So its that time of the year again, all the kids are off school (the lucky little ingrates ) and because of the trade we are in these days; our customers mostly being homeowners who're also family couples, or landscapers working for the more affluent homeowners/family couples; and with the kid's annual 6-week sortie into the regrettably less-than-hostile territory of their parent's wallets underway, most of these venerable progenitors have clutched sprogs by their sticky mitt's and whisked them away to the land of sunshine; colloquially known to the average Briton as `Abroad-land`.

So, while they sit in Spain sipping sickly drinks and treating sickly children while saying sickly sweet things to each other, the selfish b****rds ain't buying many railway sleepers or building materials and their associated bits n' pieces from us, so we are doing a slow trade; and this makes the boss nervous. Very nervous.

And we all know what its like being in the office when the boss is depressed and itching for some work...

Thats right. The silly sods only go and get pro-active don't they? Tsk.

Of course the builders, brickies and roofers aren't helping us either, as they suffer the same knock-on effect of many homeowners buggering off during the school summer holidays, and because only a fraction of the people who need that kind of work done are happy that they have found people they feel they can trust to do so when their house is unoccupied, most trades, generally speaking, are winding down their workloads for a little while. My ol' Mum works for a firm of architects and has impeccable connections in this area, so I can sit happily on my laurels knowing I & my lot have never contributed to this tide of woes that my boss must suffer every summer...

It is seeming a bit one-sided this argument, isn't it? Well thats what you get with a boss like mine; we've never had it so bad as this, lads, oh dear oh dear oh dear ....

(Incidentally he would have been tightening his belt aready this time of year, but its made of an old piece of string so it's as tight as it'll go already

Getting the picture yet?

...

In a world thats beautiful in almost every way there are still always some people who can see the downside to everything, and the boss-man is one of them: A millionairre who has actually been known to go out of an evening with his kecks (thats trousers, or `pants` to the US-based/posh folk amongst us) tied up with a length o' twine for 'is belt. Bit of the old farmer still in him I suppose, as that's how he started out!

And it can be a tiny bit trying being of a happy-go-lucky mindset in a place like this when it is this quiet. I've been out at our storage yard (actually an old farm in fact) doing some luvverly manual labour during these past few weeks; last Wednesday I "got to" manually sort through and handle a shade over 400 railway sleepers in that one day (which clocks in at just over 30-tonnes in weight, altogether ), so I haven't found myself slacking (or more importantly, he hasn't found me slacking ) in this `troubled time

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Ah yeah, its pretty funny really. If I'm not doing that then I can learn a whole new set of b***s*** about the stuff we sell now because we have bought a whole load of antique garden furniture, and I have to stiffle a guffaw there because its all just reproduction gear, but the amount of people who come in and think that it is possible to buy an ornate Edwardian iron bench in almost perfect condition for less than £200 is frankly astonishing, and does nothing to bolster my faith in human nature and people's capacity to remain circumspect - rather the opposite in fact, confirming long-held suspicions along these lines )

But hey-ho, its all good exercise, right? Well it certainly is nice to get out in thr fresh air I know that, and its got to be good for me and you can't argue with that. My spine may be slightly damaged from lifting but them's just the breaks in this game.

As far as helping me abstain from drink, it doesn't help as a hard day is well rewarded with a cold beer, as many of us know. But sometimes its just the perfect thing to knock one out in the evenings after work - leaving no possible time for even drinking - and at all times its nice to see a job well done

And.... Welcome to Lance Jackass as he joins this whole ridiculous blogging fiasco - may he well do good things and be most excellent to us all, and stuff

Here be his words, arr: http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/inde...blog&blogid=11&