I've been looking at the amount of rubbish that I am producing and have to say that the bulk of it isn't absolutely all my fault. In an age when tossing a jam jar into a bin is tantamount to murder and not recycling newspapers carries a life sentance it's very hard to move these days without the risk of ending up on crimewatch. Every day I seem to attract my own body weight in refuse. If it doesn't come home in my shopping it is pushed through my door, leaves my body in a different form than it came in or is produced just by cleaning myself. I'm afraid the climate will just have to change without me as I'm sick of spinning the plates. I've reams of paper waiting for shredding and then what do I do with it? Give it to a hamster!
The ladyfriend and I had to visit the municipal dump at the weekend which to me is a bit like visiting people you're not all that keen on - you don't look forward to it but you enjoy it when you get there.
It's a very nice dump, they run a tight ship with different sections for this, that and the other. In a corner they have this Aladdin's cave of unwanted treasures which they have hoiked out of the skips. I've often drooled over these items. They have hundreds of golf clubs, chairs, tables, garden gnomes and the like. They also have a vast collection of skis which just goes to show how well the economy is doing.
This weekend they had a massive chandelier which must have come from a huge house - a little 70's in styling - but a thing of beauty all the same. The men had suspended it and it sparkled as it shook gently in the wind. It certainly injected a bit of much needed glamour as we tossed the garden clippings away.

tuppence a bag

I'm not having much luck with the birds. They are a fickle bunch. Before I went on holiday I was being eaten out of house and home. I had more than two in a bush I had a veritable Quality Street tin of varieties, finches, sparrows, crows, tits, robins but two weeks away and I've a lawn fall of peanuts going begging.
I know what's happened, during my break in the sun they've f*cked off to the neighbours garden, I've seen his nutbags swinging from the vantage point of my bedroom window and there's nothing I can do about it.
The pheasants have been loyal god love 'em, they've stuck by me a fact that I shall remember come the glorious 12th.

I'm like sooooooo loving YouTube, I was on it for hours last night. They've got videos of Barbra Streisand, Liza with a Z and Judy Garland! Fantastic. I've stuck a little movie of Verona up if you want to click here and see it, it's no great shakes but it's a little soupcon of my holiday. I have also stuck up my photos atlast click here.
I must apologise for not being much of a chatty cathy lately, I've lost it a bit since we got back. I'm out of the loop when it comes to social commentary and very rarely catch the news. I have been confining myself to the kitchen this week and have also been drinking heavily, the only enthusiasm I can muster is when I knock the wife around a bit....

There should be a decompression chamber for when people come home from their holidays, I feel ready to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I don't know if it's coming home to all this water but my little battery light is flashing red for danger. Anyhow, I'm cooking risotto tonight - a little taste of Italy - a reminder which I am hoping might lift me spirits.
Lake Garda was great, the hotel though became known as "Eagles Nest" to the Ladyfriend and I as there was such a high proportion of Germans staying there. They're funny buggers, they know how to occupy a beach, every morning I would awake gripped with fear that there would be no sun beds left. We would have to wade our way through their terry towelling which had been placed neatly at 4am and try and find ourselves a place without the whiff of sausage.
There were also rather a lot of pale Oirish children which would stay for a few days and then go off (I expect they were on their way to Rome to see their new Pope)they would run up and down on the way to use the water slide and I'm not kidding at one point I thought I was in a scene from Angela's bloody Ashes.
We left the compound often though, and took in as much of the Italian atmosphere that we could (before we went back to the hotel and our Eva Braun suite) we took a trip to Verona, the Dolomite Mountains and took boat trips around the lake. When we dined out the food was like a religious experience, I've never eaten pasta like it. The little towns were stunning, the buildings were jaw dropping and fig trees grew out of cracks in the pavement like weeds. Highly recommended.

The Ladyfriend and I are home from our holidays and what a swell time we've had. I'll write more for you tomorrow as I'm running a wee bit behind what with coming home on Saturday and seeing Ms Streisand last night, so enjoy this scene of Verona in the meantime.

but i do what i do toodeloo

I don't BELEEEEEEVVVEEEE IT! Liza with a Z is on the road and she aint doing London! I'd be happy to travel as far north as Leamington Spa but the great lady aint coming anywhere near UK airspace! What a disaster.
The ladyfriend and I are off to Italy tomorrow for two weeks so it's some consolation but the ciabatta will stick in me throat knowing that I'm going to miss out on the greatest show singer of all time - I mean WHAT a gene pool!

I've trouble with the feet. They've gone all hard and gnarly. I look like I've been walking barefoot in the bush with Jenny Agutter, it's not nice. So last night I sat watching the telly with my feet in a washing up bowl with all kinds of surfactants swilling about to get them super soft, I even bought a cream with horse piss in it (it says Urea on the tube so I'm hoping it's from Black Beauty and not an African gentleman piddling in a bucket on the minimum wage.)
I'm hoping they'll bounce back, my feet were once a source of great pride to me but, like many aspects of my body, have run to seed with neglect.

People have been harping on about Tony Blair's legacy and I reckon the thing I will remember him for the most is not curing ricketts, the abolishion of clause 28 or creating the homogonised high street but the law that was passed yesterday - The ban on smoking in public places! I've lost count of the times when a 'friend' has said "do you mind if I smoke?" and I've hated every sodding second of it and sitting with a smile on my face when I'd prefer to be ramming an ashtray between someone's puckered lips. It's great news indeed. Clean air. Now the only peasouper you'll see in a restaurant will be the eat with a spoon kind.