Sunday 20 April 2008

It's The Tyne Wear Derby

..and absolutely nothing hangs on on it!! . At the start of the season hopes were , in Toon, that this would be the match where Newcastle put Sunderland down. The Mackems dont look like they're going anywhere , and until three weeks back there talk of relegation in Toon.

Anyway, there's nowt riding on this bar pride (which is very important, as Ruud Gullit found out to his cost. Hopefully we'll see a lot of goals and given so I'll just have a punt of four or more goals in the match or maybe both teams to score.

Have a bet here if you fancy it:



As an addendum to this I had to tke a trip down Clayton Street, and had to weave my way through the overspill from Thr Black Garter and The Clock , very scary indeed. On Derby Days it's a good idea to avoid areas like Clayton Street , in fact it's a good idea to avoid any day!!

See the Toon won 2-0, keeping another clean sheet and ruining my bets (though I also had Owen to score so not all was lost).

Saturday 19 April 2008

As It Was


I've posted lots of photos of the house as the garden gas been developed though there isnt any of what it was like. So here's the front:





And then we have a couple images of the "wild" back garden , which was not too bad really!! We didn't really know what to do with it but the planning guy came up with some great ideas for front and back and applied the transformations that you see documented in the rest of the blog. Apparently we can put video up here as well but I've not got that far but we'll see what we can do!!







Another thing today , PG Tips have a great promotion featuring a PG Tips "Munky" T-Towel and DVD , so get yerself down to you local supermarket and get yourself one!!! Watch it here

Sunday 13 April 2008

Back To Front

The house is coming on slowly (or it seems slowly) however the front , driveway and garden is now complete . The back just needs tidying , but the front now looks quite presentable , and a lot more manageable than it was before. Also the wall between us and next door will stop the postie from skipping over what was there before. It's brilliant not to have to take a run up to get the car over the 3 inch concrete lip that was there before, and feel your car exhaust is not going to be taken off every time you leave.



One of the selling points on this was the lifetime guarantee , and annual maintenance which will save us doing it. A house further up the street had theirs done , and is now the possessor of two rather obvious grooves where their car goes!!!. Anyway here's a couple of pictures of what the drive is like now.

Saturday 12 April 2008

The Drinks Display From Hell!!

Short one this. The cash machine wasnt working so went to the Post Office Counter which has the drinks cabinet adjacent. THIS DRINKS CABINET:



Three types of Lambrini , Both White Lightning and White Strike Cider , augmented by Stryke lager and Blue Nun wine, it's a veritable Charver Harrods!!

Needless to say I left after getting the photograph!!

Wednesday 9 April 2008

Seven Days (Waiting For) Grass

We now have grass and a water feature (looking like the monolith from 2001) and lots of plants in our back garden. It's almost there!!!


A couple of views , firstly from an inebriates perspective, on virtually on the floor:

Then we have our relocated holly bush:



And the patio corner with monolith!!


And another view of the garden:

And the front looks far nicer now as well!!




And thats it for today, time for a drink methinks!!

April 19th is National Record Shop Day

National Record Shop Day is a celebration of independent record shops , so show your support and buy a record from your local independent shop . If it wasn't for places like these you would probably be only to buy the latest Pop Idol release and Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston compilations.

The ones I can think of in Newcastle are:

Theres a Rough Trade article here

So on the 19th go out and do it otherwise you'll only be able to buy your music from Woolworths and Tesco!!!

Tuesday 8 April 2008

Being Prepared!!!

Whenever you do something , you tend to plan things out and ensure that all things are in place in order to reach you particular goal. If you're going on a car journey you make sure you know where you are going , have enough petrol and a spare tyre.

In our latest installment of home improvements , we've decided on a new bathroom , so part of our preparations was the fact that we have a second bathroom to wash, shower and have a wee!! All was fine .... or so we thought. What we hadn't counted on was the plumber accidentally cutting off the water supply to the second bathroom. Oh sugar we thought , no hot water , no flushing toilet , no shower.

Still it was only one night , but the lesson to be learned is that there is always something else to go wrong even when you think you've thought of everything!!!

On a far more pleasant note an artist friend of mine has just been featured in Artists and Illustrators Magazine with a very impressive spread. His website is here and has a link to the article as well as many examples of his excellent paintings, such as the one below.

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Seven Days In The Garden #2


The garden is slowly developing. Ten tons of topsoil delivered and installed (is that the right word , yesterday. The pile on the left is now distributed in the garden and raised beds.






The back is waiting for turf but looking much more garden like.
In the front the cobbles are down so we now have a drive way.
Looking forward to a weekend with a garden!!

Tuesday 1 April 2008

Seven Days On Public Transport - Observations

I'm currently spending a lot of time commuting down the east cost line utilising bus and train. Most days the system works remarkably well , door to door 50 mile journey in something around 70 minutes.

However the behaviour of some people never fails to surprise me.

On The Train:

  • People scour the whole train looking for a double or quad seat for themselves , refusing to consider sitting next to a "stranger" . What's the problem? Though I'm fine , I'll sit next to anyone , and take a perverse delight in making that git move their case or laptop from the seat.
  • When the train sets off , why do people immediately leave their seat and stand in the aisle , blocking every ones way , in order to rummage through their suitcase or laptop case or whatever . Never fails to happen.

On The Bus:

  • When it's crowded people sit in the middle of a seat to discourage you from sitting down. Not me . "Can you shift up please , missus"
  • Why do students congregate around the front of the bus , whether or not there's free seats further down the bus? The number of times a half empty bus has sped past my stop because this , well I've lost count. And this is the future of this country!!!!
Anyway just a couple of gripes and observations , no doubt there'll be more....