Loads of irrelevant nonsense

I took a trip to St Jean de Losne and there are three narrowboats in the marina and I found an old Springer in one of the maintenance yards looking the worst for wear. Unfortunately I couldn't spot the boat with the flybridge but I'll keep my eye out.

Pearl (outlaw) is not known for her culinary abilities but she has made a boeuf à la Bourgingnonne (beef bourgogne) and a what a surprise it was. She had missed out the seasoning, herbs, garlic, bacon or lardons, garlic and worst of all the red wine, in fact everything that makes it what it is supposed to be. I could feel Elizabeth David rolling in her grave. The fact that we have a copy of her 'French Provincial Cooking' makes the offence even greater. With a stroke of luck Pearl'll be all cooked out and the stress that this meal had put her under will prevent her from entering the kitchen for the next month or so. Just leave it to, 'le chef cuisine. C'est moi. Naturellement'. Ol' big 'ed.

It was Lisa's birthday last Sunday but I didn't mention it. I had written a blog on Word (or the Openoffice equivalent) the Saturday but it had disappeared by the Sunday and I had forgotten what I had written (ok, I may have had a little too much red wine). It is the first time in a long time that I had lost a document on a computer and it threw me out of sinc a little. Well it was her birthday and I'd be foolish to state what age she was but spring chickens are no longer mentioned. Normally Terri and I are in cahoots as Terri reminds me and I buy a card or if we have both forgotten Terri will buy the card and I will send a message to place inside. But Terri has gone and has her own life to worry about and can no longer afford the time to worry about mine. Suffice to say that Lisa had to make do with an email this year. I did forget her Christmas card one year when we were skiing and she threw a chair from the balcony of our accommodation missing a drinker on the terrace below by a fraction and my head by slightly less. Needless to say this is not normally forgotten these days. I'm not saying she's unreasonable but ...

Lisa reckons that the engine's not working on the boat. I have confirmed from her that the bilges (after explaining exactly where the bilges were) have neither water nor oil in them and have surmised that we are out of fuel. We didn't top up before I left as I had assumed that there would be enough for Lisa's use. Seemingly not. She cannot have done anything else to it surely. Well unless she wants to fill a can with diesel and use that she'll just have to do without for the next two weeks.

We have a small sit on tractor over here which, at a conservative estimate, is at least twenty five years old. It works, but only just. It breaks down all the time and we fix it all the time. The gearbox can only engage either first or fifth gears so I am cutting grass at snails pace or at breakneck speed, cutting between trees, getting myself caught on overhanging branches and generally being thrown about. It had been a bit sickly of late so myself and Chief Bodger Number One (Ken (outlaw)) had the carburettor off to blow out the jets and wash it all in petrol. It's a long time since I've done this as modern cars aren't really designed to be repaired in this way and must be returned to the garage for the whole unit to be replaced. Not like my old Triumph Bonneville. That was a real bike. That also kept breaking down but was usually easy to fix. Not quite sure what the point of this story was but there you go.

How come after hundreds of pounds worth of research and development and hundreds of years of human hours, does the door locks, heaters and windscreen washers always give up the ghost after a couple of years on Ford cars. Just a thought.

Do you ever get the impression that this blog has lost it's way somehow?