A good few years ago we had a
place in the North West near an airbase where they trained fast-jet pilots. As
an exercise these guys used to bring a Tornado in to land just so that its
wheels touched the tarmac in a puff of smoke and then pull on the burners and
take off again. This more or less describes what my last month has been like.
After some tearing around UK for
business, two weeks in Glasgow saw me arrive at a derelict property, remove the
entire contents of it and then systematically replace everything inside from
kitchen to carpets and tiles to toilets, toiling day and night, mainly on my
own. I will admit I didn’t get it completed as I was relying on some tradesmen
- you know what those mythical illusive chaps are like - but I did give it a
good kick at the ball. This was the first real experience I have had with
Glaswegians and I have to admit the locals were a fantastic and friendly bunch
of folks. One by one the neighbours would drop by for a nosey, bringing a cup
of tea and a biscuit and one even offered to pop down to Tesco to get my
shopping. I couldn’t believe how far
removed this was from the reputation that the 'weegies' have for nicking stuff,
beating each other up - especially the English - and generally being a bunch of
drunken hard-cases. To cap it all, the weather was so glorious for the whole
duration, as they enjoyed the first decent summer for a couple of years.
Another week is scheduled shortly and I am quite looking forward to it, not
least because I am still fed up with the miserable weather here in France where
it has rained constantly since Christmas.
During that trip another thing I
experienced for the first time was that of the man-shed - a residence from
residence where gentlemen of a certain age while away the hours to get 'oot the
hoos!' In this instance, the old guy who had lived there had since passed away
but a few minutes in his 'shed' gave me a complete potted history of the chap
in his prime, and what a proud guy he must have been. Wooden tools,
alphabetically marked draws full of nails screws and obsolete bits of plumbing,
a handy work-bench and garden equipment worn thin with age. Back then, and
possibly still, a working man would pop out to the pub and have a couple of
pints and then wander back home to ponder life in his own domain, safe in the
knowledge that his wife knew where he was but wasn’t going to batter his ears
for being a drunk and cluttering up the sitting room. In one corner, the
tell-tale sign of an aerial socket would suggest that he might just have the
footie on in there as well. It almost brought a tear to my eye, especially when
a couple of Romanians removed the whole thing under my instruction, leaving
nothing but a bare patch of earth to mark the spot. I have no idea what they did with it after
that, some things are better left unasked.
You might question why I had to
use some bogus method of disposing of unwanted stuff but the answer is quite
simple - because the local council are so far up their own jacksie they can see
the sunrise through their ears! These days local government is so infested by
ecomentalists that we are dictated to that absolutely everything has to be
recycled. Maybe not so much in the countryside but if you live in a city you
will be indoctrinated to pop along in your Volvo estate to the local tip every
week, sit in a queue of like-minded folks, awaiting your turn to put you old
Kenwood mixer, MFI TV stand or Hostess trolley in the correct container. You
even get issued with a map to help you do this which you can take home and be
smug about. That is, unless you drive a white van. You see, van drivers are the
anti-christ of recycling, hell bent on destroying the world faster than Dr
Evil. The fact I merely darkened the door of West Glasgow's 'dump' with my
Hertz vanload of nuclear waste was enough to get me a criminal record and a
three month stretch in Barlinnie. Despite my protestations that I was carrying
nothing more lethal than a used wooden kitchen cut no ice with 'Jock the
important' who claimed it was still classed as industrial waste and I would
need to pay a few hundred quid to dispose of it. After a futile argument, I succumbed
and suggested I would revert back to what normal countryside folks would do -
and have a bonfire instead. However, Jock didn’t appear too keen on this
either, especially when I started unloading it on the side of the road and
breaking out with the Swan Vestas! After yet more negotiations, a ream of
paperwork and a few phone calls, I was eventually allowed to drive in and
unload it, only to be bawled at by yet more dictatorial custodians of the
planet for driving in the wrong lane and parking in the incorrect location.
Hence, the whole recycling experience got me so irritated that I have no choice
but to revert to the gypsy community with barely a pang of guilt!
Anyway, a few days later, after
another quick touchdown in the French rain, and we are in South West Spain, so
far removed from the madness that we could have been on planet Sane. Conil de
Fronterra is a place we have been before and one we love, purely because nobody
north of the British Chanel knows of its existence. Although only a few hours
from Malaga, for a whole week we never so much as heard a British voice, let
alone saw a tattoo or fish and chip bar, as I mended my bones in the glorious
sunshine, interspersed with gin and seafood, for a whole week.
To relay the pleasure of this
experience back to our friends we made an attempt to take a 'selfie' but soon
realised we are not very good at this task. No matter how hard I tried, every photo
highlighted my burnt peeling nose making me look a bit like a scarlet
artichoke. We tried the 'soft-focus' setting on the camera but even a blurred
beetroot will never make a red rose.
Someone suggested we used that height of vanity, a selfie-stick, but it
appears they don’t make them long enough for the likes of us! Oh well, we know
we had a good time, and that's all that really matters.
PS, don’t be in too much of a
hurry to get rid of that hostess trolley, apparently they are right back in
fashion. You heard it here first!
