Robot Santas Spotted In Odiham?

I spotted these in the window of the local Ford Garage and couldn't help but think that they bore a little bit of a resemblance to the Robot Santas that appeared in both this years and last years Doctor Who Christmas specials (with a bit of imagination!)


(Real Robot Santa pics taken from Doctor Who Online)

Waiting!

Today has been a bored day! One of those listless, don't know what I want to do, can't be bothered with the things I know I should do, generally fed up sort of days!

In an attempt to snap out of my gloomy mood I decided to go for a wander with my camera. Even that was a little half hearted, I couldn't be bothered to drive anywhere so I ended up roaming the same old places in Odiham, and believe me when I say it's not a big place so there's only so much to see.

I decided to see if I could capture any of the Autumn colours that there are around at the moment, especially as it seemed like we'd almost skipped Autumn this year. The weather seemed to suddenly go from summer to winter, t-shirts and sunshine one moment and then dark evenings and winter coats the next.

As is so often the case, I soon got sidetracked from my original quest and spotted a flock of birds on the church roof. I'm not sure what sort of birds they are but they're always there. They sit there for ages then fly off and circle around landing occasionally in a tree or a field then returning to their perch on the roof.

The falling leaves and Autumn colours that I expected to see seemed very sparse, I was surprised at just how green everything still is but I managed to capture a few of the changing colours none the less and the walk and a dose of fresh air helped clear my head and lift my mood ready for a few hours of late afternoon/early evening work.

Halloween

This years effort at pumpkin carving!



And in the nature of the sudden realisation by councils across the UK that recycling is a good thing and therefore should now be enforced at every opportunity. To the point where Hart Council has now introduced a well meant but utterly confusing list of what can and therefore must be recycled the rest of the pumpkin was expertly recycled by Matt who turned it into a very tasty Pumpkin and Chicken Stew.

It's been a strange Halloween for me this year I had to put my business into liquidation on Monday, due to reasons (mainly) beyond my control so instead of selling Halloween balloons and general tat to the residents of Odiham from my little gift shop I was doing the graveyard (if you'll pardon the pun) shift at the local Wine Rack.

I was also deprived of my usual partner in crime for Trick or Treating by virtue of the fact that she's moved to Lancashire. And lets face it, without a child to drag along with you knocking on strangers doors dressed as a Vampire and asking for sweeties seems a little desperate!

So instead we had a chilled out Halloween, drank a bit of wine (Red - of course), listened to all the clichéd Halloween songs that Radio Paradise could churn out and ate delicious pumpkin stew.

Happy Halloween

:)

The Continuing Saga Of THE Light!

I fear I may be getting a little obsessed with 'The Light'. It's been flashing on then off, then on, then off etc etc outside my bedroom window for over two weeks now and sleep deprivation is making me a tad grumpy!

Apparently they need a part to arrive before the council can put me out of my misery! (Just how many parts can there be in a light?). We tried to break it a few nights ago but no one was quite tall enough to reach it, but if I get my hands on a bigger ladder....

However, I had to smile about it today when one of our customers dropped these into the shop for me! Gotta be worth a try :)

Dreaming Of Sleep!

I’ve always been an incredibly light sleeper, and I’ve always found it hard to get to sleep in the first place, I don’t think I count as an insomniac because around about 3.30 on most afternoons I could probably sleep standing up given the chance, but it seems that the slightest little noise can disturb me at night. So when I moved from a busy street in South London to a sleepy little village, in Hampshire I thought my problems would be over.

So imagine how I felt when I realised that I’d just moved into a house next door to the local wannabee Rock Star. I inhabit the loft of our little communal home; I thought it was quite cool when we first moved in, my own living room (or should that be lounge?) and a separate bedroom, almost the loft apartment I’d always aspired to when I lived in London – well with a bit of imagination it could be! The wall between my bedroom and his room is paper thin, so much so that we can hear each other cough! (Which makes life a little uncomfortable if either of us have a – shall we say – more intimate moment!) So I was captain happy when I first heard his guitar, drum machine, organ, bass guitar and, wait for it, Violin! However after the first few months of sleepless nights, a bit of banging on the wall, a couple of rants and a letter from the Environmental Health we finally reached a truce and he agreed to stop playing his guitar/stereo/whatever at 11.30pm, and in return I agreed to text him if I stayed at a friends so he could go wild once in a while. And it worked. For a couple of years I managed to sleep most nights. Then he moved out! I crossed my fingers and hoped to get a bookworm with no TV or stereo as a new neighbour, but no – what do I get? A 19 year old hip hop fan, with lots of friends who clearly still live at home because they just love to go round to his place and sit up for most of the night, talking, watching TV, listening to music and generally driving me insane!

We’ve talked, I’ve shouted, I’ve threatened and I’ve pleaded, we’ve come to a similar agreement about texting him when I’m not going to be in but he’s still prone to the odd night of noise, thankfully I also have a sofa bed in my living room, so at a push I can normally grab at least a few hours.


Then just as I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the local Council stepped in and ruined what little hope there was of me ever getting 8 hours of deep, uninterrupted, blissful sleep. They fixed the light. THE light is in an alley at the back of our house, which my bedroom overlooks. THE light is bright enough to give Blackpool a run for it’s money and when it’s on it’s like trying to sleep under a floodlight! It didn’t work for years apparently so some concerned citizen complained about the dangers of walking down an unlit alley in a sleepy little village in the dead of night and they fixed it! Now, I could live with it being on all night, eventually I’d get used to it and get to sleep but it’s not on all night! If only it were that simple! It’s on for about 30 seconds then it goes off, then it comes on, then it goes off, then it comes on… you get the idea don’t you?

So now, just as I’ve managed to block out the sound of The Streets blasting through my bedroom wall and start to drift off to sleep a light comes on outside and casts a very bright silhouette of my bedroom window on the wall. Then it goes dark and I drift off again, then the light comes on and wakes me up, then I drift off again and so on and so on, all f%&*king night! Is it too much to ask to just be able to sleep? I’ve spoken to the Council several times about it now, and a very nice, but obviously ineffective man called Julian from ‘lighting’ keeps telling me that they’ll get someone out there to fix it ASAP! I’ve started to look into just how much the fine would be for damaging council property and if all else fails I find that a liberal helping of red wine makes a pretty good sedative! Anyone got a quiet darkened room I could borrow for about 8 hours please?

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes...

I couldn't help but laugh at this conversation between my housemate and her five year old daughter (my goddaughter) over dinner a few nights ago...

Mum - So who did you play with at school today?
Daughter - Archie
Mum - Is Archie your friend?
Daughter - Yes
Mum - Is Archie your boyfriend?
Daughter - Yes, but he doesn't know it yet!

Maybe I should try the same tactic :)

Odiham's War

Someone told me a while ago that it pays to whinge! I can't say I'm going to argue with that, as a nation it's something that most of us Brits are quite good at, and in a world where customer service should be the backbone of any successful business (in my view) if you're not happy about something you should speak up. As someone who is trying to run their own business it seems obvious - whereas we are always looking for new customers what's the point if you can't hang on to them when you find them? So we do everything we can to make our customers feel good about giving us their money and when we do mess up, because lets be honest, everyone does at some time or another, we do everything we can to fix it and make that customer come back to us again, even if sometimes that means going the extra mile or two!

Business is hard at the moment for a million and one reasons, but as a consequence I find that I'm turning into a right miserable old cow! The upshot of that is complaining about things comes so much easier, and has a certain therapeutic effect! I can't fix the things that I need to fix overnight; so making a mountain out of a molehill over things I can do something about makes me feel better.

The latest victim was the location manager of the Foyles War film crew that visited our sleepy little village recently. We were given a few days notice of their intention to spend around half a dozen days/nights over a two week period filming in our village and very close to our home. So close in fact that we had a huge klieg light hanging over our garden wall, bouncers outside our front door, a myriad of cables to navigate our way around every time we wanted to leave our house and numerous, very inconvenient, requests to turn various lights on or off in the house depending on the shot that they were after.

If I was in a happier place right now I may have got a little excited at the thought of a film crew at our front door, and our house (and business) making it onto the small screen but on another of many bad days they seemed like fair game for a complaint.

I wrote a very sternly worded letter to the location manager and enquired about compensation for the business's affected by their disruption (they closed off just about every public parking space in the village in the process of filming so we may as well of not opened our little gift shop on the days they were there for the amount of customers there were!) So he came to visit to say sorry, which I had to admire, and it was worth it for them because for the sake of letting me have a ten-minute rant and presenting me with a free Foyles War DVDand a signed photo of the star of the show my anger was sated. Which just goes to show how easily people can be pleased. I have a DVD of a TV series that I've never shown any interest in before (and I'm sorry to say but beyond the episode that features our house I probably never will again) and a signed photo of someone I had barely heard of before but I'm happy now. I guess complaining isn't so much about what you get from it as what you get out of it. Sometimes all you need to do to make someone happy is to listen to them.

So look out for an episode called 'Bleak Midwinter' due to be shown in the UK in September, featuring the sleepy little village of Odiham and the back of our house! Fame at last?

Ding Dong The Witch Has Gone!

I had some great news today, my neighbour is going away, only for three weeks admittedly but that's three weeks of sheer bliss for me! Don't get me wrong he's not a bad neighbour really; in fact he's quite a nice guy. Twenty something young lad, works as a KP in one of our local restaurant, quite polite in fact he's only got one flaw - he wants to be a Rock Star!

Now I've got nothing against that but my problem lies with the fact that in order to get anywhere in his dream career he needs to practice, and practice and practice, and his bedroom is right next to mine. Which means that HIS AMP IS RIGHT BEHIND MY BED! Add to that the fact that the wall inbetween us is paper thin and it's not a recipe for a good nights sleep.

He has Guitars, both electric and acoustic, a Keyboard, a Drum Machinejavascript:void(0) and even a Violin! There's only so much any normal rational human being can take of Final Countdown being played over and over and OVER again! We had a little chat about his noise levels when I first moved in and when that didn't work I had a little chat to the Environmental Health! We eventually reached an agreement (that is still occasionally ignored) that he shut's up by 11.30pm, and in return I call off the noise pollution brigade and let him know if I'm going to be staying away for the night so he can let loose once in a while.

He sent me a text today to let me know he's off to London for three weeks to do a Music Producers course, I wish him well - no I really do! I don't hold a grudge, in fact I generally feel bad about moaning at him mainly because it makes me feel like I'm turning into my Mother! I can still hear the Echoes of her wailing at the bottom of the stairs '"turn that music down"! Besides he's coming back eventually and if he makes it big it's always worth keeping on the good side of a backstage pass source (I didn't say I didn't like Rock did I?) However, I am looking forward to the best three weeks sleep I have had in the last two years :)


UPDATE!

So now I feel really bad for moaning about him. My old neighbour has moved out, after nearly two and a half years of being moaned at by me for all the noise he makes, but before he left he made me a CD of the songs he's been writing and wrote a very sweet letter which he posted through my letterbox on the day he left.

Cathy

Sorry if I've been a bit of a pain in the arse the last couple of years with my music! But you'll be rid of me soon! Not sure when my official moving out date is yet, but around the 15th March.

My last day at work is 10th, which is a Friday night, so we're going to be having a late night party, I imagine it'll be downstairs so it shouldn't be too bad!

Well here's a CD of stuff I've written, I thought you might like to hear it from the right side of the wall! A fair share of Rock Songs, ballads, instrumentals and classical pieces..! All remastered since my return from London, don't be afraid to turn it up loud, it's professionally done so no glitches! All mastered to the same volume as a normal CD so no messing around with CD player required!

Thanks also for all the inspiring tapes you gave me! Sex and Religion (Stevie Vai) was the last album to complete my collection. When I met him in October he also gave me a rare CD (1 of 2000) not available in the shops!

Well all the best, hopefully next time you see me it'll be on the front cover of a guitar magazine - but don't hold your breath!

Love

Chris Howard

(The noisy neighbour type)

Of Mice And Mogs

I had to do something yesterday that I hated having to do. Having never knowingly killed anything larger than a bug in my life (Oh and a pheasant that forgot to look both ways when he crossed the road!) the idea of setting anything other than a humane mousetrap was something I found abhorrent. However we’ve had a bit of a problem with them over the last week or so and unfortunately even I had to agree it had to be done. Cute though I think they are I don’t want to share my home with them.

We’re fairly certain that as opposed to having mice in our house, the mice are being bought into the house by Smodge - my cat. So why has he suddenly decided to start bringing his victims home with him, and what’s more bringing them home alive!

I did a bit of searching around to find out about the whole cat/mice thing. Apparently it’s all about the Mother cat teaching her kittens to hunt. The first stage is to bring home a dead mouse and eat it in front of them; eventually they get the idea and join in. Next she brings them a dead one all of their own and lets them tuck in. Once they’ve got used to mice on the menu mummy then brings them one that’s maimed but still moving and lets her brood have a go at catching it themselves, then eventually once they’ve got the idea she brings them a nice live one and lets them take their hunting test.

So is Smodge trying to teach us to hunt? If he is then he must have sussed out that we’re crap at it by now! We’ve only managed to catch one out of about half a dozen, give up Smodge – we are never going to get the hang of it!

Or is it nothing more complex than the fact it’s winter and he prefers a little warmth and home comfort whilst torturing his prey? Either way after finding one of my lipsticks and a couple of dusters had been eaten and spending two nights trying to sleep whilst listening to the rather disturbing sounds of little feet scrambling around somewhere beneath my bed I’d had more than the humanitarian in me could take.

I had set the humane trap for two nights in a row and I’d actually seen the mouse run into it, get a nice chunk of the Mars Bar bait and leg it straight back out again, unharmed but also uncaged! I had a long chat with it, I explained that its last chance for mercy was to get in the humane trap and stay there before I went to bed, but did he listen? No! So very reluctantly I set the nasty one before I went to bed.

I was prepared to hear it snap in the night, I was prepared to find a dead mouse in the morning, but I was not prepared for what happened! I caught my finger in the trap when I first set it and it really hurt so I felt a little consolation in the thought that he probably wouldn’t know much about it, or so I hoped.

The reality was very different. I was woken up at about 3am this morning by a strange sort of nibbling sound, followed by a sort of dragging sound. I listened for a while then put the light on and was horrified to find the poor little mouse was caught by one of it’s back legs and tail in the trap and was dragging itself and the trap along the floor, it looked very much still alive and very very frightened.

I can’t stand to see animals suffer, not even annoying mice but there wasn’t much I could do. If I released it now it was going to die anyway, its leg was practically hanging off, and besides it was three o’clock in the morning and I sleep in the loft! I was not going to get dressed, walk down two floors and out into a freezing night for a half dead mouse! I couldn’t bear the thought of just leaving it there to suffer, any more than there was a hope in hell of me putting it out of its misery. So I did the only thing I could, I opened the bedroom door and gave Smodge a call! He did the job with his normal aplomb dragging the trap with the mouse towards the garden. The trap fell off eventually, thankfully without any bits of mouse still attached and so far there are no signs of any more. I am going to have nightmares about zombie mice for weeks!!

Happy New Year

What My Horoscope Said.....

Your understanding deepens and you will solve problems - and get a family working together again. Venus unlocks secret feelings - and you see love in special eyes. Draw up a work plan and watch it happen. Destiny smiles in a cinema queue.

Reality!

Well, despite all my good intentions, as is the norm, I started the New Year with a stinking hangover. However my understanding did deepen, my understanding of hangovers that is! Instead of resorting to the usual approach of drinking lots and lots of water then waiting to throw up, I decided to try solid food first to see if that helped but after a while I understood on a new and profound level that the only way my body is ever going to cope with red wine followed by several shots, including something called a brain haemorrhage which involved curdling a shot of Baileys on top of something red, and a concoction that was described to me as liquid cocaine, followed by yet more Red Wine and a touch of Vodka, was to vomit profusely the following day until all traces of the previous nights excess have been expelled!

In a moment of weakness I agreed to deliver a balloon, locally for a customer in France, on New Years Day. It seemed like a good idea at the time, the address was only five minutes away, by car, the only flaw in my logic was that John (Alison's husband) had the car - and he was in Lancashire. It was considerably more that five minutes away by foot! So we decided, eventually, to go for it, kill two birds with one stone and take Jade for a walk, clear our booze muddled brains and deliver the balloon. The fact that the address was opposite a very nice country pub called The Fox and Goose helped clinch the decision.

So we walked, and walked, and walked! Jade had a great time, but hindsight is such a wonderful thing, I think we may have been a little adventurous. The field was really really muddy and by the time we'd made it across it our boots felt like they weighed a tonne.






My head ached, my legs ached, I had blisters on my feet caused by the totally inappropriate footwear I chose for the trek, but we delivered it, popped in the pub and stared at a couple of Jack Daniels and Diet Cokes for a while then began the equally arduous return trip. But even though it felt like a lot longer walk than it really was it certainly cleared the cobwebs and apart from a couple of blisters I felt much better for it. A quiet, sober night in tonight for me I think :)

Welcome to 2006!

:)

Christmas Quackers!

Tis the season to be jolly and all that, and today we, that is my business partner and I, decided, for the second time, that if we can't beat the Tuesday Market in our little village then we'll join 'em! Alison did the first week, after I pulled the "I've got a cold' card so today, despite the remnants of a really annoying cough I stood outside in the freezing cold, and occasional shower, flogging our wares.

I got to pitch up next to Gary, or "the Duck man" as he is more commonly known in Odiham. It's amazing just how many people want wooden Ducks! We are in the wrong business! Even I succumbed eventually and came back with a little wooden duckling of my very own :) And you know what? I quite enjoyed it! There was a real sense of community amongst the market traders. It's only a small market, no more than 6 stalls at the moment, and to be honest it's always been a source of friction amongst the retailers in the village. Parking is hard enough as it is, but when the Tuesday Market takes 10 parking spaces out for 4 hours it's impossible! So, just like everyone else, we moaned! "Our shop is always quiet on a Tuesday" we said. "It's our worse day of the week" we whined! Then Alison suggested we give it a go ourselves, set up our well-worn Gazebo, take a few chocs out, some toys, and a Christmas card or two and see what happens. So we did!

Although the market itself will never pay for our retirement the strange thing is as soon as one of us stood outside freezing to death for the morning the shop got busier! Go figure! And we didn't do too badly on the stall so all in all it's worth it. We'll stick it out until Christmas then maybe do it once a month in the New Year.


So there I was, full of the Christmas spirit, albeit frozen to the very core when on a trip out later in the evening I stumbled across this! I think Christmas has arrived in South Warnborough! I think I saw a collection box at the gate, although it was hard to see past the glare. So I hope they are doing this for charity! I'll take a trip back under the safety of daylight to see. Happy Christmas!

Coffee and Keyboards don't mix!

Thetaefthecffeeandtheeybard!

StherewasSundaymrnnghafaseeturnednmytrustyMac
thenrceededtsthencehtcufcffeethatdjustmadeavertheeybard!

Theresutwassmethngantthehardwareequvaentf
astrearayseddwntherghthandsdewthnyhafthe
eyswrngntncudngthesacebarranyfthenumbers

Frtunateytsstunderwarrantyandthenceeefrm
Aearesendngmeutanceshnynewneverysn!

or...when typed with a new keyboard...




The Tale of The Coffee and The Keyboard!

So there I was Sunday morning, half asleep, I turned on my trusty Mac then proceeded to spill the nice hot cup of coffee that I had just made all over my keyboard!

The result was the hardware equivalent of a stroke, paralysed down the right hand side with half the keys not working including the space bar and any of the numbers.

Fortunately it's still under warranty and the nice people from Apple have just sent me a shiny new one!

Thought For The Day.

We'll have some friends round for dinner we said. Have maybe two; three bottles of wine (between 5 of us) have grown up conversation, after dinner coffees and a nice sensible evening.

So... 10 bottles of wine, and 4 extra guests later there we were dancing (?) around the living room to Judas Priest (classy huh?) and upsetting the neighbours (whom we apologised to profusely today). I finally passed out at about 3.30am and my housemates finally threw the towel in at around 5am - not bad for a bunch of thirty and forty somethings huh? And on a School night as well! For some reason I felt the need to create this little poster halfway through the evening, I have no idea why, other than I was fairly focused on drinking at the time, but I thought I'd share it with you.

It was not big or clever, but I have to confess it was fun! Tomorrow I shall try to resume grown up behaviour. Slippers, Cocoa, a good book and an early night for me tonight I think.

101 Uses For A Balloon Sizer!