Home is where the heart is...

Well readers, I made it. One hundred and fifty miles, one puncture, one roast beef dinner, a steak and chips, roast pork, two fry-ups and 12 pints of Stella later (saldy no Cobra en route). Barry, road warrior, Newsdesk cycles on his stomach. I think I must be the only cyclist to gain weight on a long bike ride! arf, arf.

It was a great ride for so many reasons, first up having massive TV celebrity Julian Richards, out of Meet the Ancestors, asking me directions! Ha! Me. I was in the middle of Leicester at the time looking at a map. What are the chances?

Second, helping Wayne and his friend Sean honour the memory of their friend Rich Wildman whilst raising some cash for charity. Now I can walk past the charity muggers on Oxford Street without feeling a twinge of guilt.

Third though, and possibly my favourite bit of the journey was getting home and logging onto the Internet to see the AMAZING news that Mr Coleman came through his heart surgery in one healthy piece!!!!

How brilliant - Mrs C, over coming massive technophobia, even posted a blog comment to let me know her hubby was a-OK. I'm so glad everything worked out. Mr C is a keen cyclist it seems and his doctor reckons that really helped. Maybe next year Mr C will join us on the Tour de Wildman. There are some quite big hills on the way, Wayne and Sean can zoom off ahead, but I'll walk up them with you. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Lance Armstrong.

I tell you another thing too readers, I've never seen so much roadkill in all my life. The highways and byways of the English countryside are postitively plastered with rabbit, rat, fox, badger and pheasant. At one point I thought I saw a pussy cat, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be an old gardening glove. lol :-)

I also discovered a direct correlation between population density and friendliness. The more people there are, the ruder they become. Honestly, people in the middle of nowhere would wave and say hello as we cycled past, but as soon as we got to anywhere a bit bigger, the friendliness stopped. It made me a bit sad for Mankind.

I had an epiphany readers. I think I might move to the countryside. I might sell my place (my place which is now almost completely over bloody run with Dan Bantam's gym paraphernalia) and buy somewhere out in the sticks. I could live off the land and be a farmer.

We saw a farmer who told us that there was no right of access through his land, but then we showed him the map which clearly showed the Oxfordshire Way going through his land - he conconcted some cock 'n' bull story about Google maps, the local police and hikers getting attacked on his land. We didn't back down though, and he let us through. It's called a Right to Roam!!! If I become a farmer I'll let people walk through my farm no probs. Guess I'm just reasonable like that.

Having said that, running a farm must be quite hard work, so maybe after the runaway success of Fur Wars maybe I should get into writing more stories. Writing seems to come naturally to me. I have a literally bent as it were.

Also The Secret Seed Society is running another competition. My tales of Marvelous Marvin Mung Bean didn't make the grade. This time though the society, led by the wonderful Peter Parsnip, are after a story about personified onion. I'm sure I can come up with a real multi-layered, tear jerker!!! LOL, ;-)))

OK - I'd best be off to think of some onion-based story fodder, until next time - au revoir!

Baz

ps. Mess dude - thank you for your email regarding your affairs of the heart. I think congratulations are due! Congratulations to you!! (And yes, I agree, Mr C would probably have some words of wisdom regarding your story). Be warned though, I fell in love with Amber not so long ago and it didn't work out. I don't want you to get hurt! But as Dave the roofer is keen to say, you can't win the raffle, unless you buy a ticket.

Is there anybody there?

Well readers, it's been two days since I finished posting the last post of my epic story of good versus evil. Two whole days and George Lucas has yet to bother writing a comment.

I must say though, I did enjoy the comments from my gorgeous followers. Particularly those of my dearest follower Mr Coleman.

He wrote to me from his hospital bed, readers, moments before he went under the knife prior to heart surgery!!!

The only trouble is, he missed the end of Fur Wars - Oh GOD readers, I hope he's all right, I really do, I can't think of anything worse than missing the end of Fur Wars. The dramatic finale.

I wonder if Mr C had an out of body experience, perhaps he floated up above his hospital bed, and tried to log on to read the last two chapters, only his ghostly fingers passed through the keyboard - maybe the thought of missing the last chapters urged him to return to his body!

Or...maybe he didn't make it. I'm not going to think the worse, but I only hope that if he didn't make it that up in whatever heaven he's living in (he never did reveal his religious beliefs) that the God he happens to follow allows His angels to log onto the internet and read the blog. I suppose it would be unrealistic of me to expect that God to allow Mr C to communicare with the living from Heaven via the comments section of my blog.

But imagine if this blog became a communications channel with the afterlife!!!! That would be wicked I reckon. I'm pretty sure it would become one of the hottest properties in the blogosphere, I could probably name my price in terms of sponsorship opportunities.

Just think of the questions we could ask. Will the Beatles reform when Macca pops his clogs? Did Hitler still get let in despite all that stuff he got up to? Is it true that when my body involutarily shivers that someone has walked over my grave? Is playing the harp compulsory? Who's the hardest scrapper in heaven? Do you retain your age at death for all eternity or can you choose resemble the person you were at time when you had a bit more hair? Can you sex in heaven? Does everyone have to go to a different heaven or is it a multi-cultural melting pot? Do animals go to heaven? Is it true that God made the bee and the devil made the wasp?

There are so many questions that Mr Coleman could answer. Hopefully though, of course, he'll be back in a little over a week for his online paty.

Get well soon Mr C.

Baz

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