Roll on Saturday the 14th

My rhododendron has just come into flower.

The Friday the Thirteenth bug has hit me yet again. I did write about this some time ago, here, but I thought I'd share the pain with you dear, patient blogger.

You see, my mother, being a cockney is really superstitious and I guess I take it from her. I have no idea if it's a prerequisite to be a cockney not to want to walk under ladders but I never do.

I'm in a strange mood right now for reasons I won't bore you with. Not, strange-'bad' or strange-'weird' you understand but after a sort of low-key epiphany, I've made some decisions about my future at work which means less of it from next year. Therefore I feel strangely different.

Anyway, less of that and back to one of the unluckiest days of the year. Well it's always a bad start when you run out of tea bags at work and I forgot to take some. A morning without tea cannot be substituted by coffee, which I am trying to cut down on.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I was having lunch with a friend having a serious chat when I cracked a tooth on sausage and stuffing and onion pie and it disintegrated - the tooth, not the pie! Bollocks.

This is the worst one - I have pulled a muscle right at the top of my arm and I have no idea at all how or why it happened. Bizarre, anyway, it hurts like hell and I'm sat here typing with a heated wheat bag under my shirt looking vaguely like someone who's just about to have an Alien explode out from under his shoulder.

So there we are - nothing disastrous, just a series of bad luck things which has prompted me to believe that Friday the 13th is haunting me.

I hope you've had a good week, mine's been up and down but I am so looking forward to the weekend. It's ages since I've done a joke or a list, so here's something that a colleague sent me by text a couple of days ago:

 Are you insured for sex?

Make sure you get the correct insurance for the sex you are having (if you are lucky enough). Please find a carefully composed list of companies catering for most tastes:

Sex with your wife/husband - Legal & General

Sex on the telephone - Direct Line

Sex with your partner - Standard Life

Sex with someone different - Go Compare

Sex with a fat person - More Than

Sex on the back seat of the car - Sheila's Wheels

Sex with a posh person - Privileged

Sex with a cross dresser - Confused.com

Enjoy your weekend

Chat soon

Ta-ra

Unlucky for some...

It's an unlucky day for some and frankly, I've been keeping my head down.

I've had some real shitty things happen to me on this memorable day of general unluckiness, Friday the thirteenth: I've had a car written off by a bus - fortunately it was parked at the time and I wasn't in it, and I had a garage blown over in the wind and again I wasn't in that either at the time thank goodness. There have been many other little mishaps and one year, about 15 years ago, I remember having taken the day off and spending it in bed to reduce the risk almost entirely. I say almost, I could have sprained myself putting my socks on I suppose, but these days, I just keep myself to myself and don't do anything crazy or risky.

My superstitious nature comes from my mother's side of the family and I have written about that before and it can be funny to others but it can be serious to me, especially when I forget to do something to ward off the hex like throw salt over my shoulder or touch wood or pass my respect to the lone magpie..

The origin of unlucky Friday the thirteenth is, apparently firmly fixed in western folklore and thirteen means little if anything to anyone else around the world. I always thought it came from the thirteenth disciple of Jesus who betrayed him, and that has merit, but why Friday? Well, if you believe Dan Brown, he wrote in his novel the Da Vinci Code that Pope Clement V arrested the Knights Templar to steal their wealth and break their power, and that was ordered on Friday thirteenth. Although Friday 13th was the day that happened, that apparently was not the origin of the legend because the unlucky nature of the date didn't become popular as a superstition until the 1900s if you believe Wikipedia.

There are also other bizarre claims to its origin each lost to the mists of time and therefore it must remain a mystery, but nevertheless it remains a powerful influence over many people.

Anyway, as I type this at a sedentary pace so as not to strain something and prove the legend of the day, I can hear the rain belting against the window as the first signs of the predicted storm approaches. I was hoping this weekend to do some serious pruning in the garden, but although it should be dry tomorrow, the ground may still be unfit.

The picture above shows a whitebeam tree having been blown down during a storm at the back end of 2006 in the back garden.

Have a great weekend. Take EXTRA care.

Chat soon

Ta-ra.