Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

So we are going to have a Heatwave. Well some of my happiest times have been during heatwaves so not too concerned.

Heatwaves when we were kids meant jumping into the nearest brook to cool off. No one ever drowned as there was always your mates to grab your plaits to fish you out. We'd never heard of cancer or sun lotion so if you did get sunburn it was camomile lotion liberally splashed on non to gently before bedtime just to remind you to be a bit more careful next time, then you were tucked in tightly where the weight of the sheets, blankets and eiderdown just added to your misery.

The first sun tan lotion I remember was Piz Buin only because it sounded exotic and rather expensive but why buy that when olive oil and vinegar did just as good. You may have fried a nice golden brown and smelt like a chip but a good tan attracted the lads and at least you didn't burn. Now you have these factor 50 and so on full of chemicals which cause lord knows what to your skin so you wonder were we better off with our kitchen mix

There was another called Coppertone which had a kiddie on the front showing her bare bum. None of us at that time were up for baring our a***s for all the world to see so we left that one well alone. What goes on in America stays in America .

Best be a pale face than a red face


Sounds like this one Jem...still good today

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Thanks for finding that clip Solo.

Heatwaves, we used to enjoy the heatwaves when we were kids, no fancy creams or factor this that or the other, if you didn’t turn brown in the Sun you turned a lobster red and began to peel after a day or two, all very natural like, I used to turn brown very quickly. The ‘Red’ kids would have competitions to see who could pull off the longest bit of skin without breaking it.
Another thing we used to do in the hot weather was to cut our tongues by drawing a long blade of grass across it, it didn’t hurt and then we’d open our bloody mouths and scare the life out of the smaller kids. We’d look for ‘Vinegar leaves’ in the fields and chew them, catch bees in jam jars and chase butterflies, swim in the Tolka river or the canal. Then all too quickly the summer was over and it was back to school again.
Now when there’s a spell of good warm weather coming they panic and call it a ‘heatwave’ one would think we lived in the tropics, they know what a real heatwave is, but we get yellow green red white and blue alerts, bells ringing and whistles blowing, drag in your old folks and put wet towels on their heads, don’t take babies out in open prams, stock up on cold drinks, all sorts of warnings as if it never happened before.
I often ask myself if we need all this skin protection today, how come the likes of me, who was exposed as a child to the Sun whenever it came out, and without any “barriers” isn’t covered in growths and moles, or even managed to get beyond fifty years of age, I’ve got a mole on me arse, and I can assure you that part of me never saw the sun in it’s life.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I was looking at a video on u tube about laying concrete on grass, no digging involved, yerman just poured concrete straight onto a 6’x6’ patch of grass, he said it’s the best way to do it as the concrete mixes with the grass and gives it strength. He was talking to the camera as he worked and said that contractors would be fuming now that this secret was out, well I’m no expert on concrete so I wouldn’t know, Spitty’s the man for that.
When he had it poured he didn’t bother to level it out, just roughly spread it over with a shovel then sprinkled white powdery stuff called concrete leveller over it, this stuff actually levelled it better than an expert with a trowel or a plank, amazing I thought, and when it was dry it looked great.

Do you know what always puzzled me? If the World is round then how come a spirit level always works?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Jem, I have transcended flumoxation.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

The very word spirit level flumoxes me straight off so I can't even profess to be able to help you with that question....but I can say it looks technically complicated for someone whose toolbox has only one tool in it. ..a hammer. If something breaks down I whack it with that hammer. If it works it's job done and I'm chuffed to bits,. If it doesn't I know for sure what I have whacked is definitely broken.

However it seems there is something amiss with the bubble when trying to level this world thing so if you are confused imagine how I feel as well....

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

There is only one law of motion I understand, what goes in must come out, and, coincidentally, It usually happens about now.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Talking of in and out...looks like the mighty leaf is being got at.

What a pity that the poor old Popeyes who enjoy their daily dose of spinach maybe denied this if the 'lets ban everything lot' have their way.

Seems that spinach. contains some hormone that causes..wait for it... a performance enhancing chemical . Well WADA you know. Now correct me if I am wrong but wasn't the whole idea of wolfing down the stuff is to perform better because of all that goodness that has been lauded over the years without a whimper or murmer from anyone least of all dear old Olive Oyl.

I would have thought walloping someone over the head with a tin of spinach would rather unenhance their performance at whatever they were up to (pun intended) but what do I know compared to these lab boffins.

Bet Bluto has something to do with this..he was always a bad loser. .

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Be God your in great form Solo, lovely stuff.

All the old lads knew that about Spinach, my granddad loved it.
I can see some bright whizz kid bringing Spinach out in tablet form and cleaning up, a big advertising campaign and a new product title, “Stallion Spinach”, or even a Spinach rubbing in gel with the slogan “Rub it in, Keep it it”, the possibilities are endless with a gullible vain male public, especially where the how's yer father is concerned.

I can never figure how one can see a horse race clearly on the big outside screen when at the races on a sunny day, yet I can’t see a flippin thing on my Lenovo ten inch tablet.
Someone should invent a “light” that shines out black so as the light of the tablet screen would be blackened out allowing one to view whats on it. I believe they are working on it.
This Lenovo thing obeys voice commands, I got so pissed off trying to look at the racing on it yesterday when I was out in the sunshine that I roared at it “Lenovo, leanover I want to give you a kick in the backside” It did not respond. In the end I had to go into the house to watch it.
I tried to catch Philomena unawares but she spotted me and smiled as she merrily beheaded hundreds of buttercups and daisies with her monstrous machine, she won’t let me near it, doesn’t trust me with it, suits me.
I was taking a picture of the hard work I done on the hedge, and all by meself, there must be 50 feet of hedge along that side of the garden. The little wooden fence is to keep the dog from getting out, I had to make that up myself too plank by plank, it was nearly the death of me, never again thank you.
That’s the downside of an economy thriving, you can’t get handymen any more, they suddenly become the elite like they did in the days of the Celtic tiger some years back when you had fellas arriving in Mercedes to cut your grass, clean your windows or chimney, one fella actually had the cheek to quote me 800 euros to do the hedging and that was in 2006! I politely made my excuses and told him to F off.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

What a lovely, happy photo of Phyllis, Jem ...... even your little dog is posing for the photo!

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

This is the problem, bad things happen re-Dark side of the Moon.