Location, Vocation, Vacation

Location
Where you live has never become so important over the last few months with the changes in our life. The good weather makes you appreciate your location even more. Like you would on holiday, you can take yourself and all off to the beach and get there in about 2 minutes. With a babba on a trike, an old man like me pushing it in flip-flops with the Mrs in tow making sure her massive sunglasses don't slip off. It's a sight to see, the locals can look like tourists.

Vocation
Some people have seized the moment well. What with the rising attraction of beach life and street food, Riley's Fish Shack have brought the two together. He basically sets up at King Edward's Bay and cooks local fish on his large BBQ. We tried a salmon wrap, it was delicious. We ate it while we watched a Karate group practise on the beach. Now you don't see that often.

Vacation
So all of this good weather and our location have made it feel like we are on holiday. The sun shines, the sea is clear and green, the temperature rises, drinks in the village or city (see that lush lass in the photo). Sometimes you even get the smell of bins and a fat Geordie with a tattoo spelt backwards. Like on holiday, you learn to hold your nose or turn your head and just get on with stuffing your face with chips, ice-creams and wraps and then realise that you are also a fat Geordie on holiday.

Barbecues and Beetles

As a child I remember being on holiday in France. Fourteen of us travelled there in a mini-bus driven alternatively by the father's of three family's from the neighbourhood. That's in the days of proper neighbourhood community and no air-conditioning; kid's today don't know they're born. Anyway, the point of telling you this is that it reminded me of lots of BBQ's while we stayed in the caravan/tent. Trying to catch lizards and put them on the BBQ but not achieving it because they shed their tails when you stamp on them. However, after becoming bored of blowing up ant nests with little bangers (you could buy these!), we moved onto catching beetles and cockroaches and roasting them on the BBQ. Cockroaches stink by the way.


Now that our own summer has arrived here and all those fond memories sweep through my mind, we have our own version of BBQ's and Beetles. How wonderful it is to do everything alfresco (careful). The smell and sound of sizzling food. The urge to pop a few beetles on there to see what they smell like when hot. If you want a change from burgers and sausage, get some monkfish, marinade it with chillies, garlic, limes and coriander and slide it onto some skewers while you look at the camera pouting your lips. It's an absolute treat; the food, not the camera shot.

OK so I've mentioned beetles a few times and you can't see the relevance. The Tynemouth Classic VW Rally is in its 3rd year now. Blessed by the great weather again, we went along to view the shiny camper vans and beetles. So many colours, styles and interior space saving genius. We all want one, you see a lot living on the coast but don't get sick of them until you get stuck behind a slow one. They ended the rally by driving in convoy along the coast. On the day of the Sunderland Air Show, I expected the red arrows to fly over just at that point and maybe create a VW shape in the sky. They missed an opportunity but to be fair they probably flew over the Newcastle race course where it was also Ladies Day. Pervert Pilots.

Just waiting for a man in the park

By the title of this post, you may have got here by either googling "I'm a single depressed woman, drinking gin" or "I'm new to dogging" or even 'Hi, I'm George Michael'. If you are one of those, you will be disappointed by the post so you might want to hit the back button.

I'm talking about the picture of that sad lonely, so-called BBQ. We went along to Centre Parcs again for our first real family holiday. Alongside the cabin you have your own patio and BBQ area. It's not a real man's BBQ though. Ruled by the Health and Safety laws we now operate in, you have to buy an actual disposable BBQ to put on top of the non-purpose fake built in BBQ. Hilarious. Suppose it stops the possibility of a massive fire that would probably rip through the whole forest and burn everything from red squirrels to oversized-greedy-fat-people-who-are-there-to-convince-themselves-it-is-an-active-holiday.

Aside from this observation, we all had a great holiday especially the little one who just loved being pulled in a trailer everywhere by my bike. The cabin was spotless, sunshine was there most days and the food was incredible (self-catered). It's the second visit to Centre Parcs, never thought I would like it, but I do. Won't be long before I like caravans too.

Come on and do the conger...

If you read my blogs you will know that we celebrate our birthdays in the home by surprising the other half with a weekend away. OK so you mock me for being so romantic and thoughtful and then writing about it; making you feel guilty that you haven't done the same and you hope the wife doesn't find out. However in my true arrogant style I will ignore your thoughts and tell you that for my birthday this year, this did not happen. This was not down to the other half being less romantic our thoughtful but to do with our new life as a family.

Instead I was taken to a very posh restaurant, visited only once before. It's a special occasion and she wanted to make an effort and I felt she hit the mark. We arrived at Jesmond Dene House for dinner. I was dressed in my waistcoat looking like a boy-band reject. The missus as usual looked stunning and classical (I know you are reading this), sporting a new haircut too.

As I was the birthday boy, the food I had was very good. I had a smoked eel starter. I've never seen an eel smoke. I guess they smoke when they are stressed or when they are electrocuted. I followed it with venison which was once a little deer...(oh god, I'm going to have to stop, it must be a dad-thing).

This was the first time out since our family changes and it was a different experience. I just have to do the same in a few months.

There's a rat in the kitchen, what you gonna do...?

...I tell you what I'm going to do...kill it and laugh hysterically.

We moved into our new seaside home over a year ago now. It quickly became apparent that there was something else that had moved in too. A rat in the kitchen roof and under the floor. It was a pleasant experience eating your tea the odd night hearing a scratching or a pitter-patter of feet wondering if it was going to eat its way through the roof onto your lap. We poisoned that rat last year and it was found under the neighbour's floorboards. I like the fact that I poisoned it, but it didn't die in our home.

Now the environment council (the rat-man to me and you) visited us a few times last year and offered advice, poison and some incredible rat stories to keep you awake at night. Infact Andrea had a dream that a rat jumped onto the bed and wee-wee'd in her face. Pleasant.

We thought the saga was over. I'd blocked all known holes. Surveyed the whole house. Bought electronic deterrents, peppermint oil and a nice big rat cage. The winter came again. The day Andrea muttered the words: "Looks like the rat problem has gone", minutes later, as if the rat had been waiting for a dramatic cue, we heard scratching under the floor. The horrified soap-opera look to each other, followed by anger, confusion and rage against the rat was back.

Russell-the-rat-man was invited into our rat house again. It's not just dog-owners who look like their dogs by the way. This time he informed us that 98% of rats come through drains and man-holes. We are not sure why such a statistic wasn't mentioned a year ago to us. Anyway, the cameras were put down our main drains. In the process we found out that when our extension was built, they just covered the kitchen manhole with concrete - nice. We needed to get into this to complete the camera survey. So I took up 6 tiles without breaking them, removed a kitchen cupboard and smashed through 4 inches of concrete to reveal the manhole and a nice little rat route into our home and neighbours home. They get in from the main sewers via the drain into your home when builders do not block up the rodding pipe outlet properly. 


The manhole has been dealt with now. There is still a trapped rat on the loose though. We heard commotion next door in the night, lots of banging and a couple of screams. We are too embarrassed to ask if it was rat related incase it was just a noisy-bonk.

Today, we are sure the rat is dying after taking large amounts of poison and a lot of verbal abuse. We've nicknamed it "the love-rat". Why? Because the little dirty goofy rodent spoilt my yearly Valentine home-cooked meal as I had to smash up the floor that day.

...and finally

So who was next (see previous blog)? It was friends, Lisa and John in London. The last wedding for 2012. Five weddings in total and a few thousand pounds and that's not just monetary.

At a pretty stunning hotel location in Surrey, we stayed over in the top floor of the clock tower with pretty views of the treetops and golf course. A nice big room where you could play with all your toy cars and not run out of roads.

The wedding was a rather long church one so felt sorry for those suffering with hangovers from the night before. I managed to escape those late drinks so felt fairly fresh along with a nice smooth shave and special wedding moisturiser  The other half was bridesmaid so I was looking forward to seeing her turn up and dazzle me. She did that in style with a cheeky smile as she walked down the aisle. The bride wasn't bad either.

The party atmosphere remained all day so you know the score: you drink, you listen, you eat, you drink, you laugh, you fart, you drink, you burp, you drink, you squint, you stumble, you slur, you collapse, you sleep, you breakfast.

The wedding day was fantastic and it was topped off with one of the most extravagant gesture I've seen. A fireworks display in the hotel grounds, complete with marshals and professional cordoning off. The show lasted quite some time but was amazing to watch. I'm just hoping Andrea doesn't think that is now the norm. Might be able to get away with a sparkler though...

One more to go...

The second last wedding of the year came along at Langley Castle and it was a breathtaking venue blessed with blue skies, sunshine and beautiful ladies.

An intimate wedding inside the castle based around the huge window. The fella on the left doing an impression of a Scottish teapot is the groom. He didn't reveal his spout.

I usually have jobs to do at weddings especially when being the best man. This time wasn't fifth time lucky although my job was to bake the cake and the other half decorated it. It was a fairly easy and successful process. It makes you wonder why those cake makers add 400% if you include the word wedding in your order. Suppose that goes for anything to do with weddings.

Those beautiful ladies I mentioned were the daughters of the bride, and of course the most beautiful on the right. They did a superb and funny poem which went down a storm. As did the 4 year-old bridesmaid who decided after hearing all the speeches that she would also do one. It was hilarious, cute and a great start for her future public speaking moments.

After a superb wedding breakfast on a long banqueting table complete with peacocks walking around outside, it was time to breath in to let the waistcoat a bit of room.

Entertainment, drinks, a fish and chip van and weird dancing all went on at Hexham Cricket Club later. It was followed by headaches, bacon sandwiches, champagne, cake and questions about who is next...

JR Hartley has a lot to answer to

I've not been much of a fisherman in my lifetime, so I was a bit concerned when I learnt the latest stag do involved fly fishing. It's a bit of a change from the debauchery of recent celebrations and it gave me a change to swing my arm, erect my rod, put me wellies on and catch an old trout. Actually that really does sound like one of those stag do's after all.

With the more senior members, we went along to Brampton Trout Farm and were met by the loud enthusiastic owner. He informed us he'd put a lot more trout in the water and if we caught the tagged huge one, we win a prize in the kitty for £200. A little lesson in the technique and away I went. I could see the trout swimming, right next to my fly which was in the water. But guess what, not one single bite....for 4 hours. We did have one successful catch and it caught a lot of people's attention. We all gathered round the stag as we were informed it was a large trout on the end of his rod. No it wasn't. It was a large branch.

Thank god we later got to celebrate the branch catch in the pub. An interesting and very enjoyable day. Perhaps I'm at that age now...

How can you get there if parts of Rhodes are invisible?

It's been a while since visiting the Greek island of Rhodes, so with a week to go we booked it, packed it.....off. We headed to the town of Afantou which apparently means invisible, however it was clearly there, on the map AND in real life. The view from our balcony over the sea, it's long pebbled beaches and the winding mountains proved it all existed.

We did a good job of ignoring the bingo night, useless reps and desperate couples who've got no conversation themselves and look for you to hook up with. Instead, we went into the small town to seek out real Greek food. We found it in every restaurant we visited too. We also discovered a gem which was half-Greek-half-English (a bit like Prince Philip), called Sergios. They specialise in home-made pasta and pizza though, not traditional Greek but they did a very good job of putting a smile on our faces as we stuffed it with dough balls, pizza, pasta and Greek wine.

So after a great relaxing holiday, the going home saga began. At 2:30AM, we were picked up by the bus, taken to the airport and told "as you know there is a 7 hour delay". We didn't know, but we knew now. Thanks Thomas Cook, you are very informative. It ended up being a much longer delay in the airport with a 12 euro voucher to buy an old looking sandwich from the war. We were eventually flown home on an antique rented french plane where the only way on and off was from stairs at the back of the plane (recently featured on Channel 4's Plane Crash). The arm rests were stuck on with gaffer tape, not sure what the wings were stuck on with.

Punishment 4u

There's been some sort of strange theme in the last few family weddings. A gypsy theme. Don't get me wrong, we are not part of the 'travelling community' and don't allow krumping, fights and grabbing as you may expect at a Gypsy wedding. It's more to do with co-incidental venues and transport. Our latest wedding (my cousin Karen, marrying Paul) was at the Wood Green Animal Sanctuary in Cambridgeshire where a famous gypsy wedding took place and was on TV. The stag 'do' for the other family wedding involved the same limo used in another televised Gypsy wedding (that's another story). I'm hoping this is co-incidence and that the family are not trying to tell us something. I know I've always said that caravans are a thing for when you are in your 40's but I'm just not ready for it yet.

The signs of marriage are always there; gentle reminders; friends getting married; family members getting married...The best reminder was in the hotel we stayed in during the celebrations. The listed building was on the grounds of an old prison. Our room was called Punishment. What else can I say?

The day was blessed with hot sunshine and drinks on the lawns were made more entertaining by the sight of a horse showing off it's manhood and some ferrets looking bored in cages. The entertainment continued after discussing how many people we could get into a school bus ride and how many sambuca's myself and my cousins could get through. This is the result of male conversation fuelled by Pimms and beers.



All in all, it was a great day and not a gypsy in sight. This was wedding number 3 of 5 this year so the suit needs another dry clean; the girlfriend needs another new dress; the bank account needs another few pounds and the belly needs another owner 

A comic in the Live Theatre not in a tin

We've never been to the Fringe in Edinburgh and keep meaning to go along. The closest we have got is to see some comedians as they perfect their acts for the show. The NewcastleGateshead Comedy Festival allows them do do this and at the Live Theatre we laughed quite a lot seeing Jo Caulfield and Anvil Springsteen.

Jo has been on Mock The Week and other comedy panel shows. I was surprised how good she was, picking up on men's daft habits and inability to work out what is wrong with their other half. This will always remain a mystery to men, so best just leave us to watch the TV with no other thoughts going on in our minds.

Anvil was a lot more different, he threw his prep notes away at the beginning and just got on with the job. His dark humour was often very funny but was sometimes skirting around for laughs but got them. His opinions on young people were spot on and he targeted an 18 year old in the audience to confirm if those 'uncontrolled urges' still go on. They do by the way and surely it's not just when you are younger. What got a lot of laughter involved the sister-in-law as we were there in a group. Anvil was reminiscing and asked if we could all remember Marvel in a tin. He then asked the sis-in-law if she could remember and replied "You mean comics used to be in a tin?". Now that was funny, but the innocence of it all made it funnier again. We chatted to Anvil Springsteen later in the bar, he lives in Newcastle, but is a scouser, so he wasn't 'Born in the USA'. I didn't do that joke but felt like he wanted me to.

All in all, I was pretty well entertained with minimal effort, a bit like watching TV when the Mrs isn't there (see above). We got lush food at The Broad Chare and drink from a few other bars, so let it all happen again soon and we will be content.

It's a Park, in the centre of things

I've never been bothered about a trip to Centre Parcs. It's got an expensive label, but when we were offered the chance to go on a family break there we said yes and went along to see if it is actually a park (with a c of course) in the centre. I can confirm that there is a park and it's more or less in the centre of Whinfelll Forest.


Once you have navigated through the complex road system and you haven't managed to end up lost, facing backwards inside your own car or on top of a cyclist you can be pleasantly surprised by the plush log cabins and the beauty of the forest.


In the place you will find a plethora of activities. The big ones like Go Ape, obstacle courses, scary rope things, zip wire craziness you need to book at least 25 years in advance. However the indoor and outdoor sports arena has all sorts of sporty things to get into such as badminton, tennis, table tennis, footy, golf, water sports and everything else you can think of. Great for kids. Great for fat families too, as they convince themselves they are on a healthy holiday.


The resident animals there must have a great time. There was a duck in the human swimming pool; clearly they're not arsed about their own lake, but who could blame them when there's such a great water slide. The red squirrels also show their little cute faces from time to time, I snapped this one going up a tree. Now when I say snapped. please don't be phoning the RSPCA, I didn't actually snap its neck or anything, I just took an innocent photo and it went on its way to crack some nuts or whatever they do. It got me thinking about those films made some time ago where the squirrels complete obstacle courses to get their nuts. Now I can't get the Mission Impossible music out my head...

Local stars of Tynemouth

I'm not a fan of famous people and would rather ridicule them unless they are fairly normal. Our young culture is now about looking and acting like a celebrity which doesn't put us in a good position for the future. I've posted about local famous people before and at least it's interesting to see who has 'made it' from around your streets. Some you might want to keep quiet about, like 'H' from Steps, or Jimmy Carr's accountant for instance. Imagine my surprise while sitting having a beer in our local village seeing these celebrities pottering around:-

Phil Mitchell returns to chef duties
 at The Vic

Chris Evans arrives in the village
 hoping to find another Virgin

Prince Philip asks what is wrong with
 lap dancing, then blames The Poles

This beautiful girl does a Predator
impression very well.
Predator then beats up wife.

Amstell was a beer when I was a lad

I've seen a lot of live comedians and a lot of them often do their act around the single life, how lonely it is and the things they get up to as a singleton. Sarah Millican, John Richardson and now Simon Amstell (best known for presenting Buzzcocks and making Preston walk out) . The difference is that Simon is gay so the stories of relationships were slightly different and a bit more cringe worthy. His performance was sometimes more clever than funny (we think we are all like that, but even that's funny in itself). On TV he comes across as cheeky but there was little of that although he still managed to get the laughs in.


He looks a bit like a school kid I reckon. He has one of those faces that will probably never look old. I was going to say a bit like Cliff Richard but would rather refrain from giving the old pop-star a compliment. There is still a comparison as they both have faces we'd secretly like to punch. Add a comment to this post if it's true...

Nothing is real anymore

 Even Bono was there

Kings of Lyon

Now us men are all used to having things being faked around us. It was no different when we went along to the Tynemouth Fake Festival. The acts included:


Kings of Lyon
Really Hot Chilli Peppers
Coldplace


Basically, they rip off the real bands and call themselves tribute acts. Some clever bloke thought he could make a business out of this and so provides food, beer, music and a nice big marquee. We got to see Kings of Lyon but decided to miss out on the others as it got a bit cold even though the sun was out. Guess that's a sign of old age, even for Andrea.

Bono ditches glasses and raises one

The other festival a week later wasn't a fake. It was the second year for the Tynemouth Food Festival. We started it off attending David Kennedy's pop-up restaurant in the canteen in the local private school. I'm sure the kids are used to top food here too.

Also, not so fake was the massive orange I picked up from one of stalls owned by a french man. What a large orange I said to him in french. I think it was lost in translation.

A small apple or a huge orange?

Going out on a limo

It was my cousin's stag 'do' the other week. Now we all know they can be eventful, but this one was particularly lively. The agenda was simple; a race day and a night out. It's been done before without too much drama and humiliation.


The morning involved bacon sandwiches, champagne and some other weird drink while travelling to the Lingfield races in Surrey in a limo recently seen in Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Now you might think that is impressive but not when we stopped at the services on the way down and were inspected by the Vehicle police. After an hour or so of checking the vehicle it was decided that they would allow us to travel but the limo would be impounded once we got into London later that night as the company did not have an operators licence for that vehicle. The sun was shining and we had beer so it was part of the day out. Oh how we all laughed, especially when my Uncle split his ring. Now I didn't know how else to put that, but he did legitimately split his wedding ring somehow so that it started to pinch his skin and blow his finger up. The strange noises attracted a lot of attention as did the 12 men wearing suits standing outside a limo with a bottle of beer laughing at the man shouting "Meee ring...I've split meee ring".


We did manage to get to the races just in time only to be greeted by Judy Dench (nicknamed The Dench for the rest of the day). She smiled and waved at us, she had no choice really. My cousin, the stag, looked great in his Paul Shane style jacket and 80's wig. Infact there were some people at the races who dressed like that anyway so he wasn't out of place. After winning nothing, being the centre of attraction for the day, swallowing several pints and hog roasts it was time to leave and travel into London in our questionable limo. This was to become an interesting journey...


So, we were on the way to London, beer in the limo, a foreign driver who had no idea his boss didn't have an operators licence and someone needed a wee. The traffic was building as we approached London, the wee sack was building too. It was someones idea to jump out the back of the limo and empty themselves into some nearby bushes on the roadside while onlookers tried to establish if the men in suits were stars or The Unusual Suspects. It must've looked funny to see the suits running desperately behind the limo to the chants of "Run Forest Run" to catch up to it as the traffic started to move.

The earlier events of the day meant that the limo was being watched as we got closer into London and were escorted to Tiger Tiger by police motorbikes. Now this wasn't a problem for us as we were then treated like real stars. Forget The Dench, we were famous. We were papped, and I don't mean we needed the toilet again. The London public got excited. There was talk of One Direction being in the limo. But there was massive confusion when we all got out the limo wearing James Corden masks. After laughing along with the policeman we went into Tiger Tiger, ate our VIP food, drank various cocktails and invented James Corden dance moves.


The limo drama continued when it turned up an hour late at 3am in the morning and then couldn't find its way to our destinations via the sat-nav. So the driver got frustrated, so much so he rather unprofessionally slammed the brakes on so we all tumbled forward in true crash drama style. We weren't happy by this attitude as most of us were asleep and my gymnastics meant that my feet ending up in someones face. The good thing, no-one was hurt and the stag had a fun packed story to remember for the future. The limo company is currently being chased for all of its failings...so maybe we'll hear of it again in the news or a Channel 4 documentary or the death of its gypsy passengers.