It's know within my family that I don't frequent a certain chain og local garden centres from SEPTEMBER through to April ..when the christmas decorations FINALLY come down (thats 7 months of the year with a xmas presence) ..how bloody stupid is that!?
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I've been ribbing Ryan @zombiepumpkins for literally years with regards to creating a cut out stencil of Sir Jimmy Savile, a fantastic figure to carve & place not so prominantly within your display, the faces of parents as they realize who is before them amongst all the other carves..
Sir Jimmy is a feature of most adults lives within the past 60 years & a most unlikely candidate for a stencil, in all probability the most ridiculous (but in a cool way) pumpkin stencil the uk would come across, it occurred to me one day whilst bandying around suggestions in general, stoney like any good "creator" listens & responds across the sites as to what may be of interest, challenging or in this case downright pointless , but hey lets do it anyway! Earlier in the summer my good friend Stoney (owner of stoneykins pumpkin carving website) quietly popped a stencil up for me & fellow uk carvers. obviously this doesn't let Wickstrand off the hook! The image to the SIR JIMMY SAVILE PUMPKIN STENCIL is small but i'll pop up my carve shortly! in the meantime heres a link to tempt you to carve the unlikeliest of uk heroes... http://www.stoneykins.com/Patterns/products/Sir-Jimmy-Savile-CO.html Miserable years, ..my having a cat in the past has stopped me from going off the rails, it's fast approaching 3 years since my much loved ginger tom keeled over & died of a sudden heart attack in a patch of warm sun, I went to pieces, i'm still in pieces & I cannot bear to go & look in the local animal shelter to find a cat who "know's" me.
I did find myself there around 6 months ago & met a lovely responsive fellow, that was a distinct chance possibility, however he was actually from my village, so no chance they'd let him home with us. In fact he was a real charmer, a "fugly" older ginger tom with a messed up face, very remeniscent of "The Mung" who had climbed into someones van & ended up locally, (he hated vehicles from that point onward) ..my big regret with the mung was that he had clearly come from a home with an older person as we found he had an evidently established game involving spectacles / glasses which he showed us one day soon after moving in, the regret was not being able to tell his old owner how much of a life he'd had, just not knowing what had happened to a clearly doted on cat has remained with me to this day, ..we luckily had a good seven years of his company. I find myself looking down at the spot I found him when putting up the Halloween decorations outside... Another little cat that kept a man from tipping over! I'll know when I come across another like him, but i'm not ready & I won't be till we happen across each other. A wretched feeling but a process we must go through. I have a dog, but she's not "the cat" Thing with Asda is they are so big (just like Tesco's that they promise the earth & often deliver nothing.
What I mean is this, ALL Asda stores are pretty darn large to go around shopping correct? ..yes Gus! SO with Asda providing by far the widest array of halloween gubbins within the uk (for a supermarket) you would expect a good variety of goods on offer, correct? Well no chances are if your store wasn't opened in the past couple of years your local asda is deemed a"small" store ..if you are familiar with Peterborough or Cambridge asda stores they are pretty damn ginormous! However apparantly if I want a decent selection of Asda goodies I have to leg it to either Corby or Milton Keynes ..I cannot imagine the size of "SUPER"stores. But that means eating up the miles around 90 miles total for each store! ..why such disparity? ..i've been asking Asda this for 4 years & still no answer. Making Asda a big #FAIL http://direct.asda.com/Halloween/10106,default,sc.html Ring before you go & are dissapointed folks! I've been asked (as has the wife) to have crb checks, not once not twice but 5 times thus far over a few weeks.
The police are pretty damn corrupt, sadly i've had to hit a policeman myself, (funnily enough nothing came of it) ..not something i'm proud of, I simply cannot stand bullies. So when asked to help with a local childrens group I'm told I need to be CRB checked it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Clearly we've been sussed out as suitable caring folk who are safe with children or we wouldn't have been asked. The wife is a nurse & has been crb'ed as part of her profession. Me? ..well I was whipped by the local vicar in front of the rest of the class during R.E. by the man who attended to my dying father when I was a little lad, ..what the heck sort of attitude do you think this leaves me with as to a crb checks worth. I was a lad who had to leave scouts because one of the scout leaders was fiddling the books (scouts subs for pete's sake) ..my mother couldn't afford to keep paying what we didn't actually owe, I lost out on my main group of friends. & besides a high ranking copper, who has just come out of prison for all sorts of "stuff" is now going back into the police force, ..albeit supended on full pay. My wife has several police relatives (including one who is an inspector) ..she knows them well enough to not trust them & these are the folk who say i'm "legitimate" clean of crime & ok to be in the presence of children? What a pointless exercise. I fully support & understand the group of authors who would for years go into schools (surrounded by teachers) & read to children in their own time to fire the imagination & help kids get so much from a good book. These same authors now refuse to go into schools because of the CRB check. It's not a case of you must have something to hide or else you'd comply, ..yes we honest folk have to live with alot of compliance that other echelons of society continually ignore & get away with. If I cannot trust the police in the first place why on earth would I trust them to check & clarify my good character? Pretty much i'm not trustworthy therefore to be in the presence of children (allegedly), & so may have to simply not help, & if I cannot help because I'm not trusted I will not support! I understand the authors chosen stance perfectly. Voting with my feet. I am a big fan of LED's & whilst I never had the male fascination of "torches" from childhood (ok just the one) ..I now possess too many LED lights, LED FLOODLIGHTS, PIR led lights, & led headtorches, led lanterns (you get the gist) The overall headcount could probably kit out a small choir. I really do recommend going for the quality rather than cheapo units. For Instance I bought some cheapy led Petzl rip offs from china, the magnet stuck to the unit gives me a headache, the consumption for an led is a battery gobbler & the likelihood of them lasting is zero! It's not LEDs that fade away it's the soldering & components around them... Take my latest petzl zipka+2 headtorch, it came as a under warranty replacement via the distributor due to my having had a fault with 2 units & then only because I'm fastidious & finnicky) ..tiny hairline chassis cracks appeared in the moulding even when one unit was sat "lost" for a year. Petzls come with a 3 year warranty! ..wow! the new unit is the latest version of my favourite keyring torch having no elastic headband it has a well designed retractable headpiece making it very pocketable. Worth every penny of £39.95 good product good service, newest single emitter 50 lumen (max) output light. My new zipka has a soft touch button compared to the old zipka+ that enables cycling through the light levels & strobes very easily, perfect for using with ahalloween costume & headpiece (ie non human head shape) ..the red low level "night sight saver works well for when you need light but don't wish to specifically give your position away.. With service / aftercare like that & a turnaround of product of 3 working days, i'd be mad to look elsewhere for a headlamp. Thankyou Lyon (uk distributor) http://www.lyon-outdoor.co.uk/ it's infinitely reassuring to have you behind me. I use their products pretty much across the board, usually have 2 on me the zipka & a MYO / MYO RXP. They come into their own when carving a pumpkin, placed inside to check your lines & get critical, this is also handy inside if you've prescored a pattern onto a pumpkin for a child, the endeavour to follow the light pattern with a carving saw, as not everyone has saral paper to hand. kids get a kick out of the glowing pattern before they even make the first cut. ZIPKA+ 2 |
Mr Gusgrumpy pumpkin carver, country boy & "bad dad" Archives
September 2013
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