Enervating Emneth...

As most of you know I have moved house recently, to a wee village in Norfolk where Thomas the Tank Engine was written by the Rector of the local church, W. Awdry.

Yesterday, my bike was finally transported over on a trailer borrowed by my son-in-law and today, needing some cheese for grating onto my jacket potato, I decided to press the velocipede into use to get into the village.
Now the village stores is fine and dandy and massively extended recently to become almost a SPAR superstore, but I like the little local places, so, butchers being a diversifying bunch these days, I went to the award winning gent of that persuasion for the essential accoutrement to a jacket tatey and got a creamy but strong mature cheddar.  His little shop is full of similar kinds of goodies.  Pickles, jams, cheeses and very fresh vegetables from the farm.  His minced beef was superb too.  Alas, the Post Office didn't have any bread, so the SPAR shop it was for a loaf and a TV mag. for the Mrs.
The bike behaved and proved that a boiziggle (see Flan O'Brian) is the most efficient way for a man to move.  This time, unlike the first, I didn't fall off it and got back to safety just before the rain began.  It was an uplifting ride, the first of many, I hope.  It really would have been silly to use the car for such a short trip, especially with it running on 3 cylinders because the computers have decided there's an "anti-polution fault".
I'm tired of this nonsense, so have bit the bullet and booked it in with the local garage for a diagnostic check. Every time it beeps and puts that dross up on the dash with a wee engine light, it loads the pootah with "codes".  These have to be read by a diagnostic programme and the "shit" sorted out as the man described it.  I warm to a man who has to sort the "shit" out of an array of computerised excrement and is honest enough to say so and I am quietly hopeful of a positive outcome from a village garage that was so busy I could barely squeeze onto its forecourt and of whom, having decided to support my local once again, I hear good things.  Whilst the car is at its one o'clock appointment I will try out the more attractive looking local pub of the two available, the Gaultree Inn. The other one displays "Sky Sports" stickers outside.  I can think of nothing more guaranteed to have me running for the hills!  I have escaped the running and jumping show that some third world mob have put on for the saddoes of the world so far and have no pleasure in watching England constantly failing to do what it once showed it could.  Whilst the village centre is set on Gaultree Square, I can find nowhere called, simply, Gaultree, as pointed to by one of Norfolk's less necessary signposts. Similarly, Pingle Bridge is, amongst some others, a pure fantasy place, but it has a nice new signpost pointing resolutely to it, but you won't find it!