I'll leave you with my submission for my picture of the day for the eighteenth of September - some of the sights of Funchal.
Last day of the holidays and I just don't know where the time has gone. We've had a busy day which did at least allow us to go to the RSPB sanctuary at Pulborough Brooks for a nice walk and to get a good view of one of the herds of deer (close enough to just about touch them from the one of the hides). The only mishap for the day was that Donna was baking one of the cakes for the forthcoming feast of St Bruno when the cake tin suffered a major structural failure which means that I am going to have to go and purchase a new, large tin tomorrow as a replacement. It's off to bed for an early night shortly because the alarm goes off at 04:10 tomorrow once again. Groan! I'll leave you with my submission for my picture of the day for the eighteenth of September - some of the sights of Funchal. Whilst we were away we made a conscious decision not to be too accessible to anyone. Yes we took our mobile phones with us but apart from a "we've arrived!" phone call to respective parents and Donna checking in with her Mum once a week we decided on no Internet access, no emails, no text messages, no news, no nothing! This means that when I arrived home I had about two hundred emails to deal with. Most of these were junk and of no importance and a great deal better than last year when I had almost three thousand to deal with! One of the surprising things was that we didn't miss having the news thrust at us all the time. Since getting back I realise that neither Syria nor North Korea have gone away and that al Qaeda are still being murdering arseholes wherever they can be. There are a few more domestic stories; you know the sort of things, politicians being stupid, nasty little murders and other such sordid stuff but I haven't worried about those at all and I begin to wonder whether I shouldn't just scrap the news altogether and just carry on in my own sweet way. Actually, that would be a bit of a simplistic view to take overall because it is somewhat necessary to be slightly in contact with the world although as I have found, most of the hardest decisions to be made are those made on the home front. Everything from "is there enough cash to pay the bills?" through to "when does it become necessary to turn the heating on?" Some decisions are harder than others and sometimes having to make those decisions is forced upon you or rather the decision is made for you by the simple fact that there is no other sensible course of action. To that end, this is going to be a very difficult week indeed. Here are some heart-warming sequences of people helping animals. We crawled through the door at just after midnight and after a quick shower we fell into bed and then didn't sleep at all well; probably tonight. Have we had fun? Can we do it? YES WE CAN! YIPPY AYE YAY! We have got up to all sorts of things that we wouldn't have thought possible. The weather has been a mixed bag but that hasn't meant a damn! For once, it was all about Donna and me. We have overindulged in food, booze and frolicking, found new museums, made new friends, planted trees, picked grapes, mud wrestled, watched whales - you name it and we have probably done it. Apart from staying in contact that is. We switched off from email and the Internet, from television and radio and mostly from the news. We have been out of touch in the nicest possible way and have had a brilliant time to show for it. We have come away with new culinary delights and new ideas for booze and things. Now we are back, I have to sort through a couple of thousand photographs and pick out the best ones for you all to see but right now, I am going to have myself a cold beer and spend some time with the cats who have missed us a lot this time. Have an animated western to keep you amused until tomorrow. Rob 'n' Ron from Tumblehead on Vimeo. Well, that's it. We are just about ready to go now. The holiday video has been created (see above) and we have set up the alarm on the house and got our burly CID neighbour to keep an eye on the property. Did I tell you he arrested an electrician we had working here one day? Tackled him in the garden because he didn't know that this chap was doing a job for us. It is really great to have neighbours like this. Twenty four hours from now we are going to be in Madeira unless there is something major going on and believe you me, it would have to be really, earth-shatteringly major. There would need to be a damned good reason to cancel it all now. So, now that all remains before we go is for me to leave you with a video clip. Here it is seven minutes of harmonica jamming. I don't normally like the "harp" but this is quite amazing. First of all, apologies for not posting yesterday's entry. It was all ready and written, I just forgot to publish it. I posted it first thing this morning so it is available for viewing now. One thing I forgot to say yesterday was that we were entertained when we were stuck in a traffic queue in Chichester. Because it is the Goodwood Revival festival there was an old RAF Canberra bomber doing circuits and bumps over the area. I was fascinated to see the pilot really put this old aircraft through its paces. How he ever got away with flying this forty or fifty year old airframe to this extreme limit is amazing. I looked on with fondness because I used to watch the Canberras flying over RAF Wildenrath when I was but a little child. Anyway, after returning home and having our respective haircuts, we had our Indian takeaway yesterday evening and our bottle of champagne and had a smashing evening. Unfortunately I paid the price of over indulging with a bit of an upset tum this morning. Thankfully we have a couple of days to go so that it can clear up before the hols. Today has been last minute preparation time hence the rather mediocre shot above. Donna has been busy packing and it has been a struggle to get everything into the luggage allowance that Easyjet has allowed us. Because of this, both Donna and I have decided to wear our poacher jackets. You know the type, lots of pockets. This way we can carry a few other items (books, chargers, medicines) and on the day we are going to wear cargo pants with extra pockets so we are going to have a bit more space for carrying things too. It won't be too bad on the return trip because we will have abandoned most of the holiday reading material and also some of the tatty clothes and shoes that we will be taking with us. Still, that part of the trip is two weeks ahead of us and I intend to forget everything and be totally disconnected from the electronic world. No Internet, no web, no email no nothing! That means no blogging, no fun videos or whatever. In the meantime, have a clumsy dog video compilation. Today was a day for familial duty. That is, we took a trip down to see Donna's parents before we go on holiday. Ruth is fine but shattered looking after Ben, who is getting decidedly grumpy because he cannot do the sort of things that he wants to because of his frail condition. Apart from a trip down to the local tip to get rid of months worth of garden waste, Donna and I had the chance to wander around the local town where I snapped this shot of a mannequin in a beauty parlour. I thought that the reflections in the shop window made it look like she was running down the High Street casting all cares (and her clothing) to the wind. We had a reasonable haul of books from the charity shops. We also had the chance for a walk on the local beach to watch a beautiful springer spaniel pup called Harvey, pounding along, chasing the seagulls and having terrific fun. Familial duty having been done we have returned home for our pre holiday haircut and a takeaway curry (which is in the offing) and we have a bottle of champagne to kill which has sat around in the fridge for far too long. Enough of the chitchat, it's time to enjoy! Have a very droll animation "Inappropriate Flash Mob". Oops! I forgot to post this last night! Sorry! Inappropriate Flash Mob from Yankee Peddler on Vimeo. The holiday begins here. Today was Donna's first day on holiday so we had a leisurely lie in until eight o'clock and then fought our way through the chaos that is traffic in the village at the moment and into town to get the last vestiges of shopping before we leave this insignificant island for another even more insignificant one. The difference being that we live in this one and at times are heartily sick of it and the one we are visiting will be warm and sunny (probably) and will have sparkling seas (in all probability) and if nothing else, will be filled with people we like and know. An island where we can let our hair down, eat, sleep and recharge our batteries. Somewhere where we can do nothing if that suits us or be active and busy otherwise. I don't know why people yearn to be away so much because we always want to come home in the end but for a few days we can be blissfully pampered and it does the body and soul so much good. Just the mere thought of a holiday is invigorating. I suppose that it is because there are a different set of responsibilities. One doesn't have to worry whether the car will fail it's MoT test or if that bloody Tom cat from over the way is going to come and crap in the middle of your lawn or whether the nasty neighbours are going to have a noisy party. One doesn't have to concern oneself with whether the bills are coming in. The most you have to worry about is if you should have another glass of beer before you eat or whether to try and get up in time to catch the hotel minibus to whichever site of interest they are going to today. It really is La Dolce Vita for a few days. I can't say that we aren't looking forward to it.
Here's something to give you vertigo. A compilation of falling scenes from the movies. ![]() You know the definition of "Expert"? "Ex" means past it and "Spurt" is a drip under pressure! The kitchen tap installation went well. I hesitate to say swimmingly in case it is inviting disaster but after only an hour, I had removed and replaced lots of unnecessary pipe work, installed two isolating valves and had installed the new taps. It has been the better part of a day now and there hasn't been a single drip or leak. It is wonderful. That isn't what I am here to write about though. For once, I want to sing the praises of a politician. For me this is almost unheard of. Just who is this politician and why? Step forward David Cameron and his defence of Great Britain in light of being told that we are an insignificant island by the Russians. Now let's be quite clear about this. This is an insignificant little island beset by problems. eE don't hold the sway that we did when we had an empire that spanned a huge portion of the globe. We don't have the resources to mount huge military operations, we don't have the industrial might to have that much clout in the world. However we are a proud nation. We have had all of these things in the past and we have abused them but we can stand back and watch as the Americans mess up their attempts to carve out an empire and administer to it. We can stand back and watch the Russians fail to control their own people by brutality, we can laugh in the faces of tin-pot South American and Middle Eastern dictators. We can stand back and hold our heads up in pride because we did it first. We have made the mistakes that you are making right now. Criticize us and you implicitly criticize your very selves. I am deeply patriotic about this country and its history (perhaps not its politicians) and I still like Shakespeare's description of it in his Richard II, Act II scene i: "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,-- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." Having said that I am not jingoistic; just patriotic. Now this is a really tongue in cheek video clip. It is a spoof Kickstarter crowdfunding request to help start World War III. Very, very tongue in cheek and it does take the mickey out of politicians... Enjoy! First of all an update on the travel chaos in the village... It was absolutely appalling this morning with queues of forty minutes or more in all directions - just dreadful. By the evening, the queues have almost disappeared and I had a magnificent drive into the village only getting stopped by traffic lights some hundred yards from them. Why is this? Because people are starting to use the roads that they should use for commuting and are not coming through the village! Perhaps they might like to continue like this? Anyway... what does one need just before taking a break? That's right, a reasonably major plumbing job. Our old kitchen mixer tap has been a bit drippy for a year or more and I have been unable to find a suitable cartridge for it but until the water meter was installed, this wasn't really an issue. Then it started to leak a little from around the swivel portion of the spout. Again, not too much of a problem if I could only find the washers. Then the tails underneath started to leak. Oops. Time to replace the tap. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem. Off comes the old tap, on goes the new one BUT the chap who did the plumbing when the kitchen was fitted all those years ago was a member of the old school. He soldered every joint including the tails. So muggins here has to do a reasonably major plumbing job involving pipe cutters, hacksaws and the like. The long and the short of it is that once again in this house, I will be doing the job that should have been done all those years ago and I will not be benefiting from that job. Someone else will. Flipping typical. As ever there is a shortage of space beneath the sink so I will need to be a contortionist to get to anything I need to do. Anyway, we have elected to put in a better lever type tap so that it will be easier to turn the taps on or off when one has slippery hands or arthritis. I need to get cracking on the repair so that it can bed in and be leak tested before we disappear on hols. Watch this space (and listen for the cursing and swearing!). Have a weird animation. "Pulse" Pulse from Yangzi She on Vimeo. So the time has come once again when "The Street" as it is known on maps (but not by the locals) is being dug up in Cowfold village. So what is special about that? Well, let me explain... The Street is about one hundred and fifty feet long at the most but digging it up has the most dire effect because it is the A272, the major East / West artery through the village. If that wasn't bad enough it is also, at this point, the A281, the major North / South artery through the village - the two roads intersect and double up on it. When it is controlled by the two roundabouts (which it normally is) the traffic during rush hour can be rather heavy and delays can be expected morning and evening. When it becomes a single lane and is controlled by traffic lights, it becomes a nightmare. Today, that nightmare happened. It is only the third or fourth time in twenty one years that this has happened so I suppose I shouldn't complain but each time the construction companies don't set the traffic lights up properly, so that at least one stream of traffic experiences much longer delays than normal; this time it is no different. Life would be a lot easier if people coming out of Horsham, joined the main A24 up there rather than coming down into Cowfold and scooting out to the A24 but they do insist on taking this "shortcut" which (a) isn't and (b) puts a great deal of extra traffic at this crucial point. To make matters worse, at the moment a lot of folks are coming through Cowfold in a bid to escape the misery of the prolonged, major A23 roadworks at Handcross. This means even more traffic on our congested little bit of road. I suppose that if the traffic lights remain for more than a couple of days, some of the extra traffic may decided not to come this way during the rush hour but that remains to be seen. All it will mean for us is that there will be a thrumming of traffic outside the house for much longer than usual possibly well into the evening. Oh well, I suppose it won't be forever and it won't bother us after Thursday. Yesterday I had clumsy cats, today I have talented animals... on skateboards... Bleagh! I am still in the throes of this wretched cold. It got to the point where I had to take some cough mixture to try and stop the incessant scratchy, dry cough. That is something I rarely have to do. I think what is the most trying is the fatigue that goes with it. Having woken up this morning after nine hours of sleep, it took me all of about thirty minutes before I felt so washed out that I could have slept again. Still, we took a walk this morning to clear the tubes and get some exercise and although I felt a lot better, I then spent most of the afternoon sleeping! So what has happened in the world this week? There has been a bit of everything from common sense amongst our politicians where they decided not to get embroiled in a military confrontation with Syria (just yet) to Tokyo "winning" the honour to run the 2020 Olympics. Winning... hell's teeth we are still paying for the Olympics of last year and will be doing so for a good many years to come. The long lasting legacy of the Olympics isn't quite what the government had in mind. You only have to look at the mess they have made with returning the three day eventing course back to what it was again. A shocking fiasco. Then there was the heart warming story of the discovery of an award of the Blue Cross medal for bravery to a Great Dane who, during the second world war, urinated on an incendiary device thus extinguishing it and saving the property from going up in smoke. It really comes down to a lack of anything interesting going on (and let's not call the Australian elections interesting, shall we?) when the best thing that can happen is a piddling dog getting a medal. Actually, not quite the best thing. The best thing would be a compilation of cats doing things that make them look clumsy. I mentioned yesterday that the "Christmas" word had been mentioned and my reaction to it. Well, today when I went into a charity shop, one of the ladies pointed me to their Christmas card display and I must have shuddered visibly because she was rather taken aback. So I mentioned that we hadn't had Halloween yet. She told me that she knew but orders were orders and these had come from head office that they must get their Christmas goodies out on display. Also she mentioned that all the other charity shops were doing it so it was good to tap into a market at the same time. That has just put the kibosh on my Christmas. Being thought of as little more than "a market" doesn't exactly do it for me. I thought that Christmas was all about the birth of Christ, the giving, the good cheer etc. and not for being fleeced out of everything on the way. Now you can begin to see why I hate Christmas. Still, be that as it may, we spent a good bit of time going around town equipping ourselves for our forthcoming break. We picked up our tickets and the like and apart form the final bit of packing, I do believe that we are ready to go. That leaves me with creating a list of tech products that we need to take with us (mostly cameras and chargers) and finding room for them in the luggage. It is amazing just how much of your twenty kilograms of luggage these items take. My cold is working its way through my system and apart from having a head full of cotton wool and a hacking cough, things seem to be settling down a bit. Apart from my tum that is. For some unknown reason, cough sweets give me undue amounts of flatus and last night I was a one man wind ensemble. Don't ask me why this is the case but I must make sure I don't have any cough sweets before getting on the aircraft. Varying cabin pressure and a bowel full of farts isn't going to be a good combination for all concerned! Here's a slightly different video for you. Parkour (or the French art of running away as it is jovially known) is a very skilled art and you really need to be very sure of yourself. One slip and... well... the effects could be deadly. Here's a human's eye view of parkour - it might make you feel a bit vertiginous - you have been warned! You won't believe just how grumpy this cold is making me! OK, OK... "grumpier", I'll give in to you with that one. Why was I grumpy? Was it because I had slept nine hours straight and felt better? Was it because the weather had turned from sunshine to rain? Was it because Donna had taken the day off work and had gone up to London anyway to see her friend Angela? Was it because the cough sweets have given me dreadful wind? "No" to all of those. The reason why I am feeling grumpy is that one of the first comments I saw this morning on the 365project website was that Christmas is only one hundred and ten days away. Good heavens! Someone is already counting down? For goodness sakes, the kids have only just gone back to school. We haven't had Halloween yet or Guy Fawkes night! Please don't tell me that people are preparing for Yuletide when I haven't even had my summer holiday yet. Perhaps having the cold has made me grumpier. Maybe just getting older makes me grumpier. Please can we stop wishing our lives away or more to the point, please stop wishing MY life away. Sorry to be such a misery guts but that is how I feel. I hope that you have a terrific weekend. Here's a very telling little animation. "Un Conte" Un Conte from GOBELINS pro on Vimeo. I'm going to keep it short and sweet today because the snuffle I had last week has returned with additional sneezing, coughing and a rasping sore throat that, whenever I eat or drink anything, feels like someone has poured acid into my mouth. Why the heading? It's because I find that when I have a cold, my attention wanders enough to make ordinary writing appear to say something else. It is probably a concentration thing but I have a book entitled "Moral Combat", a history of, and the military ethics in, World War Two and my mind worked overtime and changed both words. Then I began to wonder whether there was such a thing as an immortal wombat or maybe an immoral wombat. I wondered what other little gems I was going to come across and sure enough within a couple of minutes one of my photographic colleagues sent me a cheesy greeting which on second view became a cheery greeting. It really doesn't take much to really mess up the meaning of a phrase or saying does it? Let's face it, wars have started for less than a changed letter or misplaced piece of punctuation. Anyway, I am going to bid you a good evening because I feel a tiny bit dreadful and I think that very shortly I will be trying to eat a meal and then turning in for the night. I hope that you have a great evening and I will be back tomorrow. Here's a bit of fun. Even when the Beatles were splitting up they sounded pretty darned good. Here they are singing a medley of songs from Abbey Road without the music (mostly!) I gave myself a scare this afternoon. I was collecting up some tools to do a job when I dropped a chisel. As it hurtled down towards my foot, the sharpest edge turned downwards with a view to severing a toe oe two because I was wearing sandals. I managed to move my foot out of the way by a hair's breadth and it missed me. All of this happened in a split second or less but I had terrible visions of losing a joint or cutting some veins or worse still, an artery but this is the sort of risk we all take, every day. For us in the United Kingdom, the chances of being trampled by a rogue hippopotamus or savaged by a tiger are almost non-existent but we have our own risk set that we casually ignore even though the consequences of doing so could be just as deadly as fighting with a hungry and angry grizzly bear. Let's start the day with the humble alarm clock shall we? It goes off all of a sudden and makes me jump. My pulse quickens, blood pressure increases, insulin and adrenaline flows and I am ready to indulge in the fright, flight, fight or shite reaction that adrenaline brings on. That momentary burst of waking is enough to pop off those with a weaker constitution than mine. Next, we get up and go downstairs. Seriously? I am half asleep and I walk down a steep flight of stairs clutching a drinking glass in one hand and usually something else (mobile phone or book for example) in the other. It would take so little to stumble and hurl myself several feet downwards using up all that potential energy stored by climbing upwards the previous night. Then it is into the kitchen and start boiling a kettle. Lots of threats there then; hot water and sleepiness... not a good mix. Slicing some bread for Donna's sandwiches... With a knife that advertises itself as being made from the finest surgical steel? It is asking for a disaster to happen in one's slightly groggy and somnolent state. Getting into the shower... water and electricity... a good mix... NOT! Shaving; getting razor sharp slivers of metal near to one's jugular vein? Mmmhmmm. I won't even go on about driving a ton and a half of assorted metal and plastic with a tank full of explosive and flammable liquid inside it, at speed, to take Donna to the station. You see, our days are numbered and we seem intent on finding new ways to injure and incapacitate ourselves. Perhaps being threatened by a rogue hippo might not be such a bad thing after all. I suppose that we don't have to be too worried about the day to day things that we do, that are dangerous. Not when there are people who are actively trying to remove themselves from the gene pool... |
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May 2015
AuthorPaul Everest - Shining wit (at least that is what I think they said) |