Category Archives: Rocky

Goulash in the Gulag

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I’m having goulash for my tea. Well, it’s beef casserole with lots of paprika in it, so I guess that makes it a goulash. We used to have it loads when we were kids and I doubt it’ll taste the same as Connie Cakesniffer’s, but I’ve made it in one of those traditional casseroles, so there’s some semblance of authenticity there.

Look at my tea:

Goulash

It’s currently cooling down as I don’t fancy putting something that’s just come out of a 200°C oven in my mouth. Smells nice enough though.

Anyway, I could hardly describe my living arrangements as being a “Gulag”, but perhaps mentally they are. I was accused of titivating my bedroom by Jo when she was having one of her rants about me living of the life of Riley here. This accusation is based on me putting up some curtains in there to keep the heat in:

Oo la la

Unfortunately, I bought completely the wrong size and they cover the entire tiny radiator so block the heat coming into the room. The chandelabra is nothing to do with me.

Rocky worries me sometimes; he pulls so hard on his lead that he makes himself vomit. this is nothing new, but sometimes he makes himself vomit so violently that he collapses onto the floor. He did again today when I was taking him for a walk, I thought he was having a convulsion. But he got to his feet, shook himself off, had a big poo and was OK again.

The problem was that he’d been eating cat food at my mum’s and now his beard smells of rotten Felix. Makes giving him a cuddle a bit unpleasant.



Ritorn’ a Fuckbook
Yes, I caved in and reactivated my Fuckbook profile. It’s actually quite good fun at times, especially now that I’ve deleted some of my most irritating “friends”; those people who just add you so they can send you shite.

In all honesty, I only did it so I could check out the photo’s of a former colleague’s new baby, but you know, all babies look the bloody same anyway. Anyway, at least I know how to deactivate myself again if needs be.

Wouldn’t it be fabulous if you could deactivate yourself in real life? If only.

Tippety-tap

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Rocky has developed an irritating new habit: tapping at closed doors.

It started the other week, I’d go to bed at night, shut the bedroom door, then within about ten minutes of getting into bed, I’d hear the pitter-patter of furry feet coming up the stairs followed by a gentle tap on the door. I’d ignore him, he’d tap again. I’d ignore him, I’d hear him huff at the door and lie down. I’d ignore him, then he’d stand up, tap again, huff again, then give up and do back downstairs.

A couple of hours after falling asleep, I’d be woken by more tapping, huffing, tapping, followed by him returning to his bed downstairs.

Now he’s started tapping on all the closed doors in the house. Why? What is wrong with my little mutt?

It’s best to ignore him and not respond in any way; he’ll soon stop, but it’s quite annoying and I hope he gets over himself sooner rather than later.

Oh dear, he’s eating Jo’s slipper again. No Rocky, don’t do that. See, I did try to stop him.

Diplomatic relations
A new colleague started with our team yesterday, she’s come over from China. I’ve been spending time helping her acclimatise to being in the UK: the most important thing is making sure she can cross the road without being run over. It’s second nature to us lot over here, but you know these foreign types who drive on the wrong side of the road.

She had to register her presence in the UK with the Police. We tried the local police station in Moss Side, it was shut. There were people inside, but they didn’t fancy letting anybody in. “Fighting crime (the people), protecting people (ourselves), hiding from inner city scumbags.” The second station was open, but we were told that we could only register at the big police station in the city centre. So off we pootled into Manchester, where the registration office was closed for lunch. The coppers were strutting about as if they were it: “Ooh, look at me in me stab proof vest, with me handcuffs hanging off me belt. Do you like my cocky swagger? You fancy me, dontcha? You’d better, or I’ll taser you in the fucking face!”.

Cunts.

Could it be the weather?
It’s fucking freezing still. I can’t get warm. My toes are icy all the time.

Jo came home after a couple of days with Pigsnout. She noticed that the thermostat was set to 22, mentioned that our gas bill will be bad (I don’t disagree with her) and then said that I can’t get warm because I’m wearing too many layers and I’m not allowing my body to acclimatise. No, I can’t get warm because it’s not been above zero for the past two weeks and it’s fucking freezing cold in this godforsaken hell hole of a country.

Why can’t my dog be normal? You see other dogs, they have their food put out for them and it’s gone in thirty seconds; they growl if you go anywhere near them while they’re eating. I put Rocky’s food out and he ignores it for two hours, then eats it in shifts, taking a mouthful at a time, constantly returning to the living room to check that I’m still here. Or I have to stand in the kitchen with him while he eats. He won’t leave me alone while I’m in the house, yet as soon as he goes outdoors, it’s as if I don’t exist. And now he’s rubbing his face on his blanket and turning his bed upside down and dragging around the living room.

Oh dear, no Rocky, don’t chew Mummy Jo’s slipper again, that’s so naughty of you.

Electric blanket

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We’ve been experiencing a relatively cold winter here in the UK. I don’t like it. The canal is almost completely frozen over.

Icy canal

This proved Rocky’s saviour yesterday as I almost threw him in it when he was being a total shit on his walk. I liked the noise the sticks made when I threw them onto the ice. I wonder what noise the dog would’ve made.

On days like today, the crisp, blue skies are beautiful, but the sun rarely gets high enough in the sky for the shadows to disappear and for the ice on the pavements to melt.

Take today for example; we had snow flurries overnight that froze to an icy sheen on the pavements by dawn. Despite wearing sensible Timberland boots with a chunky sole, I spent the day walking like a penguin with Parkinson’s disease. I have no idea why I have zero confidence when walking on slippery surfaces, but I can remember being this way for as long as I could walk – gripping onto fences, walls, my mum as I slipped and slid to school. I hate the ice. I hate things that involve me feeling unsteady on my feet such as ice skating and roller skating, and I have absolutely no desire to even attempt skiing.

Why is it then, that while I can’t walk on anything remotely slippery even in the most suitable attire, some people can stride along with full confidence on a surface resembling an ice rink while wearing stiletto boots? I couldn’t believe some of the shoes women were wearing today. Bitches. Perhaps the heel actually acts like a crampon and provides the best possible grip in such conditions. Maybe I should give them a go. I’d probably end up spinning around, pinned to the ground by one heel with the rest of me flying around in a circle of screams, torn ligaments and hair.

With it this cold, my peripheries are always icy and, by bedtime my toes are unbearably cold. I got a duck feather and down duvet for Christmas, it is lovely, but it doesn’t warm my toes particularly well. Of course, if I had a nice warm body next to me, and if the owner of that body loved me enough, they’d let me warm my toes on them. Unfortunately, I am without woman, good or otherwise, so I need to explore alternative avenues to keep me warm. One option would be to have Rocky in bed with me, but he prefers to sleep at the top of the bed next to me and I doubt he’d stay near enough to my feet under the duvet for him to be of any use. The next best option would be to invest in an electric blanket. I had the luxury of one of these when I stayed with friends in Norfolk and it was delicious! The one I had use of had a timer function so it stayed on for 75 minutes – just enough time to settle down, do a bit of reading and drop off.

Imagine the other functions that could be integrated into an electric blanket: iPod dock; massage function; alarm clock…. cattle prod! Your alarm would go off, gently at first, perhaps playing a gentle tune or waking you with a soothing massage. But if you snoozed off: DZZZZZZTZZZIPPP!!!!

I’m going to write to JML to see if they want to develop my idea along with all the other wonderful things they sell, things that look so fucking brilliant on their TV ads, but turn out to be disappointing bits of utterly useless junk when you come to have them. A bit like women, but with a battery or a plug.

Another lightbulb moment

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There are some things, the simplest things, that cause a great deal of torment every time I encounter them.  One such thing is changing the headlamp bulb in my car; I’ve never been able to do this without it being the cause of a minor disaster.  The trouble with my back is due to an incident trying to change a headlamp bulb back in 2003: bending over the engine compartment for forty minutes while attempting to get the bulb out was enough to render me crippled for a fortnight and unable to walk without being in pain for months afterwards. I actually went to the doctor at the time and, during the consultation in which he made no eye contact, he told me “Well, that’s you with a bad back for the rest of your life”. He wasn’t wrong, I can’t stand or walk for more than 20 minutes without it seizing up.

My previous car still had a snapped-off bulb floating around inside the headlamp housing when it was written off in an accident.

And yesterday, while trying to pull the connector off the back of a spent bulb, a portion of the bulb housing itself snapped off.  The new bulb is now held precariously in place with some rather  ineffective glue and a foam sticky pad to stop it wobbling about.  I also bashed the back of my hand on something very hard and sharp.  My efforts were accompanied with lots of swearing as my dad stood by, ready to help if I decided to climb onto the engine and start pulling the HT leads off and sticking them on my tongue with the engine running.

What is it with these things?  I think the latter two episodes are symptomatic of my apprehensions in dealing with car light bulbs because the first incident.  Wary of my weak back, I feel I need to rush to get the job done in case stooping over the car for a millisecond too long will lead to my back going again.

Or it could be rubbish design on the part of Nissan.  Trying to negotiate things like electrical connectors and bulb clips among the intricacies of the cooling and air conditioning pipes, while also trying to avoid getting covered in shite from a car that hasn’t been washed in seven months, it doesn’t make it easy finding the right position for successful bulb extraction and back injury avoidance.

Anyway, that was my excitement for New Year’s Day.

New Year celebration

I actually commemorated New Year’s Eve this time, I usually hate it.  This year, it was spent with a bunch of, mainly, queers round at the house of some friends.  It was actually OK, with great food, decent company and a  rather disturbing discussion about penises.  I was shocked to find that one ultra lesbian friend has what I would say is an unhealthy obsession with cocks – she likes cocks but not men, whereas my position is that men would be much more attractive without cocks.

Despite the freezing temperatures, we managed to enjoy the spectacle of a setting off a Chinese lantern to celebrate the New Year.  Look at all those people, freezing their tits off, going “Ooooh!” at the pretty fiery lantern as it floated off into the night sky… and see if you can spot the Straight.

Chinese lantern

Ooooh!

Norfolk

I spent a few days with friends in Norfolk after Christmas.  It was nice to finally get away to see them, after trying to arrange a visit for a long time.  The journey is a pig and I hate the distance between us as it would be so nice to be able to see them a lot more often than the once or twice a year.  The little dog would like to get to see them more often too, well, he’d like to get to see their dog Peggy more often as he likes the challenge of trying to touch her with his willy as many times as possible during our stay with them.

We went to the seaside on Monday. It was freezing, so I didn’t bother taking my costume, but the dogs had a good time tormenting other animals.

Rocky runs

Rocky beach

Rocky Pegger nuisances

Rocky soggy

It was quite cold down there and I was privileged to witness a beautiful starry sky one night. We don’t get to see this too much up here because of the light pollution from the big city, so it’s quite spectacular to see when it does happen. I tried to take a photo, but the long exposure (and it being too cold for me to have the patience to attempt more shots with a tripod) made the image a bit wobbly. You get the idea though.

Starry sky 1

So that’s me for you. Struggling with the tail end of my winter depression and the start of my new year blues. Just January to get through and I might just make it.

Running down the road in my pyjamas and slippers, squeaking a latex chicken

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Rocky has a new girlfriend. He spent two days joined to Peggy’s side, trying to shag her. She enjoyed the attention, clearly keen to take advantage of Rocky’s pedigree in her quest to reproduce before getting her tubes tied.

Rocky & Peggy

Rocky & Peggy

Rocky & Peggy

It’s always useful having an older dog around to guide him as he tends to go off in a world of his own when he’s outside and he becomes deaf to our calls. Unfortunately, Peg’s only a relative pup herself and she sometimes forgets herself. I watched in horror as I saw her wandering off out of the front gate towards the village, Rocky stuck to her side. I was wearing my pyjamas and slippers, but it’s quiet there so I didn’t have any shame in running onto the lane to call them back.

FUCKING BIN MEN! What the hell were people doing on the road? You NEVER see people on this bloody lane. But this was a crisis and I felt no shame.

The dogs trotted off towards the village, I called them both, they were deaf to me. I ran into the house and found Rocky’s squeaky chicken…

squeaky chicken

I ran back out onto the lane, squeaking the chicken. The bin men watched me. Even in in-bred capital of the world Norfolk, the site of an overweight woman in her pyjamas running down the road, squeaking a latex chicken must have seemed odd. I didn’t care, the dogs had disappeared from view.

FUCK!

I ran back to the house to call for help. Peggy was in the garden. Rocky was nowhere to be seen. I shouted at her, “What have you done with Rocky? What have you done with him?” I was in a total panic. I ran into the house, everybody was upstairs, I ran into the kitchen to be met by my tripey little dog. The little bugger had come in around the back while I’d been entertaining the bin men.

Norfolk
This county is lovely, but it’s a total shit to get to. No dual carriageways for a hundred miles, so a 200 mile journey takes over four hours when it should take less than three. Wednesday’s journey took us five and a half hours. Fucking awful. It’s no wonder they’re all inbred; there’s no way new blood can get in there to mix with the existing gene pool.

But the night sky there is amazing; literally bursting with stars that you never see when you live in the city. I noticed them in the early hours of Thursday morning while stood outside when the pooch was having his oh-so-conveniently-timed wee at 3am. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; I’ve never experienced anything like it before. I promised to set up my camera to take a photo of it the following night, but the temperature and atmospherics meant that I was disappointed.

I guess it’ll be a long time before I experience it again.

It’s always the way when waiting for the photo opportunity you want; you see it, but assume it’ll come back the next day – you know, things like the rise of the harvest moon? But it’s only ever like that one night, and then you’ve missed it.

Carpe diem and all that.

Road rage
Why is it wrong to assault or kill people who are crap at driving? What’s wrong with doing all other road users a service in getting menaces off the highways? You’re not even supposed to beep or shout at the fuckers.

A sure fire vote winner for anybody with political ambition would be to allow the use of rocket launchers in private vehicles.