and today i have mostly been...

[Doggy]

Lovely pics Steve, she really was a beauty. I feel for you.

[steve_earwig]

Cheers Eric, she was gentle and kind too - my wife has a story of how she watched her lear a space in the snow for Dori, her sister-in-law's cocker, go and do his business in. The snow was too high for him otherwise.

Ah well, life once again pokes me with a big stick to remind me to be nice to the animals (including humans) I care about while I have time, which could be shorter than I think.


I have once more been trying to take a picture of Mary with her, now sadly lop-sided, smile and failing miserably. Although I think I've finally realised the impossibility of photographing both sides of a dog's head at the same time...



You can't see it in the pic but she's smiling her head off on the right side of her face, the left side is just limp. It doesn't bother her so it's just something I'll get used to seeing.

Meanwhile...

Today this

has turned into this


No, I didn't sell Max (wouldn't get much for him anyway), a mate of his found a buyer for the big Stihl. 3,500Kn, which I suspect I'm lucky to get. It's sad to see it go but, realistically, I couldn't use it for what it's meant for, so it would've just sat around being a nuisance.

And finally, today I have mostly been... feeling very sleepy. After a very bad but short lived cold, I woke up yesterday morning with a rash all over my arms and legs (Google hives if you want a picture). What's that for? No idea, ignore it and it'll go away. This morning it was worse, it had spread to my head and my eyes were "puffy" so we went out to find a chemist open on a bank holiday (as today is) to see about some cream. Nothing doing so we ended up at the clinic where I got two injections in me bum and told not to drive today. Umm, how do we get home? We had to wait for a while to see if I'd have a reaction to the drugs, nothing seemed to change so I drove home. Still feeling fine I got the Flymo out (behaved itself impeccably btw). Towards the end it turned into a bit of a slog so when I finished I came in doors and collapsed in the armchair. And that was me for most of the rest of the day Looking at my legs now it's still a bit blotchy but nothing like it was. Weird.

[Welly]

U R got the lurgy

I'm still playing visit whoever's in Hospital; FIL had a bit of his Brain Tumour taken for sampling.....Cancer, great so he's back at home, his Driving Licence revoked, and facing twice-weekly Hospital appointments to be 'zapped' with either Radiotherapy or Chemo. Trouble is he's one of those big 'proud men' who worked as an heavy industrial Welder and everyone else is a 'poofter' I can honestly see him going for one or two of these sessions and then telling them to FRO

Meanwhile my Dad is now in Hospital suffering the effects of Heart Failure, lots of Water Retention and breathing problems, they're sorting the WR out (lost 22lbs in 4 days) and he's slowly recovering but his Heart is damaged now so god knows what'll happen when he's sent home (lives alone) I've got two Sisters locally so between us we can keep a close eye on him.

Onwards and upwards and all that....

[steve_earwig]

My god that's worrying, kind of knocks my problems into a cocked hat.

I can well imagine your FiL getting rapidly hacked off with chemo, my experience of it is it's extremely nasty stuff that seems to do a lot of damage and, I know it helps a lot of people but, in both my mother's and my sis-in-law here's cases, all it did was make their last days all the more awful.

Your dad's water retention says his heart is in very poor shape. If I were you I'd spend as much time with him as possible, and make sure he spends as little time as possible on his own.

I am very sorry about your family's troubles, all I can do from here is send our wishes to you and your family.


I've had a pretty crappy day but I really don't feel like prattling on about it now. Just quickly, my wife is in hospital but not anything to be alarmed about, just a simple procedure that's all over with and she's texting me now because she's bored. Unfortunately the hospital told us absolutely nothing helpful, we didn't even know she'd need to stay in until we'd been there 2 hours. And I had to resist the temptation to strangle a nurse.

Also, I'm on another diet due to the hives as nobody knows what it was about, So, simple food like boiled rice, pasta, chicken, carrots. Urgh, I may as well not eat anything at all.

[Welly]

Thank you Steve, we're pretty fragile things when you come to think of it. Feel a bit sorry for the Old Man as he's spent all his life working, he's got plenty of money to do whatever and go wherever he wants but his health......urgh...happy retirement eh? ffs.

[steve_earwig]

And there's my dad, spent all his life working, he's in pretty good shape for 82 (2 new hips) although he has crippling arthritis in his hands. He just seems obsessed with not leaving enough for the tax man to get his hands on. We tell him to spend it all, enjoy himself, go around the world whatever but he just says he's got no one to go with. So all he does is more bleeding work. I think he's finished laying the paving now, I'm not sure what's next although I'm sure he'll think of something

Bad news on the chainsaw, apparently it's got no power due to little compression. Max reckons this is straight up as it's a mate of a mate and not some attempt to get it even cheaper. I can't imagine it will have worn out while not being used, more likely the carb needs a rebuild, but I'm refunding the money no messing about. It looks bloody fantastic, I can't believe it's almost valueless. I was thinking maybe to pull the other one apart and rebuild it but I may just keep this one as an ornament.

Also, t'wife has returned from the hostable sporting a black eye. It's down to the op she's had (removal of tiny mystery lump in the corner of her eye) but I'm expecting to get some odd looks... There were more fun and games there today as they kept us waiting 2 bleedin' hours for her discharge papers. I think somebody else deserves a black eye.

And my lunch is ready, chicken and carrot soup, delicious

[Welly]

Good call on the refund, an under-powered chainsaw is pretty dangerous I guess.

Did t'wife have a lump on the eye ball itself?

[steve_earwig]

More just useless really. It's got worse anyway, I have a text from Max asking if I could bring the other one so they could use the engine out of that. Umm, so you take the two machines that I have for sale, use the good parts from both to make one good* one, pay me for that one machine and leave me a pile of junk? What the actual?

No no no, in the bit between where her eyeball stops and her nose starts.

[steve_earwig]

The Stihl is back and it's even worse than I thought - it's seized. What the actual f*ck? I feel like I've been made a monkey out of yet again, when I buy stuff I often feel like I'm getting the sh*t end of the deal and when I sell stuff I always feel like I'm clutching at the brown stuff again - am I stupid?

Can they have the engine out of the other one? Rearrange these words into a well known phrase or saying - Off. Right. f*ck.

[annie]

poss engine swap scam ?

[steve_earwig]

I can't say the idea didn't cross my mind.

[annie]

sounds entirely plausible... so many rip off scumbags about.

[Welly]

I thought these people were Friends*

[steve_earwig]

A mate of my mate Max's mate I'm reaching the conclusion that I don't trust Max's mates as I think some of them just use him as he's easily bribed with food and alcohol to do the sh*t jobs they don't want to do, like the other week he was making squibs from scratch for one of them where there's a fair chance of loosing a finger or 5 and all for the princely sum of 5 quid a pop.

He asked me yesterday what he should tell the guy about the other engine. I told him to tell him to go f*ck himself but I don't think he'll be passing that along. Thing is, I can appropriate that maybe it did have a fault but lack of compression does not equal seized. I suspect a likely scenario is the main jet was blocked but someone's tried to use it like that so it's overheated and locked up. And nobody's bothered to tell me what's happened to it until I've refunded the money and am no longer in a position to do anything about it.

[Welly]

I think, no I know, if it was me I'd hoof the bloody thing in the bin and forget about it. And remember not to get too involved with Max's mates mates......