nigelburch.wordpress.com for drag racing related comments and pictures.

The Kitchen is finished!!

The kitchen is officially finished!!

It has taken the best part of 5 months, but three weeks last Tuesday the new kitchen was declared finished and open for business. It has been a bit of a learning curve but we have got there and it was worth the wait, we will be having a kitchen warming party in the next few weeks to celebrate.

Busy times

We have just returned from two busy weekends, weekend of the 20th and 21st, we went to the wedding of my cousin Gordens oldest daughter Wendy, just outside Farnham.
We had an excellent weekend, staying as guests of Angela and Ben, Gill and Angela grew up together in Thailand and have remained in touch ever since. Ben is a fellow petrol head, used to drag race in the States in his youth, even owning his own speedshop at one point!
Weekend just gone we went to London to see BB King at Wembley Arena with friends Trevor and Sue.
Gill and I went down on Saturday and fought our way from Wembley to Richmond (two and three quarter hours!) to see Gill's friend Barbie, another longstanding friend from South African days.
Had lunch with Barbie, got back to the hotel just as the heavens opened on Saturday evening.
Trevor and Sue came up on Sunday morning, Trevor having returned from the States on Saturday afternoon after being delayed at JFK for seven and a half hours, put our problems on the tube into perspective!!
Great concert at Wembley Arena, BB King was supprted by John Mayell's Blues Breakers, but BB was the star, 83 years old, on stage for 2 hours and then after the last song, put his hat and coat on, waved goodbye and left. Brilliant!
Came back yesterday morning, back into work today where the A/C broke down after 5 minutes and they cannot come and look at it until tomorrow.
Joy.

Election night

Having done the job of poll clerk at the last District Council elections, I decided that this time, for the County and European elections, I would like to be a counting assistant to see the other side of the democratic process. I arrived at the South Holland Centre in Spalding just after 21.30 hrs and took my place at one of the tables. Nothing much happened until around 22.30 when the first of the ballot boxes started to arrive, and the first job was to verify the returns, in other words make sure that there were the number of voting slips in the box that the presiding officer had declared. I thought that this would be a mere formality before we got on to the real work of counting votes. Wrong. We finished verifying just after 03.00hrs! The counting itself was a much quicker process, that said, it was 05.30 hrs before I got home, too late to go to bed and be back in the office for 07,45, so I did a few jobs and was back in the office at 07.30.

I must say that unlike being a poll clerk, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and will definitely volunteer again, might be as soon as October, who knows!

What fun

Here is another bird picture taken on the bow of our boat last week on the Broads, the Herons were so tame, we saw one on another boat, perched on the bow rail like this one, ride all the way across one of the broads, he must have been on there for at least 10 minutes, easier than flying I suppose?

Electioneering seems to be crawling to a minor crecendo here in rural Whaplode, the BNP were first into our letterbox, and also first into the rubbish bin, there is a real danger that they could make inroads this time. I do hope people are sensible and do not let the MP's expenses crisis, scandal though it is, tempt them to start voting outside the main three parties. Voting for the also rans who really do not have much of an idea about politics, but hey, sounds like fun, will simply waste votes and give the less than ideal mob a foothold. My opinion only, by the way!

Norfolk Broads

I have just returned from a week on the Norfolk Broads with friends Scott and Di, unfortunately Gill was not well enough to go, she had inherited the cold that had kept me off work for most of the previous week.

The weather was reasonably good, sunshine and showers, but never stopped us from doing what we wanted to do.

There was not as much wildlife as I had hoped, although we were lucky enough to see an otter, first I have ever seen, but did not manage to get a picture.

I did however, manage to get a picture of a coot with the strangest feet, he came and perched on the dinghy I guess they help him paddle faster!

Back to work this week, only 114 emails yesterday morning, so back to reality.

Mr P

Andrew Petcher has mentioned on his blog 'Have bag, will travel' how he nearly sideswiped a pheasant over the weekend, and asks the question how could anyone shoot such a magnificent bird?

This reminded me of January last year when for two or three weeks, when I went out to the car in the morning, this beautiful cock pheasant was waiting for me, he was so tame I could almost touch him. They really do have the most striking plumage, and I managed to get some close up pictures of him which I think you will agree, show him off at his best.

We called him Mr P, and he is still hanging around the garden now, but somewhere along the line last year he injured his leg, so he now hops along like Long John Silver without a crutch, but at least we know it is him! Click on the pictures to see a bigger image.