Bilbo Cruise.

Years ago I caused consternation in the mind of a previous wife after perusing a copy of Premiere magazine & suddenly announcing (true) that someone was planning a movie based on the Bridges of Madison County - a favourite of Mrs Llew #1.

She asked "Do they say who is going to be in it?"

Quite offhand, and untruthfully I replied "It says they're rewriting it to suit Tom Cruise."

Later, as she was sealing the envelope with the torrid words of profanity to the studio in question, I had to admit that I was fibbing. I can happily report that the news that Clint Eastwood would star met with tentative approval at least. By now she wasn't prepared to believe me when I said it was being rewritten to include a gunfight & car chase so that Clint felt comfortable with the script.

But anyway. Here's my prediction for the Hobbit film, should Sir Peter Jackson not make the cut.

Bilbo Baggins - Tom Cruise - I figure they can save on the special effects to make him small, especially when paired with

Gandalf - Clint Eastwood

Elrond - Morgan Freeman - it's written in Clint's contract these days, that Freeman has to play his best friend in every movie he's in.

Pingepoo - Katie Holmes - Elrond's other daughter, who develops a crush on Bilbo

Smaug - Andy Serkis, in a nod to Jackson.

Just my thoughts - take 'em or leave 'em.

ReelThoughts

Mission Accomplished!

After several days of phone calls to some reticent guy called Richard in Waikanae, the deal was struck. 2 ewes & two ewe lambs (it's important they are ewe lambs, as rams are bigger & harder to handle, and need "things" done to them so that I don't have even more lambs next year & end up REALLY overstocked). All I needed to do was hoof it up the coast, give him a call when I was 30 minutes away, hire a trailer & meet him at the farm.

So I did. I'd spent the evening before loading up the car with stuff to take up to SunnyO for Christmas, then I unloaded it again because I'd forgotten to put our removeable towbar on & it's in a cunning hidey-hole underneath the baggage area, put the towbar on, locked it in place & loaded up the car with: a punga fern that was cut down & has recovered enough that we will replant it, a big wicker basket, a segment of telephone pole (long story, it will be useful for something), a few odds & ends from the basement that are no use in kelburn, but will be in more rural climes, and a truckload of new bedding.

The next day I left work at 12.30pm, ran a few errands, whizzed back home to change into farming gear (so as to not look like some city wuss when I met Richard), picked up the dog (more rural cred), and sped North.

At Paraparumu I spied the perfect trailer. I hired it. Then I discovered that it wouldn't fit on the towbar the dealer assured me was standard when we bought the car - hey, the bike rack fits OK what gives?. I got a refund & shot round to the hire centre the garage recommended to discover they didn't have any trailers that fit a 2 inch (as opposed to 1.7/8 inch standard) either.

Then I decided, "Bugger it" if necessary I'd load them in the back of the car & stuff all the baggage, & dog in the front seat with me & hope that either they could all hold their bladders & bowels for the short trip, or that the tarpaulin I laid down would save the interior.

Just in case I stopped at every garage between there & Waikanae & asked if they had a trailer that would fit.

And LO! The Waikanae BP did. SO I was saved.

When I met Richard, after passing the farm & doing a very impressive 3 point turn with a trailer on a rural road... he said that I had a choice - 2 ewes & two lambs, or 2 ewes, and 3 lambs... he had one with twins.

I hummed & hahhed - I don't want to overstock the place as I mentioned, but Mrs Llew had offered that in case the two wethers die of old age soon, I should consider getting 5 new sheep, so I said "OK". After all he was offering them for the same price as 4.













I had to grab the first ewe & heave her off the trailer. Her two lambs hurled themselves off after her & buried themselves underneath her, their little tails wagging madly.

Say what? Tails? I hadn't noticed that, they're supposed to be docked. And then on closer inspection I realised "OHMIGOD! The two "T"s! Tails & Testicles!" That bastard Richard had sold me a couple of ram lambs, & I can see why they were cheap, it saved him having to do "things" to them to make the "wethers".

But rejoice, I rang our shearer & explained the situation, he said "No problem" he'd visit & do those "things" to them & all would be well.

I don't intend to watch, but hey, this is NZ, rams lose their knackers every day & seem none the worse for it.

Later, I ran into a neighbour, Mary, whose husband is Master Tim (my fencing master - Anthony Hopkins to my Zorro - lots about them way back at the beginning of this blog), she had already noted (ex farm wife that she is) the two "T"s, and suggested that Tim might pop over later & do "things" with his teeth. I politely declined the offer & told her Alan the shearer was onto it. I'm presuming Alan uses approved implements for the task. We're trying for "humane" around these parts.





The new kids got themselves accustomed to their new home, but the old guys, George & Otto were nowhere to be seen. They were of course, holed up in the forest. Although they knew something was up because at one stage I saw them peering through the fence at the new arrivals.

So I went & chased them out. They were curious, but nervous. They sneaked up on the two ewes & sniffed at the back of them, as animals do, then ran off when they turned around. But stayed fairly close. I guess it's the storming phase for the new team.











Last I saw of them all, they were heading up into the forest to explore the rest of the property.

Wilma & I left them to it & headed back to Waikanae to return the trailer.

Bagpipes - a cruel joke on the Scots?

Right, before I start... off on a tangent... over at PA System they're looking for the Word of the Year. Bagpipes isn't it, but don't you think that just the sound of it evokes... I dunno, something Heath Robinson? something suffering chronic emphysema? something that ate the perishable bits & someone had to compose Silent Night? Or maybe not.

Anyway, I loathe bagpipes. I have long suspected that bagpipes, like kilts, were an elaborate practical joke played on the Scots by the English, in revenge for the Scots being a troublesome & pugnacious bunch (ie, by standing up to them). While we're on that - click through that link & notice how William Wallace looked nothing like Mel Gibson. Astonishing isn't it? Further, the real Wallace was a giant of a man, Mel is er... well he probably looks up to Tom Cruise.

William Wallace would not have worn a kilt & played the bagpipes. (Disclaimer - I have no idea if that is true, but it should be).

Until quite recently today there was one wailing away outside Astoria, 4 storeys down from where I am sitting. Mercifully, he has gone now. Can we not get some law enacted to restrict them to Highland Games in the provinces?

I'm keen to hear John Key's views on this.

Bagpipes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Voter seeks someone to vote for.

You can only have some sympathy for the dilemma the true conservative is facing right now.

Voter seeks someone to vote for. «

Might I suggest the Maori Party?

BTW: Great cartoon in yesterday's DomPost

New Sheep

Yay! Some guy not far away is selling about 500 sheep - ewes & ewe lambs (which either means there is something in the water/pasture affecting the birth of boy sheeps... or something medieval has happened to them. I'm guessing the latter.)

Anyway, I'm down for two ewes & two lambs. I made sure the property was lamb proof the other day. Now I just have to figure out how to get them between Waikanae & SunnyO. I don't think Mrs Llew will be happy for me to cram them in the back seat of the llewmobile.

In the nick of time too - the two lonely old gents on the property are nowhere near keeping up with pasture growth... it's a jungle out there.

Will wonders never cease!!

Jerry Bruckheimer & Tony Scott have made a decent film!!

Review: Deja Vu

In less surprising news, Casino Royale is apparently terrific.

First Annual Wellingtonista Awards Voting | the wellingtonista

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of sheep--and skips--and selling-houses--
Of Wellingtonista Awards--and things--

I've been remiss sorry - busy. Remiss not just here, but over at the Wellingtonista, at where I am rumoured to be a valued member. I can't recall when I last posted though...

Anyway, get on over there & cast your vote in the First Annual Wellingtonista Awards. There will be prizes. There will be ceremony... there will be martinis... there will be buffed & scantily clad beautiful people...

First Annual Wellingtonista Awards Voting | the wellingtonista

On a more sombre note, I got a call last night from Master Tim at SunnyO, another sheep has died, the last remaining ewe, Pearl. Like the other two who lay down & died over the last two years, she just laid down & died. Fine one evening, dead in the morning.

These sheep are quite old now, as far as I can tell (about 8), so I guess it's to be expected. Although I believe they CAN live much longer. I do find it slightly odd that all the girls popped their clogs first, we've got the two boys left now, George & Otto.

I'll call the local vet & ask if there's anything weird happening with sheep in the area, but I really do suspect that they've gone of natural causes - they're well fed, sheltered, recently sheared & drenched, have shown no signs of the usual ailments that kill sheep.

Anyway... We need 3 or 4 new sheep to keep our two old boys company. Anyone know of anyone with 3 or 4 youngish (at least 1 year old) ewes (they're slightly smaller, less belligerent & easier to handle than the wethers) that need a new home? In the Kapiti Coast area?

Onto other things now - we finally sold our surplus house in town. Yay!! I have resolved never to be a landlord again, too many houses to maintain takes its toll.

We had the place "homestaged", that is, furnished while vacant, because the estate agent assured us that makes for a quicker sale.

They did a brilliant job - after the tenants moved out we were a bit despondent at the state of the place, not that they damaged it in any way (aside from a big stain on the carpet), it just looked run down & grubby, which is a testament to my neglect as much as anything the tenants did or didn't do. And we had a slight plumbing problem that necessitated some repair & relining of the laundry, and replacing the rotted laundry tub.

Once we'd cleaned it though, and had bits fixed, and furnished, the difference was remarkable. It was transformed from a student flat to an executive home!

And the homestaging was fantastic, Sally, has a wonderful eye, and supplied not just furniture, but flowers, soap, towels, fruit, paintings, rugs...

We briefly discussed staying there for a few days to enjoy it.

And it sold quickly, for a fair price, and we are content. And so is our bank.

On the actual real homefront news... we engaged two huge tasks last weekend - I had 6 metres of compost delivered kerbside, for our new garden beneath & beside our newish cardeck, and the same day, had a massive skip rolled in so that we could empty our large basement of junk.

By Sunday evening, the skip was filled completely, and about 5 metres of compost was lugged to its resting place and our new garden planted out with box hedge & roses. We'd planted the weeping pear some time before & can report she is doing well.

Monday & Tuesday I could hardly move. But it's gotta be good for you right?

Interestingly, I can see that even though the skip is bursting at the seams, neighbours are sneaking their rubbish onto it hoping that we won't notice. Although last night, I was at the gate, quietly watching some guy with a bag circling our skip, I thought he was looking for someplace to stow his bag. But in fact, he was sizing up some of our junk, which he extracted, smiled contentedly, turned & went to walk away with his treasure. He saw me then, didn't blink an eye, and so I said "Help yourself!".

But now I can report that we have a most impressive & roomy basement, there is still some stuff to go, firewood for instance, which we will donate to the next door neighbours who have a fire, some terracotta pots, huge!, which we have argued about - I see no reason why they cannot be utilised somewhere in our garden, Mrs Llew sees no reason why they cannot be perched on top of the pile of rubbish for removal. And a very old bicycle. Which I haven't dragged out yet, it looks like something from WWII, or one of those old UK period TV series, you can imagine Francesca Annis biking all around Somerset or someplace.

But then I suppose I imagine Francesca Annis doing lots of things.

That bike would make a wonderful project for some kid who enjoys tinkering with, and renovating old bikes. Yeah. Right. Mrs Llew will certainly disagree, but I reckon it could make a marvellous & remarkable climbing frame for some decorative plant, somewhere in the garden. Either that, or mounted on a swivelling pole, it'd make a great & notable weather vane. I'll take sensible suggestions.

And that reminds me of something irrelevant, but something I was thinking about the other day, something that a lecturer told us when I was studying Tess of the D'Urbervilles. And that is, how the invention of the bicycle was a major turning point in the evolution of society - it brought affordable transport to the masses, those who couldn't afford horses & carts. Suddenly people could travel beyond the boundaries of their villages. They could conduct business, socialise, marry beyond the confines of their immediate family... etc etc.

Fascinating eh?

That's what I call driftwood.

Unconfirmed rumour has it that Tom Hanks' stranded Fed-Ex troubleshooter in Castaway built his makeshift reaft from driftwood washed up on Otaki Beach.

Whether that's true or not, Otaki sure has its share of mulch, wood, planks, logs, and as you can see, whole trees washing up. It's usually worse after a big storm.

This one takes the cake though, we saw it from miles away & had to go investigate. It's taken with the phone, so not the best images, but if you look carefully you can spot a happy dog checking it out, and get some idea of the size of the thing.

I have wondered in the past just how such large trees get washed so far up the beach, and this one strains credibility.

There's a fair amount of water traffic off the beach, swimmers. surfers, kayakers, fishing boats, and inflatable dinghies... I wonder how many encounter submerged objects like this?

Check this out!

I want one too.

Grabthar's Hammer: Tiki-Tiki

Although if you click through to the Stuff article, that looks disconcertingly lke Jenny Shipley in that tub to me.

The worst ever kids' TV show

Sorry, there's something amiss with the Public Address site, where I would direct you to David Haywood's scholarly thoughts on the best kids' TV shows ever. I recommend you check out his links to legendary footage of moonbabe Gabrielle Drake changing her clothes in a cut from Sylvia & Gerry Anderson's UFO.

I'll toss the link up later (done), but meanwhile, here's my pick for the WORST kids' TV show ever.

D o u b l e D e c k e r s

Apparently this was a US/UK collaboration, and depending on which fan site you visit, it was either a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic; or a major hit in the UK, but failed to fire in the US. Alternatively you have come here, and you can take it from me that the show would have sucked from wherever you viewed it.

It featured seven ethnically & physically diverse, all singing, all dancing, London poppets who have a clubhouse in an old double decker bus.

The double deckers were led by Scooper, played by Peter Firth, who went on to achieve a few years of fame later in his career. And the show was, I think, an attempt to cash in on the success of the Partridge Family.

I cannpt even think of the theme music without coming over nauseous...

Get on board! Get on board!
Come and join the Double Deckers.
Take a ticket for a journey,
On our double decker London bus.
Ring the bell (ding! ding!),
Toot the horn (honk! honk!),
When you ride with the Double Deckers.
Fun and laughter is what we're after,
On our double double double decker bus.

If David Haywood nostalgically opines that they don't make 'em like they used to... the Double Deckers will make you feel glad.

What the test post was about

Clarification as promised... I was just posting to see how quickly this site popped up in the "Last Post" feed at the brand new Public Address System.

And either it didn't, or I missed it. Oh well.

But go & take a look, it's Public Address Interactive, everyone's there already, probably you as well.

Public Address | System

test post

Heh heh... clarification later. SO I may as well ramble a bit.

you know what? I was told off for trying to reaffix the big Beware of the Dog sign to our gate last night & forced to visit a local shop & stock up on junk food for visiting... kids.

As it happened all we got was one group of really young-uns & their olds, who got an assortment of really bad things for their optimistically large sacks (I dunno, I had a bunch of raw carrots, potatoes & parsnips all peeled & cut up & soaking in lemon infused water & no-one, NO-ONE wanted them. Kids these days.

Anyway, I happened to be out walking the aforementioned Hound of the Llewervilles (my family name) when they came & I got a frantic call from Mrs Llewerville, "Artichoke!" (my given name) she screamed "I fear we may run out of things to give kids!"

"Never fear Tantula", I said "When we're down to the last few barrels of airplanes I'll make a run to the shops again."

And I carried on my way.

When I got home, some 3 hours later, I found that there had been no more kids at all, and we still had some 50 kilos of fruit bursts, airplanes & snickers sitting just inside the front door.

Later, another bunch of kids did arrive, led by our very own 14 year old, Marmalade, she announced she would be late for dinner, but not to worry, she was already feeling sick.

And they swanned off into the night, a motley bunch of adolescent M&Ms, superheroes, ghosts and god knows what the rest were.

in my day, in the old country, we didn't Trick or Treat, we stayed at home, the 2nd to last house in a cul de sac bordered by a disused canal on one side, and spooky woods on the other. We dunked for apples & shit like that & watched my dad roast chestnuts on the open fire.

In fact, I recall one of those moments you get now & then, when something really painful happens to someone & you really want to just burst out laughing but you have to choke it back because there is actual agonising pain involved.

Have I told this story already?

Anyway, if you have roasted chestnuts, you know that they're not done until they pop.

Well, all my dad's chestnuts popped except for one, so he fished it out of the fire with tongs, and carefully used his teeth to try & hurry it along.

And it popped.

And it was days before the blistering died down & he could talk properly again.

End of ramble. There was something else I meant to mention, but it's gone now. SO later dudes!

BTW: Some kid left us with this - what do you call a snail? A booger with a crash helmet.

Some Day My loooooove....

We'll meet again someday.....

Or something. It's Lara's Theme. Possibly.

Look, I get needled for dancing provocatively around the house singing

"I've got a sexy back.... YEAH!

take it to the fridge..."

That's what he says right?

Anyway, for the last week or so I've been putting on my best faux tenor & bursting forth with "Some day my loooove...." etc.

Because we watched, for the first time ever, Dr Zhivago.

And I don't know if you've seen it, but it was the David Lean version with Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guiness & Geraldine Chaplin, amongst others. Oh, and a young Klaus Kinski has a small role as a mad-as-a-snake intellectual. No surprises there.

Sharif is the good doctor/poet Yuri Zhivago (Zhivago is, apparently, the Russian word for "life"). Guinness is Zhivago's brother, a Bolshevik general, he provides the framing device for the film, telling the story of Zhivago & Lara to Rita Tushingham, who he believes is his niece - ie, their child.

Set against the end of World War 1, and the Russian Revolution & civil war, Zhivago is the story of a doomed love between two people married to others, and the vicissitudes suffered by them due to circumstance & war. There is much more, much, much more.

Unfortunately, the version we saw was almost devoid of colour. Not the restored print touted in the picture above.

But that aside, there were some moments of rare beauty, such as when Zhivago scares a pack of wolves who are congregated outside the frozen house (above) he & Lara are sheltering in, in an unbelievably beautiful frozen wasteland. Maybe it's the dog lover in me. I wondered where they were going to eat. Or who.

I wasn't overly impressed with the film in the end. Christie is pretty hot to look at, but about as cold in presence as the Russian Winter. Sharif is OK. Wherever they filmed it stands in very attractively for sundry parts of Russia.

Interestingly, Tom Courtenay's character in the movie (Lara's husband) is based loosely on Leon Trotsky, which I'm told wasn't the case in the book. But there's the armoured train racing all around bolstering the Red Army. And once his character is gone, Lara & Zhivago lose a degree of protection, it seems that his possibly subversive poems have not gone unnoticed by the party, and it is only because she is Strelnikov's wife, even though for much of the movie she believes him dead, that they're allowed their freedom.

Although I have a slight logic problem with that - Lara & Zhivago are "protected" because she's married to a Bolshevik general, so why aren't they just as protected because his brother is ALSO a Bolshevik general? A lot f Bolshevik generals in this movie.

And the music! Look, half way through I was thinking "They're over using this overblown music.". Every time we see Christie, Lara's theme swells into your consciousness... and then every time she & Zhivago have been parted by some event, the theme gets cranked up to 11 so that you know just how tragic & heartrending this is.

And bloody hell, they get parted a lot.

But despite that, and despite my ambivalence to the movie as a whole... that theme has stuck with me all this week. No wonder it sold millions of records at the time.

Note: mercifully no-one sings the lyrics at all before, during, or after.

So. There're my scattershot thoughts on Dr Zhivago, really stick with Lean's Lawrence of Arabia for the real oil.

Meanwhile, in deference to the day & date, today's random link is to David Haywood's musings, last year, on Halloween.

Me? I'm going home early to re-affix the Beware of the Dog sign to our gate, the one with the picture of the rabid looking, drooling rottweiler. That usually ensures a quiet Halloween.

Public Address | Speaker

Health Warning

Just reading this article on Stuff may cause diabetes.

Latest fast food fad - Deep fried Coke.

An unlikely couple?

I'm not technically savvy enough to copy the picture in question, so you're going to have to click here... and scroll to picture number 42.

Well? Who does it look like to you?

Magnum Photos - marathon06

Hat tip to David Slack for pointing me to these photos. I reckon the guy might be Witi Ihimaera, David thinks it might be Kofi Anan.

I guess there's an outside chance it's Morgan Freeman.

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir has a blog

We're fans of all things Rebekka at the moment, and to those to whom I mentioned the (sheep's) eyeball eating scene in the marvelous movie Cold Fever...

...it seems they really do it. Nice.

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir

Time for a TV review or two.

I’ve had my sport in the past with Logan & Brown & their Grillslinger™ and I’ve even had their supporters come & tell me off for it. And truth be told, I’m coming around to the Grillslinger™ idea. I think the tools themselves are marvellous, but the belt puts me off. It’s a bit like when I bought a massive sack of Eukanuba™ dog food & it came with a free bum bag & dog walking accessories. I love my free stuff, and Eukanuba™ have been very generous in the past, I have a free Eukanuba ™ travel pet bowl, a free Eukanuba™ self filling water bowl (with a European hose connector so that it doesn’t work in NZ, free Eukanuba™ doggy doo bags & on board carrier. And all sorts of stuff. And so I was really pleased with my free Eukanuba™ bum bag, with water bottle, another free travel bowl, and sundry clips to attach other stuff to. And a bum bag is a great idea in Summer, there is a lot of stuff to carry when walking a dog, during Winter I have loads of jackets & pants & pockets, and carabinas & the like.

And so I swanned around in my bum bag for a while, and several weeks later I realised that the drink bottle was for the dog, not me, hence the travel bowl. And then I had an epiphany of sorts, I realised that the Eukanuba ™ bumbag & accessories was all a bit CHiPs. So I stowed it in the cupboard.

Anyway, Logan & Brown… Logie & Brownie…

Did you all catch their TV series Hunger for the Wild? It was appointment viewing. Although I missed two of them & hope they repeat them (sorry, I mean encore them).

If you missed it, basically the boys, Blokie & Roundie… would head into the wipwops each week in a magnificent old car of some sort, with a wine cellar in the boot, truss up a local & have them take them to where the whitebait/crayfish/wild pigs/flounder et al hang out, show them how to catch dinner & then hoof it back to base where Roundie prepared a magnificent feast, all the while sporting his Grillslinger™ slung manfully around his hips.

And these two are just so charming & irrepressible that it’s impossible not to enjoy the show thoroughly & salivate over the food.

So guys, sorry about the Grillsinger™ jibes. I look forward to season 2.

And from quintessential blokes, we move on to The L Word.

Heh heh… Watched this last might. Mrs Llew spotted it was on & she’d been advised that it is solid viewing, plus, she’d heard that Jennifer Beals starred, and she is a huge Flashdance fan. I was sceptical, but as the credits rolled I noted that the ensemble cast also includes the fabulous Mia Kirshner, who you may recall from the marvellous Atom Egoyan film Exotica, and possibly from the very first episode ever of 24, in which she played the hot airline passenger who abruptly killed a flight attendant, then sky dived to safety just before a bomb detonated killing everyone on board. Wottagal.

Anyway, Mia is the straight chick who's moved into an LA neighbourhood populated by lesbian supermodels. She is then tempted away from her straight boyfriend by the stunning dyke café owner Marina, played by the stunning Karina Lombard, who we really should see more of, and we probably will.

It’s got nudity, sex, profanity, drug use. Man, I’m in! During the party scene, which featured lots of very attractive women making out, Mrs Llew nudged me & asked “How’d you like to be at a party like that?”

Since we have a few lesbian acquaintances, only one of whom is remotely attractive (I will admit that I’ve known her for decades & she really is beautiful), my reply was “But in real life they’d all look like Gerry Brownlee.”

A thought that spoiled the moment.

So anyway, the L Word, a glossy soap, with improbably beautiful lesbians.

I’ll keep you posted.

Exotica (1994)

may i have your attention please!

Please sign the petition.

No. Not that one (although by all means sign that one too, I'm told I have already). But then again, some very notable people have signed that one.

I mean this petition - "Stöðvum Kristján Loftsson!"

In essence... Save the Whales! Send a message to the Icelandic government.

may i have your attention please! on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

More loss

Lookie here, we came across an old friend last week...

The neighbourhood's been targetted by a diverse range of taggers recently. One strike that amuses me is that on the truck owned by a neighbour, no idea what it says or represents, but it is emblazoned in flourescent green right across the side of his truck.

I don't care because this neighbour is the cause of pretty much all the competition for parking spaces in our cul de sac. And not that it matters to us anymore, we've got off street parking now, and not before time, because this guy just went & bought himself a new truck, to supplement the fleet he already owns & parks in our street. He's got two trucks now, real big ones, and two very large vans.

he's also got two double garages, but they're so full of junk he can't park anything in them. The trucks wouldn't fit anyway.

I used to consider that this guy was part of what I called Team Landlord, there used to be two or three of them, they own a lot of houses in the vicinity and they tend to congregate outside all dressed in orange overalls.

And then recently, yesterday in fact, I realised that he & he alone is Team Landlord, the other guys were just going about their business & this guy was just being nosey & taking up their time.

Because that's what he does to everyone. Just as well we weren't paying our builders by the hour because I know that Team Landlord knows everything there is to know about every one of them. And their extended families. And possibly all their friends.

He is ever vigilant, and to be honest, I'm glad we have a large dog with a (very) loud & gruff bark, because the previous owner of our house came home one night to find Team Landlord snooping around her back garden. We know what he was looking for, we still have it.

He's lived in the same place all his life I think, which is about 4 doors up from us. Or he possibly started life next door to that, because that's where his parents live now.

Anyway, he's a curse. He also parks & reparks his fleet at around 4.30am each morning.

SunnyO: What are we to make of this loss?

This just in...

Today's random Blog This link is the flickr page of a gorgeous person from Iceland. Well worth a browse, some amazing photos here.

Flickr: Photos from _rebekka