27th January 2010, Marjal and very, very windy.

“I've never thought about my diet too much, which means my life will be short, brutal and tasty.”

The above is another signature from a forum, I love it!

Today started out very windy with the occasional bout of rain but we had a driving job to do, drive back to Carrefour to replace my new mouse. Basically the one I bought yesterday did not work, I mean that it worked but had a mind of it's own. Plug it in and the cursor would run riot all over the screen switching things on and off and trying to delete the odd file and / or programme it latched on to. It took me a while to figure this out and pull the damn thing out before it did real mischief.

So it had to go back. “Er, Tricia where is the receipt?”. “It's in the bin!. “What bin?” “The waste bin”. And of course it was, what she hadn't told me was that it was in a thousand bits”. “Why did you tear the receipt up, Pet?” “Anything that might have our details on it, I tear up”. “We paid cash, we always pay cash at the supermarkets, there are no “details””. “You never know”.

“God's teeth, what do you mean you never know!” “You never know”. And I won't and never will.

So as we don't have any sellotape I had to use black electricians tape to stitch it back together, it looked a sorry state. When presented to the “Customer Service” lady at Carrefour however, it made her day and she was still laughing as she gave me an exchanged mouse, funnily enough called “le rat” in Spanish . Which worked fine.

Just did a trip to Lidl for the sole purpose of getting some more bottled water and yoghurt, ended up €36 lighter and coming back with a variety of other things, including a 26cm roasting pot, with lid, how do they do it? If I go myself I usually come back with what I wanted plus maybe the mandatory beer and wine.

When SWMBO tags along it's looked at as another “shopping event” and as the likes of Lidl sell many other things besides food, there are no holds barred. She even tried to buy another dressing gown but I pulled the “Your arse looks big in it”, which usually works with items of female clothing. Don't try it too often though as even blonds can eventually figure the ruse out over time.


I do not like fish, well I like sea food, the ones with the bones on the outside and of course the stuff you get from the chippy. Why does fish have to have those thousands of tiny, stick in your teeth, bones at all. You can get seedless oranges, why not boneless fish? Admittedly they may flop around a bit while swimming but isn't a small price to pay so that the rest of humankind can eat them without spitting lumps out during a meal due to the excess of bones.

SWMBO bought a load of fresh Mackerel the other day and fried them in garlic and butter, they smelled delicious. This is the way they are supposed to be eaten “Spanish style”. “Gut fish and cook, leaving heads on. Hold by tail and pop into mouth and pull tail bringing all bones with it”.

Well I can advise that you will only try this once, unless of course you enjoy cleaning splattered bits of fish off your walls.
The weather is finally clearing and I have been counting the number of mats, plastic plant pots and empty water bottles that have appeared on our pitch due to the recent wind (gales). The God it's going to be OK for our departure because I wouldn't like to pull the 5er in that wind.

I learnt that you can download different voices for the Garmin GPS we have and the idea of having Doc Brown (BTTF) telling me that I haven't a “Giga watt chance in hell, of getting round that bend”, rather appealing.

Tricia is at present getting to the end of “Foxbat” a novel by James Barrington, all about Harrier jets and as she is getting to the “exciting” bit it looks like dinner will be late tonight.

Went to have a fight (again) with the guy from the Repsol garage in Alicante to fill up my re-fillable Gaslow bottles. No fight because he was, how can I put it?, either drunk or on drugs, or both. The adaptor is a brass spigot 8 cm long by 2 cm, has a bayonet end and sticks out of the bottle at right angles. The LPG filler is attached to the hose and is cylinder of about 20 cm long and 6 cm in diameter. He could not get them to mate up and was missing by a large margin. This is dangerous work so I backed off about 10m until he had finished.

All done and now have a complete back up units for the now primary unit of the 13 kg Repsol Red Propano gas cylinder I was never going to buy in the first place. Cooking on gas.

Tricia finally tracked down the kind of candles she was looking for “To finish off the MS”. It will never be finished as long as they is room to stuff another cushion or whatever. By the way, she bought four candles, which reminds me.......
(2 of 4 candles)

The two Ronnies.

In a hardware shop. Ronnie Corbett is behind the counter, wearing a warehouse jacket. He has just finished serving a customer.
CORBETT (muttering): There you are. Mind how you go.
(Ronnie Barker enters the shop, wearing a scruffy tank-top and beanie)
BARKER: Four Candles!
CORBETT: Four Candles?
BARKER: Four Candles.
(Ronnie Corbett makes for a box, and gets out four candles. He places them on the counter)
BARKER: No, four candles!
CORBETT (confused): Well there you are, four candles!
BARKER: No, fork 'andles! 'Andles for forks!
(Ronnie Corbett puts the candles away, and goes to get a fork handle. He places it onto the counter)CORBETT (muttering): Fork handles. Thought you said 'four candles!' (more clearly) Next?
BARKER: Got any plugs?
CORBETT: Plugs. What kind of plugs?
BARKER: A rubber one, bathroom.
(Ronnie Corbett gets out a box of bath plugs, and places it on the counter)
CORBETT (pulling out two different sized plugs): What size?
BARKER: Thirteen amp!
CORBETT (muttering): It's electric bathroom plugs, we call them, in the trade. Electric bathroom plugs!
(He puts the box away, gets out another box, and places on the counter an electric plug, then puts the box away)
BARKER: Saw tips!
CORBETT: Saw tips? (he doesn't know what he means) What d'you want? Ointment, or something like that?
BARKER: No, saw tips for covering saws.
CORBETT: Oh, haven't got any, haven't got any. (he mutters) Comin' in, but we haven' got any. Next?
BARKER: 'O's!
CORBETT: 'O's?
BARKER: 'O's.
(He goes to get a hoe, and places it on the counter)
BARKER: No, 'O's!
CORBETT: 'O's! I thought you said 'O! (he takes the hose back, and gets a hose, whilst muttering) When you said 'O's, I thought you said 'O! 'O's!
(He places the hose onto the counter)
BARKER: No, 'O's!
CORBETT (confused for a moment): O's? Oh, you mean panty 'o's, panty 'o's! (he picks up a pair of tights from beside him)
BARKER: No, no, 'O's! 'O's for the gate. Mon repose! 'O's! Letter O's!
CORBETT (finally realising): Letter O's! (muttering) You had me going there!
(He climbs up a stepladder, gets a box down, puts the ladder away, and takes the box to the counter, and searches through it for letter O's)
CORBETT: How many d'you want?
BARKER: Two.
(Ronnie Corbett leaves two letter O's on the counter, then takes the box back, gets the ladder out again, puts the box away, climbs down the ladder, and puts the ladder away, then returns to the counter)
CORBETT: Yes, next?
BARKER: Got any P's?
CORBETT (fed up): For Gawd' sake, why didn' you bleedin' tell me that while I was up there then? I'm up and down the shop already, it's up and down the bleedin' shop all the time. (He gets the ladder out, climbs up and gets the box of letters down, then puts the ladder away) Honestly, I've got all this shop, I ain't got any help, it's worth it we plan things. (He puts the box on the counter, and gets out some letter P's) How many d'you want?
BARKER: No! Tins of peas. Three tins of peas!
CORBETT: You're 'avin' me on, ain't ya, yer 'avin' me on?
BARKER: I'm not!
(Ronnie Corbett dumps the box under the counter, and gets three tins of peas)
CORBETT (placing the tins on the counter): Next?
BARKER: Got any pumps?
CORBETT (getting really fed up): 'And pumps, foot pumps? Come on!
BARKER (surprised he has to ask): Foot pumps!
CORBETT (muttering, as he goes down the shop): Foot pumps. See a foot pump? (He sees one, and picks it up) Tidy up in 'ere.
(He puts the pump down on the counter)
BARKER: No, pumps fer ya feet! Brown pump, size nine!
CORBETT (almost at breaking point): You are 'avin' me on, you are definitely 'avin' me on!
BARKER (not taking much notice of Corbett's mood): I'm not!
CORBETT: You are 'avin' me on! (He takes back the pump, and gets a pair of brown foot pumps out of a drawer, and places them on the counter) Next?
BARKER: Washers!
CORBETT (really close to breaking point): What, dishwashers, floor washers, car washers, windscreen washers, back scrubbers, lavatory cleaners? Floor washers?
BARKER: 'Alf inch washers!

CORBETT: Oh, tap washers, tap washers? (He finally breaks, and makes to confiscate his list) Look, I've had just about enough of this, give us that list. (He mutters) I'll get it all myself! (Reading through the list) What's this? What's that? Oh that does it! That just about does it! I have just about had it! (calling through to the back) Mr. Jones! You come out and serve this customer please, I have just about had enough of 'im. (Mr. Jones comes out, and Ronnie Corbett shows him the list) Look what 'e's got on there! Look what 'e's got on there!

JONES (who goes to a drawer with a towel hanging out of it, and opens it): Right! How many would ya like? One or two?

(He removes the towel to reveal the label on the drawer - 'Bill hooks'!)