|
1 June 2011
(Wednesday) - A Rant. (Sorry!)
Yesterday I ranted about kites being
banned at Bexhill. Today I’m going to rant some more about it. Because
it’s important, and because if you don’t stick up for yourself, you get
walked all over. And because I’m sick and tired of being
banned by officialdom. Many years ago, together with a gaggle of
mates, I'd go to "Star Trek Events". Between 1993 and 1997
we'd go to all sorts of trekkie-related things.
Conventions in the But not any more – it all got banned. I used to keep large
snakes as a hobby. At first sight you might think it's a dangerous thing
to do, but you would be wrong, as anyone who’s ever held a royal python would
know. No one in the (Having said that, the hobby is once
more picking up, but realistically it is but a shadow of what it once was.) One of the pastimes for many years has been
mass outings to a lovely picnic site at Kearsney Abbey where anyone who knows
me will tell you what I do there. I guzzle two bottles of beer and fall
asleep. Not any more! I can’t do that any more as
the area is now a “zero tolerance for alcohol” zone. I enjoy a cigar. I used to sometimes have
as many as six in a year. Now thanks to the smoking ban I can’t remember my
last cigar. In 2001 I bought my first power kite. It
was great fun. A few months after that we experimented with the fun and
frolics of people lifting and “arsing”, but it didn’t take long to
realise that what we were doing was potentially dangerous, not only to
ourselves, but to passers-by, so we formed a formal kite club and got
insurance. Very soon after this we began hearing rumours of certain councils
banning kite flying on their land. Wonderful! There is a Google group called rec.kites.
If you go back far enough on that site you’ll find my comments on the subject
are still there, some years later. But then – Salvation!! This bloke in
Yorkshire was getting in touch with all of the kite clubs in the So we joined up with them from the start,
enthusiastically supporting them. Mind you, they were never easy to support.
It took some weeks to get a straight answer to the question of how much they
wanted off of us as a subscription fee. Our enthusiasm was somewhat blunted
by the observation that as members we were liable for anything they did
wrong, and incredibly blunted by their flat refusal to take the problem
seriously. We let our affiliation lapse until such
time as the liability issue was sorted. During this time my support for the
ideals of this club remained as enthusiastic as ever. I would regularly post
on their club Internet forum, but as time went on, my enthusiasm was more for
the ideal than for the club itself. Having drawn up a constitution and having
very rudely told me how important said constitution was, the BKFA then flaunted
it several times. And so I for one rather resigned myself to
losing yet another hobby. And I was right. The ban at Bexhill is the thin end
of the wedge. Whilst there is some pyrrhic satisfaction
in saying “I told you so”, didn't I spend years ranting at the kite
flying community that this would happen? Didn't I? And did anyone listen? Did
they? Let’s no one act surprised about this. I
ranted about this over six years ago…… But ranting is easy. Doing something about
it….. is easy too. Should this ban be enacted at
Bexhill, does anyone fancy joining me in some mass civil disobedience? |
|
2 June 2011
(Thursday) - Stuff
After brekkie I popped to Asda for various
bits and bobs. Amongst the stuff they were flogging this morning was washing
up bowls. It was pointed out last weekend that some of the bowls we take
camping have seen better days, so I thought I’d get new ones. At the bargain
price of three for a fiver, it wasn’t to be sniffed at. However there was a
problem. When I came to pay for them at the self-service checkout, the device
had a minor humdinger. Its programming couldn’t comprehend anyone buying
three washing-up bowls. It flashed up a warning about triplicate item
purchase, and flashed the “ask the nice lady” warning. Eight members
of staff then ignored me. Eight! – I counted them. As a ninth tried to ignore
me I made great show of shouting at her and loudly broadcasting my problems.
She politely (but firmly) told me that it wasn’t anything she could
deal with: she’s not trusted on the tills. I firmly and noisily (but not
politely) told her to go and get someone who was trusted on the tills. A manager-type came over to find out what
all the noise was about. I explained that I quite understand that the
machines are fallible, and that not all of the staff are
till-worthy. But that it was rather frustrating to be obviously studiously
ignored. Picking up my sack barrow from HomeBase was (in comparison) utterly painless. Work was much the same as ever, and after
work a gaggle of colleagues went into town to the Wetherspoons’s
curry night. After a quick diversion for a McFlurry
we had a pint and ordered our food. In retrospect a vindaloo was perhaps not
the most sensible of choices, but it (eventually) went down well. There are those that run down Wetherspoons,
but I must admit to liking them. They aren’t the most up-market
establishments; the food isn’t haute-cuisine, and the service often
leaves a lot to be desired. But a curry, dessert, two pints of ale, and
change out of a tenner isn’t to be sniffed at…. |
3
June 2011 (Friday) - Exploration
I started reading a new book on my Kindle today – the memoirs of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton is a personal hero of mine. He was a major figure in Antarctic exploration; at one point holding the world record for the person who’d got closest to the South Pole. I won’t go into endless details of his life – there’s a good summary here. A brief synopsis would be that despite three failed Antarctic expeditions, he was embarking on his fourth one when he dropped dead. (That’s what being British is!) What I find so amazing about the chap is that he was one of the last “proper” explorers. I’m currently reading about his expedition of 1914 in which he planned to cross the Antarctic from one side to the other, via the South Pole. He didn’t quite achieve it; in fact he never quite got started. But he got to the Antarctic, and made his way through hundreds of miles of uncharted oceans and ice floes and coastlines. He was going through utterly unexplored territory. He was drawing the maps as he went along, naming mountains, cliffs, beaches and other geographical features after the patrons who’d financed his expedition. And had he actually managed to start his intented traverse, he may well have been utterly scuppered by as-yet undiscovered mountain ranges. But the fear of the unknown didn’t bother him. Or any of the other explorers of his time (or earlier). There will never be an age of exploration quite like Shackleton's. Even as mankind (slowly) reaches for the Moon, Mars, and beyond, everywhere we go will have been mapped out by satellite radar long before any explorers get going. And the same satellite technology will allow explorers on the ground to locate themselves on their maps to within a yard or so thanks to the wonders of GPS technology. Whilst our interplanetary explorers will be brave and bold, they will none of them face the unknown in quite the same way that Sir Ernest once did…. These profound thoughts came to me today,
when ‘er indoors TM and I field
tested her latest acquisition: a set of cards detailing short walks round We had a wonderful walk: ‘er indoors TM missed seeing the fox, but we both saw the water vole – I’d never seen one before. I know it was a water vole because I took a photo and looked it up when we got home. And we will do more of these walks. Yesterday I thought of them as walks into unexplored territory. Now I know that they are only unexplored by me. No one has been to "unexplored territory" since Sir Ernest died… |
|
4 June 2011
(Saturday) - One Step Beyond....
The last two days
have taken their toll. My stomach’s not been right for a day or so. I blame
Thursday night’s curry. The menu did rate my vindaloo at six chillies, and
the next hottest dish only had four. But it was tasty at the time. I expect
my insides will be back to usual (if not “normal”) in a day or so. As well as
intestinal discomfort (posh for excessive farting) I also woke this
morning feeling almost unable to move. I’m getting un-fit. I think I need to
do more walks like yesterday’s. I worked this
morning: I wasn’t rota-ed to, but the boss was, and she wasn’t keen to work.
Did I want to do her shift? So I had the chance of overtime and I took it. After a dull morning
I came home and cleaned out the fish pond filter, then (having scrubbed
myself) I ironed for two hours, whilst watching the film “Aliens”.
And then, having fallen asleep for an hour or so after the film, the day had
been pretty much wasted. Fortunately we had
plans for the evening. To Fortunately for all,
we soon reached our destination. A friend of a friend’s daughter is a member
of the Stage Theatre Society, and
tonight they put on “Our
House”: the Madness equivalent of “Mamma Mia”. As a young lad
in the late 70s I was there when Madness first appeared on the music scene. I
remember when “Baggy Trousers” and “Night Boat to Cairo” first
came out. And so I really enjoyed tonight’s show, quietly singing along to
all of the songs. Mind you, the plot was somewhat difficult to figure out,
but if you’ve seen the movie “Sliding Doors”,
you’d soon get the hang of what was going on. I for one had an wonderful evening. (And on the way
home we got to see a seriously foxy transvestite, which isn’t something you
see every day). However (and
there is always a “however”), I’ve always said that I don’t like going to
the cinema; preferring to see the film in comfort at home. The same is doubly
true of theatre. Tonight’s show was excellent; there’s no denying that.
However (like every performance I’ve seen at the Hazlett Theatre) the
hard work of the performers was let down by the sound system. For about half
the time it was not possible to hear the actors because the band’s music was
too loud. The theatre was too hot, and I was very uncomfortable and very
sweaty for the entire performance. And then there was
the Great Unwashed. There was a constant stream of the Lower Orders walking
in and out of the theatre on various missions of their own. The porky biddy
next to me stank to high heaven, and wouldn’t shut up about her grand
daughter who was playing the part of “second baggy trouser”. And I
came very close to slapping the prat in the queue for the ice cream stall who was oblivious to the rest of the world. Could he
honestly not see that whilst he was attempting to charm his way into the
knickers of the young lady selling ice creams, the queue was growing longer
each second? The same company
will be putting on a production of “Les Miserables”
in a few months time. For all that I know I would really enjoy the show
itself, I might give that one a miss…. |
|
5 June 2011
(Sunday) – Fossils
Anyone who knows me will know that I
organise my calendar. I plan for events months in advance. There are several
reasons for this – it’s very easy to find that I’ve agreed to go to several
conflicting events; it’s very easy for me to forget about events, and that if
I don’t have something planned, it’s very easy to waste precious time doing
nothing. Some months ago when making plans, bearing
in mind that this would be the first weekend in June we naively thought that
this would be a good day to go to the beach. We woke to find light drizzle,
but if we gave up every time the weather was against us, we’d give up an
awful lot. We set off, only ten minutes later than
planned, and narrowly avoiding the police speed trap at Cliff End, we arrived
at our destination (Cliff End) five minutes before the Folkestone
contingent arrived. We had a quick cuppa, and then wandered down to the
cliffs, where we embarked on our fossil hunt. Fossil hunting is rather akin to
arky-ologee. It involves taking an inordinate amount of time to not find very
much. But occasionally there’s something worth having. And there’s probably
more to be found in fossil hunting that in arky-ologee. I think it’s fair to say that in an hour’s fossiling we found far more than we ever would in a day’s
arky-ologing. We found fossilised sponges, fishes
teeth, fossilised wood, and even a crocodile’s scrote.
And I got to clout things with a great big hammer too (!) It took me a little while to realise that
one shouldn’t bam just any old rock; fossils are (apparently) quite
fussy about where they lurk. But I soon found the right sort of rock. Having got the hang of what I was supposed
to do, it would have been good to have continued, but the rain was getting
heavier and heavier. And the tide was coming in fast. Very fast. So not
wanting to get cut off we beat a hasty retreat back to the cars. On the way
back we were accosted by a normal person who asked if we knew anything about
fossils. We laughed, but he was serious, and he showed us his find. We
scratched out heads over what he’d found, and eventually concluded that it
was some sort of stone. Possibly a rock or even a boulder. The normal person
didn’t seem impressed with our sage wisdom, and we left him to get cut off by
the tide and we went back to the cars for our picnic. The original plan has
us picnic-ing on the beach. In the end we picnic-ed
in the cars to shelter from the rain. As the rain increased from “deluge”
to “monsoon” we sadly gave up with the beach, and drove into |
|
6 June 2011
(Monday) – Stuff
I suspect that I don’t like the attempt at
having bits of an ongoing story interspersed in various episodes. They should
either have a story in several episodes, or have the stories utterly separate
from each other. Having silly little disjointed fragments here, there and
thither is not keeping my attention – it’s just annoying. Doctor Who is now on hold over the summer
and returns in September. While I’m keen for its return I’m hoping for the
best whilst expecting the worst. This morning I had an email from Aleksandra;
a Russian lady of (presumably) dubious morals. Her email was entitled
“Amorous message #17375756”. I must admit I wasn’t impressed at being
her 17375756th choice. But as well as asking for my hand in
marriage, she assured me that she’s never married (a) lady with hazel
eyes and brown hair. I’m not sure if that is good or bad. Here’s
an interesting tale. Canadian parents David Stocker and Kathy Witterick have had a baby. That’s nothing unusual –
parents have babies all over the world. Baby boys and baby girls. However
this baby is neither. Yet. The parents have decided not to tell the world
what gender the child is (biologically): the idea being that “they
want (the child) to discover him/herself by shielding the child from cultural
influences that would otherwise influence gender identity”. An admirable
sentiment in a perfect world. But we don’t live in a perfect world. My
first thought was that in this imperfect world all these silly parents are
doing is ensuring that the child will receive a serious dose of bullying and
victimisation at school should the boy like playing with dolls, or the girl
like football. But then I thought again. If a boy of
twenty years ago liked playing with dolls, of a girl of twenty years ago
liked football then there might have been problems.Nowadays
does it really matter? I can’t help but feel that these people’s
silly idea will achieve nothing other than make the child the attention of a
media circus. And if that doesn’t screw up the child’s sense of
self-identity, nothing will…. |
|
7 June 2011 (Tuesday) - More Stuff
Having lain awake
for what seemed like hours, I gave up trying to sleep and went downstairs and
put on a South Park DVD. I selected “Play All”, and woke up with a
stiff neck two hours later. If only I could sleep where and when I’m supposed
to sleep. To Asda to buy
lunch. Having spent a small fortune on my Kindle, I was somewhat dismayed to
see that they were selling Binatone e-book readers
at a third of the price of a Kindle. I contented myself
with the fact that I knew the Binatone brand. I can
remember that as a child the Binatone brand was (in
my experience) synonymous with cheap and nasty. And then I realised that
my experience was of thirty-odd years ago. If Binatone
are still going after all these years, they can’t be all bad. And so I sulked
for an hour or so. My sulking wasn’t
improved by the news on the radio. The government has announced its latest
anti-terrorism measures. They
are going to stop funding extremists. Wow!! I wonder how many think-tanks
it took to come up with that stroke of genius? And then there was
an article about the latest
proposed changes to the NHS. I’ve maintained for a long time that the NHS
doesn’t need change; it needs years of stability to actually get on with the
business of health care, rather than struggling with the business of coping
with endless political reorganisations. Interestingly the
pundit on the radio agreed with me. He explained that no reform of the NHS
has ever been planned or evaluated. He claimed that all the NHS reforms had
been instigated and abandoned at the whim of the prevailing political climate
at the time, and likened the reasoning used as being akin to Sooty waving a
magic wand. That cheered me up. And so home, where
I loaded the car up with all the camping gear. I say “all” – I mean
enough to be getting on with for today. I’ve got all the tents, chairs and
tables loaded up. The more important stuff (like the beer) will be
packed tomorrow. I’ve just realised
I’ve forgotten to pack the dingy…. |
|
8 June 2011
(Wednesday) - Even More Stuff
Again after having lain awake for ages, I
went downstairs and put on a South Park DVD only to wake up with a stiff neck
two hours later. And then to work, which was much the same as ever.
Fortunately being on an early start made for an early finish, and I came home to finish
the packing. I eventually found “Daddies Little Angel TM
” ‘s dingy. It was in a tent bag. I can’t help but wonder whatever
possessed me to put it in a tent bag. I also found the washing bowls I’d
lost. We’ve now got nine. Talking of lost things, I found the spanner I use
to assemble the buggy. I shan’t need it for a year, but I know where it is.
I’ve also aquired a length of hose pipe (from
the home brew kit) which will hopefully save my back when I’m on water
duty whilst at camp. On the other hand I’ve lost my flannel. I shall wash
with a pair of pants instead – they will do the same job. Whilst loading the last of the odds and
ends into my car I noticed that my neighbour (the ones that hate me)
was parking her car, so I stood and watched. Watching her park her car is a
sight to behold. She cuts across the traffic and reverses so that the rear
end of her car is square with the pavement – actually at right angles to the
position the car should be in. She then shunts forward and backward (sometimes
for over half an hour) until she’s turned her car through a right angle
and has it parking against the flow of traffic. Having watched her parking (and
driving in general) I am convinced that she can’t have passed her driving
test. But the car is taxed (and therefore presumably insured). Talking of neighbours’ the ones we get on
with have taken over feeding the Koi for the weekend. She told me that her
lad goes to cubs where I was a leader, and that the leaders there send their
regards. Whilst I really should pop round and see how they are at some point,
I *really* don’t want to because I just know that I’ll volunteer to take on
something or other to do with the scout group, and having done the scout
thing for thirteen years I really think that I’ve done my bit. And having got the packing done rather
quicker than I was expecting I’ve got the next batch of home brew into a
barrel. It’s a light coloured summer ale, and is as
yet un-named. Suggestions are welcomed. And today’s photo is one of the space
shuttles docked at the I.S.S. We won’t see the like of this again. (Well,
maybe once more). As a child I had such high hopes for the future of
humanity…. |
|
9 June 2011
(Thursday) - Off to Teston
With the loading up
all done, over a spot of brekkie I saw that B&Q were selling small
gazebos for seventeen quid, and bearing in mind the weather forecast wasn’t
good, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have some shelter. We set off arguably
far too early and made our way to Teston via B&Q for a gazebo. The
traffic on the way wasn’t good, but we arrived on the field before10am, and
set to setting up camp. With rain forecast for 1pm I wanted to have all the
tents up before the rain started. And we achieved this. We even had time to
put the curtains up in “Brown and Smelly” – a tent’s not a tent
without curtains. And these were particularly sexy curtains. Having put the
tents away wet two weeks ago I was pleased to find they hadn’t grown any
mould. Another pair of
friends arrived in their camping van and caravan, and we greeted our old
friends before having an inaugural pint of beer. ‘er indoors TM and Tony arrived shortly after, and we had a
bite of lunch, including a Wagon Wheel. Apparently when eating a Wagon Wheel
you have to “grin to get it in.” I would recommend that my loyal
readers bear that adage in mind (!) And with lunch scoffed I decided to try
out my new water-fetching apparatus. Collecting the water at Teston Kite
Festival is something of a caper: there is a tap in the gents some hundreds
of yards away from where we camp, and in the past we’ve struggled with pliers
to work the tap (the tap has no handle), and we’ve strained ourselves
holding the water container under the tap (the water sprays everywhere)
and we’ve done ourselves mischief trying to haul the water back to camp. This
year I was going to simplify the job with a handle and a hose for the tap,
and a sack barrow for lugging the filled water container. In theory this
should have worked well: in practice my tap handle only worked in one direction.
It turned water on. It didn’t turn water off. Fortunately I had a pair of
pliers in my pocket. Having had the
forecast rain at 1pm, the weather cheered up, and we got kites out. Whilst ‘er indoors TM flew
her spirit nicely, the Rear Admiral and me flew his NASA power wing. I even
put on my battle nappy and had a go at arsing. For those of my loyal readers
who are as yet unaccustomed to “battle nappies” and “arsing”, a
battle nappy is a harness one wears around one’s hips when flying a power
kite. The handles of the kite line attach to the harness, and when one flies
the kite in a sitting position one is dragged around the field on one’s arse.
Hence the expression “arsing”. And then we
sheltered from the rain. Batty arrived and did us fajitas for tea. Very nice!
And then my brother arrived to set up his tent. He was only able to come out
for one day (Saturday) and so to save time, I’d suggested that he set
his tent up early. Once his tent was
up we had a wander round the field, and after he was on his way home we
settled down to do the Rear Admiral’s crossword over a pint. There were also mathematical brain teasers which I think had the
wrong solutions given. But then I would, wouldn’t I? By now it was very
dark, and we could see some lights in the field. Someone was lamping for
rabbits. We left him to it (as it was nothing to do with us) and
seeing that the clouds had parted and that the stars had come out, we spent
five minutes stargazing. I spotted three separate Castor and Polluxes in various parts of the sky. And so to bed at
12.30am, where ‘er indoors TM was
doing a silent version of the Birdie Dance. I am reliably assured she had a
valid reason for doing this, but I shall let her version of history give the
explanation…. |
|
10 June 2011
(Friday) - It Rained
An uncomfortable
night: incredibly cold, and ‘er indoors TM
and her airbed managed to take up all the space in the tent, leaving very
little (i.e. none at all) for “Yours Truly”. And it was a noisy
night too – the assorted wildlife was making a terrible din all night long,
including heart-rending screaming noises. I have since been assured that
these screams were made by rabbits falling prey to foxes. But there were a
lot of these screams. I lay in bed till
7am when the urge to tiddle became too much, and I
got up to find the field awash with fog. Very scenic. As I performed my
morning ablutions I made polite conversation with passing dog walkers; none
of whom seemed at all fazed to find a fat balding man (wearing only shorts)
having a strip wash and shave in the middle of a field. There was a minor
dilemma as I ran out of shaving gel, and I spent ten minutes wrestling with
the gas regulator. And having made myself a cup of coffee I then spent two
hours sheltering from the rain whilst waiting for everyone else to get up. After brekky, Jose
arrived just in time to see our washing up getting done, and as the rain
slackened off to a medium monsoon I put up our second new gazebo. Having been
rather impressed with our first B&Q gazebo we bought yesterday, I’d asked
‘er indoors TM to obtain us a
second one. CA then arrived with littlun, and we
put up Time for lunch, and
as the rain slackened off, I moved my chair outside. We sampled my latest
home brew “Test ‘Un” and had a cheese roll. And then I dozed off, only
to wake an hour later to find I was on my own, sitting in the rain. After the
thunderstorm had passed I found a wasp’s nest within a few yards of our camp.
That was handy (!) so I set up the wasp trap. By now the tribes
were gathering, and the field was starting to fill up. For some reason
we’d been selected as being responsible enough to be trusted with the locking
of the gates to the field, and so having chased the doggers
out of the car park we locked up. And went back to base for more beer. On
arrival at base we turned round and unlocked the gate to let in the late
arrivals. By now I was worn out with walking up and down the field, so we
rewarded ourselves with port and cheese. And then a second bottle of port and
more cheese, finally staggering off to bed at 1am. |
|
11 June 2011
(Saturday) - Teston Kite Festival
Another restless night, with the noise of
rain on the tents, rain falling from trees onto my tent, and zips opening and
closing. Following a call of nature I found myself opening the gate to the
field at 6am. Perhaps too early to be opening the gate, but I was in the
general vicinity of the gate at the time… Following my ablutions I then dozed in our
communal mess tent until everyone was up and about and brekky was served. And
as more people arrived I played with my air-yo
until lunch time. A bottle of stout with bread and cheese was perfect, and I
then dozed for an hour or so. And then the rain had gone, and the wind had
picked up a little, so we got out the power kites and played silly beggars
with them. After all, is there anything that one can do with a power kite
other than playing silly beggars? The Rear Admiral had a go at arsing, but
went face first, and was proudly showing blood stains among the grass stains.
And then my nephew learned how to fly his delta. Twenty of us sat down for a wonderful bit
of tea, and following washing up we watched the Old Gits playing with their
spud gun. And then we wandered back to base camp for a crafty half. On the
way back to base camp I was given a message – would I be gatekeeper again? So
I locked up, and then…… As the evening wore on, so I got more and
more tired, and so I sat and listened to the chat in between dozing. I could
vaguely hear one of my nephew’s mates getting rather drunk and raucous and
offensive. And then this lad was firmly put in his place. And then another
nephew’s drunken mate made a complete tit of himself by trying to act as peacemaker
when he should really have gone to bed. Perhaps I should have told the boys
off there and then, but they’d been firmly told that they were out of order.
And then the first drunken child started pissing in our mess tent. I saw red. I’ve not actually shouted “Just F@*!
Off!!!” at someone for over ten years (that time, it was my boss(!)),
and perhaps my ranting and screaming at the drunken child at 2am wasn’t the
most opportune time for me to have had a rant. But one of the advantages of
being a (generally) amiable and easy-going kind of guy is that when I
do have a screaming fit, people sit up and take notice. I’ve told my nephew it’s entirely up to him
to choose his friends, but that this particular friend is not welcome in our
campsite again. Harsh? Perhaps. Following this little bout of excitement
the adrenaline was running, and I finally went to bed shortly after 3am. |
|
12 June 2011
(Sunday) - Rained Off
I didn’t sleep very well, and despite a
good gutful of ale and port, I only slept for two hours, opening the gate at
6am. I then spent a little while tidying up the wreckage of the previous
evening’s drinking session. Being rather “oiled” at the time myself,
it never occurred to me to wonder how my nephew’s idiot mates had gotten that
oiled as well. I found out as I tidied up. Our half-bottle of Southern
Comfort was empty. As was our quarter bottle of vodka. And the full bottle of
home made wine the park ranger had given us. And most of the bottles of lager
that my brother had brought along. And I’m sure my barrel of home-brew was a
lot emptier than how I’d left it. After brekkie I refilled the water
container and gossiped with Simon. And then I had a look at Simon then roasted a Camembert for our
lunch, and we played Blokus as we listened to the rain of the tent. ‘er indoors TM was
about to go shopping for the makings of tea when we stopped and had a think.
The weather was awful with no respite forecast. With “Daddies Little Angel
TM ” ill and going home with the next
transport, were we to stay overnight there would be four of us to take down a
wet camp. At that moment there were eleven of us. So we decided to abandon
ship. Normally taking down the camp takes most of a morning. With the
concerted effort of eleven of us we were packed up and on the way home in less than two
hours. We’ve still got a wet mess tent and our
tent and it’s groundsheet to dry off, but were we to stay we would probably
have had that anyway. Much as I enjoy camping, when camping one is seriously
at the mercy of the elements, and today (and all this camp really) the
elements had not been kind to us. Which was a shame…. |
|
13 June 2011
(Monday) - Bayham Old Abbey
I went to bed last time, listening to the
rain in a rather smug sort of way. Camping is all good fun when it’s warm and
dry. And you can cope with a degree of cold and wet. And this morning I awoke
to find it had rained seriously hard overnight: the water level in my fish
pond had gone up a couple of inches. For all that it was mostly dry today, the grass in the garden was still wet at midday. If
I had any doubts about the sensibility of packing up camp early yesterday;
I’m now convinced we made the right decision. Talking of decisions, I’ve told my nephew
not to bring his idiot friend camping again. Over the years we’ve had no end
of kids and teenagers camping with us in various places, and this is the
first time there’s ever been a major problem. My immediate reaction yesterday
was to ban all under-18s from our mess tent. Which would have been utterly
unfair on the vast majority of under-18s because they are (99.9+%) decent well-mannered people. People like my nephew’s idiot friend annoy
me. Not so much because of their behaviour, but because the actions of one
idiot spoil everything for everyone else. He made me (nearly) tar
everyone of his age with the same brush when I know full well that not all youngsters
are like that. And I don’t like that! Take for example the contingent that “My
Boy TM ” is currently with. A gaggle
of them set off to I woke rather early this morning very
conscious of all the wet tents needing drying, and seeing how it wasn’t
actually raining at the time I thought I’d get some of the tents on the line.
After all, if it should start raining they were already wet. I got my tent’s
groundsheet on the washing line… How easy it is to type that: I wrestled
with the thing for forty minutes, covering myself with day-old mud from the
groundsheet. And having got it on the line I realised that having fought like
that with a groundsheet, there was no way I could do anything else on my own.
So I went back to bed. After a bit of a lie-in and a bit of brekkie I
enlisted the help of ‘er indoors TM.
The groundsheet was dry, but the grass was still very wet, so we got the
groundsheet in without letting it get near the ground, which is another thing
much easier said than done. And then we pegged out our tent on the washing
line and left it for the day. We mucked and fiddled about for the morning
putting the last of the bits and bobs from camping away. And at midday I went
out to see our tent. Not quite dry. I then noticed my feet were wet. For all
that the rain had stopped, the grass was still sodden. Again feeling
vindicated for packing up camp early we decided to do something with the day
we had taken off work. We started with McDinner.
There were a whole load of soldiers at McDonalds. Soldiers all have their
names emblazoned on their uniform chests. I sniggered at Private Sergeant; I
don’t think he saw me. It’s odd; for all that soldiers have guns I felt
somehow reassured that there were a gaggle of squaddies in McDonalds. I
know that I would have felt most uncomfortable if there was a similar
contingent of police in their place. And then we went on to Bayham
Old Abbey. The official line is that Bayham Old Abbey makes “a
fascinating day out on the Kent Sussex border. The impressive ruins include
much of the 13th to 15th-century church, the chapter house, and a picturesque
14th-century gatehouse”. My personal view is that it’s not a bad place to
waste half an hour purely because I get in free with my English Heritage
membership. It’s not worth the fiver (near enough) that the general
punter would have to pay. We came home via the caravan shop in Hurst
Green where they had the same chair that he Rear Admiral used this weekend.
For ten quid cheaper than he paid for it. I did snigger. And then on to
John’s Cross. I wanted one or two camping bits, but we found ourselves
spending about an hour looking at the motorhomes. We can’t afford one yet,
but one day….. |
|
14 June 2011
(Tuesday) - Road Trip
I woke feeling
rather exhausted after a night of very vivid dreaming. Perhaps I shouldn’t
eat Monster Munch just before bed time. Over brekkie I spent a little time
looking at some of the blog’s settings including font sizes and the like.
I’ve also (hopefully) made the blog appear much better when viewed on
mobile devices. Having said that it looks awful on my mobile, but then most
stuff does. I think that when I bought my SmartPhone
I actually got a DumbPhone. For all that one hears
talk of “Android” and “iPhone”, having bought one I’ve never
heard any mention of the Nokia N8. I also updated the
“Dates for the Diary” section of the blog – I now have stuff planned
for most of the weekends over the summer. This leaves me with precious little
time for fishing. Talking of which, if anyone would like to take up
membership of a rather exclusive syndicate with rights to fish a private late
just outside Ashford (for only twenty quid a year), please let me know. Having spread the
canvas of our mess tent out to dry and having put my tent’s carpet on the
washing line I then phoned Kent Police. Whilst on a shopping mission when
camping last week, ‘er indoors TM inadvertently
parked where she shouldn’t and got a parking ticket from “AM Secure
Services Ltd”. I phoned the Old Bill to check the validity of this
parking ticket. The Old Bill neither knew nor cared and said to phone Tesco.
Tesco didn’t care either. They changed their tune slightly when I told them
that I was going to tell the hundreds of people at the kite festival to do
their shopping elsewhere. But they still maintained it wasn’t their problem. So in the end I
phoned “AM Secure Services Ltd” themselves and told them I had some
land I might like to use as a car park. I asked how they would deal with
someone who wouldn’t pay the parking ticket. Eventually they said they would
take the person to court, and whether or not the court ruled in favour of the
parker or the ticketing company was entirely down to the whim of the
presiding judge. I’ve told ‘er indoors TM
that if it was me who’d had the ticket I’d let them take me to court. And seeing as today
was booked as holiday I went on a bit of a road trip. First of all to PC
World to have a look-see. Since I got the new wireless modem I’ve had far
fewer (i.e. hardly any) connection problems. And since I abandoned
using Safari as a browser and went to Firefox instead I’ve had far fewer (i.e.
hardly any) incidents of the PC freezing up. But it wouldn’t hurt to see
how much replacing the PC is going to cost. And I got the answer – about five
hundred quid. I then popped into the Home Brew shop to get the makings of
some beer for our next trip to Teston. I expect that I shall be there again
in August, but there’s no denying that following two wet camps I’m rather
having a downer on the idea of camping at the moment. Mind you not that
much of a downer – I then went on to Aldi in Hythe because I’d heard they
were selling self-inflating camping mattresses cheaply. They were. I picked
one up for twelve quid. It still remains to be seen how much of a bargain it
actually was. The last one sprung a rupture last weekend and had lasted about
four years. Camping shops are doing them for about twenty five quid, so I
would hope that this one will last me at least two seasons. And then onwards.
As I drove through Folkestone I saw the house that we rented for two years (Sept
84 – Apr 86) is currently
up for sale. It’s listed as having four bedrooms: it had one when we
rented it. I wonder what’s going on there? I’m very
tempted to arrange a viewing just to be nosey. I then popped in to
the Battle of Britain museum to use their facilities. Whilst I was there I
bought a souvenir bookmark – the shop was closed when I called in last year. I then went to a
car showroom in Capel – the last time I drove past they were selling
motorhomes and campervans. They weren’t today. So I kept on going and
eventually found the camping shop in Sturry where I
had a look-see. The pet shop next door was interesting as always, and the
motorhomes round the corner were cheap. Mind you they weren’t unlocked. The
bloke there offered to open the one(s) I wanted to look at and stand
over me, but I wasn’t keen to have this sort of pressure, so I thanked him
and made my way to the motorhome showroom in And so home where I
slept through the third “Alien” film. And once I awoke I folded away
the last of the camping gear which I’d popped on the line this morning. I was
going to then put my tent, the carpet and the mess tent away, but the
lock-ups are full to the point of being overflowing already. So I need to
strip them all out and re-pack them. That which needs to go away can stay in
the shed for the time being: I’ll worry about it later… Meanwhile if any of
my loyal readers think I might be storing any camping gear, tents or chairs
for them, could they please retrieve them by the end of the week. There is stuff in there which I know is not mine,
and I do not have enough space in the garden lock-ups. That which is still
unclaimed on Sunday will be either eBay-ed or taken to the tip (!) |
|
15 June 2011
(Wednesday) - A Lunar Eclipse
Back to work after
a few days off, and within a few minutes it was as though I had never been
away. It’s not that I actively dislike my job: more that I’ve been doing it
since September 1981, and I’m so bored with it. We had the weekly
weigh-in; I’ve not lost any weight since last week, nor have I gained any. Which in a non-dieting frame of mind is probably how it should
be. Apart from a colleague
crashing his bicycle, the rest of the day was dull, and I came home to sleep
in front of my PC for an hour or so. And then after a
cracking bit of scoff we set off to Folkestone. A few weeks ago As the cloud
thickened and we lost sight of By now the mist was
rolling in, and it was no longer possible to see Capel which was only one
mile distant, and one or two of the more fair-weather astronomers were
beginning to speculate on the possibility of daring to question the wisdom of
attempting to see the moon when we couldn’t actually see the end of the
street. And there’s no denying that had this event not been run in
conjunction with SEKAS but had been run just by the Ashford Astronomical
Society, we would all have gone inside and looked at pictures of what an
eclipse would look like if there was no clouds. The mist was rather
thick by this point, and it was raining; so much so that my trousers were soaked
and my pants were damp. So we decided to give up and try again next time. Next time being 7pm
on Saturday 10 December. See you then…? |
|
16 June 2011
(Thursday) - This n That
Following on from a talk I gave to the astro club last year, the nice people at the South East Kent Astronomical
Society have asked me to talk to them. Well, not so much talk to them as
give a lecture. I’ve given loads of talks on astronomically-related subjects
before, but they have mostly been to my own astro
club where they all know me. I’m the amiable harmless bloke on the door who
sells raffle tickets (noisily). But SEKAS say on their website “ALL
our speakers are distinguished and are worthy of support and should be
honoured with a good-sized audience.” I somehow can’t see myself as “distinguished”,
but I won’t tell them that. I’ll let them find out the hard way. I’ve got a
lecture on comets which I’m preparing for our own astro
club. I’ll give them the same talk
and see if they like it. After all, the worst that can happen is that they
won’t ask me back again. A late start gave me some time to fiddle
around putting the finishing touches to this talk on comets. Having gone
through it a few times I can’t help but feel it’s a bit light on knob jokes,
but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for an astronomical lecture. And so to work. Yesterday I mentioned that
a colleague had crashed his bicycle. I saw him in the gents as I came into
work. He was dusting himself down as best he could. He had a nasty graze on
his arm, and I suggested that (since we work in a hospital anyway) he
might pop up to the A&E department and get himself a
once-over. He wasn’t too keen on the idea initially, but I insisted. As he
went he said that his side did hurt. This morning we found that he’d got a
deflated lung and a broken thumb. It’s made me think twice about getting back
on my pedal bike. After work was committee meeting – the astro club is making plans. Possibly a day out at Herstmonceux
Castle, probably something for “Observe the Moon Night”,
definitely a new club logo for clothing and merchandising. All sorts of stuff
in the pipeline. The club is going from strength to strength. And in closing, some news from over the
Channel. A few days ago I mentioned that “My Boy TM
” has gone to Bearing in mind his definition of “a big
fish” starts at over twice the weight of the biggest fish I’ve ever
caught, I’m tempted to go with him next year. |
|
17 June 2011
(Friday) - Some Ranting
An interesting
article: there may well be Bigfoots in the And then I read the
article some more. The bloke who claims to have found the Bigfoot fur runs a website.
On this website he posts crackpot gibberish about UFO sightings, ghosts,
conspiracy theory nonsense and no end of old tripe. Why is it that
non-loony people rarely report seeing Bigfoots or UFOs or ghosts? Having seen
what I think may well have been a ghost myself, I
know that my experience doesn’t mesh at all with what the paranormalist
crackpots would have us believe. And then I found
that a good friend had posted
something onto my Facebook page. The article warned us not to expect to inherit
great sums of money from our parents. What with one thing and another the
article seemed to think that most people won’t have great heaps of cash to
pass on to their descendants when the reaper comes calling. But realistically
are people seriously waiting for their parents to croak in order to maintain
financial solvency? I actually laughed out loud when the phrase “needy
children” was used to describe the average man in the street. At forty
seven (and a third) years old I can hardly be described as a “needy
child”. But apparently one
person in ten is depending on an inheritance to pay their pension. Bearing in
mind how much cash one gets from the sale of someone’s estate, and also
bearing in mind the general cost of living, this one person in ten must
either be the offspring of someone very rich or living in cloud cuckoo land. Talking of cloud
cuckoo land, my piss boiled when I read a comment on a good friend’s blog
this morning. My friend is not well: she is looking at embarking on another
course of therapy which will involve drugs and feeling very sick and
nauseous. She is understandably nervous about the prospect, and is wondering
if embarking on this would be for the best. Someone has
commented on her blog “…but I do think that we (the patients) have a RIGHT
to say what we want, and When we want it, and how we want it. No matter what
that IT is.” I *so*
disagree with the whole concept of “patient choice”. When a consultant
physician (hospital doctor) proposes a course of treatment, it will be
the treatment that in their opinion would give the optimum result. Any
deviation from that course of treatment will (by definition) give a
non-optimal outcome. Those who advocate
“patient choice” are often doing so to people who are ill, and are
often a little confused and unsure. And these people find themselves having
their confidence in their doctors undermined by those who (while are very
well-meaning) have absolutely no medical knowledge or experience
whatsoever. “Patient Choice”
works well in alternative (crackpot) medicine because alternative (crackpot)
medicine is mostly all psychosomatic: it works because one thinks it works
and if you feel that snake oil would be better for you than horse dung, then
swapping treatment is fine. Neither works anyway. But in reality, “patient
choice” starts and finishes at the point of deciding what treatment to
get. It is about deciding whether one is going to take sage and considered
medical advice, or whether one is going to drink bleach for medicinal
purposes on the advice of some old loony. It should not be
about picking and choosing what parts of proposed treatments one will and
will not take, and then afterwards whinging that one is still ill…. I mention drinking
bleach because there are those who actually regularly drink bleach for
medicinal purposes. I personally think this is crackpot behaviour, bordering
on the eccentric, but this really is “patient choice” in action…. |
|
18 June 2011
(Saturday) – Stuff
The fact that I was
looking forward to a tad of financial solvency having paid off my mortgage is
clearly neither here nor there. I must admit I’m a
tad hacked off with the whole pension squabbling. Thirty years ago I was sold
a pension by the state. We both (me & HM Government) knew it was a
long term investment. Over the years I had the option to change it for a
private scheme, but we both agreed to keep what I’d bought. And now it’s three-quarters paid off, I can’t help but feel it’s
rather late for HM Government to start quibbling about it. The thing was
bought and sold in good faith. If it’s now an unaffordable proposition, the
government should go kick the ass of the people who’ve caused that, not me. It’s odd how a free
market economy is such a brilliant idea all the time its working…. And it’s also odd
how we begrudge the pensions of workers, but happily throw
away public money… Leicester City Council
has admitted that it is not ready
for an attack by zombies. Some twit wrote to Leicester City Council and
asked for details of their plans to combat a possible zombie attack. Normally
such idiocy would be treated with the contempt it deserves, but if one asks
for such information and quotes the Freedom of Information Act, then public
bodies crap themselves in terror and provide whatever trivial information the
public demands. However, for all
that this might seem like a frivolous joke, it’s a joke which costs the
taxpayer. Freedom of Information requests are dealt with by Information
Governance Officers who are paid (about) twenty three quid per hour. Take our newspapers
for example. There was an article on Radio Four today which claimed that the
Daily Express runs about ten stories every day based on information obtained
under the Freedom of Information Act. Even if each of the paper’s enquiries
only takes half an hour of a single Information Governance Officers’ time,
that’s thirty thousand quid a year that newspaper is costing us. Somewhat closer to
home, after a morning at work I had a plan to mow the lawn. It’s not been
mowed for some time. But rain stopped play. Having checked blog entries,
every Saturday from the end of February till the end of May has been dry. And
now we are in what one traditionally considers to be the summer, it rains
every weekend. What’s that all about? Bearing in mind
that its three weeks since the lawn was last mowed, I gave it a haircut
despite the rain. And I then gave myself a haircut. Spending fifteen quid on
a pair of shears about fifteen years ago was one of the best investments I
ever made. I then did the ironing – it’s a couple of weeks since I did any of
that. We then made out
way to the Trattoria Romano in We came home to
find the prod-it-all son has returned from his fishing expedition. He’s
caught loads of big fish. He’ll be publishing an album later, but for now he
said I could use one photo for today’s blog piccie.
I am seriously considering going with him next year…. |
|
19 June 2011
(Sunday) - Slow
Today we went on a Reptile Ramble with the
Tree Huggers (I shall continue to call them that!). Having met up, we
then drove through miles of tracks through Kings Wood to an obscure corner.
Having parked up in the obscure corner we then walked along even more obscure
paths to find a wonderfully secluded valley. This was perhaps one of the most
beautiful places I’ve ever seen; but the view was marred. There were random
bits of corrugated iron here and there, and on closer inspection there were
random bits of roofing felt littered about. My immediate reaction was to have
a tidy-up, but our guide stopped me. Our guide was one of the herpetologists
from the nearby university, and the corrugated iron and roofing felt were
carefully laid out to attract reptiles, and to make it easier to find them.
Corrugated iron and roofing felt make warm areas which reptiles like: they
formed part of an ongoing survey, and the herpetologists just hated people
like me tidying up what looked like litter. Woops! We were told that four of the Our resident expert really brought the
subject to life: he was keen and enthusiastic. Amazingly he said that it’s
not unusual to find reptiles under the corrugated iron and roofing felt at
any time of year. He’d even found adders under them when there was snow on
the ground. And far from being asked not to go back
there unsupervised, we were told we were welcome to have a look-see if ever
we were passing. But we were told to be sure to report any reptile sightings
back to him. I intend to go back in the autumn when the reptiles will be a
bit more sluggish. Rather than going home we then drove on to
the motorhome showroom on the The prices of motorhomes ranged from
fifteen thousand pounds up to fifty thousand pounds. I quite liked the look
of the ones in the twenty to thirty thousand pound price bracket. We got
chatting to the salesman (always a bad thing to do) and it transpires
that the road tax and insurance on a motorhome is comparable to that on a car
(i.e. affordable). The major problem would be the initial outlay of
lots of thousands of pounds for the thing in the first place. We said we’d
think about it some more, and made our way home. On the way home we saw a sign for a new Koi
shop, so we thought we’d pop in. The car park was by a second hand caravan showground. One of
the caravans caught my eye, so we thought we’d have a look. We got chatting
with the salesman. It has to be said that this salesman started at a serious
disadvantage – he looked just like Dexter from the BBC series “Survivors”.
I was honestly scared of him, and I was expecting him to pull out a shotgun
at any minute. But the bloke spoke sense. The sort of motorhome we’ve been looking at
will cost about twenty five thousand pounds. Borrowing that amount of money
is easy enough, but the repayments would be crippling. We may well inherit
that sort of money following the death of parents (to be rather mercenary
and heartless), but that money would be far better given to the fruits of
my loin for them to get houses. And if we’re camping in a motorhome and we
run out of milk, then the entire motorhome has to go shopping. I can get a second hand caravan for about a
tenth of the price of a motorhome, and it wouldn’t cost anything in road tax
or insurance. It would have all the mod-cons of a motorhome and the same
storage problems and costs. And when camping if we needed to buy anything we
could just unhook the car and go off shopping. Admittedly neither of our cars
is up to pulling a caravan for any distance, but the ‘er
indoors TM –mobile is on its last legs and needs replacing
anyway. I shall think some more about this idea.
I’ve asked for advice from friends with caravans and motorhomes. I shall seriously
review the situation once the mortgage is paid off in a month or so… |
|
20 June 2011
(Monday) - Stuff
I see that on every other PC in the world (other
than mine) for the last three weeks there has been some weird sort
of video screen appearing after the day’s pictures on my blog entries. ‘er indoors TM pointed
this out to me about an hour after bed time last night. It took an age to put
the blog right. I have absolutely no idea what that was about, and would be
grateful for any comments and suggestions as to where they might have come
from. Interestingly I received an email from my
anti-virus scanner telling me that in the last month it has monitored 313 suspicious
processes. It didn’t say anything about stopping them; just about monitoring
them. Equally mysterious in todays news was the decision by a rabbinical court
in I’ve mentioned before that the last thing I
ever expected from the twenty-first century was the resurgence of crackpot
superstitions as a serious political and social power. And also somewhat topical… A good friend of
mine is about (in a few months time) to become a father. When “My
Boy TM ” was born we were the
first people in our social circle to have children, and so it was very much a
voyage into the unknown. Which was probably for the best: I seem to
delight in regaling prospective parents with horror stories of what to
expect from their brats. And I always (only half-jokingly)
reassure them with the prospect that in twenty (or so) years time they
leave home. However, “leaving home” is not such
an easily definable term as one might think. Take “My Boy TM ” for example. For all that he spends
his every waking hour at his girl friend’s house; I won’t consider him
moved out until I stop doing his laundry for him. Since his return from But my laundry bin is now overflowing with
his grubby smalls which came back from France with him, and that he
wants washed. |
|
21 June 2011
(Tuesday) - More Stuff
Anyone who's met me socially is always
amazed to see my appearance at work. Naturally I am a slob, but I like to
think that I brush up well when the occasion demands. Perhaps I’m old
fashioned, but I think that one needs to look the part when one is at work.
As a trainee this was drummed into me, and it stuck. Even though nowadays I
think I am the only bloke in the department who wears a tie every day. Not
even the bosses do any more. One of my trainees was formally assessed
today. As part of the assessment a senior scientist from another hospital (usually
some hundred or so miles away) comes to see them. Bearing in mind the
gravity of these occasions I like the students to make an effort and try to
impress the assessors. Perhaps I should blame a management ethos
which doesn’t take a pride in its appearance, but it bothers me that I have
to tell the trainees not to wear shorts or jeans on the special assessment
day. And it bothers me even more when they whinge about having to wear a
shirt and tie. But for one day they make an effort and turn up looking like
they haven't been dragged through a hedge. It's probably to keep me quiet,
but they all make the effort. I think they look better turning up at work in
a shirt and a tie, even if I am in a minority in thinking so. It never occurred to me that I would have
to remind a student to have a shave and to brush his hair. The chap assessed
today's girlfriend is a hairdresser, and I am reliably informed that his
coiffure was actually rather splendid. Perhaps I am getting old: to me he
looked like a startled hedgehog. I don't think I did much for his confidence
by telling him so. But he passed anyway. That’s now twenty one students whose
qualification to state registration I’ve overseen. With three more currently
in progress I wonder how many more I’ll do before
retiring, or somebody else gets given the task. And then home. A month or so ago I enrolled
with a market research company. They periodically solicit my opinion on a
range of subjects, and pay me for it. So far I’ve answered questionnaires on
supermarkets, mineral water, tea bags, cars, all sorts of things. Each time I
do a survey they credit my account with up to a pound. They claimed that when
the balance reached ten quid I could claim vouchers. I was rather sceptical,
but quite enjoyed the surveys, so I kept doing them. This evening I realised
my credit balance with them was £12.50, so I claimed an Amazon voucher to the
value of ten quid. The email with the voucher arrived straight
away: I was rather pleased about that, and immediately bought an e-book for
my Kindle. And I got charged for it. What an amazing voucher that was! Once the red mist and my ranting had
subsided I checked my Amazon account. I had no credit balance. I had not
credited the voucher to my account. Woops. Having done that obvious thing, my
credit balance went up to ten quid. So I bought another e-book and this time
I was not charged for it, and I still have a credit balance of over three
quid with Amazon. If any of my loyal readers would like to
get paid for doing these surveys, please get in touch. You really do get
paid, and I get a bung every time I recommend someone. |
|
22 June 2011
(Wednesday) - More Caravan...
I was having a rather disturbing dream last
night in which I believed I was trying to sleep underneath a tap dancing
school for elephants. A particularly loud crash woke me, and I realised that
there were no tap dancing elephants upstairs; merely “My Boy TM ” quietly getting ready for work. After
a little stomping about he came downstairs. It might have been quieter if he
just came straight through the ceiling. He then clumped about downstairs for
a while before setting off to work; closing the front door behind him so
quietly it was probably heard clearly three counties away. Fortunately being on a late start I got the
chance for a bit more kip once he’d set off, and over a bit of brekky I did a
bit more finding out about caravans. The obvious first question is to find
out whether my car is up to towing a caravan, or do I need to trade it in? It
turns out that my car weights (about) 1430 kg and therefore it would
be capable of towing a caravan (and associated luggage) of up to 1215
kg. Needless to say, that figure meant
absolutely nothing to me. I have no idea how heavy a caravan might be. So I
phoned the nice bloke at Chilham who I saw on Sunday. He was of the opinion
that I can tow anything up to a “small-medium” caravan. He went on to
add that he caravans regularly and his towing weight is restricted to 1000
kg. The obvious next step would be to get a tow
bar attached. Ironically when I chose my current car I had to decide between
the one I got and another which was almost identical. The other car was at
the same price, but with slightly more mileage so I went for the one I’ve
got. However the other one had a towbar. I phoned Renault – they could sort me out
with a towbar. Together with fitting the thing I
would be looking at six hundred pounds. Ouch! ‘er indoors TM had found another company that fitted towbars, so I gave them a ring. It turned out that they
were part of Trident Trailers (who are quite well known locally). The nice
man there said he could fit a fixed swan neck tow bar and the electrical
fittings for three hundred quid. That’s more affordable. I then had a look at my diary dates. The
year has rushed by, and I’ve plans for most of the weekends for the next few
months. It occurred to me that we’ve two trips to Fortunately for us the British Library is
almost on top of St Pancreas station (named after the patron saint of
abdominal organs!), so having got to London all we’d have to do would be
to get to the museum at Kensington and then get back to where we started. It seems like a good plan….. let’s see how it pans out. |
|
23 June 2011
(Thursday) - A Day in the Wicked City
“My Boy TM ”
actually
did get up quietly for once, and for the third time this week I was woken by
my alarm. After a bit of brekkie I set off to the railway station – me and a colleague had business in the wicked city. When I
met up with him, my colleague looked somewhat haggard. Apparently his beloved
had bought some “sexy kit” and was showing it off in a manner intended
to incite his base urges. My colleague was quite impressed with the tightness
of the corset which accentuated his beloved’s “lady dumplings”. So
impressed that he couldn’t wait to take off said corset, and get down to what
I can only describe as “sordid beastliness”. However it transpired
that the lady in question had overlooked something rather obvious – to wit to
try on the garments before buying them. Instead she spent twenty minutes at
home wedging herself into a corset which was clearly
far too small. When my colleague
attempted to give vent to his base lusts, he was unable to remove the corset
as rolls of back fat obscured access to the zipper. However, the urge was
upon him, and with a concerted tug he managed to break the zip fastener,
leaving it stuck fast. And then a
combination of breaking the zipper on an expensive corset and being unable to
escape from a corset which was far too tight brought on an asthma attack in
the lady in question. Having attempted to arouse her lover, she found herself
thrashing about on the floor, gasping for air and unable to breathe.
Fortunately (or not, depending on your perspective) my colleague had a
With all that
excitement, a near-death experience and all that money wasted, my colleague
then spent the night on the sofa, and is still in the doghouse. And they say
romance is dead. After waiting for
the train to pull off for twenty minutes there was an announcement. The train
manager was trying to find a train driver. As soon as one became available
we’d be on our way. That filled me with confidence, and after five minutes a
big fat man in train driver costume was seen running along the platform. We
got going soon after that, and were only five minutes late for our day’s
outing. I say “five
minutes late” – we’d been told that the NHS National Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia
Screening Programme’s Laboratory Training Day started at 9.30am. Having
run from St Pancras to We started with an
update on what the programme had been up to for the last year. This lecture
was the worst of the day. Lacking any structure, it was not so much a lecture
as a disjointed rambling in which the speaker leapt from one topic to the
next (and back again) at random, seemingly contradicting herself at
regular intervals. The second talk was
more interesting; covering screening programs and the management of risk in haemoglobinopathy screening. It’s actually a fascinating
subject; the science behind it is something which I personally find the most
interesting part of my job. And there are some serious ethical dilemmas.
Thalassaemia major is one of the most serious genetic conditions there is –
babies with it can die before birth, and many of those that do survive can
only live because of life long blood transfusions. But screening of parents
can avoid such children being born. In the The third lecture
was interesting covering serious incidents and lessons learned. Like
everything and anything, the screening programme is not perfect, and has had
some failures. Lessons have been learned and the service has improved, but
what does anyone do when a couple decide to breed, having been told of the
risk of conceiving a child who will be born to suffer? After a tea break
was the best part of the day – a lecture from Professor Bain, who is a
world-renown expert on the subject of haemoglobinopathies.
And then dinner – not too sad, as the first fruit of my loin would remark. After dinner I
slept through a session on data interpretation. I knew the session was going
to be bad: over the years I’ve formed a serious distrust of anyone who refers
to a blood-testing machine as an ”instrument”.
I could feel myself nodding after only a couple of minutes, and was soon
sound asleep. I awoke with a start and the thought “F@!! - I’m in a
lecture” ran though my mind as the speaker asked “did everyone find
that helpful?” After another cuppa
the day closed with some fascinating case studies. For all that I find the haemoglobinopathies to be fascinating, they are not
common conditions. In fact I often describe then to my students as being as
abundant as rocking horse poo. And this last session gave some seriously
obscure tales, involving sickle cell trait with a duplicated normal beta
gene, and the discovery of the unstable Hb
Kingsbury. All things
considered it was a good day out, but I did have a couple of criticisms. The
projector screen was too small – I could hardly see the presentations. And the venue. Has
anyone realised that the country is in financal
queer street? Surely the Imperial
Hotel in Russell Square isn’t the most cost effective place to hold such
a meeting. Heaven only knows what the place cost to book, but I did see that
the lunchtime menu was seventeen quid a head. With about forty of us on the
course, I expect the total cost of the day would have been about a thousand
pounds. Whilst I realise
that a And then back to
Ashford, and to the Wetherspoons. Works curry night: the second in as many
months. Wetherspoons do a good curry at a good price. Two beers, curry and
extras, and change from a tenner. Can’t be bad… |
|
24 June 2011
(Friday) - Art & Astronomy
I had an interesting conversation at work
today. One day I will post what it was about. If only our union wasn’t so useless…. Then to the college - “Daddies Little
Angel TM ” has some of her work in
the end of year art exhibition. Her drawing and montage were really good. As
was all of the work on show, to be honest. It was clear that the students had
all worked hard, but I can’t pretend to understand modern art. The photograph
of Little Red Riding Hood holding hands with the Big Bad Wolf was somewhat
surreal. And was made more so by virtue of the fact that both were in the
nip. The installation piece of a destroyed painting was clearly interesting,
but would not practically fit into anyone’s house as an art work. And the statue of a big fat woman with an
oven for a stomach permanently pissing out green urine was just weird. And then to astro
club. As I was meeting and greeting, something interesting happened. A lady
who’d joined a couple of months ago asked whose phone number was on the
membership cards. I had no idea, and told her so; with the assurance that I’d
find out. The nice lady went on to say that she’s tried phoning the number,
and it came up with the number unobtainable tone. After a little asking
around it turned out that the number on the membership cards was indeed
unobtainable: in fact we had no idea whose number it originally was. Woops! And then on to the main business of the
evening. With over sixty people along we had an update on what’s going on in
the world of astronomy. And then the main talk – “Wow Factor Fifty” in
which five different people presented ten amazing, strange or just plain
weird astronomical facts. With different people speaking I thought it worked
very well. After I’d hawked the raffle we had a Stellarium show of what we might have seen outside had
the clouds not been there. Again we had a wonderful astro
club – I’m proud to be a part of it…. |
|
25 June 2011
(Saturday) - Astronomy & Cards
I was up relatively early, and over brekkie
I looked at the household accounts. I can hardly declare bankruptcy, but
there’s no denying that more cash would be good. I’m not entirely sure that
I’m not paying too much in mortgage repayments: I shall find out in a month
or so when the next part of the mortgage is due for completion. With the
mortgage (mostly) paid off a caravan might become a feasible
proposition. Apropos of nothing I came across this web site. I love the
bit about “We live in the countryside. Our house dates to around 1570,
with 3.5 acres of land. We grow our own vegetables and fruit, and sheep graze
our meadow”. The chap who wrote this was someone with whom I went to
school. We were in the Boys Brigade together. Best of mates for many years.
And now there he is – a company director rolling in cash: with his own wine
merchant as well (!). I can’t pretend I’m not jealous. The only consolation I have is that
browsing his web site I found his Amazon wish list, He’s a train spotter. I
don’t feel quite such a failure now. Off to work, and after a relatively dull
day I then went on to We had several telescopes set up, all focussed on a distant TV ariel,
and the idea was that the punters could compare the telescopes. We also had
the solar scope to look at the sun: a shame the sun hid behind clouds all
day. We also put up a display board of our posters. It has to be said that the posters aren’t
what they might be. For all that they actually look really good, they are now
four years old and some of them are rather dated. For example the poster on
extra-solar planets is hopelessly out of date. I’ve suggested we might run a
competition for the club membership to design various A3 and A4 posters on
various topics of their choice to replace what we’ve got. Getting the public to have a go with
telescopes was an idea which worked well – there was a lot of interest from
the public about joining the club. Perhaps we might make up some fliers for
advertising purposes for future events of this sort? The time flew by, and all too soon the fete
had ended. Once packed away I went home – my plan was to get the ironing
done, but my mobile rang. There was a problem at work – could I go in? One day I shall elaborate…. And then round to Matt’s for a game of
cards. An hour or so of Texas Hold’em followed by
an hour or so of Omaha Hold’em. “Daddies Little
Angel TM ” wiped the floor with all
comers tonight, but there was an amazing five minutes during a game of On the way home I saw a strange sight –
hundreds (probably over a thousand) of people all walking along my
road; all wearing the weirdest clothing. They were obviously an organised
bunch as there were marshals guiding them as they went. It turns out they
were a sponsored walk raising money for a local
hospice, which was a relief. I thought they were a strange religious
cult…. |
|
26 June 2011
(Sunday) – Barham
This morning I effectively received a turd
in the post: some coward didn’t like what I’d posted over on another
blog. Perhaps the fault is mine: perhaps I sometimes forget the fact that
every fascinating illness has an ill person at the end of it. It’s a shame
that “Anonymous of Chicago” couldn’t have attempted a reasoned
discussion. It amazes me that anyone expects to be taken seriously when they
rant anonymously. Still, (to coin a phrase) bovvered? – Not really.
This isn’t the first cowardly anonymous rant I’ve received; I doubt it will
be the last. Once we’d got ourselves organised we popped
down to Folkestone and having harassed the cats we then went on to Barham. ‘er indoors TM
recently bought a set of guided walks round We parked up by After a month of rain I’m not complaining,
but it was hot today. It was ironic that having spent all afternoon yesterday
with a solar telescope and 100% cloud cover, today there wasn’t a cloud in
sight. And then home. I had planned to do the
ironing yesterday, but events conspired against me. So after tea I ironed
whilst watching telly; “Alien Resurrection”. Over the last month I’ve
watched all four of the “Alien” films. This was the first that I
didn’t sleep though, but it has to be said that I wasn’t impressed. |
|
27 June 2011 (Monday)
- Dull...
A late start gave me some time to waste
this morning, so I had a look round the Internet. With UFOs
flying over the BBC and senior politicians being found
dead at Glastonbury, there’s not really an awful lot going on in the
world today. Bearing in mind yesterday’s hike I found an
interesting article claiming that I’m probably
fitter than a lot of people who are half my age. If that’s true, then
there are a lot of *very* unfit twenty-somethings about. And with a couple of hours to kill, I
dusted off an old game – Star Trek Elite
Force. The game is now ten years old, and the graphics are somewhat dated
compared to today’s modern games. But it’s fun, it passes an hour or so, and
I like it. Which is probably a good thing. And then to Tesco. The intention was to buy
lunch; I nearly committed murder. For every one person who was doing shopping
properly there were a dozen old ladies blindly blundering about.
Crashing into shelves, trolleys, other shoppers, not one was looking where it
was going, and not one was actually buying anything. When will these old
dodderers realise that Tesco is a shop where you go to buy things, not a park
or a drop-in centre where you go to pass the time. I received a phone call from the treasurer
at Woodchurch Memorial Hall today. She’d heard that I’d taken over as
treasurer of the astro club. News travels fast (!)
Would I like to talk pounds and pence with her? Certainly. The trouble was that she’d phoned me on my
mobile at work, using her husband’s mobile phone. I made a note of all that
she said and all of the telephone numbers she mentioned, and I then promptly
lost that note. I came home and after a bit of phoning round I managed to get
the nice lady’s home phone number. But when I rang, it just went to
answer-phone. I’ll ring her again in the morning… |
|
28 June 2011
(Tuesday) - Pi (and chips?)
Another morning wasted on the Star Trek
Elite Force game – it’s a good game really. Mind you, I didn’t get to play it
for as long as I was hoping. I found myself evicted from my own home. “My
Boy TM ” had an appointment. He had
someone coming round for some body art. Described as “some fit bird and
her fit mother”; it was quite evident that my presence would queer his
pitch. And so to Tesco in an oven-like car. It’s
been hot recently. So much so that I’ve had the air-con running in my car
pretty much constantly. I’ve been told by so many people that this is a
really expensive thing to do. But is it? I’ve done some finding-out. On
average the extra fuel consumption by using air-con is roughly equivalent to
the extra fuel needed to carry an extra passenger around. Or equivalent to
the reduced fuel economy caused by reducing the car’s aerodynamics by opening
a window. Or (over a year) roughly equivalent to the extra fuel needed
to carry a car full of unnecessary junk around. In short, it’s not an expensive thing to do
at all. Mind you, cars still go in the hot weather.
Trains don’t. Having been scuppered by leaves on the tracks and the wrong
kinds of snow in the past, today’s lame excuse is that the cables that power
the trains are suffering
from overheating. Thank heavens that trains in
my neck of the woods get their leccie from a third
rail. Meanwhile mathematicians
are in civil war. Pi-ists and Tau-ists are squabbling as to which mathematical constant
should be the most natural to use. Being of a mathematical bent myself, I’ll
give a hint here. Tau is lame. Pi kicks ass. |
|
29 June 2011
(Wednesday) - Coldrum Longbarrow
After two days of late starts, today I was
on an early. Tomorrow is a core shift, and Friday is another late. After work we set off to Lenham where we
had fish and chips whilst waiting for the arky-ologee club to assemble.
Whilst scoffing chips I made an observation: why does Lenham church (a
beautiful medieval building) have a satellite dish on the top of the
steeple? Twenty (or so) club members
assembled, and we set off in convoy to Trottiscliffe.
I am reliably informed that his village’s name is pronounced “Trosley”. Pronounced “Trosley”
by whom? People who can’t read, presumably. Despite our state of the art map indicating our destination was to the left of the church, we turned right and soon found our destination for the evening –Coldrum Longbarrow .Next time I
shall take a shovel. I wonder
what the National Trust would say about me digging up a scheduled monument…. |
|
30 June
2011 (Thursday) - Stuff
|
