bell on Miss Mantle, a big black one, its super loud which means I can go even faster & scare the bejezus out of anyone daft enough to be in front of us and I've downloaded the latest 'Fishcake Recipe' App, she's been serviced and is hot hot hot, so what do you think ?

Dale, what on earth are you babbling on about, who is Miss Mantle and what the feck has hot fishcakes got to do with anything ? 

Well, The Mistmantle Chronicles are a series of books by M. I. McAllister about anthropomorphic animals and feature the life of a pale, honey-coloured Eurasian red squirrel named Urchin, and the first book was "Urchin of the Riding Stars", "Riding Stars"... get it... and I thought the fishcake recipe might be useful ....and actually, by coincidence, Miss Mantle was my primary school teacher and she looked just like the Green Goddess and I fancied her something rotten when I was younger, I wonder what she's doing now !

.......So you up for it tomorrow or what ?

"Does it involve cycling uphill again" ?

NO, well not according to the new 'UK Immigration Statistic Maps' App that I've downloaded to my Mini iPad, but it's currently only showing Bradford, so I expect it'll update itself as we ride along. Anyway I'm not going to go mad, 'cos I did that today. And it'll have to be short one as I have shopping and housework to do in the afternoon, so I'll be round at yours at 9.00 in the morning, Bye ! 

Aaaargh !

Keep your balance

"I'm in the bike shop; the new machine is just getting finely tuned so I'll be with you shortly. You'll need that dusty thing hanging in your garage and some beer tokens; I've charged up the new mini iPad and added a few more useful Apps.  Do you realise I can now find out where and when all the manhole covers in Tunbridge Wells were made just by scanning them using a free App I downloaded this morning !"

Feck, he was serious !!!

We set off at a tremendous pace just before midday, I let him get quite a way ahead as he'd had a bell fitted to his handle bars, which evidently linked by Bluetooth to his mini iPad and an App that could determine the "Family Tree" of anyone he rang it at on the trail, so it was only fair to let him play with it.
It was redders, a proper scorching hot day as we raced along the tracks. Evidently neither the "Food Hygiene" nor "Pub" Apps had been fully updated because we passed up several opportunities of taking on victuals and watering our trust steeds. Eventually arriving at Bridgnorth we stopped to scan a manhole cover conveniently located next to a licensed cafe.

Dale, as with all men has no need to read instructions, especially those of his new HipLock bicycle security system and it did take him a while to work out that you do not chain the bike to yourself as it makes getting to the bar a tad more awkward than necessary.
A couple of cool Thatcher’s and a large helping of Bread Pudding and we were on our way, but  I had failed to realise that the way there had been predominantly downhill and thus the return would be UP !
Feck, Feck !
The App says the Brewery at Ironbridge is open he says, so we can stop for a swift one if we get a move on….. It was closed
Feck, Feck, Feck !
Err, we have two choices here: the long steep road climb or we can go up Paradise said Dale… so a no brainer then I said 

 I made him stop at the Coalbrookdale Inn  (which his App insisted either didn’t exist or was closed even as we stood at the bar ordering.
The rest of the journey, using the new “take me home NOW” App took us up every 1:2 hill in Shropshire and predominantly through housing estates littered with burnt out cars and  populated by children all looking very similar to each other.

I was proper pooped when eventually I got home and had to phone the Not so Bad Lady Wife (who was lounging in the garden) to help me off the bike as I had become welded to it in the heat. 
 
"Life is like riding a bicycle. to keep your balance you must keep moving" 

Mad Dogs and Englishmen...

It all started off so innocently….

We met up with some friends at the Hole in The Wall Festival on Friday evening with the plan to enjoy the sunshine and then chill around the fire pit enjoying the odd bevy or two and engage in witty banter.

By 2am, the Bad Lady Wife and the Good Lady Cindy having departed for bed the previous day, we had exhausted the supply of defrosted cider. Yes, Dale had deliberately put them in the freezer he assured me, “to keep them cool, can’t abide warm Cider”

Awaking to glorious sunshine again around mid-morning, yawn, I had an unnerving recollection of a plan involving Dales new Mini iPad that, not only has the “Hold the Button for as long as you can” App,

but also the "Bin Collection Days for all Streets in the West Midlands” App,  the “Food Hygiene Ratings for all Curry Houses North of Watford” App and more excitingly the “Location of all the Pubs in the World together with opening times and beer prices” App which we could use to go for a bike ride on Monday. That is of course after he had collected his new Velocipede. I also kind of remember his description of it as “a Viper Green Beast with 29 inch 'go-very-fast-wheels' and something like 48 different gear combinations”.

However, I thought no more of it and duly re-commenced reducing the national surfeit of tinned alcohol whilst waiting for the Bad Lady Wife to make my Bacon Butties. Once comfortably replete we adjourned to the main Festival area and settled into the routine of bar-chair-bar- wet head under tap- bar-toilet-bar whilst Blondie, then Bon Jovi and finally The Rolling Stones tried their best to keep us from our competition to get the most beer for the least money. (Dale triumphed on the single round whilst I took the trophy for the greater number of bargain rounds).

The next thing I recall is Sunday lunchtime and a realisation that we were really going out on the bikes on Monday; evidently it had been discussed in great detail back at the vans after the concert.

Dance like your Dad

The 'Good Lady Wife', as she has been affectionatetly referred to, will henceforth and until reparation now be known as the 'Bad Lady Wife' for her despicable and heinous act of leaving the shower set to COLD this morning after she had finished with it. 

The ensuing dance moves,  worthy of someone half my age for agility and speed, painfully rekindled  memories of when my dad insisted on taking to the dance floor at his works Annual Children's Christmas Party in the late 60's. (In subsequent years I mysteriously always went down with a temporary bout of African Trypananosmiasis / Dengue Fever / Athlete's Foot, or the like, on the morning of this party and mercifully had to miss them).

After the dancing came the cold realisation that I was now trapped between the ice cold water and the shower cubicle door.

'Bad Lady Wife'

Johnny Foreigner

Been on a little road trip Balljoint Run 3000 to the lands of no interweb.
Felt like an appendage had been cut off, but am back now and said appendage appears to have grown back . Hoorah !

Well, at least I think I'm back home, as the weather is pretending to be Spanish and I'm feeling decidedly sweaty in my jumper cagoule and wellies. Still, it does always pay to be ready for the British weather.

I hope I really am home and this is not some sort of Dallasesque type dream.