Bored!

Mrs Bucko is visiting friends and I have some spare time on my hands so I'm relaxing with a film for an hour or two. I'm also looking at a few blogs as I seem to need two screens in front of me rather than one these days.

The film is called "Countdown to Looking Glass". I've never seen it before but it's supposed to be an eighties film about a coming nuclear armageddon done through newsreel footage. I'm only about twenty minutes in, but so far the build up has included a banking crisis caused by defaulting countries, uprisings in the Middle East and American troops in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Chillingly predictive so far. Anybody seen it?

I have to take Mrs Bucko out this evening for Valentines Day. She wants the opportunity to dress up like a girl because she spends the week driving fork lift trucks and working in a warehouse with a bunch of blokes. I have no plans so far, and I can't think of anything we haven't done before. Suggestions would be appreciated. I am on a budget though because we spent all our money on tobacco and cigars in Belgium last weekend.

Mrs Bucko is a bit depressed this weekend so not only is it Valentines Day tonight, but I have to try and lift her spirits a bit too. She had to get rid of her dream car, the Sierra XR4i she has been driving for the past eight months or so.

We took it for it's MOT last Friday. We were expecting quite a bit of work including 2 new sills, a new CV boot, horn, indicator stalk and exhaust. It was a lot worse than that. The fail sheet was three pages long and the estimate for the work was a minimum of £800. Most of it was mechanical stuff that I could have sorted over time. If we didn't need to run two cars for work I would probably have had a go at it.

She managed to swap the car for a Renault Clio with MOT and tax. The guy she swapped it with is a mechanic who will either do it up or break it for parts. She hates the Clio but did it because she needs to run a car until she can save up for another beast.

My car is also due it's MOT next month. Hopefully that won't be as bad. It's a Seat Cordoba that we bought of ebay four years ago for £220. It was Mrs Buckos at first, then I took it on when she bought the Sierra. We keep piling the miles on it and it just keeps going. So far it's up to 187k. That's a lot for any engine but it says something for German engineering.

It's about time I bought something new though. Like Mrs B, I'm no fan of bog standard cars that have no character. I really want an old Jag XJS but the budget won't stretch that far for a while. My brother in law has a tasty convertible Escort and I'm trying to convince him to sell it to me. No luck so far.

One of the reasons I want to retire to Greece is the abundance of eighties vehicles on the road. Cars don't rust quite as fast in that climate, but with the more relaxed rules on MOTs, people aren't constantly scrapping them. I once saw a car in Greece that had it's windscreen held on with parcel tape!

I've just started planting seeds for this years bumper harvest of veg and stuff. I didn't do too badly last year and I'm hoping to do much better this time around. My turnips are sprouting already. I'm also going to have another go at growing my own bacci. I tried last year but it was a total washout. Other bloggers have had much better success and I've managed to pick up some tips for this year. Does anyone have any tobacco seeds to give away? I can pay postage.

Well the film is nearly over now so I think I'll have a bath. Not because I pong but because I can't think of anything else to do.

Catch you later Bill and Ted.