9 April 2010 (Friday) - The Wanderer Returns

Whilst pootling in the kitchen last night I heard the sound of the toilet flushing, I’ve been chucking buckets of water down it for the last week to get rid of what I’ve put in there. But “My Boy ^TM ” has been using the flush. Apparently if you over-rev the cistern, it flushes. It’s taken me a while to get the knack, but I can do it. Or that is, I could do it last night. The infernal thing wasn’t having any of it this morning. Back to flushing with buckets of water.

An eventful day at work – first off Science told me that he has invented the AC/DC chicken. Surely Science must have better things to do with his time. And then I entered the work’s Grand National sweepstake. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that I do this every year, and am usually saddled with a 100:1 three legged blind rank outsider. But last year my horse (Sad Ken) came in third place and I won a fiver. This year I have a 14:1 shot – horse #17 named “Backstage”. Fingers crossed – it might pay for the repairs to the chodbin.

I hope my loyal readership will forgive me if I appear to get a bit soppy…. In May 1993 I was in a small way associated with the formation of a sci-fi fan club. Over the years the group has grown and shrunk and changed, and members have dispersed to the four corners of the world and returned. We’ve laughed and cried together, got married, had babies, even buried one, and despite the fact that so many of us now rarely actually see each other these days, thanks to the wonder that is the Internet we still all (mostly) keep in touch.

Tonight a wanderer returned. I’ve not seen him for over ten years. Once “Little Steve”, nowadays he’s in the running for the title of “Big Big Steve”. He’s in the middle on the left hand photo. We once named a Guinea Pig after him because of the haircut. We couldn’t do that nowadays (!) And he’s moving back from Manchester to live in Dover so he’ll be back with us again.

A shame I have to work tomorrow – we only had three pints together this evening...