And the Sun was a demon

I think it's safe to say that yesterday was a little on the warm side. James came up with Janneke to see his poorly mother; convalescing in temperatures akin to Hades is no fun, but seeing the Number One Son and his bride was a tonic far surpassing that of any of the morphine based knockout drugs Jenny was prescribed when she left the hospital last Saturday.

I took this photo in my car yesterday afternoon just after 4.30pm. 40 degrees. I tell you what, the Sun didn't feel like it was 93 million miles away. I'm sure it slipped anchor at lunchtime while nobody was looking.

Below is my favourite Sun TV/film clip, bar none. It's from Thunderbirds and is the one where Alan Tracy is stuck on the bridge with his grandma in temperatures similar to those we were experiencing in the East Midlands.

If you fast forward to 2:17 you'll see real beads of perspiration running down Alan's wooden puppet head. That was me yesterday.

My favourite sister-in-law

Megan is Jenny’s half-sister. They are linked by their father's indiscretion in the early 1960s (I’m sure, with Jenny’s permission, I will tell the full story here one day).
But they only met for the first time five years ago. However, in that time Megan has enriched Jenny’s life more than she’ll ever know. She’s also become my favourite sister in law – we’ve shared stories, shared holidays and shared good times. And she’s talked me down off the ledge a couple of times when times haven’t been so good.

Sisters: standing on their own two feet

Megan & Jenny: doing it for themselves 

My favourite sister-in-law and the current Mrs. Medd dragged themselves away from the kitchen long enough to spend a few hours at the seaside today. The weather held ('it's just like being abroad') and both the long walk on the beach, and the ubiquitous fish and chips, ensured a good day was had by all.
Even the men folk.

John & The Liver Birds

Liverpool. What's not to like? We set up base camp at The Baltic Fleet, one of the city's finest ale houses, and ventured out from there.

From The Beatles to Hitler's brother (a former resident of the 'Pool by all accounts) via Tuk Tuk rides and several sensational beers, we had a blast.

Our numbers were reduced this time (and then there were three) but that never stopped John & The Liver Birds from living high on the hog for two long days and two long nights.

Points were awarded for spotting curlers and snakeskin stilettos. Points were deducted for mentioning the Mersey Tunnel. Damn you Sat-Nav.



The four lads who shook the world are, obviously, omnipresent and the whole weekend (as most weekends in Liverpool tend to be) was accompanied by a Lennon and McCartney soundtrack.

But you do kind of feel sorry for anyone working in a 24/7 Beatles environment. Hey Jude and Let it Be must be akin to Chinese water torture after a while.




After hours parties in the hotel room were civilised and not at all sordid(!) and we all expect to be heading back to The Hampton by Hilton sooner rather than later.

Life's Too Short

That's what we keep telling each other. And now Daisy is getting in on the act.

Pick up a Penguin

That's six now. I may take a Penguin vacation and revisit them later. In the meantime, a couple of them are for sale over at Artfinder.

And if you can't see what you like there, feel free to get in touch via the comments box below.

Yellow Penguins

Penguin paperbacks don't come in all shapes and sizes. But they do come in all sorts of colours. The nice man in the short film below will tell you all about them. Suffice it to say that orange denotes fiction, red - drama, green - crime fiction, dark blue - autobiography, purple - essays, cerise - travel and adventure and grey - world affairs. And don't forget the Pelican and Puffin imprints. Penguin devotees looking to find websites dedicated to Penguins in all their guises won't be disappointed. Hardly surprising really - go and take a look at your own book shelf and see how many you've got.

One colour I haven't mentioned and that's yellow. Yellow was used as a safety net by Penguin for anything that didn't fit any of the regular perameters. Life's Too Short by Jenny Medd, for example. An oft repeated mantra here at at Medd Towers, along with 'there are no pockets in shrouds' and 'you're a long time dead', 'life's too short' is a stock response when defending your corner.

Anyway, here's that nice man I was telling you about.

Knees up

Pictured above are two significant women in my life. What you can't see in this photograph are their knees. Good job; no, they're not knobbly. Nor have they drawn smiley faces on them. But both pairs are, at this moment in time, not performing as they should. Normal service will, I'm sure, be resumed a soon as possible.

In the meantime I'd like to wish the young lady on the left a Happy Birthday.

Bump on the noggin

Spare a thought for my wife tonight. And me, while you're about it. Before the Doctor discharged Jenny from A&E this afternoon he gave us a booklet entitled Head Injuries: Discharge Advice. In a nutshell, I've got to prod her awake every two hours and ask her who the Prime Minister is.

So how did we end up driving away from the hospital feeling like a pair of geriatrics? Walking home this morning, Jenny decided to do a random tensile test on the pavement. With her head. It would appear the footpath, comprising several layers of concrete & tarmacadem is just as hard as you would expect and afterwards showed no visible signs of her crash landing on it. Apart from the blood that is. Anyway, looking on the bright side, at least the emergency services, when they arrived, didn't have to draw chalk lines around her.