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7 hours ago
Flaming Christmas! It’s that season again. The one of spendfest, running up debt, buying and trying to eat too much food, visiting relatives that you haven’t seen for the last twelve months, giving too much to children …. Yep by the end of the week most places will have had the big switch on of the Xmas lights, organised late night opening of shops to get people to spend their last coppers and then some more and generally be pleading with us all to go and and spend everything we have and more to save the economy. Whilst of course the powers that be are holding climate change conferences where the basic premise should be that for the good of the planet we should all consume less in the wealthier parts of the world (I would hate you, dear reader, to think that I’m suggesting that those without adequate food, clothes, heating, housing and clean water should consume less). A simple premise that would help both the environment and the climate.
3 days ago
We’re a small rural town with a small library – and as a result not a lot in it. So of course it’s well supported – not. There are fewer newspapers than there used to be and the replacement books are the cheap paperback books of lightweight reading. Now I’ve nothing against Jilly Cooper, Mave Binchy, Sophie Kinsella and others such, but our library is not even a great stockist of such books as The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Other Boleyn Girl or any of the other books that have caught the nation’s fancy and become well read. As for going into the Science Fiction area and finding more than one of Anne McCafferty’s Dragons of Pern series (and that will be one in the middle which gives you no clue as to anything), or any of the Terry Brookes series of books (well maybe number three of a series of five) …… So there is a well stocked shelf of spoken word (limited selection again mind), a few very old CDs and DVDs (but more taped videos). Most of us want books not ...
6 days ago
Yep, the River Tyne in the valley down the hill is over it’s banks and all over the place. It must have been raining a lot. Let’s just say it rained so hard last night that I jumped out of bed at about 3.30 am thinking that the flat was being flooded again. But no – only wind blown rain lashing on the windows. Outside. Hey ho, with more to come over the next two or three days according to the weatherman, it’s good to live half way up a nice steep hill well away from the offending river. There are flood warnings on all the usual bits in Hexham, Corbridge and the Riverside Park in Prudhoe. From here I’d say that the last one is fairly well under water. I don’t know that I will be going to the allotment for a day or three from the looks of the present forecast. Perhaps the forecast is wrong. Hmm – unlikely. Home with a pile of housework, knitting and books to read seems to be the answer till Sunday.
8 days ago
Well this one anyway. It was nice and sunny at 08:45 so the team of us went litter picking. At 09:30 the rain started so we came home half an hour short of our allotted time despite having moved a damaged child’s paddling pool, a wrecked tent and three or four bags of rubbish. So I merely changed shoes and dropped into the garden centre for a couple of items for a Christmas present along with tea and cake. Hmm – thank you George for the greeting of “I came in here to get away from you” said with a big grin. He did offer me a lift home which was very nice of him but I’d not done the shopping. Whilst still dampish, I decided to visit the housing office to see if I could get a cash donation towards the cost of using the dehumidifier that was required to dry the flat out after the last flood. Hmm – housing officer due back in about twenty minutes they said on the desk as her superior, the team leader, didn’t want to deal with it. So I went down the road to the library and found one ...
11 days ago
It’s far too damp and muddy to work on the allotment despite the jobs that need doing. A walk to the compost trench to add more “stuff” from the house has been as useful as it has been possible to be this week. There is the forecast for wet and windy arriving here any time now. Windy over night should bring down the last of the leaves so that I could finish sweeping up a few more from down the little road that has been so productive this year. The associated wet that is forecast won’t make the ground any more fit to work on so it’s a case of doing other useful things where possible. At this point last year the weather was very dry indeed and cold as well. I could have turned and moved the two compost heaps with no trouble at all. But that was then and this is now. At this rate I might even have to do some housework if all else fails!
