Grabbin Some Grammar, Innit 🤟

Sometimes I am inundated with advertising which states I need Grammarly. So, I tested it with a few paragraphs from the Masters 😉

EH6670P 1930s Ernest Hemingway sitting on a dock next to the Pilar, 1930s. Photographer unknown in the Ernest Hemingway Collection of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

The first paragraph from The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel came up with a score of 86/100 with two commas missing and if I go Premium there are a further 3 alerts, including 2 Potentially Sensitive Language issues and another punctuation error.

The first few lines of Atonement, Ian McEwan, the Observer cites it as one of the greatest 100 novels ever written. It gained a score of 96/100. I was asked to remove the ‘a’ before ‘lunch’ and if I pay for Premium they will tell me why it has ‘hard – to – read – text’ lol.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, still used in UK schools as part of the GCSE curriculum. The first paragraph gained a miserly score of 87/100 with 5 alerts of misspellings, although to be fair 4 were full stops after Mr or Mrs which we don’t do anymore. But if I pay for Premium they will explain the problems with passive voice misuse and intricate text.

Finally The Overstory, Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel 2019. A score of 90/100, 4 alerts ascertaining to, missing comma, incorrect noun use and 2 spelling mistakes. If you pay for Premium there are a further 6 alerts – Word choice, passive voice misuse, punctuation and 2 monotonous sentences.

Monotonous?? It’s a Pulitzer for gawd’s sake 😂😂

I put this post into Grammarly and my score is the same as Hemingway’s, so Pulitzer here I come 😘😘

Now I wonder if the young lady on the telly who tells us we need Grammarly to write a really good novel is… possibly wrong. 🙂

Wild in the Country Day 2

The majesty of the wilds encourages you to reconsider values. These rocks, these meadows, along the coastline, formed between 200 and 145 million years ago, are totally untouched by our present situation. They don’t care if we have a bad day at work lol.

There are dinosaur fossils on the beach and yet some of us become irate if we miss an episode of Eastenders. Anyaways here we were on our trek. There was a plan but as I have said before it usually goes to pot.

We spot a couple looking at a sign post and someone says, ‘Which way are you headed?’ I stare at the Princess in disbelief. They tell us they are heading for Robin Hoods Bay. ‘So are we and it’s that way,’ states the royal one. As we move off they shout that they will follow us. I smile. Good luck with that, my sense of direction is not brilliant.

Some months ago I entered The Drop. Basically they blindfold you, drop you 15 miles from the center of York and you run back. No map, no phone, no assistance whatsoever. The following day I overheard the Princess on the phone asking if you still had to wait seven years before proclaiming a missing person as deceased!!

On route we discovered the Alum Works, now this took a bit of figuring out. Me? I thought it was Aluminium lol. Apparently it was used to repair dye in clothes and was the birthplace of the English chemical industry and with the arrival of synthetics it was abandoned, so there y’go

Anyaways I digress… we managed about fourteen kilometres reached Robin Hoods Bay, got back safely and did actually see the aforementioned couple in the hotel that night.

I must say though, if you go to the Bay call in at Barkers ice cream shop they do chocolate shots from a fountain, OMG I think I bounced home.

I’m not doing Day 3 as it was another longish walk in the opposite direction and it rained nearly all day. I think were depressed enough without blog posts where people get soaked and covered with mud… Needless to say it was great to be away from it all. Keep safe you lovely, lovely people and remember every new beginning has to have an ending. xx

In The Wild Country (Day One)

There is a place where the wild things go, so they tell me. Possibly just another myth but if it exists I’ve found a few of them over the years. So, after months of media scaremongering with if’s, but’s and maybe’s, coupled with a billion theories on the present situation which no one has a clue about, we made a decision. “Off to the moors,” we cried. I booked us into the Raven Hall Hotel, Ravenscar, which straddles a cliff edge overlooking the North Sea.

Exploration began immediately (I was rather keen to get back before nightfall) We decided on a short walk, although the Princess and I never achieve this, due to our loss of concentration and constant banter 😂

It soon became evident we were not alone, although I’m not sure these could be classed as ‘wildlife,’ the horse was friendly as were the young bulls but after spotting Daddy we decided against crossing the field 🥴

After chatting away for nearly two hours and eventually checking the map, it was evident that we were going to have to cover 6 miles (10k) and climb the equivalent of 90 sets of stairs (according to Garmin), so we headed back. The long walk was supposed to be tomorrow!

As we approached the hotel from a different angle we debated on the castle structure which we hadn’t noticed before. The Princess thought it was Roman whereas I with my vast reading of Bernard Cornwell novels knew it to be Norman. We were a little disappointed to find out it was in fact built by the Reverend Dr Willis in the 1800’s There were some great views of the sea, once inside and of course every castle should have a reclining Princess! 😂

So, the first day of exploration done, we headed to our room to prepare for a night of good food, wine and merriment. But I wasn’t expecting the view of Robin Hoods Bay from our hotel room window which strangely enough was our hiking aim for the morrow, gee it looks a long way. I hope you all had a lovely weekend my friends 🙏❤️

Some’at f’nowt

Or as you posh people say, ‘something for nothing.’ I was always told as a kid that you’ll never get “some’at f’nowt.” But, as I have aged I realise that isn’t necessarily true. Inspiration and motivation is free. But today it’s everywhere, blogs, tweets, FB and LinkedIn posts but I do wonder if you can have too much, so you become anesthetized to them?

We now have this stuff all over college. We even have it on the stair risers. I often imagine kids falling down the stairs as they read these wonderful messages of encouragement. “All it takes is a leap of faith.” Call me cynical but should that be on a stairwell? 😉

I noticed as I walk to the canteen there is a poster of a girls midriff and, let’s just say she is carrying a little weight. The message is concerning obesity and diabetes. Okay, great message… I guess – but what about the girl with an eating disorder who is heading for lunch? Well it’s okay because two yards further on there is another poster advertising doughnuts six for the price of three and of course their biggest selling product is cheesy chips. Dear lord… Be safe, be healthy my friends xx

Are You Naughty?

I’ve been called ‘Naughty’ many times. Obviously to spare the innocent I couldn’t possibly recant them all, Dick Emery springs to mind😂 Our illustrious leader has told us not to be naughty, fat chance there Toryboy. So it looks like we’ll have soldiers on the streets with cattle prods very soon.

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Personally I’m quite happy to keep 2 metres away from most people, of course that’ll depend upon their gender (now some would say that’s naughty)

The Princess calls me naughty on a regular basis, my female work colleagues do the same. Apparently I have a glint in my eye (I’m a bit proud of that; it’s genetic) My dad had 6 brothers and from the stories I was told as a nipper they were all naughty.

We can probably blame my grandad, as far back as the 50’s, as an old man, he was at it. My grandma was very religious and when, one day she invited the vicar to tea, grandad put a whoopee cushion on his seat. When the vicar sat down and the inevitable happened, grandad asked him if he had digestion problems 😂. There was a very attractive school ma’am in the village and somehow he always managed to be in the garden when she cycled home, stopping her for a little ‘chat’😉

Of course in today’s society naughtiness is now deemed as inappropriate or it’s classed as a syndrome and children are given drugs to control it, something akin to the lobotomies dished out years ago. Grandad would probably be arrested today for stalking and the vicar would sue him for causing irreversible stress and trauma. As for me? I’ll just Carry On Regardless and let them class me as senile. What about you? Are you naughty? 😘 Keep safe my friends!

Seaside, Smugglers, a Dragon or the Devil

There is something quite romantic about white horses, not the majestic, virile stallions. I mean the oceanic type, whipped up by the breeze. Although I’m sure there are a few mares who would disagree. Today we went to Filey and strangely enough i don’t recall going before.

I wanted to try out my new Triathlon suit… no I’ve never done one but my running partner believes I should and so the the Princess bought me a suit… go figure? I guess it’s just easier to do as your told. I want to go Cave Diving but apparently that’s too dangerous lol. So, back to Filey apparently it was rife with smugglers and Filey Brigg, below, was either created by the Devil who, during his creation, dropped his hammer in the sea when he plunged his hand in to retrieve it; he caught a fish instead. He called out ‘Ha Dick.’ Which is how the Haddock got it’s name and the distinctive marks on the Brigg were created by the Devil. Alternatively the Brigg is the actual remains of a Dragon. When it created mayhem in the area and was finally drowned by the townsfolk when it dived into the sea to wash parkin from its teeth. Maybe the people in Game of Thrones should have given Khaleesi some parkin and solved all their problems!

Notice there were no references to the Princess 😉 The smuggling went on for 150 years up and down the East Coast but I was a bit disappointed to find out a lot of it was tea! Saltburn had an underground passage with an entrance below the stable of a horse. The horse would kick anyone it didn’t know. There was a hollowed-out beam in a Filey pub and a church crypt in Hornsea that kept some unholy secrets. But it was a good walk and I got Fish and Chips even if I didn’t get a Triathlon suit trial xx

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A Marshall but no Badge

Once again it seems I am to stand and encourage sweating, heaving bodies battle their way to ecstasy. Although my lump has now become quite hard I really don’t think it could cope with Sunday’s mass gathering. So I will marshall the Virtual Great North Run as part of the Beverley Westwood parkrun and rest the Achilles’ tendon.

Still it will be a good morning for everyone else but I’m a teensy weeny bit jealous. The countryside is fab. I know because I walked the route today. There are some great places where you could put your foot down! Still, there’s always next year 😉

Not my most exciting post but if you’ve read the past ones you know I’m busy helping my buddy get her house done whilst fighting off the sex workers 😂

I’m a Hunted Man

I’m not a bad looking bloke (no Al Pacino) but passable on a good day. Do you remember my post about the girls on Instagram? If not, basically I was besieged by beauties, mid twenties, always had a small cute child and believed in Jesus. I toyed with them for a while, don’t frown! It wasn’t 50 Shades, just chat. Anyaways I got bored and started blocking them, so they stopped.

Well just like Poltergeist 2, “They’re back,” This time it’s Goodreads. If your not familiar with Goodreads it’s an app, well I think it is (I get confused with apps, gifs, Tinder, Grinder, Tik Tok, Snap Chat, etc) Although my apprentices will sometimes say.

“Hey, Charlie look what a girl just sent me on Snap Chat.” If you’re a young girl and feel the urge to send pics like that. Don’t!!! If I wanted to see a girls breakfast I can go to McDonalds! Apart from that, once it’s out there, it’s out there 🤭

Sorry I digress. I use Goodreads to note the books I have read, search for new books, read interviews with writers, you know that sort of stuff. In the last week I have been invited by three girls (cute but 40 years too late) to connect. They haven’t read any books, saved any books, liked any books. But they assure me they can do things that will leave me ‘satisfied.’ Girls… at my age the term is ‘exhausted,’ not ‘satisfied.’ I asked the Princess if she fancied a go but she declined. 😘

As a footnote I have also been invited to connect with young women on Linkedin, they haven’t offered me any ‘Services’ but they all work for Walmart. Do you think I could be sending the wrong message out? Carpenter – Carpenter Assessor – Writer… LOL I have one thought, on my CV it does say Diver!

Back into my Porn

I flick through the magazine and realise how much I have missed these moments. I get so excited I actually play a video that pops up on my I-Pad. The Princess raises an eyebrow, as this is interrupting Coronation Street and I do have it rather loud.

Sadly they are only explaining the said ‘Toy’ and not actually demonstrating it. But OMG it’s a monster with attachments, I can almost feel the vibration in my fingers and for £59.99 from Screwfix I buy one.

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Yes my friends I have been hard at it for nearly 6 weeks now. I discover the old urges of searching for ‘toys’ to enhance my performance have returned. It started with the floors, as you know from last weeks post. My running partner is such a lovely person I felt compelled to carry on. I’ve swung new doors (I guess that kinda makes me a ‘swinger’) painted walls and with help from my running buddy we’ve laid a path (yeah you picked up on the word laid! Really!!) we’ve laid (give up now!) a patio, dug some deep holes for fence posts and erected a fence. I guess it could be a Carry On film.

So now I am indulging myself in what the Princess calls ‘Man Porn’ actually it’s far better than the other kind. Ever tried hammering your way through 400mm of concrete with a Greedy Girl Rabbit?

When You Are Let Down!

A wall half-finished, a gable end not completed but you have a roof? How does that work I wonder… My running partner needed an extension and chose someone who was recommended. It turned out this, ‘all-round tradesman’  had learned a little brickwork while serving a prison sentence for fraud and so the nightmare began.

After completing half the extension walls he put the roof on. In between time he started digging out the patio, ripped out the bathroom, commenced the loft conversion, removed windows, doors and started replacing drainage. I’m not a gifted intellectual but I do wonder where the plan was. She got rid of him! Enter, Chris and Del two great lads who started on the interior.

But what to do with the exterior walls? We got a quote from two head shaking experts who informed her, ‘the roof has to come off! And it’ll cost £2,400’ So, Charlie had a word with good old Andy, bricklaying lecturer at college and he said. ‘I’ll do it for some beer money.’ two days later it was all done and guess what? We didn’t take the roof off.

He even built a step

Two of her daughters chose a laminate floor, (this is my bit) Lurv fitting those floors, lol.

Of course, you then have the issue of daughter number three who is left with a plain wooden floor and wants something akin to her sisters haha. Well give me some old emulsion paint, a marker pen to imitate the joints and some floor varnish and I am away. I wouldn’t recommend it though. Two days of ‘cutting in’ does kinda get to your shoulders. But the smile on a littles girl’s face was probably worth it 😉

Hurrah now all we need to do is change the neighbour’s garden from a building site to a garden! Did I mention, I quite like laying patios too 😉

So, my dear friends if you book a builder I wouldn’t just take the recommendation of his wife even if she is a work colleague.  My running partner (and her three daughters) are happy again. By the way, that is why I missed a blog post last week. x

ek doosare ke prati dayaalu rahen. aap sabhee ko pyaar.

I Know… I’m Late!

I pride myself on a nine-thirty-five blog post, maybe because I’m anal; not in the bottom sense. I’m not saying I’m an A-hole although there are some who would possibly disagree 😉 Anyway I hope everyone has had a fab week. I am helping someone out in their house – it’s okay it’s empty so I’m not breaking any rules, I really don’t want the Boris police sniffing around. I’m laying laminate floors as below. I have also been pondering bees – see below in case your not sure what a bee is. I saw a bee in the garden and wondered what he did with all the honey? Well, apparently wild bees don’t make honey because they’re miserable sods, this is a reincarnation both Quercus  and myself would probably enjoy. It’s only sociable bees who make honey.

Photo by Anton Atanasov on Pexels.com

I only had one day off and I promised to go to Flamborough Head for a hike with the Princess. If you’ve never heard of Flamborough Head it’s a lump of land which sticks out into the sea. It’s a great hike along the cliff tops. I say hike because we set off on a 3-mile stroll but we invariably talk too much, forget to look at the map, get lost and, as was the case yesterday, completed a 7-mile hike 😉

So that is why my post is late lol. By the way, I do love a cornfield on a hot summers day. There is something special about how it waves in the breeze, don’t y’think?

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