Lump...

 The food in these parts need a mention, my God it’s tasty….

Being an epicure, I have to be a bit careful with what I eat on my holidays. Food is an important part of the culture and the delicacies identify with the people of an area.

You are what you eat…

I scoured the helpful photos of plates of food for tourists dating back to 1973 ignoring the Cock’O’Van, the Steak ‘Pie-Ella’ and the ‘All Dayo Breakfasto’ in search of a dish the locals would be tucking into.

Bearing in mind my grandad had already warned me that the soup here would be served cold, from when he mistakenly ordered it in Benidorm and had to complain to the waiter and get it microwaved.

I was exhausted by the long list of tempting dishes so opted for the local ‘Platto du jour’ to give me a full flavour of the country in a dining experience.

The ten euro set menu consisted of a healthy option seafood starter called ‘Percebes’ translated as ‘Goose barnacles’ followed by a mystery meaty main course entitled ‘Ballons du Toro con Morcilla’. A generous portion too and as I had ordered it medium rare, it arrived a little chewy and undercooked but after half an hour I had shifted the biggest lumps. I had fancied some oven chips with it but the nearest I got was something named ‘Patatas Bravas’. All perfectly crisp, succulent and seasoned well.

For desert I chose the strangely popular deep fried octopus stuffed with Nutella served on a bed of cold tapioca and washed it all down with a 3litre jug of Sangria.

On the long walk back to the accommodation I stopped off at the Supermercato and picked up a couple of extra toilet rolls, just in case...well you never know because you are not supposed to even drink the water on holiday…

Is this lump outta my head?

I think so!

A little mid 90s rock from The Presidents of the USA boys…

2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps please...🍻

 

Getting to know the locals is most important when holidaying abroad so today I stepped foot into a local hostelry for a drink. Luckily, the bartender of the ‘Ye Olde Pig & Whistle’ spoke a bit of English, albeit with a Nottinghamshire accent and asked what my tipple was? I studied the alcoholic beverages on the bar taps and opted for a local brew called ‘Guinness’. Served cold, it was a thick, creamy stout pleasantly delicious and complimentary to the palate.

Many bars in this country operate a discount period, designated a "happy hour" or discount of the day to encourage off-peak-time patronage.

Some locals had now gathered to watch a strange game being beamed in on the satellite TV where some big fellas in blue shirts were scurrying about trying to hide an odd-shaped ball up their jumpers while the opposing blokes in white just stood around watching…oh, how we did laugh!

Even punk bands can make novelty records...got to Number 7 in the hit parade!

Pretty Fly (for a white guy)...

I made a bit of a holiday error yesterday as from a promo board on the beach,  I booked myself on something named ‘Excursiones Diarias’ ??

Struggling with the lingo a bit I thought I was going on a cultural trip to see some caves and a nearby church in a minibus. 

Imagine my surprise when a cool, tattooed and tanned surfer dude wearing a baseball hat on back to front awkwardly helped me slither into a smelly wetsuit and then strapped on a pink parachute and fastened me to the back of a speedboat!

We set off briskly and I shot up into the air at breakneck speed, so I pulled on a safety toggle, as previously instructed, and shot back down, hitting the water face first. I then promptly started to get dragged along in the wake coughing and spluttering. Now twisted in the ropes, the parachute caught the wind again and I suddenly shot back up into the air, but now I was facing the wrong way with my goggles now full of salty-water I was unable to see. Just as my 20 minutes was up I heard a rip and started to plummet once again this time impacting the ocean backwards but this time it was arse first at what felt like about 95mph…

Back on the beach, with a crowd of onlookers the medic said it was lucky that it was a solo flight so no one else got hurt as he emptied my colon with a funnel into a plastic bucket.

Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, cinco, seís…

and all the girlies say I’m Pretty Fly (for a white guy)

Summer in the City...

We touched down and a thin fella with a pencil moustache stamped my passport and I was officially ‘Out of Office’. I hadn’t won on the ‘Bingo Lotto’ on the plane but I had been persuaded by the special offer of the ‘Egyptian Magic Cream’, an eco-friendly,slightly pungent holiday lotion, made I suspect, from refined camel semen, to slap on to repel insects and attract the ladies in a handy 5kg ‘travel’ tub.

Totally prepared, I was now in the market for some ‘budget’ beach house  ‘all inclusive’ luxury accommodation, close to all the amenities and in the heart of all the tourist attractions but all the shutters were up and the signs said ‘No Vacancies’? I consulted ‘MuchoGrandeHotelo.com on the intranet and five minutes later I was setting off to find my allocated room following the signs away from the beach towards the quaint sounding ‘Industrial Zona’. The lads were just putting the final touches to the foundations when I arrived.

Fred Dibnah is famous in these parts, with a statue to commemorate all the happy ‘Saga’ holidays he had here away from all the steam and chimney dust. He would come here every August on a bus from Bolton until he died in a jet skiing accident.

 Enjoy this wonderful version of Summer in the City by another favourite band ‘Eels’

Fiesta...

“Come all you rambling boys of pleasure

And ladies of easy leisure

We must say Adios until we see

Almeria once again...”

After the recent storms the weather in Lancashire was looking again rather unsettled with some heavy thundery showers forecast and the temperatures dipping down again to bloody freezing 🥶

So I decided, I’m off....

I scraped the early morning frost off the windscreen and saddled up the old Fiesta to trundle off up to the airport in search of some glorious warm sunshine.

Arriving at the security, in the standard holiday attire, I was duly instructed to take off my bright white trainers, my Sergio Tacchini tracksuit (circa.1985) and remove my industrial headphones 🎧over my alpine bobble hat. After a quick but clammy frisk I skipped nonchalantly straight through the X-ray barrier and continued on into the airport lounge of ‘Wetherspoons’ in just my leopard skin Lycra thong, smudged fake tan and sunglasses 😎.

Jeez, was I ready for a pint or two of Tenants Xtra....

This morning I felt like a winner...

I’d got through security successfully with a box of 350 Yorkshire teabags, 3lb of Cumberland sausage and a bottle of HP brown sauce so now I just needed to pickup two 1litre bottles of vodka and my favourite ‘Hai Karate’ aftershave from the Duty Free and I was in the holiday groove.

A few pints later and it was time to meander over t’Th’EeesyJet departure gate 13 where scary Brenda was not amused with my luggage allowance and insisted that I shed some weight. It took another half an hour, bent over, trying to snap off the wheels and prise off the handle from my case before I could get the bugger to fit into the prescribed baggage scales. 

Apologising to the impatient queue of priority boarders, I ended up also having to leave her with my spare pair of flippers, an inflatable deckchair and 4 loose cans of Weston’s Old Rosie vintage cider before she waved me on to the plane ✈️ 

We accelerated up the runway and entered the fog.

Finally I could relax...

...but then the fat bloke next to me took off his shoes and opened his egg butties 

🥪....Pfhwaar!

“Any drinks or snacks?”.....By now I was Hank Marvin starvin’ so I stuck the recommended ‘Plat du Jour’ aka ‘artisan’ fish and chips 🍟and a half bottle of warm ‘Liebfraumilch’ on the credit card and kicked off my boots too!

...a steal at €36 euros plus bank charges(termsandconditionsapply#53%APR)

I was on my way, Jose...(pronounced ‘Ho-zay’)

Today I’m going to honour you with a perfect holiday tune courtesy of Sir Shane of McGowan and his merry band of little Pogues to get your tiny toes tapping....

Things will be fine...

 

Well, th’owd lass has been put back together. Her heads back on, she’s had her bilge cleaned out with new pipes, injectors, filters, flanges and fluids and even a new starter battery thrown in for good luck. 

‘John’ll Fix it’ did a great job of fixing it for me and now I need to put the boat on Webuyanyboat.com to find out in only 30 seconds how much I can sell it for to be able to pay for all the repairs and keep him in fat cigars!

But then I saw a bright, colourful and fun advert on the telly and I had a great idea...

All I needed to do was to gamble to pay for it all!

The telly started telling me how easy it was to get an app to put all my wages into and register online for a fun Fandabbydozie Foxy bingo game to play with all my friends with almost guaranteed incredible, fantastic prizes of millions of pounds.

I had only to put the details of my 3 credit cards and my private pension access code and I got an amazing deal of £20 cash back and 3 free spins...result!

After a few hours of trying really hard to win my first promised jackpot I realised that my next 3 wages wouldn’t now even cover the minimum repayments on my debt and my boat cylinder head rebuild cost seemed minuscule to what I owed now so I thought I’d better 🛑 stop so I logged off quite disappointed ☹️.

Like a German vegetarian I feared the wurst!

But I needn’t have worried as 2 minutes later I had an email telling me I had won 3 more free spins and another £20 cash prize to have another go to see if I could re-coup my debt...wow! What luck!...I think they must have felt sorry for me!

It’s really quaint that they really care so much that they worry that my money won’t last out and went on to tell me that if I was to become addicted they could provide me with a private number to speak to a nice Irish chap called Paddy Power who would listen to my problems and hopefully write off the debt before it started to affect my wellness and stop me from throwing a strong rope over a nearby oak tree.

What a lovely respectable and moral business.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that my heating gas has run out too...

So what have we learnt today?

We learnt that if your engine goes buggered it’s going to cost you a lot of Wonga to call in ‘John’llFixit’ but you are probably best to just take a deep breath and pay up as the owd tug really deserves a bit of brass spending on her every decade or so.

I think I need a holiday now!

Here is my new favourite tune from Metronomy....enjoy!

There's a storm a comin'....

 

Storm ‘George Eustless’, aptly named after the Environmental Secretariat minister, has really made a mess around here with conditions having deteriorated all week. From the endless annoyingly lashing midweek rain to the weekend warnings of an incoming stupidly named storm as gusts build to ‘very windy’ on the big grownups wind-chart with records recording that it’s worse than the very old, stiff winds first recorded back in the blowy day’s of 1764 when wind was quite strong.

The climate change is happening under our very runny noses and is also happening a bit quicker than he thought and us boater’s are feeling the brunt of it.

Waves reaching up to 4 inches were recorded breaking on the banks of the very full Lancaster canal and all towpaths have now been re-classified as ‘treacherous’ by a government sauce.

A 78 year old dog walker was seen battling the winds and struggling with the pooh bags billowing and blowing about uncontrollably, splattering startled fishermen with canine faecal matter, cold chaps who were already struggling to cast in the unseasonably high gusts due to Brexit.

As a swan blew past, The Canal and Rivers Trust immediately tweeted to close off all water-points in case the stupid people decide to ‘nip out for a top up’ and end up wedgin’ their longboats under a tiny bridge and they have also used the opportunity to warn of severe delays to hedge cutting and dredging work as volunteers get re-classified as ‘furloughed’.

As the eye of the storm moves into the North West, the CRT have also urged boater’s to ‘hunker down’ and issued warnings to us to secure windows, hatches, ropes and ‘all that crap and clutter that you keep on the roof’ to avoid flying debris that could include common items such as ‘unused’ life saving rings, massive tv aerials, plastic plant pots and bags of cat litter...

Here, on the mooring a ‘Critical incident’ was declared when an old oak tree up the top o’ the field toppled over and narrowly missed one of Farmer Jim’s best mule ewes but unfortunately took out 3 fence posts and bust his new lick bucket....a local quickly and informatively tweeted...

“ It wer’a big bastard...!”

...and then a chainsaw drowned out the rest....

BBC community news indicated that ‘significant disruption’ had occurred in the southern reaches when apparently a shed roof blew off in London village and townsfolk had to be evacuated to Germany but here in Lancashire, my shed stood firm with felt intact. 

Like an old pensioner that prioritises fags, I have been left without power, as my gas bottle ran out, but on the flip side I have acquired 2 trampolines, 6 umbrellas and half a tent..

Amber warning to be updated at 21:00 

Ratcliffe Wharf will remain closed until April 2022

Todays track from the wonderfully talented Richard Hawley, finishing off a live set in Leeds and finishing my blog too....enjoy!