Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 18 Comments

Diverted

Maybe it’s like this everywhere but wow there is a shed load of roadworks right now. A few weeks back a motorway trip from here to London was like a Chris Rea, Road to Hell video. On this weekday, the 200 miles we travelled was for over half of them within roadworks. 3 lanes down to 2 or 1. Most of that done at crawling speed. Usually you can divert down the other possible motorway but that was basically a car park due to its own road work hell. A 4 hour journey ended up being double that. We even had traffic jams on the way back, at 2am…

It’s not just the motorways sadly….. Around our little bit of the Yorkshire countryside, the road work plague has gone into overdrive. We don’t have many roads here and at this time of year they should be muddy but quiet. They are definitely quiet as a good proportion of them are closed, partially blocked or about to be hit..

The Weather is fighting back and vandalising.

Mr Saddo got his map out and counted. I really need a life….

Our village has basically one road which then eventually branches out into 10 smaller roads heading out in various directions. Of those 10 branches 6 currently have road works badly effecting them, 2 more are closed for months and one of the last untouched roads is about to be hit for weeks…

Here when a road closes down the diversion takes you miles and miles in completely the wrong direction. So much worse when the diversion has to avoid other diversions. Deep sigh.

But there is a scary underlying thought here. All these roadworks around the world need lots and lots of signs, cones, barriers, speed cameras, portacabins, trucks, lighting, diggers, steamrollers and traffic lights. A mind boggling amount of stuff. For that motorway I mentioned at the start, apparently someone worked out that in the last 5 years it’s had over 100,000 different road works…. Imagine that spread across all the roads. Now imagine road utopia and there are no roadworks anywhere. WHERE DO THEY STORE ALL THE SIGNS and BARRIERS and EVERYTHING.

They can’t store it, we don’t have the storage capacity anywhere. There won’t be anywhere we can put this stuff except on the roads and motorways. Put the stuff on a road and it becomes a road works…. So we have to have roadworks and lots of them just to put stuff somewhere never mind if we actually need to fix a bit of tarmac.

We have created a Frankenstein Invasion, the Roadwork Monsters are among us permanently. All those dystopian movies about AI being the biggest threat to humanity and actually we end up losing control to ROAD CLOSED signs. I guess we had better just get used to being controlled and diverted in wrong directions.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 40 Comments

Powers

There comes a stage when our kids start to develop superpowers as a direct result of trying to live with their strange and ancient parents. It’s the power of second guessing, otherwise known as the power to interpret muppet parents. Maybe it’s the result of too many sleepless nights, too many family crises, too many additions to the ‘to do list’. Maybe it’s not enough caffeine, too much mind numbing tv but often parents function with only 90% of the words they know, the other 10% is either randomly lost or corrupted. The end result is we often don’t make sense and yet our kids can somehow make sense of the rubbish that sometimes comes out of our mouths.

Example one of those superpower from our house…

Asking Hawklad what he wanted for tea… “do you want thingy and chips”. Seamlessly he replies “yes I’ll have an omelette but maybe with vegetables…”

Example two of the superpower….

Asking Hawklad “have you seen the erm, you know”. Without taking his eyes of his book, he points to the sofa, “the remote control is there”…

Example three….

In the car, we were talking history and Hawklad mentioned Theodore Roosevelt. His muppet dad immediately butted in with his Einstein like intellect….

“Theodore, wasn’t he one of the hamsters in that tv thing…”

Almost without blinking Hawklad replied

“You mean Chipmunk…. Theodore from Alvin and the Chipmunks..”

I was surprisingly close, Theodore was a rodent. As we don’t get chipmunks here, maybe we need a British version of that show. Harry and the Hamsters. Rather than singing pop songs badly, The Hamsters could recite Shakespeare really badly with annoying high pitch voices.

Example four….

“Erm, you had a {…. mumbling as I fight with the vacuum cleaner, …}, erm Whatsaface {…. more mumbling as I’m distracted by the vacuum cleaner bag emptying its contents onto the floor…}, don’t forget”

Hawklad somehow understood what I was trying to say and he went to phone a friend who had called him earlier….

BUT here is the thing, it’s a selective superpower that our children wield. The power seems to fail if the parent starts talking homework, housework or personal grooming…….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 33 Comments

Lucky

Not a bad place to run.

The iPhone tries to hide the terrain. It’s a bit steep. it’s a bit bumpy. It’s also hardly ever used these days. But yesterday I was around about here when I came across a dismounted mountain biker, someone who initially looked like he was taking in the view. As I passed him, he asked if I knew anything about fixing knackered bike gears. After I said ‘a little’ and started aimlessly tapping the bikes chainring, he painfully explained ….

“If you heard any screaming noises a few minutes back, it was from my lungs, my knees and my backside. My wife said I should take up this as a hobby, she said it would be fun, good for me. Strangely she didn’t buy herself a bike…. The first time I went out I fell off and dislocated a finger. Since then I’ve been lost, bruised, angry, tired, broken but never ever has it felt like fun“

His bike was beyond my expertise…

The poor chap groaned …. “this hobby just keeps on giving”.

LIFE IS FUNNY SOMETIMES

Just then, in the distance, a bit of a dust cloud coming up the usually quiet hill lane. One bike, two bikes, three bikes, four bikes, five bikes. All flying up the steep climb, heading towards us. It was like a scene from a modern day remake of a Spaghetti Western.

Unbelievably a professional mountain bike team, all in matching team kit, out on a training run. Not just one bike expert, FIVE EXPERTS. Within seconds the fallen bike was as good as new.

In the words of Monty Python, the Lucky, Lucky, Lucky B………

Yes Lucky but I also suspect, he is now a FORMER Mountain Biker…….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 43 Comments

Code Red

The Matterhorn

As a child I could eat most things as long as it was covered in at least 1 inch of Tomato Ketchup… even pesky vegetables. Now all these years later,Hawklad has upped the ante. Seemingly everything on his plate is edible as long as it’s found submerged in a sea of the red stuff. But whereas I would be fine with the cheapest ketchup, Hawklad has to have Heinz…. And when I say a sea of the stuff, it’s at volume levels which create destructive pressure levels. The Swiss Hotel we would stay at on more than one occasion had to order more ketchup as someone had completely exhausted their stocks.

Spiez, a wonderful town which every so often has had its Ketchup stocks put under extreme pressure….
Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 25 Comments

Strange things

Apparently there is a mysterious monolith that keeps appearing in various parts of the world. Strange Things.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/monolith-mystery-las-vegas-desert-b2564821.html

Looks impressive, well today I think we found the Yorkshire Mysterious Monolith which has randomly appeared in a similarly remote, exotic location… A Cow Field.

Same shape just a bit crap…. That kinda sums up Yorkshire sometimes 😂😂😂

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 30 Comments

One man revolution

Going through some old photos for this post and a TV news item about the upcoming election sparks memories. The Swiss Hotel Owner would always want to hear updates about UK politics. After the update he would always say something like

‘In the UK people don’t seem to go into politics to help communities, it’s about helping themselves. They want the political power too much…’

Oh that is so true, and my mind wanders. Some folks do want political power way too much 😂😂. This post is going off on a tangent now.

Recently I went to vote in the local Mayoral election. A trip to a little used, tiny village hall. The Presiding Officer, clearly bored, was having a good giggle at not accepting my photo id, as to her it was not a true likeness. Apparently my beard shape was different to the photo and she wanted me to restyle it before I could vote.

Maybe more ZZTop, or maybe more Idris Elba…..

In front of the bored official, on the desk, apart from the voting forms and electoral register WAS a Stephen King Book, a food pack up, several Mars Bars and a flask of something.

Memory time. I had completely forgotten that years back, I had been a Presiding Officer, just as bored as this beard focusing prankster.

The Election Team could never get enough people to volunteer to run all the polling stations, so the day before the election, desperate officials would walk round the government building where I was working, trying to entice people to volunteer. AND I was one of the willing….. Why was I so willing….

Run this past me again, you want me tomorrow to not come into work, at this really busy time, to go to a deadly quiet village hall. Then instead of working my butt off, I can read a book, drink coffee, have a picnic, and I just have to hand out a few voting cards for 12 hours. I’m your man…..

But the secret was not to look too keen, make it look like a real chore, a real inconvenience. Eventually they would agree to pay your normal salary for the day rather than just volunteering.

And you are going to pay me to do nothing for the day…. Just GRAND. Now you can sign me up.

You would turn up at the voting centre and basically vegetate. In most of these remote polling stations your were lucky to get 10 voters turning up during the whole 12 hour shift. Normally a super relaxed shift. Yes, sometimes boring. One time I can remember trying to convince a voter that I could sort out a special voting bone for his dog, so the dog could vote as well. Yes I so understand her beard jokes….. But one year I had to do the voting centre gig with a trainee planner as an assistant. Way too keen. Have you done this, have you done that, is that wall poster on local conservation appropriate during voting. Never stopped. On top of everything, he then accidentally put his empty crisp packet into the vote ballot box rather than the bin. I forced him to fish it out with tongs I managed to find in the village hall kitchen. After about an hour it was too much for my sanity.

Ok, I’m going to make you Acting Presiding Officer.

Really, can you do that.

Yes, I will even get you a name badge to tell everyone about your new role. You can then run the process and I will just sit over there and de stress.

He was so happy, even happier when I stuck a postage note on his chest telling everyone of his new role. Then I sat in the corner and read while the new Acting Presiding Officer enthusiastically dealt with the handful of voters over the passing hours, only once did I have to intervene to stop some form of bureaucratic madness from him. Always thinking, when will he look at his name badge. He never did, at the end of the day, he threw it in the bin and went off a happy bunny, full of the new political power he had exerted. I kinda hoped that at least one of the voters had read his name badge.

No it didn’t read……

I’m the Acting Presiding Officer

Much more importantly it read….

I’m the Acting Prime Minister.

I’m sure that act of personal silliness broke several electoral laws and Revolutions have started over much less.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 38 Comments

Aliens

Another Spring trip to the TROPICAL Yorkshire coast. This time FILEY. Filey was once a really popular Victorian seaside haunt and on the rare warm day, still gets mobbed. Today, just one day away from the usually seriously busy Bank Holiday Weekend, it was a bit of a ghost town. The 1000 place Car Park, had 3 cars parked up. Yes Saddo counted them. It’s just TOO cold.

A few years back there was a newspaper story claiming that an underwater ALIEN base had been discovered, bizarrely off the coast of Filey….

The town is supposed to be an ALIEN hotspot….. Well I hope the little Green Men have a Base which has robust anti seagull defences and monumentally good heating.

PS… my helpful spellchecker tried to change underwater to UNDERWEAR. Now that would have been a story. An Underwear Alien Base, I’m lost for words.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 46 Comments

How long

I have a friend from university who has steadfastly shunned as much new technology as possible. He has no home computer, still uses video and vinyl, has no cd or dvd player. Doesn’t own a mobile phone. Actually he doesn’t really like any phones. The result is any communication is handwritten letters, it’s like a blast from the past.

During one protracted letter exchange, a conversation which would now normally take seconds was played out over almost a full year.

Remember that climbing trip to Glen Coe…

Oh yes, that one…

How on earth did you fall into that stream….

Effects of gravity probably, wow it was smelly, but you found that cowpat to fall into….

That was the biggest cowpat ever, covered head to toe….

That was not produced by a cow, size of that thing, it was a dinosaur….

We looked a right state sitting in that cafe that evening….

We did, but it was a great climb….

Happy Days….

It’s been a while since we have climbed….

It is, life happened….

How long is it now, must be 10 years….

I’ve just checked my photos, I think our last climb was 21 years ago….

Really, wow, where does that time go………………..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 44 Comments

Lane

It’s now been over two decades walking down the village back LANE. Actually it’s really about navigating the dangers, dodging the potholes. The many many many potholes, mile after mile of them.

In places it’s more hole than tarmac. During the day it can be bad enough but at night, on those late dog walk. Yet, over the years the myriad ankle breakers have become ingrained on my mind, almost subconsciously I now know which way to step, hop, jump and sidestep. Without thinking, without looking, I flow through the pothole dangers. Who would have thought it, on that LANE, I almost become a cross between Ethan Hunt and Neo. On that LANE I could be Mission Impossible, could be The Matrix.

Just on that one LANE, no where else. Which unfortunately rather cuts down on my movie superhero stardom chances. That would be one dull thriller…. THE LANE.

But then in other places, there can be more movie potential.

The kitchen destroyed another item today. Its third Glass Coffee Press. That’s on top of countless plates, cups, glasses, jars, bottles and yes even spectacles. You name it, the kitchen floor has destroyed them. Who in their right mind puts a stone floor in a kitchen. Such a defect, such a negligent act, that’s Towering Inferno incompetence. Maybe that’s the second, more marketable thriller….THE KITCHEN FLOOR.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 78 Comments

Bridge

A quiet old bridge on The Moors.

Spent about twenty minutes here without seeing another car. Bridges are so much nicer without traffic….

When we returned from our trip out, it was TV time. Hawklad selected a fine comedic movie….

Kramer v Kramer.

The comedy came as the end credits rolled.

“Dad, did you notice that Dustin Hoffman became a decent cook after 8 months. See single parent DADs can do it. You have had 8 Years and you are getting worse. It’s just not fair….”

Can a Dad sue his SON, it’s just over 7 years not 8…..