Time to keep somones spirits up

While in Liverpool i was due to see Steve who i went to school with and another school pal Martin. I got the sad news that Steve had been involved in a traffic accident. I arrived home today to an email from Steve's wife. She explained how bad his injuries where and that Steve was feeling really down when he was normally very outgoing. Steve seems to have spinal injuries and his recovery may be long  and painful so she says.

Steve it seems had been excited at seeing me after over 52 years since we left Roscoe Garsfield secondary school.Pity i didn't get the email before i left as i would have gone to the hospital to see him. How do i offer support when i am over 1400 miles away, Steve has got his Iphone with him so where do you start trying to keep someones spirits up.

So Steve when you read this i am over to Liverpool around the first week in May and i am driving over and we will meet up so work hard an get out of hospital

After the wind where did it go

On Monday in Liverpool the weather was as bad as it could get torrential rain and high winds. Flying back home the next morning i was worried the flight would have a lot of turbulence due to the high winds from the day before and the forecast was for more rain and wind. To my great surprise was that the wind was not to bad and after taking off the flight was as smooth as any of the other flights i have had in the past.

The flight even arrived 10 minutes early but when it came in the sky looked overcast till we landed. When we landed it was just a fine drizzle and it never let up even when i arrived home. This has been the first time i have flown into Porto or Lisbon to rain and i hope it will be the last time i see rain when i arrived into Portugal

Cheap flights, Where

Adverts galore on to say cheap flights yes but when. I have to meet my UK Spice supplier sometime by the end of March but where are these cheap flights. So when you see the adverts on tv saying loads of tickets going cheap ask yourself cheap but for who?

I'll still keep looking but it's my own fault I should have seen my supplier early in January but I had to go back to Portugal early.

When I got up this morning I found a message from one of my readers who found flights for and thanks Steve for taking the time to look for me.

When I checked the flight details I found one had gone up from 29.99 to 105.99 shocked at this I took a picture with my IPad. It's so annoying that someone took the time to help me but that's life.

Something really weird going on

To trace a friend I used Genesreunited.com and as my months subscription is up soon I decided to do a little digging. I started with my eldest daughter. Her mothers name on the record Is Sobinska it should read Sobieska OK a simple mistake. The records all name the mothers maiden name why I don't know as we where married.

I then looked at my eldest son born  towards the end of 1979 and no record maybe because his birth wasn't recorded till the beginning  of the next year but his birth year was 1979 I should no being his Dad. Also the records show two with the same name but one in 1980 and  the other in 1981. Again both with the same mothers maiden name, born 1979 records show 1980 and 1981????

I also did a check on my other two children and at least the records are correct for them.

Now come on Births, Deaths and Marriages what's going on, to much Vinho at lunch time

What a bargain phone this is.

Arriving in Liverpool I found I had left my phone behind. My phone is a cheap Samsung phone because most people I know call me on my IPad with Skype, FaceTime and Messenger. So a good phone is a waste and I would never make use of a much better phone when I can use my IPad. I make very few calls because I have a landline and most people who know me call after 9 pm because it's free to call at that time. FaceTime, Skype and Messenger gives a far better service but you need to be in wifi range and that's no problem most of time.

But in Liverpool I do need a phone if only to see what time it is. So I looked for a deal for a cheap phone to use while I am here. I found a bargain in the Carphonewarehouse, the phone I got is in the picture below phone cost Free plus £10.0 credit and the best bit Free delivery now if that's not a bargain then what is. For a phone to have in case I get a call it's a good price.

Now I need to get the number from my last Uk phone transferred to this one so I don't have to remember a new number. I still remember my first mobile phone number that's why if I can get the code I can have my old number back.

Do they want business?

In England competition in business is important and replying to enquireries by phone or email is key to keeping businesses ahead of the competition. Sadly the concept of keeping ahead of others is unknown to businesses in
Portugal. I took my laptop in for a repair. I used Google Tradator that is surposed to be the best translator and composed a message. To make sure the translation was correct I copied and pasted it back to see it came out correct. I sent this email the day before I had to fly back to the UK I still haven't had a reply, I have sent another email and this still has not been replied to.  Do these companies not want repeat business?

Next time I have a problem I will find another company. While in Liverpool I have a friend who is a computer engineer who provides amazing service, he called to my daughters today at 9am to repair my granddaughter's computer ok he knows me but that's service.

A Litre bottle of Hennessy cognac

Yesterday morning I got a nice surprise A Litre bottle of Hennessy cognac was left for me. My eldest son had called before I got up and left me a litre bottle of cognac oh how I do love a glass of cognac. Unfortunately my daughter doesn't have any cognac glasses so it was just a tumbler, I did feel strange I have never had a glass of cognac in anything other than a cognac glass. 

At home I have three bottles of cognac open at the moment a bottle of Hine, Martell and Remy Martin. This bottle I can't take back on the plane with me so this bottle has to stay here but next time I visit I will have a drink waiting for me.

It's operation day

Well it's operation day today for my daughter and to be honest I don't know what to expect when o go to pick her up some time later as I think she will be out later today. She needs to rest and do exercises she has been told to do, my granddaughter and I will have to make sure she does them. Well 6pm and my daughter was home in a little pain but home and now my work begins in helping her.

After being discharged my daughter should have had some dressings to take home but she was so eager to get out and home she left without them. OK but it was me who had to go out today to get dressings from the chemist, the outside temperature was 5c and it was windy all the way. I will be glad to get home at least today it's 14c that's a lot better than 5c.

I mentioned about Steve my school friend well I hope Corrina is well enough in a few days so I can go out with Steve and Martin. Steve is playing in a club in Liverpool so it should be a good night. Much as like many I hated school but getting free was good but 50 years seems a long time  to do a catch up.

First flight delay

Last night I travelled down to Lisboa by train and the journey was perfect no problems and on time. It's a different matter at the airport the flight I want is going to be over 2 hours late. In over about fifty return flights over the years this is the first delay I have had and if it's only two hours well what can you say for the first flight delay.

Well we finally got underway and the pilot explained that as he approached the Spanish border he had to land as a passenger was taken ill and needed emergency hospital treatment. The pilot managed to pull 25 minutes of the Delayed time and it was a good flight so despite the delay i got back ok.

Guitarman Steve

Since i wrote about wanting to make contact with an old friend i have had a message from  someone i went to school with. It seems that an old school pal had been reading my Blog and contacted me.

The thing i remember most about him was our time in the woodwork class. In our last year like some of the others in my class i made a coffee table as my project. If i remember correctly it wouldn't have won any awards but it wasn't bad. But Steve made an electric Guitar and he came from being rubbish at woodwork to one of the best in our last year at school.

Towards the end of our project we all looked on with envy at what he had made, he painted his guitar red and it looked as good as any you would see in the shops. The last week of term he was allowed to have someone come in to fine tune his creation and test play it. None of us in class new anything of his skills at  playing guitar until the day before we left school for the last time. He played a Jimi Hendrix track but without the vocals, boy he was good.

He went on to be part of some of the local popular groups in Liverpool at the time that had become quite famous. Like me he was a Stones, Dylan and Jimi Hendrix fan.

It's been nice via email to catch up with him over the last few days. When i go back to Liverpool we plan to meet up apart from Steve the only other ex class mate i can remember was Joe Royal who went on to manage Everton FC amongst other things in his Football career.

It was nice to have been in contact now with two people from my past the past may be the past and i look forward to what the future brings but it's nice to have memories.  I have just heard from Steve and he sees a lot of another class friend. This friend was the class bully until one day he picked on the

wrong person. Martin soon stopped being a bully and became a quite a good friend. I had forgotten him until I got a message this morning. From being three kids in the last year of school to how will we look now, who knows but time will tell and it's now 50 years since I left school.

After Steve got in touch and I coincided with time I was back in Liverpool I got a call he is in hospital after a traffic accident and unlikely to be out before I fly back to Portugal. Never mind when I come back in March I may get to see him play then

The end for us.

In August i posted about at my age getting a girlfriend. The problem being that we where 1,500 miles apart and speaking on Facetime and Messenger just wasn't enough. As soon as i arrived at Christmas that It was plain to see that the distance was a problem. Although Cathy doesn't work she looks after her grandchildren and there was little time for us.

It was either one of us changed our living habit or we split and sadly that's what happened. Time will show if we can somehow carry on as just friends, i have no desire to start flying back to the UK every chance i get because i do two markets a months with my Spices.

Cathy is up at 6am for a shower, get dressed and to her daughters to look after the children. Then she gets a few hours off before it's back to the school and it's time to feed the grandchildren. Then home and bed for 9pm to get some sleep before it all happens again.

It's sad that things couldn't work out but hopefully we remain friends.

Another trip back to Liverpool

When a mother lives two doors away from only daughter you would expect that when the daughter needs help mother would be there for her. My daughter needs
a serious knee operation and after the consultation with the surgeon her mother didn't even ask what was wrong. When my daughter told her she will be unable to walk for a while mother isn't even bothered in offering to help her daughter not what you would expect from a mother.

So Dad has to come to the rescue, I fly into Liverpool the day before the surgery and i stay for 10 days it's as much time as i can stay away. I will have to miss one important market and i have spent a lot of time putting messages up for people to find out i am not going to be at Miranda do Corvo market.

The bonus i will get is to see my Mum who is now 90 years of age and i am looking forward to seeing her. Facetime is OK but it's nothing like seeing her in person.

My Mum is lucky she has six children and most at some point visit and three stay for varying lengths of time. We are all so lucky that we have a sister who spends so much of her time looking after Mum because she lives local. I feel so guilty living so far away and not being there to help her. In May i am coming back to Liverpool because last year for two weeks Mum had nobody to care for her my sister booked a much needed holiday but unknown to her the other two who stay also booked a holiday. I told then that this year at this time i would be there for two weeks to do whatever may be needed of me. I myself am so pleased that Mum has someone close who looks after her.

It seems that I was only told of those away on holiday and I didn't know about my other sisters who in fact did there bit at a difficult time while half the family away. To those who in fact did help I am sorry for missing out this information.

Pity my Ex doesn't act like a normal mother and show she cares for her children and maybe she would get the love from her three children that my Mother gets from hers.

A friend is coming back to his house

This week i have to go and pick a friend up from the local station. He lives in the middle of a little valley where there is no track to drive down to the house. Everything has to be carried on the first trip when he comes back to stay. When he opens his house he has a wheel barrow that he carries things on food, water, gas bottles in fact everything.

Last time he was here nearly two years ago i helped him get 250 fruit trees for his land. When i last saw his place hardly any of the trees had died so he will be happy because all his hard work was not in vain.

This time he will have hot water instead of using his kettle i have a water heater for him so he only needs to turn on the tap.

Another Blog reader come to stay

A long time ago i met a couple in the local Lidl who had come to live in the area i am living in. This couple had been reading my Blog for a few years and decided to come over here to have a look and they decided to stay. Well it's happened again.

Saturday night in a local restaurant was Curry night. I supply the spices and when the chief came to collect his order he told me of a couple staying in a cottage owned by friends of mine.  It seems that this couple had been reading my Blog and hey they are looking to move here.

The Curry night went well and i look forward to the next one. I would really look forward to a Fish and Chip night but we can't all have what we want but lets live in hope.

Wow it's hot

Sitting here I was getting a little hot so I put my aircon on to see the temperature in my lounge, the display showed that it was 36c. See the picture below. I only use the aircon of a morning if it's feels a little chilly when I get up. I insulated the floor from below with 200mm of insulation when I first moved in  4 years ago. The lounge walls I insulated from the inside with insulated plasterboard. Shutters cover the windows at night but the ceiling is next to get done.

Ideally I would take up the floor in the loft but it's already a room up there so without doing damage to the floor the only option is to insulate the ceiling and put in a false ceiling. To use excess heat I will have a vent to the room above so as to heat what will become my master bedroom. Also the log burner chimney goes up and straight through the ceiling and straight through the loft to close to the ridge beam at the top of the roof. The chimney is made of steel and gives of some heat and the vent should make the master bedroom should be nice and toasty. If it gets to hot then I will install aircon. When I moved here I had this already planned this so I have a new and unopened aircon unit down in my cellar. That's all for now

Did I really look so bad

Facebook every so often comes up with a picture from my past. This one is from the day my beautiful granddaughter was born. It's not  the picture of her that concerns me it's how bad I looked long hair and a beard. I didn't ever think I looked so bad, at least now I keep my beard trimmed and my hair cut to almost nothing. I can say as the years have gone by I am getting to look so much better than I did then.

I finally got a message delivered

For what seems a lifetime i have searched for someone from my past. This someone was special she was the first girl i ever loved. We met a couple of year later but due to bad luck or call it what you will i lost the address. I would go to the new address she had in another town every Wednesday and Sunday and wait for a few hours in the hope of seeing her but i could only remember the estate name. Sadly my luck was out to rub salt into the wounds when her favourite group where playing on the radio i would stop and think of what might have been and remember her fondly.

Years later on Radio Merseyside i won two tickets to see Donovan at the Liverpool empire guess what the tickets where next to the seats that we had to see The Stones and the Walker brothers.

I tried to find her using a private detective but had no luck. All this to explain why we never met, the reason why is personal so i won't mention it. I asked the A Team on Radio Merseyside for help. Adverts on a local newspaper in her new town nothing helped till now.

I recently found a company on line who do searches and i started that yesterday. In the meantime i subscribed to Genesreunited and had a dabble to see how i would get on. I could remember most of the information but i got her Mums name wrong and her sister but not her dad or her brother.

I sent a message to who i thought was her brother when in fact it was her husband. Well Jean has been in touch and i sent a message telling her why we never met and i now feel good after about 44/ 45 years i can rest knowing i have righted a mistake after all these years but it was something that only bothered me.

I was able to send a message to my long lost friend and explain why i never found her again. It's nice after all these years to put this to sleep so to speak i now don't feel guilty for losing the address.

 

That was close

Today when Keith and i drove into town for a cuppa we came across a tree that had been blown down in the storm the night before.

Keith's can be seen be seen just managing to get under the downed tree. Good job that the tree  had already fallen and did not fall on my car or Keith's car










Once the local council are informed someone will be along to remove the tree or someone passing who has a chainsaw in there car. It is understood that anybody removing a tree like this can keep the timber that they have removed from the roadway.

Pretty lights wired up and switched on

I recently used Chestnut to encase my bedroom door frames and the panel between the doors. Today i completed the shelf above the doors and wired in the lighting, the lights are 12v LED's. In the centre of the picture is a feature i have just added and the glue has not dried yet so the clamps are still in place. 

My little church pew

Much as i enjoy doing almost all of my own work there is one job that had to go to an expert.  My church pew had only one end to it and that's why i brought it while in Liverpool December 2014. The fact it had no panel on one end suited me just fine but i changed my mind as i wanted to put it somewhere else in the house and against the wall was not where i had in mind.

I took my church pew to my friend Chicco the timber guy i use.I asked if he could make a new end panel for the left side of the pew.







What i didn't expect was how good a job he would do. What he  has done to me is remarkable it is an exact copy of the right hand side Chicco really is a unique carpenter.