On the way to work the other day, I was chatting to the bloke I give a lift to, he was telling me about a friend of his who is or was, a professional footballer and a time about 8 or 9 years ago when they were going to play in a five-a-side competition and his friend asked if a mate of his could come along. When his mate turned up, he was none other that Raheem Sterling. Strangely enough, they won the competition.
I told him about a time when I worked in Hammersmith, we used to play 4-a-side in the company gym at lunchtime and one day we turned up and there kicking a ball around was Dennis Wise, who was at that time a Chelsea player. I asked him if he wanted to join in, stressing that there was no real tackling, so he wouldn’t get injured. He agreed to play for 5 or 10 minutes, but of course he played for the whole 40 minutes!
I also told him of the time that I played for my friends company team against their Liverpool office, who were doing a UK tour. Once the game got underway I realised that their main central defender who was quite vocal and seemed to be very in charge, was none other than Mark Palios the former FA Chairman. To those who don’t know, he was a former professional whom I had seen play a number of times for Tranmere Rovers. I’m not aware that I have played unwittingly with any other professional or former professionals but the team I used to play for in our local league, for a time, had two former Luton Town players. One played for a number of years and the other who was a friend of his, played for just one season.
I have been busy planting vegetables again recently, I’ve planted a crop of potatoes at home and also I’ve planted a load at my Dad’s. He has a raised bed, which currently has about 20 Onions that are coming on nicely and some Leeks that will probably need harvesting fairly soon. I must say, my leeks at my dad’s are growing much better than the ones that I have at home. Also, the Swiss chard at my dad’s is coming through again, whereas at my house, the sparrows have absolutely ravaged all of it. My onions my Garlic at home are coming on steadily.
I’m trying to grow carrots, radishes, beetroot and spring onions from seed. I have grown them all before, usually with a degree of success, but the seeds that I have sown are a couple of years old, so I won’t be shocked if not a lot grows. Of course a lot depends on how often I remember to water and feed them. I have also bought a pepper plant. Last year I managed to grow a few peppers from the seeds of peppers that we had had in our fridge. They weren’t very big but they were edible, so I figured that if I got a plant that I might be able to grow something slightly larger and more like you buy in the shops. I’ve also done a bag of very sprouting New Potatoes from the kitchen and they seem to be coming on nicely.
The other day, whilst my wife was browsing Google Maps, there in the middle of the map was a label for Pirton Motte and Bailey Castle. Clearly she had no idea that the village of Pirton in Hertfordshire had ever had a Castle. I told her that I had actually been there. She hovered over the label and a picture came up and she in a very sarcastic tone said ‘Wow!’ I did try to explain that obviously the Motte is just the Moat around the castle and the Bailey is the mound on which the castle was built and being so old the Bailey would have been built of wood and as such it would have disappeared long ago.
I then went on to show her another 4 or 5 castles close by that she was also unaware of and I then told her that I have visited all but one of the castle sites in Bedfordshire (I have since corrected that to 2 sites and strangely enough we went past one of them whilst out for a drive on Bank Holiday Monday).
I didn’t improve my standing with her by telling her about a Bartholomew’s Map of the British Isles – Castles and Palaces, that I have. In a very mocking tone she asked if I had a sticker on all the ones that I had been to. I said no, but that had been the intention when I got it (I was about 10 at the time).
I have left her in the car on a couple of occasions (her choice, as she has little interest in them) whilst I went to look at and photograph a castle site.
Now of course I need to dig out the map and start sticking stickers on it!
Skip finds! Now there’s an interesting thing. I am renowned in my family for ‘having things up my sleeve’, things that I have picked up from various places, things that people have discarded, things that I’ve spotted in Charity and second hand shops.
Well the other day whilst at work, I spotted a TV lying on top of a skip, everyone looked at it and thought the screen was broken, I said that’s just where it’s rained on it a bit, that will be ok. So I put it in the van and took it home, a nice 42” Panasonic.
Got it into the garage, plugged a DVD player into the back of it and switched it on. Works a treat; I think that it had been chucked out because the on/off switch is very sensitive, but if you switch it on with the switch and then off with the remote it is fine, not that I had the remote. I did have to go back the following day, so whilst I was there I looked to see if I could spot it in the skip but I couldn’t, so I bought one online for £6, arrived 2 days later and does the job fine.
This does of course mean leaving it on standby, but the plan is to give it to my dad, as his TV is playing up a bit at the minute (another discarded set, that I got a few years ago). Unfortunately the holes on the back don’t line up with his wall bracket, so I will have to buy extenders for it, or I could have it myself and give him the one I use in my loft room.