All in who wants to play...

All I wanted at age ten was a man from U.N.C.L.E spy pen. You know, the pen that was actually a communication device amongst other things. It was silver, it was beautiful and Napoleon Solo had one.

Illya Kuryakin had one to, but I was a Solo fan. My cousin Ian was a Kuryakin follower. He had all the U.N.C.L.E gear, the gun, the spy-scope, the game – he didn’t have a spy pen though. He used to bribe me to play the Man from U.N.C.L.E game – it was okay, but I only played it so that I could pretend to be Napoleon Solo… and get to hold the U.N.C.L.E gun - that was the deal.

I was always Solo and he was always Kuryakin. We each had an assignment which involved finding a THRUSH agent and taking him back to headquarters, into the dry cleaning shop then down the hidden lift to Mr Waverly. Whoever got there first was the winner. It was a complicated game, with complicated rules about rolling the dice, and you could get ‘stolen’ if your opponent landed on you. I thought it was boring. No, it was boring.

I got to play with the Man from U.N.C.L.E gun though.

At school Ian and I used to play U.N.C.L.E at playtime. All the other boys would be playing fifty-fifty or off-ground tig, and there we would be pretending to have spy pens, with Ian being all Russian. I remember the long circling lines of boys, shoulder to shoulder, arm over arm as they called for others to join in their game – long lines of calling boys ‘All in who wants to play fifty-fifty’ they would sing. And there would be Ian and I circling, arm over arm calling others to join us in a game of U.N.C.L.E. Hardly anyone ever did, so we played alone – Ian - Kuryakin, and I - Solo.

I never did get a spy pen. I tried to make one out of a broken car aerial and some bits from an old transistor radio once. I thought it looked just like the real thing but when I showed it to Ian he just fell about laughing.

I threw it away after that and stopped playing U.N.C.L.E, instead I started playing fifty-fifty with the other boys leaving Ian to play U.N.C.L.E on his own.

Ianski died last year after a longski illness - the one with the shortski name. He always did have a lousy Russian accent.

U.N.C.L.E

The men in white...

So, I’m at the farm where we stable Chester walking down to the field where he’s out for the summer, along the muddy tree lined lane, when I glance to my left and through the trees I see…

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

What is that?

It looks like… What does it look like?

Definitely figures, at least a dozen maybe as many as sixteen, and they look vaguely human but – they are so white… and their heads are the wrong shape. Are they aliens? They definitely seem to be wearing some sort of helmets or masks. Masks! Oh my God, something must have happened! They’ve been sent to neutralise some deadly virus that’s landed in a meteorite or something. Or perhaps there’s been a terrible accident at some secret government laboratory, maybe something has escaped, something that wasn’t meant to escape - a mutated radioactive rat, or a bio-reengineered creature intent on wiping out everything in its path.

We are all doomed! Doomed do you hear?

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

No, stop! Infernal buzzing. There must be a perfectly rational explanation as to why some twenty or thirty white suited beings are wandering around in an old orchard in the depths of North Wales.

Angels? No that’s hardly rational. Fancy dress? Perhaps they have all come as snowmen, but if that’s the case where are all the top hats, scarves and carrot noses? No, not snowmen. Maybe they’re shooting a commercial for Daz washing powder - that would certainly explain the white suits – not the headgear though. Klu Klux Klan? No, not these days, not in Wales.

So why are there hundreds of white suited beings wandering around in the woods today?

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. What?

Druids! That fits! They are druids looking for mistletoe on the lichen covered branches of the old apple trees. They have an ancient ritual to perform and need the mistletoe to make a soporific drug to calm the poor young virgin that they are going to sacrifice. Young virgin? No, not these days, not in Wales.

Okay so they’re not aliens, government agents, angels, snowmen, actors, racists or druids… that only leaves ghosts and I don’t believe in ghosts, so I must be imagining them.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

That's it I'm imagining them, just like I'm imagining this damned buzzing in my head. It was bound to happen - I’ve finally lost my mind, I’m seeing things. Too much blogging I guess. Perhaps that’s why they’re wearing white suits! Not ghosts at all – attendants from the asylum. That’s it! I’ve lost my mind and they’ve come to take me away, lock me up, throw away the key, and leave me to listen to this damned buzzing.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

‘Hey you! Over here! Bring the jacket. I’ll come quietly. Just make it stop...’

Small Pleasures...

There are some things that make you feel good and you can't for the life of you understand why.

I’m not talking about cream cakes, or bargains, or good books here. I’m talking about those little things that make your heart sing and your spirits lift when they really shouldn’t, unexpected intervals in life that fill you with smug self-satisfied glee. Little things where there’s no rational explanation as to why they should give you such a buzz, and logic demands that there should be no pleasure involved at all – but they do, and there is.

What? Okay here’s what I’m talking about…

Small pleasure number 1.

Finding a shopping trolley that hasn’t been locked so that you don’t have to put your pound coin in.

What an irrational pleasure that is! I really can’t understand why not having to put a pound coin into the slot on the trolley handle in order to release it for use should be so uplifting. It’s not even a money saving thing - I get the pound back after shopping so it costs me nothing at all. It shouldn’t make me feel so good - but it does. Each time I find one it feels as if I’ve ‘won’, almost as if I’ve got one over on ‘them’ – whoever ‘they’ are.

It’s not even that I won’t take it back to the trolley park and anti-socially leave it in the car park cluttering things up so that some old lady can drive over it. I will! I always take my trolley back and secure it firmly to the next trolley – even when I haven’t had to part with my pound and don’t need to get it back. I do this so that the next person can’t get the delight of finding a poundless trolley.

Yes, I know that’s a bit mean, but it is all part of the pleasure… I got away with it – but you’re not going to, you are going to have to use your pound - HA Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

A FREE shopping trolley pleasurable? Am I the only one?

Insane, petty, pathetic - how sad am I? I have my own sympathy.

Can’t wait until the next time I go shopping though… you never know.

Dubby the Buccaneer...

Here's Dubby the duck out doing a bit of pirating.

Not quite the Caribbean, but a break in the rain at least allowed him to have a good hunt around for the treasure he's buried somewhere and can't find. That's the trouble with ducks - bad memories, very forgetful - Dubby would forget his own name if it wasn't written on his underneath in black indelible felt tip pen.

I don't know why he's carrying that map either. Despite being able to navigate south for the winter, ducks (at least rubber ducks) seem to have absolutely no sense of direction. Dubby was about to wander into the sea, blindly following his map, before I pointed out that he was looking at it upside down. It could have been very nasty - rubber ducks float very well but have a tendency to drift with the tide, and the tide was going out. Dubby could have ended up anywhere.

Thank God he doesn't have sat-nav.

Anyway, here he is sitting on a rock as the waves crash around him wondering where on earth he buried that treasure, in fact he's wondering if he actually buried that treasure, and was there ever any treasure to bury anyway? He gets a bit confused poor thing. It comes with the rubber duck territory.

Come on Dubby, let's go home, I don't think we are going to find your treasure today - and Polly Parrot looks as though she could do with a stiff drink after getting splashed with all that sea water. I know that I could - being friends with a rubber duck is much harder work than you might think.



The motley crew of the Scarlet Drake - Dubby's old ship.

Happy birthday Tia...

Tia was our first cat, a lilac Burmese. She was very special. She would have been twenty today but she died two years ago of old age - she simply wore out. We were there with her at the end, at the vets. It was sad - very, very sad and it took a while to move on. We still miss her.

Anyway, today is her birthday.

We were in Criccieth this morning and we parked up by the castle on the hill. It was a bit blustery but the sun was shining, so I got out of the car and went to look at the 'funny house thing' that I'd been noticing each time I drove past it.

The 'funny house thing' sits in the centre of an old rowing boat that is planted up each year with bedding by the Britain in Bloom people. The Britain in Bloom people made the 'funny house thing' after the Tsunami in 2004 in remembrance of all the people who lost their lives. It's an oriental spirit house - a place where you can leave a memento or a message to a lost loved one. Lots of people had left messages written on pebbles picked up off the beach - messages to mums, dads, children, husbands, wives - little rememberings of who they were, what they meant.

It made be uncomfortable at first, standing there looking at another persons private memory. And then it didn't as I realised that in reading the messages I was thinking about the person it was written for - picturing, wondering.

I don't know why, but I went down to the beach, picked up a pebble and wrote this message to Tia. I'd like to think that someone will read the message and think and wonder about her.

I wonder if they'll wonder if she was a cat?

Happy birthday Tia, wherever you are.

Whirling Dervish Girl Thing…

Where - oh - where did we go wrong?

Was it the little pink rabbit baby grow with white fluffy tail, or the five piece (top, skirt, hat, socks, shoes) matching sun outfit in lime green and cerise, or maybe it was the rainbow knee socks.... look at her, thank God it’s for charity, sponsored walk, race for life, all sponsorship gratefully accepted in the comments box below.

She couldn’t go out on the street like that could she..?

‘Now THAT is what I call a cool outfit. So much better than the bright stuff she usually wears. I really can’t bear her bright orange school uniform – yellow jumper, yellow skirt – and that awful cerise shirt – what is the headmistress thinking of AND as for those purple shoes and the turquoise tights.. Well, I ask you - it’s like Paul Klee on acid. This is so much more sedate, cultured even… perhaps this whirling Dervish girl thing isn’t so bad after all… IF only she would stand still for a second or two.

Of course I’m a fine one to talk what with my purple fur, fluorescent green whiskers, and banana yellow chest and feet… far too bright if you ask me. A sophisticated cat like me should be black or grey - a nice dark grey, yes, that would suit me. But here I am all… colourful. If only I could look as sober as the WDGT does at the moment I’d be as happy as the man who got the cream.

Why on fish-fins did Mu-Mu make us so bright? Mouserkins down the road is vermillion, Patchy Poo is fuchsia, Old Whistles is aqua (except at his temples where he’s a nice shade of lavender) and young Tommy Tittletat is at least twenty different shades of green. How sickening!

Oh well… it isn’t about our colour, it’s about what we are like inside... but I really like that black skirt thing she’s wearing, perhaps I could get one on meow-bay… now where did Hisfault put his laptop and his credit card? Ah, here they are... www.google.cat.uk... Search… P-U-S-S-Y T-U-T-U. Now, I REALLY like that, such an elegant shade of dark navy…’

… Thank God cats see colour differently to us, different spectrum, something to do with the shape of the iris. I’m sure all of those migraine causing colours would be too much for poor Misty to bear.... They are for me. I’m going to lie down for a bit, my head is pounding… You don’t know how lucky you are Misty... you don’t know how lucky you are…

Rubber Duck Spot...

Rubber Ducks, who can resist them?

Along with my ragged Elephant on wheels my Rubber Duck, bobbing in my bathwater, is one of my earliest memories.

So I've decided to have a regular Monday rubber duck spot on the blog. Here's one that I picked up from the Apex Hotel in Edinburgh.

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Hope that you enjoy the Rubber Duck spot. Let me know.