It's turned out nice again.

I know dear reader that this is as much as a surprise for you as it is for me to be adding another Blog entry, but the truth is there has been a miracle of almost biblical proportions because you see I have been cured from the dreaded and almost fatal SOB that had struck me down. I am fit and well again, at least as fit and well as anyone my age have the right to expect. I attribute this healing of my body mind and perhaps soul to maintaining a healthy regime, well that is my excuse at least.

Mrs F however has got flu. My god you should hear her continually moaning about how ill she is. She never stops moaning about the many and varied symptoms she claims to be suffering from, the sore throat, the aching limbs, the occasional bouts of shivering, on and on and on, I have told her to pull herself together and stop complaining it is only flu. I hate people who do nothing but grumble when they get some simple and relatively harmless ailment like flu. The humorous twist to this perhaps is that Mrs F is within an at risk group medically speaking and about four weeks ago or so she received two injections at the local surgery, one for flu and one for swine flu...............that works then.

So today is the Super Bowl and the New Orleans Saints will battle it out against the Indianapolis Colts for the title of Super Bowl XLIV Winners at the Sun Life Stadium in Florida. The game is due to start at 5pm Eastern Time [US] and will be shown live around the world. We here in the UK will get it starting at about 10.30pm and it will continue until about 4am. I will be watching it on the BBC having already taken the precaution of taking the day off work tomorrow. I have also prepared for the event in other ways; the fridge is stocked with Budweiser, I have a couple of packets of Doritos chips and a jar of Hot Salsa Dip and to get me through the forty minute half time show, this year a performance given by The Who, I have some Hot Dogs and Rolls, I think that should see me through it all okay.

I do not really have any fixation to either team but there is a requirement to support one or the other. The Colts are statistically the better team with a season score of 14:2 against the Saints 13:3 and as I write this the Colts are the more favoured team to win. I have seen the New Orleans Saints play live in London in 2008 when they played the San Diego Chargers and so for that reason and that alone I shall support the Saints.

Whilst still on the subject of the NFL the news is now out that at the fourth International Series Game to play at Wembley on Sunday 31st October this year will be between the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos, it will be classed as a home game for the 49ers. So dear reader you will you will understand how excited I am about this as you will recall that the Denver Broncos are my team. My ticket has already been purchased and confirmed and the hotel has also already been booked paid for and confirmed, so I shall get to see the Broncos play in person at last.

A couple of other snippets of news to catch up on. Mrs F and I decided late last year that our settees just about reached the end of their useful life. These two two seater settees had in fact given long and valuable service and had seen the wear and tear and rough and tumble of two children growing up and two dogs running around and jumping on and off them or that might be two dogs growing up and two children........................no perhaps not. Last November we then decided that we had enough spare resources to invest in new furniture and so the upshot was that we ordered at great expense two Lazy Boy settees, perhaps for the benefit of any new readers from Chad I should explain that these settees both recline and tilt from the upright to an almost horizontal position. The good news is that these eventually arrived three days ago and so I look forward to reclining in comfort tonight whilst watching the Super Bowl.

Mrs F and I visited Whitby the other day, there is I know a regular reader and good friend of the Blog who will now smile and nod knowingly whilst remembering that Whitby is twinned with Anchorage in Alaska. I have to share the good news that Whitby now has a Pie and Mash shop, aptly named 'Humble Pie and Mash'; on discovering this enterprise Mrs F and I could not resist taking our lunch there. I had Sausage and Black Pudding Pie with my mash peas and gravy and Mrs F had a Steak Pie. In line with all good Pie and Mash shops the meals are all at a fixed price and at the time of writing the price in Whitby is £4.99 with a mug of tea at an additional £1.00.

To close this edition of the Blog a couple of things that made me smile over the last day or so. Regular readers of the Blog will remember that during my spare time I am working on my family tree, see post for 29th August 2008 of the Blog. I have recently received a copy of a death certificate for a relative; sometimes it is worthwhile obtaining copies of these certificates to confirm some details of the individual in question. One of the mandatory items of information recorded on a British Death Certificate is the name of the person reporting the death, the name of the informant. On this certificate it amused me to see the name of the informant was Alice Dodgson Clay. I do not know who Mrs, Miss or even Ms Clay is but her name made me smile, I wonder how many other readers will make the connection and smile as well.

I have recently watched a quiz programme on the television. One of the contestants was a rather nice looking blond, in her early twenties I would imagine. The host of the programme asked the young lady why she had wanted to appear as a contestant. The young lady crossed her long legs thought for a moment and replied that as she had the outward appearance of what today is sometimes rudely described as a 'Blond Bimbo' and she was not like that at all, in fact the lady informed the audience that she was very intelligent and wanted to dispel the idea that sometimes she is automatically and wrongly placed into the 'Blond Bimbo' category and she wanted to prove to all her friends how clever and intelligent she really was. This was followed by a polite round of applause from the audience.

Question 1. Can you tell me in which continent Angola can be found. [a] Africa [b] South America [c] Asia].
Answer. I have never heard of Angola............errrrrrrrrr Asia I think.

Question 2. Can you tell me what the term Epilating refers to. [a] Hair Removal [b] Wrinkle Removal [c] Fat Removal.
Answer. Epilating...........errrrrrrrrr is that a real word ? errrrrrr I dont know.........oh hang on, epilating yes I know it is fat removal my friend was epilated last year and she lost loads of weight.

Oh well never mind, brave effort.

For those keen to follow the World Tour of the Gnome I have to report it has yet to arrive with me.

Postscript: Super Bowl Results: New Orleans Saints 31 Indianapolis Colts 17

This and That.................Mostly That.

I am dying, alright I know each and everyone of us is dying, from the very moment of childbirth the ageing and therefore the dying process begins, but I mean really dying. I have recently been struck down with a very rare condition that is a combination of things, there is no official title for this medical condition that to me is both terminal and debilitating, which then only goes to prove to you all how rare it is.

I am calling it 'Swineavian Oral Bronchopneumonia' or SOB for short. Why I should be the only one in the world to have been struck down by this mystery illness I do not know however I can tell you from my death bed that it is not pleasant at all. I should add whilst I am still able [and with fading strength] to use the keyboard unaided that SOB is not Man Flu as the Lady of the House refers to my illness, and how would she know what Man Flu is, even if I had Man Flu. No this is far more serious and will be the end of me yet.......................Man Flu indeed, she just does not understand how ill I really am, how despite being racked with pain how I maintain a stiff upper lip, never complaining and maintain a cheery smile for her sake is beyond me. I am dying I tell you.

The winter weather is upon us, in fact it has been upon some of us more than others. Here in the Northern outreaches of the Empire we have battled on stoically as we usually do. The local authority has in the main repaid our trust in them by doing their best to ensure where possible the Queens Highway remains passable. Certainly with due care and attention I have been able, as have my work colleagues, to drive to work and back again without any mishaps. No abandoning cars for us at the sight of three snowflakes and an Easterly wind exceeding 2 miles per hour as we see reported in the media that has, it seems, become the vogue in some of the more Southern sunnier climes, no we are Northerners.

The three schools local to where I live have not closed; they have all remained open to offer the benefit of a fine British education to those who attend. I have however noticed a slight decrease in vehicles driving these students to their place of study. It seems strange that owners of some large and expensive four wheel drive vehicles do not wish to drive them in the present bad weather conditions in case they have an accident; for me this perhaps avoids the justification of owning such a vehicle in the first place.

Because of this many students have taken to walking and that is how it should be. I remember walking to school in the snow [or any other weather condition] when I was a child, it did me no harm and it will do the students of today no harm either. In fact I think they enjoy it, rather than being caged within a motor car from door to door they have walked in pairs or in groups, there has been chatter and laughter and the odd snowball fight, they have fresh air in their lungs and a glow to their cheeks. It is that I have not yet spotted anyone wearing a grey knitted balaclava similar to the one I was made to wear during the winters of the fifties, to keeps my ears warm, either this may be a change in fashion or today's students are a hardier bunch then we might give them credit for.

The regular readers of the Blog will recall that as one of my many hobbies and interests I am a virtual flight simulator pilot, for those who may have overlooked this or perhaps a new reader from Chad I refer you to the Blog entry of 10th September 2008. One of the flight groups I belong to; Sweets Shells Flying Service, a Happy Band of Hippy Sky Truckers [or The Biggest Boobs in Aviation] has started a variation to the Gnome on holiday routine.

You will all know I am sure of the trick where some wag [often students] will borrow [steal] a Gnome from someones garden then take it on holiday with them or on a tour to various parts of the world and sending back postcards or photos to the rightful owners showing the Gnome at various exotic locations only for the Gnome to eventually be returned home some weeks or months or even years later.

Well we at SSFS have just started this, I hasten to add that as honest and upstanding members of the community we have purchased our own Gnome to travel around the world and not 'Borrowed' one, well I have been told we have bought one anyway. Volunteers from the flight simulator community have offered to host the Gnome on its travels with each member receiving the Gnome by post they will then keep him [or it might be a her] for a few days and take the Gnome around their local area and take some photos of the Gnome near local landmarks to post on the web site, they will then send the Gnome by post onto the next recipient.

The Gnome has already started the journey from Sweden and it should travel down into mainland Europe across to England [that is me] up to Scotland across to mainland America up through Canada onto Alaska across to Australia then onto South Africa then back into mainland Europe before getting home again to Sweden. Perhaps I should add the Gnome is only a small plastic one and not a heavy weight concrete garden version, just in case anyone thought us completely mad.

A Google Earth map is being kept of its progress around the globe as well as photos on the web site and perhaps in the next Blog entry I might be able to provide a link for readers to look at.

Here though is a link, hopefully, to the [unofficial] Travelling Gnome Map, each pin represents a stop on the route.

Gnome Map here