Festering times

water day

2012-02-05T01:31:00.000-08:00

.Yesterday was a stagger up the mountain with terrible wind chill morning. Things were not looking good in a very frozen sort of way.

By lunch time though everything had miraculously unfrozen itself and the water was running - thank goodness for that.

Into auction

2012-02-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

It's that day again, auction day. The student went off all keen, well rather I dropped her off all keen and picked her up a couple of hours later, her boat was unfloated by a pretty boring collection of objects.

So she came home early and retired to bed. I think she might be coming down with something.

The thaw has started but has yet to reach our cold water pipes, now the met office is promissing us snow!

Just what we wanted.

Phew

2012-02-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

Dear god and goodness me,

Today we went off to get a new double front seat for the T4.

We also dropped the C5 off at greasy garage and it looks like it's an engine of limited health - well for now.

The cylinder head has, as I suspected, popped big style.

But anyway off we chugged in the VW to get a new front seat which is a double not a single meaning we can carry more in there safely and. of course when we are camping we can use it as a bed for the bungie monster.

Got there an hour early and got treated to a meal by she who has just hit the bank for a big remuneration on her payment protection insurance that they mis sold her 5 years ago.

Run back woooo hoo the T4 does a good impersonation of a rat up a drain pipe..

But of course life is complex and we still don't have water and no immediate prospect down that line. Had a big organise outside today but it is still not happening. I cannot work out where it is frozen but by heck am i going to look at that this year.

Then to add to everything Serenity phoned, she wants a car, recently this has been OK as she has made her own, usually disaster choices. Now she wants me to get her a car through the trade, again

Oh nooo

Rhys

Drought zone

2012-02-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

I can feel for the south of England where water is in very short supply

We are in the same situation here. Our pipes have frozen somewhere but goodness knows where We have a heater giving it beans outside as I write but the pipes are pretty obstinate and solid.

We are in a water free zone.

Fortunately the rivers are running free so she who must be obeyed has gone out to fill some jerry cans so we are reasonably able to flush the loos. That's the main thing, many other things can go by default but you need to be able to pull the flush and have the water go.

R

Even more technical...

2012-01-29T02:07:00.001-08:00

Last day involed a trip out to the wholesaler, and no small ammount of dismay.

They have decided to de list some of my favourite beers which is of course really bad news, but temporary good news as they had the lot on clearance.

The student I treated to a box of Old Peculiar of which she had just half of one bottle before pouring the rest over her HTC very techical phone. This in turn meant removing the battery and it has woken up this morning having forgotten everything that was laboriously programmed into it last year.

She has engaged in multi harrumphs over this but her DIC will not be immediately employed as she has an important essay due in tomorrow which she is preparing for by diligently playing games on the Ipad.

Technology....

2012-01-24T13:01:00.000-08:00

This week, the kids rather aged Compaq did the decent thing and quietly died. Given a lot of options we decided the sensible one was to spend a few quid on a new laptop for the kids.

Today, we diverted and spent the day up in Aber with Bruce, this was of course was an excuse to go for lunch which was a chance for me not to get the navigation right and we ended up a good way away in a lovely pub we last stopped at on the day we brought the T4 home.

But anyway, I digress, home we came and there was the new puter. Management dismayed the kids, taking one look at the new computer and decided it was hers.

Her current computer would be theirs.

This is of course not good, she might well have a Diploma in Computing, which, I think counted for not a lot in setting up the new laptop.

I think it is pretty accurate to say that most of this evening has been given over to removing all the things she did not want. Loading all her email history onto the external drive and transferring on to the new computer.

Removing Norton, installing AVG and getting her version of Office installed on the new computer. Somehow the 60 day trial version of Office is defying all attempts to remove it. I've had to try and work out from the settings on thunderbird how to configure her outlook distress account.

This involved lots of complicated arguments, deep concentration, with what could be described as random stabs at the keyboard.

A bit like watching Rodney Trotter really....

R

Politics

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

I have always been interested in Politics, politically active even.

I have most of my life tended towards the left, being on the left of Plaid Cymru. I had a rare old time during the miners strike and of course was quite involved with opposition to the poll tax.

Back in the 90's I had a bit of a crisis of conviction. This coincided with parenthood and moving to West Wales. I didn't lose my views, if anything the years have made them stronger.

When a young (well, younger than me anyway) woman called Leanne Wood decided to stand for leader of the Blaid it was enough to spring me back into politics. I rejoined Plaid Cymru. My daughter Bethan and I went to Ammanford to see her launch her campaign. Bethan spent a little while talking with Leanne and is leaving the labour party to join Plaid.

Of course there was another meeting locally where we got to meet the local branch. The upshot of that was Bethan and me both being recruited to stand in the council elections in may.

Against this socialist backdrop there is a full on game of monopoly in going in the living room. Gwion has so much money he has just refinanced the bank!!!!

life!!!!

2012-01-18T13:49:00.000-08:00

Having been wrong, i was not in fact in work two days this week, just the one. Better still it was yesterday!

So today off went the student to do her first exam in 30 years. This was dealt with by a generous helping of stress and angst. It might have helped had she gone to the right room, of course, having been a student myself I should have known where she needed to go and not given her the wrong directions. She hasn't worked that one out yet so I won't be shareing it with anyone.

I was able to be all intelectual myself, producing a conference abstract of a paper which a couple of us have yet to write for a conference which is just a few weeks away. The lecturer in uni has designs on developing this paper and delivering it somewhere vaguely exotic like a conference in Oz for example. I havn't broken it to her yet that she can do that if she wants, but she'll be doing it without me.

R

Stress!!!

2012-01-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

Stress is particularly bad for your health, she assures me of that. Of course she would know, that's the current essay.

Things are a bit lively here as, to add to our delights Serenity is getting nuptualed in July, a matter which seems to require significant consolation about dress colours and something called a buttonhole. So long as no one button holes me to bring the step dad cheque book I will be happy. Just turn up in one of my cars, the big green one will do I know the hotel she has chosen well. There's a bloody big lake and if someone expects me to sit through a wedding and behave myself, I might as well have some fun at the same time.

The weekend has been a busy one with lots of reworking of the water system outside and commissioning the central heating in next door. Of course these old houses take a deal of warming up and the jury is still out as to weather this boiler is man enough to heat it. It doesn't help at all that the chimney has not had proper heat in about 15 years so it's properly cold and wet. The final complication is ventilation. The one thing we did not think when we went for the refurb is doors and windows. Old fashioned doors and windows are a bit hit or miss in the sealing departing modern windows are nothing like. We seem to be dealing with not enough air getting into the building - could be issues to come there.

This week is possibly going to be quite interesting. The student has two exams and I have two days work, the same two days. So how that is going to work I am not sure.....

R

time to go shopping

2012-01-04T05:35:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the student has bright ideas, sometimes she makes mistakes.

This morning she took 10 minutes off from essay writing to see if she could save us a few bob on the electricity and mobile phone. She filled in a few forms online, including our phone number.

My was that ever an error. I know now what a honey pot feels like if someone leaves it next to a bee hive. The phone has not stopped ringing as sales person after sales person calls to practise their best over the phone closing technique on someone who trained as tele sales years ago and therfore knows most of them

Only one thing for it, follow the British Army advice about the H bomb, don't be there when it goes off. I will take the same policy with regards too the phone, don't be here when it rings. We're going to Morrisons!!!

I hope she didn't give any of them my mobile number...

Ohh and happy new year to you all, well unless you are trying to sell me something.

R

Happy new ear - nose job next

2011-12-31T11:38:00.000-08:00

As the old year finishes and I have to get used to signing things 2012, something which usually takes till November every year, it's time to sit back.

It's difficult to envisage that this time next year things will be a lot better, in fact there are plenty of portents of doom in the offing.

One of the most difficult economic periods for this country and we have Clegg Camerron and Osbourne at the helm. Whilst there is a lot to be said for having skills in smashing up restaurants and getting daddy to buy you out of the mess you make, I think I would rather a dour Scott in charge of the treasury.

The terrible fact is that the last time things looked this bad in the world. And it was a banking crisis that ended that one too, the world only properly came out of recession when governments were throwing millions at going to war.

I am not sure that would be my preferred option.

R

Martyred to the Green Cause

2011-12-29T10:55:00.000-08:00

Here at Penole we are martyrs to the green cause Not for us the midwinter tumble drier to control the monster mountain of washing. No the line is up in the living room and, while the student is doing some essay about illness and health, I am in charge of clothes drying.

This involves log stove at full chat and washing everywhere, it's like a sauna in here. 75 F and 60% humidity.

Of course this is both a lot cheaper and a lot greener than electricity - but god elp us all, reckon I will have melted by the end of the night!!!

R

Dealing with banks and rating agencies

2011-12-28T12:23:00.001-08:00

Someone quite clever once suggested that if you rob Peter to pay Paul. Paul will still be your mate. Now, apply this to thhe screwed up economic system in which we live and think..... Are Moodys et al Peter or Paul. To the streets..... R

Boxing day without boxing.

2011-12-27T10:59:00.000-08:00

Well, we survived.

Boxing day was gotten through with a remarkable lack of fisticuffs, If cornered and in total confidennce i would say I have quietly enjoyed having all of my children here with me and her for the last couple of days.

That is all over now, Bethan has gone to her boyfriends and they all seem to have somewhere that is not here to see in the new year.

So, this new year is likely to be quiet by any measure, in a true measure of how things are, our village local looks set to close in the new year. Of the pubs on the square only one is likely to be open at midnight, one closed months ago and another closed just before Xmas.

The pubs that are doing well are the very small wholy owned little pubs that were of no interest to the big chains who are now stuck with big pubs no one can make a living out of.

Today we made our first tentative forray into the market town, for a time of recession there seemed to be a lot of money about. It was life in hands time on the driving front how the road was not paved with bits of broken glass and twisted plastic I will never know.

Peace on Earth - yeah right.

R

Xmas spirit

2011-12-26T06:25:00.000-08:00

Throwing a load of people related by an accident of birth together at a time when emotions are high is not necessarily a good thing.

The bleakest deepest part of the year when you cannot simply run outside to escape the carnage is perhaps a less wise way of plan things.

Of course we are trapped in this time scale by the Christians taking over the midwinter feast for themselves. Truly interesting programme on BBC radio 4 yesterday about Constantine and the Christians. How the Romans took on board the church but in the process removed the theology and it's underlying politics. Reinventing it as being about a baby in a manger and a man on a cross whilst removing a lot of what came between.

Today though is a family day, Serenity and her children, making it about 15 people in the house A sight best enjoyed through my beer goggles.

R

Clyche arian cyn y wawr.

2011-12-25T02:35:00.000-08:00

So the morning has broken, she and me are having a who can be the most ill competition. The young people have some new dance game on the Xbox which is keeping them quiet.

The fire is in, the living room is at 70F.

It has been a strange Xmas; Tesco the night before last looked as if it had been hit by a plague of locusts with empty shelves everywhere. But it was quiet, bookers yesterday was quiet.

All i all I am feeling pretty grim, elevated temperture, sweating like a fountain, crashing cough general Bleugh.

Not well in fact. There is at least a decent red breathing in the livig room.

I think the world is going to wake to the most horrendous economic hangover in the new year.

R

SEasons greatings

2011-12-23T05:26:00.000-08:00

This is a mythical time of year. People buy into the notions of peace on earth and goodwill to all men.

What a load of tosh, yesterday, in Bookers someone elbowed me out of the way to get to the checkout first, that simply does not happen in that beacon of take turns, the wholesaler.

No such rituals in Tesco's, a brisk scrap saw us in a parking space. Peace and goodwill were in very short supply as we careered and crashed round the aisles, hundreds of pounds added to our over breeze later and we were ready for home.

Of course this is easy to say but not so easy to do. It's lucky I am used to driving in France so the mass cutting up, pulling out in front of and planting the car into the roundabout routine was no suprise. I am going back tomorrow, think I might use the looming presence of the Green Goddess to calm things a bit. Tomorrow will be the day everything goes on reduction and clearance at Bookers.

That of course is all against a backdrop of a student who has the plague and is, at the same time trying to do her Eugenics Essay so she can do her Stress essay and her third essay whose subject I have clean forgotten before going on to her 4th essay to do with dissability by the end of January and there's two exams in there somewhere too.

Today is a date of great significance to us here at Penole. 18 years ago right now. I was out on the M4 in a 1950's Bedford flat bed truck with all my wordly goods in the back. My mate chopper was behind me in a Renault Traffic also loaded to the gunels. We arrived here in some trepidation, the aga was nearly out, the coal central heating had clearly been out for a long time. There was no coal or oil and it was the night before Xmas.

In the living room it was exactly 70 degrees faranheit colder than it is today and today it's 75 F.

There we sat the management and I with 3 babies in ski suits in sleeping bags.

The adventure had begun.

R

The return of Serenity

2011-12-18T15:00:00.000-08:00

Those whose memories predate this blog will know of serenity my step daughter. Her antics her partner the Great Intellectual Thinker kept the group amused for a good while. Serenity has rolled out a good one this time though.

Cars have been an issue for her And of course having acquired a GIT replacement she needed something big enough to cart them all about. She settled on a Zafira which was offered to her at a knock down price and as an added bonus the engine had just been rebuilt. Now, people don't rebuild an engine then immediately decide to sell the care, well normal people don't anyway.

I was whiffing rodent big style and made a suggestion she let me stick my head under the bonnet before she did anything rash like part with money. No this was Serenity and soon she proudly turned up chez nous in a car that was making a slight clatter.

It was one of those annoying noises that you can't quite put your finger on the root of. I listened and listened, I could not quite work it out. Her garagiste could not quite work it out either till he took the lid off and a scene of carnage was revealed. This could still have been a cheap car had she done something sensible like buy a second hand engine.

Not our Serenity, at truly vast costs and against advice she had the engine rebuilt. This left her about as solvent as Greece and so full on austerity measures went in, Well no it was more like Greece that you might think. She didn't actually rein in expenditure but passed it on to the United Bank of Mum and Step Dad.

Of course with the car back on the road an admirable opportunity presented itself to lend the car to a friend who had a errand to run to Hull. An impressive time he must have put in too to have left here at 11 in the morning and be most of the way back by 10 pm.

10 pm being the time that something went mega bang inside the engine and decided to get out and walk.

The car was duly AA recovered and is awaiting it's fate outside Chez Serenity.

The lady in question then got on the phone, at least she had now seen a bit of sense and she had decided to get a second hand engine, trouble was she could not find one at a price she could afford. Of course, it took me a few moments to find several engines but of course then the penny dropped. They were at a price I could afford not free, the price she could afford.

Of course the first line of attack has to be the garage who charged her a ransom sum to rebuild the engine. I am more confident she can get through that than she used to be

Serenity has recently, alone and without a leader, taken on an access fight with the GIT where he was legally represented and she was not. By all accounts she played a blinder got the judge entirely on side and, without Serenityonics presented a logical and calm case.

She won the day.

Good on her

R

Going green - look out for the nimby's

2011-12-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

Wind has allways been a waste here. Ever since we moved in i have thought there was a huge potential for wind generation here.

Now it's a reality, a company is proposing to rent some of our land for a small generation project. We get rent and free electricity and they get the feed in tarrif which is how it is viable. For the next 20 years the place will host a small bunch of medium size generators.

The deposit that secures our agreement is paid today.

Think I am going to look at electric cars.....

R

Getting plastered.

2011-12-14T04:56:00.000-08:00

There is a long tradition of getting mightilly plastered at this time of the year and we are happy to join in. It's only taken months and the plasterers are in repairing the damage done to the house in July.

This will be good as it's Bruces bedroom and she will be well pleased to see it has been done and it will have had a coat of paint by the time she lands too.

Her big sister has contracted something she assures me is at least Ebola and is lying in the living room groaning.

The weather is vile with some pretty rough weather promised foor a couple of days too.

Possibly even some of the white stuff so I had better get a battery charged for the Green Goddess.

R.

You plonker Cammeron

2011-12-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

DennisSkinner summed up the situation brilliantly today:

He said Cammeron was a plonker

Sums it up really.

He went to get assurances and came away with exactly nothing.

Everyone else negociated and he threw a tantrum.

Still, at least he had the guts to go to parliament today.

Coalition?

Errrrr right.

R

`
.

Watch this space

2011-12-11T06:42:00.001-08:00

Politics is very interesting just now. Yesterday Clegg thought Cameron was completely right to use his veto . This morning on Television he did a complete volte face. Recognising Cameron for the idiot he is on Europe.

You can see how under his leadership the conservative party has moved further and further away from Europe.

Now their isolation is complete.

Paddy Ashdown has launched a vitriolic attack on the euro sceptic right, or putting it another way a strong branch of the Liberal party has attacked one of the strongest branches of the tory party.

It is hard to see this coalition lasting. I wonder though what an election might bring.

Would the rabid press contribute to a Tory majority rule?

Then we would really be in trouble.

R

Hospitals

2011-12-10T11:49:00.001-08:00

Oh dear, sometimes sad things happen.

Yesterday the student was not well, she was having trouble walking and getting up stairs was a struggle.

Today she really struggled as we cut wood yet again. This afternoon I was outside, no one seems to want FB so it's going for scrap on Monday.

We were out there stripping it today.

When I came back in the student was obviously in pain, not little pain, the real McCoy.

So ignoring her protestations I took her off to see some child, who was apparently a doctor.

It turns out she has torn some ligaments and needs total rest. bed for the next 2 days. No driving walking or anything, this could be interesting.

She does not do rest.

Nice to have friends

2011-12-09T10:01:00.001-08:00

It's nice to have loyal friends and the city has few more loyal than the bullingdon boy Camerron.

Trouble was he was a bit stuffed really - the right of his party happy for us to adopt isolationism and really he has achieved that. The city had to be protected against regulation to stop them staging a re reun of 2007.

But of course they are his paymasters so what was best for everyone except them had to be done.

Now Europe will impose a banking tax that we cannot veto and create a strong stable Euro and we will be a little island off the coast of a strong economy.

A "special relationship" won't survive that and the yanks will soon be on their way to Paris and Berlin.

Cameron has made us an irrelevance - then agian we ceased being a big player a while back. Thatcher killed maufacturing in this country and Camoerron has killed banking whilst claiming to protect it.

Poor lad he's not bright mind.

Goodness grascious me

2011-12-08T14:23:00.001-08:00

Things are really not good. Cameron has gone off to Europe to chuck his weight around, and what weight it that exactly? We are not part of the Euro so he can sit there and say not a lot. Everything is going on outside or this countries control I think there is a nightmare on the horizon, the eurozone is going solid - a sound currency with banking regulation and bankinng taxed. The UK sitting outside looking over then fence, we needed to remake or at least be part of the euro but decided not to. Could be a bigger mistake than Custer. Rhys