On Cat Crapping

Fucking next door neighbour’s three-legged cat has just crapped on the grass.

Smug little bastard.

Wouldn’t mind so much if he were to give me the time of day and be friendly in a purry-scratch-me-love-me way, but no; the bugger just runs off, …..no,…. hobbles off… if I as much as put in an appearance outside.

Little shit was looking straight at me while he was doing it too. Well, it was less of a ‘look’ as more of an unfocused, slightly boss-eyed, thousand-yard, Fuck-Me-I’ll-Never-Get-This-One-Out stare as he heaved and squeezed.

He also had a silently panicked expression, like the countdown to launch had already started and missiles were heading his way any second. Y’know the expression….. The one with the whiskers well forward on Full Alert, fur slightly bristled and flanks heaving repeatedly from the effort.

We’ve all been there. For some reason or another, time is of the essence, you’ve got one stuck half-way, and It’s not budging any further without half your bleeding rectum coming out with it. To make matters worse, no matter how much welly you give the old sphincter you can’t cut the concrete-reinforced bugger in half and nor can you chicken out and back the bugger up again and save it for later.

Y’know…… shitting is a great leveller. Even levels out the lovely Nigella.; she who cooks like she’s working up for a shag. She sure works me up for one anyway. (Sigh)

No, …..on second thoughts…. surely not the lovely Nigella…… or the lovely Kylie. No, that wouldn’t be right, would it? But the rest of us….. shitting…. it levels us all out. I used to think of many of my bastard bosses sitting there with one stuck half-way…… or finding there’s no paper, and no bleddy grass handy either.

Try it…. the bastards don’t seem so bleddy powerful and smartassed then. Just don’t tell them, when they ask what you’re suddenly smiling at…..

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the cat crapping on my bleddy grass…….

I think he did just the one.

Seemed like a long one…..

Might have been split in two for ease of delivery. Y’know, so he could take another breath. I couldn’t tell from here.

All I know is he had to stumble forward to lay it out, on account of it was that long. Kinda awkward move to make with just the one front leg. He must be developing a new technique, because usually he rotates and gradually elevates his ass to spiral it…. It’s kinda mesmerising to watch in a way that takes some explaining. You gotta be there to see it really.

I ought to charge admission.

Put a placard up on the road.

Serve bleddy tea and soddin’ yeast buns……..

Anyway…. Finally, all finished and rising from The Assumed Position with a flank-quivering finale, as he clipped free the last squidgin that may have been dangling. Whiskers back into neutral position again and with eyes now fully functioning, he looked straight at me as if to say “Wot?”.

I’ll give you bleddy “Wot?”, you little sod. Just you stay there for a minute and let me find a bleddy rock.

After the awkward moment had passed between us, he hopped off with his hoppy gait, adding insult to injury by glancing down during the turn and giving his efforts a lingering backward look, as if hoping the points awarded were going to be worth the strain to his precious pencil sharpener.

I’ll give the little shit some points…..

Better go out and scrape it up before I forget it’s there and tread in it, …..like I usually do.

Have to do that walking-on-heels- thing then, or the sides-of -shoe thing…… or on tiptoes, all depending on the Area of Spread, to a suitable spot to be able to go to Boots-Off Mode. Then make with a twig to dig it out from the tread, (WHY can you never find a nice strong twig when you bleddy want one?), and finish off with the old water and scrubbing brush routine.

Cheers me up no end, it does. Oh joy, is me.

Still, I guess it could be worse.

Mustn’t grumble, eh? {:oI

N.B.
It could be a ‘she’ I guess, but I prefer to think of it as a ‘he’ since I’m pissed at it…… If it was all purry-scratch-me-love-me then it would be different.

In that case, it would be better then, if ‘he’ was a ‘she’…….I could call it ‘darlin’ and stuff.

Well, I would anyway, but, ….y’know,…. it gets kinda complicated….. affection between males and all that. It’s different for we Boys.

I just pretended with my buddy, Lomax, …..the little darlin’.

I still wonder where he got to, y’know….. {:oi
K. {:o)

Thought For The Day

It’s hard to get the perspective on it all, and I know I keep banging on about it (Those of you who know me), but browsing the net I’m often ‘grabbed’ by the sheer unimaginable enormity of it all.

I’m also convinced that God is some sort of residual effect surrounding us all, rather than a central intelligence. A collective ‘intelligence’, an effect of ,yet undiscovered, dimensions to the universe. Perhaps something that happens to us all as a result of out individual thoughts and actions, every bit as much as water rippling when you move your hand in it.

God surely just can’t be a central Man-Like intelligence, watching, judging and guiding us………… and I’m fucking sure there are no 72 virgins awaiting the screwball religious zealots, as a reward for their sacrifice to bend us to their will, either!

And if he is………….. WHERE’S MY FUCKING PUSSY-CAT???????

(You can tell I’m a good bit pissed-off as usual, can’t you? :o(

Highlighted are the mind-blowing details………… link them together.
What you’ve got is the ultimate truth that size matters! (Sigh)

Messier 51, The Whirlpool Galaxy. The SDSS image of this famous spiral galaxy (interacting with a smaller neighbour at the lower left) occupies about three one-millionths of the total sky area imaged by the SDSS. [SDSS = Sloan Digital Sky Survey (digital imaging telescope)]The SDSS imaging survey detected about 100 million galaxies, most of them much more distant, and thus much smaller and fainter in appearance, than M51. Some of these distant galaxies can be seen as small extended sources on this image, while the sharper, point-like sources are mostly foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. The diameter of M51 is roughly 75,000 light years. (Credit: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey)

So, please forgive me, but I like to spell things out to myself………….. and not just because I know some of you out there are a good bit on the ‘thick’ side. (No. Please. No really…….. it’s no trouble……….. I’m just a nice helpful kinda guy.) :o)

Get your mind around it. Focus, and really screw yourself up doing it too, like wot I do……………..

A galaxy, 75,000 light years across, occupying about three one-millionths of the total area surveyed, and was one of about 100 million galaxies observed.

One galaxy holds billions of stars ‘Suns’, and one light year equals 5,878,499,814,186.5 miles (We won’t get into the leap year thing, ok???)

It really, really blows me away Man!

You too????

So, with the Enormity Of It All in mind, what is my Thought For The Day?………………

Is all the Politically Correct bollocks in life, and especially at work, really so very important?

…………..I rather think not.

The trouble is, we have given power to most people around us, particularly at work, and so it feels like it is.

Do something for me……….. tell at least one weenie out there to Go Fuck Themselves! Most of you will come across at least one today.

Prolly best to just smile, and say it telepathically, though, ……….because the bastards usually do have power over your destiny here on Earth.

You never know………… it might make the leap. I did it yesterday to a visiting weenie, and she kinda looked over at me ‘funny’ as she left the building. I hadn’t interacted with her at all……. was busy and had my back to her the whole time she was there, in fact.

Yup, …………..I think it had made the leap. :o)

K. :o)

Lomax is gone………….

I last saw him on Saturday 28th (Feb), at about 4.00pm, as Chris was leaving after calling in for a natter.

He’d been in and out for most of the day as usual, with me going out every now and then to check he hadn’t wandered off too far, calling him with the whistle if he didn’t come to his name. I looked, and whistled for him at about 5.30, but he wasn’t to be found. That would happen once in a while if he was having a really Great Adventure somewhere, but he always would come back within range, and answer the call, within another couple of hours.

It got dark, and still no sign of him. I kept calling him regularly until going to bed, worriedly cussing him for staying out so late, and keeping me up. I got up all through the night, and must’ve called him every one-and-a-half-hours at least. i didn’t get a lot of sleep, because it was real hard to sleep without him snuggled up on his fleece beside me, as he has for five months after his first, one and only, lonely night in the kitchen.

I wish now, that I’d got dressed and gone to look for him with the whistle, but I was so sure he’d be back by morning.

I knocked on the doors of all the houses either side of me, about twelve I guess, to get them to check their sheds and garages. No one had seen him the previous afternoon. I walked miles on Sunday morning calling and whistling for him. I walked right to the end of the green belt, at the back of me where everyone walks their dogs, and back again, up on the grassy playground, all around the school playing fields, and then down to the canal, checking the fields in between. I asked everyone I met if they’d seen Lomax, but no one had. I took the car out and checked along the roads in the area, including the housing estate, in case he’d been run over, but nothing.

Gone.

Just like that.

I guess I’ve been too cavalier in giving him pretty much all the freedom he wanted over the last month or so. I shouldn’t have let him out after dark……. browsing the ‘net reveals that’s when most cats get lost. Obvious really. Too young at only seven months? I guess so. He trusted me to keep him safe, and I’ve let him down.

Five months we’ve been together now, more or less, and I’ve watched him grow from a cute little mite into a real character; full of life, ‘talkative’, affectionate, and great company. I’ve pretty much been with him four days a week all winter, and he was like a little dog. Everywhere I went, he’d follow and settle with me nearby. If I left the room, he’d soon follow. He’d bring things to me to tirelessly play ‘fetch’; mostly balls of paper that were lying around for him to play with, or his big favourite, The Rat which Suzy had made for him at Christmas. He’d talk back to me quite often too, and was a real little buddy.

I often kept grappling with whether or not I should ever have had him, and in truth I didn’t really want the tie, but at the same time absolutely loved being with him. Now he’s gone, and it hurts more than it should.

I mean, he’s only a cat, right?

I guess the worst of it is my imagination haunts me with the thought of him dead, or dying slowly somewhere, maybe lying injured. Lost and lonely, and it’s started raining now……. cold and wet somewhere, and wondering where I am. I’ve just lit the fire, and he used to love sitting next to me as I laid the fire, and lit it. He loved this fire, and I feel real guilty sat here in front of it’s heat, when he’s prolly out there somewhere starving hungry, and cold. Maybe he’s not so far away, and I’ve passed within calling distance of him. Maybe he’s heard me and called out, but I’ve just walked right by calling his name as I went.

An imagination like mine is a bloody curse quite often.

I hope someone’s already taken him in, to keep him fed and warm, and that he’ll have had the good sense to pester someone, and look helpless enough to melt their hearts. It wouldn’t take much doing, as he’s a cracking looking cat, and has a remarkable nature. He hasn’t a bad bone in his body, or one nasty thought in his head. The only thing is, he’s a bit shy of strangers, and is likely to stay hidden until he’s in a desperate state.

He’s I.D.chipped, and maybe they’ll take the trouble to take him to a vet to see if he’s chipped, but I’m not so sure people are aware enough of the possibility.

The bottom line is, I want him to be ok, wherever he is. Even if he’s with someone else, as long as he’s ok, I can live with that.

Please God; don’t let him be hurt ……….or dead.

Of course, he could well be having a whale of a time, but I somehow doubt it. I’m trying to believe that he’ll be sat there, or come running out from the log-store, one of the times I open the door and call for him. The only good thing about it still winter, is that everyone will have their windows closed, at least at night, or I’d drive everyone nuts blowing this shrill whistle every hour or so!

I miss that little chap, and I just wish he’d walk in the door. He’d get the biggest hug.

Wherever you are, little man, I hope God is looking out for you, and has put you somewhere safe. K.:o(((((

Elf and Safety………… mainly

Managed to waste today……….. mostly reading and playing around on the ‘net. Played about with this blog a bit, and tried to remove, re-size, and reinstate yesterdays blog pics of Lomax,………. but when I tried to delete them as per instructions, it deleted the whole of yesterdays bleddy blog.

Bleddy lovely that was, I can tell you!

How I laughed!!!!! :oI

Luckily I write this mostly in Word, save it on the ‘puter, and then and copy/paste it over to the blog, so it was recoverable, but took bleddy ages to do. That would be because I tried to delete one of the newly re-sized, and reinstated pics……… and deleted the whole soddin’ thing again then.

Oh, joy was abundantly about me.

Got the Mother sorted in the end.

Bought another couple of books browsing Amazon……….. bleddy deadly how easy it is to buy stuff online, ……….especially when you’re weak. :oI One called ‘Blink’, which is about how we actually need very little time to make surprisingly accurate decisions and judgements. The other………… ummn……… bugger…….. forgotten…… oh yes……… a WWII flying novel called ‘That Summer’ for .01p (Yup, one penny) plus postage of £2.75, so cheaper than a magazine.

I spend waaaay too much on books, and Mo’sickle, Astronomy and Science magazines, with the occasional metal detecting and kit car/retro car magazines too.

Still, I live the life of a hermit, don’t drink, don’t smoke, so what the hell, eh? ;o)

Sunny again this afternoon, but not as nice as yesterday, although still good enough to tempt me to sit outside with a book, a cuppa and Lomax playing around me. It was a bit nippy in the breeze though. Started a book called ‘Up The Creek’, by Tony James, which is about the his sailing life, and “A lifetime trying to be a sailor” It’s obvious that he succeeded, even though the statement infers a failure to achieve that ambition. :o)

I didn’t get far with it, what with Lomax demanding we have a fight, make up, and then have another fight. His focus today was mainly chewing brambles that are lying around. I sometimes swear he’s as gormless as they come!

Bright enough to have me at his beck and call, though. :o) We were up at 06:30 again this morning! :o)

This book has had me laughing out loud a couple of times so far though, so it looks like it’ll be as good as the reviews. For instance, he tells a tale of when he was about nine, I think, living next to a sawmill, and playing in and around it whilst it was working. lethal place……… no guards on the machinery, and him and his friends free to run around it pretty well as they pleased.

One day a worker came in to his father, saying he’d cut his finger off in the damn great big saw that they used, and could he please be so kind as to take him to the hospital. Tony’s dad asked him if he had the finger, and he didn’t, so they went in to look for it. Another workmate in there saw them looking, and told them it wasn’t there.

How did he know, they asked……….

“Well”, he said, “It’s not there ‘cos I gave it to the ferret.”

I laughed out loud at that.

Brilliant! :o)

Not so much at the poor bloke’s misfortune, as at the straightforward illustration of an era of relative individual freedom, now long gone and tragically never to be seen again. An era when life was openly accepted to be a risk, and you took the consequences of your actions, without automatically looking for someone to blame.

(And, yes, I do know it was far from perfect in those days, thanks!)

Those were the days…….. tough, yes, but so were the people, and a time not dominated by the Elf and Safety weenies, who would’ve had a blue fit.

If you’re one of them, and are tut-tutting at me, ………you can just bugger off!

I nearly said you could Go Fuck Yerself, but these days you’re just as likely to be a woman and I’m something of an Officer and a Gentleman.

So, just plain bugger off, and do us all a favour.

(Ooooh, he’s so butch, so masterful……….. and such an angry young man!) :o)

Elf and Safety is noticeable by its obvious absence around here at Fortress Wheelrest, and personal injury is something of a quiet pastime of mine. Actually, it’s not all that quiet in the event, although, in saying that, if there’s a helluva lot of swearing and fuss going on, …….. stuff getting kicked around, and generally flying outta the workshop, ………….take no notice. I’m only attention seeking, so be assured the injury is likely to be fairly minor.

It’s when there’s a helluva bang, crash wallop, and/or it goes all silent and deathly quiet, that you might want to call the ambulance. It might be wise to turn off the workshop ‘lectricks……….. just in case I’m still welded to the bared wiring. :o)

This is a typical high standard of lackadaisical nonchalance with an angle grinder.
Well, how the bleddy hell else can you see up close and get such accuracy?
The local eye clinic is hugely appreciative of my selfless availability for young nurses to gaze into my eye(s) and practice their probing skills on me. :o)

Here (above) I’m carefully and skillfully employing years of technical mastery in delicately ‘machining’ a motorcycle component.
Ok, ok, …………performing an unnatural act on it with a bloody great masonry drill!!!! :oI

First aid is of a reassuringly Manly nature. No first aid box in evidence, and that’s because bandages and tourniquets are hastily improvised from oily rags, persistently bleeding wounds rubbed with sawdust kept ‘specially for the purpose, and sealed up with masking tape………. or red electrical insulation tape if I’m feeling extravagant. Naturally, after cleansing the affected digit or limb with petrol of course,………. as you would expect of a Trained Nurse. :o)

Here’s some pics at various stages on treatment/healing, of a nice little session my fingers had with the bandsaw. Lovely sharp bade it was. I never uttered a sound, just wrapped them up in a rag to stop the floor getting all messed up, and put the tools away, and locked up the workshop. Bleddy things took weeks to heal up properly, but I was out in the workshop again the next day. Halfway through some woodturning, see? :o)

The dotted line shows where the saw split my fingers ………. sliced them for about half an inch up the middle lengthways. All flapping about in the breeze, they were. :o)

They got infected. Didn’t have no petrol handy to cleanse the wound, see…….. I was in the woodworking workshop at the time. :o)

The nails were hanging on by the skin of very little as the days went by. I forget if they made it of not. Left me with a bit of numbness it has.

I put in for disability benefit, but they wouldn’t wear it.

Typical innit? You work all your life…………….. :o)))))

Nite nite, K.x :o)
P.S.
By the way………. these kisses are for you gurls mind. I wouldn’t want any of you chaps out there to be confused y’know.) :o)
K.x :o))))

On Lomax, Harleys, and simple joys of mo’sickles :o)

Lomax was much more lively when I came home from work this afternoon, than when I left him curled up on his fleece on the bed early this morning. He hasn’t left my side for a moment since having his ‘little procedure’

He’s been playing here with The Rat, his favourite toy which Suzy made for him for Christmas, from the remnants of the big fake-fur cushion she also made for him. He sinks into it (the cushion), and is a picture of ultimate luxuriant relaxation when he’s sleeping on it. I’d swap places with him in a heartbeat. He really has a great life! :o)

I took the Harley into town to give it a bit of exercise after work………. well, not exercise worthy of the name, but more a stirring of her bones so she doesn’t get all arthritic. :o)

Harleys and winter just don’t mix………….. the crappiest finish of any modern bikes. (This is a year 2000 1200 Sportster Sport………. and, yes, I know it’s not a ‘real’ Harley!)

Quality, my ass!

‘Sport’, my ass too! :o)

It does have a certain hard–to-define ‘flavour’ though, which is missing from more modern designs, and it’s amazing how content I am to be plodding along on it. Very different to riding the 1200 bandit I’ve also got……….. no way could I ever ride her,(‘Hoover’) anything like as slowly. I guess that’s down to the Harley’s old-fashioned long-stroke engine….. it just lopes along with a lazy beat, and in no hurry at all. You just fall into step with it somehow. Bit like the Enfield Bullet I’ve got (Indian made), which I absolutely love, much to my surprise.

The Harley and the Enfield Bullet, to a less practical extent (As in covering distances at any speed above sixty mph), both have only the sun-in-your-eyes-wind-in-your-hair (Yup, I take the lid off for a few miles sometimes, if plod isn’t about!)pleasures going for them. Start to try and make any serious offerings to the God of Speed, and it all comes apart. Literally as well as metaphorically.

They are somehow a purer form of motorcycling. Man and machine, on a more equal footing, where the machinery can be seen, understood, easier to be a part of, and which don’t ever become better than you are.

I guess these bikes take me back to my roots; back when I started out on a long road of riding some thirty-eight years ago now, progressing onto ever more sophisticated bikes as the years passed, which somehow lose their flavour in proportion to their gains in reliability and performance. It’s a grossly unfair rule of thumb in life, but the better they get the less charismatic they become, somehow.

It’s a real hard thing to quantify, but in worshiping the God of Speed to the levels of today’s once unheard of heights, the simple pleasure of just simply rolling along an empty road in the sun lose their hold.

Just letting a big engine propel you along at it’s natural long-legged gait, to the tune of a simple couple of cylinders banging and throbbing away, as the bike rides itself down familiar roads in the sun; it diminishes the faster you go, until all that’s left is a kind of feverish adrenalin rush that leaves you exhausted at the end of the ride. It’s addictive, and like any addiction, it’s hard to return to the early levels of that addiction. The God of Speed demands a very heavy price, and I have paid dearly in blood, and broken bones, thankfully when I was young enough to heal quickly.

It’s all been kinda worth it though, because, boy, have I had some fun along the way on every one of those thirty-eight years. I have loved every bike I ever had, and spent countless hours making them better than they ever were out of the factory, pulling more performance from their big hearts, making their handling far sweeter. bonding with them all, my girls.

You forget the pain, the punishments from the law, the hours fixing the broken machines, and retain the effects of the good times. The thousands of hours in the saddle, and not only in the sun; the bad weather has it’s perverse pleasures too, akin to winning a battle against all the odds, and believe me, some trips have been that rough. I’ve had ice form on my beard, snot freeze solid in it (great innit??) and all over the front of my Belstaffs (Those wax cotton ‘waterproofs’), ridden in rain so hard the roads were like a river, and it pounded your arms through the clothes. Freezing fog, deep snow, sleet, the lot. Pure sheet ice is the only thing you can’t really ride on. Not for long anyway.

The good times though…………. so many of them I long ago lost count.

Deserted roads late on moonlit nights, hurrying back from Cornwall to Somerset, or to the rising sun on a summer morning before anyone is up are priceless. It’s the ‘alone-on-the-road’ thing that have captured the hearts and souls of many before me, and those to follow me too I expect.

The sunny days, riding with a girl I love on the back though, have been the very, very best. Riding to a beach together, and then riding home again sunburned-hot, and just in t-shirts and jeans, with her familiar form pressed against my back, arms wrapped around me, and her smiling face over my shoulder, chasing our shadow skipping along the black-top ahead of us as the sun is setting behind us………..

Nothing beats that. Nothing.

It never did, and it never will.

Early open-cockpit pilots talked of reaching out and touching the face of God.

I kinda know just what they mean.

Do you?

OK, that’s it,

Y’all go careful out there. :o)))
K.

P.S.

Note the almost non-existent Chicken Strip on the back tyre……….. on a standard Harley!

Have a look at the size of it on most ‘brave boys’ sports bikes.

(A Chicken-strip is the unscuffed bit on the side of the tyre, because the rider is too chicken to lay the bike over far enough to get rid of it.)

The size of it shows those who can’t walk the talk. ;o)

Mind you, the older I get (54-and-bleddy-counting!!!), the harder it is to keep that precious and hard earned ‘edge’ of many years honing. (sigh)

K.

Just started this………. First Blog ever! :o)

………….. but have to go collect my little six month old pussy from the V.E.T., as he has had his little nuts squirreled away ………..they insist on calling it castration, which I feel is unnecessarily harsh.

But then I’m a sensitive guy. :o)

Ok, gotta go………… been meaning to start one of these for ages, so here it is, and soooooo quick and easy too.

Will this change the way I feel about my life, I wonder?

Hope so……….. it might even roll the dice. :o)

Ok, REALLY gotta go.
K.