Drac Tours.

One of my new-found friends and work colleagues comes from Romania, the central region to be precise. It's mountainous and very pretty with many picturesque villages, castles and fortified churches nestling on the hillsides and plains. It's all very quaint and 'olde worlde' as if time has passed it by. I know this because my friend has shown my pictures of it. The area he comes from is famous, everyone has heard of it. It's called Transylvania. 

My Romanian friend and I went for a pint the other day and he mentioned that he had told another colleague where he was from and she didn't believe him. 
She didn't realise it was a real place; she thought it was fictitious like Narnia or Middle Earth. My friend was quite taken aback by this ignorance of his homeland. It occurred to me that it's likely that many people don't realise it's an actual place you can go and visit, probably most Americans for a start off. That's when I came up with the Idea of 'Drac-tours.' The itinerary would be roughly as follows.

Day One: Meet and greet at the airport then you will be whisked away in our horse drawn cart to a small village where you will dress as a peasant and partake of a light meal of bread and a thin gruel in a genuine hovel and then spend the night starting fearfully into the sky.

Day Two: A visit to Dracula's castle (which is a real place known as Bran Castle.) The day will be spent exploring the castle and trying out our interactive dungeon and torture implement display. Prepare to be scared to death as friendly locals masquerading as blood sucking maniacs leap out from dark shadows and fall from the ceiling rafters to feed on you. (Please ensure your health insurance is up to date.) There will be bat feeding sessions after dark.

Day Three: Enjoy a lively run through the woods while being chased by a pack of slavering and rabid hounds from hell. For those that survive, the afternoon will be spent in the traditional Transylvanian pastime of stake whittling. 

Day Four: Dress up as a vampire minion and raid a local village to capture a buxom beauty and carry her off to the castle. This is followed by a traditional lunch featuring goblets of fresh blood. A full range of blood types are available on our menu. The evening will be spent practising hanging upside down before retiring to a luxurious silk-lined coffin in a spider infested draughty crypt.( single beds only no en-suite facilities) 

Day Five: Spend a 'lazy day' buried underground in a bespoke coffin, plenty of time for relaxation and reflection. The more adventurous may wish to escape their entombment by breaking out of the coffin and clawing their way through six feet of earth to free themselves.The choice is entirely yours. The evening gives you a chance to dress up again and become a member of an angry mob complete with flaming torch and take part in the storming of a castle. (Subject to authorisation by the EU health and safety executive)

Day Six: Take a trip to market in the back of our vegetable wagon where you can buy goods made by local craftsmen. Some popular items include, garlic infused pendants, garlic sweets, garlic jam and a strong spirit drink made from garlic.

Day Seven: Get lost in the tremendous scenery of the Carpathian Mountains; quite literally. We'll drop you off at a high mountain pass and last one back buys the drinks. It's fun for all the family, just make sure you are back before nightfall. 

It's seems like a sure fire winner to me. It's still a work in progress at the moment so I would appreciate any ideas to enhance the experience. I will be looking for volunteers to test it so if you are interested let me know although I expect it will be oversubscribed.

My friend may even know a real vampire. I'm hesitant to ask in case he deems it a racist incident and reports me to the authorities. I know he isn't a vampire himself as I have worked a day shift with him which would rule him out of being one of the undead. The Romanians themselves seem quite keen on fostering the vampire connection and although the link between Prince Vlad Tepes and Bran Castle is tenuous, they have taken it to their hearts and seem to be quite proud of it, it is, after all, just a story... or is it?

Spooning.

There is a kitchen where I work and it's in use twenty four hours a day, every day of the year. There is a constant trail of people heading backwards and forwards to make various hot drinks or use the micro-waves to heat their lunch; we drink a lot of tea and coffee at my place. It's rectangular and approximately ten feet square, there are four fridges, two microwave ovens, a stainless steel sink with drainer and one of those large wall mounted boilers so there is a constant stream of hot, drinking water. There are wall and floor mounted cupboards and in two of the cupboards there are draws with towels in one and cutlery in the other, including tea spoons. That's where the trouble starts.  

We don't have a cleaning fairy in our kitchen which is often pointed out by those who feel the need to wash and clear up the dirty cups and plates left lying around by those who can't be bothered to do it. The usual scenario is for someone to go into the kitchen, become so upset by the state of it that they feel compelled to wash up and then come back into the main office and send round a sarcastic and accusatory message to all the other members of staff ranting about having to do it. The messages often include such comments as. 'AGAIN!!!!!' or 'I'm not here to clear up after YOU!!!!!' and similar. We had one from a staff member the other day bemoaning that she had to wash up all the teaspoons. Now, I agree that crockery should be washed up and put away by the person who uses it but, in my opinion, teaspoons are a moan too far. 

The spoons are usually left lying around the sink or draining board, the reason for this is that there are in almost constant use. If you wash them up and put them away then I expect it would take no more than an hour and a half for them all to be back on the draining board again. Therefore putting them away is completely pointless. We drink so much tea in our house we always have a teaspoon in the sink or on the draining board; we just wash it and re-use it. So, would I do it at home? Damn right I would. Anyone stupid enough to waste their time gets no sympathy from me. No one asked her to wash them, we have cleaners for that, if she'd rather be a cleaner then I'm sure she would have no trouble getting a job. Clearly she ought be getting on with her own job rather than hanging round in the kitchen doing someone else's. She is clearly not busy enough if she can come to work and all she worries about is the bloody spoons. If you want to wash the spoons, that's fine in my view but don't come and bitch about it by grabbing the moral high ground and trying to make everyone else feel bad because they don't share your obsessive need to tidy up. No one asked her to and no one expected her to.

From a mathematical perspective, if you have a total of twelve spoons and twelve spoons are on the draining board then you have reached finite mass as it were. It's not as if you going to be wading waist deep in spoons if nobody put them away. It has yet to be demonstrated to me how twelve teaspoons, when used correctly for their intended function, are a risk to health and safety. 

The sport of 'Washing and Bitching' is not just a female pastime; we have some males who practicing it as well. It just so happened that it was a female this time. I have washed up cups and plates before now that weren't mine, I just did it. No drama as they say.  Perhaps the woman who moaned about the spoons was bitterly disappointed there wasn't a couple of plates or bowls as well so she could feel really indigent and be twice as cutting in her missive to the office. No doubt there will be champion spoon-washers who will read this and be aghast at my slovenly attitude and reply with some withering and caustic comments. Personally I shall continue to leave my spoon in the sink for the next person to use. Tea anyone?    

'The Times They Are a Changing'

 Forgive me father for I have sinned, it's been six months since my last confession... Well blog post anyway and many things have changed since then. Dearly Beloved and I have been on holiday to possibly the world's most boring place; it's like Eastbourne but warmer.I have a new East European friend who can tell me fascinating stories about living under Ceausescu and we have potentially new and undiscovered family members waiting in the wings. Sadly we have also had a bereavement but such is the way of life and the world moves on.

As a nation we have discovered that we really are crap at sport, particularly rugby and we have uncovered a German, fifth column plot to slowly poison us all. The country has rallied behind a new Labour leader who may be able to temper the more extreme excesses of the Great Tory Fire-sale. We have also discovered that the evil hordes waiting to invade our country are really just nice guys looking for a safe home. I don't think I can remember a time when public opinion changed so dramatically, almost overnight, due to one image. It probably ranks up there with the photo of Kim Phuc running naked from the napalm attack in Vietnam for its global resonance.

My friend and musical accomplice Rod came round the other day and changes are definitely afoot for him. A side-effect of this will hopefully be that we can get our Bob Dylan tribute out of the studio and on to the stage; it's very good, you should see it. I am generally a fan of change, I like new opportunities and experiences as long as they don't cost too much. I myself have bought a new phone and we are seriously looking into buying a new car.
I am even considering changing my name to Miriam and my underpants more than once a year. 

Maybe it's this atmosphere that has given me the nudge to start writing my blog again, maybe it will last more than a week. A few people have said they enjoyed it so if they were just being polite, that will teach them. I shall keep a weather-eye out for the future and report back accordingly. Onwards and upwards and may the devil take the hindmost.   

Postscript: I have just come home to discover that my most excellent Brother and Sister In Law have bought a house so congratulations to them. It will mean the end of years of renting and having to move home at least once every year... I expect that trumps my new car and fresh underpants then.