Message in the Stones

impossible songs

impossible songs

The Forth Road Bridge is f**ked.

Yes it’s official, as sure as Gordon Brown is going to bowl right out of Fife and down the tubes at the next general election our marvellous main crossing point into and out of the fabled Kingdom is well and truly screwed. Engineers in the early 60’s made a 40 year pact with the Devil about the steel used on the bridge and in the wire supports, they cut the quality to meet the budget in exchange for some good jobs in the city, an honour or two and a lunch engagement with the Queen. Well now that 40 years are up, corrosion is the new king and you guys are not getting your souls back, no way. The rest of us of course are finding new ways to pay, like sitting in your car for an hour to experience the privilege of crossing the cloudy waters of the Forth in whatever direction and coughing up a quid for the pleasure. Nice to see that no “visionary” politician (either UK or Scottish) with anything approaching balls the size of tiny marbles foresaw any of this or bothered to speak up. What kind of people are these? A new bridge or tunnel or causeway should have been planned and been under construction years ago, any sane inhabitant of central Scotland would tell you that. Of course I’m making the feeble assumption that there is a body of sane individuals residing somewhere in the central belt of Scotland. Sorry must be my mistake.

Picnic table for the Three Bears.

Saturday afternoon was spent wrestling with the bolts and timbers of an enormous garden picnic table on the Freuchie patio (or slabbed area). It required over 40 bolts to hold the various giant sized chunks of redwood blocks together to form a piece of furniture that the Three Bears, Goldilocks and most of the cast of Shrek (whatever number of movie it currently is at) could comfortably sit at and dine around. Some of the sweat was returned thanks to downing a cool 7.6% bottle of Bud once assembly was over. Then it was path building on a grand scale (6 slabs laid) through vast swathes of jungle poppies, lupins and lavender. A bit like the cutting the Canadian Pacific line or the Trans-Siberia railway I suppose. I am still hurting 24 hours later, Ali remains unaffected apart from the sneezing fits and mild tremors. When the Tourist Board come to check us out I reckon the path alone will be enough to get us 5 stars and a Michelin gong.

Dead rabbit alfresco and indoors.

The two of us being away for a night displeases that cat it seems. I came home to find various used and abused rabbit components in the lobby and something unmentionable on the new rug in the spare room. Clear signs of his feline pussy boy disapproval for our normal adult human antics and for me the opportunity to clear up more neurotic cat generated mess. Don’t you just love them though?

The message in the stones.

Something has moved some fairly large stones around in the back garden adjacent to the kitchen window and formed them into a U shape. Some other stones have been scattered on the lawn nearby. It wasn’t like that on Saturday morning but it’s like that now on Sunday afternoon. I’m not sure I’m aware of any weather phenomenon that does this or any animal for that matter, so it remains a puzzle to me how it happened. Ali’s theories on possible sources are: Badgers, sheep, squirrels, frogs, hippies and aliens. Answers on a postcard please if you’re a secret stone mover and message sender or if you know of things/people that do this kind of thing.

A new idea.

The Travelling Wanabees held their first impromptu, informal group meeting tonight. Whatever next?