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I see no reason the gunpowder treason will ever be forgot

GhostOfClayton

Entry posted by GhostOfClayton

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So, it�s that time of year where most of the population of England get together in order to burn an effigy of a Catholic. This has caused me quite a bit of bother this year, all due to a chain of events that can be traced unbroken back to the sad passing of OfClayton Snr. a few months ago.

 

Those of you who, like me, are now effectively orphaned will know that the first big task, once the funeral is behind you, is clearing your parents� house of a lifetime�s worth of accumulated clutter. When we did this following the death of Mrs OfClayton�s mum, every single artefact had to be examined nostalgically, cried over, and very, VERY, reluctantly, discarded. It took forever. Although I am not half so sentimental as my other half, and was happy to bin all my old baby clothes/teddy bears/school books, etc. from the loft, the sheer volume of it all meant that it was still a pretty long job.

 

To make things easier, I brushed the dust off my old trailer, hacked it free of last year�s undergrowth, and filled it up. It survived the first trip to the skip, but on returning to OfClayton Snr.�s bungalow, I found that the ancient tyres had perished to the point where a second trip was inadvisable. New tyres required!

 

So I tried to remove the wheels, resulting in the sheering off of one of the bits-that-you-screw-the-wheelnuts-onto (you can guess that I�m no great shakes with mechanical jiggery-pokery). After careful consideration, I decided that three out of four wheelnuts would proably do the job, so took the wheels to the tyre centre to have the tyres replaced. After much sucking of teeth, and sharp intakes of breath, they decided that it was a specialist size, and replacing the tyre would cost more than a new trailer. This, combined with the wheelnut-thing-sheering-off incident, and the age of the trailer, made me reluctantly accept that I needed a new trailer.

 

�OK�, I said to a colleague the next day. �I�m going into town to see if I can find a trailer.�

�My Dad�s selling a trailer�, says he. So we went to have a look. What a magnificent trailer it was! I drooled. It was huge! And best of all, the owner was happy to swap for some of OfClayton Snr�s golf equipment (no good to me). One problem � it was too wide to fit in between the Main House and the Garage Block at OfClayton Towers. I didn�t want to leave it at the front where it could fall victim to any waif/stray that happened through the sleepy little village of Aquis of the Romans. It would have to be housed within the Garage Block. But what about when the winter comes, and I need to put the GhostMobile in the Garage Block? Hmm . . . problem. Luckily for me, I know someone who will deal with this � Future OfClayton. What a guy Future OfClayton is. I pass so many of my problems on to him to deal with, which means I don�t have to worry about them.

 

Anyway, the months wore on. I used the trailer to clear OfClayton Snr�s bungalow, and many, many other jobs, and the Catholic burning weekend approached. �I know,� said the man who lives at the end of my garden, �let�s have a bonfire party � we can use OfClayton Towers.� Very good of him to nominate my grounds for his party, but we were invited, so not too bad. Another resident of the sleepy little village of Aquis-of-the-Romans approached me. �If you bring your trailer, I�ve got a load of old wood for the fire.� So now I have a problem � a trailer load of wood, and no way to get it to the bonfire. What on earth possessed Past OfClayton to buy this huge trailer? What an idiot that boy is!

My Saturday was spent removing two fence panels and digging out a concreted-in fencepost, just to create a gap wide enough for Past OfClayton�s stupid sodding trailer!

Past OfClayton, you will be the death of me!

 

And my Sunday was spent concreting in a new fence post, and replacing the fence panels. The GhostMobile is in the garage, and the trailer is stored away in the back garden. How am I going to get the trailer back out of the garden? That sounds like a job for Future OfClayton! I�m sure he�ll think of something.

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caldrail

Gunpowder treason not forgotten? In many cases, it was never taught in the first place. Most youngsters only know it as 'Fireworks Night', so I guess in a way Guy Fawkes has, as they say, been consigned to the history books.

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Melvadius

Possibly something for Future OfClayton to consider:

 

We had people who lived up the road from us who had a caravan parked in their front garden behind some fence panels which only seemed to be permanently fixed into the ground.

 

In fact the central post was set into a slot in the ground so it and the adjoining panels could be removed when needed.

 

I believe for security the central post was chained to a staple which in turn was concreted into the ground.

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