I haven't posted recently. That much is obvious.
I haven't dared post recently because I thought that if I did post then it wouldn't be worth reading.
Um.
..
Yup. Reckon I was right.
Hello everybody!
Or at least you three.
I ache. Which is not because my underused blogging muscles are cramping up but because I had a fight with the garden yesterday. I won, but only at a cost. A cost in grumbling flesh and odd back pains. But more of that later.
I have been skipping around the country - well Somerset anyway - and have much enjoyed England's green and pleasantness as it slid expensively by, accompanied by the conversations of eccentric English people and some very weak railway tea.
I was, you see, called away to do a long day's playing out of town. This involved spending a night in a quiet, timeless market town in the middle of Somerset. When I say 'quiet' I refer to the perceived lifestyle of the place, not its actual volume. And when I say timeless...
I have not worn a watch for over six months but that night I was granted the use of a large church to keep me right, and in a punctilious and generous way it kept me informed of the time throughout the dark hours. Loudly. Every fifteen minutes. Ah, the peaceful countryside. (I am not making this up.)
But that was last week. I was reunited with my family after just the one night. Good thing really, the nearest church round here is about half a mile away and only audible in a stiff breeze. A peaceful, sleep-filled week ensued of which the highlight was undoubtedly this Saturday's Doctor Who, featuring the scariest baddies I have seen in a long while, who were sufficiently evil for me to forget to take the rosé out of the freezer. Lumpy rosé is the hallmark of a proper scary baddie round here.
Privately I feel that the Who has been glitzy this series without truly rising to the heights we have been led to expect recently. Perhaps ideas are running low. In a fit of wine-driven creativity I decided that new blood/ideas could be injected into the Who franchise with the creation of a prequel series, a bit like Tom and Jerry Kids or the Muppet Babies. Suggested title "Medical Student Who", it would feature scenes from the Doctor's earlier life.
That said, this Saturday's offering was the best for ages. Enough plot holes to fill a Swiss cheese, but these only became apparent on reflection - in the 'vie en rosé' as it were - because we were swept along by the most terrifying villains for a long time, a bunch of marauding Victorian funerary monuments. (IANMTU, either.)
So scary and yet they NEVER MOVED! Brilliant. The idea that they turned to stone when anyone looked at them (quantum locked, did you say Doctor?) was a touch of genius that I'm sure less well-funded special effects departments will take full note of.
It was certainly a tip our garden had taken to heart by Sunday lunch. Every time I looked at it, while preparing to drive in an exploratory crowbar, it turned to heartless stone in pure 'Weeping Angel' stylee. The previous residents had left a pond in the garden, which we felt compelled to remove. But what had become apparent recently is that the pond we inherited was not the entirety of the pond, but only a half ration of it. The original outlines were much larger and had become visible through recent erosion. Most unsightly half way down our cricket pitch.
I thought I was up against a couple of feisty bricks, but no. Flawed intelligence. Bricks be dashed, I was up against a secret U-Boat pen. It was one of those nasty moments when one knows one has bitten off more than one can chew. A bit like other moments, remembered from one's younger days, when one found oneself inexplicably walking out of a kebab shop realising one has gone and queued up and bought more than one is prepared to chew.
About three hours later my back was in spasm and my hands were scratched and gouged by the brutal chunks of concrete I had torn from the ungreen and unpleasant earth of our garden, our other Eden, our own private Idunno.
So as we speak there is a large and unsightly hole sitting out there, awaiting some earth moving skillz.
And the back hurts and the pads of the fingers retain a mild burning sensation. Can't complain about the variety round here, though.