One

The first time we experienced:

And did we notice them all the first time we saw that episode? Could we miss them now if we tried?

What we all are in our Vincent-love

Unrequited.

Driving My Car

Michael has cast aspersions on my driving, and he cannot go unchallenged. As a further insult to my US readers, he has suggested that driving an automatic is for "beginners". Here is a run-down of the manual (stick shift) cars I've owned and driven since I passed my driving test in 1978.

First there was the Ford Cortina Estate. It had its gearstick on the steering column. I had the same set-up some years down the line with a Renault but couldn't find a picture of one on Google.


I sold the car to my neighbour and bought a Hillman Imp from a colleague. These cute cars were tiny, with a rear engine, but the rear window flipped down and turned them into little estate cars. I loved it, but it never got over being stolen and having the gearbox burnt out by boys doing handbrake turns.

The Renault had to go back to the dealer after a couple of weeks, as a repair to the cylinder head by the previous owner had not been checked and the engine died.

Then my car maintenance tutor wanted me to buy a Morris Marina. My only ever accident involving another vehicle happened not long after, and I broke the car outside my house for spare parts.

I bought my tutor's Ausitn 1800 for a small amount of money, but it really was a big, lumbering bus, so 6 months on I decided to buy my first brand new car.
I opted for a Ford Fiesta, which was a lovely little car. I kept it for years, till I took a job which provided a car, and then I acquired a much larger five-door hatchback. It was a Vauxhall Cavalier. Six months after acquiring it I changed jobs and had to give it back.
So then I bought my second new car, another Ford Fiesta, which I kept for about 12 years. It cost me very little in repairs and was extremely reliable. But it was getting to the stage where it would fail its MoT test (a roadworthiness test taken by all UK cars over 3 years old).

This time I bought a 3-year-old Rover 25. It was a luxury car compared to all the other bog-standard basics I'd had before. I loved it. But the gearbox was dodgy, and when the garage found a problem with the sump, I decided to trade it in. Many years ago, on holiday in France with the father and step-family of Rat Scabies (the drummer of The Damned), I was a backseat passenger when John came out of a town high up in the Massif Central mountain range, and found he needed to change down to first gear. He had an artificial left hand, having played with fireworks as a child, and used to put the car into gear by leaning over and using his right hand. He couldn't do that in motion, so with the clutch depressed, we were rolling backwards down the mountainside out of control, till his wife whacked the car into gear.

I was left with a growing panic when changing gear on hills, and decided to go for an automatic after trying one out in the saleroom (not because I can't drive manuals, Michael, but because I wanted an easier life after nearly 30 years behind the wheel).

That's when I bought my lovely little Nissan Micra, which has just lost its reverse gear and is getting a new gearbox as we speak.

But what I really want is this neat Micra C+C - preferably NOT in this sickly sugary pink!
Thanks to Google for the pictures.

And Michael - when I took car maintenance classes, I drove my tutor's taxicab and his 1951 Humber Super Snipe. Can you beat that or ARE YOU A PRIZE WUSS?

Aah!

I went to look at a school on Tuesday where I might be able to work 2 days a week, on Thursdays and Fridays. They had someone else to see tomorrow, and made no mention of my working this week, so I booked Jaspa in at the vet's for her dental.

As she had to fast I kept her in my bedroom overnight, and the little fidget kept me awake most of the night. I decided to get up at 7.30, have a quick shower, drop her at the vet's, feed the rest of the creatures and myself, then go back to bed.

Then the phone rang. "Can you work today?" As long as they don't expect me any time soon.

So it was that my carefully laid plans went awry. I thrust some breakfast down my throat while preparing the parrots' food, threw some cat food in bowls, wedged Jaspa in her basket and whizzed over to the vet's. I abandoned my bewildered cat and leapt back in my car, arriving at the school at just after 9am.

The kids were VERY difficult (it is a school for children with behaviour difficulties, and I was to teach the two favourite subjects of all naughty pre-teens (not) - French and Music. Then it was back to the vet's to bring my cat home minus one tooth and a lot of gingivitis and plaque.

I need my nap even more now!

Howletts Wild Animal Park

As I don't yet have any work for this term, I took advantage of there being hardly any kids about and went down to my favourite zoo for the first time in 2 years. I was gutted to find that Balkash - a Siberian tiger hand-reared to be probably the world's biggest tiger - died over a year ago of old age.

There was a lot of activity among the creatures, though, and I've put it together in a little slideshow for your enjoyment. The tiger keeper was giving his charge feline asthma tablets wrapped in meat through the bars - 50 pills at a time, 'cos they don't come in tiger size doses. There was also a film crew filming the head keeper throwing bags filled with soiled straw from the ocelot cage into the lynx enclosure, where it acted like catnip to a kitty.

I'm betting...

...that the Probability (expressed as a percentage) that any one of us would fall at Vincent's feet in adoration if we were fortunate enough to come across him, is 100%

Indian Desert Cats

They used Asian Leopard Cats to produce the Bengal domestic breed. These look quite similar. They are like largish domestic cats and they look as if you could take one home and cuddle it. Who wants perfect, unscratched skin, anyway?

Stunt Hands!

There's no way these hands could belong to the D'Evine one - just look at those short, stubby thumbs, which are straight and rigid like mine, not long and curvy like HIS.

DO THEY THINK WE ARE BLIND, STUPID OR BOTH?!

New Collection

As Hallmark has failed to show Collective this time around, I've finally got round to capping it.

The nice thing about a Vincent D'Onofrio collection is, you only have to collect one, then you've got the full set. (Please let me collect that one!)

The Blue Shirt of Happiness

My happiness. Maybe your happiness. (Sighs with longing).