Oh dear, I’ve already broken my first New Year resolution, to stop roken – not good because as it says on the packet, roken is dodelijk, which I presume means dangerous in Dutch but actually sounds quite jolly – jolly dangerous. Having just returned from the jolly Netherlands after spending Christmas and New Year with my sister and her happy family, I am now feeling restless and discontent with my lot, as in with my own dysfunctional family and miserable, gloomy Blackburn. Aside from missing my sister, I would seriously consider moving to jolly Holland if I thought for one moment I could master the language, because everyone seems to be so much happier over there, not to mention healthier, even though they seem to survive on a diet of cheese and roll mops. Here in the ‘nanny’ state, we are constantly ordered not to eat dairy products, therefore all our bones are rotting at an early age (not helped if we are on HIV meds) due to lack of calcium. At this point I expect some smart alec will write in to inform me that calcium can be taken in other forms such as chewing on a lump of chalk, but you can’t eat a lump of chalk with Branston pickle or melt it over your burger.
They are also much kinder to their old folk in the Netherlands and in the run up to the festive season there was even a fund raising campaign in the form of smoothie bottles wearing tiny hand knitted bobble hats to provide pensioners with free Christmas dinners. How nice is that? The old folk seem much more active over there and even after a lifetime of roken they can be seen zapping around the highways and byways on their mobility scooters with oxygen tanks strapped to the back and still ride bikes and skate.
The Christmas decorations were also much to be admired especially in comparison to the dismal attempts in Blackburn and they even put fairy lights on their cranes.
However, it was bitterly cold and all the dykes and waterways were frozen solid and suddenly became freeways for the hordes of skaters of all ages whizzing along with their hands behind their backs. My sister and I ventured out to the wooded ‘wastelands’ to watch the skaters performing on the frozen lakes, which made me very envious as I would love to glide over a lake whistling the blue Danube with my hands nonchalantly clasped behind my back, but I am too frightened of falling over and cracking it – my head that is, not the ice.
Dutch children learn to skate by pushing a chair around on the ice but as my sis was not keen on the idea of me using one of her cane dining chairs, I had to forgo that learning experience. Maybe I could have borrowed a zimmer frame? Now there’s an idea. I did venture a tentative bladeless boot on the edge of the lake, but that was about it. My sister took some video footage of me in the act, which she then downloaded to you tube and can be seen if you click on my blogroll link, Adrienne Seed -Dancing on ice.
The next day, we went back to the wastelands yet again but this time armed with a broom and pan lid (she wouldn’t let me bring the kettle or her new non stick frying pan) so I could try my hand at curling. I had a vision of myself sliding across the ice on one knee like a cavalier, but this proved rather difficult as my knee joints were un cooperative, due to presumably not having consumed enough cheese in my lifetime. My frolics with the pan lid did cause some merriment from the passing skaters however as you will see when my sister’s next film production, ‘Curling on ice’ is downloaded.
I think I might even take up curling as an outdoor pursuit to add to my other healthy New Year resolutions. With this thought in mind, as soon as I got back to England I had a quick search on the internet to see if there were any curling centres in Lancashire. Canal Street in Manchester for example would be an ideal venue, or so I would have thought, but I didn’t find any. I did come across something called ‘cow curling’ though and was quite excited until I found it was an online game and had nothing at all to do with live cows. Neither did it have anything to do with ‘cow tipping’, which apparently is the activity of sneaking up on an upright cow and pushing it over for fun. I don’t know whether this kind of thing goes on in your area but as far as I know it is not a popular pastime in Blackburn, where the unruly youth would be more likely to push an old person over. There is however, The National Cow Tipping association of Ireland and it must be popular in other areas too, because online you can buy a selection of cow tipping gifts, such as a cup or an apron inscribed with, “I love cow tipping.”
According to popular belief cows can be easily pushed over because they are slow moving, slow witted, weak legged and sleep standing up, although some say this last statement is a complete and utter myth as cows don’t sleep standing up, although I can’t verify this fact as I’ve never been out in my pyjamas to have a look. Nor apparently do their knees lock thus making the act of cow tipping physically impossible. At least according to someone called Margo something or other, a doctor of zoology and obviously something of a mad cow herself, who after lengthy research on the matter concludes that cow tipping by a single person is impossible. Margo’s calculations found that it would take at least two people to push over a cow that’s if the cow does not react and reorientate its footing. If the cow does react it would take at least four people to push it over. I wonder how Margo, who sounds like she is suffering from mad cow disease herself, carried out her research.
Some consider cow tipping to be an act of animal abuse and in Florida a ban was proposed on ‘cruelty to bovines’
“A person who for the purpose of practice, entertainment or sport intentionally fells trips or otherwise causes a cow to fall over or lose its balance by means of roping lassoing dragging or otherwise touching the tail of a cow commits a misdemeanour of the first degree.”
I should say so and so presumably would the poor cows, who now have to endure a lifetime of being continuously pushed over when they are trying to take forty winks, as the proposal did not become a law.
Well, no matter how restless or bored I feel to be back in Blackburn, or the fact that there is absolutely nothing worth watching on television these days, especially the latest Big Brother which has got to be as boring as it gets, I don’t think I would ever feel the need to entertain myself by venturing out in the dead of night and trying to push a cow over or even try to trip one up. Although never say never I say. What a disgrace it would be to be caught in the act and then have it reported in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, “Local artist arrested for trying to trip up cow.”
I don’t know whether this kind of thing goes on in the Netherlands which would be a veritable paradise for cow tippers as there are so many cows and should really be called the Udderlands. But perhaps it’s like their attitude to sex and drugs and the fact that are so freely available. People just don’t seem to bother with them. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here and the ‘nanny’ state should take a leaf out of Holland’s book and let us eat as much cheese and dairy products as we want and even trip up the odd Friesian, or in this weather freezian, if we so desire, because cow tipping unlike fly tipping in England is not against the law.
A very Happy moo year to everyone.
