Thermidor meaning warm, is the eleventh month in the bonkers French Republican calendar (July 19th-August 17th) – but warm it certainly is here, uncomfortably warm – I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with the asteroid that is going to have a near miss (bit like England penalty shots). We are at Aphelion and don’t we know it (phew wot a scorcher).
We were supposed to be in Cornwall but with my son falling off his bike we decided to bring Cornwall to us – in the shape of Cornish Yarg, pasties, delicious brie, cider and west country cheesecakes, Cornish icecream, clotted cream and Devon drinks. Only thing missing is the crowds.
A day out (pretending to be touring Cornwall) for Stuart and I to Warkworth saw us paddling on its great beach, rowing on the Coquet racing with a housewife in her boat, saw a dead badger and eighteen honda sport cars (from some rally or other), parked the wrong way up a one way street, and saw loads of England flags still flying proud.
My first impressions of the Scottish Parliament was that it reminded me of Hitler’s Bunker with embellishment and with Arabic and Urdu guidebooks (which I guess Hitler didn’t provide). We didn’t visit the part with the roof falling down. Still it held a reception given by the President of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, to open the photographic exhibition of the brilliant Sutkus – along with a Lithuanian version of the Reverend skating on Duddingston Loch (it is John Paul Sartre in Lithuania in the snow).
Our Cornwall tour ended up as a west of England tour taking in beaches of Liverpool, Port Sunlight, Bristol and the complete South West of England before heading back up the M6 on a 1,600 mile long weekend. It is verbosely documented here. When we returned Alasdair’s face was almost healed and the surgeon he saw reckoned he always had a squint nose and that he had been very lucky.
The temperature started to make people irritable so we retired to the swimming pool – where the irritable folk had headed too. From one end of the pool came the refrain ‘Out of my way you F****G BITCH’ and the surprise that it came from the white haired gent addressing a shocked little old lady – not that little old ladies can be overlooked. We went down to find the pool had its lanes all cordoned off with signs for clockwise and anti-clockwise because of ‘World War Three’ breaking out in the pool (bit of an inappropriate phrase since Israel and Lebonese Hezbollah are busy throwing missiles at each other) – I asked one old little lady, in jest whilst performing my widdershins breaststroke, if she was responsible for this and got a filthy look – then found out that she was actually one of the gang of three that had an enormous blow up in the pool the other day accused of bullying and lane grabbing.
Hot hot hot – the hottest day of the year for a century and folk rushing to see An Inconvenient Truth with Al Gore or filling the local swimming pool. Too hot to do anything but lie in the sun with wine and read a book on Angels or go to a sweaty Guns and Roses concert – I chose the former, Kim the latter.
It might be the heat, but flushed with my success on exploring myspace I joined flirtomatic, whilst my wife was moshing it with geriatric Guns and Roses. At least I wasn’t going to be approached by paedophiles on flirtomatic (its 18’s only), a 2 year Java development that promises supersnogs and foxes who hunt. How could I resist. I reckoned I wouldn’t get far without a photo, especially since my attempts to send photos of myself to flirtomatic resulted in various knockbacks – perhaps I was too ugly to join – I tried a variety of different versions including a silhouette and a picture of my dog and cow – still no joy. Eventually a picture of me drunk was accepted and since a drunken old man seems to be what the flirtomatic babes are after I had messages upon messages. Before resigning in search of a richer life, I had offers of sex from Northern Irish 19 year old babes which seemed a lot more promising than myspace (where pictures of my eldest son’s friends mother in her underwear was the high spot, although I do have Lily Allen as a myspace friend which is cool as she rocks and sends me personal romantic emails saying ‘buy my new album’ or ’see me in concert’ – I don’t understand people who say this is just a marketing ploy), approaches from indian djs, a self harming born again christian, randy shopkeepers, an eskimo in Alaska, a half breed cherokee widow, a young russian bride, a foxy chick writing erotic literature asking me to edit it, philosophers of all kinds, a psychologist (probably looking for research material), nigerian 419 scam artists and newcastle grannies – yes all life is here, and its hot. I don’t know why people come to me for advice I know I would be the last person to ask for advice – but they do, the best so far was some lass whose boyfriend had a smelly penis which rendered fellatio unpleasant – not too sure why she was asking me perhaps my smelly penis reputation is widespread. Encouraged by my success I set up two other free accounts so I now had Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (no-one spotted this) and Sister Hyde (my female lesbian persona) – Mr Hyde would say nasty things, Dr Jekyll would be sweetness and light – yes you guessed it Mr Hyde was Mr popular, although Sister Hyde was doing very well as a lesbian magnet (I was the masturbatory fantasy of a lesbian schoolteacher, new york secretary and a lesbian on an oil rig who I introduced to each other before letting my feminie side go back to her husband in a tearjerking farewell). And at the same time the news broke that intelligent men are unfaithful – citing Einstein and Bertrand Russell (who masterfully delegated difficult mathematics to his chum and then slipped into his wife’s bed), history doesn’t report if either of the geniuses penises were whiffy.
From infideltiy to paradise – not a big step I hear you say. But Paradise the word comes from the Babylonians and means field of pigs – probably because paradise was an easy hunting ground fenced off with the livestock in it. I hope you are not reading this on a boat though as the word ‘pee aye gee’ should never be spoken aloud as it is frightful bad luck. Paradise to the muslim is huri which can be translated as nymph or white raisen (I think I would be pushing their translators to sort out which it is as there is a pig of a difference).
Looking for something to do with a large block of sodium and a private water supply – perfect match
At a loose end, and sporitng my new Rohan shorts, I was looking at a trip to Alnwick but read the humourous website instead, Alasdair had cycled to Berwick and reported that it was fog bound thus the seaside was out so we ended up at the Percy Arms Hotel for dinner after roaming around Chillingham Castle grounds and the folly of Hurlstone Tower outside Wooler.
The Sunday was clear and hot so we headed for the coast, Kelso square was littered with broken glass, rubbish and gardeners clearing their flower beds after the Civic Week parades. We lunched at the Cross Inn at Paxton where Kangaroo was on the menu (a cross between steak and venison with neither of their taste – perhaps a dark chocolate sauce would enliven it).
Driving down the Northumberland coast the Bomb Squad with all sirens and lights going raced past us on the way to Berwick – we were glad that we were heading in the opposite direction. We stopped off at Budle Bay to watch Kitesurfers trying to kill each other – it is a lovely spot that. Craster is a decaying harbour village with the fatal attraction of Dunstanburgh Castle on the cliffs, it reminds me of the village in Dagon so we left before it got dark. We watched as a helicopter circled and then rescued someone from the seas, before we headed to the seedy delights of Seahouses and delicious Jumbo haddock and chips.
My dentist has moved from Wooler to her base in Belford which is only another 9 miles through delightful countryside narrowly missing lots of cyclists, so the annual inspection took place in Belford. I sat in a queue consisting of two boys and a chap in shorts – when a blood curdling scream rang out from the door marked Dentist. The boys looked concerned and mumbled ‘is that mum?’ whilst the chap in shorts mumbled to the receptionist that she suffers from stress and has a sore jaw. Another scream rang out and eventually emerged the screamee clutching her jaw and nodding when asked did she have a tooth pulled out. The dentist appeared smiling took one look at me and said “you are next once I have cleaned up the room”. Reception certainly didn’t even smile when I confidently said that I had been trained in interrogation techniques but I was a sucker for the gentle touch.
It is so hot here that the front door has warped and the wooden gates can’t be closed – we are rather hoping for rain as are the yellow fields and croquet lawn.
The East Fortune air show was on and included impressive displays from the Scot Airways Dornier passenger plane doing a loop, a russian stunt plane that was simply awesome tumbling out the sky and then back in control and the Angel of Death – the Eurofighter Typhoon had to be seen to be believed – cutting a square through the sky showing off its turning circle and then a vertical climb through the clouds to exit – amazing noise and power and the best fighter aircraft in the world. We also saw an awesome display of falconry from the folks at Braco with a dog/hawk controlled attack on a rubber duck.
The month ends with welcome rain (mainly when we were walking back from the airshow) and a cold breeze to make air conditioning redundant until the August heatwave hits. Thermidor was well named.
