What ever form the singeing process takes, it stinks.
The wife and me decided to sell our house and buy, and live on a Narrow Boat. Could we buy one for love nor money, no, apparently the market for Narrow Boats was too buoyant:lol:.
Jem…It’s years since I saw those singe tapers used and I honestly thought it was to stop to stop hair growing…daft really as I guess they would have used a blow torch for that. See female logic isn’t always logic is it 
spitty… Years ago I owned a 75ft Birmingham coal barge house boat which I used as a floating hotel when I was back in the UK. The fact that I suffer from terrible sea sickness never entered my head when I bought it…boats rock and tummy wobbles with it…but a small price to pay for a wonderful life.
At the time we were considered as water gypsies and mooring fees were quite steep…also a boat was a chattel and therefore not insurable so you had to make sure it stayed water tight…which meant caulking her bottom each year with boiling hot tar…not an easy task as you had to tip the boat alarmingly over which was a heart stopping moment.
Not all walkers passing down the tow path treated our boats with respect and stone throwing was a hazard you lived with along with the daft questions you were often asked…and rolling that full porta potti down the towpath was a chore fraught with danger and one that was undertaken very…very carefully.
For all that I loved being on board whenever I had the chance and would do it all over again in a heartbeat if younger. 
Solo, as a lad, I used to play on the Cut with my throwback pals, spent many an happy hour, mingling with the morons on the moorings.:-)
In all walks of life you will get your morons and I did meet a few who with their expensive boats…knew it all. Once they had ignored well intentioned advice and dented their paintwork…and more…advice was normally heeded the next time they came through…but not always.
Being a slight 5 footer who knew a thing or two must have been hard to take from a burley expensive boat owner but hey…with some things in life it’s not about the brawn …it’s about the brain…and nothing looks more forlorn than a sunken boat. 
We had a lot of lads that used to try their hand at fishing along the towpath…it was always a sight to watch their faces when waiting for a bite …their chosen pike would rise to the surface and take baby cygnets or a moorhen chick with one snap…and be gone in a flash. Clever fish…just waited for the right moment.
Seeing a pike in action put any thoughts of swimming in the buff right out of your mind I can tell you :shock:
Does this directive need re-applying with two metres substituted for two second?
Food for thought there spitty…one way to stop this…female logic working here again…is to wear a headlamp that flashes thus warning the pillock encroaching on your 2 metre space that they are encroaching on your 2 mtre space…when not in use it can be used as a mask…I think ::-D:-D:-D
Me …I’m less subtle and think all OAPS should be issued with mini stun guns for shopping. That should stop those pushy lot dead in their tracks and let you get on with your leisurely grocery list.
Hang in there Spitty until they float the pound, Phil Miwallett, my financial adviser was telling me on the phone today that will happen as soon as things get back to normal, and it will blow the boat market wide open, you can forget about the canal barge and think big, newly fumigated yachts and cruise ships will be going for a song, cos nobody will touch them with a bare pole. ;-)
How about giving us a bar of the Volga Boatman just to get us into the boating mood?
Female logic how are yeh.
I’ve had to live under the thumb of female logic for over 50 years, one would think I was an expert on female logic by now, but alas, I still haven’t a clue how it works.
Here’s a bit of Irish male logic.
I remember in my youth when I went up to Belfast to join the Navy, I filled in the form and handed it back to the officer in charge of recruitment, he looked at it and said.
“That’s fine me lad, now one last question, can you swim?”
“Why?, have yiz no boats?”;-)
Spent yesterday rearranging my kitchen…couldn’t find anything so spent this morning putting things back the way it was. Should have known me better as I like to put my hand out and my favourite knife…ladle etc is just waiting to leap into it… why we want to go and confuse these poor utensils is a mystery… anyway all is now well with my world.
Since I have lived here I have watched for the swallows to return as each year they have always nested in the houe facing mine eaves. Watching them in their swooping and gliding playing over the garden in the evening has always been such a pleasure…however this year there site has been netted off for them as the new owners ‘don’t care for birds’ or trees. There choice but so sad that we won’t get to see those lovely swallows acrobatic games nor the babies learning them over the gardens again .
I am reading A Singapore Fling by Peter Broadbent who was posted there and did a lot of the same daft things as I did. Reading through his escapades and knowing you did the self same shows we really did not have the sense we were born with…anyhow you apparently have to have passed The Royal Naval Swiming Test before you can get on anything that floats. …mind you non of the Mary Rose lot could swim in those days so I guess the RN took note of that and ammended their admission rules. No swimming certificate…no Singapore. :-D:-D:-D
Pity about the swallows Solo. the brother and me used to spend hours watching them in the old fields beside the Tolka River when we were boys, they are so agile, lovely creatures, I haven’t seen one in donkeys years, those fields have houses built there now.
I’m glad you got your kitchen sorted out.
Speaking of women sorting things out, the wife was up bright and early this morning, hours before I stirred, anyway after I had me breakfast I decided to go out to the shed and go to work on that walking stick I left to mature on the roof of the shed, I got out the small step ladder and looked on the roof, the stick was gone!. It couldn’t have blown away because I had a heavy building block on it, still the block had moved, a mystery, I was puzzled as I went back into the house.
“You didn’t happen to see that stick I cut off the rose bush last week and put on the shed roof, did you Phyllis?”
“Ah that ould thing?, I chucked it in the bin for the bin men, they were around early this morning”:shock:
She had looked out the back bedroom window earlier and copped it on the roof.
I rest me case yer honour, you just can’t win can yeh.;-)
Interesting about the navy, actually I wasn’t a bad swimmer in me day.
Brendan O’Dowda, one of my uncles looked like him, pity he hadn’t a note in his head, he had what they used to call five o’clock shadow, jet black beard without hair if you know what I mean, some men no matter how close they shave always look like they still need a shave, very heavy dark growths. Jack Palance had it as did all the baddies in the old comic books, especially the cowboy comics, also the good cowboy always had a light coloured hat and the baddie wore a dark one, life was so black and white in those days.
Here’s an example of a goodie and a baddie, note how clean the good fella’s clothes and face are, and if he was smiling his teeth would be whiter than the bad lads teeth.
Am I reading that right? does that say “The Ghost Town of Twin Butts”?
As Trump is fond of saying “Probably just another shithole place”
https://i.postimg.cc/yYHZHGnb/2940149243655-p0-v1-s550x406.jpg
Now about this stick…or otherwise now known as mens tat. Us Women are born with an inbuilt instinct on how to deal with mens tat. Our tat is different you see as it always has a use or purpose and a women can and will give you a hundred and one reasons why her tat is essential in her life. whereas mens tat is just that… tat cluttering up the place.
Men won’t remotely understand why her tat it more important than their tat but as you are not supposed to understand it really does not matter…just take it from me it has always been so and will always remain as so.
At the risk of being banned from the Sacred Sisterhood of Womanly Tat I give you this glimmer of future manly tit for tat should the rare chance arise…The next time you fall over simply whisper painfully…“Now if I had only had that rosewood walking stick I was about to make this would never have happened”. Enjoy that small moment even though it won’t make a blind bit of difference mind you…it never does.
You are mostly right about cowboy baddies…they don’t talk proper either probably due to their having to sound toughlike. The exception was my hero Dean Martin…dark haired, unshaven and a goodie to boot. I would have personally hunted down anyone in the making of Rio Bravo who had attempted to shave him and made sure they were lynched proper like.
That made me laugh Solo, and I needed a laugh.
It’s a wise man who doesn’t question a woman’s tat, steer clear of that, just let her get on with whatever she’s at.;-)
Ah!, you posted one of Phyllis’s favourite songs, old Dino God be good to him.
There used to be a tall dark handsome fella up in the local many years back, every Saturday night he played guitar and wore a cowboy hat, he did mostly country and western stuff and herself loves that music, he used to sing that song introducing it thus “And now especially for Phyllis, my rifle my pony and me” and he’s give her a smile and a big wink.
She would go all googie eyed and weak at the knees God help her. I had heard that he was as gay as a carnival but when I told her this she said I was just jealous.
Broke her heart when he ran off to Canada with the married head barman, quite a big scandal back then, I felt so sorry for her.
I got me eye on another branch on her rose tree, but it’s not thick enough yet, it’ll be perfect for next year and when I cut it off I’ll hide it in the attic.
We had a bumper crop of tomatoes last year and they were gorgeous, far tastier than those from any shop, but we planted far too many plants and this year I planted only five seeds, they are starting to come up now in the little plastic greenhouse. I know very little about seeds and plants so I’m learning all the time, might even stick me nose into the garden section to get a few tips from the enlightened ones therein.
After all the tender loving care I poured into growing spuds only to get 1 miniture tater that you needed an magnifying glass to see…I quit with that grow yer own lark I can tell you… especially when the greenery promised so much more . I was already to do a Jack and the Beanstalk shimmy to collect my tattie reward. Never again not when you can buy a bag so cheap and without all that lingering sense of failure.
Have the local radio on these days as they are far more upbeat and jolly than the TV which is what you need. Just one announcement for anyone listening…Stay away to save lives. Can’t be any clearer can it but with hot weather forecast you do wonder if it will be heeded. Reminds me of this
Allo, I’m-a Giuspitty, I got-a something special-a for you, ready?
What’s-a matter you? Hey! Got-a itchy nose?
What-a you think you do? Got a tickly eye?
Just-a keep-a on yer toes
Keep-a yer hands, in-a dare place
Ah, don’t touch-a your face.
:-)
Excellent Spitty!
A nobody a touch any a thing any a more, it’s amore nightmare in Italy.
I’m developing an awful fear of germs lately and I didn’t get it from Agnes. Howard Hughes more likely.;-)
I must be washing me hands at least 30 times a day now, when the daughter leaves the messages in the porch I take them out of the shopping bag one by one, remove any access wrapping and then I take the lot out to the sun cabin for at least 24 hours, barring milk and bread, then I wash me hands again with sanitised soap.
Any parcel post and letters I wont touch until at least a day, the bills a lot longer.
I’m beginning to understand how Howard Hughes felt at the latter part of his life, methinks we’ll all end up like him before this thing is over, either that or nervous wreaks.
“Hughes’s fear of germs grew throughout his life, and he concurrently developed obsessive-compulsive symptoms around efforts to protect himself from germs.
For example, he wrote a staff manual on how to open a can of peaches–including directions for removing the label, scrubbing the can down until it was bare metal, washing it again and pouring the contents into a bowl without touching the can to the bowl.
Ironically, Hughes ended up neglecting his own hygiene later in his life, rarely bathing or brushing his teeth. He even forced his compulsions on those around him, ordering staff to wash their hands multiple times and layer their hands with paper towels when serving his food.
"He didn’t believe germs could come from him, just from the outside. “He was convinced that he was going to be contaminated from the outside.” (source: American Psychological Association)
I’ll bet there’s not many who remember this old song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/4u8QSnvmbAE
Took a leisurely read through the papers this morning and it is no surprise that a lot of businesses having declared total doom, gloom and distaster have shaken themselves down…taken stock of what they can actually do for the public… and reinvented themselves for the good of mankind. Just shows what a bit of thought can do when you are up against it.
I have mixed feelings on this over germ washing thingie as 'cleanliness is next to godliness’always scared me a little as a nipper. I used to think if I was toooooo clean I would end up being an angel on a fluffy pink cloud quicker than I wanted to be…so I much preferred the ‘a little bit of dirt hurt no one’ philosophy.
A mix of soap and herd would seem sensible to build up our immune systems if we actually knew what this covid was all about but as no one is really saying 'what this covid is all about we dutifully disinfect our pinkies…which are getting more pinkier by the day. Till then whether we soap…shower whilst reading the papers or bathe with all our shopping chucked in to the bath water we can but do our best.
As Margaret Atwood once wrote …Take heart! Humanity’s been through it before. There will be an Other Side, eventually. We just need to make it through this part, between Before and After.
A foot tapper or earworm to cheer you up when washing yer ands :-D:-D
Oh I was always a nice little clean boy, well washed and scrubbed going out in the wee hours of the morning to serve the six o’clock mass come hail rain or snow, if there’s a heaven my place is well and truly booked there.;-)
What was that old ad? “A little squirt gets the dirt”
I have to admit the missus and me are doing far better than I thought we would during this emergency, we really miss the grandkids who used to be here nearly everyday, practically lived here.
I realise reaching 100 is no big deal nowadays but I thought this was a cheerful photo.
https://i.postimg.cc/CMnYpNpr/00140eab-614.jpg
This lovely Dublin lady celebrated her 100th birthday on Friday last, all her family had to keep their distance, but she seems to be enjoying her birthday tipple sitting outside, doesn’t she look great for her age.
“The 100-year-old says she still loves gardening and even managed to put down a few plants last week.
When asked what her secret is to living a long and happy life Margaret said: “The doctor asked me that earlier and I said eat your porridge and keep walking!. I can walk a fair distance without getting tired.” RTE news.
Good for you me lass.
There ya go Meg, I told you that Flahavan’s porridge was great stuff, see you when you get the Queens cheque, we’ll go out on a bender together.
Speaking of the old persons centenary bonus. every time I google to find how much they give you in the UK I keep getting the Irish amount, which incidentally is €2,540, not bad if you make it. it might interest some members here who were born in Ireland that the bonus has recently been extended to those living abroad.
A milestone photo that plus ‘A Centenary Bonus’…but not for us here in the UK…just a card to say well done for reaching a 100 despite all the odds being stacked against you… or something like that. Mind you what do you really need a bonus for at that age! Do they still do that Sanatogen stuff that promised full health and fitness! Drinking yourself to death didn’t work nor did eating the wrong foods and as for smoking well nuff sed about that one as if you have reached a 100 that failed too.
My last neighbour was 102 before her loving kin carted her off kicking and screaming to put her in a care home. She was fitter than them and far sharper to boot who swore that a daily dose of Epsom salts was the reasons for her longevity. Took her word for it but never went there myself as I’m a great believer in letting nature take it’s course in some areas of my well being.
Well the Grand National took place…virtually of course and Potters Corner romped home. Seems to have been well watched and loads of money money was made which makes you wonder…if we could have virtual footbal matches etc in future to save those poor laddies from taking those awful knocks… not to mention saving on those outlandish fees they are paid. Food for thought.
Getting along is a must these days especially if you have a garden cos if you see your other half digging a hole…in may not be for planting spuds in…just saying 
My other half don’t “Dig Holes” man, she did buy one of those dustbins with holes in and a pointy lid, I wonder what she is trying to incinerate.:-)
Nah we are more subtle than that spitty …will you believe your good lady if you wake up to find her tightly holding a pillow over your face…and she tells you she is just protecting you from the covid virus.
Us usually saintly wimmin can become a devious lot y’know… especially when short fuses are on the rise.
(Pssssst…Another warning from the Sisterhood of Excuses for Short Fuse Incidents)