Local Life

It can be said that the local life here in Basildon can leave a little to be desired for some people.  The local "Entertainment Complex" affectionatly known as Bas-Vegas (see that cunning play on words there...) isn't for everyone.  There are clubs, bars, a few resturants, a cinema, bowling alley...

So if you're a quiet home-body, it's not that appealing.  So what do you do?  Well, you could browse the internet, but then, not everyone has the internet.  You could watch TV if you are REALLY stuck for something to do.

Or, like a local person here, you could put an advert into a window.  A local post office window.  And to be fair, don't beat around the bush.  Now, personally (not that I would) I would have put such an advert into the local "dating" paper classifieds.

Of course, me being me, I read this advert - in the window of the local post office, frequented by single mums, asshats like me, and the Old Biddy Brigade - and I had to laugh.  And chuckle.  And cringe at the rammifications.

Now, I was going to go through this letter one line at a time, but... Well, it doesn't need it really, does it...  It can be summed up with the following parts:

• Up to 80yrs
• Adult Fun

I'll let your minds run rampant at that...

Crack Security Force

Today I spent my time mostly sitting with Kellie.  Yes, I'm a sap.  Gemma turned up after school with her wee ones, and the two girls spent their time gassing while Kellie had cuddles with Zoe - sorry, Zoé, which became feeding Zoé, burping Zoé and more cuddles with Zoé.

Jaysen, in the meantime, was running around with Amy, sorting out toys and having a laugh with his wee ickle cousin.

Gemma decided to drive Kellie home to save her getting the bus (Awww) which probably doesn't bode well for me.  Females being Females, and all that...

When they left, I decided to take Jaysen into town and get him a McDonalds - it's not often we have take away food, and while I had a strawberry milkshake, he had food.  And it's there that I get to the point of this post...

See, we were sitting in a rather sparsely-populated food court.  Various resturants and fast-food joints and cafés and suchlike.  However, with it being 5pm, most people were going home and NOT sitting in the food court. 

While we were sitting and eating, I noticed that the table diagonally across from us had a friend, in the form of a bulging backpack.  The table was clean - so either it had been cleaned and the bag ignored, or it had been put at the table after cleaning.

Regardless, there was an unattended bag.

Now, you probably know where my mind is at this point.  I really wasn't expecting it to go blammo, but the whole "you never know" factor was there.  In this day and age, with hightened security levels and threats from all and sundry, the risk was there.

Being a Good Citizen, I get up and alert the girls that look after the tables.  "Excuse me, sorry, but I thought I'd let you know there's a bag with no owner sitting at that table."  The woman looked at me and huffed.

Yes, she huffed. 

"Oh IS there?" she asked me.  Now, the backpack wasn't big, but it was sticking up from the chair and quite visible.  I turned and pointed.  She huffed again.  "Oh OK then" and she wandered off.  No thanks, no acknowledgement, no bravery award.

I sit back down with Jaysen and watch the old girl toddle over and pick up the pack almost gingerly.  With one meaty hand, she wandered over to the other staff who were watching and performed a careful check.

She shook it.

*shake-shake-shake-jiggle-jiggle*

There was no firey ball of death, no cloud of death-flavoured gas.  Thankfully.

So, from the height of four feet, she dropped it to the ground, and with one meaty "I'm On My Feet All Day" foot, kicked it under the cleaning station.

Again, no Blammo, No Hisssss-gag-choke.

A few minutes later, a Proper Security Guard arrives.  He looked very very bored, and leaned over the cleaning station to chat up the younger girl working there.  My Lady pointed out the backpack, so he skirfed it out with his Size 12 Security Shoe, picked it up and shook it.

No Blammo.  No Hissssss-die.

So, with all the precautions taken, his Keen Security Training moved to the next level.  He opened it.  The first thing I noticed were wires.  Not to be put off, he turned the back upside down and shook out all the stuff inside into the sink.  I think one of the items that crashed into the metal bowl was a multimeter or something similar.  Wires, some tools..

As me and Jaysen made our escape, he was casually stuffing it all back into the pack.  I didn't look back.  I'd make an awful witness...

Now, it's not just me, is it?  I mean, heaven forbid it HAD been someone that was sick of the infidels - the British, the Shopping Center, McDonalds, Men, Women, whatever - my last thought would have been "What is that silly cow do- *BLAMMO*"  The headlines would have reported the terrorist attack on Eastgate, and some poor sap would be scooping my intestines from the Happy Meals.  It wouldn't have read "Security Team: What A Bunch Of Knobs" or anything else.

Sitting around that table was myself with Jaysen, a mum with six kids, a mum and dad with two kids, a mum with three kids, plus various staff for the various places, and whoever happened to be in the shops above and below.

All because of Miss *shake-shake-shake-jiggle-jiggle*

Hooligans!

I know people should "respect their elders" and all that shit, but for once, just once wouldn't it be nice for the elders to respect the young?

It sounds crazy I know, and a lot of oldies are fine and dandy. There are, however, elements that give the rest a bad name. And yes, this sounds like something an old person would say in regards to the young.

Earlier today, just before we left to do the school run, another friend called and asked if we could grab her three monkeys. I have a Tam-beast early this week too, so me and Ruth poodled into school and grabbed her two girls, my one boy, and Alyce's three kids.

So, picture the scene... Ruth is pushing Tam in the buggy. The three boys - all aged 9 - are running around. The three girls - 9, 7 and 6 - are running around. I am following along playing with the phone as I always do. Yes, I am a geek, get over it. I pop into the chemist to pay a bill, and come out to find HER.

Ruth is looking flushed, talking to this short, evil-eyed old crone. There may have been a nose wart. I only catch the tail end of her conversation, which went along the lines of "Well they don't sound like they are having fun, bunch of hooligans!"

I look over, and as usual, all the kids, bar Tamsyn, are running around playing tag. Granted, there are whooping and laughing loudly, but they were playing tag. This old girl looks to me, looks to Ruth, and Ruth gives me the "I'm going to poke her in the yellow eyes" expression.

So we beat a hasty retreat before we put her walking stick somewhere it shouldn't go, even with lubrication. I'm then told this old girl - who was no where near the kids, so not even at risk of being bowled over - was ranting and pissing at Ruth for the state of the kids, how they were causing trouble and being hooligans.

I SO wish I was out there when she started. I would have joined in and made as much noise.

Of course, it probably looked like me and Ruth were the dodgy family from hell, with our seven kids all raising hell. If I had the money, I'd have paid my little tykes to make more noise ;)

Dirty Chav Scum

There are few things in this town that I disdain more than your average Run-of-the-Mill Chav Scumbag. For the Uninformed/Americans (oooh low blow!) a Chav is, well, read this. And this. And this.

So, now you are educated. There are plenty of Anti-Chav sites out there if you want to know more, or if you are based in the UK, then there is always ChavTowns for more information. The Basildon write up is very interesting as, it has to be said, we do have a very large population.

Now, I might bandy around the term to my friends and people I am on a wind up with, but only as a joke. The fact is, they are icky people and I hate them, especially the Basildon Variety.

And my reasoning for this post? Well, I just had a knock at the door at half seven this evening, and there is Mr Policeman. Not a toy policeman, a real, bonafide policeman.

Complete with Stab Vest. I didn't blame him, not in this area.

Turns out the people opposite - you know the ones, in the Blood Red House of Death. Well, turns out his car was damaged and broken into this afternoon. At 3pm this afternoon, in broad daylight. The worst part of it is, everyone probably knows it was their next door neighbour and his mates that come around, but who is going to say that? On their doorstop. To the police.

In the last year, he's had paint thrown over his car, his garage door graffiti'd, rubbish dumped on and around his house, and gets abuse hurled at him fairly often. All from the same sources.

And that seems to be how it is of late. You act shitty and threaten everyone, and everyone just closes their doors and curtains and ignores the world outside. All because of the asshats in their burbury (or however you spell it) strolling around like they own the place.

I feel quite bad because I sit on an upstairs window, looking out to the BRHoD when I am at my computer. And I didn't actually see anything - I think I was actually downstairs with Tam clearing up the kitchen before the Boy came home from school. Had the DanCam been on it would have seen it all.

We all live together, next to, on top of, opposite everyone in our area, but none of us ever see anything, and even if we do, we daren't say anything. I told the policeman the guy living in the BRHoD gets a lot of shit from certain elements, but he didn't really want to know. Just wanted to know if I saw anything.

He was really unhappy when Sally (white) said Hi and brushed against his trousers (black).

At least he had his stab vest on.

Busy Bee

In the true styles of a certain lasagne-eating cat, yesterday was a constant crapfest. I had to face the town, so the less said about that the better for all. We didn't get back in till gone half two in the afternoon, which gave me 15 minutes to put shopping away, grab something to eat (a doughnut), and then run out again into the Arctic Wilds of Basildonia to grab the boy from school.

The house is a tip, we've got Cel stealing out laundry so we don't run out of the necessities - I mean, do you WANT me walking around naked, plus we're trying to deal with Xmas and everything else. Joy.

In other news, Jo's foot is now officially on the mend and she can walk about without much hassle. On the other hand, while she was at the erotica show on Sunday, there was a woman looking for volunteers to demonstrate a new tongue-piercing technique. Guess who now also has a hole in their tongue.

Some people just can't think of their own trend to follow.

Where her tongue is a little swollen she sounds like she has a bit of a lisp, but on the bright side, it's making her form her words properly so she doesn't sound like a common old trout for once. She sounds like a real Essex Girl most days, but for the time being, she is actually pronouncing words correctly.

And last night, in celebration of Lane getting a new job, the girls went out to Bas Vegas and partied. Which left me with the moody kids. Again. *huff*

Once again, I had issues coming up with a Musical Monday song, but I hope to fix that shortly with a bit of creative date editing and posting something. He says, hopefully.

Aside from all that, I've been dodging a migraine for the last few days - it keeps looming behind my eye, and I pop enough pills to push it back, but I can feel it building a while later. I think I might let the bastard just come out, get it over with...

The Oldest Profession

It's not often that I will blog about something that is considered "controversial" but while wandering around on the net today, I discovered, of all things, that there is in fact a brothel in my local area. I know exactly what building is described, and you'd not look twice at it - very upper-class and well maintained, newly built development. I had to look at the address twice because I thought to myself "Surely not!" but there it is.

And my thoughts on living within shouting distance of this place?

Good for them. The place is clean, respected, the people that live around it are aware and don't mind, and the girls are doing it because they want to and not because they are forced to do it. I could hear my blog-mind ticking over as I read about the place, and found an article about a police raid on it. The "owner" faced 5-10 years in jail because of it, but due to the condition of the place (spotless), the care of the girls (she paid privately to have the girls checked, looked after and suchlike), that the girls were all willing (and not involved in human trafficking) and the fact the neighbours were aware an not bothered, she was given community service.

Which, technically, she was doing anyway ;)

Now, you might think this is a very strange thing to discuss, but I have so much respect for working girls, and was ready to write about "how prostitution should be made legal" when, while researching briefly for this post, I made a veeeery interesting discovery.

Prostitution in England is actually legal. From this Wikipedia article:

Prostitution in the United Kingdom is not formally illegal, but several activities surrounding it are outlawed.

Reading the entry further, it basically details that while prostitution is not illegal, it's the practices around it that are against the law. Some of these laws are common sense and NEED to be enforced, but others just make it harder for the girls:

In England and Wales:

• for a prostitute to loiter or conduct solicitation in a street or public place is illegal, therefore outlawing street prostitution
• it is also illegal for a potential client to solicit persistently, or solicit from a motor vehicle ("kerb crawling"). (In 1992 the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Sir Allan Green, was caught committing this offence and resigned.) This law does not apply in Northern Ireland or Scotland although it is likely to be extended there soon.
• owning or running a brothel is illegal
• child prostitution is specifically illegal for the person paying (where child is defined as below 18)
• controlling prostitution for gain is an offence, banning pimping

The last offence replaced the similar "living on earnings of prostitution" under the Sexual Offences Act 1956.

There has been long and widespread debate as to whether the toleration of prostitution similar to that seen in The Netherlands and Germany should be extended. Local police forces have historically wavered between zero tolerance of prostitution and unofficial red light districts.

The Government announced on January 17, 2006, that in England and Wales it was considering allowing small brothels, whilst continuing the crackdown against kerb-crawling, which is seen as a nuisance.

Now, any law that protects the girls AND the innocent girls out there, so much the better. The laws that prevent people hiring the girls, and looking after the girls - well, they just confuse. Take the woman running the local one - while in the eyes of the law she was "pimping" the girls, she was in charge of their well being, covered bills and expenses and generally looked out for them. The other side of the coin is the atypical pimp, beating up and just using his girls for making money.

While we were in Amsterdam, we had a walk around their famous Red Light District. Over there, the laws on prostitution are very lax, but all with an eye to protecting the girls and making their lives safer and easier. They do not work for pimps, and do it because they want to, not to feed drug habits or similar. Added to this, they are entitled to extra tests and care to ensure their well being.

I think making the law easier on these girls and allowing brothels to operate is a good thing. They provide a service to people that need it, and who knows, it may well keep some of the crazier people in check. Putting themselves out there night after night takes a lot of guts, and I know some of them do it out of necessity rather than desire, but if they had a safe place to work, away from the dark corners of the streets, well, who knows, it might improve things.

After a little digging and poking around, I've found that in a one mile circle, there are at least a half-dozen brothels of my home. Some of them are private apartments, some are houses, and some are actually fronted by other businesses. All very strange to me, but I am not in the least bit worried or offended.

I'd be interested in hearing your views on this. Is Prostitution legal where you live or not? Is this good or bad, do you think?

[-7]

Dear Mr Motorcyclist

I'm sorry you had such a bad start to your morning. I was getting ready to cross the road when I saw you waiting to pull out, so thankfully, me and Jaysen were waiting for you. When you pulled out and your bike ran away with you, my first thoughts were for your safety. The crunch as your bike somersaulted and rolled over you made me wince in the pain I knew you must have felt.

I actually ran for the first time in a while today, depositing my son on the front door step as I ran to help you, pulling out my phone to call an ambulance for you. I was so relieved to see you moving, even though you were trapped under the bike. It took me and a neighbour to move the bike, and I'm really glad you listened to us to stay still.

I'm glad the lady at Ambulance Dispatch was so helpful, and I am really sorry to her that I completely forgot my mobile number. But, Mr Motorcyclist, we were all impressed when the ambulance got to you so quickly, and that those two bus drivers blocked the idiot drivers trying to run over you. The impatient idiots of the world piss me off, but you probably weren't as worried by them as me and the neighbour were.

Your shoulder looked horrible, but I'm glad it was only dislocated. Your leg sounded horrible, but the fact you stood on it was good.

I hope you're on the mend and feeling better.

All the best,
One of the guys helping you this morning.

---

Dear Ignorant Arrogant French Woman,
I'm sorry you felt the man laying in the road in agony was an inconvenience. The bus drivers had blocked the road for a reason, to stop prats like you running over afore-mentioned man in the road. I'm sorry you couldn't follow every other driver and take two minutes out your day to drive around the accident scene.

I'm also sorry you felt the need to give me and my neighbour such a dirty look. Your kids go to the same school as Jaysen, and HE wasn't late in, and we walk. Speaking of which, does a 12 minute walk scare you that much? And to think the school employs you to teach the kids french.

That is, the parents that think your stupid costs are acceptable.

I hope, Ignorant Arrogant French Woman, that it is never you laying in the road while traffic drives past your head because you inconvenienced someone.

Up Yours,
The guy who you had to drive around so you didn't run someone over.

---

Dear Bus Drivers,
Thank you. Thank you for using your buses to stop as many of the idiot drivers (Including Ignorant Arrogant French Woman) that were trying to finish off Mr Motorcyclist. I know your managers drive you hard to meet targets and get results, but this was a case of another person in need. You did the right thing, and I think your passengers would agree.

Long Riding gets busy in the mornings, with people going to work, doing school runs and what have you - for you to stop the traffic from both directions and move it on was excellent and probably made the ambulance get to Mr Motorcyclist quicker than if there was a traffic jam in the way.

Thanks guys,
The guy who could only smile and nod while he was talking to the emergency services.

Booze-Bruise

Last night, for the first time in a fair while, we managed to offload the kids; Jaysen went to stay with Jo's mum, Tamsyn went to stay with a neighbour (which was nerve-wracking in and of itself). Our friend Amber hit 31 this week, and as all fun-loving adults, we decided to hit our local alternative club, The Pink Toothbrush. Yes, I am fully aware of what that is a euphanism for. If you don't know, you can always ask.

Anyway, we hit the wildlife at around 9pm, taking the piss out of one another in the cab there, and getting into the club with the rest of the crowd by half nine when we started to drink.

And Drink.

And Drink.

12.30am, we realised we had a half-hour before Mr Cab Driver would be outside, and decided we needed fried food. So we went to the best burger van for miles around, ate stacks of meat, onions, bun, sauces and pure cholesterol. We were all rather drunk, so it didn't count.

We piled back into the cab, got to the drop off point, and spent half an hour dancing and laughing in the street. It's amazing what happens when someone has an mp3 of the Austin Powers theme on their phone. So we bumbled home, got in, had some more laughs, then hit the sack around 3am. 8am I wake up with a bladder that would put a swimming pool to shame and stay half-awake till 10.30am when we crawled out of bed.

All morning I was complaining of my leg hurting, and come 4pm, I had a peek and it looks like I was hit by a car. I have an eight-inch bruise that no one can place. I didn't fall, get hit, get in a fight (I'm a cheery/laughy drunk), despite almost knocking out one of the crowd, and breaking the shoulder of another. So here I am limping around with a BoozeBruise. Very strange.

We did well last night on the bar though. Beer, Vodka, Beer, some sort of fruit-vodka mix, we blagged a few free shots for being so damn sexy, something bubblegum flavoured, something strawberry cheesecake flavoured. Jagemeister also came out to play, as did pernot, absinthe and whatever else we tried.

But I am blessed with not worrying about hangovers!

Anyway, aside from getting mysterious injuries, obviously, I am back :) During the week, we received a report that our "issues should be resolved" and I've managed to keep an internet connection for about an hour so far. A new record ;) Has to be said, Telewest-which-is-now-Virgin Media is officially shite. I have no idea what has changed since they got taken over, but they get two fat-thumbs down.

Hopefully last night being out late and up "early ish" has jiggered my body clock back into some form of semblance. I've not slept properly since last weekend, being awake for 20-22 hours mostly, and fighting sleep during the day so I might sleep at night. Booze & Painkillers is the next step ;)

Tomorrow is Fathers Day, so after calling my dad to say Hi, we're off to see Jo's dad who's home-alone this weekend. He's also fiddled with his webpage, so no doubt I'm going to have to redesign from the ground up. He "cleaned some stuff off" which invariably means "I deleted some important files". Yay.

And so, I bid you goodnight!

Midnight on Long Riding

If there is one thing you can count on, it's some kind of arguement on the street outside on a Friday night. No school, pubs & clubs with their long opening hours, binge drinkers... Well, last night wasn't much different, just a bit worse if that is possible.

Skip back a bit. Jaysen got in from school - still no repair man, and time ticked down and down. So much for "Before 4pm" I thought as he pulled up at 4.45pm. He walked in, looked at the box, announced "the box is shot", went out, got a new box, reinstalled it, left. Six minutes.

When we got installed, we decided to opt for a refurbished box which gave us a £25 discount on our first bill. We had the box, we got the discount, box blew up - we now have a shiny new box. Result.

After Jo's running around for every other bugger yesterday, she was tired, Jaysen was tired, Tam was tired and as usual, I was tired. So once the boy was in bed, we went to bed. At 9pm. On a Friday. BUT we took a DVD with us - early night, Tomb Raider, all good. Me, well, I nodded off halfway into the film, and was woken up just before midnight - it was warm again yesterday so the bedroom windows were open, so the sounds of the street were piped up into our room.

It started off with shouting between two groups - just taking the piss out of one another, but with really really colourful language. Things started getting heated and they were really screaming at one another. By half twelve, it sounded like there were pitched battles raging outside, screaming obscenities at one another, crashing and bashing of things being thrown, the sounds of fisticuffs.

Thankfully, the sound of sirens broke them up, and when the first FIVE police cars pulled up outside our house, they were gone. Not sure why there were two fire engines out there - but the noise of it made it sound like a riot, so maybe they were going to hose the shits down.

Outside this morning, there are sticks, broken glass, bits of signposts, and I notice the chap next door has moved his car well away from near his house.

And all this - this is WITH an increased police presence. I was stopped by a policeman last week, just to tell me that they are informing local residents (like me) that they are increasing the police numbers around this area, due to the concerns of violence between different "youth groups". I said "Don't you mean gangs?" and he kinda side stepped it with a "We don't like to call them gangs". Right. So gangs it is.

Ah well, tonight is Saturday, so it'll be the drunken girls screaming at their boyfriends tonight.

The Outside World

For the enquiring minds...

The camera is pointing South, out onto Long Riding, facing the houses opposite us. There are two infant/junior schools and one senior school nearby, so from 8.15am-8.45am and 3pm-3.30pm there will be lots of kids walking outside. We're also on the main bus route in Basildon, the #8, which drives laps around the area. They should run every ten minutes in both directions, hence it looking like there are so many. We don't have proper school buses out here either, so you won't see them.

Emergency vehicles - the police are usually blue-and-white, while ambulances are green-and-yellow (there is one outside as I write this), and fire engines - well, you can't miss those.

Long Riding is a fairly long residential area with various shops and a pub dotted along this half of it - you can't drive the entire length as the middle is Buses and Emergency Vehicles only. The road has estates on either side of it, some council, some private, making it a fairly busy road. With this map, the red dot is pretty much our house.

You can view this at Google Maps here.

As for time zones and what-not, we're currently in British Summer Time (BST) for another 3-4 weeks, until the clocks go back. Generally, we're an hour behind most of europe, 10 hours behind Australia and 12 hours behind New Zealand. Americas, we're 5 hours ahead of the East Coast, and 8 hours ahead of the West Coast. No idea about you Central timezoners. I'm sure you can figure it out.

And yes, that IS the Blood-Red-House-Of-Hatred out there...

Other than that, welcome to my street!

Well...

Well, so far so good - the only reports of the camera not working seem to be after I turned it off, so that's all good. *touches wood* MSN is on and has had several people jump on since last night. Nothing has broken (yet) and everything seems to be running smoothly (so far), so I'll chalk this down as a win for me.

Yay Dan!

In other news. Well, it appears that I am the only person on this green earth to have never seen Braveheart. Yeah yeah, shoot me. Of course, while I enjoy epic-scale/historical movies, the last few days have seen me in a frame of mind to not really watch one. Jo has been telling me how great a film it is, so we put it on last night.

It went on forever and ever. At 10pm, Jo told me we were only half-way through, so we turned it off and went to bed. I just couldn't face it, and not even sure I can face the other half today. I suppose I should make myself scarce ;)

On the bright side, it's Friday. Today is only the second day this week I've gotten up to take Jaysen to school, Jo has been doing it mostly. I still feel icky, but I'm bored and I am sure the rest of the house is sick of hearing me complain and moan, so I'll just have to suck it up and get on with it. No doubt tomorrow - Saturday - I will be up at the crack of dawn doing something daft.

I tried the Everquest 2 trial the other day after all. It sucked for me. Wasn't a patch on World of Warcraft.

Anyways - I need to whip the boy into his uniform and get my proverbial skates on - enjoy the scenery of "Out the Window". I'm sure you will be mesmerised for hours to come. FYI - there is a 20 second delay between here, and the screen you see there. Most odd watching a car go past out the corner of my eye, only to see it go past on the screen a short time later!

Webcam!

The more observant might notice a bit of metallic mesh going to-and-fro off to the side over the tagboard there. Yay me and my smartiepantness. So, I have a live-streaming webcam installed, however, those that remember this blog back in the day will remember I had something similar before running on here, and for a lot of people, it caused masses of slowdown and errors, and ended up getting pulled.

Not that I am fussy when it comes to that sort of thing ;)

So anyway, the cam will be pointed at whatever. It has a built-in mic so I might even treat you to music or my verbal rantings one day, but for now, it stays muted. Can't have the strangers around the world listening to my innane dribble - it's enough that you read it!

For a larger image, you can visit the cam direct at Camstreams. Seems to be a pretty nifty little site for this kinda thing, so if you want a webcam on your blog, there you go :)

I will add, once I go to bed it'll be turned off - I'm sure the people around the world couldn't give a fig about seeing this room when it's pitch black! Once I am "awake" and downstairs, then I will point it somewhere.

Edit: Forgot to add - PLEASE let me know if it takes forever to load, if you get whacky error messages, or something else goes screwy. If it's causing problems for people, then I'll just provide a link to the cam instead.

Webcam: Keep Or Ditch?

Keep The Bugger!
Ditch The Crap!

We Got Another One!

Another Basildonian, that is ;) She's here through Laney, so that's now two locals that have arrived (technically three counting Jo). Not that I am going to say anything about the stereotypical Essex Girl. No sir, not me. Nor mention anything along the lines of the jokes relating to them...

Anyways, say hullo to Lara!

Also, interesting fact. Both Laney and Lara blogged about the massive storm we had here last night, and I mentioned it in a previous post. Notice how they (The Girls) talk about how pretty it was, how the lightning looked and suchlike, while I, on the other hand, bitched that it blew up Jo's computer.

Boys and Girls, Apples and Oranges...

A Local Howdy

I just had a new visitor leave a comment, a real, true-to-life local person!
Granted, she now knows where we live, but let's face it, with the maps, the addresses, the photos of Blood-Red-Houses-Of-Anger, it's not rocket science!

So hello to Laney :)

Ooh Ooh Ooh!

So I was sitting writing my previous post when I noticed a police car go past. Nothing unusual on this street really. Then a second and a third went past, followed by a forth. Now THAT is something you don't see every day.

They were cruising slowly, and parked up down the road, six policemen (and women!) got out in their body armour, went into the flats opposite, then....

Came out empty handed after 10 minutes.

Pah.

While I can only guess, I am pretty sure they were going up to the flat of the noisy neighbour. Apparently there was a raid on his house in Early August, complete with police helicopter overhead.

Probably hasn't paid his parking tickets ;)