My dearly beloved has passed away !

I know you’ll want to hear this ,.., although it’s rather bad news I’m afraid. :(
A funny thing happened to me today on the 17th. green.
There I was, about to putt for my par :) when “CRACK” went my trusty putter !
I looked down and there it was ,,,
Without as much as a by your leave, my MacGregor ZP 20 simply lost it’s head !!
For no reason other than stroking a little white friend the shaft and the head fell out with one another and separated ,.,.
The shaft snapped clean off, just above the head ,,, Ouch !!

It is obviously a casting as I can see, now that she’s in two bits ,,
Possibly an inherent weakness in her original design ?

I must write to the good folks at MacGregor and see if they'd like to bring the old girl back to life with a head transplant ?
I don’t know if it was a weakness or just old age, ( like it's owner ! ) but what I do know is that over the last couple of years or so the ZP 20 and I had become very good friends ,.,.
I would be happy to let them see the poor thing if they want to carry out a post mortem ,.,. but more happy if they would like to repair it ( the said head transplant ) ,.,. or better still ,.,. replace the old girl completely ?
The MacGregor clan, well them wot make the clubs, are based in the ole US of A these days ,.,.

Me ? I live in Glasgow ,,, that’s Bonnie Scotland for any foreign readers, so if they would like to see it I'm suggesting they send me a 1st. Class air ticket and I'll be happy to deliver the corpse for inspection.
Alternatively they might settle for just having a look at the photographic evidence and send me off a replacement ? Well one can hope :) Golf folks are inherently Nice People :)
Here she is then :- once the love of my life !!

An Extraordinary Tale ,, and another one for my MP !

My daughter is pregnant.
This is not a new experience for her ( or me ! ) She has hundreds of we'ans ,.,.
well three ,, but sometimes it seems like hundreds !
Anyway, on all previous pregnancies she has had the scan which can also tell you the sex of the child-to-be.
So naturally, when this point arrived this time round, she asked the nurse again ,,
"What are we getting this time ?"
"Oh sorry" was the answer,,, "we're not allowed to say anymore !"
"WHIT ? whyever not ,, you've always told me in the past ?? "
"Well you see ,, we've had to change the rules ,.,.. because of the Muslim ladies " ,, the nurse explained.
It seems that our Muslim "invaders" have now made it impossible for US ,, the people whose country and whose NHS this is .,,. to receive this info lest we are seen to be racist ,.,..
You see, the Muslim "ladies" are apparently inclined to abort FEMALE children ( obviously males are much more desireable to their world domination plans ? ) so to discourage this practice they now don't get told the child's sex. And because they don't get told ,,, we can't be told either or we're seen as getting preferential treatment !! ie, this would be seen ( by them of course ) as racist, anti Muslim !
Did ever you hear such bloody shite ,.,. they are denying us our rights in our country, in our NHS ,, and WE'RE racist !!
When are our politicians going to waken up ??

Of course, there is a footnote to this story :-
That info was given by the Nurse "unofficially" - for as the wee lassie explained ,.,.
"we're no' allowed to say that or we'll lose our job !! "

My daughter also has a pregnant friend ,.,. living in Aberdeen ,.,. same story, different nurse, same answer but with a twist ,.,.,. she went for her scan - asked the sex and was told they no longer gave out that info (though they'd told her 2 years earlier with child number 1 at the same hospital). When she asked why they claimed they were "worried people would sue if they got it wrong" …
Haha forgive me being cynical here, but couldn't they just say - as they do in France, in Denmark etc - there's a X% chance it is a boy/girl but scans aren't 100% accurate.
Hmmmm, Christ, I remember when we used to live in a FREE country where you could speak your mind !!

My wee darling wuman still isnae well ,.,.

She, you know, her who will be obeyed !

She's been quite ill these past few weeks ,,,

She wakened me at 5 am this morning ,,,
“I was just thinking” she said !!
“Thinking ? at 5 am … “ I said
“He’s a new man ,.,., we don’t want to upset him “ she said ,, clear and precise as if she was wide awake ,..,
“Whit – WHO ,.,.”says I ,.,.
Zzzzzzzzzz she says ,,, !!!!

A week later and I still don't know who's new ??

Then at 7-20 am ,,, I got kicked on the leg ,,, "Ouch" I said ,,,

“ You’re late” she says ,,
“ I'm What ??? “ ( that's me talking ! )
“I thought you were getting up early” she mutters from deep within a sleepy head.
“What for ?” says me ,.,.,.
“To phone for MY doctor’s appointment “ she drags out from below the covers.
“It’s just a wee bit early for anybody to be in the surgery yet pet ” says I ,.,. rather testily I have to admit, after looking at my luminous dialled watch in the darkness of the bedroom ,,,
But by the time I was saying that, I was already up, out of bed and standing there looking at her ,,, fast asleep ,.,.,. yet again ,,,

Christ, she's bloody hallucinating now I thought as I came to ,,,
I just came downstairs anyway ,,, No point in waiting on her next bulletin or assault.

PS : The surgery actually opened at 8-20am ,, not the 8am they tell you about on their recorded message !
Honest tae Christ ,,, I need a rest !

Lotta-lotta luck ,.,. NOT !

Just reading about that "lucky" woman in East Kilbride ?

Her with the £35.4 Euro Millions win. Just think about that for a second ,,, WOW ,,,

Has anyone else noticed, or is it just me and mine ?

When the Lotto first started and the weekly prizes were much larger than they are now ,,

ie, when more people were doing it ,, I used to win a tenner or so every other week or two ,,,occasionally the odd £50 even ,,

Nowadays, and I still do both the Wed. and Sat. draws, I win nothing ,,, zippo,, ziltch, not as much as a bean have I won, in years now.

Why is this ?,,,, with fewer people doing it my chances of a win surely must have INCREASED ?

Anyway, next thing to do obviously, since my luck is going nowhere, is to check out the wee woman in EK ,,, does she need a pal ? a new lover even ,, I see her man ( ex man ) is even luckier than me !! That'll be him in the Mood Badge above !!

Do I happen to know her by any chance ?,, could she be a friend ?,, ok, a friend of a friend ?,,

a friend's friend's aquaintance maybe ? anything, to get into her circle ,.,. her knickers, ,,

I mean her bankbook of course !

Anyway, good luck to the wee soul ,, a bit naive but she seems a nice enough person ,.,.

but God help her now that the world knows her name ! That was her 1st. big mistake ,.,.

With that amount of cash, she should surely have opted for ANONYMITY ?

Think I'll Settle for Scattering on Cowglen !

So we did Islay again ,.,.,. God's Little Acre !

We thought ,.,. summer will be a better time ,,, no more October school weeks for us retired folks ,.,. no more horizontal driving rain ,.,. we'll go in the SUMMER :) and see the beautiful island at it's best.
That's what we said :( Shame we didn't think to check out the bloody forecast ?

We arrived Friday morning ,.,. it was raining, misty and, to all intents and purposes October'ish ! Oh well, we said, a summer shower, no real wintry winds ; it'll probably be off before we reach Bowmore, sure it will Joyce ?
Joycie, our local Ileach, wasn't quite so sure ,.., she'd seen Islay summer weather before ! Often.

We reached our hotel in Bowmore ,.,. the very original and aptly named Bowmore Hotel !
We met up again with Peter, the proprieter ,.,. that's old Peter btw, not the younger cloned son ! We had eaten in Peter's establishment before but never actually used his B & B service.
We were shown to our rooms ,..,,. no bellhop, no kindly Island help of any kind ,, just lug your own bags up the stairs folks ,, you're in the Hebrides now !
Peter went on at length about how well he was doing with all the renovations at his hotel :(
This perhaps should have started the warning bells ringing ?? But no, we were happy, back on our beloved little patch of heaven ,.,. with all those lovely Peaty distilleries :)
What could possibly spoil our week ?



Well the weather wasn't exactly shaping up too well for starters ,.., and now we had ,..,,.
"The Room" for a follow-up ! Ours was a tatty, crammed, ( no, make that bloody crammed ) hovel with peeling paintwork, threadbare carpet, a newly created loo with bare plasterboard finish ! ,.,. Oh, and a double bed UNDER a metal framed bunk bed !!
Peter had noticably been very careful to guide Joycie & Steve to the better room ,, but helpmaboab, theirs was exactly the same as ours ! Ha, So good to have friends in hotel places !!

When we were alone the dearly beloved, still recovering from illness, took one look and told me ,.,. " Go see Peter ,, and tell him we need a different room ,, I'm not sleeping under that bloody scaffolding, not even for one night ! "
So I saw Peter. We got a change of room ,,, at first glance it was an improvement on the original ,.., well we had single beds, but at least no overhead bunk bed scaffolding ,.,. but wait ,,, what happened to our wardrobe ? Mmmm none ? Oh and that newly installed loo ,.,. where's the door ?
Bloody Nora ,,, a room with a view ,,, but even for long married couples this "open plan toilet arrangement" isn't exactly a turn-on feature !
We did have drawers for storage ,.,. and we did take a peek in a few of the other unoccupied rooms to see if another deal with Peter was worth the bother ,.,. alas no, they all had "flaws" !
Some had wardrobes and drawers ,.,. but subtly positioned beds so as to render opening them impossible ,, you think I exaggerate don't you ? Well here's the photos to prove I am honest as the day is wet !




Oh well, it's now the next day and ,, you guessed of course ,, still pissing it down Islay fashion !
Joycie knows her stuff ,, Heather the Weather could take a lesson or two from our Ileach !


We go walking on the beach ,, Hahaha, it's wonderful ,, wet right enough but really quite beautiful still ,,, well not still as such ,, the wind now also thinks it's October ! But do we care ,,, Eh, yeah we do ,,, we really wanted to see this pretty island in the sun and the heat ,, just for a wee change.
We spend the rest of our week ,,,we drink, we eat, we drink some more and then we ,,, drink some more ,,, hic ,, and then we go out to the pub ,.., hic,hic, who cares what the bloody weather does ?


We have now settled into our respective hotel rooms ,,, did I mention the bruises on Steve's head from getting up of a morning and smashing it off the bottom of the (iron) bunk bed ?
They too finally asked for a change of room !!
They got single beds too, ( they seem a bit anti sex I feel on Islay ) they each got a wardrobe, ( non opening doors though ! ) and hey, the ultimate prize, a loo WITH door !


Incidentally Peter's food is still good ,.,. the hotel restaurant can hold it's own with all the others in Bowmore ,,, both of them ! And not even the sniff of a Fish and Chippy to be found, anywhere on the island.


The Fun Day thing scheduled for the weekend including Highland games, pipers, dancing etc. was cancelled because of ,, eh that would be more RAIN ,,,
Our Golf game was ,,, cancelled due to the weather !
So we ate some more ,, we drank some more and we listened to some music ,, in the pub some more !
The week came and the week went but the rain on Islay ,, that's forever !
Being in love with a place is never having to say It's DRY and SUNNY !!
We're back home again now and the beloved has been back to the Doc ,,, seems all this "walking in the rain" might have been good for Johnny Ray but it knocked seven bells out of my dear wife again ,,,
The chest is heaving, the coughing has begun again and the sweats, boiling temperatures and freezing cold are back ,,
Thanks Islay ,,, You may not see us again for a while !