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Nothing special to report, just a lot of Bank Holiday traditions: After a couple of warm, sunny months with perhaps two slightly rainy days, the weather has become wet and cool - just right for Bank Holiday! In fact it was so cold and grey this morning that hardly anybody turned up for the Allertonshire Car Boot Sale, and those hardy souls who did wore jackets and huddled in the shelter of their cars quite a bit. N bought a picture but on researching it, isn't keen. H and I didn't buy much, though I got a small book of Indian recipes for L's new favourite taste. This caused amusement when the 'recipe' for onion bhajis listed the ingredients as '1/2 packet of onion bhaji mix, water', and H got some fun out of a gust of wind that rattled the sales tables, threatening to send things scuttering. J and L stayed at home - another Bank Holiday morning tradition. And yes, we have had a traditional Bank Holiday afternoon: trip to B&Q for paint, then N and H have nearly finished painting the hall. It's the colour of orange juice, which is really, if you think about it, yellow, so that substituted nicely for sunshine. The poor rabbits stayed in their hutches most of the day, out of the cold. L has gone down to the May Fair with E and E (her best friend and her boyfriend), but J must be gettingolder - he declared the fair 'too expensive' and spent the money on seeing Derren Brown instead. Now if you think I have missed the other great British Bank Holiday tradition of Doing Things To The Garden, admittedly I haven't managed more than a smidgeon today but I've bought a host of plants over the past couple of weeks (from Bedale Car Boot Sale, highly recommended) and I'm slowly finding homes for these new treasures: a Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis), a primula Vialii, some ox-eye daisies, my first ever auricula ("Gold Lace"), some runner beans, 35 leek seedlings, a tree lupin, some sweet peas and a plant with red flowers that I can't think of the name of, and lastly, I took pity on some freesia and Dutch Lily bulbs being sold off in B&Q. I like rescuing plants. Add to these the sprouting of some butternut squash seeds I planted last week, and I have... a shortage of space. Happy May Bank Holiday! |
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There seem to be a couple of trains of thought in the house at the moment. L and J have both come home from school with versions of the same one. "They say we're all going to get flu", said L, looking at me with a sad frown. H, typically, asked questions: "What is this 'swine flu'?" he asked; "They say it's like flu but horribly painful"; "They say you drown in mucus". We have talked to them and tried to put the spread of swine flu into context, explaining that things have moved on a long way since the terrible Spanish flu of 1918, both in terms of medication and in terms of understanding. Back in 1918, people didn't even understand what caused it, let alone have a drug to use. What I haven't majored on, though I think I mentioned it, is that nowadays we have air travel, so it has the opportunity to spread a lot more quickly. Between ourselves, N & I, and in conversation with a neighbour, conversation took a different turn. In amongst our usual subjects - plants and paintings - two separate conversations turned to the flu. We are all old enough and far enough from immediate danger to be philosophical, at least for now. We have seen illness come and go. We're still here. We all look out at the world from our small corner, though, and wonder where it's going, and those two of us with history degrees see the pattern over the centuries: something always comes along to regulate population, whether it be war or plague or simply economics. Today, when the UK is withdrawing from six years of war, the economy is still looking like a burst balloon and news broadcasts track the unremitting spread of swine flu. In one sentence we have three of the main ways the boiling pan of population is brought back to a sustainable bubble. Naturally, we don't want it to happen. Just as we don't want war and are glad when, in Dorothy Sayers' memorable words, it makes 'a noise like a hoop and roll(s) away', so there are scientists making strenuous efforts to outwit the long-awaited pandemic. Similarly there are economists, politicians, bankers, lots of us little people all trying to get the economy back on track in whatever way or on whatever scale we can. If we are in a position to make policy, we make it. If we have jobs, we hang on to them. If we are in the media, it seems we try to get people to grow vegetables. Now if that last one seems a digression, I should explain that N and I were talking about this tonight. Why the current trend to grow our own veg? For most people, I imagine the amount generated won't be enough to make a significant dint in our supermarket bills. If it were, there would be pressure groups worrying about the effect on market gardening. It may, for those who take part, be a health booster, providing exercise, fresh air, sunlight, a source of social input and even, if it all goes right, healthy food. That's undeniable - but how many people have access to enough land to make much of a difference? The UK is a land-poor country with a lot of people to support. If the trend has some effect in reversing the concreting of the nation's gardens it will be a good thing - even in our small plot we see the change in drainage since houses were built behind us and that land can no longer absorb as much water as it did a few years ago - but again - people are taught that their garden is in effect another room, and rooms 'need' solid floors. So why the big drive to dig? I think it's to make us feel we have some power over our well-being. Having said all this, I come to the 'pennies' of the title, the small changes we actually do make to our lifestyles and the effects they could have. For us, today, not close enough to war to have the relief it is abating, not under any immediate threat to our livelihoods although we have seen the effect of price increases, and not having been to Mexico or being near to a current outbreak of the flu, the ripples are still small. Here they are, then, at the end of an unusually long pontification: two small delights that aren't going to rock the world but may save a few pennies. Firstly, we had spicy lentil soup for tea. Secondly, there are three fat pots in the garden containing 35 seedling leeks which, in my fond imagination, are going to see us through most of the winter. We shall see. |
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Ever since I heard the aboveline, which if I remember rightly was addressed by William Wordsworth to his sister Dorothy (but I may have forgotten, it was a along time ago!) I have thought of it at about this time of year. As I mentioned a week ago, the weather was due to change last Sunday, and thankfully the forecast was right. It's been getting warmer day by day. Not only have snowdrops come out, but crocuses too (mental note to self - stock up on some new ones at the end of summer: these are looking very weedy now!) Today I spent some time tidying the garden, though there's still a lot to do, but the fantastic thing is, I didn't need a jacket! The sun was shining, birds singing and so forth. I fed a lot of weeds to the rabbits (who only a couple of days ago were lucky to get dried up twiggy bits in addition to their normal food) and got nice and muddy in the process. I found the remains of quite a few clothes pegs beginning to turn into compost, retreived a few tennis balls which probably aren't good for much any more and got a line full of sheets nearly dry. Oh, I love the spring. Shame we don't have all those funky smilies that were around on this site a couple of years ago, I could do with one right now. All in all it's been a positive, energetic day, which is strange because N had to spend the morning in work after the premises were broken into, H was mithering about not being able to afford both the expensive toys he wants and I wasted time on Facebook playing with go-nowhere applications. Wasting time - that would take a whole entry of its own. At least I have something to show for the day. |
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I don't know why I set such store by the weather forecast, as it hardly ever reflects what's going on outside my window, but today it was right: snow. In fact, since Christmas we've had I think five weeks of frost, thought there was a lovely day when the temperature went up to about 10 Celcius and my neighbour and I found ourselves tidying the gardens and chatting over the fence. that was a short-lived warmer spell, though. Much of the time there has been frost or snow for day after day, H's school closed for a couple of days (L's didn't, much to her disgust!) and the pavements have been treacherous as trampled snow froze to ice. When it snowed again this morning, I didn't even bother to take photos, yet usually snow is a treat, marked by lots of pictures, such as a whole series taken a few weeks ago of H trampolining in the snow! I have been more worried about walking to work for 7am tomorrow, when I struggled to get as far as the rabbit hutches just by the door this evening... and then it rained! There was a downpour for a while which hasn't managed to wash away the snow but I have hopes that in the morning it will be gone. The worst scenario is for it to freeze tonight, in which case the going will be treacherous. Snow is sufficiently rare in England for most people never to have seen snow tires (I never have), and local roads don't get priority gritting. N has offered to give me a lift to work, bless him, as it means getting up earlier than usual and braving the freezing cold. Having moaned so much, I ought to add that so long as I don't have to battle through it, I like the snow very much, it's very pretty! Anyway, roll on Sunday - the weather forecast says 9 Celcius, and believe me, after having become accustomed to one or two degrees either side of zero, with highs of four or five, for weeks and weeks, it's going to feel wonderful! |
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N and I went for a walk this afternoon, unaccompanied by children, who would rather be out with friends or keeping gifts company. It's been a blue-sky day, fairly chilly in contrast to the mild days just before Christmas. We parked near Cotcliffe Woods, which is an escarpment, and, the woods being thick mud, walked up the road and over the hill down to the A19. This road is too busy to cross lightly, even to visit pretty Leeke church, which reminded me, on the one occasion I've been in, of something out of Harry Potter. It's a little country church, which in the UK means it's old, dating from the times when churches were dotted around the countryside and it was a bit of a journey from the farm to get to Sunday morning services, but people went nonetheless. Nowadays churches are urban things, the old country ones - and some town ones too - share a vicar amongst several congregations and some have become defunct as people move out of the countryside into the cities. Leeke church isn't defunct - it's a cosy little place and in the back we found the bit that stuck in my mind as straight out of the imagination of J K Rowling: a little room with a small gothic window, church robes hanging on a peg and, on a counter which memory or fantasy tells me was covered in gingham sticky-back plastic, a kettle. It could have been a Weasley kitchen but for one thing: the Weasleys could never all have fitted in at once. Anyway, we didn't quite get there today. Topping the hill, the noise of the road reaches you suddenly, and the car headlights are already lit by around 3.30. We wandered down to the junction and I found what I thought must have been the original line of the road between a field hedge and a line of trees bordering the road, but N thinks it's part of a long ditch running by the thoroughfare. Someone had lost a wheel-trim so I propped it against a road sign and we made our way back towards the setting sun. There are hedges either side of the narrow road, and occasional trees. As we went along and the sun neared the horizon, the trees showed black against the warm orangey-yellow of the sky. There were copses with the trees tall and very straight, their branches clustered at the top and black against the pale blue of the zenith. There was a little cluster of two short conifers in a wayside garden, a tangle of brush obscured in the darkness beneath them while the brilliance of the yellow sun was fragmented by their trunks and branches. There was a also a lone oak, silhouetted against the empty winter sky as absolutely black, yet when we looked back it was a humble winter tree in muted colours, set in the wide landscape of the valley, lit by that quality of light that is more like gilded water. We met nobody but Boxing Day riders hacking in a leisurely way between local liveries and saw in a field eight sportsmen shooting..what? Probably rabbits judging by the location. The Boxing Day walk is a sort of tradition, borne of necessity after Christmas Dinner. Today's was unusually clear and bright, and the sun had set by the time we reached home and put the animals away for the evening. It will be freezing or below tonight, thanks to that clear sky. And of course, I didn't have my camera. |
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One of my rabbits is named Sable, a name I chose because it is an archaic word for 'black'. She's jet black and beautiful, and incidentally the only rabbit I've ever known to be able to walk backwards several steps on her hind legs. I didn't teach her this: she just does it. My Mum's cat, Peter, is another black animal. I suspect he has ambitions to be a panther - he's the right colour and approaching the right size! He's unusually sociable for a cat, and intelligent too. He is able to alert Mum when someone comes to the door, as she can't hear. The reason I mention these two is that I have just come across a moving but fascinating web site about black rescue dogs. Did you know that black dogs stay longer at rescue centres than dogs of other colours? Apparently people in general just aren't inclined to take black animals. That's very sad. My experience tells me they can be marvellous pets, and surely people can see past the 'black dog' images of fiction? That isn't the Hound of the Baskervilles in that rescue cage, it's another pooch in need of a family! They do present one difficulty, though - have you ever tried to photograph a black animal?! The web site above gives some useful-looking hints such as using morning or evening light rather than bright sun, which I will have to try with Sable some time. Nearly all my photos of her so far appear to be of a fluffy black blob with no features except - if I'm lucky - an enormous eye! Sable?! Are you in there? Give me a sign!
Oh, that's a relief!
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I'm not much of a techie so I don't know why our computer does certain things, but they can be interesting. For instance, why did the items below come up as suggestions when I started to write this post?! One I think must have been mine from the moneysavingexpert.com forum but the others are probably J, the Boro fan. Question is, why these? Why not N looking at works of art? Why not H researching games? Why not L from the strange world of Bebo? For that matter, why not me on a Flylady group? I can only conclude that there is some deep affinity between homeschoolblogger.com and Middlesbrough Football Club. Emnes/Digard out to emulate Ronaldo/Gerrard Official: Gary O'Neil to stay with Boro Just seeing if you're okay? Miss No More Activity In The Transfer Market? Your SOA |
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Hi guys and thanks for the concern :-) We are okay, the waters stopped short of property damage in this area and last weekend's high winds did the same. After some very mild weather previously it all felt doubly wintery, especially as we had snow too! The A66, one of the roads that runs East-West across the country across some high ground, had to be closed as cars skidded and lorries jack-knifed. Apparently it wasn't the snow that caused it, but the sudden fall in temperature that turned the ground icy. You may have seen that the rough weather caused a ferry and a trawler to run aground and a man was killed in a traffic accident in the west. Yup, winter arrived for a while. Anyway that's in the past now, it's a bit warmer now and there are snowdrops and crocuses in some gardens, always a welcome sight. I was able to dry the washing on the line today - it nearly did dry too - and the buds are swelling on the forsythia. I went to the garden centre recently and bought some seeds. I always have more than I can possibly plant, in much the same way that crafters have a stash. Sometimes I get nice surprises from ancient packets that really ought to have been used years ago, often I try something new. This year I am wondering about growing some vegetables but I haven't done very well with them in the past. Last year's onions were funny - about the size of pickling onions, I've no idea why. I suppose at least I got some result! Well, it's late and time for bed, I just thought I'd drop in and say hi. Today's title, by the way, is from Julian of Norwich. I can't quote her (yes, Julian was a woman) verbatim but, as well as the line above, she is remembered for saying 'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well'. |
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I had a New Year's Resolution to blog every week... well, the best intentions sometimes need practice! I had one of the infections that's going the rounds, like a very bad cold but over in about 48 hours. It set me back right at the beginning of the year and I haven't called in since. :-( There isn't much to say really... cold, wet January, with flooding in Gloucestershire just as there was last summer, though it doesn't look as though it will get as deep. Here in the Vale of York, the ground is saturated but I'm quite excited: tomorrow's forecast is for 13 Celcius - the highest it's been for months! Well, today has been a rotten day at work. I'm struggling with a new element that was introduced to my job during the summer. I'm a Word Processor Operator/Admin Assistant but, in the interests of fair pay, jobs have been evaluated and some elements moved around. It hasn't affected my post much financially (some people have taken pay cuts of thousands of pounds or even found themselves no longer wanted, whilst others have benefitted financially) but I have been landed with the necessity of learning aspects of Human Resources work. My view on this is that if I had known what was coming I would never have applied for the job, as it's completely alien to me. Not only does it not play to my strengths, it seems to have found a complete blind spot, comparable to Maths or Physics, but possibly worse than Maths, which I have found makes sense if I take enough time about it. It took me most of the day to do a piece of work that should take under an hour - what a waste of both my time and my employers' time & money! Yet I have to do it because it's now part of my job. I hope they give future WP Operators an aptitude test for this kind of work before appointing them. Incidentally my colleague appears to have taken to it with no trouble! And yes, I've had several months of training, though it felt, and still feels, as though it's in a foreign language. There are still blessings in it: I'm earning, which helps the family, I'm gaining experience and it adds enough time tension to my week to keep me on the move and less susceptible to depression. I also have enough time when I don't have to be at work and the balance suits me fine: just two days at work and five at home! I tell myself that a lot of people have far worse, and that I have to keep praying about it, that it's good for me not to be good at it (keeps me humble, LOL!). that I am learning and I can do it if I keep on long enough... Oh well, just one more day and it's the weekend and maybe next week the perfect job will be advertised! |
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For those of us who are missing loved ones and for whom it hits home that we can't buy them anything... think if there was a charity or cause they would have supported and make a donation there for them. If it is something that they would have liked, whether supporting an orphanage in I didn't think of it in time to make a donation 'for' my Dad this year but I realised I have been playing Christmas Carols from his old piano book - he wanted to learn but had to give up lessons because he couldn't practice while we were little in case he woke us. It means a lot to know I am fulfilling his dream. The carol book is ancient and tattered but I won't replace it! |
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Hello, it's been a loooong time, far too long, since I've blogged at all. I'm so sorry Not that the reading public has been pounding a tearful path to my door or anything, but I haven't kept up with my friemds here and although I'm back right now, I'm due at home group soon and don't have time for any browsing. My excuses... faulty computer, much better new computer that won't let me do anything on Firefox, sudden loss of my friend Sue (those on Flying groups in the UK will know how much we all miss her) and lately, Mum's poor health as her leg ulcer is healing but she has lots of other problems. Anyway, here I am, a freezing cold autumn evening but there are still tomatoes ripening on the vine and the beautiful leaves of a couple of weeks ago haven't all gone. I had a quick look at my home page and realised I need to do a bit of a tidy-up. Rabbit of the week has been there since the summer - don't they ever update him? Hopefully he has found a good home by now. My Avatar has been stuck in the same clothes for a couple of months because the new computer won't let me change her: I must remember to do it using a work computer. I noticed someone has put their Amazon wish list on their blog and thought - what a good idea, especially with Christmas coming up and all... And Homeschool Blogger keeps putting a space between my paragraphs. I wonder if that's the default when using small type? No time to find out right now. At least I'm back - hope you're all good? Look after yourselves. I want to come back in a couple of days and write about stuff with a cover on - which was how I heard a house defined recently. Loverly Okay, I've gotta go. Be warned - I shall return! |
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One of our days out while on holiday was to London, and the children wanted to 'do' Oxford Street. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a huge shopping street in the middle of London. I had never appreciated how long it is until we trudged the hot pavements searching, among other things, for Primark. Primark only came to Oxford Street within the last year. It's primarily a cheap and cheerful clothing store - so cheap as to be almost incredible. We've bought plenty there in the past, but normally at a smaller, more local branch. This one was much bigger, and much, much busier. There were few initial bothers as J (who doesn't really like the place) set off on his own without waiting to arrange where and when to meet us. He's sixteen but even so...! Eventually the rest of us sorted ourselves out and H and I set off to look for clothes for him and spotted J nonchalantly gliding along on an escalator without the slightest sign of tension at being a missing child. Being the embarrassing parent that I am I yelled his name pretty loudly (ahem! a few heads turned!) and signalled to him where to meet, so that was sorted. H and I found tee shirts in H's size and I said I'd get him a couple. We chose some funny ones and a striped shirt and went to queue. You have never seen such a queue in a shop! Or at least I hadn't. There were tills on each floor so I looked on another floor and found just the same. We reckoned there were sixty or seventy people on each floor just waiting to pay (it took about twenty minutes - they are efficient at moving the queues along). Was it worth it? I suppose in a way it was, as we got the tee shirts and a few other bits and it didn't cost a lot, and of course you can save a lot of money against buying elsewhere, but the sheer materialism struck me forcibly. Rack after rack of clothing, table after table, dump boxes placed strategically: thousands upon thousands of articles of clothing. They sell all sorts of clothes but underwear starts at about £1 and tee shirts at about £2, and all those hundreds of people were there in what looks like a feeding frenzy - not behaving frenziedly but just buying so much. Fast forward to today, when we had a trip in Middlesbrough to buy clothes for the new term which begins next week. J no longer needs uniform but wanted the new season's football shirt and some jeans and teeshirts. L needed uniform shirts, shoes and trousers, as she's outgrown and outworn last year's tops and shoes and it's quite a strain keeping one pair of uniform trousers mud free all winter, LOL. H needed new jeans - he keeps growing - and a jacket for casual wear. Tomorrow I have to go to the sports shop in town for a few uniform items for PE classes. It was one of our more successful shopping trips. The children have what they needed, I persuaded N to get himself some more teeshirts ( he loathes clothes shopping) and I didn't buy myself anything! (That's good - I have enough.) I did a few calculations on the way home - we bought reasonable quality things which will be used and which we expected to get but I've never spent so much on clothing. Feeding frenzy again? We get less than £15 change out of £200. I have spent most of my life having to be careful what I spend. This is new to me - just as well I'm earning, I guess. I think it's time I found a new base line in my attitude to clothes. Love 'em, that goes without saying! However, they mustn't be too important. I must be free to let go of what gets beyond wear, no matter if it's a favourite or if in the past I would have worn it beyond when it was comfortable just to save the cost of replacing it. I must learn to buy what I need in a more planned way (getting there with that one). I need to find more about fair trade and clothing, now that, for while at least, I can afford to buy with the interests of others in mind and, as if those weren't enough to be going on with, I need to reduce the environmental impact of the amount of washing and ironing we get through. And do you know, just this morning, I was pleased with myself for throwing out one item which had worn out! Now we have fifteen new ones to take its place!  |
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We're back from a superb holiday in the Cotswolds and I feel I have plenty to write about - so much so I've put off starting! I thought I would write about each day as a separate entry, but not yet - it's midnight and I have work tomorrow, which should be interesting. I'm being trained to input data for new starters to ensure they get paid... talk about a responsibility! I'm sure that's one way to get noticed if I make a mistake! Oddly enough, having got myself in a state about other aspects of the job, I'm not too bothered about this. I've had much more important responsibilities, life and death ones: my family and some previous work. Of course it matters that people get paid properly, but I have all the support I need and I shall just ask that my work be checked. That's not the same as being the one who thumps a toddler on the back and dislodges the coin he has just dropped into his mouth! Okay, I should be worrying about this - but I'm not. No point starting now.  |
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Just a quick note to say a few short but important things. First, please may I ask your prayers for my friend and her husband? My friend has just had a very unexpected diagnosis of cancer and needs to decide on the right treatment. Secondly - wow, the news isn't good on the Internet today. Horrific floods in Asia (needs a lot of prayer), the terrible collapse of the road bridge over the Mississippi, an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in England again. On the other hand - tap water is restored to those places that lost it in July's flooding. It isn't yet drinkable but at least it's flowing. Also there has been a possible sighting of Madeleine, the little girl who was kidnapped a few months ago from her holiday in Portugal. Thirdly - I'll be offline for a few days which means a bit of a break from the blog. That never lasts long though - see you later! |
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You know you're getting older when... your oldest gets his first pair of contact lenses, and the same month, you get your first reading glasses - and you both think they're brilliant and how did you manage without them for so long! |
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Do you know who I mean by Kim & Aggie? Two ladies who have a TV program in which they clean up people's messy houses - it you can stand the 'yuck' factor, they're very watchable and always inspire me to clean something! H and I were watching them this evening before he went to bed, then he wandered into the kitchen. I thought he was going for a snack but I came in to find him cleaning the cooker top! It's a ceramic hob and it hasn't been done 'properly' for ages. By 'properly' I mean the full works: wipe down, scrape anything that needs scraping, clean with bicarb or Vim, wipe down, clean with HobBrite, wipe down again, polish with a dry tea towel. On close inspection it needed TLC - another thing to add to my list of things that have suffered because I've been working. I'm the only one who believes in reading the instructions for ceramic hobs! H had spotted the place where a bread bag came of worse in a close encounter with a hot plate, last week. Of course it didn't yield to a damp paper towel, but I added some bicarb and he soon found what an effective cleaner it is. H had it clean in a minute (we were rather more cursory with the rest - he had to get to bed!) Then he went upstairs while I did the dishes, only to emerge a few minutes later dripping blood. Kim & Aggie's influence seemed to have wafted up the stairs and he'd tidied up a razor.  Thumbs do bleed copiously, don't they?!He is patched up now: the bleeding seems to have stopped and I've cautioned him about only touching razors by the handle, but really it's not so long till he'll be using one himself. Anyway Kim and Aggie - thanks for the cleaner cooker top and the half hour snuggled on the sofa with H. Please could you add a warning not to try cleaning at home?! |
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I've always identified with that line from C.S. Lewis! Here I am long past 'school age' and it still rings true: 'The term is over, the holidays have begun'. It's an odd sort of holiday, but as my temporary work is 'term time only', and school holidays began today, I have just started my eagerly-anticipated summer holiday. Even more to my delight, I don't have to go back next term, as the contract will end at the end of August. So what's odd? My permanent contract, working Thursdays and Fridays, isn't term time only - so tomorrow I'm back at the same desk, doing essentially the same job as I was doing yesterday! N will be looking after the kids, though L's friend has offered her a trip to York so it will be just the boys most of the day. The floods... I woke up to the sound of heavy rain this morning but it didn't last. There has been a bit of a respite for flooded areas, though 350,000 people are still short of water/electricity. One young man is missing and premature twins who were born during the floods have died. They and their mother had been helicoptered to hospitals but they were so early I think it would have been a huge struggle for them even without the other difficulties. It's just terribly sad, though. I have just had a look at the headlines and there are difficulties getting enough bottled water for drinking to the people in the Gloucester area. A new word has entered my vocabulary: 'bowsers'. These are mobile water dispensers, rather like an oversized water cooler that you might find in a public building. Apparently there are bowsers dotted about the streets for people to help themselves (and some reports of misuse - children leaving a tap running or people filling huge containers then selling the water for profit. This latter is being treated as theft). There is also water in actual bottles and people are allowed 6x2 litre bottles a day each, though, as someone pointed out, that's not a lot of help if you don't drive and so can't get to distribution points. I seem to have written a lot about the floods and I'm only parroting what I've read: it's six and a half years since we had flooding in this town, and even then it didn't reach us. I am wondering how it will be in a couple of weeks as we are due to go through the affected area. Aside from floods now - I spent today catching up round the house. There's still plenty to be done but a handful of deep-cleaning jobs are out of the way and I went through what we call the biscuit cupboard and threw out alarming amounts of ends of packets after having discovered an insect in one. I have lectured the family on The Purpose of Biscuit Tins (goodness knows we have more than enough). Why is it that, once a biscuit is either the last one in the packet or taken out of the packet and put in a tin, it becomes beneath notice and gets left? I felt guilty throwing all that food out but I couldn't be sure it was fit for consumption and it certainly wouldn't have been welcome around my waistline, which is where it would have ended up! J is deep in Harry Potter - neither he nor I reads much apart from that, despite having ticked all the right boxes (in American: checked all the right boxes) that are supposed to help people become readers. We are surrounded by books, N is always reading (he's a librarian!), we read to the kids for years when they were younger. I grew up without a TV so no wonder I read - but nowadays I prefer the computer. There's nowt so queer as folks. Oh, and someone has put a small plastic monkey in the fish tank where it looks quite at home, constantly relocating itself as the filter and the fish stir the water. |
Posted in Musings
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Today was extra-quiet at work and I had a lot of opportunities to dip into the news: floods over England. My heart goes out to all those in the affected areas (though there is a lovely picture from Gloucester of two men who have pulled up camping stools in the middle of a road and sat down to fish!) It was bad enough six weeks or so ago when there was flooding in Yorkshire, but the colossal scale of this week's floods is, as far as I can see, unprecedented in the Gloucester/Tewkesbury area. There were great floods in 1947, but these are deeper, and set to increase over the next couple of days. Water and electricity are cut off for many people. Others have been rescued by helicopter. There is huge loss of crops and of course farm animals have died too. I saw flooding in 1990 when we moved to Gloucester, but it wasn't like this. The failing water supply I mentioned yesterday has run out now and the army are struggling to barricade and pump dry around an electricity station. It they don't succeed - and the critical time is about now - the station will have to be turned off and more people will lose power. A friend told me tonight it could be off for up to two weeks. Here, we just get rain - a fair amount of it but not threatening. Our house is on a rise in the ground so unlikely to flood, and we haven't suffered a repeat of flooding in the town centre as happened in November 2000, perhaps because the Council has widened the culvert that runs under the High Street so the water can get away. We will see what the next few days bring, but your prayers would be appreciated for those affected right now, evacuated from their homes, driven out by rising water or stranded in their houses with no way out unless by boat or air, dependent on ferried-in supplies of bottled water in the midst of millions of gallons. Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink... |
Posted in Musings
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I haven't written for while: there's been too much going on! Here are a few of the things: Work... enough said! I shall be so glad in a few days when I go from five days a week to two. I want my life back! Most obviously, the house suffers when I work (though J's sterling efforts this week have made us feel a lot better about it). The older children don't seem bothered if I'm not in when they get back, but H is. He's eleven. I think my spiritual life has suffered too, as has our leisure time. Not that any of these were superb before (LOL), but over recent months they have suffered. J's things He's left school now! His results don't come out till the third week in August after which he will go back for the sixth form if results are good enough. Meanwhile he is enjoying the holiday, socialising, playing in his band (Pads Bratz - you heard it here first!) and looking for a job. As for L... she has finished middle school and gone to the school where she will do her GCSEs. This seems to have got off to a very good start - I hope and pray it is altogether a better experience than the last few years, which were the reason I started this blog. She has also completed the first section of her firefighting BTEC and been to a number of parties and sleepovers! Tomorrow I have a short meeting with her and her new form tutor, and also the SEN co-ordinator, which may be a little tricky. L doesn't want special treatment (though to the school it's all par for the course). It's to discuss her dyslexic tendencies. Her options (i.e. chosen GCSEs as opposed to compulsory ones) are Drama, German, Art and Textiles, and she is taking Media as her English course (I think I have that right?) and Applied Science instead of ordinary Science - all of which should be better suited to her ways of learning. Incidentally, the story she wrote as a transfer project was longer than most of my degree level essays (and had a good twist in the tail)! So on to H - H is our youngest, and is about to leave primary school! He has just joined Scouts, has had a few golf lessons, is generally getting to a stage where we won't see him so much! Very sadly his rabbit, LoveSweetheart, who had been with us since he started school, died a few weeks ago. It's also been a traumatic time as he started to have pains in his face - the doctor thought it was muscular or dental, the dentist found a small hole and filled it. That night he was in terrible pain - we took him to A&E after midnight, but they couldn't do much, though I ended up phoning them back for more advice and getting referred on to another hospital because the painkillers weren't enough. In the end he fell asleep at about four in the morning and I went to sleep shortly after! At the suggestion of the hospital doctor we took him for a dental X-Ray in the morning and the 'small hole' turned out to have a massive cavity underneath, so then there as the trauma of having it out, though as soon as it had gone he improved dramatically. He has the tooth - which turned out to be massive and adorned with an extra root - as a trophy! (We aren't very pleased with the dentist for failing to spot it, though.) Other than that, we have just been trying to keep up... N's sister has moved to Switzerland for a rather nice job! My sister has just stopped work as her baby is due at the beginning of September (still feeling ill). My Mum's bad leg is somewhat better. We are still at two churches - which is odd and I wouldn't recommend it, but we feel a responsibility to individuals at one, and don't feel God has told us to leave there, but we go to the other to get 'fed' spiritually. The other thing that's been going on is the weather - there have been huge floods in various areas due to all the rain. A number of people have died - one of the first was a young soldier who was swept away a few miles from here., though the worst of it has passed this town by. I did see, however, that a two gallon bucket in the garden was three quarters full after ten days - indicating about an inch of rain a day in those ten days. Hull has been very badly hit, and more recently the Cotswolds as the River Severn floods badly. This time it has affected a water pumping station, which wasn't on the flood plain. It's had to be closed down for the time being and the city of Tewkesbury is expected to run out of water at about four o'clock today - that's in about half an hour's time. Oh, and we have a new Prime Minister. Goodbye Tony Blair, hello Gordon Brown. Some people tried to to bomb various places shortly after, but with limited success. The keyboard is playing up and/or I've been reading so much Harry Potter that I can't type straight so I shalln't go into more details right now. P.S. Congratulations to Humpty on making the front page! |
Posted in Musings
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If that seems an odd title for a blog entry, I will explain. I'm one of those people with a visual memory - a near-photographic memory in some circumstances, and I work very visually. You will appreciate this has its plus points, though I hasten to explain that a casual glance at something doesn't impress it on my mind forever. I have to do some processing but, once something is there in my mind, I can go back and look at it for some time to come. It was so with a number of photos I took and stored on the computer - using one or another as background meant I became very familiar with them... and I love my photos. Did anyone ever hear of backing up a computer? Well, of course, but some are better at it than others and mine hadn't been backed up for ages when, early this year, it went into major failure and I lost all the photos. Our computer-techie friend managed to retrieve a certain amount including my precious pictures and put them onto CD for me but do you know... I've never dared look at them. I am afraid he may not have found them all (although I've no reason to suppose he missed any). For the last few months I've been viewing them only in my mind. Today a new element came into the story: I discovered a Christian scrapbooking shop near where I live, which in turn had me looking for sites for printables but... I lost all those links when the computer went down. I had so many - some I won't miss, others I had been back to time and again but, as they were saved to favourites, I didn't necessarily remember the details. I feel as though they are so close, as if, by leaning close to the screen in my mind and screwing my eyes up to focus on the tiny, blurry letters, I could make them out and type in the details again. I can't. They are only there as a drop-down menu, too fuzzy to see the details. If I opened the CD of photos and found some were missing, I would have to face up to real loss, because most aren't backed up anywhere else and I can't get the pictures out of my mind onto a screen again. At least with websites, a certain amount of searching has already found some old friends - and a new one too, come to think of it. I think I will have a look back through my blog and see what sites I saved here. I don't think there were any craft ones but there may be something! |
