Ground Control

At the moment due to cirsumstances beyond our control we live in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham, just outside of Sheffield and twinned with Bosnia. The town itself is incredibly run down and it has the highest percentage of empty shops anywhere in the UK.

The people around here seem to have given up on life and just live from day to day. I've seen this attitude in other parts of the UK, The Rhondda valleys for a start and anywhere where the lifeblood of industry has been sucked away from the people living there. In South Wales it was the coalmines and British Steel, here it is pretty much the same. There is some renovation going on but it's not enough to bring life back into the hear of the town.

And then there's the roads, I've been to Kenya and the roads there were of a better quality than we have in Rotherham. The road surface of one the main A roads into the town are worse than some unadopted roads in parts of the country. There are huge pithole where the surface has sunk and then you come to Parkgate, one of the busiest parts of the town. Some of the roundabouts here have such an undulating surface that you can start to feel seasick by the time you complete a circuit of them.

I feel sorry for the place, the people are generally quite nice and stratightforward but unless something is done to bring some pride back into the town int's just going to get worse.

I've just enjoyed a salad for lunch and to spice it up a bit I had some mustard which was quite nice and a little hot. This brought back memories of the time when I used to work in North John Street in Liverpool for a company formation firm. As we were pretty much in the centre of Liverpool, there was a vast selection of places to go for lunch. There was the bar across the road that used to servce all day breakfast, they were called this as they were so large that it used to be brought in on a trolley and used to take all day to eat. Then there were places with fancy French sounding names where you could buy a lettuce leaf, an olive and some strange sounding dressing for the price of a luxury car and then there was Sayers.

Sayers specialised in providing stodge for people that were hungry and who had malfunctioning taste buds, in this Sayers they served a Steak, onion and mustard roll. I had indulged in the past and to be honest they were quite nice and actually had some taste.

This one however was different, I returned to my office, made some coffee and sat down to carry on with work as I ate my lunch. The first two bites were quite dissapointing as there appeared to be a complete lack of mustard, then there came the third bite. This mouthful appeared to contain a complete jar of Colmans special hot bastard edition mustard and it was all in my mouth. My eyes started watering and my breath started melting the screen on my laptop. Then my nose felt like it was swelling up and any minute now would explode, the top of my head started evaporating and my eyes felt as though they wanted to run away from my body. Agony was not the word to use, indescribable pain that just increased until it became so high that only dogs could feel it.

I couldn't stand up and go and get water as my eyes were glazed over and I could only focus on what was left of the Steak sandwich. After some time the pain subsided and I could once more see and breathe again. The rest of the sandwich was inspected and there was no mustard in it, all of it was contained in that one searingly hot mouthful.

I've never been back for one and now check any dishes with mustard for hidden surprises

It was our first Christmas in Rotherham, a town which not so many years ago was twinned with Mordor, but after much unrest and complaints from the locals, Mordor won and the twinning was ended. And so December the 25th arrived at our little flat in Rotherham, a few days earlier I had gone out and shot the Turkey myself. the staff at Tesco's weren't very happy about it and insisted that I had to purchase it now as no other soft bugger would.

And so we cooked that Turkey with great care and prepared a feast fit for ourselves on Christmas day and lo from the East (local Asda) there came some crackers which were pulled asunder with great abandon. Out of Angie's fell some incredible nail clippers, while out of mine came a majestic yo-yo in a deep irridescent pink. When held up to the light, it split the rays up into a rainbow with a lovely warming pink hue that was almost magical to behold.

I examind the humour and the words of wisdom that fell magically from the cracker, the humour inside was subtle and incredibly amusing and indeed, it took some minutes for us to stop laughing. Then I inspected the yo-yoI carefully held it in my hand, checking it's weight, it's balance, it's shape, it was perfect.

I stood up and assumed the stance of a professional yo-yoer, tied the string carefully round my finger and extended my arm, with a deft flick I sent the weighted end majestically towards the wall intending to pull it back to me at the last moment leaving everyone watching gasping with delight and amazement. The yo-yo reached the end of it's string and at that point became a yo as it and the string parted company and the speeding bit of plastic now smashed against the wall and resolved itself into it's constituant components.

Bloody cheap gifts from crackers

It's hard to think that this time last year I was completely and utterly buggered thanks to an allergic reaction to some dry skin stuff and incorrect medication, the tablets that sorted me have left their mark as my kidney and liver functions are still not quite back to normal and I feel the cold a bit more now that I used to.

Of course, this time last year I was working in Best Buy AIntree, there were plans for many more stores and in a few months I would be offered the position of Senior Counter Intelligence Agent at Rotherham Best Buy. I took the offer despite having reservations about the store manager and some time later my fellings about him were proven to be true. I'm betting he was a very spoily only child that had been bullied and was now using his new found powers on those that worked for him. Then in October came salvation, my immediate manager was returned to the Dark SIde or DSG as we call them and I was offered a position there, it took a bit of thinking but I accepted the position and within 2 weeks came the announcement that Best Buy was pulling out of the UK market. It's unusual that I get to make a decision that turns out that well but thankfully things have gone my way for once.

Then a few weeks later I once more made contact with my son Jason, I was foolish to lose contact with him so many years ago and although there is very little chance of a complete reconciliation, talking is a good start.

So next year will hopefully see us moving a birt further south in the direction of Newark or surrounding area and maybe things will start to come together properly.

Let's see what the future brings.