Hnnnerrrr Huerrrrr naahhhhhhh burrrrrrrrrr (hear that.... that's your blog that is)

Sorry private joke that only four people will appreciate :¬)

well we are back from our jollies from darkest north Wales, I have to say it was a lovely time up there, the weather was not the best it could have been, the first night Shell Island was full to bursting so we had to con our way into another camp site which was also full but by thrusting a 10 month old baby at the camp-site owner he let us on, and can I just say it was THE most uncomfortable night I have spent in a long time, Freya was in one compartment of our four man tent, the girls in another and Andrea and I and the shadow boy slept on the hard floor, the weather was terrible it rained constantly and spirits were none too high by the next morning as I drove off to Shell island to wait with all the other hopefuls to get on the camp-site.

Well after a 6am start I got there by 7:00pm ish, and was greeted by the biggest bunch of chavs you have ever met (sorry no other word describes them) they were even drinking vodka and red bull at 7:00am in the morning !!!...

One particular Chav made me turn my head to look at her, because she had practically the identical accent and vocal characteristics and laugh of my ex wife, I actually dismissed it was her even before I clapped eyes on her, she wouldn't be seen dead anywhere you could be seen having fun (especially with the lower classes) .....;¬) anyway it didn't bother me that much because I knew we would be camping way way way out from Chav central on the dunes.... I got back to our bolt hole and we started to pack everything up and drove onto the island, we eventually found a lovely pitch not very far from where we camped two years ago, and I was pleased the sun had come out it was quite hot that day I even burnt my skin a little ....(yes we forgot to pack the sun screen)

Chris and Donna turned up later that day, and I was immediately offered a bowl of terrier dog sick through the open car window...... poor Holly she doesn't do car travel... anyway after us spending three hours setting up our tents Chris and Donna arrived with their whole camping experience tucked away in the boot of their car, Chris took great delight in throwing two pop up tents out which self erected in less than a couple of seconds, I on the other hand had been expecting them to bring their conventional tent, I would have enjoyed quaffing a beer quietly watching their marriage disintegrate before my very eyes as they argued about which bit went where ;¬) but alas that simple pleasure was taken from me.... :(

but then it happened, within less than an hour Chris had started rearranging the furniture or in this case the wind breaks, and he was pulling out a wind break when it suddenly came out and jabbed him in the chest, by the looks of it he had tried to stake himself through the heart Van Helsing style but with the blunt end of the stake (anything but camping please!!!) ... but in true Chris form he only managed to break a rib !!! he didn't find that bit out till he got home....(oh how I laughed and laughed.... ;¬) ) we had a good night in the Chav central pub, Andrea sang and was surprisingly good and there were also quite a few others who were unsurprisingly bad.....there was even a Queen song which was so badly murdered it prompted the title of this blog entry.....One thing about Chris he always makes me laugh even in the most ridiculous situations, that's probably why he is such a good friend..... anyway Chris and Donna only stayed a couple of days and they left the hardcore camping to Mr and Mrs Die Harder, I have to say the weather improved markedly after they left, the dark clouds followed them back to Greenfields.....thankfully ;¬)

Seriously though it was great seeing them all (yes even Holly (the puke) terrier) but shadow boy sank into a deep depression after Oscar, Terion (sp) and Finlay (the dark destroyer) left, he was left with no choice but to follow us around again like a shadow which he is so good at.....

I finally managed to get Andrea to Portmerion for the day, shadow boy was none too impressed, but Andrea loved it, it is a very quirky place if a bit expensive to get into, it was topped off by Shadow boy losing his £10 pocket money moments after being given it, I went back and retraced our steps but I was pretty resigned to the fact that it had gone... probably before it even hit the floor .... I miraculously found another (planted) £10 note in the bag, Andrea thought she had pulled the wool over my eyes.... but I wasn't born yesterday.

We also went to Pete's eats in Llanberis (I recommend that place) and treated ourselves to one of their monster meals, shadow boy reckoned he could eat it all, he didn't, in fact he failed miserably, Andrea however managed to put away a bacon baguette which probably had half a pig farm sliced up in it, we left and then booked ourselves into "Electric Mountain" and had a really interesting underground tour of the Hydro Power station there hidden in the mountain, Freya meanwhile tired herself out in a massive ball pool at the place, we had no trouble getting her to sleep that night.... not that we ever do ;¬)

Nothing much else happened really on our holiday it all went very nicely, we had a bit of rain, but it was mostly warm, my stepdaughter spent most of her time with her friend Kizzie hanging around the games rooms they had there, neither of them caused any trouble, nothing was burned to the ground, and the only real time any bother happened is when my stepdaughter had to be woken up for her EARLY morning train back (I say early it was 10:28am..... but that's practically before dawn for my stepdaughter), I ended up threatening to take the tent down around her unless she got out of her sleeping bag, I wasn't actually threatening..... I mean't it ;¬)

They eventually made it to the train station and on time and I waved them off, I got back to the campsite and we packed everything up in the Terrano, it's amazing it all fitted to be honest, but Andrea could fit a square peg in a round hole she simply doesn't give up :) I on the other hand was waiting for the Terrano windows to blow out under pressure......but anyway I digress, in true Brabrook style the Terrano blew it's exhaust on the way back so we sounded like an advancing Russian tank division as we roared our way through the various small towns and villages on the way, I got it fixed at the beginning of the week..... another £134 thrown at it !!! :(


happy holidays :)

Day One (said in a Geordie accent) of my holiday

And the rain is relentless, in the brief periods we have between rainfall, we have wind, and yesterday we had a whole 10 minutes of bright sunshine... ahhh well that's summer over then for another year !! Thanks Mr Brockway !! .....

We are off to the swimming pool today in Carmarthen, well why not it's wet outside may as well get wet inside as well !!! we are taking Freya into the pool for the first time, hopefully she will enjoy it otherwise it will be the shortest dip in the pool ever, her elder brother is manically excited about going to the pool, but fair do's he hasn't really done much so far this school holiday except shadow us and generally go wherever we go.....he's driving us nuts but he does have his redeeming features like he helps around the house, which is more than can be said of his elder sister or brother..... so I guess we have to let him off ;¬)

I've just had the doctor ring and confirm that I have a rotor cuff injury in my right shoulder, the prognosis is ok-ish.... it's not marvellous, I will probably have trouble with it for many months to come, basically the tendons which attach to my shoulder are inflamed through injury (Aikido) and won't slide through the rotor cuff smoothly causing pain (quite considerable at times) but I guess with getting older you have to expect that your body just simply doesn't do what it used to without complaining at you ....ho hum :( I guess the important thing is I have have to keep it moving and take Ibuprofen when it flares up.... pass me my pipe and zimmer frame and slippers .... my life is over ....again....

I'm not missing work in the slightest, it's quite a relief not having to decipher various Indians talking to me in various accents.....asking me about my job, they can figure it out for themselves whilst I'm away, it will give them a taste of things to come.... it will end in tears, there are too many things they simply cannot know about, all the chewing gum and string and scripts keeping things running smoothly, it's a bit like an old engine the Corus network it needs constant care and attention or it stalls and refuses to start again, unless you know where to kick it and more importantly how to kick it, but that's experience not knowledge and you can't learn experience, you have to do it....


..... a few hours later :)

Well Freya absolutely loved the pool, she was a bit "OMG what are you putting me through" initially but that only lasted a few seconds then she simply couldn't be stopped, she was staring at all the people jumping around and splashing and even cracked a smile in between being mesmerised by all the activity..... she even enjoyed being sat on the edge of the pool and jumping into our arms !!! it was a fantastic time, we got home and both Andrea and Freya dropped off to sleep, whilst I watched "The Nuremberg trials" on UK TV History, nothing like topping off your day with a good documentary about the Nazi's eh ? especially in this lovely weather ;¬)

More Cheese Gromit ?

The Pug is running sweeeeeeet now :)

My previous estimate of how long the old bearings would last was way out in fact a few days later they gave up the ghost and I was forced to rip them out and put the new ones in, I became suspicious of them whilst driving home and this really nasty burning smell invaded the car, I pulled over on the lay-by near Cross Hands and sure enough the drivers side front wheel was very nearly glowing and gently smoking, confirmed by me stupidly touching the drive shaft followed by the sizzle of human flesh..... so I limped home at 30mph, which seemed to upset quite a few road users, it's amazing how many people point out there is something wrong with your car whilst driving at 30mph, the amount of people that madly gestured that something was wrong with the front drivers side wheel as they pointed downwards at my wheel like demented chimpanzee's.... do you know I hadn't noticed .... idiot !!! I usually drive at 30 mph on a dual carriageway dontchaknow ????

Anyway the job was done quick smart it took just over an hour to take both hubs off I whisked them down to my friendly garage near St Clears and pressed out the knackered bearings then pressed the new ones in, all told from removing the hubs to pressing in the new ones about 2 hours work ish.

the difference was noticeable immediately, plus I found out that the probable reason for the bearing failure was my inability to tighten the hub nuts up to the required 280 Newtons on a torque wrench, for a start the torque wrench I had didn't go up that far it only went up to 150 Newtons, The guy in the garage told me that to tighten up a hub nut to 280 Newtons would require a 6 foot scaffolding tube attaching to the wrench to exert that kind of pressure.... but I'm dubious that was the reason, after looking on various forums I found quite a few disgruntled Pug 205 owners who had used GSF Motor Factors for the very same bearings and they too had experienced failures in them in some cases as low as 2000 miles after fitting them !! so who knows eh ? Ohhh I also replaced the front brake pads @ £14.99 one of them was worn down to the metal, so I had to take the Bendix calliper off and free the sliding tubes, they've been put back in now with a mixture of Copper grease and PTFE hopefully that will be the end of it....famous last words I think. The main benefit is you can actually hear the radio/CD player even at low volumes now so all is right with my world :) .... oh and the quickest way to get ingrained oil out from under your finger nails is to soak them in washing powder solution for about 5 minutes then use an old head on your electric toothbrush.... brilliant and job done in less than 2 minutes :) (must remember to change it back ;¬) )

I'm on holiday as of tonight for two weeks, I'm really looking forward to it to be honest, work has been an utter drag of late we have had a contingent of Indians across from Mumbai and some guys from Rotherham and I have been teaching them my job, it's a bit of a slap in the face to be honest it's bad enough being told that your job has gone to India but then to actually have to train the people who are going to be doing your job in the near future is a bit off if you ask me....

Ffion is coming across tonight with her current boyfriend who happens to be an International DJ who has played in Russia and various other places such as Ibiza at most of the top spots and has quite a following apparently, it wouldn't be fair to say who he is, but suffice to say it's not Tiesto or Fat boy slim, or sadly Sister Bliss... but one of the less well known ones, it will be nice to get to know him and find out a bit more about him, Ffion is going to dye Andrea's hair and we are going to have a few drinks to boot, and generally iron out the plans for her coming camping with us to North Wales, which she is stupidly excited about.... it "should" be a blast as my mate Chris and Donna and their kids are coming too !!!

I'm getting quite excited about it to be honest, it may of course end up a complete disaster due to weather and the fact that Freya is coming with us (of course) I should imagine it will be really tiring trying to stop Freya putting anything and everything in her mouth that she might find on the floor including rabbit poo, which there was a lot of the last time we went, and no doubt she will taste the sand (once) and possibly the sea (once) ...... basically she is crawling like a beetle at the moment nothing stops her except lifting her off the ground to turn her around and even then her legs and arms still flail about, she is such a lovely girl though, no real trouble, very placid and smiley and screeches with delight when amused which is most of the time, although she can't be trusted with FiFi the kitten yet, the last time she got hold of her she tried to wave the kitten above her head by the scruff of it's neck, so the Kitten is just a tad wary of old Freya at the moment..... the only other development besides wanting to walk everywhere aided or unaided, the latter of which she usually falls flat on her back, is that she is currently being called "Wallace" because she pulls the strangest face when she is annoyed... quite funny really.... a practically square shaped mouth and a wrinkled brow (see picture above) that's about the same face but with less teeth, she usually smiles afterwards once she realises we are looking at her and usually laughing.... :)

anyway nothing more to report really, I'll come back to this blog probably after the holidays or maybe before that if anything really exciting happens :)