Saturday 6 June

D Day anniversary.

Weather continues to be cold and wet. Excellent breakfast at The Thyme House and a less than two hour drive to the Wirral and Uncle Tom and Aunty Margaret’s house in Pensby. For me this is now the 28th bed (27th for Tina).

The plan was to do washing and head off and discover Tina’s past but it is cold and wet so this is postponed.

Later in the afternoon, cousin Ian and his wife Paula come round and we head off to the Fox and Hounds pub in Barnston Village for a pint of Trappers Hat - a locally produced beer. This pub and a few others I see have the words “Free House” proudly advertised. This means they are not owned by a chain ie they are independent. Small rooms, brasses, foxes heads, been there since 1741.

After tea we go around to their house to meet their daughters, Sheilagh and Rachael.

From “Must Try Harder – The Very Worst Best Howlers By Schoolchildren” – found at Uncle Tom’s:
School Days
- He closed his eyes in a gesture of despair; he contorted his face, praying for strength and then lifted his leg, aiming towards the horizon
- He was a man of about 35 years of age, looked 20 and was 40
- If he is not checked at the right age he will gradually develop into a vandal and it will not be long before he is a magistrate
- All the crew were taken into custardy
- If a tree falls in the dessert, does it make a sound?
- People were running all over the place, the boys in shorts and the girls in hysterics
- We had a longer holiday than usual this year because the school was closed for altercations
- A hostage is a lady who entertains visitors
- Girls were typically sent to finishing school where the point was to finish them off
- A polygon is a man who has many wives
- The headmaster only caned me on rear occasions
- Our school is ventilated by hot currants
- A school teacher leads a sedimentary life
Books & Words & Stuff
- A fairy tale is something that never happened a long time ago
- She worked herself up into an inarticulate comma
- The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom
- The appendix is a part of a book for which nobody ever found a use
- Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He was Donkey Hote
- Polonius was a mythical sausage
- John Milton wrote “Paradise Lost”. Then his wife died and he wrote “Paradise Regained”
- Homer wrote the Oddity. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name
- Voltaire invented electricity
- Poetry is when every line starts with a capital letter and doesn’t reach the right side of the page
- Lord Byron wrote epics and swam the Hellespont. In between he made love drastically
- In Ibsen’s Ghosts, Oswald dies of congenial syphilis
- Shakespeare lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors
- Letters in sloping type are in hysterics
- Emphasis in reading is putting more distress in one place than another
- An abstract noun is one that cannot be heard, seen, touched or smelt
- In conclusion we may say that Shylock was greedy, malicious and indeed, entirely viscous