I like graffiti. I don’t mean random vandalism with abuse sprayed on houses, I mean ‘spraying with style’. When there has been large construction work in the city the wood boards they put around are soon decorated. While some paint is crude and forgettable other work has style, sends a message, shows talent, should be kept.
Living in this village there is less style most of the time. One bridge I walk under with the dog has had a lot of random abuse sprayed in black along the concrete. Their spelling is atrocious – I don’t mean badly spelt as in cool, I mean just bad. Some years ago it had some excellent political graffiti there – the council cleaned it off unfortunately. The above image is from another bridge we went under for the first time. There were a couple of other items sprayed but this image I liked – that image is much better than the photo suggests.
Maybe it’s my prejudices but it seems that this graffiti sits wrongly in between the two villages. Not the abuse I mentioned – I think that’s everywhere – but the better stuff. Seems that the local kids just couldn’t have the talent I suppose.

It just got updated.

I’ve been able to show J the different routes I take when walking Winston which is cool, we’ve checked out a couple of other locations and been quite surprised at the detail. It’s not sharp but it’s way better than it was. The images are – at least of our house – a year old or thereabouts. The girls’ trampoline is not in the back garden. Nice to see it’s not just the USA that gets the good detail 🙂

One of the walks I take Winston on – usually the late one – means we go under the M1 then up to a large roundabout which covers 2 double lane roads – it also feeds into and off the motorway. It’s fairly large and on a Sunday fairly quiet. Just after crossing the pathway – literally – two motorbikes roared on to the road. Large bikes, riders wearing full leathers. Winston was slightly spooked due to the noise so we wandered down the walk so he could ramble safely and I could watch.

They used the roundabout as a racetrack. Several laps racing, then following each other, then racing. One guy had steel knee protectors and seemed determined to try to get a whole lap of sparks. Idiot. I know they didn’t harm anyone, I know the road was empty and I know that they would argue they knew what they were doing. I also know they were a pair of twats. If they’d done that in cars…….

The crocuses have just made it out of the frozen earth.
The trees still think it’s winter.
It’s bloody cold and windy outside.
It’s after 5:30pm.
and I just heard the first Ice Cream Van of the year. Madness 🙂

I had my eyes tested for the first time in 10 years today. I’m just about as blind as I was then.
On the way back from the city I’d missed the bus which drops me closest so rather than wait an hour I caught one that dropped me at the other end of the village. Wandering back I popped in the newly taken-over village shop. Bloke called Gerry ran it for years. It didn’t change much and he catered for the blue-rinse brigade of old dears very well. This village is described as “One of Leicestershire’s premium villages” and the tone of the short strip of shops (shop / hair salon / chemist / butcher (deli) / estate agent) is one of refinement (or so the council would have us believe). Houses are expensive here too. Very expensive. Anyway, I wander in to the shop. Gerry sold up and retired so what was an understated store now has a glaring red / white front with logos all over, big swinging doors, lots of neon. It’s foul. But they sell a mean Mars Bar. On the right as you go in is the tills, on the left wall the magazines. Strolled over to see the front cover of Private Eye (very amusing) and glanced up to see what computer / games mags were in. How many shops put Playstation magazines on the top shelf but FHM on the middle ? Weird. So it’s right then I see it. Our Premium Village now stocks PORN ! On the Main Street we can purchase materials that would make the blue rinse brigade faint I’m sure. Being a sturdy red-blooded chap I glanced to the tills, saw I wasn’t being watched then scoped the titles: Escort, Fiesta, Knave. Hardly criminal stuff (so I’m told) but as I was ambling home (sans magazines) I wondered just who would buy their porn from a local shop ? It’s not like word wouldn’t get round is it ? “Oh Edna, you’re in there my dear. He buys Glamourous Grannies every week” I can see why newsagents in town would sell them but a small village store ? It’s not as if she didn’t choose either – those days have gone thanks to the battles of WHSmith (I think) so the new owner (a bloke) has chosen to stock porn in a shop where all his staff are female. And in a village where .. well … sex was in a bygone age.

You’re a bloke. You want to buy a porn mag. Are you more likely to buy that if there is a woman or a man serving you ?

Strange choice to stock porn. I’ll ask one of the ladies in there (who we’ve known for many years) what the score is on that one. And why the gamers mags are above FHM.

[Note: The first sentence has nothing to do with the rest of the content okay ? Coincidental 🙂 ]

There’s an old lady living next door on the right. J says she ever so sweet if slightly batty. She just knocked at the door. She told me that I can use her garden waste bin for the leaves around our garage. I said Thank you but that it was a bit windy right now so I’d wait for a calmer day. She told me that she’d just done all hers because leaves in the wind are very annoying. I said yes, they can be and she replied there was still a lot of space in her bin for my leaves. She was quite insistent about all these leaves. Our garage sits 20 feet back from hers and the leaves on question are on our side. While she’s telling me all this, she is half turned toward the leaves down the side of the garage and I can tell that inside herself she’s screaming Can’t you clear your f*cking leaves they are really p*ssing me off you young people don’t know you’re born you lucky b*stards it wasn’t like this in the war don’tcha know oh no then if you saw a leaf you’d be grateful and it’d keep you entertained for days and now you’ve got all these you just let them blow around needlessly and irritate us old folk who deserve a bit of respect!. She enquired after my injuries by indicating my arm. I assured her that it was a tattoo and I didn’t mind it being there. She replied that it looked like I’d fallen off a bike and pulled my skin off (so she’s half blind too then…) and she wandered back. Over her shoulder she reminded me about the space at the top of the bin.

I think I’ll pass on clearing the leaves …..

Wandered up to the corner shop we used to frequent when we lived in the village previously. No real changes – static village life for you – but he’s lost his young assistant. I asked where the lad had gone and I was told ‘Don’t know’. So I said it again – this lad had worked there for ages. Turns out that they’d finally got around to checking stock and then setup their security cameras. The camera’s caught nothing, but the stock was almost certainly going. So they confronted him – they asked if he was stealing their stock. He denied it. He said he was not several times apparently – and then walked out and stayed away from the shop. Hasn’t been seen since. No complaints from anyone about what they did – so therefore yes, he was indeed guilty of stealing from them. Not good.