We'll All Go Together When We Go...

Wendy and I were pretty good quizzers. Our team of two won the inaugural Quiz at The Jolly Brewmaster pub in Cheltenham. It was a close run thing ... We drew with the Team Of  Four who regularly beat us from then on ( We couldn't do the Sport Questions). Wendy happened to know that 22 carat gold is as pure as we can get. We won T shirts with bottles of beer on them.

We never wore them.

Our conversation ranged over a variety of gloomy topics. I'm not sure why, I am generally very optimistic We had worked out though, that living in our end of the twentieth century was as good as it gets. We are both comfortably off, our children are all well and happy - as are we - and we benefited from safe childbirth and have flushing toilets. These things came to the top of our list of must haves.

The List of Apocalyptic Events began in 1990 on reading in the Independent that a tongue of ice was melting somewhere near Norway, and the melting of this might cause the Gulf Stream to stream no more. Our climate would then veer towards the Scandanavian, which is great if you like snow, which I do.

I believe this particular event is no longer considered terribly likely, but it stays on the list because it was the first.

Since then, we have added asteroid strikes, super volcanoes, bits of an island in the Atlantic falling into the Atlantic, Global Warming, earthquakes bioterrorism and nuclear warfare.

What we noticed with regard to practically every event, was that 'it' was anything  thing up to 10 000 years overdue.

Should nuclear warfare and bioterrorism be considered 'overdue'? Possibly.

Men Working

I received this mail from my friend Wendy. it made me smile, if a little wryly:


'I saw an amusing thing from my bedroom window the other day. Three trucks drew up, and four men got out, all dressed in yellow jackets.

One started stamping on a small area near the front wall of next door but one. Then another man handed him a drill, and he began to drill. Other men took turns to get a wheelbarrow out, then a rake, then a broom, then some asphalt, hten a watering can, then a stamper machine. The first man, after he had broken up the area - only about a foot square, took all these offerings in turn. The man who brought the asphalt in the wheelbarrow kept going back to the truck and putting more into it from a big sack. Eventually, the area was filled and stamped to their satisfaction, and they all departed in their three trucks. It would have made a very funny film - almost balletic in the way they took turns handing the tools to each other..

Nothing was taken out or put in the hole, and when they left it all looked exactly the same as before.

Sent the account and pics of the workmen to Martin Horwood, our MP. Got a reply from his office from one David Fidgeon, asking if I could tell where the trucks came from. I enlarged the photos and one had "Highway Maintenance" on the back.

I got a reply immediately which made me laugh: - (I had apologised for "Love Wendy" which had got attached to my mail from where I sent it to friends.)


Who would be so churlish as to complain about being offered a bit of love!



We will contact Gloucestershire Highways and see what they say.



David Fidgeon





So I replied that a bit of love was always welcome and wished him a Merry Christmas!



See you on Monday.



Love Wendy.'









W.