The Old Bakery however goes on..................

I am in trouble with Alison for in all the excitement of getting out of hospital I neglected to report it here and in so doing (I am told) I have given the impression that I was still suffering in hospital. Well friends (and I include Sally and Helen whom have graciously consented to be 'followers' of this rather meandering blog of mine) I am neither in hospital nor suffering, thankfully. I was released on the third day and have been on antibiotics since to ensure that this virulent bug is killed off. My big, big brother (I have two) is a bio-chemist well to be exact he is a Ph.D. Senior Associate Dean, GSBS, Professor and Chair of Pharmacology and Physiology, Infusino Endowed Chair of the University of medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Medical School. But I just call him Andy. 



Now bearing in mind that he is in-charge of "Medicine and Dentistry" you'd think that he would send home some free pills or at least recommend a good dentist! But nothing, just some boring 'ground breaking research' on diabetes or such like. At least when I worked in the supermarket I got to bring some cheap rotisserie chicken home when it was left at the end of the night!


My diseased ear has got better (I don't wish to seem to be harping on about it but this is no thanks to my big, big brother who is, incidentally, also a Dr.but that's a con 'cause I haven't even ever seen him with a stethoscope). The ear is no longer the pretty twin to my other ear that it once was, no, now it is more of a long lost cousin who travelled on the 'bad side' of the road and we don't talk of.

Thanks by the way to Claire, my daughter, third 'follower' writer of the last blog and now a working Speech and Language therapist, for giving such a helpful "users guide to Michael Thomas". Your patronising was a work of art.


Claire has earnt herself a career as a Speech and Language Therapist (SALT) in a school way down in Somerset and last weekend we moved her down there. I should have considered being a 'removals' guy as I have had extensive experience in doing this job having moved my children in and out of different accommodations at least 11 times. Some years back I traded in a fantastic 4x4 Toyota Landcruiser for a Previa people carrier. At the time my children could not understand why I should trade in a cool car for what they called a "loser Cruiser". The reason was a simple one of practicality as whilst the Landcruiser was a big beast it's 6th & 7th seats were only any good if you were a dwarf (are we allowed to call short people Dwarfs? or should it be midgets?) and the storage space for luggage was terrible. The Previa on the other hand had full size seats in the 6th and 7th positions and further more all of the seats could be removed turning the car effectively into a small van.

It was this ability that allowed me to move my children so often from flat to flat as they progressed through University. FURTHERMORE.... this extra space enabled us to go on long holidays to Europe including a brilliant tour ending up in Venice. Admittedly the car did break down on one of the highest roads in Austria but that was not the cars fault, uh-ha, no it was totally the fault of the incompetent driver who had not read the manual and whom burnt out the brakes as a result. I don't even understand why they groan on about that incident so much as they were treated to a brilliant 'wild ride' back down the mountain around superb hair pin bends whilst sitting inside our car actually on top of the rescue lorry. God did it bounce around! Claire particularly has never forgiven me for this lapse in judgement, have a look a the video....

Anyway last weekend we moved Claire out of The Old Bakery and down to somerset and I managed to get most things into the Previa. I crammed in..... A 6' tall full size Fridge Freezer, A large two seater sofa, A large dining table and two dining room chairs, A book case, Books for the said book case, A large 3'x18" coffee table, A tall light, the equivalent of four large Pickford's removal boxes full of Kitchen pots pans and equipment, all of her SALT reference books, a full length mirror, a waste bin, a portion of her clothes, a collapsible table, table lamps and shades, oh and a TV and a DVD player..... Oh and four handbags and a laptop plus cushions and other assorted bits of 'stuff'. So don't tell me that the Previa is a loser cruiser, no sir-eee, quite the contrary it is more like the bloody TARDIS!


On the way back (a journey of some five and a half hours) I was struck with firstly how many places I had visited in England during my life, mainly because of the many holidays that my parents took us out on and then secondly how many places I have not visited in this England. Claire has been consumed by a book that she got second hand about the most enchanting and wonderful places to visit in England, see her blog. It got me thinking just how lucky we are in this Country to have so many interesting places to visit and as I drove towards home I passed such delights as:


1. The Somerset Levels, flood plains where literally thousands of Starlings put on a performance in the evening like dancing clouds of locusts prior to roosting.
2. Glastonbury Tor.
3. Cheddar Gorge and its caves.
4 The Wookey Hole Caves.
5. Weston Super Mare with one of the longest sandy beaches in the UK.
6. Bristol with its remarkable Suspension Bridge and in its shadow the SS Great Britain an amazingly brave design by Brunel who used iron to make the hull. It was only meant to be a prototype but it went on to sail 32 times around the world, nearly a million miles!
7. In the distance I could see the two Seven Suspension bridges, the first was built when I was only 6 years old.
8. Bath, well just Wow, what a City everyone should visit it.
9. Swindon with its massive Steam train heritage and the infamous Magic Roundabout junction...

The magic roundabout Swindon

10. Henley On Thames.
11. Windsor Castle (and Lego Land).
12. St Albans with its Roman Theatre.
13. Epping Forest.
14. Cambridge.
15. Newmarket races,
16. Ely Cathedral.
17. Castle Acre.
AND.... Hindolveston


The point is that England is full of really interesting places, absolutely FULL! I've still so many to see.






The Old Bakery however goes on and my next 'project' is to try and sound proof the rumbling boiler as the deeper bass sounds reverberate around the cottage in the background. So far no one has complained but I want to stamp out the problem before it becomes an issue. Once again the loser Cruiser comes up trumps as I squeeze into the car a massive piece of polystyrene 4" thick and 4' wide and 8' long!


At the moment the cottage is busier than the B&B but when the weather improves and the threat of the petrol tanker drivers striking has gone then hopefully things will pick up again.






4,341

A users guide to Michael Thomas

I have been living at home with my Mum and Dad for a year now. Whenever I would come home from university for the weekend, I would rarely get to see Dad. There were a few occasions where I did not get to see him at all. The times when I did get to see him would be late at night when he came home from a 'late shift' and he would bring home a rotisserie chicken or two. On these days I would plod down in my PJ's to have a midnight snack with Dad. The times where he was fortunate enough to have a day off coincide with me we would end up visiting family and he would have a happy day... basically a day where he would be in a pesky mood. Since he started the B&B all of his days have been happy days...

It has been strange being back home, I have enjoyed spending time with my parents (and am thankfully lucky that I get on really well with them). I have been fortunate to spend a lot of time cooking and therefore am worried that my parents might starve now I am leaving, which is why I have spent the last week creating a laminated cookbook for Dad to use. I have learnt how to grout and tile a bathroom. But the thing I have learnt the most about is probably my Father.

So here is a guide on how to look after Michael Thomas:

How to look after Michael Thomas, a guide for all those who live and work with/for him.

When he is injured:

1.       Attend to the wound (if applicable)

2.       Make noises suggesting sympathy

3.       Try to distract his attention

4.       If he comes up with a crazy theory of why this happened to him (e.g. ladybird in the ear), listen to him, dispute the theory, then put the kettle on.

5.       If the problem is persistant get him to call the doctor, this may take a week or two so nag him endlessly.

6.       When he finally goes to the doctors make sure he does what is prescribed e.g. force him to do his exercises.

***If he needs urgent medical attention, take him to A&E, he will protest but force him to go by withholding tea***

When he is sick:

All men believe that when they are sick they are on deaths door, Michael is no exception, in fact I believe that he leads all other men by showing them how to be pathetic when ill and the ways of trying to get sympathy from others. With this in mind, the best way to shut him up (so you can get on with your work) is to pander to him, give him a cup of tea and let him watch kids TV.

Michael has always been a hard worker and therefore does not like taking time off for being ill at all. He can behave like a toddler when this happens, running away from you when you are trying to get him to rest. He only listens to Alison when she tells him to rest (and sometimes he doesn’t even do that!) so try by any means to get him to rest. (Again, withholding tea will help with this).

***If he ever won’t call the doctor when he is ill, remind him of the time he didn’t and his ear became red and puffy and he ended up staying two nights in hospital***

What to do when his jaw dislocates:

1.       Give him a roll of kitchen towel

2.       Take him to A&E

3.       DO NOT let him waste time by taking pictures of it or film it

4.       He will be in pain so drive quickly (and safely).

General Mannerisms:

If he gets confused about the time/date give him a minute to collect his thoughts, then if needed help him.

He shouts very loudly at the rugby.

He fuffs around a lot with his camera/laptop, there is no way to stop this so just grin and bear it.

When driving with Michael, he may often pull over quickly at the side of the road, pull out his camera to take a photo. The scariest time he has done this was on a mountain road in Scotland, where he had already opened the door and taken off his seatbelt before the car had come to a stop.

DO NOT let him listen to the following music in the car (his driving will suffer):

1.       The star wars theme

2.       The Indiana Jones theme

3.       Bat out of hell

4.       Dam busters

5.       The great escape

6.       Jurassic Park theme

7.       Really, any John Williams music...

Occasionally Michael likes to watch children’s television, be warned that when he watches new versions of Postman Pat and Fireman Sam he will become grumpy.

He likes to sing songs, this would not be a problem if he could (a) remember the words, (b) remember the tune or (c) on the odd occasion when he remembers the tune, he cannot sing in tune. Do not bother correcting him, you will only waste your breath.

If he won’t do something that you need him to do, tell him that you will be with holding tea. You can make tea for yourself, but immediately empty the kettle/teapot after you have made your cup so he cannot sneak in and get some.

When shopping with Michael please beware that:

1.       He gets distracted very easily

2.       If you need to have him get something for you, make sure when asking that you have full eye contact with him and he repeats back what you are asking of him.

3.       He needs to have a shopping list or he will forget

4.       He will lose the shopping list, there are two remedies to this, one is for you to keep the shopping list or two (if he is shopping by himself) tie the list on a piece of paper around his neck (Paddington Bear style).

5.       He may come home with something that wasn’t on the list e.g. magic beans

6.       When putting items on the till conveyer belt he likes to organise them in a Tetris like fashion, with the barcodes facing the cashier. So if he has been particularly pesky whilst shopping when putting items on the conveyer belt make it as untidy as possible. (Extra points if you can mix room temperature food with cold food.

Bed and breakfast

***Be aware that once he takes the food out to the guests he does often leave the hobs on by accident, therefore always check they are off***

He also enjoys talking to the guests, this is not a bad thing as they enjoy it,  but if you are waiting for him to return make sure you have something to do i.e. knitting, sewing or checking your emails.

He has before forgotten to get the key off the guests, remind him to get the key.

He may get in a flap about serving breakfast to the guests, when this happens, keep your head down, get on with your work and avoid eye contact.

He will spy on other B&Bs, then discuss his findings for the rest of the day.

He is very particular about his cleaning regime, if you mess this up it will be like swotting a wasp, you will only make him angrier.

Percy:

Percy is Michaels pet pheasant. Therefore he enjoys talking about and looking at Percy.  This can and will cause a problem when you are in the kitchen and Percy is in the garden. You will not be allowed to make noise and will have to crawl under the window, with the lights off to avoid the pheasant seeing you. As of now I have not found a way of dealing with Michaels obsession with that pheasant.  He also has a talent of calling Percy a ‘she’. Michael also will go out and feed Percy, even when he is unwell, this is not acceptable behaviour for a 52 year old man.

Eating times:

These vary depending on the day, but also if there are B&B guests staying.

·         Breakfast is usually when he gets up, or if there are B&B guests, it is around 10am, when the guests have left for the day.

·         Lunch is the most variable of the meals, this can occur from 12pm to 4pm depending on his work load for the day and whether there are guests. Please try not to feed him later than four as he won’t be hungry for his dinner.

·         Dinner usually happens between the hours of 6:30pm and 9pm.

·         Snacks happen when it is time to stop for tea.

·         Tea needs to be given to him throughout the day. NEVER feed a Michael coffee.

10 Places where Michaels glasses may be:

1.       The table next to where he sits on the sofa.

2.       In his pocket.

3.       In his camera bag.

4.       By the diary in the kitchen.

5.       In the car.

6.       On the big Welsh dresser.

7.       Down the side of the sofa.

8.       In the office.

9.       In one of his many coats.

10.   By/near his laptop.

Get Michael to check all of these places before you offer to help. DO NOT give him this list as he will lose it.

Do not start him on these topics as he will become grumpy about them:

1.       The government

2.       The houses of parliament voting system

3.       Grumpy people being grumpy

4.       Illogical things

5.       Made in Chelsea/TOWIE and other shows.

6.       Energy saving light bulbs.

7.       His kitchen being a mess.

8.       America. (namely the healthcare system)

Things that Michael needs to remember before he leaves the house:

1.       Wallet

2.       Keys

3.       Phone

4.       Camera (he once missed a picture of an owl because he forgot his camera, and then he would not shut up about it the rest of the day).

5.       Tripod (should always be in the car)

6.       Shopping list if applicable (if he loses this, tie it to a piece of string round his neck)

7.       Glasses

That being said, I have actually really really enjoyed my year at home.
Written by the long suffering daughter, Claire. 

CHEERS BIG EARS.

In the words of the great Churchillian leader, John Major........  "I'm still here".

To follow on from yesterday I am still lying in a hospital bed suffering from Cellulitis. Whilst this sounds like a condition involving too much fat on the thighs it is actually an infection of the skin, in my case and fairly commonly around the ear.  The effect is to cause the ear to appear as if it has been smashed about in a rugby scrum for the last 20 years. Additionally it is bright red and burning causing my face to swell and invoked a fever. So all in all not a lot of fun. I went on to Google to find a photo but none of them were close to how bad mine is so here it is.......

As you can see I have a very big ear, this is not because of the infection, I just have big ears. No, no, I'm lying, well I do have large ears but not this large. It looks like a trainee at Madame Tussauds has supplied the ear.

Oh and yes it is very painful but the pain killers do a pretty good job.

There are a lot of Surgeons roaming the ward in a hungry pack and seeing the guy in the corner bed with his two legs and a finger amputated I am of a mind not to take a nap just at this time.



The Boxer from yesterday has gone home now and the Polish guy next to me is stuffing M&M's into his mouth by the handful. Above him a sign reads "NIL BY MOUTH".  Elton John is sitting in a bed diagonally opposite to me, well he is a spitting image of him including the dodgy hair and he even sounds like him (but he is not singing).

The nurse is putting up a sign above a bed she has just prepared for a new patient, it has pictures of cakes on it and says "EXTRA SNACKS". I think I might carry out a quick swop when she goes.

Hospitals are just so surreal aren't they? So completely at odds to The Old Bakery or anybody's normality, especially when you are plucked away from that normality so unexpectedly. Everything is so alien, the surroundings, the regime and then the side effects of the drugs. I hate it here but thank god for what they do eh?


Throughout the day most of the other patients are having exercises with the Occupational Therapists. I'm feeling a little left out. Do they not do exercises for the ears then? Perhaps a wiggle or two.

For their convenience I have two IV pipes dangling from my arm so they can inject the three different penicillins into me. They have a tendency to dangle awkwardly and I have just reached across my soup to pick up the bread roll only to have them plop into my Leek and Potato soup. So the next batch of penicillin will be loaded with extra vitamins.

Back in the real world (The Old Bakery) Alison, Claire and Stephen have been holding the fort and looking after all the guests needs. This is particularly tough on Alison as she has worked a full week already and this should be her Bank Holiday weekend off. By all accounts the guests are really complimentary about their hospitality and they have even asked how I am doing and I won't even get to meet them now.

So like a child at bedtime it is now time for lights out and I am getting ready for the nightly bedpan stock-take at 2am.
I have just tuned into my old favourite the Hospital Radio and the presenter (not one of which can be under 70 years old, surely they should be in bed too) has just announced in that slow indecisive and slightly confused way....

"Thanks to errr Dan on ummm Dunstan ward who has asked for errr  (uncomfortably long pause), something from the Ted   Heath   Orchestra......."


Yeh, thanks very much Dan, thanks very much indeed!





Some other big ears that I recently photographed with his friend.........

A Red Legged Partridge and his pal a Hare near Hunworth

4,213

It's Only A Bloody Ear!

I write today's blog at somewhat of a different venue from usual. Having woken on Wednesday morning with a sensitive ear, it (the ear) then started to develop into what I think medical students call a 'case'. Over the following day I developed a temperature whilst my ear developed into a great big prize cauliflower with my cheek, jaw and neck joining it in sympathy.

So after being bounced from A+E to home, to the walk-in centre back to A+E, who called in the ENT specialist. I was sent 'upstairs' and admitted to hospital for what was described as a 'hardcore' session of antibiotics. I explained to the doctor that is was only my ear but she tapped me on my shoulder in a reassuring way and said "If you don't want it to fall off then this is the best course of action"! I thought she was joking, but there was a sinister undercurrent to her delivery.

Laying here in bed with a penicillin drip in my arm and another type of penicillin being injected into me every six hours I have to admit that I am not feeling quite so cavalier about the thing now.  My ear is bright red and highly inflamed with about 50% loss of wrinkle definition. I also have reasonably significant swelling on the face right down to my neck. The fever is gone but that is about it. I don't do hospitals normally - well not overnight, anyway - and for my part I can't see the attraction.

At A+E the porter was called to take me up to the ward for admittance. He wanted to push me there in a wheelchair but I explained it was only an ear, and I could walk. I think he was a little put out that he couldn't push me and as he took us up to the ward he told us how sad it was that they had a child die today. He explained that pushing an adult into the refrigerator is easier than a four year-old. I can't say that it was the reassuring "Welcome to the ward, you're in safe hands here" speech I would have preferred.

So the guy opposite me is an amateur boxer who got a bit drunk and angry and boxed his front window in with one punch, partially severing a muscle. I didn't think I'd be able to knock up a rapport with him somehow. Apart from the time the surgeon was sewing him up most of his time was spent calling his partner to beg for one more chance. This went on into the early hours. The little sleep I did get was interrupted by him chatting with another 'guest' at 4:30 in the morning!

Another guy is a double amputee from the knee downwards and he was trying to persuade the surgeon to remove two of his fingers. They ended up compromising and the surgeon took off just one finger.

Sleep was hard to come by, especially with the tubes in the arm. However, the radio choices are not helping and having plumped for the hospital radio you'd think they'd be circumspect with their choices of music. Having come in with a temperature and an ear so hot it burned the first two songs did not help. 'Fever' followed by Johnny Cash singing into my ear that 'it burns burns burns, the ring of fire...'

It is possible that they were being tongue-in-cheek with "A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down" and the Baron Knights (who has heard of them nowadays?) doing "A little white bum" (tribute come piss-take of "A Little White Bull"... not much better than if they had done the real song, I feel. And did I really need "Come on and get happy, get ready for judgement day" bouncing into my ear?

Having not turned off my radio before I drifted away with the fairies I roused to the surreal sound of Frankie Howerd and a female singer duetting on a very odd version of 'All Through The Night' and when Handel's Water Music came on I can only assume it was the association that meant off I had to trot for a pee.

What with the mobile phones, the not very dimmed lights and some nurses commitment to a tidy store as she opened what can only have been the bed pan cupboard at 2am causing a landslide of bed pans falling to the floor echoing around the entire hospital... I am surprised I got any sleep at all!

Whatever happened to Matron?

The rain has come pouring down today...... ......true to form the downpour comes on the day prior to the official declaration of a drought!

I have neglected my Blog for the last few weeks which is predominately because I have just been too busy. I started off knocking a blog out every other day, then every week and now it seems every other week. It is true that as the renovation works died away and the day to day running of the place took precedence I felt that I had less to say. My daughter also points out that I have a tendency to digress and stray from the point, much as Ronnie Corbett does in his monologues, something that I neither deny nor apologise for. Yes I started out writing this blog to record the events caused by a decision to make a major life-style change and the aftermath or consequences that this caused. In doing so I feel that I have a need to record the idiosyncrasies of both my new life and as part and parcel of this I cannot help myself reflecting on the idiosyncrasies of my past life too, they are, after all bound by a common factor..... ME!

So if there are any readers out there still then please forgive me but the way I see it I am 52 years old now and soon my memory will start to tilt away from me, in fact if you ask my wife or daughter they will tell you that the onset has already began. My son tells me that I have sat, with him on the couch, through 3 hours of Leonardo and Kate getting in a tiz as Titanic went down and I am sure that I have never seen the film! Life is odd though isn't it? I had not even finished the previous sentence and the theme tune to Titanic had started to play on Classic FM, how weird is that? So the rot begins and I have a need to record things that amuse and have amused me over he years.

 I don't know why things just pop into my head but even as I wrote the above I was recalling the kerfuffle that we had in a certain supermarket branch when one of the men became one of the women. I had never met a transsexual before and actually had no preconceived views on how I expected the person to be or indeed look. As it happened he just looked like a bloke with high heels and whilst I knew that he had had the chop his voice, sorry her voice, had not followed suit so he still sounded like a bloke too. Not, I thought, a good start but I knew that he was on a mix of hormones that should make the change more convincing. Sadly it just didn't ever seem to kick in.
I joined the branch just as the contentious issue was being debated by all the staff. Things were coming to a head and a decision was required...... which loo should she use! It would never have occurred to me that this would be an issue but it was so obvious once pointed out to me that people who share the loos would have opinions on such matters.The Manager at the time decided that the only way to get a consensus of agreement would be to hold a vote from all the staff and so that was exactly what happened.
Now I was chatting to her over a cup of tea in the canteen one day and was, I admit, a little thrown when she explained that whilst she had the operation because she felt she was a woman in a man's body, a concept that I could understand, she went on to further explain that she is a lesbian and that she fancied women. I tried to clarify the situation in my head .... So you were a bloke who fancied women but was not a bloke inside but a woman in a blokes body so therefore you were really a man that was a lesbian. My momentary silence was intuitively picked up upon by her... "You don't get it do you?" She commented and I thought to myself she has ankles of a fell walker, the adams apple of a body builder and the hands the size of a Keresley miner but her intuition was definitely that of a woman, bless her.
Oh, by the way she ended up, appropriately, using the Ladies toilets.

Where was I? Oh yes I digress, ok what's happening at the Old Bakery? Well my sad and indeed good news is that my daughter has got herself a job. Having spent over 3 years in Uni studying to be a Speech & Language Therapist she left Uni just as most of the NHS funding was being pulled and so she took a year out helping Alison & I set up the Old Bakery B&B. She has been invaluable and really supportive but is now moving to work in her perfect job in a school in Somerset and I will have the final test regarding this new life style in that I will be on my own for many hours in a day. That said my parents are moving up from Sussex in just over a weeks time and so I will be able to see a lot more of them in due course.

We have had plenty of guests over the last few weeks staying in both the Cottage and the B&B and so it is great to see the business actually earning reasonable levels of money! Also the feedback from the Cottage guests has been really good too. We are currently working towards obtaining the Tourist board star rating and working through their check-list to achieve this.

You will remember, because I keep bringing it up, that Percy is our visiting pheasant (with a limp) and that he took to flirting with himself in a mirror that I had placed in the garden, so I was forced to remove it. Well he didn't give up admiring himself and he now flirts at his reflection in our greenhouse and even the French windows, meanwhile the Blue Tit has returned day after day to chat up it's reflection in another window. They are all dappy, is this national or just NFN (Normal for Norfolk). The young children staying in the Cottage love seeing Percy wander around the garden.

The rain has come pouring down today after a really pleasant March and of course true to form the downpour comes on the day prior to the official declaration of a drought! Only a week ago Claire and I were eating some fresh Morston mussels sitting on the pato with a little white wine, all alfresco like. The sun was shining and all was well with the world and now just a few hundred miles away there is chaos as the snow tumbles down. Not to be perturbed I can still pull out a photo of yet another sunset. Alison came back from work one day last week and fancied going out for a walk so we headed off to Wells-Next-The-Sea and were treated to an excellent sunset and so once again I leave you with this image...

4,160

Fuelling my obsession

If you ask Mike, Stephen or Claire or going back to my childhood, my parents and brother and sister they would all say the same thing about me; that I can't go past a Tourist Information Centre without going in and collecting leaflets. They would call this an obsession, although I'd say it's research. But one of the many unanticipated bonuses of setting up 'The Old Bakery enterprises' is that I now have a genuine, business need to visit TICs and collect leaflets to put in the information packs that we provide our guests. And to keep going in to ensure that the information in the packs is bang up to date!

This 'obsession' doesn't just cover TICs. When we visit any of the numerous Farmers Markets scattered around deepest Norfolk I get to collect information about the food that they offer. I've put together a pack on Norfolk's food producers as the region is getting well known for the quality of the food on offer (and as if to prove it check out a new BBC2 series this Wednesday at 8pm which starts it's tour of the UK by focusing on food in Norfolk - having read the reviews I can't wait for the flatulent turkey!)

And then (because obviously that's not enough) I collect menus from local pubs and restaurants, so that our guests know what's on offer.

And now with both the B&B and the cottage, that means twice as many leaflets and folders to gather up.

But if any family member chooses to comment on what they see as my leaflet obsession they just need to remember we get extra points on our tourist gradings for providing all those leaflets.