Month: March 2018

I learn lessons when I least expect them. Our living room fire had lingered overnight. Coal is much better than wood for burning slowly. First thing this morning, I put some twigs on and a few bits of the kindling and nothing happened. Suddenly, the fire started to blaze. Indeed, it roared. It was as if all the conditions were right. The grate was hot, the wind was blowing over the chimney at at...

When we thought winter had gone on its way, we have another blast from the East. This is Lola, our sheep cast in stone, with an extra head-dress. One of the things I enjoy most is dreaming up and putting into action new ideas. I may have mentioned the organization, one of these One World ventures called, confusingly, UBUNTU. Yes, I know it's the same name as the PC operating system but this is...

As I write, another blast of snow is coming from the East which will no doubt cause a major lock down in the whole country. Off to the butcher to get my meat supplies  for the week. Francoise is a vegetarian and buys food to suit. The butchers is truly a community place and on this occasion I prefaced my transaction by spending at least 10 minutes discussing why rabbits were not available these...

Today Friday we decided to go for lunch in a little place in the middle of nowhere - well not quite in the middle of nowhere because it's on the A 39 – Chewton Mendip no less. All over the countryside, there are remnants of the old road system built for horses and carts. It's almost a ritual to go and visit this stream which today was lively in the extreme. Water takes ages to come off the hills...

Last evening, I had a most interesting videoconferencing via Zoom  which is a more appropriate platform for serious group discussion than the all dancing and jumping Skype which seems to me overloaded and unreliable. I don't want to see a message saying "we are trying to get the contact back for you".  There is plenty of bandwidth around, just get yourself organised. Google have enough profits...

We both find ourselves saying this, Francoise and myself. Each day I try to analyse where the time has gone. There should be no excuse, because neither of us work though we do have voluntary commitments. I know people who divide their time up into hours but the trouble is that I cannot organise my attention span - or have not been able to up to now. Either I feel like a cup of coffee, or there's...