Socks truly knocked off

Whilst I may have neglected my blogging activities in the last couple of years, I do plead mitigating circumstances.

I work with computers and IT promotion all week long in a job I do now particularly enjoy, and because my blogging always reflected what was going on in my life and motivated me to write, draw your own conclusions as to why the well dried up.

I finished work for the Christmas holiday on the 16th of December having held my holiday back. There's a very good reason for this, Christmas is the one time of year I truly switch off and I have certainly achieved that goal this year, it's been lovely.

On the Tuesday leading up to Christmas, I met up with my old pal and work colleague Pete McGregor the Belfast bog trotter. He emigrated to New Zealand eight years ago with his young family, to give them a fighting chance at a decent life.

He's given up the world of electronics import and went into teaching. He's recently become head of maths, well done Pete.

His good lady Lindsay who I love to bits had gone off on her own journey, getting her her done and meeting a pal in town. Pete came here and we had a nice bottle of quality New Zealand fizz care of OBC who'd popped by to drop it off especially.

Then we walked over to the new retail development close by looking for food. If you like American themed chain rubbish that's specially prepared straight from deep freeze to deep fat fryer, this is your Mecca. I had the misfortune to eat at Frankie and Bennys a year ago. Forty quid for two, reheated pasta, cold chips for my friend an utter disgrace.

So this place wasn't on the list of eateries we'd be choosing from today. We ended up in a chain pub called Hungry Horse and the menu was typically American themed with idiotic descriptions so I wasn't too enamoured.

But I was in for a surprise. I went for a burger with a silly American title and it has "pulled pork" on it too.

There's another croc of shit that swam the pond. All you have to remember is when you see pulled before any meat, just think overcooked.

The burger was very nice and the chips hot and excellent, but they were served in a little galvanised bucket and the burger came on a wooden chopping board. Another one for the we want plates crusade who protest at finicky presentation, breakfast served on coal shovels and the likes.

Later we met up with Linds and her friend and it was only after half an hour talking with this lady, I realised I knew her, but not as Mary, but Sty Mistress on Twitter, the wife of someone Pete and I used to work with in our Tandy electronics days.

Wednesday brought the Christmas shoot of the Coffin Dodgers. I've attended for about six years now but the only shooting I do is with a camera.

The Dodgers, clay pigeon enthusiasts of a certain age, meet every Wednesday at Hereford and Worcester Shooting Ground and the Christmas shot is the culmination of a year's shooting and camaraderie with medals, food and everything.

I updated the scores on the website, and the tweets and the weekly newsletter which are all produced by Trev the keeper of the rabbit.

As they're an association, not an organised group, we always had to do the online stuff using free tools and unfortunately, the Google site we set up as home was a pig to work with.

OBC had a gripe a while back, but in a free site where I've little design control, I can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. So, this Christmas, I decided to set up a new website and treat them to their own domain.

This is the bit of my story that knocked my socks off, sandals too.

I chose to lodge the site on the Wix platform. I've had experience of them for some years and have to say that these days, they male good web design well within the grasp of anyone with an eye for layout and the ability to spell. ALl the technical stuff layout wise s handled by their interface, they've even got a decent set of SEO tools too.

To see what's been possible in little over a day take a look: www.coffindodgers.space

There's work to do yet, but I've managed to split off the social media to a tool bar and put the things the Dodgers will want instant access to in easy reach.

So the new home of the Dodgers is open for business. Let's hope 2017 is eventful.