Today, I shall mostly be... Showing 4,101-4,150 of 4,719

[Val]

It's weird how we get attached to a genre. I've stayed well away from anything that might scare me - both in books and films. I wonder how your passion started?

[Collette]

I'm not too sure, Val. When I was a kid my favourite books were Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. My first horror movie memories are Halloween and Dark Night Of The Scarecrow. Both gave me nightmares. I'm lying in bed terrified and my Sis Tracy's in the bed next to me snoring away. She could sleep through world war 3. Now I just love a good scare. I'm not a fan of too much gore in books or films, but I love a book where you're scared to turn the page. I remember watching Black Christmas years ago and I'd gone to the toilet after it and there was this creak up in the loft. Ebony sat on the hall carpet staring up at the ceiling. Probably had a nightmare that night as well. And there was the Christmas where D and I were watching The Exorcist and an ornament fell off the top of the tv. I don't know who got the bigger fright...😳

[Val]

I loved The Hardy Boys when I was about 12! I remember getting into trouble at school for having one. I went to an all-girls Convent school run by (mostly German) nuns. The only books allowed on school grounds were ones from the school library. The first time I got into trouble, I was caught at lunchtime reading a Fury comic (Fury was a TV series featuring a big black horse - a sort of horse version of Lassie). Second time, it was the first day of term and I was returning a Hardy Boys book that Melanie Bacon had lent me over the school holidays. I opened my school suitcase (no satchels or bags then) and the nun pounced! I really thought I was going to be expelled. Sr. Aiden, who was head of the junior school, never really liked me anyway. The year before I had finished first in class in Terms I and 2 and second in Term 3. Sr Aidan didn't want me to get a prize at the annual school prize-giving but my lovely class teacher Miss Reilly insisted - so I was given a cheap holy medal "for diligence". But I got my own back (unwittingly) the following year when I finished first in the Qualifying Exam. All the Catholic schools in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi) sat an 11+ exam in English, arithmetic and general knowledge. I finished first - from 491 entrants as the book plates in my "prizes" say - a missal and a hardback copy of Swallows And Amazons, a book I still love and often re-read. I remember Sr Aidan announcing the result to the school and saying what a surprise it was! Bitch! But after that result she sort of had to be nice to me because I was such a feather in the school's cap! Ha-ha!

There's only a few times I can remember being scared by a film. One was when I was about 10 or 11 seeing Dirk Bogarde in "Libel". He played a double role - one an aristocrat, the other a rotter - the former returns from the war but is he the real one? The other one turns up in a hospital in a vegetative state where he is known as Number 15. He terrified me even though I saw it with my family in a crowded cinema. Not helped by my friend(?) Tony singing "He was Number 15" to the tune of Sam Cooke's "Only 16". Another time I was home alone late at night and watching "Don't Look Now" (Donald Sutherland & Julie Christie). That film still gives me the creeps - but I love it! Based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier who wrote plenty of suspenseful stories - The Birds, My Cousin Rachel, Rebecca, etc.

[Collette]

Great story Val. Your school sounds like it was a right barrel of laughs! 😧
I think the only time I've ever won something was when I got the runner-up prize in Primary 6 or 7 for Burns reading. Still have the book I was presented with. Re The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew there was this wee newsagent at the top of Dumbarton High Street that sold the books. I'd send my Mum and Sis down with a list of books I already owned. Must have been right fun for them ha ha.

I love Don't Look Now. Just wish that the DVD picture and sound quality was a bit better.

[Serial]

It's a rather toasty 28 degrees in sunny Kerry today, last day of the heatwave apparently.

Managed to swim in the sea the last 2 days, warmest sea I've swam in one these shores in years.

Got the plastic on the Polytunnel during this heatwave, nearly died of heatstroke. Wife still hasn't forgiven me, for getting her to help for a 'couple of hours'....it was 6 hours..........ha ha....
At one point I was in the tunnel end stretching the plastic tight and literally crawled outside and nearly fainted.
Ah we can laugh now............well I can. Not a good sign when your pee is the colour of orangeade.

[Post Soviet]

Serial wrote: "It's a rather toasty 28 degrees in sunny Kerry today, last day of the heatwave apparently.

Managed to swim in the sea the last 2 days, warmest sea I've swam in one these shores in years.

Got the ..."

Not the right time for such activities, well, doing some welding work myself, but in the shed wasn't that bad.
Early swim in the lake, nice! Now just laying low in the shadows waiting for the evening to to the Sligo coast to watch sunrise. Judging by the news situation in UK sounds much worse.
Serial, have you got lots of jellyfish on the beach/sea?

[Collette]

Glad to be home. D's Dad's funeral earlier. When we got out of the church it wasn't too bad, but coming out of the Orange Halls just before 3 it was like walking into a bloody oven. D burned his hand opening the car door as the handle had gotten that hot.

Tonight's plans...Chinese for dinner, then a nice cold bottle of white wine and a couple of episodes of New Tricks and Th Big Bang Theory.

[Serial]

Post Soviet wrote: "Serial wrote: "It's a rather toasty 28 degrees in sunny Kerry today, last day of the heatwave apparently.

Managed to swim in the sea the last 2 days, warmest sea I've swam in one these shores in y..."

Some Jellyfish, not so bad this heatwave, literally saw 1 in the water and 1 on the beach. The last heatwave there was more.
Swam in a pool of a local river today, bit colder than the sea, but great not to have the salt and sand :)

[Anita]

So sorry for D and your loss Collette.
I love The big bang theory.

[Anita]

I was just reading your earlier posts re' films ,I saw Don't look now ,obviously too young ,one of the children I looked after had a red Mac and of course I always thought of that film,I won't watch it now.Collette our taste is obviously very similar ,I love Laymon and Dean Koontz.I have all of theirs and James,Herbert and also Stephen king up to a few years ago,I prefer his earlier books.

[Collette]

Anita wrote: "So sorry for D and your loss Collette.
I love The big bang theory."

Thank-you, Anita. He went quick, which is a relief. And if there is something else, he's together again with D's Mum.

[Collette]

Anita wrote: "I was just reading your earlier posts re' films ,I saw Don't look now ,obviously too young ,one of the children I looked after had a red Mac and of course I always thought of that film,I won't watc..."

I prefer King's earlier stuff as well, Anita. I'd probably choose The Stand as my favourite book. And I love the film adaptions of Christine and Stand By Me. Most confusing books...The Regulators and Desperation.

[Anita]

I haven't seen those two,I bought Cujo and Fluke for the beasties at Christmas ,I thought I'd start them off on a slightly less scary one .I like needful things ,

[Collette]

I have Fluke on dvd plus the JH book. Makes me cry though. Haven't saw Cujo in years. And I'd never watch Children Of The Corn again. Too creepy (and not in a good way).

[Brass Neck]

Resting my aching bits and watching the split blisters on my fingers crack open and weep. You'd think living in a 'nice' locally desirable suburbanised village would guarantee some semblance of civility towards each other but the selfish anti-social malaise spawned, I believe, by 12 years of unremitting Tory governance and Brexit has erupted.

There's a signed public footpath (the village is riddled with them) alongside next door's which I use regularly to begin walks with Minnie or as a shortcut to the nearest pubs and shops. It leads past a fenced off paddock which did have a couple of horses in when we first arrived over 25 years ago but now stands disused, its fencing rotting and tied up with bits of twine and entirely overgrown with brambles which spread out and block the path necessitating occasional trips with my secateurs in my pocket (concealed deadly weapon?). It then leads out onto a larger unenclosed paddock which has been similarly abandoned and which is the subject of repeated, so far unsuccessful, efforts to get planning permission for far too many cheek by jowl 'executive' homes with postage stamp gardens where I also whip out my trusty chopper(s) to prevent the path being closed by vegetal encroachment.

Of late there's a yoof whose house just along our road had had an ASBO cameras erected on a lamppost just opposite his house for a period who sneaks down the path with a few of his hoodied mates or his very fetching girlfriend to smoke weed, eats packs of sweets and drink beers. I know this because I've surprised him and the girl when walking Minnie and they jumped up like a rocket when I turned the corner (if I were doing that I'd pick a spot with better lines of sight than a short straight fenced and hedged section with a 90 degree corner at each end but then I have a brain and occasionally use it) and I've been been 'greeted' with grunts when he's standing about grudging making way. Despite it being 5 houses away I've also gone out and cleared up their detritus of packets, bottles and cans to recycle them.

However it wasn't laddo that caused the latest selfish, oafish episode but two blokes 2 and 3 doors down whose gardens back onto the path, one of whom I considered a friend, the other I would greet even when his little dog runs riot and shits on my front lawn. I wondered what was going on when I encountered a woman at about 8 or 9pm who lives down a lane which also backs onto the path stomped past me away from our road shouting about how they're all parasites round here while her husband was heading in the opposite direction in his jamas and a dressing gown! Not really my business I thought and headed the few steps home shaking my head at the general intolerance and stupidity going on.


As I took Minnie out for her walk on Monday we were confronted by a small chopped down tree dumped in the small paddock with its branches partially blocking the path. since I could get past without much hassle I thought no more of it beyond muttering imprecations against the idiot who had left it like that. On Tuesday we turned down the path and stopped dead in our tracks because a huge pile of tree branches was blocking the path so we went an alternative route but on returning I bloody-mindedly went along the path only to discover that an even bigger pile had blocked the path in a second place necessitating my picking Minnie up and trampling through the vegetation scratching my bare legs. The neighbour with the freely shitting pooch was about to get in his car so I asked did he know anything about this? He mumbled something about the angry couple I'd previously encountered and how he had a mate with an electric saw and it would all be gone ......... 'soon'. I put 2 + 2 together and came up with 17; namely that the angry ones were understandably fed up with the aforementioned yoof and had decided to barricade the path.

'Soon' wasn't good enough for me and I wasn't going to be deprived of the use of the path any longer than I could help it so I fetched my loppers and secateurs and set to in the baking sun breaking up the branches and piling them up at the side intending to gradually dispose of them using the space left by the lack of lawn clippings due to the drought in mine and the neighbours' brown bins (after asking them of course). This left several sections of trunk that would not go in the bins so I hoiked them over the low fence into the bramble patch paddock. At this point the angry woman whom I had deduced had caused the issue came along the path saying she hoped I wasn't throwing that into their 'garden'. Needless to say and given I was hot, dehydrated and thoroughly sweat-soaked as well as indignant about the footpath blockage we had an undignified verbal set-to but she wasn't displaying the vexation of the truly innocent and affronted and she went off while I continued my ire-fuelled toil. after about two hours I had created a single pile of branches at one side of the path leaving a way through and some large stripped trunk sections. At this point angry lady returned so I mentally girded my loins for verbal argy-bargy round 2 but she was apologising and so did I. Despite her umbrage she then said she had a wood burner so it turned out they wanted the trunks and retrieved them from the paddock tout-suite after I'd departed the scene!

I fetched my brown bin and stuffed it to the gunwales but it barely made a dent in the pile. I was too knackered so I knocked off and I would come back the following morning. Anyhoo I just got back from Minnie's walk and was about to go and clear up some more when My wife messaged me to say that the woman next door who had a partially filled skip in her drive had said that I could put the branches in that. Under the broiling sun I made a good few trips, separating and trimming any thicker branches I thought might go in a wood-burner and, with careful thrusting and me getting into the skip to tread and compact it down I completed the job then carted the trimmed branches round to the back gate of angry lady which had disappeared when I looked later.

Further messages from my immediate neighbour later yesterday evening revealed the true nature of the anti-social idiocy which had taken place. The guy 3 doors down had chopped down a small tree (or 2?) in his garden then, with the help of the guy 2 doors down who had blamed angry woman, they had taken the sections down the footpath (his back hedge is too high for direct access) and chucked the lot into the paddock which is unloved and abandoned but nonetheless is SOMEONE ELSE'S F***ING PROPERTY. Angry lady and hubby had the hoiked it all out and created two full-width piles blocking the footpath. As I said in my altercation with angry lady, "I still have some pride" but boy do my back, my glutes and calves, biceps and skinned digits ache now.

My view of my neighbours, especially the guy whose tree it was, has sunk to a subterranean depth and I despair for that which Thatcher denied the existence off and which successive Tory and other right-wing populist governments around the world have sought to actively erode while promoting naked self-interest; society - 'the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community'.

Jeez.

[Val]

Crikey Brass! Life is never dull in your neck of the woods. I commend your bravery. I'm a total wimp - I hate confrontation. I'd probably have taken the dog in a totally different direction. I do hope you and the neighbours are able to co-exist for a bit at least. You can hardly do any more. You've been very civic minded in clearing the path, removing the debris and cutting up firewood for "angry woman". She should be baking you a cake or bringing round flowers! And was the original tree (or trees) that much of a problem for the occupant? Don't we want more trees in suburbia???

[Craig White]

people ain't no good

[Brass Neck]

Val wrote: "Crikey Brass! Life is never dull in your neck of the woods. I commend your bravery. I'm a total wimp - I hate confrontation. I'd probably have taken the dog in a totally different direction. I do h..."

They say you get less tolerant in your dotage. In my parents' case this meant voting Tory after a lifetime of voting Labour, despising furriners and voting for Brexit but they had they an excuse having both been diagnosed with dementia! In my case it means I react badly and sometimes overtly and noisily to dickheadery and gittishness (not to be confused with Britishness ....... hmmm, then again......), especially of the racist, sexist, thuggish or insensitively entitled kind. If my mouth doesn't say it my face and body language will speak volumes, a talent I think I more or less perfected in nearly 4 decades of teaching. Haven't been punched ............ yet.

[Serial]

Brass Neck wrote: "Resting my aching bits and watching the split blisters on my fingers crack open and weep. You'd think living in a 'nice' locally desirable suburbanised village would guarantee some semblance of civ..."

Christ. at first I thought your story was leading up to some kind of physical fistycuffs. What a bunch you have as neighbours.
Fucks sake.

Mind you I live quite near to where the real life 'The Field' took place.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news...

[Val]

Hanging out to hear what Collette's drinking/watching.

[Brass Neck]

Val wrote: "Hanging out to hear what Collette's drinking/watching."

The French have a phrase that covers Collette's viewing choices; "Quelle horreur?"!

[Serial]

Val wrote: "Hanging out to hear what Collette's drinking/watching."

Murder She Wrote and a bottle of Perry.

[Val]

I was thinking something stronger on both counts.

[Collette]

Gold star to Val! ⭐ Sat here with a bottle of McGuigan Chardonnay watching The Killing of Jacob Marr on Roku. Slightly off of red wine at the moment after projectile vomiting 3/4 of a bottle of it down Mum's loo on Tuesday night.

[Serial]

Collette wrote: "Gold star to Val! ⭐ Sat here with a bottle of McGuigan Chardonnay watching The Killing of Jacob Marr on Roku. Slightly off of red wine at the moment after projectile vomiting 3/4 of a bottle of it ..."

Nice.

[Craig White]

"projectile vomiting 3/4 of a bottle of it down Mum's loo on Tuesday night"

managed to keep the other 1/4 down?

........but the really amazing thing was...........she was in her own house! 😁

[Serial]

Tech XXIII wrote: ""projectile vomiting 3/4 of a bottle of it down Mum's loo on Tuesday night"

managed to keep the other 1/4 down?

........but the really amazing thing was...........she was in her own house! 😁"

They don't piss about in Scotland.

[Collette]

Har Har. The rest went down the sink. From the bottle obvs. 😝

[Serial]

Collette wrote: "Har Har. The rest went down the sink. From the bottle obvs. 😝"

You're proper hardcore, C.

[Collette]

Serial wrote: "Collette wrote: "Har Har. The rest went down the sink. From the bottle obvs. 😝"

You're proper hardcore, C."

Oh wheesht. I was bloody sober. It just upset my stomach.

[Serial]

Collette wrote: "Serial wrote: "Collette wrote: "Har Har. The rest went down the sink. From the bottle obvs. 😝"

You're proper hardcore, C."

Oh wheesht. I was bloody sober. It just upset my stomach."

Sober?

LOL!

The annual event. :0

[Collette]

Such rudeness! 🙄🙄

[Brass Neck]

At least it wasn't down her mum. One Xmas Eve as a 'wild' teen I got absolutely leathered, came home but went next door where the 'rents were having a soiree with the lay Methodist preacher, his wife and some other folk. I think I was inevitably loud and silly and was politely but firmly sent back home but not before I'd slurrily promised I'd go to church with Percy (not a euphemism) the next (Xmas Day) morning. I went to bed but got up needing the toilet. I collapsed across the bedroom threshold where Dad discovered me and attempted to pick me up. It was the mid-70s so he had on his one set of best duds which I duly decorated with a forceful stream of stomach contents.

I didn't make it to church and Xmas Day was more than a little strained.

[Collette]

Oh yuck. Your poor Dad. 🤢

I've never puked over anyone. When I still stayed with Mum and G, I accidently decorated my bedroom radiator with vomit. Can't remember if it was Pulse or White Lightening (cider) I'd been drinking but I felt fine going to bed, then needed a wee during the night, bounced off the walls going back to bed, and voila... 🤢 🤮

Tonight's plans...either a bottle of red or Cava and a nice horror film or two.

[Serial]

In Cornwall, visiting family, and the weather is cooperating.

Caught a good music session in a water side pub last night. A real mix of people performing, some great blues players.

Went to the Eden project too quite a place, and me mum volunteers so got us in free! Bonus, as it's extortionate prices.

[Collette]

...about to relax with a nice cold bottle of red and watch Look Away on Roku.

[Val]

I'm sure you've heard this many times Collette but does "cold bottle of red" qualify as an oxymoron?

[Collette]

You should have saw the bartender's face on holiday the time I asked for ice in it, Val. 😬

[Anita]

Look away ,that sounds interesting Collette

[Collette]

I really enjoyed it, Anita. I won't say much more so as not to spoil it for you.

[Collette]

Tonight I'm in Ciderella mode with my bottle of Hawksridge, watching Reed's Point on the Firestick. Before that I watched Silent Night (2021).

[Collette]

My housework's done for the day so tonight I'm gonna shove my new stove heater on and relax with a bottle of red and watch Terror Train.

[Val]

And there's me being really tame with a pizza (home made), a glass of water and watching "The Court Jester". I'd forgotten Angela Lansbury was Princess Gwendolyn. The film is still laugh-out-loud-funny.

"Get it?"
"Got it!"
"Good!"

[Brass Neck]

Collette wrote: "My housework's done for the day so tonight I'm gonna shove my new stove heater on and relax with a bottle of red and watch Terror Train."

"gonna shove my new stove heater on" - does it make your bum look big? Still not had any heating on (but have been in jeans rather than shorts for some weeks)! Gonna have to buy t'missus one of those blankets with arms so she can cope though. Had to take my hoodie off and walk Minnie with just (but not only) a t shirt today. She waded into a shallow lake/pond in the salt marsh behind Cleethorpes beach this afternoon and just stood there with the water up to her chin and haunches which caused amusement and then in total contrast to the calm, considered entry, as she is wont to do, she emerged from the water and went into some berserker zoomies with random growling at nothing and noone to further titters of the passers by.

[Collette]

Brass Neck wrote: "Collette wrote: "My housework's done for the day so tonight I'm gonna shove my new stove heater on and relax with a bottle of red and watch Terror Train."

"gonna shove my new stove heater on" - do..."

At the switch, petal.

Today's been mostly spent hobbling around in agony thank to the Etna sized veruca on the ball of my foot. Grrr!! 😫🤬

[Val]

Collette wrote: "Today's been mostly spent hobbling around in agony thank to the Etna sized veruca on the ball of my foot. Grrr!! 😫🤬 ..."

I've had one of those and they do make walking hard. I remember I saw a very old doctor and he gave me a prescription for formaldehyde. Had to keep the small bottle in the fridge and apply it (twice a day?) with the bottom of a matchstick. It killed the skin which I then had to file off with pumice. The plantar gradually rose to the surface until it was no more. Worked a treat but I don't know if they still use that these days.

[Collette]

I've been using Scholl Veruca and Wart gel since Friday or Saturday. Had to take Mum to get her Winter jabs yesterday afternoon and I couldn't get my boot on. Ended up going out in D's slipper boots. I'm walking a wee bit better today, so hopefully by the end of this week... Never known pain like it. My skin feels really tight as well.

[Serial]

Collette wrote: "I've been using Scholl Veruca and Wart gel since Friday or Saturday. Had to take Mum to get her Winter jabs yesterday afternoon and I couldn't get my boot on. Ended up going out in D's slipper boot..."

Did you offend some Gypo?

Sounds like you've been cursed.

[Collette]

With my luck, probably! 🙄🥺

[Collette]

Verucha just about gone but I'm now loaded with the cold. An hour into the remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street and I've had to open wine bottle 2. Hopefully I'll make it to bed ok at 10. 😰🥵