Well here we go again !

We planned a weeks holiday after Christmas.

Lets take the 4x4's up to Northumberland. Dont know whats up there but that doesn't normally stop us ! Or so I thought !

1) Pinky has an MOT so needs some work doing. Next thing is there's a phone call MUUUUUUUmmmmm can you fetch me some tools something has broken ! So there ends my peaceful Sunday afternoon as I then end up driving to Matlock to fetch a spare part ! Monday sees better news and Pinky is now back on the road again.

2) Tuesday afternoon the phone rings ...... Dddddaaaadddddd I've broken down...... no not Pinky this time but the Frontera. The timing belt has come off caused by the bolt shearing off !

3) Wednesday night/Thursday morning the phone rings at 1 something am (you always panic when phone rings in the middle of the night) This time its Pinky who has stopped in the middle of nowhere

And now the world has gone white again !


I have to wonder what Friday is going to bring ???

And are we all going to get to Northumberland ?


Watch this space !

yes but with glow in the dark condoms you really can get home, as i will prove tomorrow or saturday when i turn up not on a RAC truck and fair play to the CV joint it has done three landy rallys just couldn't manage the last 10 miles this morning haha

4x4's ... don't you just love 'em?

Well, Friday is almost at its end.......


Lenny still rolling?

Anything else happened?



Just had 3 inches of snow this morning and there should come another 2 this evening....
And tomorrow I have to drive 2 hours and back with a carambulance. Hope there is still salt.

Shame you can't stick a stretcher in the back of the 133, that would get you there!

Lenny hasn't moved yet

But husband has man flu ! Enough said.

Plenty of TLC Sylvia, you know how we instantly cave-in when we get a sniffle. Is he a grump as well?

He's not been too bad in the grumpy stakes but today might just change that !

Particularly as we were rudely awakened at 2am this morning by an automated text messaging service. Keith dropped the phone and didn't here what the text was about.

I might add it was Kieran who said he was getting a lift home with James so not to bother driving to Buxton. However Kieran then decided to phone this morning just to make sure Keith wasn't going to pick him up except that by this time Keith was nearly at Buxton !

Oh yes and now he has me feeling grumpy as well as he has been most generous with his Christmas presents this year....... Anyone want " the dreaded lurgy" for Christmas ?

Hi Sylvia,

Some week you had. Hope it stops here for you

Tried to figure out "the dreaded lurgy" but didn't succeed. No dictionaries nor Bing could help out.
So what a special something is that?

lurgy is any bad cold or flu, or other things nastie

Eh? I just tried Google (UK of course) and there was an entire page about "lurgy".

lurgy: A fictitious, yet highly infectious disease; almost always used in the phrase "the dreaded lurgy", sometimes as a reference to flu-like symptoms.

In a word ... not good (that's two words).

Explains it all.
Must say I only tried to translate it.
Didn't google the phrase.
I am suprised the Oxford Dictionaray didn't know it.
Maybe it is too old? (30 years)

@Sylvia: Please leave it at home in Januari. We really can do without it

Hah - found it in the Cambridge dictionary - seriously.

Cambridge normally wins rowing?

Rowing? Obviously been at that whisky bottle again Jaap, you're talking Double Dutch!

Quote :

We planned a weeks holiday after Christmas.
Lets take the 4x4's up to Northumberland. Dont know whats up there but that doesn't normally stop us ! Or so I thought

Yes I have been subject to extreme medical pressure recently with not just a mild lurgy but a super strength Dad sized one, but I have not once mentioned it and I doubt anyone noticed due to my stoical battle with nature.

While I am never grumpy (being male and therefore immune from mood swings) I should point out that although my navigator seems to think we are going to the North East after Christmas we have actually booked a place on Alston Moor which when I went to school was in Cumbria. Actually when I went to school it wasn't but it is now. Not that anyone moved it just they put some different names on the map. In any event is was never in Northumberland though we apparantly might end up there and so be some considerable distance from our cosy cottage and have nowhere to stay.

As for Kieran and his condom advenures when I got his call in the middle of the night I was very understanding of his plight, him being stuck in the middle of the Derbyshire nowhere in below freezing conditions and not sure what to do. As any father would in these circustances I offered all the reassurance I could - it would soon be daylight, Spring is not that far away Global warming is bound to take effect soon etc. Then confident I had fulfilled my parental duties went back to sleep contentedly.

When they were younger in common with most parents we considered ourselves to be "kids taxis" for Kieran I am now "pointless taxi" First I get up early and drive to Buxton (as requested) to collect him so that he can get to his job on Saturday night only to find I didn't need to. Then I stay up late (remember my medical condition that I don't like to talk about - no not that one, the lurgy) drive to the appointed meeting place after all good people have turned in but all of Mad Mansfield are wandering about in short skirts, only to find he is working later and his boss will give him a lift home.

While I was on the first pointess taxi trip Marc is jumping up and down because he is waiting to collect the new bits for his car from the garage, and then for me to tow his breakdown from its point of rest to a local workshop to have a broken bolt removed. To acheive this we have to use an A frame that needs a vehicle with a tow hook, The only one we have (apart from his) is the Chevy. Just before the sonw came I started sorting out the headlight wiring but was prevented finishing by the Arctic blast. So now I have to push as much of this random spaghetti as possible into the hole below the speedo and put the battery in and visit every car spares shop this side of Darjeeling before towing his dead Vauxhall half way round the World. By the way sorry Steve for breaking your straight bar, Marc will explain all when he brings it back.

I should also mention that yesterday was intended to be Lenny service day, changing rear trailing arm bushes that have been worn out for some time and check fluids etc. None of this was done so while Lenny keeps rolling along for the moment .....

I hope this brief explanation of a typcal few days in Mansfield throws a bit more light on why men are sometimes mistakenly thought of as grumpy - they are not they are just concentrating on making sense of what is happening in the whirlwind of life.!!

I do feel better for this literary therapy

Thought you might like to see an example of the "Special Relationship" between the US and UK in motoring terms !!



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Thanks for your literary prose, however we seem to be no further forward - other then the fact we sympathise with your current plight re. the lugy and pointless-taxis, which in my book fully vindicates your current state of grumpiness!

The reason we are no further forward is because of Kieran's glow-in-the-dark condoms ... we STILL don't know the story.

As for Kieran and his condom advenures when I got his call in the middle of the night I was very understanding of his plight, him being stuck in the middle of the Derbyshire nowhere in below freezing conditions and not sure what to do. As any father would in these circustances I offered all the reassurance I could - it would soon be daylight, Spring is not that far away Global warming is bound to take effect soon etc. Then confident I had fulfilled my parental duties went back to sleep contentedly.

Enlighten us (good pun) as to what actually happened that fateful night? Did global warming play a part in turning ordinary condoms into radioactive glow-in-the-dark specimens ... or did he have in his possession the King Kong pack, so to stave off the cold he actually slept in one like a swag bag? Come on (definitely not a pun), we need to know, the suspense is too much to bear.

By the way, this is what Google ads flashed up after I just replied to your post:-

Nottingham Coupons 1 ridiculously huge coupon a day. Get 50-90% Off Birmingham's best!

We Will Buy Your Car We'll Buy It From £50 to £100,000+ Get Your Free Instant Valuation Now

Cottages in Peak District Superb character holiday cottages in the heart of the Peak District

How do they do that? Nottingham Coupons I suppose because you mentioned Mansfield, We Will Buy Your Car because it's either that or Pinky/Frontera are goin down the scrapyard, and Cottages in Peak District 'cause you mentioned about your "cosy cottage" in Cumbria and "Buxton" in Derbyshire.

Big Brother's definitely on our case!

Quote :

Enlighten us (good pun) as to what actually happened that fateful night?

I'm not exactly sure what part in the process the prophylactic itself played but as far as I can make out it was to support the precision application of lubricant to a troublesome coupling - engine oil into the CV

Tom Mc wrote:

Rowing? Obviously been at that whisky bottle again Jaap, you're talking Double Dutch!

Possible.

As I remember there is a yearly tournament between both universities on the Thames.
A tournament with boats (skiff?) moved by manpower. Is that called rowing?

that and the fact i had a mecedes full of hot curries when i was sposed to finnish

the condom was all we had to funnel oil into the filler hole to hope it would get us further

and it did... about 5 miles

next time i plan to break down im taking warmer clothes and a kettle

kieran wrote:

that and the fact i had a mecedes full of hot curries when i was sposed to finnish

the condom was all we had to funnel oil into the filler hole to hope it would get us further

and it did... about 5 miles

next time i plan to break down im taking warmer clothes and a kettle

... and a spare Range Rover!

What we want to know is - why on earth would you have a glow-in-the-dark French Letter on board in the first place???

Yes Jaap, see the connection now. Might have guessed you would be thinking water-bourne activities. Surrounded by water as you are, surprised you haven't built yourself an amphibious Landy.

got one of those

Well A-frame it behind Pinky next time you venture out, you might make it back without having to wake Mr Grumpy!

didn't think i woke you up anyhow ?