Wij zijn terug!

The Brinkster Clan has returned from a week in Holland!!

Inevitably at some point my mind wanders to making comparisons with Worcester Park and it was strange being in a country where you can go shopping without a charity shop in sight and where people still have enthusiasm for the upcoming European Championships. The place was outrageously clean (contrast to London) tho' even the local picturesque village was blessed with a burnt out speed camera, that hallmark of modern resistance. We had a cottage by a lake with ducks, geese and red squirrels on the patio and rabbits out the back door...... which was heaven for the little Brinksters as you might imagine.

Anyway, the main meat of the holiday was spent at a place called Efteling which is an enormous theme park that puts any theme park in the UK I've been to to shame and even the biggest thrill ride (Python, with a double loop-the-loop and twin corkscrew) only had a waiting time of five minutes (Dutch organisation!) and Miss Brinkster managed five or six trips on it, but the best 'theme' ride is De Vliegende Hollander (Flying Dutchman) but you'll have to check out their web site to see that. Efteling's been declared the most popular attraction in Holland, beating the Amsterdam canal boats into second by something 750,000 and I'd thoroughly recommend it.

I gather from next door neighbour that the weather here hasn't been great this week but apart from a glitch on Thursday morning it was really hot in Holland all week......... sorry 'bout that.

Anyway it is only a week away from the start of the Euros so I've got a choose a suitable Worcester Park hostelry to go and watch it in...... and could any local Nederlanders (or sympathetic parties) get in touch and we could make it a group outing!!

Let me know if I've missed anything while I've been away as Google Blogsearch seems silent on the matter.

Morgenstern ach scheine auf die Liebste meine

Marvellous cameo moment in Worcester Park last night as I made my way up towards Brinkley Road having been to see the new Indiana Jones movie (which I'd recommend) after work. Badly parked on the corner outside KFC, that hub of community life, was a gleaming, much admired and very new Bentley. Bentley? KFC? Bentley? KFC? Words failed me....... and they apparently still do.

I notice they've replaced the old CCTV camera opposite Pizza Express with a new little ball-shaped one. I've blogged before about the general ineffectiveness of CCTV but won't repeat myself here. They probably want a clearer view of the traffic jams or the queue outside Bakers Oven.

Gosletts sale seems to be a bit of a damp squib from what little I've seen of it. Mrs Brinkster went there in search of a storage coffee table and the only option in there wouldn't have left her with any change from £400 whilst noted as being half price. It would probably help if you could actually see in the window as from the road they could be running an organ donation clinic for all you can see of the place.

Congratulations to all the Chelsea fans for not trashing Worcester Park in their grief on Wednesday night. I was out doing something else and got to Worcester Park just as I heard the penalties start on the radio and saw the anxious faces peering at the TVs in the Huntsman and Cazbar as I drove past. Any Man U fans can leave your John Terry jokes in the comments.

Lastly does anyone know what's happened to the Hamptons Blog?

End of the world deferred

I was interested to see that the end of the world as predicted by scientists, religions and assorted cave-dwellers throughout history will not be happening thanks to a recently advertised property on Worcester Park's very own Riverhill Trailer Park Estate. The gushing prose of the estate agent promises:
"A re-furbished park/mobile home offered for sale with an eternal lease and no onward chain."

In my reading of the words "eternal lease", virtual dictionary in hand, the word eternal means "without beginning or end; lasting forever; always existing". This being true this particular property, and perhaps surrounding environs and/or host planet, have nothing to fear from any future terminal expansion of the sun or visitation from chosen deity and will drift unchanging through time forever..............

Or the estate agents could be exaggerating/fibbing. You be the judge.

Setting sale?

I'm a bit confused. This is not an unusual state for me to be in and is hopefully the precursor to enlightenment but I'll explain my quandry to you.

I was on the phone to Mrs Brinkster the other day whilst composing a blog entry and she related to me how Gosletts on Central Road was closed and announcing an impending 70% off, £785,000 sale and WP confirmed that it was a "Refurbishment" sale rather than a "Closing Down" sale. I would have been happy to leave it at that if it wasn't for a couple of things.......

1. The sign says they're closed to prepare displays and change prices......... for a WEEK? It can't take that long surely?
2. Why was there an enormous juggernaut pulling up outside the store at 7am this morning? If they were trying to get rid of the stuff they had in store to make space for new stock then they wouldn't be delivering it before the sale would they? Or were they taking the decent stuff away and replacing it with tat?
3. How do you manage to have a £785,000 sale in Worcester Park? I could imagine John Lewis or Ikea having a £785,000 sale but............

Anyway, answers to all these questions will be revealed when the signs come down and the sale starts at which point I'll no doubt regret my inquisitive tendencies and wish that I'd spent more time thinking of constructive things instead. Or alternatively I'll go and buy some furniture.

Friday catchup

I've got lots to catch up on after a busy week. Saturday was spent beautifying the garden at Brinkster Central and on Sunday I took Miss Brinkster to see the A1GP at Brands Hatch for her first major sporting event. Her ever-insightful mind decided that she liked the idea of motor racing better than football because she could go and climb trees and wander around between races, which you couldn't do at a 'proper' football match, which reminded me of a recent article in the Times entitled "Everything I know about women I learned from a two year old". She enjoyed wandering down the pit lane and getting autographs from the various drivers and it was an excellent excuse to sit out in the sun for a whole day. She entered the spirit of the occasion and whooped with delight everytime someone dropped their car into the gravel and clapped with excitement at the post-race 'donuts'. Result!!

Monday was spent at Legoland, which wasn't as busy as I'd thought it might be and we had a fabulous time. If you haven't been there the rides are good (for kids) but the stunt show is brilliant and is not to be missed.

Anyway, in Worcester Park this week we've seen the return of Fort Huntsman with a new metal fence to either keep intruders out or keep the inmates in (see the big photo or click on the image below for detail)

You may recall the original Fort Huntsman last September with its less-than-effective wooden fence.


The fabulous weather of the week continued as the sun shone brightly on Brinkley Road yesterday, more so because someone had come round in the morning and chopped down a couple of the trees from the top of the road and left the stumps there wrapped in warning tape.

Mrs Brinkster did query the man doing the chopping but his response was "they're diseased" without providing any kind of details as to what kind of disease and how treatable it was/wasn't. One of the people whose house it was outside has apparently attached a note of protest to the stump, though I haven't seen it yet.

Lastly, in a piece of breaking news, Mrs Brinkster just phoned me to mention that Gosletts, the furniture shop at 63 Central Road, has just screened off the windows and has announced a 70% off sale starting next Friday, which sounds somewhat terminal......

Have a great weekend!!

Ten thighs and pindes.....

On my post-prandial perambulation around Worcester Park last night I happened across something the piqued my imagination. I've known for a while now that drainage on the green space at the Hamptons is pretty poor with the lake side slope being somewhat marsh-like whenever I go there but last night not only had the 'amphitheatre' side turned into a swamp but there was also standing water on the grass at the top of the hill by the 'viewing platform'.

Now I know that I spent most of my Geography classes at school drawing pictures and paying scant attention to the wisdom being dispensed by our immensely hirsute and collosally bearded teacher but how on earth do you manage to flood the top of a hill!?!? I would welcome any attempt to fill this obviously gaping hole in my geographical understanding.

It's election day today so I'd urge you to fight off any hint of apathy and get to your local polling station to vote. I've always thought that if you don't bother to vote you lose the right to complain about it afterwards.

And if you're wondering about the title it's part of a very old joke about elocution (i.e. people with posh accents) where "Ten thousand pounds for ten brown trout" becomes "Ten thighs and pindes for ten brine trite". Sorry.....