A bit dull for most of my readers, but I made this for myself, and if you find it useful, that’s nice… I’ve created a version of my blogroll for iPhone… point your phone here:

http://www.pygmygoat.net/blogroll/

It doesn’t have a homescreen icon just yet, but it’ll do for now. Of course, you don’t have to view it from your phone, it works perfectly fine in a browser. Does away with the ‘hover’ requirement to view the title on this page’s blogroll.

In answer to Debsters question, it turned out I was making a bridge. But I didn’t know that at the time. I wasn’t sure what I was making, I just knew it had to be made out of two by six with chicken-wire stapled to it.

More details on that soon.

Saturday afternoon, I went back to B&Q. I went up to a man and said “I’m hoping to get a length of 2 by 6 and have three cuts made in it… is that something you can do?”
“Of course it is.”, he said, “let me find someone who is trained on the saw.”
…
“Hello good sir,” said the man who is trained on the saw, “I hear you would like a length of 2 by 6 cutting… that will be no problem at all, bring hither the 2 by 6 and I shall cut it willingly on yon saw.”

As he beckoned toward the saw, we spied the legend “OUT OF ORDER”.

DOH!

Never mind, at least I proved to myself that they do cut timber lengths and that I had just been talking to a … um … yeah… one of them previously.

Luckily I’d brought my wood saw, and cut it up in the car park.

Mission accomplished. And luckily so because had I not accomplished my mission, my Micra would still be stuck half-way along a green lane in Derbyshire.

You see this happy young couple…

Well, if they’d not been quite so distracted by each other, and had a little foresight, it would have all been ok…

I was listening to Radio 2 this morning on the short drive to work. I don’t normally, but Terry Wogan’s inane ramblings are preferable to Chris Moyles’ arrogant inane ramblings. Anyway, a piece of music came on and I listened with interest… sounds very much like Enya… didn’t realise she’s still around.

But as the singing came in, it wasn’t Enya. It was definitely a man. Must be Jon Anderson. He’s clearly managed to find his way home (see what I did there?). I was noting with interest how similar the music is between Jon Anderson and Enya, the same sorts of backing vocals and ethereal sound, but this one - another clue - had Mr. Anderson’s trademark bells in it, like on Olias of Sunhillow.

And then Mr. Wogan came on and said “Enya, there”.

So either Enya is turning into a man, or Mr. Anderson and Ms. Bhraonáin have merged in some strange progressive/new-age science accident.

I’m sure I had a point when I started this, but I think I’ve lost it somewhere along the way.

I went into B&Q and picked up a 12-foot length of 2 by 6. Only these days they call it a 3.6 metre length of 150×47mm. I then proceeded to the ‘Timber Cutting Service’ which was unmanned.

“Hmm…”, thought I, “I wonder if they cut timber lengths…”

So I checked the sign…

Timber Cutting Service

We will cut MDF, wood sheets and timber lengths.

First four cuts free, then 50p per cut.

Ok. A good bet. I wanted two four-foot lengths and the remainder cutting in half. Now let’s see… one four-foot length is 1 cut. Then another is 2 cuts. Then the third cut halves the remainder. Marvellous! It’ll be free as well.

I went to find a man. A man was found. The man came to the timber cutting service area and looked at my timber length.

“I can’t cut that”, said the man, “we only cut sheets.”
“Oh”, I said, “it says up there that you cut timber lengths.”
“Er… yeah… what do you want?”, he said.
“Two four-foot lengths and the remainder halved, please.”

“Um….”, he said.
“?”
“Um… er…”, he said.
“What’s the problem?”, I asked chirpily.
“I’m worried about the number of cuts.”
“Er… it’s three cuts, isn’t it?”
“Um… and it’s wet. I’m not cutting that.”, he said with an air of finality.

I then refrained from saying “Of course it’s f***ing wet, you stupid nonce, you store all your wood outside and it’s f***ing raining.”

What I actually said was “Ok, I’ll leave it”, and left him with a 12-foot piece of 2 by 6 timber to carry back outside into the rain.

I shall be back with my own saw and make a mess in their car park.

I bought some goods from Sainsbury’s. One of the items had a note on it:

WARNING! This product contains a security tag which is not microwaveable!

It’s a good job they warned me. I shall be sure to find and remove the tag before I microwave my new DVD.

Exactly twelve months from …

hold on…

erm…

NOW!…

I asked H if she would go out with me.

She said yes.

They have been the happiest twelve months of my life so far.

Thank-you, H.

Next time I bet five pints of beer on something, I think I’ll make sure I have some chance of being right.

The stupid thing is that it was I who raised the bet from a single pint.

Oh well, I’ve been allowed to pay it at a rate of one pint per week.

So… if you didn’t guess, we went to the Benelux countries for a spot of country-topping. Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg’s highpoints completed bringing, along with the UK and Japan, our total to FIVE countries.

The full writeup appears on The Intrepid Micra.

I didn’t allow the meta-anxiety stop me going up… I went for some real-life anxiety instead…