02.02.2005 - 9:11 p.m.

Well hey there bunnies, it's been a while eh ? Instead of the lingual riches i ought to be inserting into D-Land, have a load of old toss direct from my life to your monitor....

Starting with this one...

One of the benefits of forestry is the access to free wood from time to time. I bring back interesting loglets for J�s pa to turn on his lathe, and old bits of tree are turned into fancy bowls and plates an stuff.

While in my temporary house down here I gained a couple of sycamore logs about eight inches in diameter and sixteen inches long and chucked them into the front garden to weather off. I then moved to a new house on the seafront ( where I am now ) and forgot about them.

After a month I remembered that they were still in the old lady�s garden and I ought to really pick them up. The car was already parked at one end of Preston park and the house was at the other so I walked up to the house, retrieved the logs and set off back to the car. The only comfy way to carry two logs any distance was under my arms with my hands in my pockets, so I�m sauntering through the park on a southerly bearing with a log under each arm and when I�m right in the middle, out in the open, the police helicopter ( who says pigs can�t fly ) comes in from my right quite low, like he�s looking for someone and carries on east. Except when he gets to the other side of the park he bears left and hovers over the houses for a bit before slowly turning north and moving along the edge of the park.

Now I like helicopters and noisy aircraft an shit like dat so I�ve paused for a bit to watch this helicopter arsing about, I figure there must be a stolen car in the next street behind the houses and carry on walking.

The helicopter�s now hovering over the north east corner of the park and turns to look over the park, I�m the only person I can see about and I stop and watch it again. He moves slowly south down the middle of the park and just in front of me, at about two hundred feet turns right round to face me and hovers.

I half expected the searchlight to come on and a voice over the loudspeaker telling me to stand still and put my hands in the air, but it didn�t. I briefly contemplated dropping the logs and running just to see what they did but in retrospect I�m glad I didn�t. After about thirty seconds of us just staring at each other he gets bored, powers up and flies off south over the town, I carry on walking. I half expected a uniform to meet up with me further on and arrest me for being subversive, but none did. I reached the car, threw the logs in the boot and walked home.

I bet if I�d given them the finger there�d have been a bizzie waiting for me. Excitement could have been a single extended digit away and I passed up the opportunity to be part of a police chase for a quiet life. I wonder what would happen if I listened to that little voice one time��

It occurred to me early on in our little encounter that filthy helichoppers use thermal cameras to spot baddies, and me walking through the empty park would be an obvious sight on a cold novembers night, a beacon of wasted heat flaring up from the cold, dark earth. But what I bet really confused him were the two utterly cold ( and therefore black on a thermal camera ) cylinders under my arms, shucks boys did you waste all that Av-Gas on liddle ol� me, you could have just asked over the loudspeaker, that would have been pretty cool, all The Fugitive or Close Encounters like, trippy.

And unfortunately followed by this one...

I�m hoping that by casting these next thoughts into letters and thence into words they will retain their inherent magic and through the eternal weirdness of the universe come to pass.

To the person who stole my laptop, I know your first name, in the fullness of time I will know your surname, and from there I will know your address, once I know your address, myself wearing a pair of Chainsaw Boots will visit you and explain to you the error in stealing from people, your lesson will be in proportion to your crime. The proportion however will be judged from my perspective as the victim and not from any rational perspective. Any injuries you sustain will be your own fault. I never forget.

It's not likely to get any better than this, 'cos the real good stuff i was saving has been disappeared by my email provider.

that's my excuse anyway