Wishing for a rainbow

Feels like I've been doing that for some time in my weekly battles with sons. With 58 years fast approaching and them just in their prime there have been odd moments (just moments you understand) when I've started to wonder whether the slow decline into old age has started, and sons are beginning to get pay back for all the years when Dad was God at football, squash, darts etc etc.

So the sudden success at squash, with two consecutive wins and a chance of me forcing a playoff for the month if I win tomorrow, has come a something of a surprise. Forget David's claims that it's down to him breaking his racquet... it happened after the match on my first win, and the loaned racquet on the second win was the same make as his broken one. How dare he try and take the credit away!

But now I'm likely to go over all Dickie (Attenborough) as I relate the amazing pitch and putt result. Since we started playing in early summer John has been the winner by some margin and held the record round of 38. With my best at 40 I'd been struggling. But on Thursday I went round twice for 34 each time! So not only do I hold the record round by some margin, but I've also got boy wonder on the back foot with a chance to take the overall lead next week!

Won't mention the darts / pool, which I was winning until it came to the pool bit. Or the tennis... although I hold the title it's more by default since Barry and I haven't played for a few weeks, weddings and holidays getting in the way.

Speaking of boy wonder, our youngest son is moving back in for a couple of months. His flatmate is giving up the flat to move and John hasn't found alternative accomodation yet. Cue much clucking from his mother, who's secretly looking forward to mothering him a bit... though this may change when he's knocking about at 5am on his way to work, or falling over early in the morning after a night out on the town. Apparently he's going to buy his own food and do his own washing (though he may be aiming to use his mum's washing machine, which is unlikely since she thinks the machine is on its last legs and John's smalls will push it over the edge).

In preparation for squeezing a a quart into a pint pot I started yet another tidy out of the garage... been planning to get stuck in anyway to make space for my industrial wine making (see below). Warm feelings (of the type that involves hot collars) came over me as I realised much of what was in there was storage from when he moved out a year ago, but having huffed and puffed for a few hours including numerous trips to the tip I managed to clear a good space for my brew. While I was out it made its first visit to deposit stuff and promptly filled the space! Think we're heading for a new chapter in father-son relationships which may call for diplomatic skills of the United Nations.

After the success of last year's apple wine and the abundance of free fruit at this time of year I've invested in some five gallon carboys, the idea being to make enough wine to last for a year. I've already had many pounds of apples stewing in two five gallon barrels of water for a few days... in fact one of them appears to have started fermenting without the addition of any yeast. Maybe that's how you make cider. There's a delicious smell from what is now apple juice, and after removing the apples I'll be adding wine yeast later today to start the proper fermentation. Give that a couple of weeks, move into the new carboys and I can start another lot in the bins. Each five gallons makes about 30 bottles of wine.

After the initial thoughts about changing my car I've now taken the plunge and am getting a Fiat Panda 1.1 Active Eco. Of course there were a few bumps on the road to ordering... what swung the decision for me was seeing the car advertised at £4,995 including scrappage scheme allowance in a Fiat TV advert. We're doing a swap around of cars in the family... Becky is having my Fiat Punto, and the new car is going in Barry's name initially so their old Punto can be part of the scrappage deal. Pitched up at the dealers to find there's a facelift resulting in an extra £250. Much unhappiness all around. Still made the order, including £90 for Diamondbrite treatment. A week later the dealer calls... unfortunately the new version doesn't come in white, the colour I'd chosen! Fortunately they'd found a cancelled order in white at £4,995 so all is now well. Delivery in October. I've figured out how to get my sons into the diminutive new set of wheels... I'm going to tell them it's a Fiat Panther and that the badge on the back is just a misspelling.

Many apologies for the appalling previous post... so boring and factual! Was in a hurry. Must do better! Additionally there's a lack of allotment related themes recently... unfortunately it's all dig dig dig as I pull up the raised beds ready for a better year in 2010, so that's likely to continue for a while... though I understand one of my daughter's friends reads this blog for anything but the veggie content, so maybe she'll consider that no bad thing. But I've run out of time to complete this post and add the rest of photos, so will update in a day or so.