Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back to work I go

Hello readers. It's time for another spiffing update from yours truly. September is here and that means it's back to work for me. In fact, as I sit at my PC typing this, I have just finished the first day back...

... It was hell.

But before I come to rant about work I have much to blog. The other week I went, with Father and sister, to the annual Town & Country Festival. It's a gathering of all-sorts, from falconry, to classic cars, to Monster trucks!

It was a good day out, and half way round the classic motors I came across my dad's favorite car of all time... The MKII Jaguar, as seen below.

It truly is a marvel of engineering. Gentle enough for Inspector Morse, yet fast enough for London Gangsters. After the classics came a section of modern motoring greats, and someone had this brand new Aston Martin V8 Volante to display.....

.... Git. When can I have one? thats what I want to know!

Ah, the Volante, it's basically a V8 Vantage with a bigger engine and a tweeked chassis. I think it costs a good £10,000 more as well.

Anyway, after we had done all that ther was to do, it was back home for tea at my nans. The following day I was out and about with the usual crowd and someone mentioned Bank Holiday Monday, and what we were going to make of it. We came to the conclusion that we would all go to the Black Country museum for the day (since none of us had been for a number of years.)

So on the morning of the Bank Holiday, I turned up at Jenny's house with John where Carl, Marcus, and Adam were waiting. I set off with carl behind me and we arrived at the Museum at about 11:15am-ish, however it was a bank holiday... So guess how long the queue was to get in? Thats right... It went from the foyer of the main building, along the side of the building and down on to the car-park. Fortunately it was a moving queue, not a "stand here for half an hour and then move one step forward" kind of queue. We joined the back and was in the museum for about 11:40. We didn't bother doing the indoors bit, we went straight outside to look at the old mill engine, which I took a photo of. I tried explaining how it worked but no-body was really interested except for Marcus who looked up at the counterweight beam and said "cor, 's bloody amazin', man!" ha-ha, (I think thats his way of saying "I say, what a marvellous display of 18th century craftsmanship.) Anyway I took a photo from the outside...

What i should have done is taken one of the actual engine inside the hut, since thats where most of the working parts are... But I didn't... Sorry.

Next we went down to the village with the intention of buying fish and chips from the shop there (it's worth the entrance fee alone... Just for those chips!) We queued for about an hour, during which time a bloke on an old Sunbeam came riding down the road. It was a really nice bike so I got a quick shot of it.

I can't remember what year it was made but it looked brand new. We eventually got our chips and sat by the canal eating them. Afterwards we washed the fish and chips down with a pint of real ale from the pub, and then joined yet another queue for the mine. In the queue we were just infront of the most common, foul mouthed, sweaty family you could imagine. The father looked like he dredged canals with his teeth, the mother was a living Waynetta Slob, the daughter looked like Vicky Pollard and the youngest tried to start a fight with Carl! And none of them could speak any quieter than 120 decibels.

As we got out of the mine it started to rain quite hard so we took refuge in the school house. We decided to make a run for it and go inside the main museum near the entrance. We killed an hour wandering round and eventually left at about 5:00pm. I took an "involuntary detour" on the way home (i.e. I got lost) but managed to get home in time to go to the pub! So we all ended up in the Packhorse just in time to play "Quizzgo" the game thats a quiz and bingo... All rolled in to one massively stupid, yet fun, game. We came 3rd I think which wasn't to bad, although there weren't many people playing. I was home for about 11:30pm and went to bed.

The rest of the weekhas been taken up with Kate's present, now I have the photo's here for you but IT'S A SECRET!!!!!!!! So I don't want her finding out about them. Basically, ages ago she wanted me to produce a drawing of an orchid. But what I have done is paint 3 of them in oils, on canvases. The first 2 are finished, but the 3rd still needs completing (which is what I will do after I finish typing this!)

And here they are...

I don't think they are too bad. I purposely found pictures of species of orchid that were a little bit unusual, to try and give the work some flair and originality. I hope she will like them, and hang them on her wall. (Which is what she was going to do with the drawing she wanted)

And on that note, I've now got to go and finish the 3rd picture.

TTFN readers.