Flat Cap Allotment Mudguards

A bit of excitement in Old Sodbury yesterday morning - a car ploughed into the allotment across the road from us.

The bloke who rents and tends the allotment was heartbroken - he's just spent all winter turning it from a wasteland into a beautiful veg garden. It's the 3rd time it's happened to him. From the angle, it looks as if the driver (a young lad) was distracted (possibly by text messaging), didn't even see the left hand bend he was about to encounter and shot straight across the road into the allotment, taking out the lamppost in the process (3rd time that's been knocked down too). He's lucky there wasn't a car coming in the other direction.

Me and a couple of my old school friends were talking of our impending 60th birthdays yesterday. We were saying how we feel no older than 40 years ago, yet our teachers at school, who were younger than we are now, looked ancient to us and acted so sensibly. The fact my generation doesn't feel or act so old is perhaps to do with the breakdown of reverential respect, and I don't mean that in a bad way, simply that we no longer respect people just because of their position within the establishment; for us, respect has to be earned and is not a God-given right, as it was for our parents (remember the famous TW3 sketch). For our parents, respect was conferred by one's position in the hierarchy, and the hierarchy in those days contained any number of bloody fools. We live in a meritocracy now and no longer kowtow and doff our caps to the aristos.

None of us could even contemplate retirement at 60 or even 65. The thought of playing dominoes down the pub every afternoon with another 60 year-old fills me with dread.

Hay bought me an early birthday present - an old bloke flat cap.

Quite dapper - just need a whippet to go with it. At least it hides the singed hairline.

The oil drum top mudguards arrived yesterday - perfect in the arc, but a bit narrow in the width. I now just need Hay to remind me that I; "Should have asked for the dimensions before purchasing them," and that; "This wasn't planned very well." I'm sure she will.

I'm certain I can just tack on a sliver of straight metal with pop rivets to suitably extend the width. In fact I'll have to in order to create some fixing flanges. I'll just tell Hay this was all part of the (non-existent) plan.