Saturday 13 June 2009

Plenty excitement today





Fun and games today, started off nice and clear with an early morning run into town on the motorbike, however a young deer jumped from a field onto the road in front of me - a near miss with the old ticker taking a bit of pounding.

Went via Brash the Butchers, thinking I was doing well, however, Claire had not placed an order so it was a wasted trip, other than having the pleasure of a chat to John, the Boss.

We were steady this morning, one customer came back in, suffering badly from last night but he had lost his car keys somewhere last night - BUT it is a company car and no one has a second or spare key, and VW say it will take a week to ten days to get a replacement, BUT he lives in Liverpool, so his car will need to be left up here at his hotel till the key is obtained. Lesson there for the learning - always have a spare key somewhere, and never take the keys out when on the booze !!

Had some boys in early his morning to see the New Zealand All Blacks, who failed in their quest to beat France, but the British Lions did a bit better this afternoon, with young Andrew Aitken, nephew of Jim Aitken ( former Grand Slam Captain), in along with Stuart Tait for his stag. Stuart's dad, tam tait, was a PC with me for years, a dog handler in the Lothian and Borders Police, but now retired, a "virgin" visitor to the Mercat.

When i first met "Big Tam" he was an apprentice electrician and also did the papers for george Milligan who had a shop in West Street, Peniuik, way back in 1966. A couple of years later I was chasing a housebreaker and Tam was on the street so I called for him to stop the bloke, he tripped him up , and the bloke was knocked out as he fell - Tam was then told to sit on him till I got back - he thought he had killed the bloke. He later joined the Police and eventually retired a couple of years early on ill health.

Next, great excitement at the bar when four fire engines arrived to a false call to one of the flats along the street - chaos , total chaos, as the lead engine stopped in the middle of the road at the roadworks and nothing could get past - so the traffic backed up along through Haymarket and Dalry. Fortunately the call was a false one with good intent, Lothiand and Borders Fire Rescue Service were right on the ball, good to see them doing their best. Eventually the lead engine was moved into the side of the road and traffic started to move again which did not take long to clear.

New menu about to be introduced at the Bar, that will be fun till we get in to the way of it - mussels, T bone steaks, Cranachan, etc. new names to think about.

Headed home, watching a big black cloud in the sky, stopped off at The Bush where there was a B B Q under way, but they were sensible and had one of the sheds opened up so they could dive under cover. More than could be said for me - the heavens opened up and for the last two miles I rode in a horrendous downpour - my jacket was fine but my waterproof trousers failed miserably, so I was soaked through and waddling when I got off the bike.

We watched Andy Murray make it through to the finals at Queens Club tomorrow, and once again the sun was shining down south, even William and Sandra ( on the phone now) have had a lovely day out in the garden and looking forward to meeting up with us in Dublin next month. Today is the Anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymead, near Eagham, so William missed all the celebrations as he was working.

I read about a bloke in the USA who set fire to and destroyed an aeroplane, he was syphoning fuel from one of its tanks, thought there was a blockage on the hose so struck a match to see what was happening - big bang !! no plane !! silly boy!!.

Might even try one of birhday wines shortly>

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