50+ and proud of it.

Yesterday was the wife's 50th birthday. Not many people knew that - well, they do now. We had a party at home last Saturday and my daughter put up a big banner saying "Happy 50th Mom" - much to my my wife's annoyance. I also spoilt the image by buying her a large flashing badge that said "50" in little coloured LED's. To be fair she wore it for a while, but then it accidentally fell into the fishpond. All I could hear was goldfish laughing. On her actual birthday (yesterday) it was decreed that we would, definitely, have a barbecue on the beach. After all, the MET Office had predicted earlier this year that a Barbecue Summer was indeed on the cards. Hmm, right. At one hour after it was predicted (they can't even get that right) the rain fell and the wind blew. Imagine the scene - 15 adults huddled under various beach hut verandas and my father-in-law cheerfully cooking beef burgers alone on the beach under the shelter of a golfing umbrella. "An

This isn't funny, but. My big beef is that people (i.e. my family) use kitchen knives and never sharpen 'em. So when it's my turn to do some cooking, I end up having to sharpen them all - properly - before I can carry on, otherwise I end up simply squashing carrots & broccoli into pieces and making soup instead of side-dishes. I sharpened them again, and because I had some time, I used the oilstone to get that marvellous Bate's Hotel honed finish... My wife cut herself. Not badly - only a small plaster required - but enough to elicit some interesting expletives. I got yelled at. "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE THEM THAT SHARP?!". Now this brought up an interesting concept - to me that implied she was intending to cut herself anyway... "How sharp do you want the knife dear?" "Oh, fairly blunt please, I only feel like a small scratch today, thanks."

I've just come back from a week in Portugal on the Algarve. And very nice it was too. A significant feature of the weather was a constant wind which increased during the day and continued throughout the evening - so much so, that if you ate outside you had to nail the lettuce to the plate. We spoke to a local (in fact the skipper of a little boat that took you on "trips around the bay") who sagely said "It's due to Global Warming". Well me old mate, why am I having to put on a jumper then? In the hotel complex was a large tree. The buildings formed a square and shielded the tree from the wind. That tree had probably been there for ages and was on the glide path for the local bird life. It didn't matter what was on the disco, 8,000 sparrows were going to roost there every night as they had done for millennia. Jeez, it if it's not budgies it's sodding sparrows. Fortunately, they got up early and were quite quiet leaving. Not so the seagulls. They

So there I was merrily finding some information about a Tribute Night 1 we went to on Saturday when I noticed 3 very small black sticks crawling around my screen. Bugger, I thought, I've got some virus thingy. I did a load of research and couldn't find anything matching what I had. After about 20 minutes of searching I gave up when one of the little blighters crawled off the screen, out onto the plastic surround, down the side and fell onto the desk. The other two have since died in the middle of the bloody screen and under the glass. Anyone know how to take apart a Flatron 563LE ? Don't all rush. 1 This involved getting rat-arsed in the gardens of some large house listening to a bunch of people who thought they could dance & sing like their idols. TBH, the Michael Jackson guy was absolutely excellent and the Elvis chap was very good too. I'm a Beach Boys fan and the top-of-the-bill "The British Beachboys" were unfortunately, well, crap. I vaguely rememb

Normally I dread my mobile ringing when the caller id says "son #1". He seems only to ring when it's "err, I've crashed the car", "can you lend me some money?" and the like. All has been quiet for a couple of weeks since he moved out. It's the daughter who's been a slight trouble with the Peugeot recently. It took me 3 attempts to get the 106 through the MOT. Everything was OK except for the emissions. I eventually found (I think) that it was a sticky idle control motor that had caused over-fuelling and subsequently burnt the cat out. Anyway, 'ring', 'ring', (tentatively) "Hello Son", "'Ello, what number should the fridge be on?"