Well, there’s three days off work, which have disappeared quicker than the analogy I originally thought of when I started typing this sentence. It’s actually been a good few days off.

Firstly, it’s not been wasted, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the bad things include being incinerated to a crisp. You’d have thought that I’d have built up some immunity to the sun as a child, seeing as I was only ever allowed to “play out” until 6PM, before my mother appeared at the door, screaming my name at the top of her lungs, ordering me to come in. Hence Chad’s recent comment-posing name of “6-O Clock Curfew”.

Don’t worry, it took me a while to work it out too!

Er, anyway. Back to what has been going on recently.

Monday, unfortunately was a day that can just be scrubbed off the calendar altogether. After finishing a nightshift, I decided to just stay in bed until about 8PM. I don’t like doing that, but sometimes it’s necessary to get a few good hours of sleep inside of me. Therefore, the day was entirely wasted. Unless you count sleep, in that case, it was pretty much perfect.

So, Tuesday was the day when I began to get things done. The weather was ideal. Daddykins left Mercuryvapour Towers at approximately 11, in order to get the car MOT’d. I was kicking things around the house, when I decided that the grass out of the front needs mowing. It had been a couple of weeks since I’d done it. In fact, I blogged about it in here, thanks to the fact the mower shedded two blades.

Surely, the same thing couldn’t happen again.

After completing the majority of the garden, I ran over a piece of innocent looking grass…

“BANG! BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Sigh. Another blade gone. I can only apologise for this piece of deja-vu, but… I replaced the blade, and once again began to cut the grass.

“BANG! BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Christ almighty. Two blades, shattered in less than 15 seconds. Only this time, this came from a different piece of grass. Four blades in 2 mowings. I’m beginning to think our mower is fucked.

During my time shredding turf, I took a look at the front piece of the garden. There is a small portion at the top of the garden which normally “houses” daffodils in the spring, but the rest of the year, it’s a weed trap. Now, I’ve been paying more attention to this bit of the garden than what I’ve let on, and had recently de-weeded it, meaning it actually looked just like a bare piece of land.

Daddykins was home by this point, and helped remove some freshly sprouted weeds. Mostly dandelions, thanks to the state it was in last year. At this point, I said something in jest, about going to Focus and getting some plants. I also wanted to get my hair cut. The two things weren’t connected, but what was left of my hair, was a mess.

Daddykins drove me to the barbers. Turns out the temperature on the long gravel driveway of Mercuryvapour Towers was 29 degrees. It wasn’t until I sat in the barbers chair that I realised just how much sun I’d caught. As the lovely lady combed my hair, it felt like 10,000 white-hot needles were beng scraped across my scalp. Oh yes, I was sunburned, and sunburned good. Bugger.

I left the barbers, devoid of hair, and returned back to the car.

“So, do you want to go to Focus, then?”

After realising that I’d known nothing about gardening, I suddenly wondered if this was a good idea after all. I decided against it, but seeing as Focus was on the way home anyway, we decided to call in. A lighter wallet, 6 fuschia plants and a marigold plant later, we returned home. Whilst Daddykins cooked some eggs for the “Twat Cup” taking place later that evening, I went out of the front, and planted the afore mentioned plants.

The Twat Cup itself, went off without much of an incident, except I was almost “accused” of cheating at dominoes, because I didn’t let the other player pick first after it was my “shuffle”. Tsk. I explained that it was the first time I’d literally versed anyone at dominoes that wasn’t over the internet, and wasn’t aware of the finer, physical rules of the game, but was totally aware now, should I ever verse another human being at the afore-mentioned bar game. It’s unlikely, but it may happen. Remember, kids! After you shuffle, allow the other player to pick their dominoes first! Trust me, it’ll save you earache in the future. Honestly.

Chris was missing for the Twat Cup, so when I returned home I texted him to see where he was. Unfortunately, I don’t have my phone to hand, so can’t tell you exactly how the conversation went, and thanks to winning £15 and having plenty of free whisky, I was slightly the worse for wear.

So, off went Tuesday, and onto Wednesday. I awoke, in a funny position on the sofa, early enough to consider a trip to the flea market. After it was apparent that the quality of the previous nights’ ale had resorted my anus to the role of “shite fountain”, I was hesitant. Considering the sun was, once again cracking the pavements, I deicded to head off in the general direction of the flea market. It was, unfortunately, pathetic.

Eric had replaced his 50p CDs with another load of cheap, shitty DVDs. I ended up spending one, whole British pound on a “Best of T’Pau” CD. This was a CD I’d owned back in the early 1990s, but got destroyed in what I would claim was the worst week of my life, back in summer 1995.

Either way, I have a copy of it again. And, you’ll have to thank Chad once again for my T’pau interest. If he hadn’t had sold me this cassette tape back in 1988/1989, I’d have less of a knowledge of Carol Decker and the rest of the band, and their overly distorted percussion.

So, I returned home from the flea market. I decided to go out the front and begin documenting the life of my plants, whic were only planted yesterday. This involved some pretty graphic closeups…

Whilst taking photos, I returned to the alley, to view my images. It was the only place dark enough to be able to see the camera screen. I happened to look down the gravel driveway. At the end of it was a figure, clad in a high-viz vest, bicycle and camera. It could only be one person. Yes, it was Andy The Iridium Fan. I wanved, making him aware of my presence, and he cycled up the gravel driveway, and explained his prescence. Apparently, there wasn’t an actual reason, except for getting his picture taken on the “windowcam”.

Considering both of us had the rest of the day free, there was a little discussion on where to go, or what to do. I think I mentioned Durham, before quickly putting that idea on the back burner, seeing as that the only things burning would be me, on the bus to Durham. After the trip with Chris, earlier on in the year, I decided that public transport wouldn’t be the best idea, considering I’d be cooking all of the way there.

Andrew did mention the “Then and Now” exhibition on at the art gallery in Church Square, taken by Mail photographer Tom Collins. He had visited it at the weekend, and said it was great. And, considering I love stuff like that, I decided that this was the best idea ever. And for the paltry price of 50p, you could get to the top of Christchurch’s tower too. Something that I’d seen hundreds of pictures of, but never had any to climb up and call my own…

It’s around now that the photoblog starts, so for all of you who have scrolled this far, you’ll get your first pictures.

After paying your 50p, you can escalate the stairs that takes you up to the clock tower. After many dodgy experiences with climbing monuments, such as the Arc D’ Triomphe, the Scott Monument and more recently, York Minster, I was happy to find that the staircase was perfectly acceptable. You can even stop off on the way and take photos….

When you reach the top, it’s entirely different to what I thought it would be like. After seeing the few hundred pictures on sites such as flickr taken from the top of it, actually going up there and taking your own personal view of the location adds a hell of a lot to it. Since I was a kid, the Transporter Bridge is one of those things I’ve always wondered if it was visible from Hartlepool. I have never received any photographic evidence to say whether this was the case, until today….

Click the image, as you might have to zoom in a little to view it!

I’ve noticed, on flickr, that there’s normally only a couple of photos taken from Christchurch. Here’s approximately 56 of the fuckers… http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercuryvapour/archives/date-taken/2009/06/24/

Well, it appears that summer, or at least, some pleasant warm weather is here at last. It seems like only yesterday I was taking photos of the floor, and the several inches of snow laying on the sweeping lawns and gardens of Mercuryvapour Towers. Instead, I have to go out and mow the bloody things.

In fact, that’s a good a place to start as any. Yes, cutting the grass. After awaking on Saturday morning, and seeing the glorous sunshine outside, I thought I’d do the front garden. I’ve made a conscious effort to actually look after it this year. Well, by that, I mean butchering the hedge so that there’s not a leaf left on it, and cutting the grass to within a millimetre of its life.

I dragged the lawn mower out into the garden, after completing the whole rigmarole of finding somewhere to plug it in which doesn’t result in a wire trailing all of the way through the house. Eventually, a suitable outlet was found, and I plugged in the lawn mower. On it went, and after approximately six seconds.

“BANG! BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

That’s supposed to imitate the sound of one of the blades coming off, thus making the rotating thing imbalanced, then vibrate like a motherfucker, for want of a better term. Indeed, the blade has snapped. Grrr. Oddly, the repacement blades are scattered throughout the house, with absolutely no rhyme or reason. To prove this, I located a repacement blade on the telephone table near the front door. Clearly, a strange place to keep a small item of gardening equipment.

I replaced the blade, and once again began to cut the grass.

“BANG! BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Christ almighty. Two blades, shattered in less than 15 seconds of the mower actually being switched on. I have no idea if this is a record, but I once again located a blade in a strange place, this time the kitchen windowsill. I reliased that my luck of finding these blades was bound to run out sooner or later, especially if they were snapping at this rate, and I’d be left with a half-cut front garden.

Amazingly, after the 2nd replacement blade was finished, I managed to complete the garden without incident.

After I’d completed this, I slapped one of the broken blades in my pocket, as it was the only way I would know which ones we needed. We headed (Daddykins and I) off to Focus and pick up a few things. Replacement blades were, of course, on the agenda, along with a new fluorescent tube for the off-shot, which now doubles up as my darts oche.

I headed off randomly to find the lighting section. whilst Daddykins hovered around the door handles, in an attempt to replace a broken handle in an undocumented and uninteresting door handle snapping incident several months ago. I just happened to be walking around the DIY-door area (which is roughly between the door handle section and the lighting section), when I spy something which caught my interest. Something which someone had placed on the shelf after they decided they didn’t want it. A blister-pack of replacement blades for a Flymo. Hmmm. Our mower is a Flymo, and these look strangely familiar…

I examined the code on my broken blade. They were the exact type I needed, just left abandoned in a random part of the store, as if someone had just placed them there, knowing I was going to come down this way. It was one of those coincidences which I am sure I’ll be sad enough to tell everyone I meet… or maybe not.

Daddykins also attempted to buy some pea seeds, seeing as he caught the little fecker that just happened to be eating his current crop of afore-mentioned green vegetables…

Don’t worry kids, he’s only sleeping. With his eyes open, because what remains of his skull is pushing his eyes out of the sockets. And his bed is at the bottom of our wheelie bin. It seems to be the season for photographing dead stuff. This time one year ago was the time I photographed the dead hedgehog, which has since became my 5th most visited photo on flickr.

Um, moving on swiftly. I also bought a new box to store some of my records in, also from Focus. Shouldn’t have bothered. It cost me nearly 8 quid, and I didn’t realise. For the record, the fluorescent tube cost me £3.99.

So, after the excitement of Focus, we went to Netto. I didn’t buy much, though one of the things I did place in the trolley was a 24x pack of Carlsberg. This turned out to be a mistake. Not because of the beer content, but because at least one of the cans was damaged.

Between lifting the beers out of the car and through the door, I noticed a wet patch on my chest. This wasn’t the time of the month where I usually lactate, so I thought this was a bit odd. Indeed, the pathetic amount of packaging around the cans had claimed a victim, and one of the cans was punctured. Grrr. Before I had time to get mad, however, the phone rang. Chris said he was on his way up, so I arranged to meet him half way, as I had something else to do, and we might as well both walk along.

After returning home, I showed him the new dartboard setup, and almost made him marvel at the wonderment of my new, shiny, fluorescent tube. OK, I’m not that bad, but I’m sure I mentioned it at least once. After a quick game of darts, I decided that it was just too nice a night to sit in and watch telly/play darts/listen to my shite music, etc. He agreed, and we headed off in the general direction of Hart Village. It’s a perfectly acceptable walk. It’s all uphill, nice scenery, and yes, there’s a couple of pubs there too.

After having a quick walk around, we entered one of the afore-mentioned watering holes, namely the Raby Arms. It’s a nice place, but not something you would call a “local”, as the only people that were in there looked to be attending some type of function. Not that I particularly minded. The weather was warm, the beer garden was cool, and the alcohol was refreshingly cheap. For a place such as this, it was a nice surprise to receive change from a fiver for 2 pints.

After a few minutes, we headed inside the pub itself, as Chris claimed it was too cold. David Icke has said a lot of things in his time, but for *anyone* to find it too cold, on the hottest day of the year by far, they clearly must be some type of cold-blooded reptile. Or I’m exceedingly warm-blooded. One of the two. Considering everyone else in the town appeared to be showing vast amounts of bare flesh, I can’t have been in the minority.

The holiday was discussed, and unfortunately, Jonathan has pulled out of this years’ trip, after finding the lure of another trip down under too good to resist. I’m not sure, as of yet, if this will put a hold on this year’s holiday plans. We certainly seem to be leaving it late to book stuff.

In other news, I have once again removed my beard. Aftyer the trip to Raby Arms, I found it physically impossible to drink from a glass without it all dribbling down my chin. I must have been a sight. Now, for exactly 2 minutes, I removed the beard, but left the moustache. Now, there was no real reason for this, I just wanted to see what it looked like. The answer? Ned Flanders. No photographic evidence exists of me with just a moustache, but all of the signs are there if you think about it. Sigh, again.

Hart was once again the destination on Sunday, when Andy the Iridium fan called round. Once again, I was too warm to sit in the house, so off we went in the general direction of Hart. This time, Andy took his camera, while mine remained at home. I’ll explain why in a minute. Either way, I was happy with the shot I took here…

It’s the cropped version, but still looks awesome. I’d love a macro lens for my camera, especially if I can get results like that with just the stock lens. You can view all of the photos taken on that day here. It’s the first time I’ve posted a link to a flickr set for some time.

As for the reason why I didn’t take my camera, well, it’s pretty ill at the moment. I went to take a picture the other day. I switched it on, only to get the message “NO CARD”. Bugger. I couldn’t remember taking the card out of the camera, so I searched high and low for it, in all of the normal places, with no sign. I never thought to have a look in the camera itself…

The card was RIGHT THERE. Inside the camera. Joy. I removed the card, and inserted it again…

“NO CARD”.

Thinking my 16Gb card was fucked, I nipped upstairs, and got my other one. Inserted it, and “NO CARD” again. Sigh, once again. My 2Gb card produced the same results. Arrrrgh. So, I inserted/removed the card a number of times. Clearly this was enough to restore the contacts, as the camera recognised the card after that, but I am a bit annoyed. My experience with electronic devices points me in the direction of this happening again, and frequently, until the camera is useless. Whilst the camera is under warranty, do I send it back now, or wait until it dies completely? This is clearly an intermittent problem.

Ahh, now we’re starting to get into the swing of things. We knew where all of the eateries were, and we knew where we can stock up on supplies, we knew how much it was to get into at least 3 of the attractions.

Today was the day that we’d all planned to get up early and attack the Eiffel tower queues. It looked as if you really had to get in there early, or not bother getting in at all. Now, I knew, if we were going to attempt this, we really WOULD need supplies. Definitely water, for a kick off. Thankfully, Shoppy came in handy again, and I picked up three bottles of water. We also had the breakfast this morning. Now you may remember yesterday I mentioned La Terasse, where we’d stopped off for something to eat on the night. Well, that’s where we went for breakfast too.

I forgot to mention we also went for breakfast here on Day 2. I think. See, my mind doesn’t record every single detail on mornings. I just remember getting confused over the following…

Me: “Parlez vous Anglais?”
Him: “No, only French.”

You will just have to imagine my face at that point. No, in fact, imagine my face about 30 seconds later when I got his “joke”. Anyway, one awesome breakfast later, we head off to the Eiffel tower, and joined the queue, at 9:43, and didn’t get into the actual tower until 10:29. There was then a 7 minute wait until we got into the cable car at 10:36 to take up up to the first floor. The question was, would the view be worth it? I don’t think I’ll bother answering that question, as I can assure you, the views are absolutely amazing. Oh, wait. I just answered it.

Seriously though, it’s not until you get up to a high point that you realise how big Paris is. Here is a view of the hotel we were staying in, from the top…

See that “wedge” right in the very centre? That’s where the hotel is.

We stayed up there for ages. It was surprisingly warm considering we were on the top of a ~1,000 metre high structure. After spending quite a while at the top (mainly because there was a queue for the lift approximately a mile long), we went back down to the second level, and began the long walk down the stairs to the 1st floor. It was less busy than getting the lift, obviously, plus it offered a more entertaining view.

The first floor is a lot different to the other two floors, as it has bars, exhibitions, etc. After a quick look around them, we settled for something to eat and to drink. I went for the croissant and a “pint” of Heineken. And although it was reassuringly extortionate, must say, it’sn the most picturesque beer I’ve ever had…

Edit: oops, correctified image.

The chairs, however were a little bit “rustic”. They were made entirely out of old bits of tree, and not very sturdy at all. I think the person that was on the chair behind me almost went arse-over-tit because of them.

Anyway, we ate up, drank up, and began the descent via the stairs again. Unsurprisingly, there were once again vast swaithes of souvenir sellers trying to sell you stuff from their big black bin liners. Sigh.

We headed back to the hotel temporarily for some reason, and headed off to the Arc De triomphe. Now, it’s only 1.4 miles from the hotel On our previous trip there, it certainly didn’t feel like it. It felt a hell of a lot more. Therefore, we decided to use our €16 ticket on the boat again. Now, the only slight flaw in this plan, was that in order to get up to the Champs-Élysées, the boat had to make its way all the way along the touristy parts of the Seine, and then back again This was something that took 90 minutes.

Meh, it gave me an excuse to break the camcorder out, but by the end of it, even I was all camcordered out.

Eventually, we heard the words we wanted to hear… Next stop, “Champs-Élysées”. Awesome. This is where we wanted to be.

Off we jumped, only to realise that we were nowhere near where we wanted to be. In fact, we were still 1.2 miles away from it. Gutted. That means that we’d taken a 90 minute boat trip in order to save one fifth of a mile. I suddenly knew how this guy felt.

As we continued our walk down the Champs-Élysées, we walked past the preparations for the Wall-E premiere. It is unknown whether anyone famous attended, but there were a lot of security and cameramen about.

Eventually, after what felt like a fortnight, we made it to our final destination. It was €9 to get in, and no, we didn’t take the lift. Therefore, it is a climb of 284 steps to reach the first level, which is a sort-of museum. Unfortunately, this turned out to be very sparse indeed, with only a few exhibitions in it. I really thought they’d make more of a song and dance about something that looks so impressive on the outside.

So, after a quick look around, we went up yet more stairs and reached the top of the monument. Again, the view was great.

You also get a great view of the comedy roundabout while you’re up there. It looks even madder from above. I’m honestly surprised we didn’t see a major incident while we were up there, though there were plenty of brake screeching and blaring of horns.

We headed back down, and made our way along the road we should have came in the first place. Once again, we attacked The Shoppy.

Now, imagine the scene. you enter The Shoppy, and pick up a basket, only to find that one handle on it is broken. I attempt to place it back on the top of the baskets. Next, a small woman walks into the store. She thinks I’m actually getting a basket for *her*, and she takes the broken one I was about to put down… She thanks me with a cheerful “Ah! Merci!”… now, although I did French in school, we didn’t learn the words for “this basket is broken”, and I have the documentation to prove it

I tried to explain to her in sign language that the basket was well and truly fucked, and I was simply putting it back in order to get another one.

It failed miserably.

She looked away, and muttered “oh, non merci” under her breath as she grabbed a working basket. It was all so hilariously embarrasing.

First stop after the water aisle was, of course, the beer aisle. Now, you may remember the 7.9% beers I’d bought the day before. Well, I stocked up on these again, and got a few more to last me through the night. I did spy some 9% Leffe, but steered clear of this for the time being.

In our quest to find a cheap pub the previous night, we noted a few eateries to try out. It is unsurprising that we wanted a taste of home, and therefore resorted to choosing a Chinese.

As the night was getting on by this point, we retreated to our approriate rooms, and got ready for the night. On the way down, we had a special guest in the lift…. yes, a bloody wheelie bin…

We entered the Chinese, and found it to be a very nice place. the staff were friendly, spoke perfect English and it was overall a very welcoming atmosphere. You’ll be unsurprised to find that I ordered a chicken curry. Sorry.

SIDENOTE: I know I stated I’d eat horse while I was out there. I didn’t. Though, this was mainly because I could only find one place that sold it, and at €15, I didn’t want to risk that amount of money in something that may have been horrible.

Right, with that out of the way, back to the meal. It was top notch. Me and Chris had the chicken curry, and Jonathan had Chilli beef and noodles. it was all very nice, and although yes, the beer was still expensive, we didn’t mind paying it if we were getting something to eat.

After that, it was getting late so we headed off back to the hotel to talk about the days antics, eventually retiring to bed at approximately 1:30AM.