love her or hate her she was one woman and her handbag that changed Briton and it’s politics, you could write a thousand words about about Margret Thatcher but only a few will sum her up,
“loved, loathed, but never ignored”
13,10,1925~8,4,2013 Maggie
Another meeting with the good lady Idril on Wednesday going through the finer point’s of the handfasting, sorting out the vows the quarter’s and the colour’s etc. all seems to be going along ok a lot of hard work but the kind of nice hard work you enjoy,
so if all goes to plan Beltane should be a good one this year, we choose Beltane because it’s a nice time of the year, everything is new, fresh, and springing to life (just like us pair of sad old git’s) and it’s just such a real time at Avebury, well “ho hum” back to it just thought I'd put a note up on how it’s all going.
PS,,, sorry Hamish Cliff we would love it for you to play there.
My first memories of bowie was john I’m only dancing and then being gob smacked by an album called Aladdin sane, over the years the he’s brought us his many alias’s David bowie, ziggy stardust, Halloween jack, the thin white duke, etc look’s like bowie’s back and with quite a bang, the where are we now video (also take a look at Harry hill’s remake of it) was a trip down memory lane but the stars (are out tonight) is just full on old bowie theatrics, so now the monkey’s are gone can the real David Jones stand up please, so site back and enjoy this work of art.
Ps,,, I’m getting the album tomorrow .
well big day tomorrow Mr Yorke's new solo album amok with the substitute band atom’s for peace but quite a good line up, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, REM and Beck drummer Joey Waronker, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich and Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco, so sit back and enjoy this music with the music and art left in but the commerce taken out
i do like this just waiting for the answer to the king of limbs now.
last weekend looked like the start of better things had the van back (4 glowplugs 1 injector latter) even a good Sunday at Cheltenham, then came Wednesday set off for Gloucester got about three miles from home and the van lost power and was smoking, “silly me doing things on the cheap should have done all the injectors not just the weakest” getting back to last Sunday i did pick up a few box’s of odd’s and sods in one was a bag of very grubby looking coins
national transport tokens, still trying to make sense of these if they can still be used or not, if i can I'd be laughing there’s a couple of hundred of them in the bag i love bus and train travel.
this one speaks for it’s self a 1938 west African two shilling coin and still very collectable,
this is the mystery one, I'm 99% sure it’s silver, kings head and rex (king), lion standing over a crown, not really sure on this one so if any of you good people out there in blogland have any idea’s please get in touch.
Sunday looked like it was going to be a good day, no more snow, rain, wind, and it wasn't too cold either so poppy and i jumped in to the van for a days trading at Cheltenham, turned the key she just spun and spun and spun etc. at this point there was a niggling little job on the van i had been meaning to do but never quite got round to doing, “get the glow plugs and relay changed”
“well beat me around with a stocking full of dysentery” but look at all goody's the good people of Cheltenham missed out on
“well see anything you fancy!!!” try http://jdclearance.com/ and mail me (unashamed plug)
so all in all it was just another boring no work day “thank’s to me being a bit lazy” but not to worry let’s end this post on a sexist note it was roast pork for dinner today,
“look girly’s” these aren't aunt Bessie's or packet mix these are the real McCoy made by a 52 year old curly haired yob
“snigger snigger”
“At last the camera problem is solved” and my sanity is restored (what there was of it in the first place) there was a manufacturing fault on the finepix s4000 with the photo cell that caused orbing or halloing hence the poor results, i found all this out on Thursday with a trip to john Lewis's to try out some of the new camera’s but this time i took a memory card with me so i could test them all properly, first came the Nikon p510 “what a beasty” then the two canon’s sx50 and sx500 “good but,,,,,,” and finally the finepix sl300 “my faith has been restored in Fuji” and here’s the proof, firstly the photo that started all this
now the finepix sl300 “that's better”
this is my third finepix camera now and I'm as pleased as punch with it the zoom is quite impressive too
from this to this and still keeps most sharpness and colour
pretty good macro for the poor light as well
all in all very pleased so thank you all at John Lewis for sorting me out, “oh” and before i forget poppy only went and did it she bought the Nikon beasty, she said it was like love at first sight
“steady girl you’ll be eating yorkie bars next”
what a difference a few days make
and camera, same tractor above was with my finepix s4000 this was with poppy’s canon a2300 compact third of the price but twice the photo
“but anyway that's enough moaning for now” back to the snow (with the canon on all these photo’s)
feeding time for the old horse’s
big kid in a silly hat
even with a good covering of snow springs showing it’s on it’s way
and now the reason mother nature really invented snow for, yes kids with pieces of moulded plastic
Charlie's first time at sledging and he loved it so much so he’s probably trying to figure out how to fix lights on his sledge now.
“I've just joined Flickr”
(not as free as it sound’s only 300mb a month upload) “but ho hum such is life”
but I'll give it ago
the last bit of 2011 and 2012 was all abit of a haze really, went back on the driving for a while but soon realized lorry driving is a mugs game, (here's a tga fronting up to the comfortably numb) just seemed to spend more time sleeping in a cab than my own bed and what with the governments new how to squeeze more blood out of a stone idea called cpc, £300.00 exam teaching you what you’ve done over the past thirty odd years (rip off springs to mind) so back in the draw goes the hgv licence,
In February came a change of house, now back living i the village i grew up in purton,
and its got its own iron age camp
in fact this little village is steeped in history from ringsbury camp built 50bc, the romans, witch trails, the list goes on,
have been passing the time by trying out the markets again, not too bad but the weather has killed it abit this year gone, was good to see a lot of the old faces again, one downside to all this was the stall got bigger and bigger and the comfortably numb let us know she was too old for all that work by making me fork out for a new gearbox, clutch and drive shaft, so she's now in retirement until spring and spends her days telling the new one all about her glory days,
always wanted one and in my opinion the best vans ever made even poppy fell in love at first sight, and with the size of her we’ve now pushed the stall up to 20/30 foot too, so that’s a brief update on the life of poppy and john and now some randomness i remember doing this back in the dark and distant days of junior school so i had to try it again “the fun way of growing hyacinth bulbs”
(randomness courtesy of the ghost of Billy bagwash)
A traditional British Christmas
full of deep joy and merryment
CHRISTMAS IN THE CHARLIE PIT
its funny how many thirteen year old kids use floordrobes and just pile stuff on top of cupboards, its like all the draws and doors in the house are magically sealed to them (apart from the fridge and pantry doors) or maybe I've got it all wrong and really Charlie is one of these amazing entrepreneur kids, he might be leaving his bedroom window and letting the local skip hire company tip in there for £10 a time.
It seemed odd this year being in England for the solstice normally im in Tenerife in the warm sunshine, but with all the things going on at the moment poppy and i have called Puerto da la Cruz off until our honeymoon, but all in all this solstice did seem more pagan
poppy’s new sparkler (im a lucky boy)
Terry and the gang doing what they do best a very peaceful and meaningful sunrise
So mote it be
“A long time ago in a galaxy far far away”
there was a market trader called Johnny Costello who used to sell second hand clothing ( , he was very good at it too) so good that all the other trader’s used to call him captain bagwash (bagwash being market slang for second hand clothing) this did get shortened to “Billy” hence my alto ego, i put up a post on 27/06/2011 which i was not sure about, was i putting Billy to rest or was i just bored of blogging, this is just brief explanation more will follow but back to here and now!
this is poppy and i at Avebury this morning for sunrise, and yes that is a ring on her finger, we did the big one today at sunrise we got engaged,
PS,, cheers sandy for renaming this blog
PPS,, merry solstice one and all
it’s been a while since my last blog on here but happy solstice every one,
and a very good time was had by one and all, shame we couldn't take the van and made a long weekend of it (the police two mile parkin restrictions at avebury)
and PS,, get well soon terry,
“now that was what i call a weekend” to me it was having a time travel moment, going back almost thirty year’s to my miss spent youth there, alot of my old stumping ground’s have long gone but a few still remain, the main one being the new theatre (the whole point of this weekend) “god did i see some band’s there in the late 70’s early 80’s, from lizzy, marillion, all about eve, ozzy, and robert plant to name a few” as for the city itself oxford is very much oxford still, big grand old building’s, 
collage’s, push bike’s, history at end of any little ally way, and also over priced parking!!, “just have a look at this for a laugh” 8 to 24 hours parking would cost £30.00, so we opted for a fairer option and booked into a campsite 30 minute’s walk to the city centre for £20.00, ok sound’s a bit pricey for a campsite but it was a caravan club site and I'm not a member (well could you see Billy wearing an old moth eaten pair of khaki short’s, sock’s,with sandal's, an i love Scarborough t-shirt, and a bush hat with fly fishing hook’s in it) “say yes to all that and I'll block you” now back to the real oxford, 
“bicycle’s” 
“no poppy what’s wrong with the comfortably numb”
