50+ and proud of it.

Armed only with a Tesco's carrier bag + two wishbones I toddled off this morning to the very same MOT garage that spotted the movement in the ball joints in the first place. My logic being that if they'd caused me all the trouble over the weekend in the first place then why shouldn't they share in it as well? "Morning', you very kindly volunteered to press in the ball joints for me. I'm off to work now, thanks." "We're a bit busy right now, but the press is over there, I trust you to use it. Have a nice day". Hmm, not part of the plan, but to be fair, as this particular press requires two people to operate it and hold the job in it, the MOT man did help me. The first one went in without much trouble - apart from two small things:- 1) We put the joint in upside down and 2) I swung the press arm around and caught him smack in the forehead causing a lump as normally seen in cartoons. We removed it and put it in the correct way. This one took abo...

The wife trotted off to Manchester this weekend to see some college friends whom she hadn't met for about 8 years, and, by a remarkable coincidence, the bits I'd ordered from 50resto turned up. So, armed with a hugely inflated confidence and a nice warm morning, I decide to replace the lower ball joints... It all started with the nice MOT man spotting that there was some up-and-down play in the front lower ball joints (last September). "I can't fail it 'cos the guidelines say I can't, but I'd like to..." What can be hard about taking off the wheel and undoing 3 nuts? Nothing, except that the disk brake back plate very neatly gets in the way of the lower arm - so you have to remove the disk and brake caliper. Now the trouble with a 1½ tonne 1990 Ford Mustang is that they're over-engineered - and those three nuts are actually torqued up to 100 ft/lb. Which is fine, but you have to balance said 1½ tonnes two feet in the air on axle stands to be able ...

I found out loads more stuff about Rome this time - including that best kept secret - the metro . Buy a ticket for next to nothing and ride for the duration of your stay! However, it shuts at 10:00pm - but the taxis take over then where I also found out that lane discipline is for wimps and the reason why every single vehicle over 2 days old have no straight panels...

One of the nice things about Rome is that you can always disappear down a small alleyway and generally find a decent bar - and avoid paying the tourist rip-off prices found around The Trevi Fountain and so on. This was the case on our last night. We walked due west from Piazza Navona and were discussing the aforementioned fact. "I bet there's even one up there", my friend remarked, pointing up a very dark street. Indeed, silhouetted against the only street lamp, there was a man moving a table. We walked up and sat down at the only table for four left. A nice German couple (from Dresden) sat down next to us a few minutes later in the only two seats left in the restaurant. It seemed only a few minutes after that there were people queuing to get a seat. "We did some extensive research on the Internet and found that this restaurant is the best this side of town", the German chap explained, "we took ages to find Da Francesco in Piazza Del Fico, it's not on...

We visited Rome for the third time last week with some friends (who have never been before) and, like most people, went into the crypt of St Peter's Basilica to view the tombs of the (late) Popes. A one-way system operates and we were surprised to find three people coming out the in - two people supporting a clearly disabled elderly gentleman who was having extreme difficulty walking. They were moving very slowly and as they reached the small doorway we held back to allow them to exit. A woman behind us (nationality withheld to prevent a war) harrumphed, overtook us and nearly knocked the trio over as they exited the corridor. "What the f'h was that all about?" My friend looked at middle of the departing trio. "I think they're trying to smuggle one of them out."

Having spent the last 24 hours with a daughter in a state of frenzy, which included her running around with hands pressed against her ears going "no more, no more, I don't want to hear anymore driving advice!", I was heartily relieved to get a text at 11:01 this morning that simply said: "i passed" She got 6 "minors" (whatever they are. In my day, as long as you got from the test centre via points A and B and back again without killing anyone, you passed). I got her a secondhand SatNav as she has no sense of direction - and I have "fully trained her" in it's use:- "Turn left" "Nooo! Not here!"

Yet again another example of so-called "Sat Nav Error" surfaced over the weekend. A lady drove her "£90,000" Mercedes into the river because her Sat-Nav told her to. She ignored the sign that said "Not suitable for motors" and the one that presumably said "Stop, river ahead", and the obvious clue that the road had changed from gravely-colour to ripply-water-colour and kept going, "No the Sat Nav fitted to a Merc can't possibly be wrong, the river is obviously in the wrong place". "In, 300 feet, turn, left, and drown"

Now I'm not normally one for getting scared about such things, but an odd thing happened today at work. We've recently moved offices from our satellite office in "town" to our main office "out of town" (which, incidentally is much better for me as I live on "that" side of town). We're all still in a complete state of disarray 1 and so we stopped on after finish time to tidy up a bit more. One of the Support guys came down from upstairs and asked who had been in the Comms Room. "Dunno, Why?" "Several of the telephone patch leads have been removed again and tucked under the racking." "Again?" "Yes, it's happened about three times already to my knowledge." Long conversation about scary stuff ensued and we decided that someone obviously was taking the key and getting up to mischief. I mentioned this to the night receptionist on my way out. "Ah. Let me tell you a story about the guy in the blue jacke...

So there we have it. 3 months of an hour here and an hour there. Someone mentioned planning permission, and "was there a slope on it to let the rain run off?" Um, the answer to both is "No". However the really important questio n is "Are the glasses underneath?" - we'll never know.

Well, after a fairly traumatic week (we said fairwell to Ellen) I managed to get on with the decking. My neighbour popped round to help. Help which was gratefully received as I was in the middle of trying to balance a 4.8m deck board on a workmate whilst trying to cut the 45 degree angle with one hand and hold the other end which was by now flapping in the breeze... We got on a pace and eventually ran out of wood. (Yeah, I know, I had enough short bits that all added up to the required length, but none long enough). We retired for a beer. His wife strolled up to see how we were getting on. "Hello dear, where are your glasses?" I was suddenly reminded of the "Carpet Fitter And Budgie" joke.

Sadly, our friend and neighbour Ellen lost her fight with cancer this morning at 3:00am. Our thoughts are with her two children and husband.

Remember the "Hedgehog in the Greenhouse" saga? No? Well, one of them took up refuge in a plastic bag full of old tea towels, jam packed it full of dead magnolia leaves and hibernated for the winter. I religiously left the greenhouse door open four hedgehog inches all winter so it could get out and forage, and made sure that no one put anything in the greenhouse on top of it and so on. Last weekend my wife went to clean out the greenhouse. "I think the hedgehog has died, there's a terrible smell in there" Ok, I gently pick up the bag so as not to disturb it (just in case...) and begin to remove the leaves very carefully. "It's buggered off" "When" "Well, let's just read the guestbook to see when it signed out shall we?" "Oh. Well. What's the smell then?" "Dead leaves."

Now I've said this already, but here's a resume: Decking is where conservatory wants to be, so dismantle decking and pile in a heap alongside the garage; build conservatory and stop for the Winter. The plan is to have the decking outside the kitchen and finished by the time the weather gets nice - which could be March if we believe the "global warming" protagonists. I start by levelling the ground (slight exaggeration) by removing the grass + top soil - which incidentally, I estimate to be about 4 tonnes - and removing the old sloping concrete path. Well, we've had lot of rain recently haven't we? By the time I get the ground even half level I begin to understand the purpose of Wellington Boots and why ground and/or trench warfare is totally pointless. I trot off to the local timber yard to order some BOW's 1 for the frame and spot a pile of "proper" decking top. "How much" "90p per metre. It's all reject because there's...

The problem with teenagers is that they eat - a lot. And, they eat at weird times too, like 2am, and they bring their pals back too! Cheese-on-toast 1 is a favourite (or, Mary Hopkins as my friend calls them 2 ) So, to keep up with the demand, my wife bought, along with shares in the local cheese shop 3 , a new toaster. Now this baby is a "four slotter" and can make toast faster than the Co-Op can supply the loaves. It also has lots of dials and levers, and, a couple of lights. This reminded me of the Red Dwarf toaster and I found myself yesterday morning staring straight at it, pointing an accusing finger and saying- "One word out of you and you're under the patio..." 1 This also includes chilli powder and other stuff. In fact, anything that can be found in the fridge. 2 This is an awful joke, which for the purposes of suspense, I'm not going to explain... 3 Cue Python

So, now I've laid 307 floor tiles that makes me an expert doesn't it? Well, even though I say so myself, I'm quite proud of this... :-) Things I've learnt:- A glass explodes when dropped. You can't get glass out of the gaps no matter how much suck the Dyson has. and, cats can't walk straight on hard tiles. Yup, now that was worth the effort.

I made a New Year's Resolution that I wasn't going to spend *any* more money on my eldest son - and particularly on his car. So answer me this: Why did I spend £60 on fuel picking up another AX GT from the West Country last weekend? Why did I spend £40 on brake parts, and, more annoyingly, Why did I spend the last 4 nights in sub-zero temperatures on the driveway fitting the damn bits! I must be mad... ...but at least I'm not ill - or at least according to the "Man From BUPA". I went for a follow up CAT scan as they spotted some "interesting" nodes in my stomach 6 months ago. The latest scans showed they had disappeared. So all this pain and anxiety must be due to me lying on cold concrete under cars? Is there a lesson to be learned here...?

I read with interest today an article on bbc.co.uk/kent about a gas leak in Sittingbourne. The local ASDA was evacuated along with several shops and private homes - some roads were also closed. "This caused major disruption" said one resident, "I couldn't make it to Argos for me jewelry" "Ow am I gonna get me fags now?" complained another. I for one, snuck out to my office's smoking hut to see who was there. "Anyone got a light?"

10 Things I have learnt about tiling:- Cats know you've tiled, but don't care. Adhesive called "RapidSet" does exactly what it says on the tin. Tiles aren't the same size - none of them - at all. Rooms aren't square. You can't cut a 20mm square from a tile, no matter how hard you try. Grouting is fun - cleaning up afterwards isn't. It takes 10kg of adhesive to tile a floor 3m x 4m - it takes 2g of adhesive to block the sink U-bend. Stainless steel sink units aren't. 15 tiles in a cardboard box falling through 90° smashes a cat bowl to smithereens. Cats can fly .

I read recently about a woman who turned left up a railway line because her Sat Nav told her to. Err, "Hello", is she completely and utterly stupid? This woman should not be driving should she? It really gets me mad that people make fundamental driving errors and then try and blame someone else. "The car made me do it", "My dog barked and I was so startled that I turned up the down ramp and drove 25 miles the wrong way up the M40", "My interior light came on by itself and so I shot my husband".... No. What happened to common sense? These devices have a thing called a "map" and a "distance to junction" don't they? My Garmin does sensible things like "turn left in half a mile" and then at (or near) the junction it's " turn left" . Not "hang a left as soon as I've finished speaking" but "turn left and have a little look to check the map to see where". This woman should be anot...

Funny how a job - "Oh, let's get the kitchen done" - turns out to be "Let's tile the kitchen, hall and conservatory too". Ok, it can't be that hard can it? {Extremely long story cut about choosing tiles} 1 Goes to local tiling place:- "Can I have some of these tiles please?" "Yup, you're going to need some * special * glue 'cos you're covering old Marley Tiles" "Fair enough, any advice mate?" "Yup, here's a free DVD on How To Tile The Professional Way" Eeek, to me a DVD means about 2 hours worth of stuff to watch. Already my neighbour who is a retired plasterer/tiler is starting to look like a better option. We watch the DVD together (no not that sort of "together", more in an "all lads together" sort of way - but less the beer). "Yes, that's right" he says, and promptly goes back home. How to tile: Mark out, mix quick drying adhesive, lay tiles, panic, mix more ad...