I was thinking, in this 24 hour society which we now all reside, is there such a thing as a Bank Holiday? Should I have picked up the telephone yesterday and called telephone banking I am sure it would have been open. Infact, it's an outdated name. Keeping with banks, the ladyfriend and I had a day off from our painting and decorating and took a trip into Lewes on Sunday and carved in stone on the walls of a building society were the words "opened in 1890 something" and it made me imagine big whiskered gentlemen carrying big briefcases with tall black hats in a Dickensian fashion going about their business in charming Lewes whilst children with rickets tackled the sloping high street of the town. It was a nice thought.

My neck has just about recovered from the toil of painting the ceiling at the weekend, emulsion has just about dissapeared from under my nails. I must say I did make a good job. The living room looks like a wedding cake at the moment, completely white and able to withstand a nuclear blast should india be tempted. The search for a chandelier is now officialy begun.

I am cock-a-hoop that September begins tomorrow. I was singing cheery Christmas songs on the lavvy this morning.

Feel a bit dicky this morning. I don't know if it's last night dinner - risotto - but both the Ladyfriend and I feel a bit jippy. To my mind if you consume something that has the texture and resemblance of vomit then, well, it's no surprise if you feel nausea. Rice dishes can often go either way. If it is true that you eat with your eyes then I should be hospitalised.

I had to correct the ladyfriend this morning as she has been singing a song with the wrong words all her life. She's still not convinced. Things like that happen often to myself, for example, it was only a few years ago that the ladyfriend told me that you lock zips by turning the pull thing down. I had given up wearing jeans without a button fly as the embarrassment of having a gaping front every time I sat down was too much. Now I know the secret I buy things with zips all the time. Infact it's become a bit of a mania.

Nine hours to go and then we are off to Eastbourne. I don't think there is a nicer word in the English language than the word "seafront."

A bit of a struggle to get out of bed this morning. I must say I felt a bit like Paula Radcliffe. Give me Mount Everst any day then the monumental task of getting out of bed for work. The ladyfriend is being a bit harsh on old Radcliffe implying that she gave up when she saw she wouldn't get a medal. I don't actually give a bugger about her. Never been keen on running - never had the boobs for it. I was gripped last night by the pole vault but all in all I have found the Olympics rather a damp sqib. I am rather cross about all the empty seats, if Greece have made any money from all this then I'll eat my cat.

The ladyfriend and I have got a bit of an event this weekend. How on earth do you paint sash windows? It's a mental as well as physical task. I've been on google and there is an extroadinary amount of advice. The weather for the bank holiday is typically set for storms but we have out foxed it with our internal decorating plans - ha ha

Wading through treacle a bit this morning. I've brought some polish to work this morning because the state of my desk was unbelievable. I'm on a bit of a cleaning tip at the moment.

My eyes are a bit droopy, I couldn't get off to sleep very well last night and this morning I was awoken by geese. I don't joke. It was a little bit worrying as it sounded a bit like the trailer for The Day After Tomorrow when all of the birds are taking flight. What with all of this torrential rain we've been having I thought my chips were up! It was very eerie I can tell you. There is obviously a small holder in the street as before now I have been awoken by chickens. Perhaps someone is fattening a goose for Michaelmas.I've never cooked my goose. I do love a bit of game though. Got to wait another month before we can eat it though, it's got to hang for a bit. I'd rather like the new Game Cookbook by that fat lady. I'm not blood thirsty but one is so tempted by road kill.

Had rather a splendid weekend, did a bit of life laundry and threw out clothes which I no longer need. I am usually optimistic but knew I'd never again fit into my lovely 501's that have been in the cupboard for two years. Out they went, along with a hundred weight of hoarded magazines. I pulled out cupboards and hoovered the dust. I know now why the D-Day soldiers couldn't talk about what they had seen, I am speachless about the horror beneath the bed. I dare say, in sixty years time I shall be able to tell a great nephew about it.

Yesterday I went to IKEA and ended up in the National Gallery by way of Waterloo Bridge. It was a nice diversion. I had always fancied being a guard in a gallery. To sit beneath the Nation's art treasures and quietly watch people come and go, feel the draft as another Japanese girl with a huge grin gasped at the beauty of the Renaissance. That was until yesterday. Once of the guards was sorting out his lottery numbers instead of keeping a watchfull eye over the pastoral scenes. I felt sad that, what I thought was a dream job, was just as dull as all the others.

This morning I have slipped on a cardy, oh yes I have! Summer is on her back and it's time to lift the gloved fist of Autumn. Due to the cooling nip in the air I polished off a round of toast with extra glee this morning, it was smashing. It had a thick covering of blackcurrant jam on top (my wonderful mother's home made.) I must learn her secret of bottling, last year I tried to make blackberry jam with nature's bounty but it never set , turning instead into some kind of runny fruit compote. She keeps her skills close to her chest which surely must leave a mucky apron.

It must of been wonderful in years gone by before the convenience store, working mothers and ASBOS when the kitchens of England produced the wonderful scent of pickling, jamming and preserving. The windows steaming in yorkshire as jam reached dangerous temperatures, the dripping of liquid through dainty muslin in Berkshire and the rattle of empty jars being taken out of a sterilising oven in Broadstairs. Wonderful. All dissapearing now I fear and what a shame. A generation of children who only know the taste of cheap supermarket jam who will never see a huge jam pan bubbling on the stove - no room in the modern kitchen I am sure because of the juicers, cappucino makers and George Forman Grills!

A mystery has entered my life. For some reason whenever I travel along a certain stretch of road, be it morning, noon or night, I start singing Louis Armstrong songs. I have noticed that it is only in one direction, so there must be something that I catch a glimpse of that triggers this. This morning it was his version of La Vie en Rose complete with the "bum pa da da dum".

I looked out at the sunflowers this morning which have reached well over six feet but have yet to flower. The one at the furthest end which is the weakest looking has been the first to produce a tight head. It seems this will be the one to open up first. It got me thinking, I wonder if we all live in pots of John Innes number 2. What stage of our lives are we in bud? when do we flower? When do we set seed and most importantly when are we dead headed?

I was watching a bit of the olympics last night and was looking at the gymnasts with their hair all up. They all looked the same made up like painted dolls. I was imaging the state of the greek sewage system (never that stable) after that lot had got out of the showers. There will be towelling hair bands, long lengths of hair and glitter backing up round Athens for years.

I have enjoyed this weekend. The heat from the sun has been toned down considerably, I sensed Summer's grasp slip and I am quite sure, smelt Autumn's arrival for her first dress fitting. The ladyfriend and I took a trip into Tenterden where we saw trees heavy with conkers and saw the odd leaf or two give up their lofty seat and fall softly to the ground. click here for pictures of Tenterden.

We also took a quick look at Camber Sands which is absolutely beautiful. I long to return in October when the shadows will be longer. I shall be able to take some nice photographs I am sure. Mind you, I am rather down about my camera. At Eastbourne's Airbourne yesterday she let me down badly. I couldn't capture the Utterly Butterly wingwalkers on microchip. As soon as I had pressed click the planes had sped out of view and I lost them. Take a look at the pics here but they are not very good.I need a new faster model but I won't be able to get one passed petty cash for a long time now we need a new boiler. We will be scrimping and saving till I'm in my sixties, ruing my Viv Nicholson days at the mall forever.

The glorious twelth: Grouse shooting begins

Looks like the weather's going to be a bit ropey this weekend. Shame, it's Airbourne this weekend. Last year we sat on the beach and watched the Utterly Butterly Wingwalkers. This year we will need a brolly. It's quite lucky though, we can see the Red Arrows perform their daring displays from the flat, such is their altitude.

On the way down tomorrow I have asked the Ladyfriend if we may stop enroute at the British Wildlife Centre. We have past it so many times and it has always looked such an alluring place. I do find the natural world so engaging. Infact, I was saying this to the Ladyfriend last night, I feel I maybe a bit of a geek. The evidence is writ large - only this week I have booked a place on a fossil hunt in Folkestone and as you know my love of folk music is well documented. Oh, it's all my own doing. I will never be trendy, I will always be on the sidelines of the incrowd, dancing to the beat of a different drum, going down the Stoney End, I never wanted to go down the Stoney End.......

Just picked up two big boxes of books from my Wonderful Mother's house. She has housed them for me for the last three years and I had forgotton all about them. I had a quick flick through and was struck firstly by delight at their rememberance and two by what jolly good taste I have in hardbacks. Ofcourse I now have to dash out and by a bookshelf for them but I don't mind. Books are wonderful, they sit there un-read whilst the wind blows, the sun shines and rain falls, months come and go, years drift by then they are picked up and are as fresh as a daisy. I wonder that, if they know no one is looking, the words scramble around the page and the frowns on people straighten?

I think it's the last installment of any upheaval in one's life when you get stuff back from storage. The dust finally settles.

Oh good lord there's prozac in the tap water. As if it wasn't bad enough that trout are growing female sex organs because of the oestrogen in our piss being passed into our rivers, now I have to cope with this! How terrible, what else is in the stuff? A cocktail of drugs, additives, steroids and E numbers. If it is true, that you are what you eat, then the same can be said for what you drink. Perhaps, it is a conspiracy. Stir in the prozac and we will be shiny, happy people, content with the Government and the price of fish? Environment spokesman Norman Baker said it looked "like a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public". Indeed it does.

I try not to drink too much tap water, preferring instead the bottled variety, however, I now worry about lingering in the bath too long. What if I am being dosed by osmosis?

On a Brighton bound train on Saturday I looked out at the Sussex countryside and saw a man in a field with a huge butterfly net. I've never seen this in the flesh.

Brighton Pride was great fun, well the parade was, but I think I've grown too old to do the park thing. It's just too hot, too crowded and I don't think I can hack the walk to Preston park anymore. The ladyfriend and I have decided that next year we will watch the parade and then go for a good lunch and some light shopping afterwards. I think life's all about knowing when to let go. If you would like to see my photos click here

We've got our new car, thanks to Karen's wheeling and dealing, and it's fabulous. It feels rather grown up, I can't see over the bonnet and I'm terrified of parking it but it's smashing. It certainly made light work of the M25 on Friday night.

Do you know, I rather like Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich? I'm listening to the soundtrack of the wonderful BBC adaptation of the Jake Arnott novel The Long Firm which I cadged off a nice woman at work. I still stand by everything I have ever said about the BBC in the past, a few good programmes does not a justification for a licence fee make, but it was blinding.

This weekend is a bit of a cracker. Friday we are off to pick up our new car and to take the middle man out for lunch. Then it's off down to the south coast (no dip in the sea this weekend after the Thames water debacle) Saturday is a holiday in the gay calendar as it's Brighton Pride. Ooh, I hope it's not too hot. Soaring temperatures, alcohol and whistles do for me these days.

Sunday we will be hanging out with the tie dye bunch at Eastbourne Lammas festival So all and all I should think about getting some beauty sleep tonight. Mustn't let the side down in the disco tent.

I do enjoy extreme weather conditions, yesterday afternoon was quite a hoot - obviously not for the poor devils hit by lightning. I must admit the ladyfriend and I diced with death by standing out in it for a minute, the folly of youth.......mind you we are both the wrong side of thirty.

This work thing is a bit of a bore, I've yet to receive an investor for my Isle of Wight idea, perhaps I should take an advert out in Private Eye and hook a rich benefactor such as Mr Fahed. I'm after an Ambromovich, I'd be able to buy prize rare breeds with that sort of financial backing, during the slow months I'd let groups of impoverished Russian children run amok as long as they didn't touch the silver and kept off the Axminster. I don't know, so little time to do everything you'd like to in life. Goals and aspirations. Mind you Lady Luck has smiled on me so many times her face must ache.

Message to the Mijas Massive - sink a big gin and rub some high factor on some delicate places for the Ladyfriend and I.

Whilst the ladyfriend and I took the evening air last night on our new health kick (apparently: Power Walk + No Alcohol x Portion Control = weight loss for the ladyfriend. Something I have been trying to say for some time but I wont be one to discourage especially after my wonderful mother's success) Anyway, we started to muse on the possibilities of our future and a preferable lifestyle.
At the moment our dream is to move to the Isle of Wight and open an environmentally kosher camp site/organic small holding/cider press and fossil theme park. It would be good. All year I would parade around in shorts, grow my body hair to alarming lengths and spend the summer ticking off campers for lighting bad bar-b-ques.

During the winter I would run cookery lessons and handy craft courses for gullible women with disposable incomes. In the springtime I would hold a folk festival (packing the ladyfriend off to a greek island first).

A patch of woodland would be exclusively for kids so they can run free, build camps, play cowboys and indians, swallows and amazons. Ofcourse this area would have to be cordoned off with an electric fence to stop them straying into the adult areas but I am getting ahead of myself.
Oh it's a pipe dream ofcourse as the value can go up aswell as down, the best laid plans etc but wouldn't it be something to live on the Isle of Wight a blob of land that is forever England.

Oh by the way, apparently I am read in New Zealand.

Back with my nose firmly at the grindstone my holiday memories, like my reluctant sun tan, fading with each passing hour. My annual summer leave turned out to be one of disease. Both the ladyfriend and I were laid low with nasty colds that no amount of benilyn and ginger beer could touch. It meant that our decorating plans remained just that, we were both too weak to lift a sponge roller between us.

When we managed to move a typical day began with tea and buttered toast. We then dressed for the beach, packed our lunch and set out in the motor. I jumped out at the traffic lights to buy the newspapers, two cans of cold ginger beer and chocolate then it was Holywell Beach bound. We then made a bee-line for the unofficial nudey beach - less children but you have to stomach the wrinkly arses of mucky old men. We had a rare old time. I flew my kite, we dipped in the briney, splashed in rock pools, hunted fossils, skinned our hearts and skinned our knees - the usual stuff. It is the best beach in all christendom, my favourite place where God paints the scenery and I want to go back : Click here for pictures