I, Punter

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash I am making betting pay. But more of that later. I am halfway through my second week off work. I have effectively given up on my list of jobs thanks to bad weather, a weekend trip to Alton Towers that has left me with PTSD and a set of deluded smoke alarms that think I am living in The Towering Inferno. I am too old for Alton Towers and the rides which once filled me with giddy anticipation, like they do my eldest daughter now, just make me want to run and hide in Cbeebies Land.  To add to my apprehension the rides sometimes go wrong, more often than you would think, and on this visit the Runaway Mine Train had got stuck in mid-air halfway round a bend and at an angle that was clearly uncomfortable for the luckless riders, especially two young children who were visibly distressed.  As there was no prospect of a ride it felt wrong to loiter, but I was amazed at the number of people hanging around to gawp or document proceedings on their phones...

I am back in profit.  But more of that later. I am off work for a couple of weeks, mainly to do jobs around the house and garden.  So far I have built a radiator cover and painted a door.  It could be going better. On the last day of my recent holiday to Northumberland, I visited Barter Books in Alnwick.  As the name suggests, it is a second-hand bookshop but unlike most second-hand bookshops it is one which people queue up to enter.  One of the reasons for the popularity of Barter Books is that it occupies a Victorian railway station from which it takes its theme; there are model trains running along the tops of the bookshelves and “buffet” refreshments are served in the former waiting rooms.  A more obvious reason is that it does have a ton of books for sale and I was delighted to pick up a near-mint third edition printing of (Peter) Braddock’s Complete Guide to Horse Race Selection & Betting (Longman 1990) for £6.60 to add to my betting library....

My third losing week in a row.  But more of that later. It’s only Wednesday and already I’m having one of those weeks.  I haven’t reached the stage yet where it’s a week to forget, but there’s still time (see tip below).  Work has been frustrating - fortunately for you I signed the Official Secrets Act in 1986 so my frustrations will remain official secrets - and away from that I have been beset by a series of mishaps that, whilst trivial in themselves, all add up.  An example of this was on Monday when I noticed a stone stuck in the tread of my offside rear tyre that, on closer inspection, turned out to be a nail.  That kind of thing.  Readers of this blog may be unsurprised to learn that I keep a diary, and out of curiosity I checked to see if the equivalent week last year was just as bad.  Amazingly it was.  But then I remembered what week it was, and on the anniversary of that most shocking of September days paused to commemorate the thousands...

The silly season continues.  But more of that later. I have been on a family holiday to Northumberland, or the thinking person’s Cornwall as I like to call it.  Most of it was spent under blue skies, although we did cop for a torrential downpour - thankfully we were under cover - when we ventured inland to Hay Farm Heavy Horse Centre , a horse sanctuary in the foothills of the Cheviots.  During our visit my youngest daughter, who is severely autistic, received a shock from an electrified fence which was fairly instant karma for her emptying a bowl of Coco Pops over the kitchen floor of the cottage we were renting. No lasting harm was done to either her or the kitchen floor. If you are ever in Northumberland and like heavy horses or artery-bursting afternoon teas Hay Farm is well worth the visit. We were based at Seahouses, a large fishing village popular with tourists in the know like me and the unlikely home of racehorse trainer Adam Nicol, who had a runner in this yea...