lifestylesupportguru

Category: Siblings

Travel Tips 3 – Car on Fire!

Indian Ocean

Well, beloved believers, here I am, with the sound of the Indian Ocean whispering gently in the background, once more offering you support and succour in your search for success and salvation in this sometimes sad state of existence. In other words, I hope to make you smile!

I realise that I have not yet explained how DOT’s car almost caught fire, so I shall give advice on avoiding such a catastrophe. (For those who may be new to the Lifestyle Support Guru, DOT is a sibling known as Dai Of Tanzania. The other accompanying sibling is TOFU, or Trefor OF ‘Ull.) In addition to motoring matters, I shall be advising on the essential look to cultivate this season when in an EXTREMELY HOT place.

Both male siblings are extremely practical people and I am always pleased when they find

Pet rescue

themselves a project because it means they will leave me in peace to play Pet Rescue rather than taking a brisk walk in the searing African heat. This particular project involved the simple task of putting the battery back in DOT’s 4×4 – it had been on charge all night after being drained when helping someone else start their car with jump leads (I sound as if I know what I’m talking about, don’t I?). I am happily ensconced on the computer and can hear the contented chatter of siblings outside as they do a passable imitation of Jeremy Clarkson (only nicer). Suddenly, I hear TOFU cry out, ‘Open the bonnet! Open the bonnet! It’s on fire!’ I rush to the door to see smoke pouring from the engine while TOFU and DOT are doing their best to remove the battery, which had shorted because of an exposed wire (I still sound as if I know what I’m talking about). It all ended happily, with the exposed wire replaced and the car running smoothly, if smelling a little bit like the day after Bonfire Night.

Masai

Now, with regard to matters sartorial, I have to inform you that, not surprisingly, the LSG has been attracting many glances since arriving on the east coast of Zanzibar this morning (I cannot think that the glances are anything but admiring). The ‘look’ is easy to achieve – simply take a gentle stroll along the white sands in the heat of the midday sun, then speed up a little to get away from the ‘genuine’ Masai trying to sell you anything from a ‘genuine’ Masai bracelet handwoven in the factory down the road to a ‘genuine’ Masai Manchester Utd football shirt knitted by ‘genuine’ Masai grandmothers, and all of this sales pitch accompanied by the constant repetition of ‘Hakuna Matata’, which has probably never been heard outside the West End or Broadway.
You will arrive at your destination (a beach bar, of course) with the PERFECT ‘look’, which will be admired by svelte Swedes, nymphlike Norwegians and delicious Danes, all of whom will be imitating the ‘look’ tomorrow – red face, sweat dripping into your beer, hair resembling a pan scourer. You’ll know you’ve made it when one sibling looks at you, laughs and says, ‘Are you sure you like hot climates?’ The answer, of course, is ‘Hakuna Matata’!

Enjoy your weekend and think of me suffering the trials and tribulations of another day on white sand, soothed by the murmuring of the sea in the background. It’s a hard life, but someone has to experience it. All I need to say is: Tatou Kilimanjaro barridi, taffidali.

Making Plans For The Weekend

Dungeon

A very good afternoon to you all from the Lifestyle Support Guru! Today I am going to share with you some thoughts on MAKING PLANS and THE WEEKEND, so that you have plenty of time to MAKE your own PLANS before the coming WEEKEND. You will also learn that MAKING PLANS does not always turn out as you expect. As always, the steps are easy to follow:
1. Inform sibling that you have free tickets for Warwick Castle and MAKE PLANS to visit.
2. Sibling decides on the day that he doesn’t really want to visit Warwick Castle after seeing TV ad which included lots of children in it. (We both prefer child-free venues – such as pubs.)
3. Suggest Workhouse at Southwell, Notts, but this doesn’t appeal either. (I think he thought they may well still be keeping children there – see point 2.)
4. Suggest Strutt’s Mill at Belper, which is just a bus ride away. Sibling seems quite taken with this idea, so you MAKE PLANS and invite along a friend as well.
5. Meet friend at bus stop at a reasonable hour (11 am) and he informs you that he has already

bus stop

washed his windows, made a bacon sandwich, walked into town and back and put some washing out. (At this point you feel worn out and consider going back to bed – the walk to the bus stop was exhausting enough.)
6. On arriving at t’mill, you wait for the guide while friend starts talking about an ‘articulated python’ for some reason and an image of a large, jack-knifed snake on the M1 comes into your mind. Sweetly, you enquire, ‘Do you mean a ‘reticulated python’? and friend says they’re the same thing. Sigh and hope guide turns up soon.
7. The three of you have a tour round t’mill with Barry the tour guide, who is absolutely delighted to find that your companions have a genuine interest in the engineering aspects of the weaving machines, although he couldn’t answer the question ‘Why do they go backwards and forwards?’. (WARNING: do NOT visit places with machines if your companions work in metallurgy or on the railways and you personally have no interest in engineering, other than the essentials such as knowing how to use a corkscrew.)

reticulated python

8. Before returning home, you make a small detour via a little micropub (well, I suppose a micropub will be small, by definition!) that has been recommended by some other friends who also have an interest in real ales (I choose my friends carefully!). Inside the pub, as a feature, is what looks like an old, small motorbike; friend, after examining it closely, confidently declares to all and sundry: ‘That’s either a Raleigh or a Dennis Hughes.’ (as I thought he said at the time). With an air of triumph (not the motorbike manufacturers, ha ha!) he turns to the barman who promptly tells him that it’s a Mobylette from France. Sad face from friend. (For those who know about motorbikes, friend didn’t say it was a ‘Dennis Hughes’ but an ‘NSU’. Still no wiser, but at least I know my reticulated pythons from my articulated ones! Or maybe he meant Kaa, the ‘articulate’ python in the Jungle Book?)
9. Finish the day off by going to a local Chinese buffet where friend attempts to pour a glass of wine while the top is still on the bottle. As I said earlier, I choose my friends carefully!
So there you have it, dear followers and acolytes – PLANNING a weekend is easy; it’s actually following the PLANS that’s difficult! You have all of Thursday and Friday to MAKE YOUR OWN PLANS!

Beating Challenges

Challenge

Good afternoon from the Lifestyle Support Guru! Today I have some VERY USEFUL ADVICE on BEATING CHALLENGES, having myself beaten several this morning, so this ADVICE is very current! Here are the challenges I have taken on and beaten, in no particular order of importance or occurrence:
1. For this CHALLENGE you will need one keyboard and one cat. The cat will be one that likes walking all over the keyboard while you are trying to do some very important work (for example, trying to beat today’s Microsoft Daily Solitaire Challenge). The CHALLENGE is to remove the keyboard and place it on your lap BEFORE the cat can walk all over the keys and turn on/off various functions (which you don’t understand anyway, but that’s not the point). You will, of course, be extremely uncomfortable trying to use the keyboard on your lap, but you will also feel extremely satisfied because you have BEATEN THE CHALLENGE!
2. This next CHALLENGE also requires a cat, but a chair instead of a keyboard. The cat will have ensconced itself on the chair in your bedroom while you are having a shower (or any other domestic task that requires you to be out of the bedroom) and will have left you a small space on which to sit and dry your hair. Do not just pick up and remove the cat – this is cheating! You must sit (uncomfortably) on the small space and carry on as normal until the cat decides that she has had enough of being squashed and gets up and leaves. You have BEATEN THE CHALLENGE!
3. This particular CHALLENGE is one that I really enjoy – frightening siblings, preferably at least

disaster

once a week! There are several methods of doing this, but the easiest is, by far, the posting of horror stories about dreadful things that can happen to you in the summer.
a) One of your siblings lives in almost constant terror of disasters happening (for example, you can guarantee that, if you are flying somewhere on holiday, some sort of disaster will take place in or near your destination – volcanoes erupting, civil war, all the sorts of things that happen in Benidorm on a regular basis). Today I managed to terrify this sibling by posting a story about out-of-date sunscreen, and I posted a similar story about ticks the other day. I should imagine she is, even as I type, cowering behind locked doors with all the curtains closed to ward off the sun, grandchildren dressed in biohazard suits, so that she doesn’t have to use sunscreen on them or go out in the garden where ticks might be lurking in all sorts of places, waiting to jump up and attack!

blood pressure monitoring

b) Another sibling works for a large company whose initials might or might not be BP. This CHALLENGE only works if you have recently had your BLOOD PRESSURE checked, which I had this morning. I texted him afterwards, saying ‘BP down quite a lot’, which I thought was a perfectly harmless piece of good news but, apparently, it sent him rushing to check BP’s shares, thinking there’d been a sudden slump in the market and that he was going to become POOR! Laughed a lot at that!
c) Unfortunately, I have less success with the other two siblings because I have yet to find out anything of which they might be scared!
So there you are – BEATING A CHALLENGE can be immensely satisfying and set you up for the rest of the day. Now all I have to do is CHALLENGE myself to get the hoover out, but that’s the most terrifying CHALLENGE of all! Have a lovely afternoon!

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