Weekend At WORLINGHAM

Welcome the darling buds of ---- April? This weekend we had the opportunity to take two newcomers to cruising out on the yare down the Waveney to our favourite spot at Worlingham. To be honest we hoped to get on at North Cove but it was full of yachts so we had our fingers crossed as we came round the last bend before Worlingham. After all, it was Easter weekend and for those whose boats had been out of the water over winter, their first chance of enjoying the coming of Spring. Our initiates were immediately hit with the relaxation bug and as they love walking we were in good company. Fudge especially as you can see she found a new friend although boisterous young black labs can be a bit scatty! The evening was perfect for the barbeque which was followed by the traditional campfire accompanied with wine and song !! A good nights sleep although look what we found in a nearby field. Ghostly apparitions walking the fence line. The one on the ground though was one of our guests who obviously wanted to feel part of it by emulating the locals !!!

Doddy Out Did It For Us !

Regular listeners will know that I was absent on Monday having taken the day off to recover from the Ken Dodd Show on Sunday night. We'd been warned that he goes on for hours and he didn't disappoint. Coming on stage at 9pm at Potters Leisure Resort, he constantly reminded us that we'd need all our staying poser. Naturally, the ever present joke was the Inland Revenue and after two hours we had a ten minute interval before he was back with more IR gags and this little fella - Dicky Mint. You have to hand it to a guy who's over 80, he still has the power to entertain and with no set script he'd start to tell one story and divert it down another subject effortlessly. Once or twice I thought he'd lost his way a bit but he recovered himself quickly enough. By 1.30am Mrs. Webb was beginning to run out of energy and reluctantly we admitted defeat and went home with Doddy still on stage in full flow. OK for the majority of the audience who simply had to fall into their chalet but for us it was an experience. Despite all the warnings he beat us !

Chris Moyles and my wife !

Did anyone listen to Radio 1 this morning? After the good plug the Moyles crew gave me last month, I'm told that this morning he was talking about the contents of Sheri's sandwiches that she packs me off to work with. Anyone tel me what he said? I haven't time today to go through the listen-again download.

At last meet Grace - our third grandchild.
She's a month old now but we haven't let the news out because she and her mum (our youngest daughter Gemma) had a really tough time and Grace spent the first weeks of her life in intensive care. We're happy to say that they're both home now and things are looking much better. Needless to say we're ever so proud and send our best wishes to Gemma and Matt.

FOLLOW THE WEEK OF PLEASURE or How I Survived Not Being At Work!

SATURUDAY. And so it begins. Even though I woke at the usual 0230 I sleep soundly until a strange growling causes me to stir. Gently but firmly, my elbow eases over the slumbering Mrs.Webb so that the noisy aperture is facing away from my earhole. More sleep and dawn arrives.
Stepping from the steaming shower, Sheri hands me a freshly pressed boiler suit. It's warm as I slip it on ready to begin my tasks. "There's nothing like a man in uniform." She wasps, adding "and you look nothing like a man in uniform."
My week off has begun. Whilst Sheri takes Fudge the dog for her daily walk, I take full advantage of the kitchen facilities and down bacon, beans, fried bread and two eggs easy over. With a mug of fresh coffee and my feet up the clock tells me that it's time to look lively. By the time Mrs.Webb turns the corner of the drive I'm already out there cleaning the gravel. "you missed a bit." She jokes picking up a single piece of the pea shingle. We share the laughter. The plan today? Get all the small jobs out of the way. In fact, we took a trip to town and bought a clock that had been dropped! Sheri said it would give me something to do repairing it. In the afternoon I was loose in the kitchen and made leek & poatato soup with garlic and chirizo. It was so powerful that it kept me up all night! AND SO ENDS THE FIRST DAY.
SUNDAY and we're awake early. The anticipated snow is threatening but Sheri still takes the dog out to test her new waterproof windproof trousers out. I haven't seen her since!
Because of the poor weather forecast I volunteered to be on standby overnight in case Greg has a job to get to Norwich. The snow doesn't really kick in until Monday so he's OK and the phone doesn't ring.
Meanwhile, with the garden redecorated an off-white, Mrs. Webb decides it's time to make some sun lounger covers! Very seasonal of her. As usual she's not without help. Fudge knows a comfortable spot when she see's one and is straight on the job (pic).
I'm in the garden with the spray gun. As Sheri says white is too glaring, my task is to spray it with green dye to make it look verdant. Trouble is I got the mixture wrong and the garden's now a strong shade of pink. She says it looks like it's been massacred so now I'll have to wait for the heavy overnight snow so that I can respray it.
Meanwhile, she finishes the first cover and hopes to do the next tomorrow. The dog was lucky her tail wasn't sewn in!
Tuesday morning found much of the snow gone but there had been a really hard frost which made a fantastic pattern of the roof of Sheri's car. This pic was taken about 8am and by nine it was gone. Isn't nature capable of making fabulous art? I'm sure it's been an inspiration for fabric designers. Some friends of ours have got a three piece suite covered in just the same pattern!

Having a week off at home also means I like to get in the kitchen and as yet I've not had time to try our the new halogen cooker. Sheri loves it but I've never had a test drive. Here's my dish of sweet potato, parsnip, potato and carrot roasting away. These cookers are twice as quick as an oven and cost less than half to run. They also do meatds and cakes - in fact anything! Just one tip. Put the sweet potato in half way through cooking the rest because it cooks much quicker.
Tomorrow Sheri's suggested I clean the roof tiles!
I must say it seems fortunate that I've been off whilst the weather's so bad but listening to David Webster out with the radio car it would have been fun!
We had lunch with some long standing friends yesterday (thanks) who we haven't seen for years. Fudge made herself at home as usual and seems to have recovered from the mornings ordeal. Here she is pulling a face as Sheri dqueezes her anal gland. Fudges that is! Otherwise I would have photographed Sheri !!
The week was rounded off by a very relaxing couple of days at the holiday park at Clippesby. (see two weeks back)

Here's Fudge completely kn------ered after a long play in the woodlands. Outside on the picnic table were some uninvited guests who know when there's food about! It's not surprising that this place has just won an award for its excellence. And so - back to work Monday.

That Radio 1 Moment

Monday 19th and after the two early Shows I'm off out with the Radio Car. It's just after 7am so I'm listening to our output. Meanwhile, on Radio One around five past it's the Chris Moyles Show - well, here's the conversation!
"The text system is down so you'll be wasting your money---
We think the text is down for the whole BBC - really? --how will Three Counties Radio survive? - did you know there's a DJ on Three Counties Radio whose name is Wally Webb? Did you know that? -- Do you listen to Wally? No, I found it by mistake last week when we started back and it came on and it was a bloke called Wally Webb - that's his name. What does he do? He talks to er ---the animals? Yeah Wally Webb - if you've got something to say, say it to Wally. -- You know people say on the Show that we said things that we never said? Yeah - people are going to say to Wally Webb "you know comedy Dave on Radio 1 today saying that you talk to dead people?" Do you reckon Wally Webbs got a web site -- he has, I'm on it - is it w.w.w dot wallywebbswebsite - dot com? Doesn't he do Radio Norfolk as well? Wally Webbs website - the requested u.r.l. could not be retrieved? Doohh he should buy it. It means it's available right? Wally Webbs web site. Yeah - so don't text the Show today right."
Tuesday a.m. I'll e-mail Mr. Moyles with the Blog address and maybe remind him that on the day he broadcast from Norwich last year I had to give up my studio for him that morning!
Hang on - I won't tell him - I'll see if he notices this when he looks at the Blog !!! Ahaaaaaa

To listen yourself go to www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 then podcasts for the links to Mondays Chris Moyles Show.

Daisy Webb 1995 - 2009

Thanks to those of you who've enquired how my Burman cat Daisy is. She took to looking poorly of Tuesday afternoon but we can all have an 'off'' day can't we? By Wednesday morning she wasn't looking much better. In fact, she was looking decidedly ragged and couldn't jump up to her usual place - my lap! I also noticed that she hadn't eaten overnight and by the time I got home from work on Wednesday afternoon I knew that she had to go to see the vet. There was obviously something seriously wrong. Fearing the worst, I made the appointment and put her in her travel cradle. Usually, when I do this and put her in the car she's quite vocal but she made not a sound as we drove the few miles to the surgery. The diagnosis was kidney failure which was poisoning her system and the tough decision had to made.

Daisy has been a close member of the family for many years particularly to me and the tears couldn't be held back as she slipped peacefully away to a better place. She's home with us now and will lie together with her old friend Emma the golden retriever. I only hope that if needs be, someone provides the same service for me one day! My personal thanks to you for the e-mails and calls some of which were already waiting for me when I got in to work on Friday morning.

Loadsafur !

Just wanted to share this one with you. I came home the other day and Sheri couldn't get up to greet me because two of our little friends had made themselves comfortable !

Three Great Girls

I mentioned on Fridays Show that we were going to take a trip to Bury St.Edmunds so that some ladies could meet up again. As some of you requested, here's a pic of the girls in question who between them have notched up 282 years !!!
Left to right Marguarite (82+) Winifred (101) and Alice May (98.5).
Because they had a lot to catch up on their reminiscences soon returned to their childhood and some of the things they got up to. Listen to Mondays Show to hear some of the antics!

Taking The Afternoon Sun Together.

It was lovely this afternoon to walk into the lounge and see Daisy and Fudge sharing the footstool by the patio door. Animals love to lie in the sun. As a dog though, Fudge will lie outside in full sun panting away getting far too hot. At least the cat is teaching her some restraint!

New Grandson

Born on Wednesday 12th March here's the first pic of our second grandson.

Ben On The Mike

Child Talk

At two and a half years old, our grandson Ben is mastering the English language but pronunciation is still a hill to climb. Some of you always ask how he's doing? Well, he's anticipating the arrival of a baby brother soon and he's well prepared.

Here's a short Ben dictionary so you can understand him.

Dudge - close - it's our dog Fudge closely followed by Day-dee - the cat Daisy.

Granma remains Damm much to the surprise outside when others hear this tiny boy apparently cussing! I'm just Dan-dad so he's almost there.

The game takes on a whole new meaning when he asks to play Duck-ball! Work it out for yourself. In the summer we played Dick-it!

The name that he adopted for his Aunty Gemma though will stay with her for the rest of her life. In his language she became Blem-blem - but she doesn't mind.

He's got a thing about lawnmowers. In fact he's been able to say it properly for ages and every time he hears a noise outside he asks "Lawnmower?"

He's also very expressive especially with his hand gestures. When something goes wrong these are accompanied with "Don't ma--er!" Whilst when he's obliging you in some way he'll add "There you go!"

It'll be a pity when he loses all these little foibles which make daily converstaion with him so delightful.