What on Earth Is The Cuckoos Arms Pub on SagaZone

Some time ago I wrote a blog about Owls the forum I had joined on SagaZone, since then a small group of us created a new daytime and evening forum, Cuckoos Arms, which basically is a fantasy pub, run by ICE the manager, with a mixture of the strangest staff & customers you could ever meet in life.

Well for example I am the waiter, not very good & keep disappearing but, totally in love with Debbie who also works at the pub.

Well what can I say about “My Debbie” she is the lovely person who calls in each morning to make sure the heat is on, do the cleaning, serving as well as help to test the quality of the gin by drinking pints of it, at a time.

There do seem to be one or two strange things about this sweet innocent person, like why did she not mention these 3 sisters, who by mistake she said were her daughters, on more than one occasion and why does she have the need to tell everyone when she has been drinking that she does not wear underclothes & why does she keep telling people about some of the things I would prefer to remain quiet about the two of us.

But after all she is such a lovely person to me & all the others in the pub & is very tolerant to that Sue.

Yes now what about Sue, a flirtatious person, who is constantly looking for the next man, I feel really she is just looking for that special person, but the constantly going fishing for the person, I feel must be a little off putting to the men, whop come to the pub.

I also think her constant change of allegiance to various men is also confusing for everyone, including the days target, but I also feel sadly there is a degree of jealousy in relation to me & my Debbie which brings out all sorts of negative statements to us both

Now what does Sue do in the pub, well she goes “fishing” but what about serving cooking or cleaning in the pub I am still waiting to see her pour a pint other than maybe one for herself or the man of the day.

What to say about ICE our manager, well first I have to remember she is the boss & I need the job, so that will affect the things I say ever so slightly (well actually a lot but don’t tell her), she doesn’t seem to spend very much time at the pub, but often I do wonder why not given the quality of the staff & the behaviour of the customers, she seems to be particularly drawn to the male customers for some reason & frequently wants quiet chats with them in her office whilst they drink large quantities of alcohol.

She also keeps recruiting new members of staff, again a lot of men but they only seem to last a day or two after she has had them in her office to help her with her spreadsheet, which seems strange because she never asks me to help out with it & she doesn’t seem to look to deeply into their backgrounds before employing them.

If ever there was someone who flirts well ICE deserves medals for it, as she wanders round the men in the pub, but there again in the nicest possible way she also seems to do the same with the lady customers also, which I suppose helps the staff customer relations, I am very happy that she does not flirt with me because what would my Debbie think.

What I cannot understand is that we appear to be constantly running out of staff, food & at times alcohol, plus many of the people do not seem to pay for their drink, in particular if they are invited into ICE’s office, I do worry if she does not spend more time sorting out the pub we will be closed down.

Now how many of the other staff should I mention, in the short time we have been open I have been so confused at the number that have come & gone so I must apologise at not mentioning you all.

I do remember EMLM who actually seemed to be very conscientious, but one day just disappeared, there is Violet who I think is some sort of bar person, or customer, I do worry about the lack of clothes & her suggestive remarks to the male customers, but she seems a nice person, now I think Chukkie was employed as entertainments manager, but where has she got to & what about organising some entertainment other than the fact that the male customers seemed to like her pole dancing.

Now is my friend phizz a customer or a member of staff, we do know she will do anything apparently for a pork pie whether it is cooking serving or spending time entertaining the male customers, but she is a lovely friend to everybody if only she could find someone of her own to share a pork pie with.

What about John at 105, I am still unsure if its his age address or some other link he has not told us, what the relevance is of the 105, again not sure which category he fits in with, seems very nice until he has had, well a “few” drinks then stand back if there are any women about in the pub, I don’t know where he gets the energy from.

Now I have to say I feel very let down by David From Scotland, when we first met he seemed such a nice sort of person & I am sure he will not mind me saying a fellow TOGG, but what has happened now, between the drinking, womanising & abusive remarks to me well I don’t know at all what to say without being sued for libel.

GUC or My Pauly, well the handyman I believe, well he does live round the corner & he is good with provision of our music but most the time he is off flirting with any women or is doing the same at the pub with any of our female customers, though they do seem to like it, when it spends time chatting them up

Now the mysterious Dan, yesterday there was a hint of who he really is, I have always wondered how he could find a plane for a trip at short notice for us to go on holiday & so smooth & debonair, but so nice & kind to us all, but he seems to just drift in & out, with a fairly low profile, maybe the only normal person that comes to the pub, but I have noticed a slight flirtation with the beautiful ICE on occasions & wonder is there something there or is it all part of the illusion, they seem to speak when most of us are gone, maybe I should stay late one night & check it out

There are the customers as well, who seem to spend, so much time chasing each other or drinking huge quantities of alcohol & often not paying for it, I wouldn’t mind if Ididn’t have to clean up after them every day

There are some interesting people who have recently joined like Shoney who is lovely & seems to have something like Debbie’s magic bag (I wonder what it is) must ask some time, then there is JR, Blondie or whatever her real name is, now again, she has like Dan inferred that she is linked to the secret service, how exciting, but what an actress, she seemed a really nice person when she first appeared, but quickly seemed to spend all her time getting drunk apparently & chasing any man who dared to appear in the pub, as I have said to her what an actress she must be, but how does she cope with all the alcohol, when hiding her personality & is something going on in the pub that we don’t know about.

Well folks where do we go from here, we must be doing something right it has already had over 9000 hits from people in the short time it has been running, it seems to have a following of people who watch our antics I am told & a mixture of strange & wonderful people popping in on an occasional basis, Hi Clabby & FF, & all the others I have missed, in the blog

Steam Trains & The Isle of Man

What does the title mean you think, well the obvious, last week it was time for another expedition, unfortunatly Andy the third musketeer could not come out to play, so it was down to Brian & I to go out & find these exciting photos of steam trains.

So off to the station we went prepared for all these opportunities to use our cameras, but there they were, the anoraks & geeks they had got there first, I felt quite intimidated with my small compact camera, when they had sophisticated SLR ones, which they were using.

The next shock was no steam engine, just some old diesel to pull the train, but undeterred we boarded the train, reminicing about previous adventures we had had in the past when on train journeys.

We talked about the carriages, the different types we had sat in in our youth, the windows with their leather straps, which sadly ours did not have, then off we set to our destination.

Some 30 minutes later we finally reached the end of the line & off we went to seek out more adventures, in the village of Rawtenstall, we had a full hour to explore before we had to reurn for the train back.

Guess what the place had closed up, nowhere was open apart from the local Tesco & Asda, I dont know where the people came from to keep them in business, we walked up the main street, then back down, that was it apart from the ducks on the river.

Back to the staion to find we had just missed the train so, in to Tesco for supplies & a drink, before returning to the station & guess what, our train had a steam engine, so into photo mode we went, at last we had rejoined the anoraks & geeks.

Onto the train still no straps on the windows, but Brian happily explained how much he used to enjoy smell of the smoke, I felt it was a little smelly & dirty. We noticed that all the staff had brew cans which took me back to the 1960s, we discussed whether these were new reproductions or old ones unearthed from the past, I went on to say I could not understand why they bothered when there were thermos flasks & mircowave cookers, but if it made them happy so what.

We travelled back to Bury then took more photos in case the others did not work, then spotted a fdriend of ours who was a volunteer, we asked him about the leather straps only to be told that they had no stock with them, also that these had never been in the north of England. Quickly we as old Toggs informed him that he was qite wrong that we as youngsters vividly remembered these on the carriages from our youth in the late 50s & 60s so there, so much for technical knowledge.

That sadly was the end of the trip, I will report back on any other adventures as and when they occur, have you noticed that familiar stalker on my photos again, where does he come from.

Just to say after this weekend that I will be in the Isle of Man for a week with my DIY friend visting other, they will be doing tasks on the house there whilst I will take on role of foreman for the week, plus I have been promised that they will show me the sights which I have been waiting to see since my brief trip of 2 hours back in th 1980s, so will tell you of these adventures on my return