An Epic Journey: 10.5 Miles Long...

A lot has been happening the past two weeks. Sick elderly relatives - one hospitalized and one anxiously waiting to be -  a frazzled and exhausted Mother, a frazzled and exhausted me, worry over the threat of my job being lost (long story) and as the cherry on top of the cake; the insane stress of the dog undergoing multiple tests and then having major surgery to remove an enormous lump that wasn't a lymphoma, as had first been thought, but in actual fact a cancerous tumour (an even longer story).
     Good times.

Anyhoo, I don't intend to dwell upon any of that now.
     The Great Aunt is stable. The Grandmama is still waiting but otherwise fine, The Mother's workload is stabilizing somewhat. It turns out that the treat of B&Q's closure was an idle one, for now at least. And most important of all, the dog is just dandy; indeed, he is frustratingly so (he is supposed to be keeping still).
     So that's alright.

What I intend to talk about today, is the saga of the fetching of Hathaway (that's our lovely little silver car) from the garage. Because I have an hour to wait before starting out for yet another vet visit with the (increasingly active and uncontrollable) dog, and really, it's funny as heck. Terrifying at the time - for us, at least, cowardly worriers that we are - but still; funny as heck.

Right-ho, then!
     Onward...

~.START.~ 

So! Our car was poorly bad. 

     Hathaway had been making very odd and unnerving noises, intermittently, for some time. Then all of a sudden the noises became ten times worse and didn't stop. So, we parked him up, borrowed The Grandmama's car (which thankfully was not in use) and waited for MN Autos to reopen. 

     It's a great place, and run by a great guy: reliable, trustworthy, patient, honest. Annoyingly, and in this instance inconveniently, there is a long period of closure over Christmas lasting from 23rd December until late January (wherein Dave sods off to visit relatives), but overall it is worth the wait, and so wait we did. 

     Then, once the garage reopened on the 20th we called up Dave, explained the problem, and delivered Hathaway for prognosis and treatment.

     24 hours later, we had a diagnosis, a fair sounding estimate and a date the work would be finished. 

     All well and good. Fast forward three days...

It went well to begin with.

     After dropping The Grandmama's car off at her flat - well, not AT her flat as in IN her flat. Outside. By the curb, rather than in her designated spot because apparently she has loaned that to someone called Greta - we called a taxi, which picked us up and drove us to the entrance to the road leading to the infamous 'Hoobrook Industrial Estate'.

.....And that was where the trouble started. 

     It was closed.

     Yep. Closed. For road resurfacing. As in, NO ENTRY: GO AWAY!*

Thinking on his feet - or rather on his seat, as he was sitting down - the taxi driver drove all the way around the one way system to reach the other entrance to the road to see if we could get in that way, only to find that we couldn't. 

     However, just as we were talking - Mother and I - about having to be driven back to Wolverly to reclaim Grandmama's car and did we have enough money to pay for that or would we need to stop at a cash-point, the driver had another idea. No fear, he assured us; he would drive up to the cones and then go and ask the workmen that he could see if it would be OK if we nipped in real quick to fetch our car.

     Great, we thought, or at least we thought that until we reached the cones and the taxi driver got out and then instead of walking past the cones to greet the workmen he moved the cones, got back into the car and drove; DROVE over the newly half surfaced road up to the flabbergasted looking workmen who stopped everything they were doing to stare at the taxi in disbelief,

     Then the taxi driver, unabashed, drove a bit closer so that he could roll down his window to tell them about our car situation. Mother, by this point was near hysterical and wanted to go home (picture a plump, 5ft2in dark haired woman whimpering mostly unintelligible things regarding 'leaving' in the backseat), but neither one of us was brave enough to actually voice this to the nice taxi driver - known henceforth as N.T.D - so we just sort of sat there, feeling varying levels of hysteria (Mother's; high, mine; medium) as the car bumped and scraped its way towards the probably very annoyed workmen and then N.T.D leaned his head out to address them. 

     After a bit of (surprisingly polite) to-ing and fro-ing, it was eventually decided that we would be allowed to drive through and fetch our car, providing that we left the back way so as not to drive over the resurfaced road twice (or, rather, three times, considering that the second time around there would be two cars not one), which was the cue my panic level rising to around the same height as Mother's was sat at, as I yelped loudly that we didn't know 'the back way' at all. The only 'way' we knew was the way we had come. 

     Fear not, N.T.D had assured us both calmly, upon hearing my cries; he would show us. All we had to do was follow him. Which was nice, and soothing, or at least it was for about 30 seconds until we came upon the first workman to be unaware of the plan a little down the way and our panic levels soared back up again at breakneck speed. 

     Stopping the car again, N.T.D explained the situation again, and was - grudgingly - allowed to continue.

     Then 30 seconds after that, we came across another uninformed workman...

     Lather, rinse, repeat.

Now well and truly spooked, Mother and I sat in stupefied silence as the taxi finally reached the right turning and trundled its way down the horrendously uneven and potholed road - right there we have why Hoobrook Industrial Estate is infamous - leading to MN Autos, and ground to a halt directly outside the building, where our car sat swathed in darkness and all on its lonesome. Whereupon, Mother got out.
     Walking over to Hathaway, she patted his bonnet fondly and bent down to retrieve the key - which as had been arranged on many occasion was behind the driver's side wheel - only to find it missing. And that, for some reason, the spare key she had brought with her just in case, did not work, in any of the doors.
     Cue: utter hysteria. 

Hurriedly, I got out, after checking that the N.T.D was not going to abandon us, and rushed over to help Mother as she frantically scrabbled around in the dark hunting for the illusive key.
     To aid in this, N.T.D helpfully turned himself around and shone his headlights in our direction, and after a few more minutes scrabbling, the key was located on the ground nearby. Whether it had fallen out on its own at some point before our arrival or Mother herself had knocked it out of place accidentally as she reached for it in the blackness was unclear, and given the state she was in it certainly wasn't a question I was going to ponder out loud, but the main thing was that we had found it, and that - God willing - we would be able to drive home.      
     At Mothers behest, I unlocked every door and she flung them all open one by one, shoving the bags of stuff we had cleared out from The Grandmama's car - the blanket Bingo had lain on; by now utterly filthy, maps and directions to various places, Mother's gym kit and trainers (ah, the primary supply teacher's lot), a plethora of empty storage tubs (no idea why) and various bits and pieces for the bin - unceremoniously onto Hathaway's backseat and then slammed all the doors shut again. Then Mother waited by Hathaway while I got back into the taxi, paid N.T.D what we owed him - adding a nicely comfortable bonus on top (which, by golly, he had earned) in gratitude for both his kindness and patience in dealing with two women that were rather obviously not able to cope with life** - then I got out of the taxi again for hopefully the last time, and headed back to where Hathaway was waiting, equally patiently.
     Sitting ourselves inside, we breathed deeply to calm ourselves down before beginning the drive, then - after waiting a little while longer for Mother's brain to unlock itself and remind her precisely how to drive - we got turned around, hooted the horn to signal the off, and started off behind N.T.D to find our way out. 

Bless him, he drove at about 4 miles per hour around that trail - we know because that's how fast Hathaway said that we were travelling - and waited until we had not only cleared the industrial estate, but also two islands worth of road works with cones confusing the lanes, still at less than 10 miles per hour, before flashing his lights "goodbye" and finally driving away to leave us to it. 

After negotiating the next island, thankfully workmen and cone free, Mother pulled into a nearby supermarket car park.
     For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then Mother broke the silence.

"Well that's that," she said, softly, staring ahead of her with wide, strained eyes; "we have our car back,"

"Yes," I said, in reply, also staring numbly ahead with wide, strained eyes; "we have."

"...How much was the fare?" she asked, after a pause. 

"£8.40," I told her. 

"Not bad, considering," she nodded. Then she added; "how much extra did you put on top of that for a tip?"

"The rest of the cash in your purse."

"And how much was that."

"£10."

She nodded again.

"Good." ...another pause, then... "Do I have my bank card?"

I checked: "yes."

"Good. Let's go get some whisky."

"Let's," I agreed with a sigh.

~.END.~

Alice x

* in defense of Dave from MN Autos for not having warned us, the original roadwork plan was for one half of the road to be done at a time, to allow cars to pass through the road - a main road - reasonably as normal and grant access to the numerous businesses within the estate; it wasn't until the day the road works actually began that some bright spark decided that as only one business was open past 6-PM and none at all after 7-PM, it would be fine and dandy to close the whole thing and do the entire damn thing. 
     ...Thanks for that, whoever you are, 
** in defense of us, it had been a very stressful week already, and we were anxiously awaiting news of the results of the multitude of tests performed on both The Great Aunt and the dog at the same time, so we may have been a little more panicky than usual.
     ...Okay, a lot more panicky. But it really had been a stressful week... 

Note To Self:

When attempting to show one's Mama a picture of something one saw earlier in the morning using Google Images, typing in the word 'thrush' - minus the word 'song' - will NOT get one the result that one is expecting.

=SHUDDERS=

Alice x

=SIGHS=

As it turns out, Operation Give The Grandmama A New Hip has been postponed for the time being.
     'Postponed', that is, as in 'cancelled'.

You read right.
     The hospital have cancelled her operation due to a lack of beds; something that is not of course their fault - sh...er...stuff, happens, right? - and we are now back on the waiting list, awaiting the arrival of a new letter with a new date.
     All well and good. As I said, that isn't the fault of the hospital that there aren't enough beds and emergencies have to be dealt with first, obviously.

It's just...we'd all nerved ourselves up, y'know? Grandmama especially.
     And we'd all been running round arranging things to help Grandmama to get ready - which had been going on for weeks and weeks. It's not a case of being admitted, signing your consent form, having a good wash and (if needed) shaving the appropriate area along with a quick blood test (again if needed) anymore; oh no. There are a myriad of "pre-admittance procedures" to contend with now - which was very stressful for her because she hates being a burden to anybody.
     To make it worse, for the past week Grandmama has had to wash every inch of herself in this horrible smelling special prescription soap and then thoroughly dry every inch of herself afterwards - this for a woman in her mid eighties, who is immobile enough now that she has to sit down to take a shower, and previously had dried herself by the method of wrapping up in a bathrobe and lying down on the bed to allow nature to take its course, Cue me spending the first half of my holiday at her flat to help out - and then wash every towel/flannel etc. used along with single item of clothing worn the previous day, and then from Monday onward she was  barred from going out except to her prearranged hospital appointment for yet another blood test - which had to be done twice on two different days anyway, because a mistake had been made in her notes - lest she come into contact with an infected person, and she couldn't be around the dog, which made arranging the time I spent at her flat helping with washing and fetching and filing (don't ask) very difficult - because Mother already had work booked and you cannot leave a nearly eleven year old dog without access to somewhere to piddle for ten hours plus - and then to top it all; she wasn't allowed to take her usual half sleeping tablet or have her usual little drink the night before due to the operation being booked for 7-AM.
     And then, at the last moment, postponement, which was expected, because (yet again) stuff happens, and finally, hours later (after Grandmama had been without food for almost 10 hours and without water for 6), cancellation, which hadn't been expected by anybody.

I mean, it's bad, isn't it?
     To mess someone about like that, no matter who or what is at fault, is bad; particularly somebody that is vulnerable, which despite her strength of character my Grandmama certainly now is.
     Poor Grandmama.
     She's been putting herself out in one way or another for almost a year now (the terribly 'urgent' cases have a deadline of 12 months, apparently, rather than the usual 24) and now she just feels utterly flat and depressed.
     It's taken a long time for the pain to become desperate enough that she would even consider an operation at all - terrified of the idea of it as she is - and once she did, she obeyed all of the rules handed out to her (silly, uncomfortable and/or inconvenient as many of them were) and put up with being shunted from doctor to doctor and poked and prodded and asked questions of a most embarrassing and personal (and unfortunately, necessary) nature, and then there was all that hoo-haa with the soap and not being allowed to do this or eat that or drink the other and then she was under house arrest for three days and then got up at hell-O'clock in the morning after a bad night's sleep minus her usual tablet and nip of brandy (and it really is a 'nip'. In a pub if you were served the thimbleful that my aged grandparent guzzles as a 'single', you would be justifiably revolted), and now it is all off and she has to wait for the whole thing to begin all over again.

And I know it's not the fault of any individual person or of the hospital; they're doing the best they can under the crap circumstances the government have put them in, and there's no use being angry about it and that this is just the way it is, but - AARRGGHH!
     I am just so fed up and tired and pissed off.
     We - all of us - are.

Anyway, that's it. Rant over.
     I just needed to get it all out, and now I have, so there t'is.

As a nice silver lining to the cancellation; Grandmama is alive and - mostly - well and the thing we have all been having nightmares about - no matter how unlikely everyone keeps saying it is - hasn't come to pass.

Plus, tonight there shall be good company, a trashy horror film, and wine, so; yay.

Alice x

It's Rare That I Agree With Anything Mentioned On Yahoo News, But...

...this sounds about right:

"I'm beginning to suspect that no matter what is going on, the news people just wants to control people and keep them in their misery: Petrol price high - how will we afford to go to work; petrol prices low - the four horsemen of apocalypse on the horizon; warm winter weather - the ice caps are melting, winter temperatures plummet - people are freezing in their dwellings; Low crops - food prices go high; lots of crops - farmers boycotting low prices.

Had a friend who always read novels with happy ending. She had no idea what goes on in the world, but she was always happy."

Yep.
     The sentiments expressed in that, I definitely agree with. 
     =nods=

Also, for better or worse, the 'friend' mentioned in the final paragraph? 
     For better or worse; that could very well be me.
     Yep.
     =nods=

Thank you. That is all.

=bows. sits back down. resumes drinking=

Alice x

The Power! ...THE POWER!...

I am now connected to the Internet.

Thank you.
     That is all.

=bows. walks off=

Alice x

Mice, And Routers, And Glasses; Oh My!

Yesterday didn't start all that well. It got better, as time went on, and ended very well indeed (with Desmond Carrington, sewing, laughter, and the unexpected gift of a bottle of port), but to begin with; it was a disaster.


To start with, I awoke to find that the little cold that has been threatening to develop had made good its threat and developed, leaving me feeling achy, groggy and disorientated, and with a nose that couldn't make its mind up whether to block or stream.


Then upon yawning my way into the livingroom avec my usual morning glass of water, I saw the little Interweb Box Thingy sat on the floor and remembered that - oh yes! - it had gone insane yesterday and if a night's rest hadn't fixed it, I would have to ring the Post Office Broadband Customer Care Line and try to get them to fix it.


Then upon starting work, I endeavoured to move aside a wooden board so as I could sweep behind it - an action I perform over and over again, day after day, with no problems at all - only to have it fall forwards and hit me in the face.
     Luckily - or unluckily? ...no, I still think; luckily - my glasses took the brunt, leaving me with one slight bruise across the bridge of my nose (good), and minus one of my lenses (bad).
     It took a little while to locate it, and when I finally (thankfully!) did, I trudged back to the cleaning  cupboard to retrieve my spare pair - which were the same prescription, but as I wasn't used to wearing them, of course, far less comfortable - and then trudged back to retrieve my broom and then carried on sweeping feeling even less jolly than I had(n't) been feeling before.


Then I found a dead mouse!
     Except that upon closer inspection, I found that it wasn't dead at all, but terribly ill. Or at least I assumed it was; it was trembling, and I can think of no other reason that any self-respecting wild mouse would let a human come within touching distance of it.
     This left me with a quandary as to what precisely to do. My usual course of action would be to take it to the vet, who would a) know how to cure it or b) if it was incurable, have the skills and tools to end the poor creatures life as quickly and humanely as possible. But that wasn't an option this time. It was 6:20-AM; no vet to be had, even if I could have managed to get myself and the mouse out of the building and right the way across town to reach him/her, which I couldn't.
     In the end, I fetched a clean, dry, soft cloth - yes, one of the expensive, 'high grade ones', even though I knew that I would have to throw it away afterward - lifted up the mouse as carefully as I could, carried it into the garden centre and ushered it gently underneath the furthermost shelf in the furthermost corner in the hope that it would either revive or die peacefully on its own.
     It was the only action I could think of that wouldn't result in the mouse being trodden on by unsuspecting feet or run over by the wheels of a trolley being unsuspectingly pushed. Or indeed, being trodden on deliberately upon the mouse being discovered. People can be horrible. Even certain members of B&Q staff, people that appear to be generally nice, I have noticed show a disrespect for wildlife that boarders on the cruel.
     So, for better or for worse, that was what I did. And then I walked away to carry on working, feeling not only decidedly unjolly, but utterly wretched.


Then when I got home (after stopping in and confessing to the staff at the opticians that my glasses had broken ...again...) and had had lunch and nerved myself up, I turned on the little Interweb Box Thingy. Or rather I didn't turn it on, because after an afternoon of dementedly flashing its little lights on and off at random and refusing to connect to the Interweb so that I could watch the episode of CSI Cyber that I missed last week, it now refused to respond at all; all of the little oval-ish/rectangle-ish lights staying dark.
     So! THEN I nerved myself up again - I know its silly, but I have to nerve myself up for things like that - and rang the Post Office Broadband Customer Care Line, and after waiting on hold for a little while (who is it that picks the music for that? Because I think we need to have a chat), I was transferred over to a Scottish man called Steve.


.....And that, readers (all two of you), is when things started to get better.


Steve was lovely.
     He completely understood my anxiety over malfunctioning technology - or at least if he didn't he pretended that he did, which over the phone is all that matters - and had a pretty good idea of what was the matter with the box (..."it sounds as though it has died"...) and assured me that the Post Office would provide me with a new one within 3-5 working days.
     All I had to do was wait for it to arrive, connect it - which is okay, as after a 45 minute session on the same Customer Care Line with some poor soul named Paul 8-and-a-half years ago, I know how to do that - and then send the old, dead Router (which I have been informed is the actual name of an Interweb Box Thingy) back to the Post Office in the nifty prepaid and addressed plastic bag they are going to give me. Simple.


Well, after that little triumph, I felt a little better and up to facing the rest of the afternoon.
     First I vacuumed.
     And then I prepared dinner (beef hot pot. Thanking Oxo for the providing of the stock cube; very much appreciated).
     And then I wrote a bit of The Story for half an hour.
     And then I took Bingo for a stroll. And then we ate dinner.
     And then we popped up to The Grandmama's for the usual Friday night ritual of radio listening and spent a relaxed couple of hours there; during which time we talked and laughed and listened and sewed (well, I sewed, the other two prefer to knit) and talked and laughed some more, and watched the dog play with his toys and discussed The Grandmama's upcoming operation scheduled for 21st January and all the pre-operation rigmarole associated with that (a lot of pre-operation rigmarole is involved; more than any of us expected).
     And then we came away from The Grandmama's again; avec the dog, two more coats sent by Flo (don't ask), a parcel The Grandmama desires to chuck back at Daxon Clothing Ltd., a list of errands for The Mother and I to get done over the next week (along with her bank card. My suggestion that we fly to Las Vegas with it and "go mad" was turned down flat owing to the pitiful amount The Grandmama has in the bank) and a full, unopened bottle of port that The Grandmama doesn't want any more.
     And then we went home, enjoyed a glass of port (well, why not?), and collapsed into bed.


So, while the day may have started badly, it ended pretty splendidly, all told.


.....Oops! my hour at the library computer is almost up.
     I best be going.


Before I do though, here is a quote from The Grandmama yesterday evening:


"Al, remind me to show you how I pull my knickers up. It's ruddy marvellous!"


.....Yep.
     =nods=
     She's here all week folks. Try the veal.


I thank you.
     =bows=


Alice x

The Dream Started Ordinarily Enough.

Myself and Best Friend 0.5 were sat in Starbucks enjoying our respective drinks – him a gingerbread latte, me a cream blend concoction thing – and chatting.

     Everything was good.

     Everything was normal.

It was as we left that stuff started to get…weird.

To start with, I had apparently decided at a previous date that today would be the day that I would visit every last one of my currently unaware relatives – both close and distantly related, and both living and dead – in turn and with Best Friend 0.5 holding my hand for moral support; confess my homosexuality to them.

     Or at least I assume that I had, because that is precisely what I did. And for those interested, the end results varied, but the overall theme of each encounter was a general awkwardness felt by all present.

That done, we trotted outside the last house and straight into the depths of a Midsomer Murder mystery. Not that that is all that unusual in itself, of course, as I am a big fan of the program; it was the fact that not only were we hunting for a demonic killer as apposed to a human one alongside the fact that Rosemary and Thyme also decided to pop in and get involved that made it a little different from the norm, and also caused quite a bit of friction between both sets of principle characters (along with general confusion over exactly whose case it was).

During an argument over what kind of incantation might best be used to garner information from the latest mangled corpse – Thyme wanted to use the more traditional Bindweed and maple flower blend, while Barnaby swore by Klinswort – Best Friend 0.5 noticed a film crew setting up their wares in the grounds of a nearby manor (the sudden appearance of which caused no surprise at all) and suggested that we leave them to it and go and find out what was happening, so we did.

     Informed by a passing cameraman that it was ready for a new and upcoming period-blend drama (don’t ask. The stupid Dickension series started it), Best Friend 0.5 eagerly asked if we could audition for it, to which the answer was “yes” (of course).

     Sent away to mull over three things about ourselves that would best describe our suitability for the film, we retreated once more to Starbucks – ignoring the violent fracas that appeared to be going on around us involving humans, vampires and, bizarrely, monkeys of various sizes – we sat down with pencil and paper and started brainstorming ideas. Or at least Best Friend 0.5 did. I, as it turned out, knew exactly what I wanted to say, resulting in the following conversation:

BEST FRIEND 0.5: go on then; what three words or phrases would best describe your suitability for the film.

ALICE: (confidently) easy. Loud, larger than life, and with the ability to memorize lines.

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (doubtfully) …really? Memorize? You?

ALICE: (still confident) sure! I’ve always been able to do it; remember all those plays I was in at school? It’s silly things like remembering to brush my hair, send out birthday cards and where I last saw my bank card or mobile phone that I suck at.

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (nodding thoughtfully) oh, right.

Noticing that my piece of paper was grubby, I then went hunting in my black hole of a handbag (metaphorically speaking. Dream or not, this was not something that became literal) for my notepad to retrieve a new piece, as we would be handing the paper in soon (of course) and I wanted it to be perfect. Finding the notepad to be full of Story Scribble (again, of course), I turned back to the bag and started to take everything out, object by object, determined to find one. 

     Glancing up from his piece, which using only a 2b pencil he had managed to turn into a colourful work of art (yet again, of…), Best Friend 0.5 picked up something that caught his eye, a DVD case, and looked at it. Then having looked at it, he tried to get my attention, starting with:

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (obviously stunned) Alice, where did you get this?

ALICE: (still distractedly searching) mm, what?

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (still stunned) this film, from your bag. Where’d you get it?

ALICE: (giving a quick uninterested glance) oh, that. The Grandpapa gave it to me before we left, remember, after giving me that little speech about not understanding but – grudgingly – accepting me for who I was; he said something about how as I was a, “well you know”, I better have this. Something like that, anyway. We were in a rush to get to Great Aunt 2, so I popped it in my bag to look at later.

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (still stunned) …oh…

ALICE: (still rooting through the bag) …why, what is it?

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (still stunned) well…it’s a dirty movie.

ALICE: (still rooting through the bag) what?

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (still stunned) a dirty movie. A dirty movie involving two dominatrix lesbians.

ALICE: (ceasing the search, now stunned herself) really?

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (nodding) …yeah…?

ALICE: (looking at it after it is handed to her) well I never, so it is! I wonder where he got it?

BEST FRIEND 0.5: my question is more why he thought it an appropriate thing to give to his granddaughter.

ALICE: (looking at the explicitly descriptive picture on the front cover) I don’t know really. Perhaps this is what he assumes you do when your granddaughter admits that they are homosexual.

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (incredulous) what, hand out gay S&M porn?

ALICE: (nods thoughtfully) hmm. When you put it like that, it does sound a bit odd.

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (also nodding thoughtfully) indeed… (then, after a pause) …shall we watch it?

ALICE: (scandalized) I beg your pardon!

BEST FRIEND 0.5: (spreading his hands) well, it’ll be educational, won’t it? And in any case, The Grandpapa did give it to you 'specially.

ALICE: (thoughtful again) ...true…

...And that, folks, is the moment when I woke up, leaving the question unanswered.

     Which was annoying to say the least.

     But there you are.

Someone once told me, you know, that dreams are merely a manifestation of our subconscious mind brought to the fore.

     So with that said, when you add all of the above up:

What the heck is the matter with me?!

Alice x

P.S. by the way, for those of you that know who Best Friend 0.5 is (all one of you), when imagining his voice in your head, bear in mind that approximately half the time he is speaking with a distinctly Welsh accent.
     ...Don't ask...