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It was such a nice day that we decided to do our eight mile South Downs walk. At points during the walk we were surrounded by Swifts, Swallows, Housemartins and Skylarks with the occasional Buzzard thrown in for good measure. At several other points, we were surrounded by nothing but silence; no cars, no aircraft just the sound of the breeze soughing gently through the barley and wheat. It was a timeless scene that could have been from the Battle of Britain back in 1940 or from the Middle Ages, the only thing spoiling the imagery being the aircraft contrails in the skies. Still, not to complain! It has been gorgeous.
I spent the afternoon putting up a new security lantern at the front of the house where our old one mysteriously got smashed whilst we were off in the West Country. Actually, I lie. I did all the hard work yesterday. Today was just getting the wretched thing to work and fit together properly. Once again, it was made to exacting British standards in a factory in China which meant that it needed to be modified to go together properly and the biggest curse of all is that it has an Edison screw light fitting, not a bayonet fitting. I can't believe that in this day and age we are still using screw lightbulb fittings. It precludes getting an energy saving bulb for it unless I shop around. Talking of saving, we have been told that we are definitely getting a water meter fitted. Despite a wet summer and winter which filled reservoirs and removed the stress from our water supply, Southern Water have decided that they are going to go ahead, hoping to penalise people through their wallets for excessive water usage rather than fixing leaks, building new reservoirs or turning to newer technology (such as desalination) to improve supply. Thus, they are going to line their pockets at peoples expense for the first couple of quarters and then when people do save water and money, they wil raise the prices to maintain their profits. Basically they will make more money from less product. It's a good job if you can get it, isn't it? Before Southern Water come up looking all sorrowful and saying that this isn't the way they work, I will point out to them their trial in the Isle of Wight at the end of the last century. That was when they skinned a large number of the island's population for using too much water and making it too expensive to waste. Right! Another week beckons so I will leave you with a video which is called "When animals attack!" although a lot of it seems down to human stupidity.