north and south

 tuesday morning and i'm woken up by

some squeaking and scraping sounds.

i pulled back the curtains and this rare sight was in front of me.

a scouser with a job !

i quickly picked up my camera and took a couple of frames.

i showed the photo's to my mum later and she was far from

impressed... "didn't he use his ladder?"

she had a point. he couldn't reach the tops of the windows

and afterwards we could see all the bits at the top and the 

corners that he'd missed.

i had a look around my mum's house and took a few photo's...

firstly, check this out. framed and hung in the hallway.

a watercolour painting that i did for her birthday about

15 years ago. 

wow ! i'm impressed. it was some fishing boats in dingle

as i remember and i swear i haven't done another

watercolour since. it's not great, but it's not bad eh ?

also it was nice to see some very tasty pics stuck on her fridge

leave it !

it was 'uncle' alan's 70th birthday last week. naturally i

forgot to send him a card but i had a look through the

many cards he received and this one made me smile...

i always liked it when les dawson dressed up as a woman.

great stuff.

pretty soon it was time for me to drive back to london.

i try to never eat at motorway service stations. i much prefer

the food available in lay-bys. caravan cuisine. preferably

a caravan with a union jack attached proudly flapping

in the wind attracting truckers and fiat 500 drivers alike.

i found just the place in a layby on the A49

bacon, sausage and egg on a barm cake.

the bloke asked me if i wanted any sauce and i replied
"just a little brown... just enough so that when i bite into it,
some sauce will run down my sleeve"
"ok our kid" he replied, as if he knew just how much sauce i wanted.
worryingly he told me it was only his second day in the job,
but the food was ideal. two decent sausages, not cheapo
efforts. a couple of slices of back bacon, and a fried egg
with a soft yoke ( which raced down my sleeve with the
brown sauce )
if it had been any greasier i'd have been in mexico. 8/10

M6 M1 A1 home...