View From The Window

 Another week gone and January almost done, which is just as well as it is as miserable month after the festivities and always reminds us that not much changes, it is hard to be upbeat when outside is once again grey and wet, not as cold though. Very dark, threatening clouds over by Ingleborough, Washington House is still up for sale and Eyebrow Cottage's new kitchen must be complete as their skip has gone.


My kitchen has no walls or ceiling at the moment it all lies in the skip outside the Post Office, I will have no rest today either as the electrician is coming to tie in the cables, he asked for today as all the power will be off, even though I was happy to close the PO for the day if it had been during the week. He has also managed to put a tear in my study carpet, right in the middle where it sticks out like a sore thumb, I am going to hide somewhere today when he turns up as the missus has her sights on him, there could be blood. The chimney still leaks as well. Although the other lads and to be fair the electrician are doing sterling work wouldn't you just like someone to come and do a job with no hassle or confrontation at all. I once had to call out a drunken bum of an electrician on a Sunday morning, I of course did not know he was a drunken bum until he turned up, to fix my electrics which had gone off and I needed the shop fridges back on pronto. He stumbled into the house, hit the switch, which I had been hitting for an hour or so, and boom, on it came, he still took £50 for the call out!

My missus has been giving me stick for not taking an interest in the new kitchen, living room and a dozen other things, so to this end I was dragged out to look at paint and floor tiles yesterday. We went to Morecambe first for lunch and tried a different Chinese from our normal one, big mistake, food was OK, service was lax and the place had no heating. We left there for Lancaster only to find the paint shop had closed for the afternoon, we spotted a tile shop in the same industrial estate and popped in there. Every tile I liked was dismissed with disdain, many which were nice were obviously not good enough, I could see right away the salesman was wasting his time, he should have got back to his Candy Crush. I can see what your are thinking, why was I there. We sped up the motorway to the tile shop she wanted to see in the first place, only to find out it belonged to the same company as the one we had just been at! Again I spotted some nice tiles, but no, they were not nice enough, madam chose the tile she wanted and hey presto it was all over. I still have to go through the same routine for the paint at some point.

A lot about the EU this last week, David Cameron floundering about being ignored by countries which add nothing to the EU but insisting that their citizens can come here and immediately sign on for benefits, I know a lot of them work I've seen them quietly take over most of the service industry, but a lot don't. I would like to see how much I would get if I hopped off a plane at Riga International and tried to sign on.

What is left of the British Steel industry is teetering on the brink, 1,000 jobs gone in Wales and of course there are howls of outrage as we build warships and other things with foreign steel, but seemingly the governments hands are tied if we do try and help as it has to be run past the EU first, and of course the answer there is" Nein".


It is not as if there is no money to help, £20m has just been earmarked to teach Muslin women to speak English. I might be wrong here but if I went to Italy I would not expect the Italian government to pay me to learn Italian, wouldn't that be one of the first things on my 'to do' list. One of our own leaders intimated that it might put them off strapping bombs to themselves, not in so many words of course, don't want to upset anyone. Don't forget the £3m for the footballing Chinese.

Why do jeans manufacturers insist on putting buttons on the flys of jeans, they are usually metal and larger than the buttonholes they have to go through and there is never enough space there to grab the thing properly and push it through. After a time the cover slips to the side and you walk about with your buttons showing as if you are half dressed. I have seen guys in toilets completely open with their jeans half way down the buttocks to pee, not a nice sight. I have decided to make a stand and never buy another pair with buttons, only the humble but perfectly practical zip will do for me. During my last trip to London during the Boxing Day sales I thought I would pick up a pair of jeans, the looks I got when I insisted they be regular instead of skinny, boot cut, straight, flared etc. and with a zip were to be treasured, it was if I had just stepped out of the Tardis. It took me about four shops before I managed it.

I am in a bit of a hurry today, the electrician is expected in about twenty minutes and that is it for the electricity for the day, or at the very least several hours, I will of course be lost without my PC or light to paint by.