SALLY OF FOREST GATE-PART 100-THE LAST AND FINAL PART ! WILL SOMEONE IN CHINA TELL ME WHY THE CHINESE HAVE READ THIS HUNDREDS OF TIMES ?

"SHIRLEY, I'M THINKING OF WRITING MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY !" "DON'T BOTHER !" SHE REPLIED, " NO-ONE WILL READ IT!"

OK! ONE HUNDRED !

THAT'S ENOUGH !

" DAD ! YOU EMBARRASS ME ENOUGH ALREADY ! PLEASE DON'T MAKE THINGS WORSE !"

When I started writing Sally nine months ago I thought I had enough material for about ten Blogs and here we are, NUMBER ONE HUNDRED !

I have insulted almost every minority going and can only apologise to any of the others who had hoped to see themselves villified and haven't read even a word of condescension about themselves !

Believe me, I really hate you anyway, so perhaps you could contact me and tell me some irritating facts about yourselves just in case ! You never know !

And although technology has not yet advanced far enough for you to know what happened between the first eight lines of this momentous occasion and this one, I will tell you to dispel any image you might have of me locking myself away in a cabin at the bottom of the garden for eight hours of undisturbed creativity, sucking away on my corncob pipe, wearing a velvet smoking jacket, swirling a large glass of brandy in one hand and twirling my whiskers with the other as my imagination ran away with itself whilst warming myself in front of a blazing log fire !

I was sitting freezing in our caravan!

THE HOUSEPLANT'S THRIVING DESPITE THE INSIDE TEMPERATURE AS I WRITE !

My loyal readers will know that Shirley swoons from heat exhaustion in any temperature above minus twenty, so I daren't even ask for the heating to be turned on when the place is uncomfortably warm for her at three below!

To stave off hyperthermia I write wearing four jumpers, fingerless gloves like old Steptoe wore and have my double-socked feet resting on a hot water bottle !

I was just thinking, " ONE HUNDRED ! Incredible ! What's been the driving force? How did it really all begin? Am I as funny as I think I am ? How come not a single publishing house has begged for the rights ?

And then just as I decided that I would finish it all with one final go and was waiting for that 'flash' of a theme, Shirley said, " David, if you want your prawn salad ( and that's NOT a euphemism ! Kuh ! You lot really haven't grown up at all have you ? ) there's one job you have to do for me! I can't shift yesterday's baked-on baked potato from the non-stick pan your father bought us thirty eight years ago !"

THIS IS THE ACTUAL SAME TIN THIRTY EIGHT YEARS AGO SHOWING SHIRLEY AS A CHEF AT HER BEST ! I SEEM TO REMEMBER HAVING TO TAKE A CHISEL TO IT THEN !

 I sprung to it immediately with enthusiastic gusto as prawn salads heaped with Thousand Island Dressing are one of Shirley's finest dishes and have prevented me from straying despite many very tempting offers!

Anyway there's nothing a writer likes more than a greasy pan with remnants welded to it to get the imaginative juices flowing !

Well Shirley, like her father wouldn't before her and my mother wouldn't before him, won't throw anything away.....ANYTHING !

 I can't tell you how much fun we have on a winter's evening with no coals burning in the grate when she holds up some paper thin, dreadfully threadbare and holed undergarment for me to guess which year she bought it !

So the 'non-stick' pan that I set about was a round tin with a half inch strip of teflon clinging to a part of it's rim upon which I used my middle finger nail rather than the cold, greasy, grey and half-drowned-looking worn out three year old nylon scouring sponge pad that was waiting for me !

And now, thirty seconds later as I resettle myself I have just been shown my failed attempt which has left traces around the inner ring !

So for anyone still with me, I got the writing bug when I was asked, aged fifteen, if I wanted an American Pen-friend who happened to be a girl and from the centre of the world, Los Angeles !

Well Cilla Uselman and I were soon writing thirty page letters to each other twice a week and this carried on for a year  or two until I got kicked out of school and ran away from home !

WELL! HERE'S A PUZZLE FOR YOU READERS IN LOS ANGELES ! WHERE IS CILLA NOW ?

But that's another story !

Ha! Ha ! Left a chink of light for a future Blog there but I'll need some serious begging from at least one person first !

She lived in California, was incredibly pretty, had an open-topped car and went surfboarding with loads of friends every weekend !

I didn't, wasn't, hadn't and didn't !

So where is Cilla now ? Anyone know ?

And where have the years gone ?

And that's it !

THE END !

Short and sweet as all endings should be !

CAN THIS REALLY BE THE END ?

AND FINALLY ONCE MORE MY FAVOURITE PHOTO OF MY MOTHER WITH ALL FIVE SONS; THE LADY WHO SEWED THE SEED FOR THESE ONE HUNDRED BLOGS, SEEN HERE THOUGH ONLY WITH HER FAVOURITE SON ! HER LAST WORDS TO ME WERE," DAVID,IF YOU EVER WRITE A BLOG, WOULD YOU NAME IT AFTER ME AND DON'T FORGET TO BLANK OUT YOUR BROTHERS' FACES IF YOU PUBLISH A PHOTO ! THE OTHERS HAVE BEEN SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT TO ME ! ALL MY GOLD, DIAMONDS AND CASH ARE ...ARE...ARE...are...are.. urghhhh................"

"MUM! MUM! MUM ! OH BOLLOCKS !"

Sally-Part 99. DIRTY DANCING THOUGH NOT IN THE NORFOLK BROADS !

I HAD THE POTENTIAL TO BE COOL BUT IT JUST NEVER HAPPENED !

Am I the only man who has got through life without once being 'cool' ?

Has any other man ever had people shake their heads in disbelief as often as people have shaken theirs at me ?

Is there a worse dancer than me ?

Is there a worse dancer than me who also thinks, like me, that he is the coolest man on the dance floor or spent more time staring at his own snakeingly sinuous shadow whilst barely acknowledging the presence of the poor female who has accepted the opportunity to dance with him ?

DEFINITELY NOT COOL BUT NOT BAD FOR 62 ! SHIRLEY TOOK THIS TO WARN OTHER WOMEN TO KEEP THEIR HANDS OFF HER PROPERTY ! OBVIOUSLY, ON THE DANCE FLOOR I WOULD ADD A SALAMI TO THE SADLY LACKING AREA !

Ah! But that shows my age because people do not dance with one another any more.

 They don't touch ! They can't possibly appreciate the pleasure of flesh against flesh, or rather, the feel of parts upon parts !

 Non-specified parts but I know as well as any man of my age the electric shock and sheer pleasure of even the briefest 'accidental', yeh,yeh! most fleeting hint of pubic arch against thigh !

  Whoops ! I have been specific there ! Too specific if you ask me !

Oh! That's the lady's against mine not the other way round as that would have been perverted !
Mm ! Would that be perverted if it could be engineered ever so discreetly ?

No, today's impoverished clubbers know only what they have learnt by watching and copying the crowds in 'Kevin And Perry Go Large In Ibiza' !

They bounce or shift their weight from one foot to another rather than dance, in a self-sealed trance with their fingers and hands making ridiculous shapes whilst checking their i-phones regularly but otherwise not communicating with each other !

And some of them do it under the influence of  what I think would be a child's pink aspirin which is the colour of what we were given when we were ill as children ! So, do clubbers take pink tablets to help prevent them getting a headache ?

NOW THAT IS COOL !

What a waste modern dancing is of a good opportunity to seduce with a raised eyebrow or have an unabashed letch at other women over your partner's shoulder !

I don't dance anymore !

Dancing is for women to do and men to watch women doing and never have I been more sure of anything since watching the men of 'The Ladyboys Of Bangkok' lollop around the stage for two hours of making idiots of themselves, believing as only Gay men can that they are gorgeously attractive !
No Ladyboys ! No amount of dress fabric, six-inch heels, false eye lashes or pouting will give you a woman's hips !

When I asked my original question a few paragraphs ago, I wasn't even thinking of writing about dancing ! I was thinking about failing to impress several hundred people lining The Norfolk Broads who were watching me trying to stop my hired houseboat drifting without power into the river's crowded boating channel where it would have collided with several other craft before ending pinned across the entrance to one of those ancient and very low bridges, causing who knows what damage to the bridge's fabric and starting a jam that would quickly have led to much screaming, fist-waving and generally flusterd riverine pandemonium !

We had just dodged under the bows of a speeding Russian cargo ship which moments later ploughed into the bank on a tight turn !
I had come round the bend and momentarily forgot which side of the river I should be on when I saw the monster looming over me hooting continuously.
Had I read the instructions when I took charge I would have known that continuous blasting on a ship's horn meant that it was out of control  because it had hit an iceberg !

As Shirley and the children screamed, " Watch out old chap !" or something similar, I threw my vessel's two horsepower engine into reverse, put the tiller hard over to starboard and returned the hysterical and deafening blasting of the ship's horn with an almost inaudible 'peep peep'  from my own !

As we emerged from under her towering flanks : a ship is always female even if having a woman on board is bad luck: my lot gathered round me whooping and cheering, slapping me on the shoulders and generally treating me as if I had just won a great sea battle.....say Trafalgar !
This actually happened in about 1983 and you can check it on the internet ! The Captain was drunk and he really did drive his ship into the bank, although my recollection of my being hero-worshipped on my own vessel might be slightly exaggerated !

Somewhat flustered and needing a short break to calm my nerves, I started to bring my hundred-footer towards a bankside mooring  with seamless precision when the engine suddenly cut out !
Nothing would restart it and as we were now heading towards an enormous Holly Bush, I quickly and stupidly decided to grab it and pull the boat shoreward !

Now have you ever tried stopping twenty tons of houseboat by grabbing a Holly Bush ?
It was not the right decision, firstly because of the pain as my entire body disappeared into the bush and secondly because the current soon started to pull the boat back out towards midstream !

Though pierced thouroughly and with panic shrieking from my lot, I clung on desperately and clenching a mooring rope in my teeth I hooked one foot around the Holly's trunk and wedged the other through the spokes of my ship's wheel, intending to jump for dry land and tie up !
The current started to win the battle and try as I might, the gap between my feet increased at an alarming rate and at the point where I was in a full splits position and certain tendons were stretched further than a gentleman's tendons should be stretched, the wheel's spokes gave way and I was suddenly lying on my back completely covered by the Holly bush, with the mooring rope torn from my mouth and shouting in a very high-pitched voice for my hysterical wife to sound seven long blasts on a hooter that was barely louder than a child's bicycle bell as she drifted away from me with our cargo of three precious children, none of whom were wearing life jackets !

 Well this was the eighties and long before we were all forced to wrap ourselves in cotton wool and sue everyone for neglect !

If you remember from another Blog, Shirley has never learnt to drive a car after I tried to teach her on a left-hand drive Fiat 500 and a Saab 95 with a column gear change, so finding herself alone on the deck of a rudderless ship justifiably terrified her !

Thankfully other boaters had seen what was going on and through tears of laughter, came to the rescue and  tied the boat to the bank where a diver quickly  removed the plastic farm sack that had wound itself around our propeller: an apparently regular occurence !

Some people even remembered that I was held fast in the centre of a Holly Bush and eventually hacked me out !

Once the pain in my groin had subsided and all the leaves had been pulled out of my face and hands and Shirley's sobbing had calmed to merely a gentle crying, I was able to see as funny a side to the whole thing as my children and the onlookers had, although thirty years later I have yet to hire another houseboat !

SO COOL IT HURTS !

And yet in the intervening years we have found ourselves stuck on a shallow mudbank in a launch that came with a rental house thanks to Gemma's bloody-minded steering; drifting in a hired dinghy on Loch Ken when the yard hadn't checked how little fuel they'd sent us off with; motoring along an overwhelmingly flooded Thames in 1979, totally unaware of the lethal danger we were in, in a tiny boat that also came with a rental house and finally, trapped in yet another rental house launch with my mother waffling on and on, out of control and driving my poor wife to the edge of despair !

It's worth going back to have a look at the photo in Part 21 of Mum and Shirley in our boat because I can't find it to print here again ! Shirley's face says it all ! The look a wife reserves only for her husband !

Sally-Part 98 ! NURSE NASH ! Now with a LURID guide to women and my highly successful seduction techniques !

I came to on the floor ! A wave of nausea swept over me as my vision and hearing returned vaguely to normal !

The doctor still had one hand on the syringe and the largest needle I'd ever seen was up to it's hilt in it's targeted vein !

His voice was full of utter wonder and contempt as he looked down on me, literally, and said, " Are you all right Nurse Nash ? Surely, you must have told Matron you suffered from needle aversion phobia before you chose to enter the profession ? Is the NHS that short-staffed that it has to take on people like you ? "

"Now for goodness sake get up and continue helping me establish a drip in this patients arm !"

I hauled myself to my knees and then my feet in a very ungainly manner, rather in the reverse style of a dog settling itself into it's basket, before repositioning myself beside the patient!

I'd fainted and dropped like a ton of bricks when I saw the tip pierce the flesh as I stood applying pressure to the patients bicep to make the veins stand up !

I supposed I'd failed my first really big test as an auxiliary nurse !

Mind you, when Sister told me to phone for a doctor at 3am for him to come and insert the drip needle, the doctor who I'd woken from his brief and exhausted couple of hours rest begged me to do the job myself and only reluctantly agreed to come when I explained that it was my first ever day or as it happened, night, as a nurse !

 Actually the doctor who had really begged me to do something myself was the one who could barely drag himself to catheterise a male patient by pushing the nozzle of a tube of anaesthetic gel up the poor man's doodah before sliding his tightly squeezed thumb and first finger along the tube forcing the aforementioned organ to look like a snake swallowing a horse whole !

I didn't actually faint that time but did feel slightly uneasy in a way only a man can feel uneasy !

So I guess that I really failed rather badly !

I've actually FAILED at very little in life but I have given up in exasperation at many things, mainly caused by my disbelief in the uselessness of others !

I was not unsuccessful with women once I'd realised that they are all insecure and only need a little flattery and a show of being interested in their entire life's problems to make their underwear much easier to remove ! " Oh No ! " unzip " Oh ! How awful ! " yank " You must have been devastated !" tug " And how did you get through that ?" unclip " And you chose these curtains ? How wonderful ! " pull " I just can't believe that ! " GOAL !!! " Rurlytellmemorezzzzzzz"   ( Chaps: Allow three and a half minutes for the entire process !  I'm DEAD ! )

I can think of two foolish women who finished with me and many more who I became suddenly totally bored with, probably because they wanted to tell me about themselves rather than listen to the far more entertaining tales I preferred them to listen to about me !

No names but one of the world's most beautiful creatures said that she'd love to come out with me when I met her whilst working at the London Boat Show and she couldn't believe how long she'd been praying that I'd ask !

Sadly, my parents offered to take us with them on a night in town and I was so embarrassed by my mother's topics of conversation that I couldn't bear to see the girl again !

She actually asked her what size bra she wore as she had some spare ones that this creature from heaven might like !

 And there I'd been sitting shortly before, drooling and wondering what treasures were hidden from view !

Passion killed stone dead !

She couldn't understand it and I couldn't explain !

No it wasn't Julia Roberts and Notting Hill was not made as a thinly veiled homage to my life !

I think that it was about then that my father, a doctor said  he was worried that I was deeply unhappy and unsettled and might like to talk to a colleague in the local mental hospital !

Well the truth is that aged twenty and having given up women's underwear design  ( true ! ) at Art College through boredom and starvation brought about by utter poverty, caused by buying rolls of silk for my design ideas instead of food for my stomach, I moved to Brighton which in the early 1970's was the centre of the universe, where, pretending to be gay at a party I met a girl and we saw the next year and a half go by glued to each other or so I thought until she glued herself to someone else instead !

I had become an auxillary nurse at The Royal Sussex Hospital; a position which guaranteed that I would be treated like something that had just crawled out of the gutter by just about every other medical professional and patient that I came into contact with, which was a lot of people !

But as I have never suffered from low self-esteem, I wasn't bothered. In fact I thought then and still do that I am at least as good as most of the rest of the world !

As detestable as that sounds, I was a very good nurse who even managed to sometimes stay awake throughout a whole nightshift on an orthopaedic ward after spending all day sunbathing on the beach !

I only once missed sister's silent approach as she regularly crept up behind me demanding to know if I was awake or whether I was ignoring several patient's cries for help on purpose, hoping that they would either shut up and go back to sleep or limp on their crutches to fetch their own bed pans !

She knew and I knew that I had been asleep but she also knew that she was a sexual predator who had the hots for me !

I only hadn't sorted her out because she ate onion sandwiches every night and I found her breath rather a passion killer ! Not any more I wouldn't !

I was the man to call for if a patient needed a good clean-up after an episode of double incontinence !

And I don't think we had rubber gloves or hand gel then, just a bucket of bleach to rinse off in afterwards !

I was the man to pick up gangrenous testicles which had fallen on the floor during dressing changes !

I was the man to pack fist-sized bedsores with honey as my skinny fingers could manipulate themselves around the back of exposed spinal columns !

I was the man to send to shave terrified women before appendectomies and to take sickly nuns to the toilet !

I was skinny, bearded, long-haired, perpetually happy and funny but far from accepting things as I saw them, I wanted answers to why and what.

Eventually a gay Irish Charge Nurse, the male equivalent of 'Sister' summoned me into his office and told me to stop bothering nurses by asking them things for which they and I had no need to know !

I immediately lost all my enthusiasm for the job and deeply irritated with the charge nurse, went and saw the matron and left !

What a loss to the profession.

I had another string to my bow as I had started making rings from the stones on the beach which I  mounted on a long stick and sold walking around Brighton barefoot, wearing an ankle-length pink silk Chinese dressing gown !

Sadly, there are no photos of this period of my life so you'll just have to believe me!

Sally-Part 97. HUMILIATED AT PONTIN'S ! Now heavily edited by my editor-in-chief to avoid death threats !

SEE ! I HAVE MADE MY WIFE AND CHILDREN PROUD OF ME !

I hate quiz shows, Pub quizzes, Pub quizzers and anyone who wastes their life learning useless facts so they can compete against all the other losers in life !

See ! There was another category of people waiting to be insulted !

It's only a joke George ! Don't stop reading now !

( The following paragraph once contained libel and slander and after some consideration I have removed many very hateful thoughts which really destroys the Blog by letting someone off the hook who should really be hung by the neck but frees me from the lawyer's greedy grasp ! )

Actually I love the only Pub quiz I ever go to and that's when I go on holiday but where I never win !

I prefer to witness the desperately hopeful determined-to-be winners in relentless competition with each other and don't mind losing my pound just because I can't believe no-one else realises they've lost to people who eat 'General Knowledge' books for breakfast !

Their encyclopaedic knowledge is not the stuff of ordinary general knowledge !

Frankly, I usually find myself shouting out, " How can anyone possibly know the answer to that ?" at most of the obscurely stupid questions !

Like knowing who scored the winning basket in the Harlem Globetrotters win over The New York Yankees in 1957 isn't either !

I reckon that I can score between one and six out of fifty were I to play on my own and I would have thought that I was pretty average for a man !

Shirley who is super intelligent and knows everything about everything and apart from Trivial Pursuit which she can win with her eyes shut, can get about seven right on the very rare occasions that she has accompanied the boys and I to the pub !

Our friends, a doctor and a lawyer, score zero !

So what happened to me at Pontin's Morecambe Bay thirty years ago ?

Well with three young children to impress, I entered myself for the Camp Quiz immediately after LOSING the knobbly knees competition, both of which were held on the stage in the entertainment complex for normally sexed people and was not, as the title would suggest for men dressed in tights !

There were ten of us, each asked a question in turn.....I picked up this system quite quickly..... and as I was number ten I was able to answer all the other's simple question easily; only learning when I'd been punched a few times that you don't answer other people's questions !

Questions like 'Can you name the three colours used on traffic lights ?' or 'complete this series..1, 2 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and .....?' or 'What symbols are used on toilet doors in pubs to show which are for men and which are for women ?'

So, looking and feeling bored I awaited my first simpleton's question which was 'In 1923 Isaac Einstein added a new equation to his theory on quantum mechanics. Can you give me that equation ?'

So that was the first of my three similar and ridiculously impossible questions which got me eliminated immediately and resulted in my shouting " Well could any of you have done better ?" at the booing and hissing audience of two thousand !

Shirley and the children ran out without waiting to commiserate with me as they didn't want anyone to know that they were with me !

Still the following day I made it up to them by scoring the winning goal in the 'Staff versus Campers' football match, which I managed after I found myself leaning, gasping against the opponent's goal posts having run a whole length of the half-sized pitch, and just being in the right place at the right time as one of my own team slammed his shot into my kidneys from where it dribbled across the line !

I think he thought I was wonderful as he screamed, "Fucking poacher!" into my ear which I took as a compliment, never having ever played any sport before in my entire life !

 SHORT INTERLUDE : I have just fallen down the step into the gents because I ignored the sign on the door which said 'MIND THE STEP !' !

Anyway the next day and to cement my family's respect for my sporting prowess, I came third out of three in the 'Father's Fifty Yard Breaststroke Race' coming in a respectable three quarters of a length behind the second placed man as we thrashed our way through an indoor pool so neglected that it's surface was covered in  seagull's feathers and poo from birds trapped for years inside the most cracked glass roof ever seen !

I had to beg for the certificate which proved my sublime achievement as the camp was only funded to give one to the winner ! And that's true !

I'll find it and print a copy of it shortly and print a photo of me in my football outfit which I had to borrow from my ten year old !

Pontin's closed it's doors at Morecambe Bay forever shortly after we left !

A NATURAL SPORTSMAN AT HIS BEST !

Sally-Part 96. STUFFED IN THE LAKE DISTRICT ! NOW FULLY PHOTOED UP !

THE HAMPSFELL HOUSE HOTEL AT DUSK IN NOVEMBER.

I am stuffed and I can't move !

I have just eaten one of the best meals of all time in a lovely Cumbrian hotel !

SHIRLEY POINTING ! A FASCINATING STUDY OF A HUMAN'S REACTION TO THINGS AND ONLY SLIGHTLY MARRED BY BLURRING CAUSED BY MY EXCITEMENT AT WANTING TO LOOK AT WHAT HAD BEEN POINTED AT !

This is Shirley's fault as usual because now that we only have on average three days out every week when I'm frog-marched around the grounds of one of Northumberland's Stately Homes; the caravan in Dumfries and Galloway, for a minimum of five nights as less isn't worth the journey, where I'm frog-marched around the site up to eighteen times a day, in order to check up on who's sold up, relocated or doesn't seem to be spending as much time on the site as last year and therefore might be thinking of selling up, which would give us the opportunity of moving to their pitch and an uncountable number of holidays around the world every year, she called me through to tell me about the website she'd just found which offered incredibly discounted hotel breaks around the world !

NO! I'M TELLING YOU IT'S THAT WAY ! SHIRLEY AND I HAVE NEVER AGREED ABOUT A SINGLE THING SINCE WE MET, THOUGH I TELL HER I AGREE WITH ALL HER OPINIONS ! I'M NOT STUPID YOU KNOW!

One of the offers was for this hotel that we're now in, The Hampsfell House at Grange-over-sands for £35= per night for TWO bed and breakfast and which is terrifically located on a silent hillside up an uninviting lane with no passing traffic.

A LITTLE-USED BENCH ON A LITTLE-USED BACK ROAD UP TO HAMPSFELL HOSPICE.

Promoting itself as a dog-friendly place, Shirley had the nerve to ask for a room that hadn't had dogs in !

Whether we got one or not I don't really know but as neither of us can detect any canine odours and I haven't collapsed in a paroxysm of asthmatic choking, I presume we have !

A DISTANT VIEW OF THE HILLSIDES DRAPED IN THICK BUSHES ! OR IS IT A CLOSE-UP OF A DRYSTONE WALL COVERED IN MOSS ?

We'll be having two nights here; a decision that was reached approximately as follows.

"David !" it started three days ago, " If you're not busy...( one is never not busy when one has vital Blog statistics to check and a million leather purses to make ! )...you know that we've paid to have the caravan drained off and we have to get over there to bring the bedding home before everything freezes and goes mouldy, stand the cushions up and make sure the little loose nail on the outside is properly sealed with clear mastic and pay the insurance ? Well, I've been checking the weather forecasts and Monday and Tuesday are going to be washouts in Scotland but they're showing sun all day in The Lake District with no nights going below 1*C at the caravan until next Monday, so I thought that if you want to get some work done on Monday and Tuesday and see the kids, we could then combine going to Scotland with a couple of separate stays in The Lakes either on the way there or the way back.What do you think ? "

Actually I DON'T think ! What is the point when whatever I think is rejected !

( As a perfect example I'll tell you about one holiday in Cornwall when  exasperated at having to make all the decisions, as you're about to hear, I was confronted whilst trying to eat my Golden Syrupped porridge: " I am sick " I was moaned at, " of having to make every decision around here ! Now, just for once you take the map and decide where we're going to go today !"

So I took it, looked at it and frankly randomly pointed at somewhere . " I'd like to go there. " I said, pointing.

Shirley examined my choice and said with contempt, " Get lost ! I've decided we're going here !"

And that's why I don't bother thinking and just pick up the keys and await instructions on how to drive ! )

"Fine!" I replied as usual, not taking my eyes off the screen, "Sounds great ! Book it !"

" What do you mean ' Book IT ! ' ? Were you listening to me ? I said two nights in different hotels !"

"Bugger !" I thought " Pay some attention or you'll get caught out again as usual !"

So I shouted through, " I said 'THEM' ! You must have misheard me !" Phew!

"Well I need you to come through and take a look as I'm not sure which one to go to first as it will mean an extra mile and a half on the clock and with it hardly doing fifty to a gallon rather than the fifty one it said in the manual I think we should discuss this really important matter !"

So without wishing to bore you, which I believe I've never done, two nights were selected and booked in and around Lake Windermere.

A BIG SKY OVER ULVERSTON ESTUARY.

A SLEEPING CROCODILE ON THE SHORES OF CONISTON WATER !

Back in my room and with my Stanley knife barely back in my hand, I was re-summoned because the weather forecast had changed in the blink of an eye to the temperature not sinking below freezing until next Wednesday which freed us from the immediate urgency to get to Scotland and this meant that, " We could have another night in The Lakes and I've found THIS one if you'll come through and have a look !"

So, kneeling down beside her and her laptop at a distance, either four feet away or two inches away from the screen, which are my bifocals either/or ranges I squinted at the blurred images and once again said ,"Book two nights there as well and then we'll find things to do and places to explore during the six hours between booking out and then in again at each of the hotels which are all next door to each other ."

" OK  ! But I'll just check the weather forecast again before I do ."

I have learnt, frankly only recently, that if I can keep the tone in my voice jaunty that I can give the impression that I'm really happy to share the entire world's meteorological forecast of one cloud in Cumbria and the likelihood of it ruining a short break !

Our horrendous journey here through storms.fog and flood must wait for another Blog !

UNHAPPY TREES REALLY IN AN OVERFILLED  LAKE ULLSWATER !

I CAN'T REMEMBER WHERE I TOOK THIS ONE AND I DON'T KNOW WHY THE LETTERS HAVE CHANGED STYLE WITHOUT ME DOING ANYTHING !

Anyway, for now and if I've managed to keep this tale running reasonably smoothly, that is how I've managed to end up in agony tonight !

I GOT REALLY SHOUTED AT BY LOADS OF DRIVERS WHEN I STOPPED THE CAR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE M6 AND JUMPED OUT TO TAKE THIS !

And now I can start writing the Blog I meant to write about my fall from grace at Pontin's Holiday Camp Quiz Night !
 

Sally-Part 95. MATT LUCAS'S LOVECHILD ?

Can someone tell Matt Lucas that I think my daughter has borne him a son !

DANIEL . IF HE ISN'T MATT LUCAS'S  BABY I'LL EAT MY HAT !

My daughter who is often mistaken for 'Vicki Pollard' when she walks into town, gave birth three years ago to the second person in the world who thinks that I am his personal slave !

 The other one is the boy sitting beside him, his brother Dylan who now, aged seven and a Karate black belt knows that there are boundaries beyond which I cannot be pushed.

Not so Matt's sprog !

Tearless screaming fits make me surrender to his demands immediately !

If we're in a shop and he chooses a red drink and I buy it and open it and he rejects it spontaneously, falling on the ground screaming desperately for a yellow one, I buy him a yellow one !

Am I making any fundamental mistakes ?

Am I making a rod for my own back and for anyone else who has the pleasure of looking after him ?

Answers please in the comment box !

GO BACK TO 88 FOR MORE PHOTOS !!!!!!!

 I have chosen to add some more photos, taken today the 17th of November 2012, to my existing Cragside Blog. Please go there and scroll down to a new set of a dozen or so breathtaking shots !

Sally-Part 94. WHAT ? EGYPT AGAIN ! YOU MUST BE JOKING !

CLOUDS ALL THE WAY DIDN'T MATTER !

OUR LANDING WITH A DAMAGED ENGINE WAS CAUGHT ON CAMERA !

Those who have read my disastrous Egyptian Blogs, Parts 52 to 56, will know that I swore never to go back !

BUT WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO GO BACK AFTER OUR SUMMER ?

Surely, if I did then 'agents', who had read them would be waiting at Visa Control to escort me to a dungeon where my privatest parts would be hacked off and I would be force-fed them raw !

Well go back I did, once again as nursemaid, mainly for Daniel who when not being an angel turns into something essentially possessed by the Devil, bearing creditable witness to the term 'The Terrible Twos' !

TANTRUMLESS !

His mother also had her dreadful moments between the ages of two and thirty five but to watch him transform from nothing into a raving maniac, roaming the room with teeth bared, determined to bite flesh, is terrifying, as he is now strong enough to require serious restraint or even a time of hysterical crying on 'The Naughty Step' !

If he refuses to go to 'The Naughty Step' then I take myself there and cry hysterically instead !

THE BOLTON MONSTER'S MOTHER AGED 23 !

His mother, once in a temper as a sixteen year old shouted, " I just want to bite someone !" So we know where he gets it from don't we Gemma ?


" GOT ANY SPARE CHANGE MATE ? " ON THE DAY I HAD TO LOOK AFTER  DANIEL BY MYSELF I TAUGHT HIM THE RUDIMENTS OF BEGGING ON AN EGYPTIAN STREET ! HE RAISED A COUPLE OF HUNDRED QUID BEFORE I SWAPPED HIM FOR A CAMEL ! ( OR WISH I HAD ! )

Shirley once again declined the chance of coming with us as she rightly knew that the African heat would debilitate her and crack her eyelids. But her surrogate spy watched me with eyes like a hawk, noting any attempt on my part to glance at young female flesh in buttockless bikini bottoms !

I was allowed to stare, if I liked, at the ancient flabby-bummed crones who thought it acceptable to wear the same costumes and, for goodness sake why aren't there fashion police patrolling the sunbeds to force them to wear something less revealing ?

Banned from the young, I became quite an expert on bottoxed bums !

PHWOAR PAMPAR! DID YOU SEE THE ONE IN THE WHITE ? SHE IS GORGEOUS ! DON'T TELL MUM I SAID THAT OR I'LL TELL HER YOU'VE BEEN STARING AT LOADS OF WOMEN WHILE PRETENDING TO BE LOOKING AFTER ME AND SHE'LL TELL GRANDMA AND YOU'LL BE DEAD ! NOW, ABOUT THOSE SWEETS YOU SAID I COULDN'T HAVE.........

England was cold when we set out for our two hour airport wait followed by a six hour flight followed by an hour queuing for one fat and slow man to stamp four hundred people's passports, followed by a sweltering ten minute tramp to a really old minibus, in fifty degree centigrade heat, dressed in my English autumn wear, followed by an hour's tortuous driving over three hundred anti-terrorist-attack speed bumps, followed by half an hour's reception formalities, followed by a ten
minute climb up a cliff to our apartments !

Well yes there was a lift but it was tiny and aggravatingly unavailable most of the time !

We were SO hot that we simply changed into shorts and costumes and fell into the pool with the air temperature, though it was dusk, delightfully delicious !

DYLAN AT SEVEN ! WHAT A PRO !

OK! SLIGHTLY LESS PRO ! AND HE DIVED LIKE THIS FOR AN HOUR AT A TIME OR ENJOYED HIMSELF TURNING HUNDREDS OF BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS  SOMERSAULTS !

We then spent a week eating splendidly, swimming in whichever of the four hotel pools we fancied, drinking and snacking on whatever was available, free of charge, as we had paid for 'fully inclusive'.

WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO BE THERE RIGHT NOW ? DANIEL GEMMA AND DYLAN KEEPING COOL.

Our hotel, The Tropitel Naama Bay was perfect and you can't rate it any higher than that !

DIVE SITE 1. JUST LOOK AT THAT WATER !

Gemma and Derek went diving three times and I went snorkelling with them out to Tiran Island and the beautiful surrounding reefs.

A SEVEN YEAR OLD THINKING ABOUIT FREE-DIVING IN SHARM AND THE WOMEN HE'D LEFT BEHIND !

BRINGING THE BOAT BACK INTO HARBOUR !

COMMANDER BOND AND HIS M !

THE END OF A PERFECT DIVE DAY ! DENISE THE INSTRUCTRESS ASKING  THE PEOPLE DUE BACK IN ENGLAND THE NEXT DAY IF THEY  COULD UNDERSTAND WHY SHE HAD GIVEN UP BEING AN ACCOUNTANT IN LONDON FOR A LIFE BENEATH THE WAVES IN THE RED SEA ! WITH AIMEE, GEMMA, DYLAN, JAIME AND DEREK.

In fact, snorkelling off the beach was equally brilliant as nearly all the highly coloured fish were no more than a paddle away.

Every one of the solely male staff were charming and very welcoming but you have to wonder just what would have happened if the terrorists intercepted at the border, ready to blow up and kill Sharm's holiday makers had got through !

And that planned attack was foiled the day we got back !

This time there was no Icelandic Volcanic Eruption to ruin things, just Daniel !

SPECTACULAR FLOWERS EVERYWHERE !

INDECENCY WARNING !

Google has given me the option to warn readers that there may well be foul things in my Blogs but you are all mature enough to read disgusting things so I have switched it off !  But at least you have been warned and I hope I won't have to read any more pathetic winges about how insulting I am or how insulted you are or how insulted you feel others have been !

Sally-Part 93. I WAS A TRULY TERRIBLE FATHER TO MY DAUGHTER !

THIS IS THE ACTUAL LETTER I WROTE TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO AND STILL WAITING AMONGST MY PAPERS FOR THE RIGHT TIME FOR A YOUNG LADY TO OPEN IT !

I loved each new baby that Shirley produced seemingly from nowhere as I wasn't at any birth !

I think that I am Gemma and Julian's dad but Jonathan's ? Nah !

I not only wasn't at any birth but no man attended their children's births thirty odd years ago. It just wasn't a man's place !

Childbirth was and is woman's work, not that you'd think so if you watch 'One Born Every Minute' where a succession of revoltingly fat and ugly women from the lower classes produce yet more sprogs whilst swearing appallingly at their drug-addict 'partners' who sit gormlessly and hopelessly useless whilst texting or eating !

The nurses all sit around talking about their 'Ugg' boots and women's stuff and eating before resentfully breaking the routine by actually peering round a door at a woman in agony !

Not being at their births didn't make me less of a man nor did it make me more or less capable of guiding them through life.

Well that was until Gemma hit 14 !

This following tale really happened verbatim !

GEMMA MEMORISING EVERY SONG FROM 'OKLAHOMA' AND 'JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR' BEFORE MOVING ON TO THE SCRIPTS OF ALL FOUR SERIES OF 'BLACKADDER' !

As I worked from home the children could come into my room and talk and play shops anytime they wanted. We'd talk about things or rather they'd ignore my little gems.

THIS, NOW FADED PICTURE WAS ENTITLED 'MY HERO' AND WAS PRESENTED TO ME SOME WHILE BEFORE GEMMA'S FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY !

One day Gemma came in and said, "Dad! Mum says I should ask you if it's OK to go to a sleepover on Saturday."

"Ask me? " I wondered ! I smelled a rat ! No one asked my permission for anything ! Their mother was and still is THE BOSS !

" Oh yeah and who's going Gemma ? " I asked suspiciously !

"Six fourteen year old girls and six sixteen year old boys." she replied in total innocence !

"Really? Well if you let me have the parent's phone number I'll ring and see what the sleeping arrangements are going to be. " I said, not a little concerned.
 
" The parents will be in London for the weekend. " my baby girl said innocently !

" Then you, young lady are not going to that sleepover under any circumstances !"

" Oh Dad!" she stomped and stropped, " You are SO old fashioned ! What do you think we're going to be doing....sex? They've all got girlfriends who keep them sexually satisfied ! "

She then stormed tearfully off back to the lounge shouting, " Maam !" ( That's Geordie for Mum ! )

This sealed letter is now waiting for Gemma's fourteen year old daughter to read when SHE has a strop !

Trouble is Gemma only has two sons and a vasectomied husband so perhaps she could pass it on to one of her friend's daughters at the appropriate time !