May Bank Holiday
Some of my friends have already read this but I thought I would reproduce it here for posterity.
1st May. The dog is being a right twat, we're trying to load the car for an overnight trip to the inlaws caravan, the stupid animal is running back and forth in a panic worrying that we'll leave it home alone, it's in the way, it's knocked the dog gate down, escaped into the street and we're all getting stressed.
Now its pissed all over the dinning room floor as I try to get it's lead on to get it in the car.
Finally we're in the car, the dog is panting like mad, the kids are shouting at it and the windows are all steaming up.
Why do we do it?
Can the weekend get any worse?
It's a pretty uneventful trip to the van apart from the torrential rain, one smelly panting dog and two very loud children, all this to spend 2 days in a tin box in the pissing rain with six adults, two kids and a smelly flatulent dog. Oh, and on the Sunday morning there will be two more adults with two very small offspring visiting the van just to add to the chaos.
Fish n chips is the order for supper so I jump in the car, back out of my parking space right into the inlaws neighbours wooden fence and break the main post, he's not a happy bunny, nor am I; this is the second bit of damage on the car in the last week (but that's another story/blog).
Fish n chips is heartily consumed and a few beers later and we're all feeling a bit sleepy, but the inlaws want to go to the clubhouse. So at 22:00 we head out.
This is the sort of place (excuse the stereotyping, no offence intended) that is full of fat chavs, with short skirts and very bad tattoos and everyones child appears to be called "you little f***er".
A Hanna Montana lookalike is on stage, she ends her performance after a screaming rendition of The Best Of Both Worlds and a kids talent contest starts, there's nowhere to sit, the Coca Cola is flat and you can't hear yourself think. It's pissing down outside so you can't go for a cigarette to get away from any of it.
But hold on, the Hanna Montana lookalike is back, but this time as herself, she's doing some pretty good covers, and she looks good in a black skimpy dress and platforms with very high heels, perhaps it's not so bad after all.
2nd May. 00:30 and the kids are only just going to bed, but what's this, our daughter has forgotten her favourite teddy, all she had to do to get ready was pack her backpack and she couldn't even remember the one thing that is important to her.
Apparently she can't sleep without it. We have tears, tantrums and all sorts of excuses why she can't go to bed, actually we're familiar with this type of behaviour; it happens every night.
03:00 and we finally go to bed, if you can call a convertible caravan couch made from plywood with lumpy cushions a bed.
My cushion is hanging of the side of the so called bed by 500mm. I spend all night trying not to fall off on top of the farting, snoring dog who is next to me on the floor.
It's freezing cold now because the radiators are off and between the hours of 04:00 and 06:00 the rain is so heavy it sounds like someone is emptying a giant bag of golfballs on the van roof.
I finally give up trying to sleep at 06:30 when the smelly canine jumps on top of me sticking it's wet nose in my mouth.
I'm tired, I'm fed up, my back really aches and I have to tiptoe around because everyone else is still asleep, I can't even take the dog out for a walk because Noah is getting his ark ready outside.
Finally at 10:00 everyone is up and dressed and it's still pissing down outside but our hearts are lifted by the smell of bacon and eggs as mother-in-law cooks us a slap-up breakfast, it's a bit of a relay affair as the table only sits 3 at a time.
At 11:30 it's still pissing down when the additional humans turn up with their offspring, we all sit around for a couple of hours on the lumpy cushions and chat about art, politics and the weather and then all head off home at around 13:30.
And what happens to the weather?
Yep you guessed it, the rain stops and the sun comes out.
Road Works
29 March 2010. Gas repairs commence in the streets surrounding my house. Our road looks like a bloody building site, there's bulldozers and digging machines all over the place, a bloody great container and a portaloo; there is nowhere for the neighbours to park their cars (we're OK we have a garage) and there are big piles of rubble on every street corner.
Within a day there are massive holes all over the road with yellow barriers around them, cars accessing and egressing the local area can't pass each other, there is lots of reversing and shunting going on, it's chaos and the noise is unbelievable, someone's going to damage their car soon.
As soon as the sun goes down every night a bunch of toe rags come along and jump up and down on the storage container because the "shit-for-brains" little wankers think it makes a cool noise. Once they've finished with the container they knock over the portaloo and blue chemicals laced with piss and shit run all over the road.
This situation continues for four weeks, not only is it like a war zone outside but inside the house it's chaos too as our stress incontinent Golden Retriever runs from the back of the house to the front barking at the diggers and dozers, occasionally wetting itself on the way.
Finally around 19 April things start to quieten down a bit as the contractors begin to finish off tarmacing their holes over and moving their diggers and dozers out of the area, the portaloo is one of the last things to go, it's been over so many times there is now a smelly blue stain in the middle of the road.
Returning home from work one night I see a notice on the lamp post outside my house notifying us that the water company will soon be carrying out water main repairs. This work, the notice informs me, will start from 26 April and last for 6 weeks. Great, we've only just god rid of the gas workers and now the water people are gonna do the same thing all over again.
What was it the Lord Mayor, Mr Boris Johnson, was on his high horse about recently? Yes, utility companies using a bit of joined up thinking and working together when digging up the road. Forget it, this is Great Britain where planning is a naughty word and where it takes us 15 years to build a high speed rail link to the Channel Tunnel when the French had theirs build before the tunnel even opened.
Anyway, forget rail links and, god forbid, the ability to carry out a bit of simple planning, the utility twats wouldn't know a gant chart if you shoved one up their arse.
So we have a week of peace and quiet between utility companies and then the chaos starts all over again.
This time though the holes are bigger some of them are right in the middle of the road, and one of them is right outside our garage door. Even more shunting and reversing of cars ensues up and down every street on the area.
The missus gets up one morning to go to work in the car, opens the garage door and there is a big digger in the middle of the road, she tries to negotiate over the metal plates, around the yellow barriers and between a van and the digger but there's not enough space, as she is halfway out of the garage she turns the steering wheel to the left to avoid the digger and rams the side of the car into the corner of the garage opening, this results in a gouging of the rear passenger door whilst taking a big lump of the garage wall. Great now the car's in a poor state and repair bills amount to £1,500, I knew someone would damage their car in all of this chaos but I didn't realise it would be ours.
These muppets have even bigger machines than the gas boys and they leave them right in the middle of the road. And when they finally piss off each night they deposit huge metal plates over the big holes. These plates make a loud clanking noise every time a car goes over them; the noise sounds just like a huge clap of thunder. My street generally has cars back and forth until the small hours of the morning, consequently the thunder noise continues most of the night. The bigest metal plate is in the road right outside my daughter's bedroom. This keeps her awake and drives her mad along with the incontinent dog who barks at every clang.
It's now 10 May 2010 and the water boys are only just packing up tools, the car is off to be repaired later this week but it hasn't been in the garage now for at least two weeks as the missus is scared she might damage the other side.
Thanks again for looking and as always comments are welcomed, you can leave comments below or on my Blog Home page, here.
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