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24 February 2017 17:44


Only men will understand:

“I’ve just fitted a new tap handle to your kitchen taps”
“where did you get a tap handle from”
“my garage – I’ve got three pairs”
“why would anyone have three pairs of tap handles”
“well, never throw anything away; you never know when it might come in useful ... as I have just proved”


In what could be a variation on Ruby’s Theory of Traffic Delays, one day this week my journeys both to and from work were temporarily held up when I got stuck behind the same tractor pulling the same trailer at pretty much the same point.

OK, I don’t know for sure if it was exactly the same tractor and trailer, but it was the same load – a large caterpillar plant, and you don’t see many of those on the highways of Hampshire.

No, silly, I mean construction machinery manufacturered by Caterpillar Inc, not a huge cabbage.


New temp member of staff at work this week. Two things of note about him: 1) he is 6 foot 10 tall; 2) We were at school together.

He was three or four years above me – I knew his brother, who was the year above me, better – but kind of memorable because of his height.


A couple of trips to Southampton last weekend. CGF and I went in by train on Saturday afternoon to do some odds and ends of shopping. We went to have a coffee at our favourite city centre café, but it had closed down, which was a bit of a disappointment. OK, a lot of a disappointment – even CS3 was sad when we told her.

Sunday evening we went for a meal for CS2’s 18th birthday. We tried one of the “eat all you can” buffets, as that seemed to be a good place to take hungry teenagers.

Have to say, we were generally satisfied and would go there again when we want a cheap-and-cheerful meal. There was a wide variety of food, and it was reasonable quality – didn’t look as if it had been sitting under hot lamps all afternoon. The serving area was kept clean, with staff quickly mopping up spills.

I suppose the only downside was that the eating area had the feel of a works canteen, but this was cancelled out by the upside of being able to have Italian pizza, Indian curry, Chinese steamed buns, British roast beef and Mexican chicken all on the same plate. And even cover it with chocolate sauce, if you’re that way inclined (which I wasn’t).

We did check on TripAdvisor (which some people think is a critics’ forum) before we went, and the reviews were mostly positive. Though I think the person who complained of “slow service” possibly didn’t quite get the idea of “self-service buffet”


After the meal, we went to look at the light show – a display of lighting effects against the old town walls. It was quite effective and enjoyable to watch – and certainly seemed to have gained the attention of the public, as there were a lot of people there – more that you would expect for a chilly February evening.

I did try to take a few photos on my poor and unadvanced (but good enough for me) phone, but they didn’t come out very well. “Oh Ruby, your phone is so embarrassing” exclaimed CS3.


In anticipation of Southampton FC’s trip to Wembley (for the final of the I’m-not-sure-quite-what competition), there were a few market traders selling branded tat. One of the slogans was “The Wembley Invasion”. I’m not sure that a trip approximately once every ten years properly constitutes an invasion


Have had two attempts at a quarter peals this week. I’ll get technical about it one day, but for now it’s sufficient to say this is approx. 45 minutes of continuous ringing – the bellringing equivalent of a 10-km run. Unfortunately, both attempts went pear-shaped after about 25 minutes.

The quarter (as bellringers abbreviate quarter peals) is to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of a local ringer in the First World War, so we’ll try again soon, though trying to get six people together at the same time is a bit of a struggle – in fact when I checked my diary I found that I’m not around on the next proposed date.


“I had a cheeseburger without the cheese for dinner”
“Isn’t that jut a burger?”
“er, yes I suppose it is”.


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