Sherlock plays Badminton

Sherlock plays Badminton

By michaelgcasey

Well the school  hols are upon us, our kids break up tomorrow, I broke up myself 2 weeks ago.  So on the way back home we decided to get a bit of treasure. You see I missed the chance to get a badminton set for my girls, they had a gret set in Aldi for a tenner, I mentioned it to the girls but it was gone when we went to find it. So they were sad about that, but I was happy as I found a cheap pair of sunglasses only 2 quid, brown and spotty.

So today on the way home I suggested we try another shop, and my  smallest with a hawk’s eyes found a badminton set for 4quid, it had 2 rackets and 2 shuttlecocks.  So we  were all happy, I treated myself to cream soda, do any of you remember the taste from childhood? Or adulthood in my case. So for a couple of hours my girls were teaching themselves to play. The 2 shuttlecocks went over our neighbours fence several times. I improvised by scrunching up some paper. We have a tone of paper in our house, so no need to wait for our neighbour to return the shuttlecocks, paper will do.  I showed them how to bounce the shuttlecock 6 or 7 times on the mesh, then with that practice done then it should help them play.

My wife returned from helping her friend get her lost property back,  a large suitcase that her friend uses as a shopping trolley, only she left it on the bus. So when my wife returned she wanted to play badminton, and yes she was good and quick. She is good at ping pong, her Chinese genes helping no doubt, it turns out she’s good at badminton too. So I’m hoping our girls will have some of those good genes too. So the Summer will be full of badminton, even if we use paper shuttlecocks, I am google where I can get some cheap shuttlecocks, I like the idea of multicoloured shuttlecocks, and 4quid on Amazon is the best result so far.

I nearly forgot Sherlock was on tv again and I really loved it, the repeat was even more fun that the original. So with that I’ll say goognight, but DO buy some badminton kids for your kids, the silence will be golden.

Buy my books on Amazon Kindle

You can now buy my books on Amazon Kindle

The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker

Essays and Plays by Michael Casey

MichaelCasey'sBlogs2011

Shoplife

so have a look at Amazon Kindle

7 year's old Prom

7 year's old Prom©

 By 

Michael Casey

Well tonight was the 7year olds Prom. Year2 in modern parlance.

My small daughter put on her party dress with a borrowed bit of glitter and play makeup.

Our ten year old put on her own party dress and walked her smaller sister to the ballroom door, really it’s the school hall where the infants  have their school dinners. Our small daughter had 2 hours of music and dancing, interrupted by fish and chips.

Me and my big daughter played on the computer for a bit before watching Stardust, we’d recorded it on Sky+ the night before. Then when it was time to collect her little sister, we climbed up the hill to the infants school, only 3 more days and she’ll be an infant no more. In September the small daughter will cross the main road and join her big sister’s school, the juniors.  They’ll be together for one year, then the big sister will be off to grammar school we hope.

Proms weren’t invented when I was at school 40 years ago. It was too working class then, black and white tv and 2 channels, that’s what we had and no Proms. Its an American import, just as Halloween is. The question is though, do the kids enjoy them? Yes, is the answer. Here are the photos to prove it, on www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com  So I’ll let the pictures be my 1000 words. Happy Proms everybody at this time of year. 

A Quiet Night In

A Quiet Night In  © 

By

Michael Casey

A quiet night in, now that’ what we all need from time to time. The wife and the girls are at Nancy’s Mum’s, Nancy’s mum does have a name but my wife knows I couldn’t possibly pronounce the Chinese, so remains Nancy’s mum. While they are there the girls will go to an upper room and do some painting with Nancy, Nancy is 17 and an A* everything, with the help of God and 2 policemen she’ll go to Oxford.

In the lower room is a Jesus evening, everybody gets fed by Nancy’s mum then there are Bible readings and “Sharing” where the friends talk about Jesus at work in their lives. Me I’m here, listening to Genesis and Genesis are singing “Jesus he knows Me.” I’m a Catholic from the nipple, with added an added inheritance of my mother’s faith when she died. Doesn’t make me special, just makes me me. “Can you hear Me, Can you see” sing Genesis, it all seems on cue, but that’s how my writing comes out. A mixture of luck and hard work and a pinch of salt or angel dust, then I’ve got a piece to put on my blog www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and in MyTelegraph.co.uk were I am the dunce in the class.

Back to my girls, they are no doubt painting with Nancy and she is good enough to sell her paintings at a car boot sale or wherever is the place they should be sold. They are picking up some great tips, I want them to experience as many things as possible, then they may find things they can keep with them throughout their lives. My wife has no doubt had a good old gossip and is now boasting how God had helped us this week. Other families are sharing their experiences too. I did travel to Nancy’s mum’s a few weeks ago, just to show my face, but their path is not my path. So while they pray I’ve been trying to find some way of getting somebody, anybody to go to Amazon Kindle and sample my 4 wares on sale. Traffic is the word they use nowadays, if only I were a corrupt journalist, or a hacker then I’d make a few bob, or is it just a prison sentence. There would be a full stop to my works.

I have found a few folks via Linkedin and Facebook but are they interested in a fat Charles Dickens, with 1000th of the ability of good old Charlie. Strange things do happen on the Internet, if only I were allowed to blog for a Sunday newspaper, then I’d have a profile, though my profile at the moment is more like Falstaff, full of sack and a hapworth of bread, you’ll have to find my photo and judge for yourselves, well I do hope more than 1 person IS reading this.

I did have time to look at www.rightmove.co.uk and dream of where I’d like to live IF I made it as a writer. I have only moved a mile and a half from where I was born and IF I had money I’d only move a mile and a half more. Near the woods for me and Subway the dog is my dream, though my daughters would rather have a gerbil. It is so quiet here while they are praying and painting, that does give me a picture of God as Banksy, would God use lightning bolts and rainbows to leave his art?

Well its after 10pm now so I’ll love you and leave you, Genesis are still playing on the computer, “Dreaming in my sleep”  they sing, which we all will be soon. So off to beddie bybys as my mother used to say.

Daddy. I want to be a Hairdresser

Sampling Pop

Sampling Pop © 

By

Michael Casey

The thing about children is that they like POP, yes POP with a capital P. I have to say or even admit that POP is part of my life too. Yes I did talk about booze a day or two ago, but today I’ll talk about pop.

I’ve just rushed back from Aldi so I can rush out again to pick the kids up, school run ends next week. So today I’ve picked up a pack of snacks for them, as well as bananas and grapes. I’ve got  4 litres of apple juice too, and some more milk for my coffee and cereals, though I never mix coffee with my cereals. So that’s an ordinary shopping basket, though I can remember my own mum with leather shopping  bags before plastic bags were invented, and then condemned decades later. 

Where was I? Forgive me my small daughter has just feeding me small seedless grapes, I’m sure all daughters do it. Anyway today the big decision was should I try Pink Lemonade, it looked very strange, very pink. So I bought one, only 40p for 2 litres, an Aldi bargain. I tried a bit but it tasted strange, I waited for it to get cold in the fridge, only it had a strange taste when I tried it, then my big daughter sampled it, her verdict, too fizzy.

We’ll wait an hour for it to  get really cold then we’ll try it again, you have  to be like a scientist when you sample pop. If you don’t believe me just go ask your kids, and I mean those under 11; children over 11 are too sophisticated they are Dr Pepper drinkers after all. Once correct temperature  is reached then the sampling can begin, and don’t forget the straws. And if you drink alcohol make sure you hide it while sampling pop, otherwise your kids may sample that instead.

A few packs of crisps should also be available, this clears the children’s pallet while sampling Pink Lemonade, then when all done a bowl of freshly diced fruit. I can hear the wife chopping and dicing behind me, her knife skills are quite something, I think she used to be in a circus or something, though to be honest I don’t labour the point.

So that’s it for today, another look inside the Chinese/Irish Adam’s family, I’m heading for the fridge now, Mr Pink is waiting for me.

the 3 girls in my life

Cross Dressing

JULY 13TH, 2011 9:33

Cross Dressing

By michaelgcasey

Well, what exactly is cross dressing? Maybe 20 years ago there was a fancy dress party, so obviously I stole my mother’s clothes and wore them. The stockings needed a bit of work, so I blew up a couple of balloons and stuffed them down the stockings, I also had a rather lovely handbag, it was 1950s style, well its WAS 1950s.

On the way to the party Chris who was dressed as Big Ears, he did have his own big ears but that’s by the by, he got out of the car and went to use the cash point. So there we were an old woman and Big Ears using a cash point on a very busy road, we got a few looks, but I thought it was because I looked so attractive, I AM a good woman after all.

At the party Rich was wearing a clingy tight fitting red skirt or is it dress, anyway it stopped at his knees, he had tons of red lipstick on, actually he looked like Mick Jagger, and I really mean it, he looked like Mick Jagger, has Mick every been to Birmingham? The party went with a swing, the host had a monkey costume but it was too hot so he took it off. So that was then, today these people are IT professionals, me I’m a word smith the son of a blacksmith, hoping to get my break.  I’ve just remembered another party, a couple, a gay couple were kissing in a cupboard, a kind of pantry, “come out of the closet” we all said to them, and that’s perhaps what men should do too. Try your wives’ clothes on or go shopping with her, and then you’ll be wearing something really nice that does justice to your hairy legs.

Don't Whine its onle Wine

Don’t Whine its only Wine© 

By

Michael Casey

I’ve just had a little sup of red wine. It is ice cold and I’ve topped it up with Aldi cloudy diet lemonade.

The perfect drink for a hot summer’s  day. Though already I can hear “sacrilege” I’m not a drinker at all, but when your sister gives you the dregs, or in this case half a bottle of red wine then what am I supposed to do. My wife wants to wash her hair in it, or add it to one of her Chinese soup concoctions.

So I compromise, I drink it. Normally 2 pints of Stella and I’m out of my tree, so if and when I do drink its with a meal. Then I won’t drink for 3 or 4 months. I prefer fizzy pop or milk or a nice mug of coffee. But, and yes I do like a random pint, just as randomly as I buy a lottery ticket.

So the red wine was in the bottom of the fridge getting glued to the base of our fridge, I did do the Clover win a Smeg fridge competition but I don’t think I’ve won, so things get glued or should I say iced in at the bottom of the fridge. We do have an icebreaker, it’s the wife and her meat cleaver, she dresses in PJs and a bright red Korean pinny then she attacks the ice with the cleaver. Luckily no accidents yet, I mean she could break the bottle of wine and then I’d whine.

So I’ve had my wine for today and maybe a sip or two more, which means it’ll last 4 days. I do have another bottle of wine, this time white which is palatable. When I get around to that, it’ll last 4 days or more. It could have turned into a Jubelee by then. Does anybody remember those triangular lumps of flavoured ice from the 60s? Yes I’m a very young left over from that period. I may have hit on a new marketing ploy, we had the wine box, how about the wine Jubelee.  

Yes you purists out there will condemn me, or the usual soothsayers will denounce me, though really they are running away from the truth. Booze is booze no matter what you call it or however you get it down your neck. In the past I worked for ACNielsen, once they bought us up, it was market research into alcohol sales, and I was the shandy drinker with no knowledge of the drinks industry, you could say I was just the stoker in the boiler room, or computer room to be exact.

A little bit of booze is nice and rewarding. However I should also add we had lodgers who were all alcoholics. One of them died on me when I was just 20, so my views on alcohol are tempered by years of watching them fall over. But I’ve digressed, yes it may be a sin to mix lemonade with red wine, but at least I don’t do it to white wine. We were at our small daughter’s end of the year’s show and there was a raffle, I get 1st prize, a bottle of White wine. I could save it for weeks, my summer holidays are very long, but when the mood takes me I will drink and enjoy it. Then I’ll forget about alcohol for months, maybe even till Xmas. I do have a stash of Robison’s  orange and barley, 8 litres, so that will be tops of my drinking menu. Though if anybody wants to send me champagne I would do my best to enjoy it, and is it true you get no hangover from champagne? I have my wares on Amazon Kindle and if the miracle happens and I sell all 4 then a bottle of champagne would be nice, even if I may be temped to mix it with Aldi diet cloudy lemonade.

this me writing my next piece