Gardening Achilles Snails Headphones

From the Facebook Archives, some very early ones.

7 May 2009 at 16:45

I’ve spent the afternoon gardening.

Ms Exlibris  So have I.  I know it is good for the budget and environment etc etc but I find it really boring!!

Bentonbag  I quite like getting my hands dirty - reminds me of playing mud pies when I was a kid.  It's hoovering and dusting that bores me (on those rare occasions I actually feel guilty 

enough to do it)

7 May 2010 at 20:08

I’ve rendered Fester speechless.   

My Achilles tendon, which has been niggling for weeks, suddenly got really painful when I turned my foot on a bit of gravel getting the bin in.   

Really painful calf.   

Himself prescribed heat and rest, so I asked how I could rest from doing bugger all.  

He had no reply for several minutes.

7 May 2018 at 23:28  No snailsout tonight, but there are 8 frogs in the pond.

7 May 2021 at 19:19

With Ferretfingers away I can listen to the tv without headphones so I'm off until tomorrow .

Paddington  Enjoy the noise.

 

 

 

Stephen

For some reason I’ve never called Fester or his brother by the shortened form of their first names, although friends always do.   

“Like me mother” Fester once remarked..   

I met George Whitegoods on the same evening as I first encountered Fester in early December 1979.

The third verse was actually written this morning, when I went to the loo thinking about our visits to Sheffield and decided that there was something missing and incomplete about leaving those feelings out.  It also explains why I was cross with 'little brother' for quite some time. 

From Facebook Archives

6 May 2023 at 20.14

Looking for something else I found, like you do, this poem about Steve (Fester’s little brother) which I wrote on 31 January 2014 (possibly after a conversation with George Whitegoods).  

I've read it out to Fester who says "it doesn't go far enough".   

Those who knew him might appreciate it...

STEPHEN

No more “pints for looking at purposes”

No more “I don’t talk like that”

No more of us sending postcards “just to keep in touch”

No more coffee made in a plastic jug.

We’ve finished his Tupperware boxes of coffee beans,

And the twenty three tubes of prawn cheese spread,

And the money he saved for his retirement

Is refurbishing our kitchen instead.

 

No more visits walking on eggshells

No more biting my lip at remarks 

No more mocking correction of childish impediments

When any speech was so sparse. 

His nephews might be missing their uncle

But they should be used to that by now

He showed no interest in them in life

No gifts, no cards, no “how?”

No curiosity shown to us at least.

Then well after the funeral

Finally expressing my exasperation to a friend

He replied “But he talked about them all the time

It was my child he had no time for”

So why did he extol her virtues to me?

Contrary bastard.

See also 

https://bentonbag.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-friend-in-need.html

https://bentonbag.blogspot.com/2021/06/driven-to-drink.html

https://bentonbag.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-aftermath.html

 

All Is Pure To The Pure

... as Henffrind’s mother used to say, so if you get the references you shouldn’t be shocked by them.

From Facebook Archives

5 May 2025 at 13.27

There's a drip under the sink.

I've put the mop bucket under it and moved the veg rack to where the mop bucket was and generally shifted the under-sink contents about.

I've just spent 5 minutes explaining what is where to himself.

Will Fixit is coming to look at it tomorrow.

Drummerman  I thought you were starting a limerick at first…

Bentonbag  Feel free to finish it.

Bazoukiboy  But the plumber was from Nantucket...

Drummerman  So how does the pheasant fit?

Bazoukiboy  The peasant's pleasant Pheasant?

Drummermant “It’s what the engineer told me before he died”…

Bentonbag  Did he come down from Inverness?

Drummerman Not sure, but he can tell you a tale or two…

Bentonbag  About the good ship Venus?

 

Serendipity and Elastic Shortage

Happy Star Wars Day.

From Facebook Archives

4 May 2020

Turned everything off and went downstairs to do the dishes, leaving my mobile on the bedside table. 

Fester appears in the kitchen holding it before him like some explosive device saying 

"I don't know, it had Peter Ceylon on it before I pressed something and it went off."   

There's only one Peter Ceylon on my mobile address book so I phoned him.  He was one of the inhabitants of 16E Richardson Rd but he's so shy he never phones anyone.  But we did have a lovely long chat.

4 May 2020 at 22.23

Squireen, and other Heatonites, do you know if Sainsbury's sell elastic, and if so whereabouts would I find it?

The Squireen  If they do it will be at the end of an aisle..

Bentonbag  I thought so but there's a lot of aisles.  I know whereabouts to find them in Tesco Norham Rd but don't fancy the drive.

The Squireen  Have a change of shop easy to get to now there are traffic lights on the coast road junction.

Bentonbag  It's not me - it's Thunderthighs. I used to go to Tesco with Ferretfingers after Flower Arranging but the broken ankle and present unpleasantness has put an end to that.

The Squireen  Why elastic anyway?

Bentonbag Doll's knickers

The Squireen  Ah. I may have some bits.  I will look tomorrow text me to remind me

Pink Shipskitchen  There's normally a little sewing bit/stand by the pharmacy

Mrs Jeremy  If I had had any in my sewing box, you would have been more than welcome to it but sadly, I don't have any elastic so can't help, unfortunately.

Mrs Quilt  It will be in the stands at the ends of the aisles near to the check outs. It is in little blister packs in a pretty minimal haberdashery. They only have narrow knicker elastic width.

The next day 

Kentishlady  If you need wide elastic, I have some you are welcome to. It's black though.

Bentonbag  Not at the moment thanks. The Squireen has just dropped off some dolly sized bits.

Later still …

Bentonbag  Been to Sainsbury's, found the haberdashery notions unit, elastic peg completely empty.

It wasn’t just bread-flour and loo rolls that shops ran out of during Lockdown mask making.