Horse chestnut "sticky buds"

When I was a child in the 40's and 50's we rarely had cut flowers in the house. My mother certainly would never have bought any and although we had a large country garden my father thought the correct place for them was in a flower bed. The exception were bowls of bulbs at Christmas which were "forced" in the airing cupboard.

In addition to flowers and vegetables in the plot we also had trees including a horse chestnut that, it was alleged, my brother had grown from a conker. At this time of the year it sprouted "sticky buds". My mother would cut budded stems from the tree and put them in a vase in the house where we would watch the buds burst and leaves unfurl in their bright green splendour. The same was done with hazel catkin buds when we could find any. Cheap pleasures and no air mile cost.

Just a walking in the rain, with my MS by my side

Took my Puch MS50V for it's MOT the other day. Only 143 miles since the last time so even I "Mr Everysilverlininghasanevenbiggerdarkcloud" felt it had a reasonable chance of passing. After the (successful) test I stood around chatting to the tester and his mate extolling the high quality Austrian build and reliability of the thing. Stepped forward nonchalantly to flip it into life with a half turn of the pedal. Nothing happened. After five minutes or so of panicky and sweaty activity I gave up. "Its never not started before" I said feeling that this sounded a little unconvinving. After ten minutes advice and suggestions the other two cleared off for a cup of tea and left me in the testing bay to try to sort it out. In the end I gave up and pushed it home through driving rain. Fortunately I did not see anyone I knew. I bet those two from the test place were watching me through the garage window as I left, sipping steaming tea and laughing. Blocked carb so perhaps I shouldn't leave it with petrol in over the winter.

Puch Grand Prix moped - don't Hammerite it

Took the cats to the vets for their annual service yesterday. Always very traumatic (I mean for me!) as although it only happens once a year they sense it and make it as difficult as possible to get them into their baskets. When in they make the most pitiful noise that makes me feel a complete shite. Even though I tell them its for their own good. After the checks and injections the vet tells us Maisie needs some dental work. She will let us have an estimate which I can collect at the reception desk. I go out to pay the consulting and medication fee. A modest £90 or so. I am handed the dental estimate. One hundred and ninety two quid! No wonder I was given it to read outside the consulting room, the (very nice) vet doesn't want any old codgers dying of shock in her office. Susan, pass me the pliers and the bottle of whisky. Maisie you'll hardly feel a thing.

Anyway all that is beside the point, today was also very traumatic. I have dismantled the Puch M50 Grand Prix with a view to refurbishing (my definition is reliable presentable and safe). As you can see in the picture it now looks like a piece of Meccano. Although the frame is not rotted it had a lot of surface rust so what to do. I don't at the moment to spend vast amounts on the cosmetics so I decided to brush paint the frame pending an eventual respray. I had decided I would NOT use Hammerite on it. However today I somehow found myself testing Hammerite black on the frame and thereafter painting it. Within about two hours the whole frame had turned into a black sticky unsightly mess. I could have roared, and not like a lion either. More like the cat in the basket. In the end I spent a considerable time scraping the whole gooey lot off. I hope tomorrow I can begin to replace it with lacquer as I originally intended.

Although this moped was no doubt hammered in it's youth (probably by a youth or two) this does not seem to have caused as much damage as being subjected to Hammerite.

Cows at Claypole

Snowed again in Newark. That's two lots plus an earthquake in about a month! Bob Marley who bid for my Honda NC50 Express on Ebay let me down. Never heard a thing from him and when I checked he had not even given a full address to Ebay. Relisted the Express and a Honda C90 and both have now sold. So we could afford to go out for an Indian meal last night to celebrate my 61st birthday which was in fact a couple of weeks ago. Pork for dinner today so I felt I could look the snow bound cows in the eye this morning.

OFSTED passed not sure how.

Puch M50 in bits in the garage undergoing what I fondly like to call a partial refurb or "tidy up". Awaiting parts from Puch-Weiser in Austria.

I can't believe I forgot the earthquake

My life is so boring and uneventful I cannot believe I forgot to mention this. We had an earthquake the week before last. I appreciate this is a frequent, dreadful and unfortunate event in some countries but I can only recall two in 61 years in England. I was lying in bed just before one in the morning reading about the life of John "Rumpole" Mortimer (not apparently as nice as we might think) when the bed, house walls and windows started rattling and rumbling like nothing I had experienced before. Apparently old Mortimer's bed is alleged to have rumbled quite frequently during his life, but not I believe caused by earthquakes. Anyway I digress. I could not think what it was, it felt like the house was falling down. My initial thought was that there had been an air crash somewhere nearby, but fortunately not. I was cared witless and jumped out of bed and started downstairs. My wife was coming up shaking like a leaf. I had a look outside and strangely noone had come out onto the street. The epicentre was as is now well known about 30 miles from here in sleepy Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. Apart from horse racing this will probably what this small country town will henceforth be famous for.

Bob Marley and the Unwanted Gift

The "Unwanted Gift" aka Honda Express sold on Ebay yesterday for £165. Much more than I thought it would go for. However there has been an ominous silence from the purchaser despite my sending him or her a number of emails. The persons Ebay moniker and perhaps even real name is Bob Marley and as a fan of The Wailers I am particularly irked to be let down by a namesake of their leader. I don't suppose it could have been a Bidder from The Other Side? No, Bob would never have been seen dead on a moped. So I have a feeling I am going to be the victim of my first "timewaster", I have been lucky so far. The problem is how long do you leave it before you try to sell the item to one of the other bidders? If you take this course of action too soon then the "timewaster" will probably complain that they were away from their computer for some legitimate reason and leave detrimental feedback to this effect. If you leave it too long the remaining bidders will have bought a similar item elsewhere or gone cold on purchasing the item you had for sale.

And that's not the only bad thing, we've got an OFSTED inspection at work tomorrow, and I've a blood pressure and cholesterol check on Friday.

Right off to the gym now and chicken for tea.

What you could buy at Newark Autojumble today

Spent the morning at the 'Normous Newark Autojumble. It is not always 'Normous but it was today, the queue to get in was about four times longer than it usually is. Any way here are some examples of what could be bought. Two Lambrettas, a lovely Francis Barnett, a sidecar and a mangle just like my mother used to use on a Monday. I just bought three light bulbs and some paint. I am sure everything I am searching for was there, if only I could have found it.

I've come to the conclusion there are two sorts of bikers go to these things. One lot are older earnest blokes who probably worked as skilled engineers before they retired, doubtless smoked a pipe at some time in the past and spend their time trying to keep an unreliable pre 70's Brit bike on the road (probably at great expense). They are often there with their friend of many years.

The others are younger and do unpleasant things to, and with, foreign machines. These guys may be accompanied by women and children who may well also be bikers.

One group dines on the fast ........er......food available from the many vans and the other has sandwiches the wife made, kept fresh till dinnertime in tinfoil. I'll let you decide which is which. No stereotyping here then!

Oh and by the way dinnertime for us working classes is about 1.00pm