Tag Archives: rain

New Beginnings

7 Replies

The first thing I saw as I got out of the car in Peterborough last week was an unfamiliar bird in the band of woodland that runs near the house. It is actually separated from us by the width of a driveway and a cycle track. I had a good stare and it came back into view after a moment – a Green Woodpecker checking out the trunk of a tree. That’s one of the good things about autumn/winter, birds are easier to see in trees. They aren’t particularly rare but it’s always nice to see one. The yaffle call is distinctive, and that’s normally how you know they are about as you rarely see them when there are leaves on the trees.

Then the wind got up and the rain started. We had two nights with the leaks in the porch and conservatory roofs adding a musical accompaniment of plinks as they fell into bowls and buckets. Added to the banshee wail of the wind and the sound of raindrops on windows, this was not great. However, when Julia and my sister went for a walk on Sunday they were able to photograph a heron and an egret, despite having phones rather than cameras. Julia likes this so much that it completely outweighed the leaks/missing builder feelings she had experienced the day before.  The proximity of three tearooms (one at the steam railway station and two in the park) also helps with this.

My sister brought the makings of a cream tea for Sunday – one savoury, one sweet – plain scones, fruit scones, cream cheese, plum and blackberry jam, clotted cream, onion chutney. All from M&S. It ws a very enjoyable meal which we ate whilst discussing the herons and egrets.

Little Egret – Ferry Meadows

In the morning I had been round a military collectors’ fair. It was better than I had expected and I am thinking about standing it in the spring to get rid of some of my surplus items. I have plenty of collectable clutter and it might be a nicer way of getting rid of it than just sticking it in auction. I will be able to talk to people, meet other dealers and, hopefully, take some money.

Spoke to Number Two Son on Sunday night. He was given a custom-made couch by a contact of his partner. It was expensive and big and wouldn’t fit in the lift or up the stairs at the apartment block. There was nowhere to store it so they advertised it on the internet and sold it that night for $1,200. It had to be done instantly or the waste disposal people would have taken it next morning.

While they were doing that they noticed someone had dumped a couch. It was in great shape apart from a broken bracket holding up the back). Number Two Son and his neighbour (an engineer) fixed the bracket and he now has a new couch and $1,200. It’s good to see the dealer genes being passed on!

Green Woodpecker feeding on ants

Heron photo from Julia, egret from my sister and woodpecker is one of my old shots from the farm.

The Tail End of the Day

10 Replies

It’s almost midnight and it’s still raining. I looked in amazement at the weather map tonight and saw a seemingly endless band of rain over the Midlands. Fifty miles south of here they had the equivalent of the whole month’s rainfall in one day. My grandmother used to blame bad weather on Russian satellites and, with all that happens these days I’m beginning to wonder if that could be true. I’m quite prepared to blame the Russians for anything from bad weather to electoral fraud and anything in between.

My day has mainly been taken up with researching the Lidgett family of Lincoln and the City of Lincoln tribute Medals that bear their name. There were three Lidgetts, all family and all called Thomas. There was also Charles, who died young after being worn out by dysentery on military service. The trick lay in sorting out which Lidgett was which, as several other showed up in the area and needed checking. I also checked up the medal itself, but there is very little on it in the papers. I know I have seen an article on it, and have a copy of it, but I can’t lay my hands on it. They had a homecoming banquet for about 4,000 men in an aircraft hanger but I can’t find details. It’s annoying. I really should keep better notes.

I’ve also been checking up on Horace Stewart, who wrote his name inside the lid of the box the un-named medal came in. Born in Lincolnshire, 1899, son of a gamekeeper. Served in Northamptonshire Regiment and the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Regiment (Sherwood Foresters). Qualified for a pension after the war for something I can’t decypher. Lived in Shropshire, Wale and Stevenage in the years after the war but ended up back in Lincoln, where he world as a Male Nurse (Mental) as the 1939 List tells us. Active in local politics, he died in 1982. It’s a short version of a life story that obviously has a lot more to it than I can find.

Julia, meanwhile, has been more practical and more gainfully employed. I came down to find a bowl of dried apricots soaking in something, and realised it was Christmas cake day. It has been baked and cooled and is now maturing. I now have to live with the knowledge that we have cake in the house and I am not allowed to touch it.

 

 

 

A Few Words to Fill a Gap

15 Replies

We had thunder and lightening yesterday, as i have already noted.  After that we had hours of rain. It rained heavily all night, or at least for the parts I was awake, and it is still raining now, at midday. If you are a plant that needs rain, or a depleted pond, or a duck, this must be great weather. If you live near a river it is, I assume, less good.

It’s an example of how we all live our lives in selfish compartments. I’m lucky enough to live in a fairly hilly country, so we aren’t going to disappear as global sea levels rise, though we may change shape. If I were living in the Maldives, which would probably be a great experience most of the time, I wouldn’t consider myself quite so lucky as my country gradually submerged.

Healthy Salmon. Well, healthy for me. The salmon is looking like it’s beyond the reach of medical aid.

I have varying degrees of sympathy for flood victims. Some, like the people of the Maldives, are blameless victims (or at least as blameless as anyone cn be in these days of consumption and consumerism). People who come on the UK news, complaining that the government should “do something” to stop their house flooding, I have less sympathy for. If you buy a house by a river, this is going to happen. I don’t wish bad things to happen to anyone, but you have to take care of certain things for yourself, and government can’t fix everything. In fact, as we have seen recently, governments can’t fix much. It’s the old bookshelf problem, as the new government squeezes a new policy onto the crowded shelf, something else falls off the end.

It’s like taxing the rich. Good policy – far better than taxing the poor. But as we are already seeing, the rich are a moving target, and if you tax them they will move. And when they move, they take their taxes and their businesses with them and we end up losing out. labour, just like the Tories before them, have the right idea – impose tax on the middle classes. They can’t afford to move, they can’t afford expensive accountants, but they do have money. And, more importantly they can’t afford to give gifts to politicians. I mean, if you scare all the rich people away, who is going to keep Kier Starmer in suits and glasses?

A well known cure for depression and cynicism – you can’t feel bad with fish and chips.

Well, you’ve had Wordless Wednesday and Thankful Thursday, so welcome to cynical Sunday. I am now going away and will try to find a few non-cynical thoughts for a second post.

Yesterday it Rained

12 Replies

Yes, I read a lot of low-brow books…

It was raining when I woke up yesterday, it stayed raining all day and I’m not sure when it finished. It was the sort of rain that fell without enthusiasm, resulting in a sulky teenager of a day. I didn’t enjoy it. In the afternoon I had a hospital appointment, again. It was quite short, which made it more annoying. It took me longer to travel than I spent with the anaesthetist, and I can see the hospital from my house. I actually waited longer for the appointment (which was twenty minutes late), than I spent in the consultation. And all because the hospital couldn’t be bothered to organise itself to have everything done on one day.

It’s typical NHS – the attitude that we have nothing better to do than travel to and from hospital on their whim.

To make it worse, they had horse racing on TV. It’s a subject I’m not sure about, Great stories, the Sport of Kings, heroism, endeavour and spectacle. Plus rich people playing, animal cruelty, gambling and crime. You can see why Dick Francis was able to become a best seller. My head is now crammed with information about soft going, high knee actions and bloodlines that I really don’t need.

More books

Julia just sent me some pictures of the trip to Niagara Falls with the boys. I’d like to be with the family, though I’m not unhappy on my own. I’m also not bothered about the falls. I’ve seem much nicer waterfalls in England and I didn’t need to risk my health by flying in a metal tube filled with germ-ridden strangers.

And now, I’m off to do things – pharmacy then lunch with my sister. That reminds me – I need to get vaccinated again. I really must remember as there is a time limit on it.

After that I need to do enough to make it look like I’ve been working on decluttering over the two weeks Julia has been away.

And finally . . .                                                                                                                      Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Variety of Weather

9 Replies

Around lunchtime yesterday Julia remarked how nice the weather was compared to the forecast.

This morning at 5.20 it was lovely and bright, though I didn’t really appreciate it as I hobbled to the bathroom with half-closed eyes.

At 7.10, as I sat on the side of the bed wrestling with my socks, the rain was positively throwing itself at the bedroom windows.

First of the Marigolds

Then it brightened up a bit, then the hail started. It’s now 12.07. The sky is blue, the wind is cold and the weather is dry.

On the way home, after dropping Julia at work, I noticed that wind has stripped most of the magnolias, but a laburnum has started to blossom. it’s a bit early, but so were the magnolias.

It’s 12.14 now (I’m not writing slowly, I just got sidetracked reading about laburnums). They sky is grey, rain is tapping on the window, and only the cold wind remains constant.

Sorry, I took a bit of a diversion there. That’s the trouble with the internet. I’ve read a number of trivial news stories and noticed two more lots of rain. I’ve also made and eaten lunch.It’s now 14.14. That’s a coincidence, I just happened to look at the clock on the computer and thought it was worth mentioning. Or was it that I subconsciously saw that and decided to look. You never know, do you?

Red Kite

 

Here’s a view of Ospreys, and here are some Peregrine Falcons. The Ospreys are on Camera 2 and the Peregrines are still neat and tidy. As the season progresses they gradually amass a pile of dismembered pigeons and a variety of flies. I’d hate them outside my window. I’ve just been watching the raindrops on the Nottingham camera. Then I looked up to watch the raindrops on my windows. Amazing, isn’t it? All that awesome nature and technology and all I can do is discuss the weather.

Here are more Cathedral cameras if you want them.

Buzzard

Still No Snow

10 Replies

It looks like we’ve dodged it for the time being. It isn’t even raining at the moment, though it is grey, damp and cold. No, not as cold as those of you who live in Canada and the northern US, or many other places. I watch Aussie Gold Hunters and am constantly amazed at the amount of snow I see on that. Actually, I’m amazed to see any. Australia in my mind is a desert surrounded by beaches. It’s beyond me why anyone would live in a bit where it snows. If it happened to me I would load up the car and drive somewhere warmer.

The main anecdote of the day. A mother and son with limited English entered the shop. It got off to a bad start because we were (a) busy and (b) working to a deadline. They didn’t have an appointment and they left the front door open.

Silver Britannia coin

Then they took a load of rammel out of a bag and heaped it up on the counter, wanting us to bid on it. Even from several yards away I could tell that the cameo was plastic – shells don’t come in bright red – and plastic is not usually mounted in gold. The ones in the link are exceptional – a normal average cameo brooch is more like £75 – £100. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to look at a bit of quality.

They actually had nothing we wanted to buy, a most of it was either base metal, fake or very low value. Eventually the mother pulled her ear ring out – it had a coin mounted on it and was bent and worn. It was probably also a jeweller’s copy and they are generally 9 carat gold copies of 22 carat originals. It definitely wasn’t a collectable coin.

I suppose I should have admired their enterprise, but instead I felt resentful that they stole half an hour from us. It’s probably time I retired . . .

Silver Britannia coin

Royal Mail, Rejection and Rain

9 Replies

I’ve just had an email from the Royal Mail. They tell me they have now completed their enquiries and the parcel depot manager tells them that he was able to deliver the parcel, so they hope all is OK now.

It’s taken weeks to come to this.

My actual complaints were about the useless nature of their customer contact system.

They didn’t deliver, I had to track it down myself and collect it.

I will be writing a proper letter of complaint.

And I will be asking if they have any vacancies for parcel depot managers. If you need someone to utter inaccurate platitudes, I’m you man. I could do that at the same time as doing a proper job.

I have also had an email from a poetry editor. I have been successful with them before, but It seems that this time I failed to make the final cut. It’s my own fault, as I tried to do too much too soon and didn’t spend enough time checking the quality of the “final” version.

This is the real test of my commitment to submitting more. I’ve now managed as many rejections in the last month as I did in the rest of the year. The result is that I’ve been able to check out my resilience, and have found it’s holding up well. I’m not wilting under pressure, I’m not questioning my talent (or lack of talent) and I’m not holding internal monologues where I prove to the editors they are wrong. I’m just editing the returned poems more effectively and todays returns will be submitted elsewhere on Monday.

That’s todays news. Other than that, not much happened. Apart from the rain. It was quite wet last night and we did get nearly a month’s rain overnight. However, it’s nothing compared to what happened to some people so I’m not going to complain. We got off very lightly. That’s the benefit of living on top of a hill.

Yes, quite wet . . .

Saturday and a Rare Ten Minutes

14 Replies

I find it easier to concentrate in the morning, even after a short or disturbed sleep. Ideas flow, words arrive in ready made paragraphs and my skills at arranging them are t their peak. Sadly, this is all in my head. It’s a rare morning when, in between struggling with trousers, managing breakfast and doing all the other daily tasks, I can actually find time to sit down and write.

Today, Saturday, is an exception because I don’t have to take Julia to work. It’s still a bit of a rush but it does give me a few minutes to sit and type. I have attended to comments this morning, reflected on a few of the things that came to light (I do think about what you sy, even if my replies are short).

It has rained three times this morning, each shower being a concentrated downpour that has tested our new guttering. It all seems OK at the moment, having been a problem on and off for the 30+ years we have been here. We should just have had it done when we moved in, instead of paying a succession of builders to bodge it. Pay once, do it right. It’s something I should do more often. It’s actually quite pleasant to sit here in the middle of a rainstorm and not hear the sound of escaping water.

It’s the story of my life really – bodging and skrimping when it would be so much easier just to get it done. Imperfections can be very draining, both mentally and in terms of extra damage done to a house (like the green patches that appear in winter where the walls are damp from leaking gutters). I’ve actually seen some buildings where such damp patches allow the growth of buddleias. There is one we see on the way to work each morning.  They are very pretty but they can’t be doing the walls any good.

Peacock on White buddleia

Holiday Day 3 Part 2 Me v the NHS

10 Replies

This is about day 3 but written on Day 4. Day 4 will follow later.

Yesterday I went for my Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) Screening. It’s a free NHS service available to men at the age of 65. It used to be 67 (which was when I first heard of it, when one of the shop customers warned me about it as one of the signs of ageing).

To have the procedure you first have to sit in a temporary waiting room with notices sellotaped to the wall. One of the notices details the terms and conditions of how they will treat your records and tells you that if you don’t agree to them you can’t have the screening and they will report this to your GP. This rather ominous start to the process would benefit from a redesign. I have found before that although they employ thousands of clerical staff in the NHS they don’t seem to have anyone capable of communicating in a cheery and welcoming manner.

After sitting around for a bit, comparing how old I looked compared to the others in the room, I came to the conclusion that I was looking about average for a 65-year-old and that none of them had facial hair. It’s something I have noticed before. I was unusual in my generation for having a beard, though in later generations it has become widespread. Just an observation . . .

 

None of them had tattoos either. That’s something else that we didn’t do, but the younger generation does.

And none of us was staring at the screen of a  mobile phone.

I’ll stop the list now.

I was then taken along to a room where I had to answer some undemanding questions (name, address, date of birth, ethnicity and whether I had read the leaflets they had sent me.) I failed the last one as I hadn’t, but I had looked at the pictures so I had the general idea.

Then I was made to lie down on a bed where my feet hung off the end whilst the lady spread me with gel and kept prodding me with the thing they use for scanning. I haven’t a clue what they would call it. Maybe a probe (though that sounds a bit intrusive) or a scanner (though that might be confused with  other sorts of scanning technology) r even a wand. It was a bit wand shaped. It appears that my aorta was not easy to find. It seemed to take a long time. However, she was persistent and tactful and never mentioned my girth.

There are four results. One is that you are fine with no abnormalities and can be signed off, never to be seen again. One is that you have signs causing concern. Aneurysms grow slowly so you get another scan in 12 months to check. If you have more signs causing concern they have you back every three months. The fourth is that you have cause for major concern, in which case they hand you over to the medical team who will, in the worst cases, operate.

I am in category one and have been signed off. It’s a good result. Three monthly checks would have been very annoying, probably more annoying than the operation. The visits would be made even worse by the chaotic nature of the parking and the unhelpful maps and (incorrect and contradictory) information on the website.

It rained as I left and, being in shirt sleeves, I got soaked in the 200 yards walking (slowly) to the car. I then had to find the exit, drive past it and do a three point turn to face the correct angle to get out. Still, it could have been worse. It’s always good to get away from hospital without having to take your trousers off.

Rain

10 Replies

We had thunderstorms today, but now we just have rain. We had thunderstorms yesterday and also the day before that. Or maybe two days ago. Anyway, we have had quite a lot of thunder and a lot of rain. Most of it, I imagine, will go to waste as we don’t have enough water storage.

Historically, we would have got round this by flooding a valley, preferably in Wales or Scotland. They have plenty of space there. In England we don’t have quite so much space. We also have public enquiries.

These, for those of you who aren’t familiar with them, are normally expensive and lengthy proceedings requiring us to pay vast sums to legal advisors in order to delay things. They may sometimes be good things, but mainly they just enable pressure groups to get publicity and lawyers to make additions to their property portfolios.

However, many reports point to problems by the middle of the century when our rainfall will fail to meet our water consumption, regardless of our ability to store it. Lower rainfall, high rates of water usage and increasing population all point to problems. By the middle of the century, if I’m still here, I probably won’t know what’s happening so it isn’t my problem. On the other hand, I would like to think that future generations have plenty to drink, so I’m going to start looking at more ways to save water. I have already reduced the the toilet flush and refuse to wash my car as a principle (rather than because I’m lazy). We also have water butts. and I’m planning our new garden with drought resistant species.

The current rain will also probably overpower out fragile sewerage systems and create more pollution of waterways. When we have a lot of water flowing companies are allowed to discharge the “overflow” directly into rivers and the sea.This can include raw sewage.

It’s a sad thing to see this happening at an increasing rate, and even sadder that we have yet to see the CEO of a water company flogged through the streets and given twenty years hard labour. I imagine you would only need to do one, and the rest would up their game.

Unfortunately judges are notoriously unlikely to jail the relatives of old school friends. We see this when they go soft on the killers of birds of prey and we see this when water companies are allowed to discharge sewage unpunished. There were over 300,000 discharges last year. There will probably be more this year as it is likely to be a wetter year.

The number of CEOs who suffer even minor judicial inconvenience? I’m guessing zero.

The view from Bowness – mainly rain