My Dad's New Crazy Idea

My dad, as I am sure many of you out there can sympathise with, is one of those Dads who pretty much every week comes up with a new outlandish idea to solve an on going problem or tackle a big DIY project. The example my family always use to highlight this is the bird table he once built. It currently sits on a 45 degree angle and hangs off the garden fence by a few screws and a bit of rusty bracket but as my Dad says, at least it has a perch for the birds to sit on!

This always causes much amusement whenever it is brought up over meal times and things like that, but it really does typify our Dad's imagination. Another thing about my Dad is that he is a farmer. Well actually he just likes to pretend he is a farmer, really he sells fertilisers to farmers and stuff like that, and keeps a pair of wellies in his boot at all times. That kind of a farmer. However, a couple of years ago my sister suddenly decided that she wanted some chickens. So my family did the most rash thing they have ever done in their lives. We decided to get chickens.

We spent a few weekends building chicken runs (which I designed, just thought I should point that out. Why my parents trusted me to design and build a chicken run, heaven only knows) and getting everything ready for the arrival of 4 new members of the family. With me and my sister solemnly promising to look after them, and then of course not looking after them, my Dad has sort of started a farm in our garden. we now have 12 chickens, numerous vegetables growing in random corners of the garden and a greenhouse, as well as I believe 2 grape vines, with the intentions that one day they may grow enough grapes for us to actually make some wine from (it's never going to happen).

Now Farmer Dad is on the hunt for some more stuff to put in his farm... trouble is he has sort of ran out of space in the garden. Naturally he has turned to the family smallholding in the Yorkshire Dales, where we now spend our weekends and holidays... And any other free time we have...

One of the fields that belongs to my Great Uncle, sits behind 3 lovely holiday cottages which as you may or may not be aware we are currently in the stages of "doing up" slowly but surely, to the extent where we just spent our family summer holiday fitting a new kitchen. And painting windows. Standard.

Anyway this field has 3 problems: Long grass, nettles and rabbits. A lot of rabbits. Think Wallace and Gromit and then some. My Dad's solution to these problems... wait for it... Get some sheep. That is right. My Dad would like to get a to quote "small flock of sheep" (apparently they don't like being on their own, ya know, because they are highly sensitive creatures) to keep the grass down and expose the rabbits so that they all "bugger off." And these are to be kept in a field 130 miles away. Actually 131 to be exact. 

The thing is though, I may mock my Dads crazy ideas, but they are ingenious, I have to give him that. So you never know, in a year's time I could be writing a post to you from the lovely dales of Yorkshire surrounds by thousands of sheep.

The trouble with this whole thing is, is that all I will be able to sing on the journey up there is "It's Shaun the Sheep, It's Shaun the Sheep" And I don't think there is any more to that theme tune so I could be a long drive up the A1/M1/AM1/(A)(M)1/North Road Thingy...

Thanks for reading!

Follow me on twitter for further updates on the sheep... and whether my Dad has been taken to the lunatic asylum yet @peachy146

Oh Dear Cyprus

Obviously as a paper boy I manage to keep up to date with current affairs, one of those being the issue with the Cypriot banks. Just to fill you in, Angela Merkel has offered Cyrus a few billion so long as The Cyriot government take 6.75% out of everybody's bank accounts. And to top it all, the guy in charge of all of this is called Panicos.

On many levels this is wrong. And I have got quite angry and very involved in it. Not only are they taking money out of people's bank accounts, but they have closed all the banks so that people can't withdraw their money and gide underneath their matress.

To me it strikes to be just as bad if not worse, as 3rd world countries being denied aid and support where it is needs because there is a load of african prime ministers driving about in Rolls Royces with fancy palaces. But it is worse because ths is happenng in the Eurozone, our own continent is robbing innocent people of their money. And all because of the overuling German economy.

I can understand the uproar. People are being told they can't access their money and the government are going to pinch some of it while they can't even touch it. And not only that but people who have moved out their from other countries, and not only that but people serving for British forces have their money seized as well.

I think this is just another prime example of how big powers such as Germany bully little and vulnerable countries in the EU. And I think it is a very good reason for the UK to have out.

A Day In My Life 20/03/2013

Wednesday's really are a bore. Not only does it start with an early morning meeting at 8.15, but it then proceeds to further maths, more further maths and music theory. And of course today would be the day coming back after missing 2 lessons of further maths that my teacher decides to as me whether or not I copied my friend's homework. How do you say, "Well sir, yes I did" in the best possible way to a retired headteacher? "Oh and by the way Tom, I am not sure about the commitment you are showing to this subject." Yet another tricky question. How to explain politely a sickness virus.

So after my little run in I was asked by my welsh music teacher to go and fetch a drum kit from the church in the village in which the school is situated. As you do. And one thing I know is you can't say no to a welsh person. So I grab my ginger friend and off we went in Lucy, my 1968 morris minor. Plenty more to come about Lucy in the future. 

The next challenge of the day was fitting a drum kit into the back of a morris minor traveller. For those who don't know, my car is basically an old fashioned Hurse. But for dwarfs. So after retrieving said drum kit from the vestry of this very nice church we jammed it all in the boot. Then came the shopping. So my friend had asked casually in the 6th form common room if anyone wanted anything from the shop. It came out to be a list on A4 paper which we needed a basket for and in the end came to the grand sum of £17.65. For a bunch of snacks for teenagers. The manager of the local supermarket must have been rubbing his hands together.

My friend made an outstanding job of settling everyone's bills though with a colour co-ordinated highlighting system on the receipt to show who had had what. He really did not hold back with making sure everyone had paid up either! It is quite difficult shopping for other people though. Someone asked us, "Can you get me something that is reduced?" To which we responded by buying them a broken Easter egg. Well what do you expect when you send 2 lads shopping in a morris minor?

With drum it safely retrieved from the God's Holy House and the hungry 6th form room fed and watered, it was time for my lunch time to be filled with yet again more monotonous drivel about matrices and second order differential equations and implicit differentiation. And if that wasn't bad enough, how about a musical history lesson of composers from the 20th Century. And trust me, there were some awful composers in the 20th Century!

Finally home, relaxing with a cuppa and enjoying a quiet evening in... Not. Working and then teaching some poor kid the clarinet. But on the bright side, one of my friends has got a part time job working at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, as in the one that does all the Shakespeare plays. I mean that beats cycling round the village delivering people's newspapers or serving up fish a chips to a load of builders! 

Follow me on twitter: @peachy146

Adventures in Minifigures: Part 3 - Narly

"Dude.... Dude are you OK man?" The boxer's eyes blurred his surroundings and made out a fuzzy blue figure stood right in front of him. His ears felt blocked with water and his entire body stung like a swarm of wasps taken revenge on him for all the times he had trapped them inside a glass.


"I just saw a gigantor fall to his knees like a sinking ship. It was narly man, like you had been taken by the dark side or something." The boxer grumbled at the surfers apperent hippie-like excitement, trying to focus his eyes on the dusty and dimly lit surroundings. He thought back to his encounter the evening before. At least he thought the night had past, the sun appeared to be rising through eh stark cold and dankness of dawn. 


He thought he had just been dreaming. A bad dream, maybe a nightmare, granted. But it appeared to be reality. His mind flashed over the moment of contact between his hand and the guard's face several times, like a broken record. As he staggered to his feet and gritted his teeth through the pain of his bruised legs and stomach, he tried to make more logical sense of where he was. It appeared like an old ruined long lost city of the Aztec tribes or the Roman empire or something, like he had read about when he was a child. He just couldn't understand.


As his eyes cleared and the dusty and crumbling surface of the towering structures that surrounded the courtyard he found himself in came into focus, he suddenly realised: He turned to his strange companion and looked puzzled. He boomed out inquisitively in his Viking-like voice: "Why do you have a snowboard?"


The stranger just laughed, as if it was normal to walk around with a snowboard under your arm, through the wilderness that he found himself in. "I am a Snowboard Guy man!" He exclaimed through the chuckles.

Adventures in Minifigures - Part 2. The Boxer with a License to Kill

While the Royal Guard stood there pondering his role in life, a hulk like silhouette staggered proudly over the crest beyond the city and strode up the the city gate. 1 eye was blackened like soot and there were bloodied stains on his chest and gloves. His chest pushed out falsely, asserting what he had once been, while his eyes showed what he had become. 

With the storm clouds leading of in the distance, like a flock of geese, the setting sun bronzed the dilapidated walls of the city in cold winter sunlight 1 last time before it would set for a long and cold night.

The Boxer stood in front of the Guard, frozen still as a statue.The Boxer opened his crumpled mouth and uttered inquisitive words of the place which stood before him in booming words of pain and depth of knowledge deeper than the ocean. The Guard stood there is stony silence. He saw what confronted him and was puzzled by his movement and his grace. The Boxer grew impatient for an answer, and with no warning, lashed out at the Royal Guard with 1 clean and well timed punch. It hit the Guard with significant force. He just swayed backwards on his heels ever so gently, as if moved by the wind. This surprised the Boxer and he stood there with an expression somewhere between confusion and astonishment. The only response from the Guard was a tiny twitch of the nose, not noticeable to the human eye

There was a grinding rumbling noise coming for deep within the wall. The Boxer swivelled his head quickly to see a rusty and wind beaten wrought iron port cullis grumble and groan before him, before it grated against the sandstone that encased and started to rise painfully slowly upwards. 

As the Boxer stood bravely across the threshold, there was one last triumphant gush of wind which fluttered the Boxers shorts around his muscular thighs before dying away into the distant horizon which surrounded the walled city. The Boxer took in his surroundings...

Adventures in Minifigues - Part 1. The Royal Guard of Epsilon

The church bells creaked as the howling wind ripped through every damp alley way and the great gate towers at the entrance to the city moaned of old age and uncontrollable torture. The crumbling stone shivered as the biting north winds dug into it like knives and daggers. 

A figure in a blood red jacket and immaculate trousers stood at the entrance to the desolate city, next to a rotting wooden sign which read 'Epsilon.' He seemed oblivious to the awful winds that affected even the most strong and robust of buildings. Occasionally the bearskin fur on his tall Busby, but that was the only sign of life that was shown. He was still as stone.

But in his mind there was quite a chaos of thoughts. He was sick and tired of being stood there. The trouble was, he didn't know if he could move. He felt encased in concrete, like a stature on it's plinth, there for eternity. He often played imaginary chess with himself, or had a game of football. He played for the Royal Guards, while the other teams was the Beefeater. Despite the Royal Guards always winning, the Beefeaters had the most fans by a long way, and this frustrated him. Oh well, he knew he couldn't let imaginary football anger get to him, so he went to imaginary school. However, he just didn't fit in. He knew all the stuff that was being taught, and there was a lot of gaps in the stuff that he learnt there. He decided to leave at lunch time and went home to watch imaginary television. They only showed one program over and over again, on every channel, which he got bored of after a while and just stood there, lost in the deserted and ruined city which he was appointed to guard.

All the Royal Guard wanted was some company. Some living breathing flesh to take photos of him and point at him like they used to before he was relocated. I suppose he would just have live with what he had, so he flicked back to an imaginary game of tennis. It was pretty rubbish actually. His opponent couldn't even hit the ball back...

That's it until next time! Don't forget to come back for the next chapter of The Adventures in Minfigures!