I come on me bike tonight,
Blast bor,
That wind were agin me the whole blinkin way
I wholey hoop that change afore I goo hoom agin.

We're all in a bit of a pickle
All in a bit of a jam
We'd like our cake and eat it too
If we possibly can

We'd like to take the biscuit
The icing on the cake
But for now it's hard cheddar
We'll just have to wait

Welcome to Vegas
Lasers shining at the moon
Gilding the lily

A bumpy track led to the old cottage. The place hadn't been lived in for quite a while but was intact, a perfect timber-framed Tudor cottage. Even the old thatch didn't leak. Just two rooms downstairs with a small lean-to on the back, the kitchen still had a Dutch oven and an old copper for hot water. A kite-winder staircase followed the central chimney up to two bedrooms.

The place was coming up for auction. Desperately I wanted it. At the auction it made four times what I could afford. The buyer did not move in however. There was a story about him being in prison. At this time the farmers used to dispose of waste straw after combining by burning it in the fields, a practice now banned. That's how the thatch caught alight. There was no attempt to fight the fire because no-one even noticed it. Gales later blew in the gable ends, then the chimney crumbled, brambles grew over it until there was hardly a visible trace of the place left.

I wish I could have saved it. It would have been beautiful. Instead I bought a little terrace, then a detached needing renovation, then the one we have today. I got what I wanted eventually, but I still think about that old place sometimes, and how I wanted it.

I met my neighbour ths morning so I asked him how he was.

Oh fine, yes we're fine thank you. And how are you both?

I said you should go to Specsavers mate, there's only one of me.