30th September. Home Sweet Home - Offers Over £65,000.

Isabelle draws my attention to the Property Guide and a house that is new on the market.

'Could benefit from some upgrading' is how they describe it.

"What a cheek! You should have seen it when I bought it! - UPGRADING? Don't they realise its got a completely new roof?"

Yes it's an opportunity to buy the same house again 26 years later. Now that would be like buying a slice of your own life.

In fact I'm minded to move back and live there without a fridge, phone or television with full gas central heating but refusing to ever turn it on for reasons of 'economy'.

I could point out to Junior "This corner is where I came under attack from flying crockery, also if I'm not mistaken, it's the same part of the living room where you were conceived, your mother was standing on a box of four inch nails at the time."

29th September. I Dream of A Woman's Chimney.

I answer the phone - it's a previous fictitious customer who is Polish or Czech.

She wants me to call in and rectify some problem with her recent stove installation.

Try as I might I can't work out what she is saying because all the references seem so oblique.

"I'm sorry I don't know what you mean." I reply.

It's only after I put the phone down I realise that what she meant was she wanted me to come round and have sex with her - again.

28th September. I Not Sure Where I'm Supposed To Be.

After a leisurely breakfast I turned up equipped to start work at Mr & Mrs G's for the second time this week.

The first time during the week Mrs G. had said "I'll leave the key round the back under the flower pot and i'll cover everything up in the room."

Strange that the room should be completely covered in toys rather than sheets when I peered through the living room window?

I phoned Mr G. on his mobile, "I spoke to your wife early in the week about coming on wednesday instead of friday?"

"No. It wasn't my wife."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Arrrr! That may explain the present state of the room."

"Are you outside the house at the moment?"

"Yes."

"I'll come out directly."

"Obviously I've been speaking to someone else for a week but I've no more idea who they are or where they live than fly in the air."

27th September. A Rude Awakening.

Fell asleep at the wheel heading towards the Motor Grill, just rounding a corner I awake to find myself veering towards oncoming traffic, it's partly because of the weight of the trailer, I may have been dreaming of egg and chips.

Of course this isn't really an excuse for potential carnage on the A827.

There'd be one of those floral tribute things there for the regulation 30 days at the side of the road, like the one a few miles before this particular bend.

Sometimes they hang up football shirts and other stuff belonging to the deceased. For me they could leave a green fleece with a hole in it and maybe hang up a pair of jeans with a broken zip.

26th September. Single Mum Frotteurism.

"Mum?"

"Mum...?"

"MUM!"

"MUUUUUUM!"

Excuse me, have you seen my mum?"

"She'll be back soon..."

(That kid is going to have problems in later life - too close to his mother I'd say.)

"Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee, I'll be back about three" She'd said.

I'd opened the kitchen cupboard to find myself at eye level with a mug bearing the slogan 'HOT BABE'

Well to be honest the thought had crossed my mind when I'd first seen Ms. W. through the living room window at the ironing board the night I came round to look at the job.

Ms. W. has a habit of standing slightly closer than the accepted norm and looking right at you whilst conversing.

This could amount to something of a threat if Ms. W. was a man but in her case it's open to misinterpretation...

At the least, the effect, I find, is like some sort of verbal frottaging.

Frottaging - if you're unfamiliar, is when the likes of frustrated Japanese businessmen rub themselves up against strangers in packed Tube trains.

25th September. Plumbing Discussion With Cold Sausage.

I enjoy the unheard of priviledge of being welcomed into the P's kitchen, which has a large round dining table with one of those revolving things in the middle like a chinese restaurant, covered in an array of condiments.

The Upper Middle Class are big on condiments. It might be a throwback to disguising the taste of game that has been hung too long?

"Do you want some cold sausage?"

"Ok"

I am introduced to Mr P's daughter, young, blonde, confident, relatively attractive, with a life of duty ahead of her combined perhaps with frivolity? who knows?

Mr P. goes into a laboured description of the problems of finding a plumber that is au fait with following a schematic diagram in German for connecting up the new wood chip fired heating plant. Mr P's daughter finishes her tomato soup and quietly disappears off.

"Can't you get that guy that usually installs these things?"

"Well he'd have done just fine but he's gone and got himself cancer."

"Cancer? He seemed perfectly alright about five weeks ago."

"No, he's not even allowed to drive a car now."

"You just don't know...when"

"My uncle who used to live in this house, one day he announced 'From today I'm on borrowed time!' He'd taken the average of his parents ages and then he lived for precisely one year longer."

24th September. Strange Dream of Bigamy.

I am in a room with another guy that looks a bit like Steve Buscemi who is related to me through marrriage, the feeling of connectness is very similar to Brother-in-law Ayk.

However in this case instead of being married to one of Isabelle's sisters this Buscemi-like chap is also married to Isabelle, who happens to be away on a shopping expedition.

At that moment he is on the phone to 'the wife', when the conversation finishes he turns to me and says "She's bought another three coats!"

"Three coats! Jeezuz hasn't she got enough coats already?" I exclaim, "You've got to tell her to stop buying things!"

"I've got to tell her? NO! that's your job - you tell her!"

"I'm not telling her - YOU tell her!"

Etc etc...

23rd September. Mid Argyll Triathlon Error.

I'm in the lead, a woman had been quicker getting her cycling shoes on but she was easily overtaken. When I say in the lead, it means I was first out of the pool in Heat 3, which is the third hopeless group of people after Heats 1 and 2.

I'm soon to pay the price of not having anyone in front. The road forks, a group of marshalls are idling by the side of the road, is it left or right?

I choose left as there is some other cyclist coming back that way, there is no yelling from the marshalls it must be the right way?

A short way down the road another Marshall on a motorbike addresses me "YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!"

The result is I'm no longer in the lead of Heat 3 and annoyed with myself.

22nd September. Z-Factor.

I spend Saturday morning on the R's roof fitting stays to their new shiny stainless steel chimney (highly visible from the neighbours back garden) to stop it waggling about in the wind.

The neighbours garden is largely compacted mud with several children running around. One of the boys on a swing holds up a mobile phone, obviously with a camera facility, I wonder if he's forwarding it to his Mother?

Given the history of boundary dispute and the fact that, technically, Planning Consent is now a requirement for anything that sticks up more than a foot on your roof, I'm expecting some sort of verbal fusillade from next door.

Instead, some other boy stikes up with an un-selfconscious rendition of some Lionel Ritchie ballad ??

Hello! Is it me you're looking for?
Becuase I wonder where you are etc etc

Eee Gads! This can only be the far reaching and insidious influence of Simon Cowal and that dreaded X-Factor.

21st September. 3.10 To Yuma.

"3.10 To Yuma" a passable Western but Stuart raised an interesting point - "Why are they so careless with the Whisky?"

I said "Maybe it's because their hands are shaking so much after all that horse riding but then it doesn't seem to affect their ability to shoot straight."

"Yes well even the barmaid when she was filling the glasses poured half of it over the bar."

"May be it was dirt cheap - unlikely since it must have all had to be brought out west, when do you ever see a distillery in a Western?'

"It makes no sense."

20th September. Village People.

"It's been a Life Learning Experience, it's the only way to look at it." says Mrs R. of the trials of living in a small Scots village having moved up from Kent.

A boundary dispute had erupted with the neighbours concerning right of way over the R's land as these things do, when the neighbours demolished a wall and installed huge gates.

The R's erected railings to claim back some of their bit and planted a flower bed.

"Somebody poured Sodium Chlorate and sulpuric Acid over the flower bed but I think I know who it was, I haven't the heart to spend another hundred quid on plants."

The railings dispute made three pages in the Daily Express with some 'white settler' angle.

"It's a new experience to be an outsider for a change, down south it was other minorities that moved in who were always the outsiders."

"Villages are weird" I said "Often you find things out about yourself you didn't even know."

" A friend of mine moved here twenty years ago from four miles down the road and she says she's still considered an outsider"

19th September. GSOH WLTM N/S Etc

You know I was rather dismayed to find just how many attractive 35 year old women are looking for a man under 40 in London. It took till page 86 of close wording to finally find Cousin B.

I was recently tasked to write a profile of Cousin B. for the purposes of the new media of Internet dating.

The idea, I suppose, is that if you write your own profile it will be unrealistic.

I thought about it for awhile and came to the conclusion that anyone like me, in a 'Relatiionship', is perhaps a little blase about the need for a long term partner at all.

"Have you got time for someone else? Do you really want to give up that freedom?

The other night I cleared some of the cats out of the way and sat down between piles of fashion magazines and tried to think of something positive, something that would really sell B.

I couldn't seem to get beyond a recent comment of Mother's - "Bryony...? Who? oh BRY-o-n-y! she was a TERRIBLE teenager!"

18th September. Love's Young Dream.

We steer around the roundabout - the overloaded long wheelbase van leaning to one side, trays with thousands of CD's balanced precariously amongst sealed boxes of obscure vinyl along with the dismantled double bed and everything else a young couple needs to start a new life in Glasgow.

'Glasgow 36 miles'

I turn to Junior and Mrs Junior possibly to be - " I'm afraid Love's Young Dream had turned into something of a nightmare for me when I was twenty-four."

"I can't imagine having a kid at this time of life" says Junior.

"No, neither can I." Was my reply.

17th September. Mr G. and Our Security.

Mr G. spent practically the whole period of the troubles in Northern Ireland serving Queen and Country in the army.

"Cup of tea or coffee before you start?'

"To be sanctioned by the state to kill people what was it like? That's a pretty weird thing from a civilian point of view."

I wondered what Mr G. would say...

" I suppose I was rather naive when I joined up in the late 60's. There was a different attitude towards Government back then, people believed what Politicians said. I can't see youing people having the same faith nowadays. It's actually the opposite, people instinctively believe the contrary of what Politicians say. All that business with Northern Rock - there's really nothing to worry about but no one's assured by the Government anymore, they're still queuing to withdraw their savings."

16th September. An Interesting Proposition.

I thought I'd heard it all but apparently not - Isabelle has reasoned that she can overcome her fear of learning to drive a car by getting a motor bike.

Not just any bike though, "One like Dave's"

"The Speed Triple mixes a monstrously powerful three-cylinder core with a top quality chassis and aggressive, stripped down stance. The gnarly character of the inline triple is intrinsic to the Speed Triple’s brutish charm. Its primal 1050cc, DOHC, fuel injected, three-cylinder engine pumps out a great surge of bottom-end torque, followed by a massive mid-range punch and impressive level of overall power. Delivering that power to the rear wheel is a slick shifting six-speed gearbox. Crisp-edged engine cases and covers enhance the engine’s look. Peak power is 132PS (131bhp) @ 9250rpm while peak torque of 105Nm (77ft.lbf) arrives at 7550rpm."

It all makes perfect sense.

15th September. Outrageous!

Although Mr H. has two kids and a sizeable mortgage by the look of things, I have to think of him as Young Mr H.

It's true that as time goes on there are increasingly more and more people who are younger than me and wear baseball caps, it stands to reason.

Anyway Young Mr H's pad is one of those architect designed things circa 1971 that the H's are currently bringing up to the standards of the day.

If there's anyone out there who thinks that UK domestic energy usage is about to slow down or reverse then you may be disappointed.

There are so many labour saving devices at the H's the only thing left to do is turn up the underfloor heating, turn down the banks of halogen lighting and settle down in front of the large plasma screen telly.

That is having parked the humungus new four wheel drive and poured yourself an iced drink from the US style fridge freeezer large enough to conceal an average family.

"I see they've nearly finished those houses over the back" I say.

"Yes, d'you knoiw what they've been going for? and they've sold nearly all of them, only four left."

"A fair whack?'

"Six eight"

"Six eight?"

"Yes £680,000!"

"In DUNDEE?"

14th September. Quasimodo and Jesus.

"Was Quasimodo a real person?' I ventured over my hamburger steak at the Cafe Notre-Dame.

Of course no one in our company had any idea but seriously could there really have been a hunchback living up there with only the gargoyles for company?

Well of course, obviously it's complete fiction, because it's a bit far fetched.

After some more queueing and climbing, was it 422 steps, we are up close with the actual gargoyles themselves.

"It's ironic" says Junior pointing out the myriad of fossilised shells in the limestone "the evidence was there all along contradicting the bible."

12th September, The Sexodrome.

After touring the four floors of the Museum of Erotic Art which consists almost entirely of phalluses (phalii?) and a few tickling machines, (more or less as two separate couples), we drift over en masse into 'The Sexodrome', an establishment that can hardly be missed as the name is lit up with large pink letters.

The ground floor is well stocked with inflatable women and DVD's of every perversion that's ever been invented, but I get a bit bored and wander off.

One of the staff, who isn't wearing much, accosts me, asking if I'd be interested in a Private Show? only thirty euros.

"Do you take Switch?" I said.

"Your wife, she eez not jealous? asks the blonded Parisienne stripping off what little clothing she did have on.

"No."

Of course this basic intoduction is only a tease, a warm-up, a baiting of the hook, a prelude to being relieved of a lot more Euros.

"Would you like something ... more?"

"No thanks."

"Masturbation - only another thirty Euros...?"

Junior is both appalled and embarassed in roughly equal measure.

"To think that while we were waiting my father was having a wank with some stripper!"

"Yeah well I didn't, this holiday is costing enough as it is and besides she had quite a lot of cellulite."

Returning to the hotel Isabelle is already tucked in and enjoying a beautiful sleep.

11th September. 9/11

"Maybe this isn't the day to be going up the Eiffel Tower' I suggested as we queued for about an hour and a half at the bottom of the south west leg, toying with ideas as to just how you could bring the whole edifice down.

"What about a specially trained flock of pigeons. each with an individual load of Semtex strapped to its back?"

There were what looked like soldiers who'd been briefed on how to shoot the baddies but not the by-standers (ie us) stood around; all with fingers on the safety catches of some kind of automatic weapon, waiting - but for what?

Maybe the minorities just keep a low profile on the 11th? In all the vast hordes of tourists the only representatives are some Bosnian women with bi-lingual placards, describing how they've been in Paris for a month and that they're hungry.

The soldiers glare at them, they move off a bit.

10th September. In Search Of A Perfect Ten.

A surprising aspect of this cross-generational holiday is the level of concurrence between father and son about what constitutes an 'attractive' woman here in Paris, despite an inappropriate age gap (on my part). There's even a level of agreement on the rather outre subject of Japanese teenagers.

The Boulevard St-Michel is, to this type of 'birding', what the marshes of the Carmargue delta are to its more legitimate cousin.

"Her in the green!"

"Where?"

"Over there"

'Wow! 9.3"

etc etc...

8th September. Ryanair Again.

Departing the house at 3am for the 'cross generational family holiday life's ambition fulfiller'.

Junior's disembodied voice says 'Do you know its half past two'?

I wonder who he is, what he's doing there, and what he's on about, then suddenly make a mental note that relying on Isabelle to spring from bed with the alarm isn't a good idea.

6th September. Gas Solutions.

Turns out Mr C. works offshore pressing buttons on a Gas rig somewhere in the North Sea. "All controlled by computers."

Yeah well, what isn't. I said "Total? Didn't they own Piper Alpha? Was that a gas explosion!"

"Yes, but they learnt a lot from that."

You know some people are just too nervous to have a wee dribble of gas in their house, let alone spend their working life on a platform with 15% of the UK's supply rushing out at a pressure of 80 bar - "Have you got a light mate?' - KAAFUCKINGBOOM!

And then Mr C. has been suffering the effects of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in his own living room, there seems to be no escape from the dangers of gas.

"The gas board condemned the installation at Christmas but it was the gas board who installed the stove."

"You mean they weren't happy with themselves at all?"

"Well it was one of their subcontracters - 'Gas Solutions' or something from Fife."

"You mean 'Final Solution' more like, say the whole family had nodded off and never woken up, what kind of New Year would that have been?

5th September. How to Poison Your Neighbours With Fly Ash.

I see Mrs B. in her ignorance has encouraged the fencing contractor working next door to leave all the offcuts of treated wood for fuelling their new stove.

I debate whether to leave a note about the toxicity of this timber but simply say something about the internet and CCA treatment, with a mention of not scattering it on a vegetable garden.

Apparently, if the current rotproofing treatment has remained unchanged in the uk, a plank of 6 x 2 has enough arsenic in it to kill 250 adults.

It's a wonder Al Quaida hasn't conceived of a dirty bomb based on the ash from the domestic woodburner?

4th September. Robbing Peter to Pay Paul to Pay Peter.

It dawned on me today that this woman Mrs B. is someone I've met before and there's a certain circular irony in it all.

You know when you've been in the red for a while trying to stay above the overdraft limit? Which is a bit like being in a Bond movie involving crocodile infested waters - "Good bye Mr Bond!"

Then in the nick of time the bank comes to the rescue "Would you like to come in and have a chat with one of our financial advisors?"

Step forward Mrs B. to "Tidy things up a bit" and "Make it easier" a few clicks of the Bank's mouse and out you go as if Mrs B. just handed over the money from her own pocket.

Well in this case she will be.

Then I can give it back to the bank who will then give it to Mrs B. again.

It's a bit Catch 22-ish regarding "we may as well drop the bombs on ourselves" - she'd be as well writing a cheque to herself.

Also the bank keeps raising the number of bombing missions before I can be sent home and to claim that I'm insane would only prove that I am actually sane.

3rd September. Dispatch? - Over My Dead Body!

The vet, who has had to stand in for the cat's bladder over the weekend, commented on the news that I was in Wales competing in a Triathlon, "Is he trying to achieve some kind of immortality or something?"

I suppose his last drafting in for a squeezing coincided with the Alpine endeavours of the summer, this would give him the impression that i'm some sort of fitness freak.

Meanwhile he's stuck there day in day out squeezing bladders, putting dogs down and horses to sleep.

He's actually itching to dispatch 'Tigger', always on about 'the welfare of the animal' although it's hard to see why, the money he's had out of us could have easily funded a trip with Martin to India and a rare opportunity to ascend some unclimbed 6000 metre peaks.

2nd September. Triathlon. (Run Fat Boy Run)

During the swimming it's hard to tell what's happening, just an occasional glimpse of someone moving faster in an adjoining lane, possibly a female and wondering why they seem to have put an extra bucket of chlorine in the pool just for the event?

Then a woman gets past me on the return half of the 16k cycle route "Bugger it!"

Shit! I'm crap at the cycling.

The running came as a bit of a shock because the first half was unrelentingly uphill, you'd probably be as quick walking, in fact some of the more knackered ones did.

For some reason a lot of folk have a problem running downhill, whereas that really is something I can excel at, to the extent when I crossed the finishing line the bloke who had also come past me during the cycling had only just started eating an orange. "I'm not really built for running" he whined.

The woman that had got past was receiving first aid for a twisted ankle, tsk tsk...

Still if you were minded to it, these events could be a way to meet some very 'fit' women and in the process lose a considerable amount of weight either that or have a coronary, - not thinking of anyone in particular.

1st September. Anti-Psychotic Drugs.

Mother's state of mind seems much improved thanks to the wonders of modern Pharmacology.

More or less normal - for Ninety-Two.

Prior to this recent boost in morale Mother had got all serious in the lounge room announcing to my brother and most of the other residents "I'M DYING YOU KNOW!"

A wry comment came back "Yes... well were all *ucking dying in here love!"