Potholes - are you as sick of them as me!

I live in rural Lincolnshire and I am sick to the back teeth of seeing (and being the driving victim of) potholes all over the county that I reside in. It is shameful and Lincolnshire County Council is almost literally getting away with murder by their lack of adequate and timely action in getting these dangerous road hazards fixed.

Have a look at this BBC website article.

What can one do about it?

The above question is going to be left open for contributors to answer over the next few, likely very cold (and therefore conducive to the creation of more potholes) months during this 2019 cold period.

Answers as contributed:

1. Report all potholes quickly and monitor the council's progress at fixing them (Tim's first response).

Boston Belle (another spontaneous poem).

There's more information about the Boston Belle and her trips out into The Wash and up the River Witham here.

BOSTON BELLE

by Tim J Rhohn-Sayers 

Autumn 2018

Today I was aboard the Boston Belle.

It wasn't exactly what I'd describe as hell.

- But it was definitely somewhat lacking

And the woman serving at the bar needed sacking!

You'll think, I suppose, I'm unkind.

- But I booked for relaxation and to unwind.

However, she made it stressful;

Her behaviour utterly inconducive to restful.

A challenge to get a bacon butty.

Anyone who did, seemed to be devouring incinerated putty!

Having asked at least thrice for one,

She gave so many excuses, I gave up on one ever being done.

Such was her poor service, disinterest and belligerence

That for bloody mindedness I decided to reward her ignorance

By sitting half-starved, such,

That I started to feel sea-sick just a touch.

On principle, no money for the boat's coffers

As she couldn't be bothered to serve or make offers.

This brings to an end my day on The Boston Belle.

Suffice to say, what a story I made sure to tell!

Just a little spontaneous poem written a while back.

My wife and I took (for the second time since living in Lincolnshire) a boat trip from Boston on The Boston Belle out into The Wash ...

Poem written during the return voyage from The Wash.

Untitled.

My boredom forced me to writing a poem

As we returned up the now calm River Witham.

The sun shone bright and the breeze blew good,

Even out in The Wash, no need to put up my hood.

Dreaming of a hearty club sandwich

At the Eastern European open air café

I hear the SOS message through the emergency bandwidth.

Will we need the life jackets?

Will we be on the cinema's news Pathé?

All calm again as heading to Boston

As I reflect on how much bacon butties add cost on.

Never again, I say.

Rather sit at home hearing horses neigh.

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Nothing wrong with the pleasant voyage and the seals but one crew member left much to be desired in her manner and her food was almost inedible.

Some hometruths to start 2019

Good morning all (or any) ...

Noticed that both of us were awake here and there overnight. Not surprising really - lots on our minds - so I am up at half four, typing away (therapeutic). Our disposition was not helped by the film we three (including our guest) saw last night "The Favourite" - whatever you do - don't see it - unless you've eaten something bad over Christmas and new year and need to throw it up!

The film was disgusting and I never thought I, of all people, broad-minded as I know I am, would use those words about a film but disgusting is the right adjective.

Every conceivable swear word was used in the film including numerous times using the "C" word mostly used by women too. Every sexual act you could think of was portrayed in as disgusting a way as one could dream-up (well some might dream up). There was virtually no story or plot and even if one blotted out the disgusting nature of the film, the entire film could only be deemed about Queen Anne's relationship with two of her female servants - not much more. Some will no doubt call it "art" - I call it "gratuitous filth" - two words that I never thought I would use in my life.

So this post (with all of the above film info) must now be included in my reviews section too (and by the way - the cinema - or The Kinema as we locals call it) was packed to capacity.

 HOMETRUTHS: View looking south east from our land towards the fence erected by RDS and their land showing one of a few sycamore trees (on our land) that we had cut down to protect both our horses and RDS donkeys from danger from potential poisoning from sycamore tree seeds that can be deadly to all equines. You'd think RDS might be grateful - no they wanted me arrested for criminal damage. On the right side background of the photograph, on RDS land you can clearly see an old ash tree (that does have a preservation order on it) but that the donkeys have been allowed to eat all the bark off, thus the tree will eventually die. Equines, typically, will eat such things as bark when they are missing something in their diet. We protect our trees by having horse-safe electric fencing which gives a humane and safe shock if touched.

 

Hometruths

We are being hounded out of our village, Huttoft, by a few ghastly individuals who have axes to grind for whatever 'sad' reasons:

Here's a couple examples of what is going on around about:

• An Essex woman (no I am not naming names - just like those commenting on Facebook - don't - they just make sure that everyone knows who they are commenting on - namely me), an incomer, like me, also like me, having lived in the village for a number of years is offering to give a character reference for the "dick-head" (that'll be me) to the person that runs RDS who is also 'agin' me. The Essex person was also the person that revealed her breasts to me when she was drunk and her husband and my wife were chatting with their backs to us (she being a convicted drink driver who was 'intelligent' enough to drive her car home from a pub some 200 or so metres away one night a few years ago). She was undoubtedly 'grassed-up' by someone that night and I bet she thinks it was me but it wasn't, for the record. I expect it was the publican of the pub she was at - but who knows and who cares? - At least it may have saved a life. Both her and her husband used to drink drive all the time, choosing out of the way pubs and out of the way quiet rural roads and routes to avoid detection. One now wonders if he too has lost his licence as I see he is on a disability scooter in the village but perhaps the poor man has a disability. I wouldn't wish that scenario on my worst enemy and he is certainly not my worst enemy, despite his wife once saying to me, bizarrely, "you must really hate - we'll call him Fred - not his real name." I replied by saying, truthfully, that I have never hated anyone in my life - and indeed I am not sure that I would know how to do that and certainly life is not worth all that stress and negative energy to constantly be thinking about hating someone - ghastly thought.
• RDS (who is run by what we have established are 'crooks') has raised two separate hate campaigns against me, one two years ago, one recently, which is simmering currently as we await a reply from their solicitor. This has come about since we were falsely accused of "stealing" land from RDS. They have thirty acres, we three point five acres - that's quite a lot isn't it? So, we don't need to "steal" any - we have enough. This came about as we gave notice of tree work on poisonous sycamore trees (that can poison our horses and the RDS donkeys). We were willing to pay for remedial action, which we took, so they called the police to have me arrested for criminal damage to what they claimed were their trees on their land. Incorrect, of course and I still run free, unarrested. I, of course have photographs of the fence beyond the trees (i.e. showing the trees my side of the fence - the fence that RDS put up about two years ago themselves). So I paid for the helpful work to be done and I am the culprit allegedly. I wonder how many sycamore trees are on RDS land?
• We hear that apparently someone put out there that RDS is not open until April 2019 now because they assumed that they went away for several months to the Caribbean on the funds donated to the donkey sanctuary. Even I know that is a falsehood. The co-owner of RDS stated by reply, apparently, that she did not have a passport - probably quite true. The truth about what happens to all the funds will never be quite known I do not suppose but one does have eyes and all of the following have been seen to happen at RDS in the last few years:

1. New double glazing at their home.
2. New driveway laid at their home.
3. Giant tortoise garden pet acquired.
4. Large mock-antique customised van appeared at rear of drive advertising a local vet's practice. Seems to be there permanently.
5. Approximately 30 acres of new post and rail fencing erected.
6. Large mobile home acquired and positioned behind their house.
7. Very expensive highly-enriched haylage (rather than healthier hay) delivered regularly to RDS.
8. New Ifor Williams horse trailer on drive.
9. New-looking pick-up vehicle acquired.
10. Rough-looking van acquired.

That'll do for now - but there's more of course (like, we understand, an increasingly large collection of motor bikes being stored). The difficulty that they have is concealing and/or spending their donated funds - i.e. avoiding paying it into a bank as most businesses might normally have done.