Oh God, make it stop......

Okay

I have some significant news for you from the eco-camp, in no particular order:

1. Claire has seen a brief story on the telly about Tesco's taking over the world. We are now boycotting Tesco's. (I say WE, but at lunch time I'll maybe still go there for a funcy piece). Apparently Tesco's are devastated at this news.

2. After Claire being anti-nature when I met her, she's only gone and bought a bird table. Now let me set the scene here. This is the Taj Mahal of the bird table world. Not a crappy wooden affair. This is a DELUXE bird station, that does everything apart from open their fuckin beaks and feed them little seeds. Decadence indeed..... I mean it even has a little bird bath for them to do a face, hands and tummy. JEEEEZ! Look out for the pictures in a later post.

3. On the whole 'nature' theme, Claire once told me, " I dinna wint a gerdin fu' o' flooers". Well she's bought 4 propogaters, shit loads of seeds and more gardening magazines than you would've thought existed: Gardeners World, Amature Gardener, Gardeners Wives, Shed Monthly, Which Spade?, Gardens Gardens Gardens, Big Onions and my particular favourite Soil Weekly.

4. I have been informed that I will no longer be shaving with disposable razors and Claire has ordered me a Cut Throat razor. What I save in money on razors, I'll spend on toilet roll to stem the blood from the open wounds, although Claire may be able to knit a medical alternative.

As we speak, Claire is getting her jacket on and we are off to the recycling bank to make a deposit. I wish I was joking.

Cheers

Nick, Wild Blossom, Beth and Ellen x

Shock Horror in Bourne.......

Small Dog Caught Wearing Nappy......

This is a picture of poor Gracie suffering from having the painters in, gave us all a good laugh, but may have scarred Seth for life. This is as exciting as life is in Bourne at the moment. Glad to hear I will not have to polish up my steel toe cap boots prior to kicking M in the fud, Claire. Although a visit home would have been nice, even if only to be a tooth fairy, or to support my sister. We have got our new wheelie bins - one black for normal household guff, and a silver one for recycling. Cant wait to start using these babies. I can be a bit ott about recycling, although I think I have to go quite a long way to beat Claire !!! I was at Diane`s house helping her mother make food for a party, and imagine my dismay when I lifted the bin lid only to be greeted by a heap of recycling. When confronted, Trish stammered and promised she would do better - She is now recycling like buggery, I like it when a plan comes together. On the subject of loo flushing, we have followed the same practice as you Nick, but I do find the smell gets to you after a while, I find myself praying for someone to have a crap to freshen the air. Does`nt sound logical somehow. On the subject of sweet and biscuit wrappers - I remember when Sam & Nick used to come home from school and eat the chocolate biccies, leave the crumbs and wrappers for us girls to clean up and to run down to Abbeys to replenish. Hmmmm.......................Like the DIY Sam, perhaps you should get a safety helmet, sports cup and hand protection, just in case. We are all fine here, its half term and the boys are up late, using all the hot water and eating me out of house and home. Les and Ben are working hard. Jess, Johnny and Seth are doing well, looking for another house. Work is going well, bird flu has`nt made any impact at all. Heard a funny joke - drug manufacturers toyed with the idea of making viagra in eye drop form, but who wants to look hard? Well on that note I will go, so love to you all, take care Lots of love as always Sonya XXXX

There's been a TERRIBLE accident......

Anybody got a pound coin I can get at short notice? Beth's only gone and pulled one of her teeth out and the tooth fairy isn't in the Ellon area tonight. That kid'll do anything for a quid!

If Ellen catches wind of this, she'll be knockin' her own teeth oot with a spanner to get a footing on the old pocket money ladder.

Both kids have still got this long running chest infection and cough, but Ellen was fit enough to run through and flush the toilet FOR NO REASON, other than to annoy Claire, ha ha ha ha ha! 3 years old and she knows everyones achillies heel.

Shoulda' seen Claires face........ she was boilin', compounded by the fact that Ellen was taunting her about it!!!

Take care.

Nick, Claire, Beth and Fudgie x

Smashing Toilet Fun

At last. I have entered another phase in my life. No, not S&M, but DIY. And I feel good.

Below is a pic of me this Sat afternoon, when I chiselled off the tiles in my bathroom.

I've got into it late, and it may not go any further, but I rank this attempt at DIY along with other major steps in my life: urinating so high it reached the ceiling of the boys' toilets at St Margarets (I think girls did that in their toilets, as well), my First Holy Communion (er...), almost killing Stuart Hilliard with one well aimed punch (cough) after he flicked a bean at me, and many other milestones.

My already flat thumb is considerably flatter than before. This pic doesn't quite show up the serious damage I did in the name of DIY.

Any road, it wasn't all plain sailing. Oh no! I'm typing without the use of my right hand pointing finger cos I sliced into the tip with a piece of the cistern lid... which you'll see below smashed when I dropped my chisel onto it. But that's rock'n'roll DIY, as I see it.

If I can pass on one lesson to my other DIY-ing family (Nick, Les, and, er... Peter?): don't chisel off wall tiles in just your socks.

.

.

.
PS. Does anyone want to be in my DIY club? We could meet and talk about tools... like a bunch of tools.

Sam

SURVIVAL TACTICS

'TENSHUN!!


What the f**k did you learn in Basic Training, soldier?


Eating biscuits and essdubs is a COMBAT situation!


Never, I repeat NEVER, leave evidence of your activities in enemy territory. A soldier that leaves just one wrapper, even the tiniest shred of evidence of the consumption of these products... is a DEAD soldier!



Pic 1.
Now, pay attention. The objects on the left are your tools. You WILL sleep with them, you WILL make love to them. They will protect your munching activities from discovery.













Pic 2.

Keep your kit on you at all times. This is Marine Training 101, for crying out loud. Whether it's a wrapper from a Twix, Crunchie, Double Decker or Toffee Crisp or a more substantial cardboard box that comes with Jaffa Cakes, Tunnocks Tea Cakes or Hob Nobs, use matches to burn the evidence and help cover your tracks.









Pic 3.
And if you're captured and have your kit confiscated... always keep a lighter where the sun don't shine.

Listen to your sister, Marine! Burn the evidence! Now stop eyeballing me and get down and give me twenty!

Sam (I should be in bed! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Take a seat. I have some bad news.

Laura

thanks for the advice. You truly are the Master of Biscuits and Swubs, however you may want to consider this:

All these times you have been 'pinching' toffee from Gran's freezer, that can't have been Gran. She died in 1986.

It's okay. Let it all out, just have a good old cry.

Nick

Now then...

Simmy Sammy, braw pics. Please tell me it was a trick of the light and that you were not, in fact, wearing white breeks....owch....
It looks beautiful there...Say hi to Claire from Me and Peter.

Now, down to business....
Nicky, Nicky, Nicky...how quickly they forget....
Do you not remember the GOLDEN RULE of sweet and biscuit pinching?
ALWAYS (and I'm shouting this...) DESTROY the evidence.
How do you think I have survived all these years nicking Gran's Thornton's toffee straight from her freezer and Lindsay's Holiday sweets, come on use your noodle. Remeber Never, Never, Never shit on your own door step, put the wrappers in next doors bin or even better take them to work and set fire to them, its a no brainer!!!!
L

Shetland Photies

Noo den... here are some pics of the wedding I was at with Claire in Aith in Shetland last Friday.

This one is overlooking the main town of Lerwick from Staneyhill where Claire's parents live. In the background is the island of Bressay... and then it's Norway.

And this one is from the harbour looking back into the centre of Lerwick. See the weather - it was magic!

Claire and I in her grandparents' old house in Aith. I know I look like a bit of a gimp. But I blame it on the bloke that took the pic. And yes that is a bit of inverted orange peel in my mouth. I'm always trying to improve that smile.

I don't know if you can make out, but there's a guy called Ewan Balfour at the head of this crowd making its way from the kirk to the hall. It was his job to fire a shotgun into the air (just as Palestinians do when a child passes their 25m swimming test) to gluff the trows. That means to frighten the trolls away! (Or should that be 'old girlfriends'?!)

So, when Claire wasn't looking I copped off with one of my old Radio Shetland colleagues. This is mary Blance - a genuine legend in her own lunchtime. We didn't swap records, but she just explained the intricacies of Shetland grammar... Du ken?

Look at my chin!! ha ha. Mary had a chin magnet hidden in her mouth, I think.

After the meal and the speeches, they have a thing called the wedding march, where everyone who wants to joins in a stroll round the hall following the bridal party. Everybody watches and then joins in. It's coool, man!

Need I say more? This is 3/4 of the White clan. The boy being kissed is the groom.

That's quite enough of that thank you.

And this last photo is Claire and her pal Rhonda outside her new house in Scalloway. All houses built in Shetland now are these timber frame doo dahs, and so the whole area looks very picturesque with the colours and all that stuff. So it's all so pretty up there. The wool people in our family would dig it hugely.

Signing off now,

Naa Noo Naa Noo
Simmy

Tough Love (for Beth AND me!)

So there I was, watching Claire slaving over a hot stove, when Beth waltzed in on-tippee-toes and enquired what was for tea.

"Sausage casserole"

"Oh min, 'tut', I didn't want that......."

"Oh really?" was my response, scooping Beth up with my left and grabbing a pencil and paper with my right. I dropped her in her bedroom, followed by the stationary and told her to write down exactly what she would be prepared to eat when she came over. I then left the room, returning a mintee later to find the above..............How cute.

It turned out that she eat it all, as did her tiny sister (you know, the one with the bowl hair cut?)

Tough love. We all need a bit of thon.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when I got the following (unrelated) text from Claire today.

"I can't be arsed going in to work today. It's raining again! You see the recycling box. It's only for things which can be recycled. Plastic tubs can't be recycled, plastic bottles can. CUSTARD CREAM WRAPPERS CAN'T. I love you"

Now this is an interesting FMS (Fiance Management Strategy), which is multi faceted and links in with Claires OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Doo Dah) and an over-arching desire to be green.

See, she lulls me into thinking everything is okay by making small talk, referred to as the TWO W's (Weather and Work). Then she funnels me down towards the ISSUE. It's called a funnel because you know where you're going, but yet you can't escape, faster and faster, being channelled towards the truth..............................down, down, down and down until your lower than a snakes seed bag.

But it's one of these fight or flight thingees..........you're so low that you confront you're worst fears, square up to your demons and admit your crimes.

Face it, this is your raison d'etre (and no, I don't care if that is out of context coz I'm low okay?), the reason you were put on this planet,

NOT ONLY DID YOU EAT A DOUBLE PACKET OF CUSTARD CREAMS IN RECORD TIME, YOU DIDN'T PUT THE WRAPPER IN THE CORRECT BIN YOU BASTARD.

Then she builds you up with a wee, "But I still love you!"

Thank god I hadn't committed a real crime, like flushed the chain after a wee, or dared to open the Shortie biscuits, or one after the other without washing my hands. Then I would've been looking at a five stretch.

God Bless tough love.

Congratulations Sam and Claire by the way.

Nick, Claire, Beth & Ellen

Shetland visit

I'm skiving too! So instead of writing briefs about the last coble builder on the river Tay and preparing an interview structure for Nancy when she goes to meet him at his Stanley workshop tomorrow... let's talk about the wedding I had in Shetland on Friday. It was magic!!!

I'll put up some of my own photies tonight, but here are some I've pinched off the web. This is a picture of the village of Aith, on the west side of Shetland. It's not very big as you can see... but it does have a swimming pool - can you believe!!! The benefits of North Sea oil (money brought in by the oil terminal at Sullom Voe in the north of the islands).

This is a picture which I don't recognise. Mind you it was getting dark when we came out of the kirk. It is picturesque, though, as you can see. The hills in the background are the about standard for Shetland though. If you love trees then you won;t find any there (or very few... mostly dwarves.)

And this is one for Laura and Peter. I'm sure you've seen this before. I dare say when the cameras and tourists go away, the human skins come out on the racks!

Hope all's well wi ahbidy. I'll get some of my own pics up tonight.

Och aye the noo

Sam!

I'm skivving...

Hey there, I thought I was the only one who religiously checked to see if anyone had put anything on...a wee bit like how I was checking the Big Brother site every 20 mins...eeeekkkkkk
Anyhoo, glad to hear Simmy Sammy,that you have records to swap, Peter and I only have CDs, perhaps thats where we are going wrong.
We are still waiting for our house and shop sale to go through, its taking forever and at this point we couldnt care less if it does or it doesnt (heee hee not really...)
Please keep adding stuff or I will have to do some work instead of sitting here at the computer skivving....

Simmy Sammy Little Manny: Update

Aye aye ahbidy.
Quick updae on what's happening my end...
My central heating's broken. Doh! Boy comes round tomorrow to fix it.
I've got a clicking knee and make a funny noise while I'm walking up stairs.
Claire White n me have been back swapping records for a couple of weeks now - we're off up to Shetland on Thursday night for a wedding on Friday. That should be a right old knees up.
Work is good: tune into Grassroots this weekend (10th & 11th Feb) to hear how French people cook testicles, how an old Scots farmer used to slit his pigs' bellies open then stick his head inside to bite the sweetbreads and eat them hot and raw, and also how a grotesque 'washing line' of offal products is used to assist Government vets in checking animals are disease free. Mmmm yummy! (Goto... www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland and look under programme A-Z for Grassroots.) You know you want to!!
And apart from that... nothing much else.
Hope ahbidy is weel!
Ock eye the gnu
Sam