Oh no you are joking?

Roger failed his MOT.

Not only did he fail it, his bottom is dropping out! Rust rust rust, corrosion in the sub frame. Now he has only done 29,000 miles and he looks like this.



So we were surprised! To say the least.

Mutley has decided to mend him though. He gave the garage a spending limit. They are going to weld his sub frame back together.

We will then have to sell him. Roger will be ok for a couple of years if not longer.

I will go for something more sensibler like this:



Well in my dreams anyway!

I was sad to hear about Patrick Swayze. Dirty Dancing is an excellent movie and Ghost is even better. According to 'Sam' you take the love with you. I hope this is true. Bu hu.

Moving house and Maths

Roger has gone in for his MOT (Ministry of Transport Test), I hope he passes! It was due on the 4th September and I missed the date.

Not having had the Mini for very long I had failed to check the test date oops. Here I am waiting for the garage to phone with the result and the news I can go get him back.

I am surrounded by boxes owing to our endeavours over the weekend to pack up our belongings ready for moving house on Saturday. I still need more boxes as there still seems to be loads to pack!

I have been teaching at the local school, just up the road from the new house. I love it so much I have decided to take a GCSE O level in Maths. I have to have this to be a real teacher!

Oh and a GCSE in Science too if I want to teach 5 year olds in primary school. How ridiculous is that?!

I may have to make do with teaching media in a secondary environment up to 19 year olds. I start Maths on the 28th September near Cambridge and I quite excited about it.

But not as excited as moving house. We are still renting though but it is a small victorian cottage with a lovely garden.

We visited Mum over the weekend to pick up a few items. The cats are fantastic now, the new ginger kitten Rusty is lovely, so fluffy with a handsome face.



I just love this photograph of Pop and Mr Rusty.

Anyway wish me luck for Saturday!

Katie Price versus Arab women or should that be the other way around?

Last night Mutley said:

"Some Arab women wear the veils because many want to protect other women by not attracting their husbands and luring them away from them".

How arrogant is this?! I would never assume that I can attract a man away from another women although I know it happens.

I immediately asked him: "Why should women take the responsibility of men not being able to control their sexual desire for other women?"

This is also why arab men have more than one wife I expect. It all got me wandering whether arab men have a greater sex drive to western men and that is why their women have to walk around in public looking like bag women rather than showing off their beauty or ugliness respectively.

Are men animals or humans? If what Mutley say's is true then it sounds to me like they are animals! Unable to control themselves in public.

Maybe all arab women need to take a self defence class or become experts in martial arts to protect themselves from male advances.

But it also raises my awareness of how Arab women behave differently towards each other. Can you imagine a women in the West saying well I won't lure a man I love away form his wife, partner, girlfriend because I respect her to much.

Maybe women in the West don't respect each other as much as women in the East or maybe that is the difference between freedom and non freedom or just different religion or no religion at all.

Blaming women for rapes that take place in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where they are imprisoned or stoned to death is completely unfair in my opinion. It is obvious that men blame women for they sexuality and the power it has over them.

Just because men don't like the power women have over them, doesn't mean women need to stop using their power to get what they need.

It be could be the case that Arab men have a low sense of self esteem and fear losing their women to other men. This is common in the west too.

I reckon that both women and men in the west sometimes encourage their husbands, partners, lovers to dress down so that they aren't able to attractive to the opposite sex.

I also believe that this is one of the main reasons why there a so many divorces and violence between the sexes. Jealousy is a very ugly emotion and often isn't controlled by men or women.

My mind soon started to compare the two 'world's', East and West. In the West we have Katie Price aka Jordan (irony of that name)I believe she uses her sexuality as a business to bring in million's of pounds.

This not only gives a woman with limited intelligence great wealth but power as a role model too.

Look at the jealousy and manipulation raging between her and Pete Andre during their split and the tit-for-tat revenge. Do the Arab nations deal with this is in a better way or a worse way by controlling how women use their sexuality?

Can you imagine throwing Jordan in jail for flashing her boobs at Piers Morgan television programme or can you imagine an Arab woman doing this on television? How insulted would you be?

As usual these are my opinions and ideas and not those of anyone I work for or with.

A new home or kennel for Mutley!!

We went to view this cottage yesterday afternoon. It has a fab kitchen, bathroom and garden and a kennel I mean shed for Mutley!!

Only kidding of course but Mutley does like to behave like a dog! We usually treat dogs like humans I know but this is a reversal that Mutley is proud of.

Mutley loves to make things from wood and he intends to use the shed for his lathe.

At this minute Mutley is fast asleep on the sofa after being woken at 6am this morning from the children playing on the wooden floor in the flat above us. We first complained to the agency 6 weeks ago but they have done very little to sort out the problem.

We first saw this cottage last weekend and thought it had potential and although the bedrooms are small they have lovely sash windows, that probably rattle in the wind lol as they aren't double glazed!

Anyway we are both excited now because we have completed the paperwork and paid a deposit this morning. The references are being sorted next week.

As I type the kids upstairs are bouncing a ball on the floor. This family is so selfish and have no idea how their noisy behaviour is disturbing our peace.

Anyway we have handed in our notice and hope to be signed off within the next 6 weeks. We move in to the new place in two weeks.

We have no choice on the overlap because of the contract we signed for this flat. It stipulated that we could only hand our notice in for a month on the day we pay our rent, how unreasonable is that?

We should have complained about this at the time before we signed the agreement. Oh well we will learn the hard way but we aren't going to let this get in the way of a fab new home.

The Frankincense Trail

We watched some TV last night.

Kate Humble, a blond female BBC TV presenter went to Saudi Arabia.

That might sound perfectly normal to you but it isn't. Kate had to have a male escort, a Saudia Arabian called Dewi.

This is because no woman is allowed to be in the country alone with our a male relative or a male escort approved by the Saudi government. She had to wear an abaya, a black robe that covers the whole body.

All the other women she met were all wearing beautiful skirts and sexy blouses! But not in a public place..

Kate met a Royal Saudi Prince, one of the richest men in the world. She followed him into the desert where she met his fourth wife. They didn't mention that he is still married and living with the first three!

This Royal Saudi Prince gave money and goods, like cars, to the people who live in tribes in the desert. A huge queue formed and he gave away thousands of pounds or riyal of his own personal wealth.

His wealth comes from investing in businesses all over the world including The Sun newspaper, CNN and Citibank in the US.

Kate went to visit some arabian women who were playing basketball, in public in Jeddah. Apparently there are 20 female teams that play on private land in Jeddah.

The men disapprove but fortunately this doesn't stop them. The Koran doesn't say that women must not play sport so where does this disapproval come from?

Kate questioned Dewi about this and was close to insulting him. Did he deserve to be insulted for having different views of what was acceptable for women?

Saudi women aren't allowed to speak to any men other than relatives. If they are found by the religious police to be alone in the company of a man who isn't a relative they are stoned to death.

This wasn't mentioned on the programme.

Kate followed the frankincense trail around Saudi Arabia but wasn't allowed to visit Mecca. No foreign or saudi tourists can go there, I didn't know this.

She went to the Red Sea and she dived on a shipwreck that has only once been dived on before owing, according to her diving escort, to the paranoia! As Kate stripped off her abaya and dived into the water she said it felt great to be out of that 'blinking abaya'.

Well done Kate.

Things are changing though in Saudi Arabia, mainly I think to 9/11 and the blame they received. The secrecy of the country made them easy scapegoats.

Women are allowed to own a car now, but aren't allowed the insurance to drive it, but they do. Freedom is improving particularly in Jeddah but not so much in Riyadh the capital.

I wish our Queen would give away her private riches she makes through investments to her people as the Royal Saudi Prince does every month. They share their wealth.

In my humble opinion, if Saudia Arabia treated women equally it would be the best nation in the world, by far.

These are my views are not a reflection of any company or person I work for

My Perfect Day

My perfect day would be spent on a sailing boat somewhere in the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean.



I would take Mutley with me,



and the ships cats.



I would take my Mum



and my friends..



and my brother.

We would swim and snorkel in the sea



well maybe not my Mum!



Sunbathe



Do some para sailing



some water skiing



and then watch the sun go down.

Other Perfect Days:

Steph's Perfect Day.

You know who's Perfect Day.

Lee's Perfect Day.

Link to the radio piece this morning

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00461g3/Rob_Dunger_02_09_2009/

You won't hear me til after 39 minutes has gone by. Rob and I are talking about this Roman Path across the River Orwell, Ipswich, Suffolk, UK.

Meanwhile back at BBC Radio Suffolk

I don't believe it! Only last week I gave up on my dream.

I told everyone on facebook, myspace and blogspot that I need a new dream and guess what happens?!

It all unfolded yesterday afternoon at around 5pm. I commented on my friend Rob Dunger's status about finding a Roman Path across the River Orwell in Ipswich, which is in Suffolk on the East coast of England.

The River is beautiful and I spent many a happy hour last year interviewing folk who live around or on the estuary for BBC Suffolk's website

click here.

I wrote under the Places and then River Orwell pages and also the Made In England section.

Anyway, after I left a comment on facebook about the exciting discovery, Rob left a comment asking if I would go to the studio to talk to him about the River Orwell live on the radio. At first I was a little wary as the piece was scheduled for 5.50am today.

But I was mightily tempted and when Mutley arrived home he immediately said I hope you have accepted! So I commented to Rob that I would be there.

Even though it meant getting up at 4.00 am!! I now live 80 miles from Ipswich which is a good hours drive on our roads.

I had a chat with Rob on IM at 10pm last night and then went to bed having made some notes about what I wanted to say. There is lots to talk about and I was able to find a little more information about the Roman Path, but the feature only lasted 5 minutes tops!

You can listen again from the homepage above if you click on Rob Dungers programme. I was on about 40 minutes into the programme.

I have to say I missed the first alarm this morning and managed to wake myself up enough to get up at 4. After a shower I could have left at 4.15 if I had been able to hurry!

Mutley listened online and he said I sounded cool and professional, which really gave me a boost.

It was lovely to see Rob again after almost a year away from the station. I also got a kiss from Mark Murphy, the Breakfast Show presenter welcoming me back so I was well chuffed.

Rob has asked me back on his programme next Wednesday to talk about something else on the River Orwell so that is ace!

You can read the feature I wrote last year and what I talked about this morning here it is called

Keeping The Wet Dock Wet.

A fracka with the neighbours and a bike in the hallway

What a lovely Bank Holiday weekend we had!

Saturday was spent sorting Roger's rust out. Only a couple of patches under his arm pits!





Here we are! This was taken at Bedfordshire Classic Car Show a couple of months ago.

On Sunday we went to Knebworth Classic Car Show again with the Dinky Devils Car Club. Our friends Carolynn and Dave are brilliant but we just find the show's a bit repetitive and boring, not to mention cold and windy.

We went without coats as the weather was fine and sunny in the morning, but as the day wore on it got colder and by 10am I was beginning to feel bone cold. Luckily there was a secondhand clothing stall there and I spotted this lovely sheepskin coat.

I thought it is bound to be expensive and I was even sadder when I tried it on and I couldn't do the buttons up! I asked how much and the man waved 5 fingers in the air.

I looked at him and said £5 in disbelief..he said YES! So we bought it. It kept my back and butt warm all day!

As it started to drizzle we left.

Yesterday started badly with the usual noisy neighbour problem. The flat above us has laid a wooden floor and they have two small children.

It actually sounds like we live below a herd of elephants and sometimes there must be half a dozen people stampeding overhead. The children like to bounce their ball first thing in the morning and this usually wakes Mutley up when he is trying to catch up on his sleep at the weekends.

We also bought a new bicycle on Saturday and this neighbour is part of the residents committee and when my partner bumped into him on Monday he asked us to stop leaving our bikes in the huge stairwell of the flats.

So the new bike is currently sat in the hallway of the flat. We have bought a tub of flowers to put in the garden and have attached a chain to it so that we can secure the bikes to it.

Mutley took great pleasure in telling our noisy neighbour about the noise his children make on the wooden floor that he has so selfishly put down upstairs and how we had put in an official complaint about it.

Needless to say we are looking for a new home! We had been anyway but now we are seeing a cottage in the village on Friday. So fingers crossed that we get it..