Sunday, 23 December 2012

Cows, Christmas, Cat's Bum-holes, and Mutts

Bloody flaps. I am NEVER moving house just before Christmas ever again. My head is swivelling on my neck, a bit like that bird from The Exorcist. Looking on the bright side, at least I am not chucking up and speaking backwards.

The actual move went quite smoothly but it was all the other stuff afterwards that was the killer. But before I discuss that, I thought I would give you an update on the mutt's progress.

As you know, Naughty George sustained a horrible injury, cutting his head and nose open on barbed wire last weekend, and had to get stitches from the vet.

You will be pleased to hear that he is back to his usual self. Only this morning, he vacuously woofed through an entire conversation that I had with my next door neighbour. Then crapped in her garden.

Pic.No.1 Naughty George was back to his old self

But his encore was escaping from the garden and running into the fields behind our house. The herd of cows that live there were not happy with the invasion, and chased the little git back home. I found him quivering on the other side of the fence surrounded by soon-to-be burgers.

Pic.No.2 Cows are evil. They chased Naughty George back home and here they are staring at me over the fence in my garden. That one on the left looks a bit like a boviney Hugh Grant. That one on the far right looks possessed

But back to the house. Like I said, the move went quite smoothly with the help of Jane and Chum, and everything got straight quite quickly. But I had forgotten that I was having new windows installed. The window company had originally scheduled it for January (which is why I had forgotten, because that is ages away), but they brought it forward because another customer had cancelled. ARSE. So the house descended into chaos again.

Pic.No.3 Here are my new windows being unloaded from the van

Pic.No.4 Even though the window company put down dust sheets, the procedure still covered the house in a layer of crap which took hours to clean ... but hell, it is now really warm and (which I didn't expect), ...... quiet. I can't even hear the bastard cows mooing

Then, after all that, I HAD to transform the horrible granny-piss 70's living room into something I could live with. So I took your advice and painted that bloody disgusting brown unit in the corner. What do you think?

Pic.No.5 This is what my living room looked like BEFORE (capital letters for added gravitas) ........

Pic.No.6 This is what my living room looks like AFTER (it took ages) ...... getting there do you think? Blimey, I've just noticed that bloody disgusting lampshade. I need to get a blowtorch on it  ...... any other suggestions that would make the room look better dahlink?

And as if all that wasn't enough, I also had to get ready for Christmas. I reckon that despite all the moving-house milarky, I managed to buy 80% of the presents that I needed ..... and I wrapped the bastards (I am only going to buy square presents next year). And I can quite categorically state that the most annoying facet of Christmas is trying to get the sticky backs off those silver rosette things that you stick to presents.

Pic.No.7 Here is some of the stash of presents that I wrapped ...... I've got Izzy the best gadget ever for Christmas .... but I'll tell you more later

After wrapping the presents, I kind of breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I had done my duty. But then a chum from the village turned up, and expressed consternation about my lack of Christmas decorations.

"It's looking a little barren in here," he said.

"I'm not putting-up decorations," I replied (having been disruptioned-out by preceding events).

"You miserable bastard," he pointed out.

I must admit. I had decided that I couldn't be bothered to put up Christmas decorations, but I was properly shamed into doing something.

Pic.No.8 So I whacked up this fibre-optic tree, but I didn't hang any crap off it (saves time with disassembly)

Pic.No.9 And then to turn my house into Santa's grotto, I hung this thumb-sized Christmas stocking next to two cat-bum-holes

So dahlink, tell me about your Christmas plans ..... what have you got lined up?

P.S. Sorry I haven't visited your Blog in a while ..... I will catch up over Christmas. Have a good one! x

Sunday, 16 December 2012

Naughty George has got himself horribly injured .......

What a God awful day it was today.

It all started ok ..... although it was cold, the sun was shining, the evil cows were mooing by the back fence, and the Blue Tits were swarming round the bird feeder, darting this way and that.

"Shall we take Naughty George for a long walk?" I asked Izzy, knowing full well what the answer would be.

"Awww, do we have to? I want to play on my Nintendo," came the reply.

"Yes we do have to. And if you argue, I'm going to lob you over the fence," I said (I am like Supernanny).

"Ooooookaaay," Izzy acquiesced, begrudgingly making her way to the kitchen and putting her wellies on.

Five minutes later we were walking down the road like a camel train. There was Naughty George up front dragging one arm forward. I was in the middle, and with my second arm I dragged Izzy along behind me ..... shuffling and complaining about missing Nintendo time.

Disaster struck as soon as we reached the gate to the first field. Naughty George was in particularly high spirits, bouncing around like a puppy, and instead of waiting for the gate to be opened, he excitedly tried to dive under the adjacent fence.

I heard a massive 'yelping' sound and turned to see Naughty George looking pretty stunned. Basically because he is 16/17 years old, his eyesight wasn't keeping up with his body and he had badly misjudged the gap under the fence and had ran full pelt into the barbed-wire keeps.

I ran over to him, and immediately realised that his injury was pretty bad. It was his head and face, The cut extended from the top of his head down his nose, and it had gone right through his skin so that I could see the bone beneath. I felt sick and panicky, but bizarrely, NG didn't seem to register his injury for a while, and the vet later told me that adrenalin kicks in with injuries like this.

I made the decision to take him straight home and luckily on the way, I bumped into a acquaintance who lives in the village.

"Naughty George is hurt!" I shouted to him (in a bit of an upset, teary way. I am probably going to be labelled the village nutter from now on).

He surveyed NG's injuries and said that I needed to take him to a vet immediately, and gave me a telephone number of one that was open on a Sunday.

Ten minutes later, I bundled NG and Izzy in to the bling-mobile and we were on our way to the veterinarian's surgery. Twenty minutes later we were ushered into the veterinarian's consulting room.

"That's a very nasty cut," vet lady said after examining him. And then she added, "because he is so old, I think it is unwise to administer any anaesthetic."

Uh oh. All vets fall into this trap.

"I know he's old, but he is bloody strong and you won't be able to do anything unless you sedate him," I said.

"We'll give it a go," she replied, winking at me. Uh oh.

Suffice to say, she quickly realised that she was onto a loser after she'd wrestled with him for 20 minutes, despite the fact that NG had received three shots of Pethidine.

So then she gave him four shots of anaesthetic ......and nothing. As a final straw, an assistant was called in to try and hold him down. But he was still fighting to get off the vet's table. That's my boy.

But the good news is that she finally managed to get enough drugs into him to stitch him up properly.

And even better, Naughty George is back home after the trauma. 

 Pic.No.1 This is Naughty George with his injury .... it looks loads better now that it has been stitched up. I was proper scared. The scar was about three inches long

Pic.No.2 Ever since he injured himself, Naughty George has stuck close by my side which is cool with me

So, after taking him to the Emergency Veterinary today, I have to take him to the regular Vet tomorrow to make sure that he doesn't get an infection in his injury ...... wish me luck dahlink .... I am worried about the little chap .........

P.S. How has your week gone?

Saturday, 15 December 2012

Welcome to my new house dahlink!

Gordon-bleedin'-Bennett. It's been a helluva week. As you already know, I moved house last weekend, and I've had to muster all my strength to write this post. I feel weaker than Paris Hilton's funny eye. 

Basically, because I was only moving 100 yards down the road, I decided not to hire a van, and instead use my pimp-mobile. Plus I enlisted the help of my cousin Jane, and another chum, who is shy, so I shall call him Sabre for the purposes of this blog. 

We decided to start the move early at 11am, and I had a cunning plan to move a room at a time, so that I wouldn't have to work out where things were going at the new abode, which kind of worked out pretty well, but didn't negate the amount of hard work we had to put in. 

Suffice to say, we did 12 car journeys back and forth ...... and my car is like a van inside when the seats are all collapsed, so that's a lot of stuff. And, I can categorically state that I would rather twat my sofa into pieces with a spade, than try and get it out of the house if I ever leave. That's because the most painful moment of the move was manoeuvring the bastard through a door, and around a 90 degree bend without it touching the floor. It was harder than nailing jelly to a tree.

But Jane and Sabre were magnificent like a Mighty Meat Feast pizza, and by 8pm, we had pretty much moved everything into my new house.

And because I am kind like Florence Nightingale (except I don't tend to sick soldiers), I have got some 'before' and 'after' pictures for you ...........

Pic.No.1 Before - this was my new dining room just after we had finished moving

Pic.No.2 After - this was my dining room this evening (that's my computer on the table that I blog from)

Pic.No.3 I haven't got a 'before' picture of this angle. But technically, this is an 'after' picture of the view into the kitchen from the dining room (all those boxes on the floor are my Christmas decorations waiting to go up)

Pic.No.4 Before - This was my kitchen shortly after moving in

Pic.No.5 After - This was my kitchen this evening

Pic.No.6 Before - Another view of my kitchen shortly after moving in

Pic.No.7 After - This is what my kitchen looks like now. Yes, I know that if you live in America, it probably looks small, but everything is WAY smaller in the UK

Pic.No.8 This was Jane donning one of my hats that she found during the move .... nob!

Pic.No.9 This is Naughty George's new home ...... a basket right next to the radiator. He bloody loves it. He only gets out twice a day to piss on my potted plants in the garden

Pic.No.10 Before - This was my living room after just moving in

Pic.No.11 After - This is my living room today. It has actually deteriorated because after I moved, I realised that I had a cellar full of shit that needed moving from the old house (hence the boxes) ....... but it'll get sorted

Pic.No.12 Before - This was the fireplace after just moving in. Those horse-brasses hanging off the fireplace were gross and had to go

Pic.No.13 After - Jeez the whole room still looks like something from the 70s. I REALLY need to paint that horrible cupboard in the corner and get rid of the BROWN curtains. They make me want to vom

Pic.No.14 And ....... sigh ................ I still have piles of stuff that need to be put somewhere ..... and that's after donating a ton of stuff to charity and to the local school

Pic.No.15 Gulp, this is my DVD surround-sound system. It's been on the floor for a week now because I haven't got a clue what all the wires plug into

Pic.No.16 Another cool thing was that a company called Scotch Brite read that I was moving house and sent me a whole load of freebie cleaning stuff ....... not that I like cleaning, mind you, but it is still ace getting freebies

Also, as expected, despite getting a text from BT informing me that my services were going to be 'live' from last Saturday, (and them delivering all my phone/broadband equipment on-time), it didn't happen.

I plugged my phone and wi-fi router in as instructed and ...... nothing.

So I logged a support call with British Telecom (BT) which went on for two days. We had multiple conversations trying to diagnose the fault, but nothing came to fruition.

But then, a guy called Aaron - nice chap - who had lived in the house before me turned up to collect some of his post. I happened to ask him about whether he had managed to get broadband when he lived here.

"Yeh easily," he said, pointing to a plug socket near to the front door (a socket that I hadn't even noticed) .............................  suffice to say it was NOT the socket that my stuff was plugged into.

And would you berluddy believe it .... I plugged all my kit into the new socket .......... and it worked immediately. DOH.

Apologies to BT ............ they didn't miss a beat ........ it was all my fault. Great service, respect due.

 P.S. So Dahlink, how are your Christmas preparations going?

Monday, 10 December 2012

The grand move descends upon me

Gordon Bennett! As you already know, I got the keys to my new house last weekend, and even though I don't officially move in until tomorrow, I took advantage of the fact and drip-fed the move over a number of days.

And I'm glad I did, despite the fact that I have felt grimy all week: Hoofing furniture around ingrains dust into every proximate orifice, and I've been coughing like a tramp on meths. In fact, I am starting to look a bit like a tramp on meths. Except that I don't have a bowl with a sign saying; "will eat for food.'"

Another thing. How much shit have I got?

Jeez, I always thought I was pretty minimalist ..... until I loaded my seventh car-load of crap.

But then it dawned on me ...... there was a definite height-to-crap ratio. I'm 5'5" tall and have quite a lot of stuff. Izzy is only about 2 feet tall, but she has spent her 7 years accumulating crap that would rival a Bombay recycling slum.

"Izzy, do you really need this empty coke bottle?" I asked after eventually plucking up the courage to address her various hoarded masses.

"YES!" she hollered back, "I use it wash my ducks."

"What about this old doll with one leg?" I enquired tentatively, holding the offensive article up to her face.

"My teacher told me that she was disabled and I've got to look after her." 

DAMN

"But Iz," I implored, "surely you don't need six bags of marbles. You haven't played with them for months."

"I am going to sell them to Archie at school and use the money to buy an Xbox," she stated (that's my girl).

I gave it one last half-hearted attempt, "Iz ....... you don't really need this handful of gravel that you collected from the driveway?"

"That's precious because it will remind me of our old house," she replied earnestly. 

Suffice to say, I got precisely nowhere.

And oh, before I forget, here are some pics of my quickly emptying house ........ 

Pic.No.1  This is my old living room ..... all stripped bare (apart from the pictures ..... and some furniture ...... and a suitcase ......... ok, it's not really stripped bare)


Pic.No.2 This is the old kitchen. With all the lamps removed it looks starker than Tony Blair's fan club. And I've taken the toilet roll. Is that tight?

As for Naughty George, he developed a new speciality. Every time I staggered out of the house, laden with a REALLY heavy box, his super-hero power was lying in the exact spot that I needed to walk through ...... so I tripped over him every-single-berluddy-time. I've got a bruise on my chin where I had to break my fall with my face. And the four-legged git only survived being squashed by a gnat's knacker.

The whole house moving / keeping the mutt out of the way just wasn't working, so I needed a plan ..... and fast. Rising to the challenge, I came up with a plan so cunning that you could stick a tail on it and call it a fox.

I lit the fire ..........

Yep, Naughty George is a heat-whore. He loves sweating and shaking in the sunshine, burrowing under duvets, and licking radiators and wood-burning stoves.

Pic.No.3 Once the fire was lit, we had 6 hours straight to empty the house before Naughty George moved again. Seriously, I think he might be a sloth terrier

So thanks to my lovely cousin, Jane and my other chum (shy and doesn't want to be named) we got my house move nailed in under 24 hours. Literally, everything was moved and unpacked in less than a day.

And after moving into my new house (pics to come in another blog), I noticed that there are things that are universally annoying in every house move:

1. Programming the central heating / air con requires a PhD (oops big fail)

2.  Getting used to the position of light switches takes ages

3. There are never enough plug sockets in the right places

4. The shower always feels weaker than it did at the last house

5. No matter how much storage you have, there are things that don't fit

6. It doesn't matter how far you move, the mutt still stinks

So dahlink, I am now nearly in ...... do you have any top moving tips?

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