So here’s a some news from our guest correspondent, Alan Harness, instead. For those of you not acquainted with him (consider yourself blessed) Alan is an old mate, who I first met at college back in Plymouth in the early 80’s. Alan, and others who deserve more from me than I am able to repay, were for the main part responsible for my surviving the course. If I hadn’t survived that, I may not have ended up here, so be grateful to them. I also introduced him to his wife, Jo, and now they’ve now been wed for twenty years, something she’s never forgiven me for. I also have the privilege of being godfather to Alan and Jo’s two wonderful sons, Tom and Jack. Alan and family live in North Devon, England.
Well briefly, we’ve had an eventful run up to xmas and beyond.
Xmas eve I took the boys climbing/scrambling at Baggy Point. We’d lowered ourselves down onto a rocky platform, just where a stainless steel manhole had been let into the rocks. We were clowning about on it, the water just starting to wash about the manhole. I laughed at Jack as he only had walking boots on and I had wellies.
Sooooo… I showed him how it should be done! However the sea won!!! I got SMASHED by a huge wave, it pulled the rope out of my hands, smacking me over on the rocks and dumping me six foor further down the cliff and onto a lower rocky platform. I landed on my back/side. Then it washed me out to sea. Bugger! Winded, in shock, and wearing wellies, jeans and a big heavy cotton top, this position was not really very tenable…. Oh and the sea was freezing, and the air frosty.
To cut a long story short, I ditched the wellies, Jack took care of the dogs, I sorted Tom out to throw the rope to me, and I made painfully slow headway back to the rocks. Fortunately, Neptune had had his laugh and didn’t send any more bigguns to finish off the job. Yes, I’m a very lucky bunny with a very painfull back, hip and elbow. Hey ho. I lost my mobile phone, a pair of wellies and £240 worth pair of Oakley prescription sunglasses I bought to cellebrate becoming a sensible paramedic!
Just after Xmas, Jack and I went to get some wood in from the wood store which is at the bottom of the garden in the chicken run. Jack went in first as I was ‘fixing’ the gate so I could lock the chickens in and thereby leave our front gate open, so the delivery twat could drop off my new phone (insurance job!)
The next thing I was aware of was a bloke pushing past Jack, meeting me and saying; “Oh, sorry mate, I was just sleeping rough!”
Basically, he had been hiding under the tarpaulin of the wood store. We’ve had stuff nicked on three separate occasions from our place, so I was a bit ticked off by this. I told Jack to call the Police, and so I set about delaying the “lodger” til they got here.
Being a lad of some great sense, Jack also got Tom up, Tom’s significantly more ‘handy’ than I ever was. (Taff says “I can vouch for that, Harness is not a man you’d want to cross, but Tom for all his young age is hard as nails and a rugby player of potential greatness.”)
To cut a long story short, the lodger was getting bored of my thrilling tales of daring do, and decided he wanted to leave by climbing over the back fence. I invited him to stay by throwing him to the floor, and Tom and I got him well ‘locked up’. When the Police arrived they were amazed to see the screaming was coming from him and not us.
It turns out he’d just done a burglary up the road a little way, and had used the connecting back alleyway behind our property as a get away.
All morning, a Police helicopter had been buzzing about trying to find him, and there he as happily hiding under the tarp in our garden …. doh!
The bobbies were dead chuffed with us on this occasion, they rang us the next day to say he’d been sentenced to 6 months custody… job done.
Taff says: Make my life sound boring!
Since then, fortunately, it’s been a bit quieter.
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