Ed has one more summer occupation...lumberjack (with pictures.)

Here is one more thing that I have done over the summer. On the driveway of the family house we have this massive tree that has never been lopped or cut by anyone since I can remember. Over the years the tree had got a bit cheeky, the roots sneaking underground to next door and sucking on some of next doors water supply. It also shed it's leaves over next door. This tree had to know who was boss. So with a saw, an axe and one more saw we went out to kick some tree butt and give it the hair cut of it's life. Observe as you travel through our journey through massive tree to the finished result of the cutting and the chopping.





As you can see from the pictures, this was a beast of a tree. Also on the left of the picture you might be able to see the windows that I painted.




Here is my brother, my mum et moi standing in the chaotic mass of leaves and branches of our own creation. Two things that I wish to point out here. 1. I am wearing my hat. 2. My brother is wearing his glasses below his googles. 3. You wouldn't know this but as the picture was being taken the tree was shouting insults to us because of what we were doing. As you can see from our happy faces we were doing well at ignoring the tree.




Here is my brother up the tree, sawing another branch off, wearing goggles and glasses at the same time ('Oi, six eyes). You can't see this in the picture but on a roof a pigeon is writing an angry worded letter to the government complaining about the unauthorised destruction of his home.



"Hey Mother! Stop bothering that horse! You should be using that rope to pull down branches!"...I am so funny.



An upper story view of the battlefield.

It was done. We had chopped the heck out of the tree, gone through the fire of sawing stuff and now it was all over. We felt like gorillas or chimps in the forest, surrounded by branches (well I did anyway)and all that was left was to clear away everything to the tip. It took two cars and four journeys for each car to clear everything from the front. Below is a picture of what everything was like when all was finished.



To commemorate this day it was decided that we would take one piece of cut off branch and get someone to carve something. It was thought that the best thing to do was to carve the face of a wizard.

That is it really. It is not long before Autumn, it is the first day of the fall on the 23rd September. CRIKEY!!!

Over and Out.
ED

My brother is a year older, a family gathering and a quiz with curious questions.

I shall relate to you three events in my life in no particular order that I have experienced between this post and the 'I love Interpol' post that came before this.

Yesterday (August 10th) my brother turned twenty two. He has glasses by the way. I am the only male in the household that doesn't have glasses and also the only male that actually wants them...oh yeah and his name is Thomas...or Tom (other nicknames include Astill, Pastill, Ryan Stiles, Harry Potter and T. Whenever we are all watching television, if anyone happens to be wearing glasses or is tall we say that it looks like him...it's why he is called Ryan Stiles.)
My brother is a bit of a boffin know- it- all when it comes to building mechanical stuff so he got a clock building kit (we're all boffins in one particular field in this family).Then there was also a book on cars (I just went into his room and he said that it was in fact TWO car books that he got.) My parents bought him an amazing ukelele shaped like those 'V' shaped guitars that you sometimes see. Oh yeah and he got a nuclear bomb as well but I may just have lied about that one.
He got a Toy Story cake which I ate (this time I ate the cake and the icing at the same time...very unlike me). I then got some Halo X Box action from my brother where he 'pawned me' as non-gentlemen gaming fellows would say.

Once every year my extended family on my fathers side have a golf day in which we all go and play golf and then gather at the house of the winner of the previous year. We even have prizes at the end. We celebrate the event in the name of coming together as a family and to remember my grandparents who brought about an explosion of the Astill family. In our family there are roughly eighty something people who all came from my grandparents. There was my grandparents, who brought my uncles and aunts into the world and then came everybody else. Now we are a massive family that live all around the place, dominating the world...and is still growing.
My twin sister and mother left the house about two o'clock to look after the kids and meet people early. My father, my brother and I stayed at home because we couldn't play golf. My sister was at work at the time. But anyway eventually my sister got back, my dad had a shower or three and we left for the evening meal. A pleasant evening. Every time I go I am surprised to see the children...they all seemed very Aryan, bright blonde hair and blue eyes. I was like that until my body decided that my hair should be brown.

Here is the last event to all who have read this far. Munchy and Dave (who you may know if you were a regular reader) and I went to the local pub of Munchy in order to take part in my first ever pub quiz. A few hours past and we came about seventh in the end. I'm fine with that. I believe the first prize was £10. It was fun anyway and none of us were desperately trying to win anyway. Dave and I went back to the Munchy residence and stayed until the next day, watchng a film and then leaving.

I believe that is it.

Have a goodun as they say.
Over and Out.
ED

Adoration of Interpol.

Originally I was going to write a love letter shamelessly expressing my love of the band Interpol. I may still write one in some sort of tongue in cheek thing to show my appreciation for a band that I have enjoyed since I was short haired, spotty, comb over(ed) fellow in secondary school but I just wish to post this video in order for people to see it. My musical tastes are infinite and ever expanding; some pop to disco and folk and metal to name a few. If you name any song (within reason) there is a chance that I may like it...apart from obvious exceptions.

Anyway here is the video. The normal babble about my life shall continue after this post.
If you have come across them for the first time I hope it is a good experience.

Over and Out
ED

P.S---The video might be dodgy but please still give it a try. Wink.

A birthday party, playing Rock Band and a knackering walk...read on yah!

I have just returned from the house of Munchy after a celebration of the twentieth year of the life of my friend Dave. Dave and Munchy (their blog is in the followers bit to the side of this blog) and I camped out in the garden, each bringing our tents with us...apart from Munchy because we were at his house...and he had thrown away his tent some time ago because it said some very mean things to him. But anyway onwards with the story.

We arrived in Leicester at about 5:00pm, after being at the Munchy house for a few hours, at a place called Soar Point, a student type place where most people from Demontfort University go to (an inferior uni to Derby uni...just because of something that I like to call 'patriotic discrimination'...hence Derby is the best uni in the country).
We sat in the corner on some comfortable seats and talked about the usual things that young dudes talk about. After a while loads of people came in their...threes to wish Dave a happy birthday. It was through the coming of these people that I got a few good conversations...even though I was continually commented on giving off vibes of being quiet.
I got into some good geeky conversations which I'm happy about and found out about an event that is on at Demontfort which I may be thinking about going to.

After a few hours of chilled out chatter we headed to another place where I danced...surprisinging I never did the robot. I generally just moved my arms and feet in a way that suggested that I had a basic understanding of what dancing actually was. I may have seemed to everyone else that I was having an electric shocks through my feet which may have been a good excuse for my skills.

Twas just like Soar Point that we stayed at this place for about an hour then walked back to a flat of with my newly acquired aquantences in order to play Rock Band on Xbox.
We were all tired after a bit (as was to be expected) so Dave, Munchy and myself bid all adieu and headed to the bus station to return to the tents in the garden. We were waiting too long so we decided to walk from the bus stop in the direction of other bus stops. We did this for an hour until we passed a bus stop and was picked up. We travelled until we got to Loughborough, got off that bus and then walked for a few miles until we got back to the house and fell asleep in the tents.

The next day I woke up at 12:00am, said goodbye to Dave and bought things. Myself and Munchy then melted some Fruit Pastilles in the microwave and ate the goo, then I left.

One of the best times I have had this summer.

Where did I put my Fruit Pastilles?

Over and Out
ED

Loud women who want rent money and the bag of awesome.

I'm not usually one for doing two posts for two days in succession but I wish to write about today because vaguely hilarious events happened on my travels.
My sister came in to my room at 9am and told me to wake up. I think I asked her the time but I can't remember exactly because I was at that state in which you are a half vegetable that isn't quite sure what's going on. Cheese biscuits would be a more accurate representation of something that I might have said but... ya know.
Long story short I got on to a bus to St Margarets bus station, got a National Express bus to Derby and got off. My first job of the day was to go to Nicholas J Humphreys to hand in my keys for the summer and give them that rent money that they asked for. When I came in, there were two people behind their own desks both on phones, so naturally I waited until one of their conversations had ended, so I could do the deed. After about maybe two seconds I was daydreaming and didn't realise that one of them had put the phone down and was waiting for me to approach them.
"Yes duck." she said.
No response from me because I only half heard it while reflecting...and I thought she was talking to somebody else in the back of my mind.
"Yes duck!" she shouted...literally.
I snapped out of whatever was going in my mind (I'm not going to tell you what I was thinking because I wish to not give any spoilers to a work of creative expression that I might want to share in the future.) The reason that I am speaking about this part of my day is because she really belted out her words the second time. She had some real lungs on her...no doubt she was an opera singer in a previous life.
The bus that I needed to catch would come to Derby at 3:40pm so I had about three hours to spare. One obvious thing to do was to go to my house to see who was there but then I remembered that I had handed my keys in and I didn't want to go back and ask for them. I was so ready to get the rent thing over and done with that I didn't think about going to the house first and 'then' handing my keys in...I blame my higgeldy biggeldy creative mind for that oopsy daisy.
So what did I do...

"You went round Derby for three hours Ed."

Don't interupt me when I'm telling you a story. Well guess what? I went round Derby for three hours. I bought a sandwich and some mountain dew. (It was actually the first time I had mountain dew. Why is there so much hype about it? It tastes no different from Lemonade.)
I then bought some cool badges to pin to what I like to call my rock of awesome bag. I bought Jimi Hendi badges and cool British ones that said things like...
1.Keep calm and carry on.
2. Keep calm and rock on and
3. Keep calm and make a tea.

How British of me thought I.

I then got to the National Express bus on time, got home, plated up some Shepherds pie (because of... look at the previous blog) for my dad and I and then came up to my room in order to write this mass of words.

Peace and all that.

Over and Out.
Ed

Putting on suits to go around the village pubs.

I have been awake for some time because I can't get to sleep so I have decided that I'll write about last night and the previous day...and keep reading because it gets interesting.

For the past two days I have been hanging out with my two mates Dave (or ex why zero if you are familiar with his gaming exploits or are a friend of his on facebook) and Tom (who is mainly known as Munchy.)

Well before I tell you the suit story I shall talk to you about sneaking out at a late hour with Munchy and Dave in the village of Barrow for no apparent reason but to walk in the middle of the street because it is deserted during the midnight hours. We climbed over a fence to get out of the house. We could have actually used the door but climbing over the fence is apparently more quiet...I'll just leave it there. We were just walking around Barrow aimlessly just because it was cool and dark and it's what we used to do in the old days when we were mere secondary school students doing GCSE's.

The next day we all woke up and walked around Leicester City (and it rained...to be honest I was refreshed after all these days under the heat of the sun.) It was then suggested that we all go back to mine and have a walk around my village Birstall and 'chillax' in one the village pubs. Munchy suggested that since we all owned suits and we all happened to have them on our possession for some reason we thought we would get dressed up in them; ties, waistcoats, jackets and everything in order to go to the pub. This was done, in the hope that people think that we were important businessmen or Mods or just people with good style...or prats.
So now I write this blog as Munchy and Dave are behind me.
That is all. And remember that suit wearing is very important if your British...as are top hats.
Over and Out.
ED.

P.S A picture will be put up later showing us suited up.

My life over the amount of time it has been since my last post.

"Hey Ed, I'm reading these blogs all the time and I really REALLY want to learn about your life. Please post another of your amazingly spectacular blogs...because your writing is better than that Charles Dickens and since I've been reading your blogs I have come to the opinion that Dickens is an inferior writer to what you put on your blog."

You just read that first line in your head... which means that you were thinking those words at some point, hence you must think the same thing in that last paragraph. Why thank you. (*What your really thinking at this point is 'what a knob.' But don't worry I was jesting.*)

Here is a list of points in the last few days that stick in my head as worthy events to put into symbols and sentences for the sake of whoever or whatever goes onto this page.

1. You know I mentioned in my the secod blog before this that my mum might have some gypsy blood in her. Well this event is a complete coincidence to that. Well I'm staying at the family house at the moment, trying to get as much money as I can for next academic year at university and spending time with family. So anyway, I walked into Leicester City centre to go to the opticians because something seemed to be going wrong with my right eye (which is my lazy eye). I was hopeful that they would say that I need glasses. The examination lead to a mighty disappointment as my eyes were perfectly healthy and fine...dammit.

My mum (who works in the city) met me after the examination. (This part of the story is the coincidence bit). She told me that by the water fountain, on the grassy part, there is a group of gypsies doing a performance (a mummers play as my fellow storytellers would know it to be called.) We went there and there gypsies were attracting a good crowd. They were speaking spanish so we didn't know what they were saying but we had an idea of what they were doing through actions. One of the men was dressed up as a woman with cow udders, another man who painted completely red with devil horns (could he be the devil by any chance?Uh...yes). There were also two women dressed in black with corpse make up, the rest of the troupe were musicians. From what I could tell, the devil was trying to get a wife and he was looking for them in the crowd. My mums work break was over so she left. I stayed there for a bit, then decided it was getting hot and I was getting hungry so I left. But it was a triumphant display of folk entertainment and made me proud of being a Leicesterian.

2. I painted the house for my parents...well the outside because they asked me to do so. I was well up for the job, listening to the music in the sunny day, under the shade of the tree on the front, just painting and letting my thoughts drift as I wore my new hat.

That is all. I didn't get glasses.......I saw gypsies........I painted the outside of the house for my parents.......and I got my grades for my second year university course which I won't be saying on this blog for obvious reasons.

Over and Out Bye bye.
ED.