SUN IN CANCER, ARSE IN GEAR.

Yes, all you good people of the omniverse, the Earth has beetled around once again to the part of it's orbit that floats a great deal of boats. As a result, a new and Tigger like energy has risen in me which is usually the case come Solstice. Being a Cancerian is cool. Birthdays are usually sunny affairs.

I am filling my days with "buildin' fings", 16 hours a week I get paid for it, thanks to a renewed career as a handyman.

The other Buddha-knows-how-many hours construction work has gone into the previously much touted shed project.

I'm not in a position to show any photos of progress because it's all very hush-hush, don't ya know. You'll just have to wait. Gadzooks, I can almost smell the tension from here.

Needless to say, the postage stamp sized urban garden is littered with piles of wood and rusty old nails. It's a health and safety nightmare, an A&E admittance waiting to happen. But I prefer to run the gauntlet, it lends life a sense of derring-do. Besides, there's no point in clearing up until the wobbly woman warbles.

The next week or so will produce a camping holiday, cricket, an annual visit, loud music from my revamped car stereo, outdoor fires (upon which I usually sacrifice at least one piece of clothing albeit mistakenly), birdwatching, peoplewatching, a lack of watchwatching, beer drinking and hopefully a modicum of sunburn, all of which you may well get to read about.

Until then, here are some random things captured for your delectation and perhaps, if you will, even amusement.

Here, we can clearly see that a junk food empire has been brought to it's knees by a renegade sparrow. Some kind of alliance has obviously been struck between it and it's feathered friends which commonly appear on the menu dressed in tight fitting batter suits.

The upshot of this I suspect was probably several dozen spotty ill-looking natives frantically scouring the locale for a similarly puke-worthy helping of feral pigeon in a bap.

They wouldn't have to go very far in this neck of the woods.

Next on the agenda is my own fascinating experimentation with Do-it-Yourself brain surgery. The tricky part is getting the bread knife and chisels clean again afterwards. Of course, I wouldn't recommend this form of amateur neuro slicing to the feint hearted, but the more adventurous among you will be pleasantly surprised by your children's next exam results if you get it right. However, if you get it wrong they are only capable of watching Big Brother until you've gone back to the old drawing board before another well intentioned stab at it.

And here is a monster from the deep which I fished out of my garden pond. The fucker took me 8 hours to land and left me with a vicious hickey which I quite clearly cant go to the medical services with in case they think I'm one of those weird people who can only become romantically attached to lampreys.

For those among you who believe I had to turn my back on it to get attacked in this region, think again, it's not how it looks. It does however, bring a whole new meaning to the words 'blue tit'.

And that, my crusty little old barnacles upon the hull of humanity, is that. Be good to yourselves and to those immediately to your right. Anybody on the left can get stuffed.