The Spixworth Sentinel

Don't Drink and Diet!

2013-06-05T03:36:00.000-07:00

With the summer (hopefully!) on its way I'm looking forward to getting my garden in order, picking my home grown soft fruits and veg and then sitting and chilling out admiring the flowers, breathing in the heavy scent of roses and honeysuckle and supping on a nice glass of chilled white wine so I was interested when I read a recent article about people who, when dieting, often forgot to count calories in their alcoholic drinks!

I've been a dieter off and on for years now - started when I was about 18 and I'm now in my 50s - and had always taken into account any drinks, whether alcoholic or soft, as a matter of course. But it seems that there are loads of people out there who seem to consider that their alcohol consumption can be lumped in with the calories in a glass of water ... i.e. zilch!

So, be warned ... make sure you include every last drop of that alcohol in your calorie count each day! Healthy Eating. Low Calorie Diets and Drinking

If, like some of my readers, you have problems connecting to the link above, then paste the following into your browser and it SHOULD work. http://healthmad.com/health/healthy-eating-low-calorie-diets-and-drinking

Now, back to the real world. Just been out into my garden for a quick peek and, fingers crossed, I seem to have a fair crop of gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries. Five out of the six of my broad bean plants seem to be thriving and both French bean plants are looking reasonable. My sage plant is taking over it's pot and my tarragon, rosemary and thyme seeds are shooting through although my lavender seeds seem to be a bit on the slow side. I can just about see three of them pushing through the potting compost but I'm not counting my chickens just yet!

All my recently planted bulbs and my flowering bushes and shrubs are looking great so, who knows, for once I might just have full plant beds this year!

I'm having tomorrow off to do a bit of weeding, cut the lawn and finally plant up my tomato which has been sitting patiently in its minuscule pot on my kitchen windowsill for about a month. I've been waiting for the weather to warm up and, as the weather seems to have taken a turn for the better, I think I'm going to risk it. If I don't the poor thing will be producing tomatoes before it even gets a whiff of fresh outdoor air!

Bank Holiday Blues

2013-05-28T03:20:00.001-07:00

Bluebells in Rackheath Churchyard

Following on from my last blog, the last week was hectic at work and typically, with the Whitsun long weekend coming up, I ended up with a fluey bug! On Wednesday Adam couldn't stop sneezing and then woke up on Thursday morning with a headache and aching joints. By Thursday afternoon I was in a similar situation and, into the bargain, I had a blocked ear (not too useful when you're listening to sometimes garbled dictation through headphones!) and felt decidedly woozy.

I took loads of medicine to try to sort it out before the weekend and had an early night. Friday I was feeling particularly grim; I struggled on with my workload as, being self employed, I daren't lose too much pay. By the end of the day I felt like a wrung out dish rag. I'm just so glad that Adam works alongside me at home as he was on hand to make me drinks and cook an evening meal. Having watched the first six episodes of the latest series of Criminal Minds on DVD, once again I had an early night hoping that my bug would be gone by Saturday but no, it was still hanging on.

We needed some odds and sods from our local supermarket and as we had the Criminal Minds DVD to go back in the post, just for once, we took the car into the village - normally we would have walked but I had visions of me losing my balance and ending up in someone's garden hedge! Our local shop has a lovely "hot food" counter ... everything from pies to hot bacon rolls and even roast free range chickens. As I didn't feel up to cooking and Adam didn't particularly want to take on the task we opted for a roast chicken.

Having returned home, we put the chicken into a casserole and kept it warm in a warm oven and then just had some oven fries and tinned peas with it ... quick and simple! I spent the day cuddled up under my snug with the heating on despite it being a warm day, plonked my laptop on my lap and got back into Dragon Fable which I hadn't played for some while. Of course, my "baby girl" - Cleo our fluffy tabby and white cat - felt left out so I had to try and accommodate both her and the laptop on my lap which isn't very convenient. My lap isn't that big as I'm only 5'3" on a good day!!!

Around 5.00 I was beginning to feel peckish so Adam, bless his little cotton socks, cooked me a good hot chili as my sense of taste wasn't brilliant and then we spent the evening catching up with Britain's Got Talent from the previous week!

On Sunday I thought I felt a bit better so I spent the morning cutting the lawn. I still felt fine so I really went to town and planted up my broad beans and French beans, did some weeding and began hoeing around my fruit and rose bushes and by that time I was beginning for feel dizzy again ... it was as if I was mildly intoxicated but without the pleasure of drinking!

Fortunately, we still had some chicken left over from the previous day so a did a "cheating" roast dinner. I re-heated the chicken with some roughly cut onion, some sage cut from our home grown crop, and some gravy in a casserole, chopped up a bit of cabbage, opened a tin of carrots and used frozen roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings which take no time at all. Turned out to be pretty good for a quickie.

We watched a couple of Game of Thrones episodes which we'd recorded followed by the third episode of Hannibal ... the new series based on Silence of the Lambs etc. I still felt a bit grotty but, on the whole, I felt was on the mend.

The Bank Holiday Monday was my birthday. It was a gorgeous bright and warm day (although I was still feeling cold and a bit light headed) and, as Adam had a parcel to get to a courier - he'd sold a piece of computer hardware on Amazon and wanted to get it to the buyer as soon as possible - he needed to get it on its way a s a p. Here in the UK (well, certainly here in rural Norfolk) we have various small outlets where we can take parcels to small local shops and they have a connection with couriers who deliver nationwide. Our nearest outlet is the village shop at Rackheath, about 3 or 4 miles away from us. So we decided, as it was such a glorious day, we'd take a trip out with our camera and take a short trip somewhere fairly local to take advantage of the sunshine while we had it!

As I still wasn't 100% we opted for a visit to the lovely old church at Rackheath and were pleased to see that the bluebells were still in bloom and then we took a trip out a further 4 or so miles to my childhood village of Coltishall, parked up in the centre of the village and then took a two minute walk to the riverside footpath. We took a leisurely walk for about half an hour during which time we snapped one or two beautiful photographs and then we turned and, in order to get a bit of aerobic exercise, strode out for the journey back. By the time we'd got halfway back I was coming over dizzy again so had to slow down a bit but at least I'd had some fresh air, some relaxation and some exercise!

We got home after 1.00 so had a tuna sandwich, a fresh cream cake (my birthday treat!) and a cup of tea and then, having had a rest for about an hour I'd regained my balance and thought I'd make another attempt at a bit of weeding. After a couple of hours I was feeling dodgy so called it a day and decided to end my birthday in a state of total relaxation and catch up on a bit more TV while Adam went back to his PC and had a look around to see what simulator games he could find following hard on the heals of truck driving, crab fishing, and farming! Would you believe he's now found a bridge building sim? Sounds incredibly boring to me but, as he's a trained engineer I could see how it'd have an attraction.

I'm now sitting here on Tuesday morning typing my blog while he's trying to build the cheapest steel bridge option to cross a river somewhere in the US! Oh well, just as long as it keeps him happy!!!!

And now, what you've all been waiting for, my latest article. This is a great one for students who are studying for exams. Some recent research has looked into how the mind works when it comes to learning and recalling information!

I'm hoping this link works (unlike some of the ones in my last blog) but, if not, you may want just to copy and paste into your browser and hopefully it'll get through to you. Hence, I've left it "as is".

http://healthmad.com/occupational-health-and-safety/healthy-memory-booster-3

My next task is to sort through my photos taken yesterday and let you guys see them!

Digging, Dancing and Disease!

2013-05-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

Coltishall Common - where I spent the first 25 years of my life!

Time has been passing me by apace and I seem to have little time for writing, hence the lack of a blog from me for some while! Primarily this lack of dialogue is due to pressure of work. I know I’ve said it oft times but the housing market in the UK really isn’t as sluggish as the media would have us believe! I realise that my job as a self employed home digital typist involves me working for real estate related “industry” across the whole of the UK but I honestly can’t remember the last time I was so busy. Uphill and down dale, from the tip of Scotland’s highlands to the beautiful Devon moors I’m being inundated with details of high value properties coming onto the market and being snatched up within weeks.

On top of my normal, routine daily grind, I’m also trying to sort out my badly neglected garden. Due to the long snowy winter months followed by an early spring of torrential rain, harsh frosts and gale force winds, the weather (although still cold) does actually show signs of spring and, in between the odd shower or two, I’ve been trying to get in my summer bulbs, plant up my herb and annual flower seeds, keep the weeds at bay in the flower beds, give my hedges and fruit bushes a quick trim to get rid of any deadwood which was caused by the hard winter and get my lawn shipshape by a regular cutting along with weeding and feeding.

It’s taken me around a month to finally get all my summer bulbs in. I had some lilies and irises in large pots which I’d covered in plastic over the winter and fortunately most of them survived. I’ve now planted up more irises, gladioli, lilies, dahlias and ixias in the garden and, after a fashion, I managed to plant some tarragon, rosemary, thyme and lavender seeds. The tarragon and rosemary seeds tend to be rather delicate and, knowing what our weather’s like over here – heatwave one week and thick snow the next! – I’ve ensured they’re tucked up warmly in propagators on my bathroom windowsill. So far the tarragon ones seem to be quite strong but the rosemary seeds are only just showing signs of life.

The lavender seeds I decided to put in a propagator but risk leaving them out on my “staging” – basically three or four metal shelves held in a steel frame which is set up in my driveway. After all, lavender is supposed to be fairly hardy and has been grown successfully in gardens in the UK for centuries. The same applies to thyme. I planted the seeds up around three weeks ago now and the thyme is just starting to push through the soil but I still can’t see any signs of life in the lavender … but here’s hoping!

I’m trying to fill my borders with a mix of fruit bushes, roses, bushy herbs and bulbs now as it saves a lot of work; and with my ever increasing work load, when it comes to the weekend I’d rather be lounging in the garden after a bit of dead-heading, trimming back and hoeing, than down on my hands and knees planting small plants and then ultimately having to weed gently amongst them when we get a little further into the summer months!

While I was out putting my summer bulbs in I noticed that my blackcurrant bush is full of blossom which bodes well for a bumper crop later in the summer; likewise my raspberry canes. I couldn’t see any blossom on the gooseberries but I suspect they probably need a further spell of warm weather before they finally decide to show their faces to the outside world!

I’m amazed our apricot tree survived the winter – it’s quite a delicate tree when it comes to frost and cold, but it looks pretty healthy considering it was under snow for almost three weeks! It hasn’t got any blossom on it mind you, but then it’s only been in the garden for one season so I wasn’t expecting miracles.

The cherry tree was full of blossom too – we may get to eat some cherries off it; that is if we can get to them before the birds!

All three of my rose bushes survived the winter and are looking particularly good – they’ve got lovely shiny leaves and seem to be coming on a treat although I did have to trim off one or two dead stems.

And last week I received six broad bean plants, a tomato plant and, much to my surprise, 15 gazania plants, the latter of which should have been sent direct to my mother as they formed part of her Mother's Day present, but unfortunately the nursery sent them to me instead.

We now have our new car and, as it only costs £30 a year for car tax and does 55 miles to the gallon of fuel, we feel we can go out a little more often than we did previously.

Horning

Over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend we took a trip out to Horning, a pretty riverside village a short drive away from our home. It was one of those spur of the moment decisions which are always the most enjoyable. The weather was sunny and quite warm, I had some sausage rolls in the fridge so we literally threw the sausage rolls into a plastic container, wrapped up a couple of cups in some kitchen towel, grabbed a bottle of Cola and headed out there equipped with camera!

The main High Street of the village was heaving with people - some locals and some holidaymakers; most of the holidaymakers had got there my river cruiser - and, as you can imagine the only car park in the village was jam packed full of cars and coaches. Being local, we knew there was another car park tucked away that holidaymakers wouldn't know about so we headed about a mile out of the village and turned down the narrow road towards The Ferry Boat Inn where we had no trouble at all in finding a parking space!

It was absolutely glorious sitting in the car where we were sheltered from the wind, but with the doors wide open, tucking into our sausage rolls before having a walk along the riverside. We hadn't had a drink and, as there's a rather nice little cafe at the entrance to the car park we popped in for a cup of coffee. We were the only two people in there at that time so we had a chat with the two people who owned it (they also owned the attached fish and chip shop!). The cafe was due to close at 4.00 and start setting up the fish and chip shop for opening at 6.00, so we left with a cheery smile and a wave goodbye to our new found friends!

This last weekend was again one of those spur of the moment ones - again, it was a brilliant one! We had Adam's friend Nick over on Saturday which gave me a chance to have a clear up around the house and then spend some time sitting in my reclining chair with my laptop on my knees playing Candy Crush on Facebook.

On Sunday, as I still held my mother's bedding plants, I rang her up at around 9.00 that morning and asked if she'd be around and thankfully she was. I had a pheasant in my fridge that needed cooking so I told her he wouldn't necessarily be hanging around and, as she's now quite elderly and frail, she's not keen on having too many people in the house as they tire her out and she doesn't feel as able to make coffee or cater for them as she once did. When we arrived at her home at around 11.00 the weather was glorious so, having dropped off the plants, we asked if she'd just like a quick trip up the local garden centre - it's about a 5 minute drive away so not too far for her to travel.

She was overjoyed that we'd suggested it as she hadn't been there for a couple of years or so. Having gathered up her walking stick and spending 5 minutes trying to strap her into her seatbelt in the back of the car we set off. The garden centre had changed considerably since we'd last been there and Mum agreed that it had definitely improved ... and become much larger! Adam immediately headed for the aquatics building while Mum and I took a leisurely walk through the main shop of the garden centre and, as per usual, she ended up buying me a gorgeous purple glass vase with butterflies etched into it. By the time we were halfway round, Adam turned up saying that he had bought some fish food so he was happy!

We wound our way very slowly around the "plant" bit of the garden centre and, being a complete nutter when it comes to buying plants - I don't know when to stop! - I ended up buying a pretty little low growing shrub, two French bean plants and a rhubarb plant! I can't believe how quickly the time went - by the time we'd got back and paid for our goodies we realised we'd been wandering around for two hours! We ran Mum back home and, by the time we arrived at our house it was around 3.00. I stopped for a brief cup of tea and a biscuit, quickly put the pheasant into a casserole in a low oven and then, as the weather was still holding out, I cut the lawn, trimmed the edges and planted up my new shrub and rhubarb. I then swiftly nipped along the flower beds with a hoe before the dark clouds thickened and it began to drizzle. I hastily brushed down the lawn mower, chucked it back into the shed and got myself back indoors.

So that I could totally chill out, I peeled the potatoes, carrots and celeriac, chopped some cabbage and put them in pans ready for the evening meal, and at the same time mixed up a stock cube in some flower and water ready to thicken the gravy. I was then able to enjoy a game or two on my laptop.

So, by 7.30 we'd eaten, I'd filled the dishwasher ready to go on before I went to bed and just chilled out by drafting part of my Spixworth Sentinel blog and then sat in front of the telly for the rest of the evening.

And now, I've finally found time to update you on my recent articles. The first is a relatively serious one - it's about the health benefits of dancing for Parkinsons disease sufferers.

The second article relates to one of the health benefits of good old, bog standard, sugar! It's been discovered that it's excellent for healing wounds

And my third is a little less serious but quite an eye opener anyway as it's been discovered that picking your nose may be a healthy habit.

Well that's all folks! Hope there's something in amongst this little bundle to keep you interested!

(Hope you can see my links! For some odd reason blogger will sometimes tell you that you're "forbidden" from reading the articles!. If you have any problems just Google Jackie118 Triond and you should be able to get hold of them from there!)

Spixworth Seeds and Sperm!

2013-04-12T04:31:00.000-07:00

Compared to the previous week, this week has been normal – or at least as close to normal as it ever is in our household!

Having taken our car in for a “quick fix” last Friday it’s obviously not going to be “quick”. When Adam spoke to our mechanic he told him there was “no rush”; perhaps that wasn’t such a brilliant thing to say as now, one week later, we’re still waiting for a call to let us know if they’ve sorted out the problem. Unfortunately, this means we may have lost the chance to buy a Fiat Panda from our main Fiat dealer. Jason from Desira phoned us at the beginning of this week to say that they’d now taken delivery of a second hand one from a middle aged couple. It had very low mileage, was mid-top end of the range, automatic, five years newer than our Fiat Punto and the last people had had it since new, But more importantly it was within our price range provided we could part exchange our fixed Punto. Jason had told us that if we could get our old Fiat Punto repaired then he’d be happy to take it in part exchange but without that reassurance he’d only be able to offer us £100 “as scrap”.

On Saturday, once again as we suspected, it was freezing cold even if the sun did shine! Before I’d actually put my nose out of the door I thought I might finally be able to plant up my summer bulbs and some outdoor herb seeds but it was so cold and frosty I daren’t risk it, particularly bearing in mind that I’d had failures the previous year with my plants due to waterlogging! I was determined to plant my Thyme, Rosemary and Tarragon seeds at the right time of year and ensure they had a head start! I’m now quite glad I didn’t plant them up – I received an email from Suttons telling me they had a special offer on over the weekend – buy two packets of seeds and get one free!

Being a very keen gardener I couldn’t resist a quick peek and ended up buying some Lavender seeds along with some Nasturtiums and Pansies. I’m currently really into our new UK Masterchef and I’m always amazed at how pretty petals are when they’re scattered onto food. I’ve sometimes added Nasturtium leaves into a salad to make a nice peppery alternative to lettuce but I’ve never really tried the beautifully bright petals and I’d certainly never even thought about Pansies! So I’m willing to give it a go this year – could be another addition to my 5 a day if I can find out whether they’ve any nutritional value to them. I suspect there’s going to be some benefit as these are the types of cottage garden plants that previous generations have eaten and, on the whole, it seems that “human instinct” led us to eat these in the first instance rather than being swayed by the art value which seems to be the main reason today’s chefs use them!

If it’s the former then there just HAS to be some significant reason behind it. As you can probably tell, I’m a great believer in Mother Nature!!! I have great faith in her and believe that no matter what happens “she will provide” – this not only applies just to what’s edible, but to it’s nutritional and health benefits too.

Back to Saturday’s gardening – I did manage to weed and feed my lawn and check on my large patio pots of bulbs which I’d covered in plastic over the winter. As I was already chilled to the marrow I also had a quick squint at my bushes and trees to see if any of them had been caught out by the unseasonably bad weather we’d had and was pleased to note that my delicate Apricot tree seemed to have survived two weeks under snow and was now showing signs of life, as were my three rose bushes, raspberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants.

The Lilac is beginning to shoot out but I never doubted that it’d survive … it’s one of those bushes that thrives no matter what’s chucked at it weather-wise. My violets are doing incredibly well and one of my Bearded Irises that I missed last autumn when I dug out all the others is showing signs of life.

Likewise, the hedge at the bottom of the garden is now bursting with buds along with the Hazel and Cherry trees. While I was checking on the Hazel and Cherry I noticed with delight that a large clump of Daffodils had numerous buds and, somehow, a lone yellow Crocus had appeared! I can only imagine it’d lain dormant in the scrubland where it’s appeared or a seed had been dropped by a bird. I have to admit that since we’ve been trying to cut back the scrub and treating weeds with an eco/wildlife friendly weed killer over the last two or three years rather than the previous farm owner who’d just used cheap non-eco versions, we have seen more poppies, and other wild flowers appearing. Similarly, since we replaced our wooden fence with a native British hedge the new bird life that’s come along is amazing. Since we got the hedge we’ve seen far less spiders in the house as these are taken by the birds and we’ve also seen far less slugs, snails and other bugs lurking in the plants during the summer months, although I suspect that the hedgehogs, frogs, toads, lizards and newts that now thrive in our basically organic, wildlife friendly garden have something to do with it too.

So basically, the day wasn’t brilliant for gardening so I just planted up some Basil and Coriander seeds which were going to be growing indoors anyway. Adam had received three mushroom kits from me for his birthday at the end of May and he started those off. Two of the kits are fine to grow on a windowsill indoors but the third box ideally, once they’ve started to grow, need to be placed in some old logs – thankfully we have some of those down with the Hazel and Cherry to provide a home and hide-out for beneficial bugs.

The remainder of the weekend wasn’t much better so I managed to get working on some articles for publishing on Triond. With one of the articles I actually managed to get it published and bolstered up my likely readership levels by promoting it through various search engines – it related to whether or not being a couch potato could lower sperm levels in the average male. I think I must have an extremely wide readership of males out there as the viewings hit an all time higher for me and netted me several dollars.

Monday through to Wednesday remained quite hectic at work but as I’d worked on two more articles on Sunday, when I had a few spare moments during the day I just did one or two fine adjustments and finally sent them for publication on Thursday morning when things weren’t particularly busy. One came back published on Thursday evening and the other came back today (Friday). As yet I haven’t been able to promote them but hopefully by next weekend I’ll be able to let you have links. I’m also hoping that I can give you the good news that, firstly, our car is back with us, and secondly, that I’ve FINALLY been able to plant up some summer bulbs, herb seeds and my “salad” flowers!! Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Easter and Electronic Cigarettes

2013-04-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

A picture of Crostwick church - this is a "minuscule" village about a mile up the road from us!

I had been hoping to get out and about a bit more over the long Easter break but, as so often is the case over bank holiday weekends, it was fairly miserable although I tried to grin and bear it and even managed to get the lawn cut!

I hadn’t cut the lawn since last autumn. I normally cut it round about the end of February to early March. I know that we still get frosts at that time of year but I’ve found that if I can use the mower on a higher setting then the grass seems better able to overcome the moss and weeds that emerge once the frosts have passed.

The temperature was most decidedly icy but I continued with my lawn cutting task with significant fortitude and wrapped well in a T-shirt, on top of which was a jumper, on top of which was a fleece and on top of that a final layer – a waterproof “pack-a-mac” jacket. I usually take the waterproof jacket folded up in its own little pouch when we go out walking during the warmer months just in case we’re overcome with a shower of rain – which is often the case here in Norfolk! But it also provides protection against some of our chillier winds – known here as “lazy winds”; in essence they’d rather blow through you than round you!

Having succeeded in cutting the lawn, I hastily gave the mower a brush down and, as I was about to put it away, I noticed one or two flakes of snow forming. I was so glad to get indoors into a lovely warm house and have a cup of tea and choccie biscuit! From then on the weather remained grey with showers of light snow so I had a bash at researching for a new health article.

Saturday wasn’t particularly good weather-wise either but, as my sister and brother-in-law were coming over for afternoon tea to give Adam a belated birthday present, I did a bit of home baking. My family stayed longer than they intended but then that always seemed to happen. Once we all get chatting and laughing the time just flies by.

My 13 year old nephew was supposed to come over and see us with them as he loves getting onto my PC and playing some of the simpler games I play – such as Dragon Fable or Puzzle Quest. He has an Xbox 360 at home so he’s used to more sophisticated games but every once in a while he indulges in his guilty (but extremely uncool!) pleasure of playing simple, not so hectic games. However, he'd misheard what my sister had told him and thought they were due to visit us on Sunday and, as he and his school friends had decided at the last moment to go to the pictures on Saturday afternoon it was a toss up between visiting his "old fogey" aunt and uncle or watching an action movie with his mates. Gillian had phoned us on the Saturday morning to ask if we'd be offended if Dominic didn't come over on this occasion.

I can remember how eager I used to be at his age to go out and about with my pals so I had no hesitation in telling her that Dominic should grab the chance to go out with people of his own generation as, all too quickly, he'd be an adult and would have missed out on so much that youth has to offer. Anyway, we only live a few miles up the road and as we're on a relatively regular bus route between their house at Sprowston on the outskirts of Norwich and our village of Spixworth, he could come over at any time and see us.

Saturday night was time for us to put our clocks forward an hour as we had hit British Summer Time (that’s a joke!!). At around 9.00 that night my mum phoned and asked whether the clocks had got to go forward or backward – neither she nor her equally elderly neighbour could remember which way round it was. I told her it was forward. I always remembered that it was back in October and forward in March due to an event that stood out from my childhood some 45 or so years ago.

My dad came from quite a large family; three sisters and a brother. His oldest sister (Auntie Stella to me!) was married to my Uncle Stanley, a farm worker, and they lived in one of a large number of farm cottages at Hanworth.

A view of Hanworth Hall where my Auntie Stella worked from the day she left school until the day she married my Uncle Stanley back in the 1940s!

Auntie Stella’s next door neighbours were a youngish couple with one daughter, Jane, who was several years younger than me. Just prior to Christmas the whole of our family would congregate at Auntie Stella’s for a roast dinner, followed by a long walk during the afternoon provided that the weather stayed relatively fine, and then this was followed up with a slap up English afternoon tea. Auntie Stella and Uncle Stanley had no children of their own and just loved having us all over and it gave Auntie Stella the chance to have a really good “baking session”.

Over the afternoon tea which was held around a huge dining table, for some reason the adults got around to talking about the horrible long dark cold nights and obviously someone around the table had commented on it wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t had to put the clocks back in the October.

It was then that Auntie Stella told us that when she’d been making her Christmas pudding and Christmas cake at the end of October Jane had nipped round to help with the mixing (and no doubt tasting!). Auntie Stella had told Jane to remind her parents that the following Saturday they should “put their clocks back”. Jane looked extremely puzzled and asked, in her broad Norfolk accent, “why’ve they gotta put the clocks back? Where’ve they bin”? Although it doesn't seem as amusing now, it caused a riot in the buzzing and ebullient atmosphere of a big family get together.

Back to the present, on Easter Sunday the weather still couldn’t make up its mind whether it was going to be sunny or snowy and we had a mixture of both but, on a trip out to our “overflow” freezer in the garage while the sun was out, Adam took advantage, got the hedge trimmer out and gave the honeysuckle a quick short back and sides. Once again, he'd just shoved the trimmer back into the garage and then rummaged in the freezer for whatever it was we wanted. By the time he came out and was locking the garage door, the snow was beginning to drift across our garden once more!

I was really frustrated by the weather as I had some summer bulbs which were beginning to shoot and really needed to be potted up but I knew they’d never survive in the sub-zero temperatures we were experiencing. Likewise I had some thyme, tarragon and rosemary seeds that should be planted at the end of March/beginning of April in order to establish themselves in the garden this summer but due to the constant cold and frost I daren’t risk sowing them yet.

As I was already miserable and down in the dumps due to the weather, I thought I may as well sink deep into the depths of despair and tackled Adam’s Value Added Tax and then, to lift myself out of the doldrums I made us a minced beef and onion pie (or patty as we call it here in Norfolk) and served it up with some lovely buttery mash, leeks in a white sauce. cabbage and carrots. I then did a thick beefy and oniony gravy. The beef of course was organic and free range, reared in the UK on a small farm in the north of England!! It went down a treat – eating it in front of a lovely glowing fire on a cold winter’s evening with the wind howling outside and the snow rattling against the window.

On the bank holiday Monday I decided to relax and managed to get a health article on Electronic cigarettes up and running and then played a couple of games on Facebook. An old friend and work colleague of mine, Bev, had obviously been playing the same game as me and I was desperately trying to beat her score but just couldn’t quite match her on several levels!

So then, back to work on Tuesday, wondering where the weekend had gone as it seemed to disappear in a flash. I already had a load of work which had come through over the weekend and the rest of the week remained pretty busy.

Today, Friday, Adam took the car into our local garage to try and get it through the MOT test. Our local Fiat dealer had failed it a couple of weeks ago and maintained that it was going to cost us around £1,000 to get it back on the road. Bearing in mind we’d only paid £2,000 for the car around four years ago it seemed an extortionate amount of money so we decided to ask our local garage to look at it. Frankly, we lost our trust in the main dealership when they failed it on things that they claimed they’d done last year!

The local garage have now had a brief look at it and seem to think that they can do some relatively minor works which would see it through the MOT this year so we should have some wheels but we are looking at getting a newer car anyway before the test’s due again next year. And at least, if we have a roadworthy car, it gives us the option of being able to take a trip around the car sales people in the area to look at alternatives and hopefully, if we finally get rid of the cold wintry days, we can combine our trips to view cars with some time walking around the byways of Norfolk armed with camera!!

Being freelance/self employed, I can take days off at short notice if the weather’s good and being members of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust Adam and I have access to parts of our stark and sometimes windswept but incredibly beautiful Norfolk landscape which many people are unable to enjoy. If we can finally get out armed with flasks and camera then I might just be able to publish one or two photos here on my blog!!

Birds, Birthdays and Battles

2013-03-28T11:10:00.002-07:00

So, here we are again and nothing has really changed.

We've been debating whether or not to get the work done on the car and Adam finally decided to ask our local garage rather than the Fiat dealership if they can get it through the MOT using a second hand catalytic converter. The guys there know us ... we've bought most of our cars from them since 1998 when we moved into the village and we've also had them do the MOTs, but as our Fiat Punto had been MOT'd and serviced throughout its life at the Fiat dealership in Norwich we decided to keep it going.

Having spoken to our local garage this afternoon they wonder whether the catalytic converter didn't work because it wasn't allowed to heat up first, so they've agreed to take the car next week, run it for a while to heat up and then check it out. They've agreed that if they can't pass it through the test then they won't charge us for a further MOT (which is their right!) but they consider it probably isn't worth having a converter fitted.

So, the upshot is that we may be able to get the car back on the road safely and at least we can then run it around until we find exactly what we're looking for. I'm hoping that we can combine looking around garages with days out in the country armed with digi cam!! That is, if the weather stays reasonable!

It was Adam's birthday on 27 March and, as he's been telling everyone, I bought him three boxes of horse muck and some mould!! In actual fact I've bought him three mushroom growing kits! He loves button mushrooms and the larger and fuller flavour brown ones, but as the company I use for my plants and seeds online was doing a "buy two, get one free" for mushroom kits, I've also bought him some oyster mushrooms. These should be quite interesting if they take as the small spores should be poked into some rotting branches to grow.

A couple of weekends ago Adam cut some dead branches off our elder bush and left the wood piled up in a heap beneath to give a home to insects in the coming months, so this will make an ideal place for the mushrooms.

We're not great ones for going out for meals so we had a kebab delivered on Adam's birthday which made a nice change. Adam then returned to his "den" to have a tinker with his flight sim on his PC and I had an early night - Classic FM on the radio, a good book and a fluffy tabby cat to cuddle!

The weather's been pretty dire throughout the week and I'm beginning to wonder whether we've entered another ice age! I hope that our apricot tree can withstand the icy winds that blast down our garden as I'd dearly love to be able to eat my own apricots in the summer - they're one of my favourite fruits; love them just as they are or in jam/jelly.

Our meadow, due to the snow melting and to recent heavy rain, is very boggy at the moment but it does have it's bright side. We often get common herons out in the rills looking for frogs and newts but Adam looked out the other day and saw what he thought was a pure white heron! I told him that normally "white herons" were some form of egret and, having grabbed the binoculars and checked in his bird book, he found that it was indeed a

little egret.

This week at work has been particularly hectic but I did manage to get an article typed up and published. I started researching and compiling it weeks ago but due to my workload, I just hadn't had the time to give it a final "polish up" but today, at long last it was ready for publication.

I'd been following a news story which related to the whereabouts of Richard III's grave. I'd actually forgotten that his body had been "lost" but over the last six months or so a car park in Leicester, UK, finally gave up his location.

I'm always wary of these "significant" discoveries by archaeologistss but this one seems pretty conclusive.
I'm looking forward to the forthcoming Easter break. I've got some summer bulbs that I at least want to get into large pots even if they have to be covered in plastic for a week or two. I've also bought some tarragon, thyme and rosemary seeds to try and grow my own bush herbs. The idea is that I can plant the herb bushes direct into the ground and hope that at least two or three will take and thrive and then I can jot the pots of summer bulbs in amongst them (and my roses, fruit bushes, etc) and that way I don't need to spend too much time weeding in the summer but can, instead, use Roundup weed killer.

This is slightly different to the usual spray versions which can kill your plants; it works from the leaf of the weed down into the root so nettles, thistles, dandelions and the like don't need to be sprayed but I can just dab a few drops onto the weeds and the killer will over a couple of weeks get into the root of that particular plant.

Another advantage of using it is that it's "animal and wildlife" safe once it's dried into the leaves and, if you use it in a vegetable plot you can happily eat the veg without any risk of poisoning yourself - which is a bit of a bonus.

My sister, her other half and my nephew should be coming over for afternoon tea on Saturday. My sister had to work a whole day on Adam's birthday so they thought they'd spend a bit of time with us on Saturday.

Apart from that it seems I'm left with little to do apart from Adam's VAT tax return and some housework and hopefully I'll find some time to formulate another article. We obviously can't go out in the car if the weather turns out to be nice as it isn't considered to be road worthy but I'm sure Adam and I will make the most of our four days off and relax.

And then, before I know it, I'll be back in harness and working hard at my keyboard next Tuesday!

Monopoly and Metabolism

2013-03-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

I suspect that masses of us have been "brought up" on Hasbro's Monopoly game. In my family, we had our favourite playing pieces; my elder sister loved the Scottie dog, my dad liked the top hat, my mum was coerced by my sister and me into having the iron - after all she was the woman of the house and so she was bound to be more comfortable holding an iron!! And, for some inexplicable reason, my sister seemed to think that the boot was most appropriate for me, but being some five years older than me I bowed to her superiority and experience in the family hierarchy.

So it was interesting to discover an article which stated that my mother's 'beloved' iron was being done away with, but Hasbro haven't just chosen to do this off their own bat; they carried out a poll and found that the iron was the least favourite piece. They also asked for suggestions as to what players would the iron to be replaced with.

Delving a little deeper into this, I also discovered a few historical facts about the game which my bloggy friends might find mildly interesting!

I suspect it'll be relatively easy to manufacture the new piece as it'll be done mechanically in a factory environment, but I do wonder just how easy it'll be to recreate in the computerised version. Will it take a lot of re-programming? No doubt there are already software people already hunched over their drawing boards and keyboards trying to solve the problem!

And talking of being hunched over the drawing board, I also noticed and article aimed at office workers. It suggests that if you're able to stand for at least three hours a day at your desk, you would be using more calories that if you were sitting! The difference doesn't appear significant but in my case, every little helps! Working from home as a writer and as a digital typist in real estate, I spend sometimes up to 10 hours a day practically glued to my chair with just a brief trip downstairs to do a small amount of housework or to get food or drink. Unfortunately, listening to digital tapes and then standing to typing them with some speed isn't really a viable option but most certainly while I'm dealing with emails or typing up draft articles/blogs it's perfectly possible so I'm willing to give it a go ... if I can find a way of raising my keyboard and monitor to prevent me from getting a bad back and neck!!

Maybe I should try and combine playing monopoly with standing at the table??

Bouncing Babies and Bolshy Bosses

2013-03-22T05:56:00.000-07:00

A Picture of Despondency!

I really wish, just for once, Adam and I managed to fit into a "neutral" zone! It seems we're constantly living in a series of heady heights or down in the deepest doldrums and this last week has been no exception.

I was well chuffed last weekend to find that my articles (which I share with you!) were earning a decent amount of money from my publishers; I'd had a busy week at work (again netting me a nice little income)and my summer bulbs had arrived ready for planting in the garden over the Easter weekend. Add to that we had a few sunny days and life seemed sweet.

I should have known better than to think spring had sprung in our lives. As the week progressed things got gradually worse! Our car was booked in for it's Ministry of Transport yearly test and failed miserably. It's quite an old car - a 2003 Fiat Punto - but we'd had it a few years and we liked it so, rather than upgrade it over the last couple of years we decided it was a case of "better the devil you know".

We didn't have the work done there and then but the garage returned it to us and we've been debating what to do. I think we've now decided that we're going to get the work done (which will probably cost in the region of £1,000) and then trade it in and buy a newer car.

The sales team at the garage, which is a Fiat dealership, have said that they have some quite new Fiat Pandas coming in next week and they'd be happy to do a trade-in close to the cost of repair, if we took one of those Pandas. This is fine, but it means that we're going to have to dig deep into our savings and stump up probably around another £3,000 or so.

On top of that, Adam had ordered a new "bit" for his PC as he thought the "old bit" was failing but before the "new bit" was sent out he discovered there was some other problem not connected to said "bit", so he emailed the supplier and asked them to cancel it. They said they would but then subsequently emailed back on Thursday indicating that there'd been a bit of a faux pas and the item HAD been sent and that we should refuse it when it was delivered. Unfortunately this parcel had been delivered just minutes before Adam got the email! As he'd ordered himself a special "yoke" which was basically a gaming version of an aeroplane cockpit (he's into flight sims at the moment!) he assumed the parcel had been that. He's now got the problem of trying to get "the bit" back without paying out huge amounts on postage - particularly bearing in mind it was the fault of the supplier in the first place!!

I've had a pretty busy week at work ... but unfortunately the work hasn't necessarily been coming from my usual clients. My lovely head of department, Caroline, had a couple of days off leaving her work in the hands of a friendly lady and one ... should we say ...not quite so friendly! My work is notified to me by email and I was surprised at the beginning of the week to find a whole load of financial guff there - I deal with real estate and legal. I contacted the "nice lady" at my agency via Skype and she said it had been sent to me by the "not so nice" one and she was hoping that I'd type it all up and that my usual clients would be sent elsewhere.

That immediately got my back up. At the very least Mrs Not So Nice could have had the common decency to ask me first! Secondly, I would have been completely out of my comfort zone and that, combined with dictation from a complete stranger and whose voice I was unfamiliar with didn't bode well as far as earnings potential was concerned. I'm paid per minute of dictation so whereas a 15 minute file from my regulars would have taken me about an hour, this one would probably have taken me at least two, if not more, meaning that my income would half!!

I told Mrs Nice that I'd be happy to try the work provided I could fit it in between my usual clients but Mrs Not So Nice apparently wanted it done by mid morning the following day. Bearing in mind the amount of dictation which she'd sent through, I would have been hard pressed to complete it if I'd been working for my usual clients, let alone for some complete stranger, on some strange template and on some strange subject! So from that, I assumed Mrs Not So Nice had not only been expecting me to earn half what I should be earning within the normal working hours of 9-5 but was also expecting me to work into the evening at the basic level of pay!!

As the work came in late in the afternoon and I knew Caroline would be back the following morning I decided to stuff the financial work until I'd spoken to her and bugger whether or not it had to be done by the middle of the morning!

The next day, Caroline came in and immediately contacted me and asked if I was okay to deal with the financial work. I told her that I wasn't comfortable with it and bearing in mind Mrs Nice and Mrs Not So Nice had told me that my usual work would be channelled elsewhere I could see myself losing out big time when it came to pay!

Caroline, bless her, took the work back but unfortunately the sneaky Mrs Not So Nice had logged into my account and seen that the work had been taken back and that I'd been allocated some of my usual clients' work. She instantly sent me a vitriolic message via Skype giving me a right old ticking off!!! Fortunately as it was just a message and not a phone call I just ignored her and I've made a "note to self" that the next time Caroline takes a day off I'm going to do likewise. I'm self employed so I can, in essence, call the shots. Caroline's happy with me and we get along fine and dandy and I now no longer feel a tendency to be loyal to Mrs Not So Nice!!

Apart from that, everything's been fine and dandy!! The weather turned out brighter again although it's been quite chilly and I really thought we might get a decent weekend. Adam needs to get to the local post office to send a parcel and, although we haven't got a roadworthy car, we thought we might take a walk into the village but, having looked at the weather forecast for this weekend, looks as if we could be in for heavy snow so seems that's gone out of the window now too!!

At least I did find time a couple of days ago to get an article published and I've put a link below.

As you all know, I live out in the wilds of the beautiful Norfolk countryside and the air is relatively fresh. We haven't got any main roads close to the house and traffic noise from roads is a rarity. During the summer months we occasionally hear traffic in the distance. The only other noise we get is from Norwich Airport but even that's pretty minimal.

Having lived in the city of Norwich for a few years fairly close to a main road but not close enough to be disturbed by traffic noise I did find that fumes were a "niggle". The oily residue that the vehicles' exhausts vomited out made my windows almost impossible to get pristine and I soon discovered that, if I hung out washing on a warm summer evening with the intention of bringing it in clean, dry and fresh smelling the following morning, I was almost certain to find that only two of my boxes were ticked! Clean - check; dry - check; fresh smelling - never in a million years!

Over countless years I'd known that traffic fumes had been linked to illnesses - from a higher than average chance of getting coughs and colds, to cancer, heart disease and diseases and conditions that affected the lungs, but it seems that recent research shows that these vehicle fumes may cause babies to be born underweight.

So, another week has come and gone and still we seem to be on an up-and-downer ... unfortunately more down than up ... but, as "they" say - things can only get better ... I wish!!!

March Mix Up

2013-03-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

Although not taken during the most recent snowfall, I thought you may like to get an idea of what our beautiful meadow looks like during the winter.

What a mixed up few weeks I’ve had recently, not only with the weather but with my work, my family … all manner of things!

The weather’s been completely topsy-turvy. We had a week or so of heavy snow which remained thick on the ground for around three weeks. When it finally thawed out I discovered that my normal green privet hedge seemed to have died. I’ve left it in situ rather than hauling it out as it may shoot out later on if we get some warmer weather! I have two bay trees in my garden … one at the back in a large tub outside my kitchen door and one at the front which Adam’s managed to integrate into the short hedge running between our house and the neighbours, from the house out to the roadway, and a couple of years ago both curled up and went brown in the very sharp frosts we had but surprisingly, when I was gardening later that spring from a “mole’s eye” height I spied with my myopic eye green shoots coming up from the roots of both trees and they’re now flourishing once again – so I see no reason why my privet shouldn’t do likewise.

When I finally got a dry, sunny and frost free spell in the garden earlier in March I noticed that my poor sage looked decidedly wilty in its pot due to being weighted down by the snow but at least it doesn’t look dead, but regrettably I think I’ve lost my tarragon so, rather than pay out another £5 for a decent sized plant, this time around I’ve paid out £2 for a packet of seeds and thought I’d try growing my own. If I manage to succeed (or should that be suck seed!) then I can plant one out in the garden and keep at least one other under plastic in case I have the same problem next year! But I’m going for the belt and braces approach here – not only will I have a spare plant “indoors” but I intend to cover up the one “outdoors” with a plastic bag over winter next year.

When I ordered my seeds I noticed that the company sold rosemary seeds too, so I’m going to have a bash at growing some of those this year. I’m not banking on it being a huge success as I know they’re Mediterranean plants and, unless you’re living on the Riviera or the like, my little corner of England, close to the chilly North Sea coastline, doesn’t really have the weather … but ever inspired by my late father, I’m willing to have a go!

Dad always loved the countryside and farmland here in Norfolk and following his army career from 1939 to 1946 he returned home safe and sound from his war time duties and studied agricultural botany. He then spent many years as a farm inspector and managed two grain mills – one for animal feed and one for flour. Having left that profession to become a local shop/post office owner in my home village of Coltishall

The Common, Coltishall

he continued that love of plants by growing his own vegetables, fruit and flowering plants and he was always looking for a challenge. To that end he used to try growing all sorts of weird and wonderful things from seed … which generally he achieved. Unfortunately my fingers aren’t quite as green as his!

I transgress! While I was out in the garden in the freezing cold Adam thought he’d join me. We’d been cooped up indoors for so long due to the snow that he thought it’d do us both good to have a bit of fresh air and a little bit of exercise. I grabbed a large garden fork and dug over my flower/vegetable garden and discovered one or two lily and gladioli bulbs that I’d missed during my “autumn uplift”. Not sure whether these will eventually grow but, again, I’m ever hopeful so I’ve popped them into a plastic supermarket carrier bag, hung them up in the garage and I’ll just have a little look every now and again to see if any green shoots spring forth!

While I was digging for victory Adam went to trim our hazel tree. He likes to keep it fairly small and regular takes out a few branches to ensure that we get plenty of new growth – not sure what my friends in other countries call this but we, over here in the UK, call it coppicing. The wonderful thing about Adam’s coppicing is that I can keep all the old branches back and use them as stakes in the garden so there’s no need for me to go out and buy bamboo canes to hold up my raspberries or tall plants but instead can use something far more natural and fitting with an English country garden.

While Adam had his saw and other cutting tools out he decided to cut back some dead wood he’d noticed last year on our elder bush. There was one particularly thick branch close to the bottom of the bush so he decided, as the branch was dead, he’d just saw through part of it and then rely on brute strength to pull it off in its entirety. However, the elder fought back valiantly and, only after some effort on Adam’s part, did it finally yield … unfortunately, Adam got injured in the battle. He’d really been putting his back into it so he was surprised when the branch came off his hand.

The area where the fruit trees are is in a dip right at the bottom of the garden around 5 ft lower than our main garden so I couldn’t actually see him – all of a sudden I heard “way-hey” and a thud. I ran to the end of the garden and took a quick peep around the gateway to this orchard part of the garden, and there sat Adam on the ground amongst the trees! By the time I’d got there he was sitting upright with his legs crossed and (wearing a woolly hat at the time) he resembled a garden gnome. Once I knew he was OK I just had to laugh. If only I'd had my camera with me!!

What a coincidence! While typing up this blog the doorbell rang and the postman delivered my herb seeds and some more bulbs ready for planting out (hopefully – weather permitting!) over the long Easter break.

But I wasn’t the only one in the family to have a “mix up”. My elderly mother often rings me during the day when I’m in the middle of working and, although I feel incredibly guilty, I often have to cut her short as I have tight deadlines to get some of my reports and correspondence back to my clients. I keep trying to tell her that she should ring me after 7.00 in the evening as phone calls are cheaper then and also I would usually have finished work, but as soon as I’ve said it, I know that she’ll have forgotten by the following day! So it was with some concern that I noticed her number come up on our phone at 11.00 the other night – normally she’d be in bed well before then. I practically ran to the phone thinking that she must be in some sort of distress.

“What’s the matter Mum”, I said when I picked up the phone. I didn’t even start with the generally niceties of “Hi Mum, are you alright”!

“Nothing really I suppose”, she said, “but I just wondered whether I should have put the clocks back”. Bearing in mind it was the middle of the week and if the clocks had gone back it would have been on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, and also taking into account that at the end of the month clocks actually go forward, I honestly couldn’t see where she was coming from.

“No”, I said, “I think you’ll find they go forward in a couple of weeks’ time”.

“Well how strange”, she continued. “I got up at 9.00 this morning and it was still dark but I made my breakfast and then went back through to make my bed. I could see the street lights were still on and all my neighbours had their lounge lights on so I wasn’t too bothered. Can you tell me what the time is now by your clock because I’m sure that there’s something wrong with mine? All my clocks are showing 11.00 but the street lights are still on and so are the neighbours’ lights”.

“It’s 11.00 but it’s 11.00 at night”, I told her.

She asked if I was sure and I told her that I was 100% certain. She then told me that she’d had a headache that afternoon and it wouldn’t clear so she’d decided to go to bed at around 8.00 that evening. She’d had a good long sleep, woken feeling much better, noticed it was 9.00 and so she got up and had her breakfast.

I said that she must have been asleep for only an hour but it’d obviously done her good. She then said, “good grief. I’ve just had my breakfast and I’ve now done my vegetables and put my chicken in the oven ready for lunch at 1.00, so I’m going to be eating my lunch at 1.00 in the morning!”.

We both saw the funny side – but at the same time it’s quite worrying. Anyway, Mum said she’d probably turn off the chicken, make herself a hot drink and go back to bed to see if she could get back to sleep and at least she’d know that when she did get up she wouldn’t need to prepare her lunch, other than cook her chicken for an hour or so!!

She then phoned me again the following day and told me she’d just phoned the doctors surgery to make an appointment for a blood test and the nurse had told her that she should attend on Wednesday 12 March. She was about to write it down on her calendar but noticed that it was Tuesday 12 or Wednesday 13 but she just wanted to check she wasn’t being an idiot before she phoned the nurse back to query it. I confirmed that she was right – so at least that problem was solved.

Work has been incredibly hectic again during March and I had little time to publish any articles, play any of my little cheapo games or watch much TV so I’m afraid I’ve only got two links for you.

I’ve got to admit it – yep, I’m a bit of a freak in today’s society. I don’t ALWAYS eat my 5 a day fruit and veg; I don’t take excessive quantities of multi vitamins; I don’t regularly go the doctor to get poked and prodded around, preferring to wait until I feel really ill and have at least tried to put myself back together again by home remedies or at least something I can buy from my local pharmacy; I refuse to buy bottled water and don’t see a need to constantly carry any drinks in plastic bottles around with me when I go out; I don’t go to the gym/leisure centre three or four times a week but walk quite a lot and do loads of gardening, occasionally supplementing that exercise with a cycle ride, a jog or a bit of tennis on the Wii; and I NEVER drink low calorie, sugar free, artificially sweetened soft drinks. I don’t like the taste and I don’t think any “artificial” ingredients can be as good for you as natural ones.

So I found it interesting to discover that artificially sweetened drinks can possibly be linked to depression

When I was sitting at my desk eating my sandwiches the other day I took 10 minutes just to look at some of the online national press articles and their associated online “magazines” and found an extraordinarily interesting one on Synaesthesia. I’d never heard of it but I have suffered the symptoms myself in a very mild way. It’s another “mix up moment” – your senses get confused! For instance, as a child I loved “parma violet” sweets/candies but I thought the taste of these was like the smell of my local hairdresser’s!! Likewise, I can’t eat goats cheese – the taste of the cheese to me is very reminiscent of the smell of goats!!

As far as games are concerned, I had a couple of hours playing Puzzle Quest and I went onto Big Fish to see what new games they had and got a one hour demo of a Solitaire card game. Boring! I can hear you shout at me, but this one had a little more about it than your standard card game. It’s called Seven Seas Solitaire. I got so engrossed in it that I actually bought it! As it happened Big Fish had a “buy one get one for 99 cents” offer on last weekend so I bought Farm Tribe 4 for £7.70 and got Seven Seas Solitaire for 99 cents! An absolute bargain – approximately £4 a game!!

And my TV watching has been confined mainly to the new series of Masterchef which started last week and catching up with the old 1980s Bergerac detective series (starring a very young and fit looking John Nettles, star of the more recent Midsomer Murders series). It’s not full of sex and swearing, it’s not even full of murder! And it’s set on the beautiful island of Jersey in the Channel Islands.

And, on top of that I’ve begun recording a series “Killers Behind Bars” in which one my “favourite” real life criminologists David Wilson has been doing research into some of our recent serial killers in the UK, talking to people that were involved in the case – witnesses, police and members of the victims’ families – and then going back to the scenes of the crime and trying to fit unsolved murders which followed the modus operandi of the killer. It’s really interesting to see how this could work and, like David Wilson, there are certain unsolved murders that I can remember happening and which followed the pattern of the later murders the convict committed.

So, that’s my month so far. I hope to be able to update my blog again after the Easter break – here’s hoping that the weather will have improved so that I can get out into the garden … oh look, there’s a pig just flying past my office window!!!

Health, History and Happiness

2013-02-27T07:45:00.001-08:00

One of my articles in this blog is a short biography relating to a fascinating Victorian lady who had strong connections with the beautiful and historic seaside resort of Aldeburgh in Suffolk (the county immediately next door to mine (Norfolk) so I thought a Suffolk photo might make a change from the local ones that I usually go for!

I haven’t had time recently to update my blog but, after a couple of weeks of non activity on the blog front, I’m now able to share my news from Spixworth and add links to one or two articles I managed to slip in, between doing my “real work” and other “household duties”.

I’ve been incredibly busy at work and surprisingly, despite the icy and snowy weather up north, much of my work has come from Scotland! I suppose it could be that my clients are trying to catch up with their correspondence and reports while they’re snowed in at home. One of the wonders of the modern age! The dictation can be done on all manner of modern gizmos and gadgets that can be used at home, downloaded onto my agency’s website and I, likewise, can sit at home and wait for the work to come through.

Thankfully we haven’t had any more snow – well, not enough to worry about! – but it’s been amazingly cold and icy. Adam and I decided to take a walk up to the post box last Sunday and I was fine for about 10 minutes (the time it takes us to walk to the box) so we decided to take a longer walk to blow away the cobwebs. By the time we’d walked for about another 15 minutes I was chilled to the marrow! I was feeling almost hypodermic!! The last 10 minutes to get us home was one of the longest 10 minute walks I’ve ever had I think. I don’t remember the last time I’d been so glad to get through our front door and shove the kettle on!!

Typically, Adam was as warm as toast and, as we sat by the fire with our mugs of coffee, we pondered on why it is that men, on the whole, seem to stay warmer than women! Having debated long and hard we came up with the profound theory that it may be one of our more “tribal elements” coming to the fore. Way back in history men had been the hunters and women the gatherers so it could just be that men had evolved to endure colder conditions as they would have spent time out in all weathers bringing home the bacon (or mammoth!). To provide for their tribes, all the men would have gone out as a team, laid in wait, caught their quarry and brought home the meat to their families. On the other hand, the women would have remained close to their home, gathered herbs, plants, berries and nuts, made remedies, and grown and preserved food, as well as looking after the children, so they wouldn’t have been out in the cold as much as the men.

I have to say that I began to feel for the homeless people out there on the streets of Norwich who didn’t have the option of getting into a lovely cosy lounge, sit in front of a fire and hold a hot, comforting cup of coffee or hot chocolate in their hands. In fact, I thought so long and hard about these people that it brought about an idea for a future story for young adults relating to how a teenage boy and a girl end up homeless, join forces and manage to pull their lives around without turning to drink/drugs/prostitution etc..

Another brilliant thing that happened this month was that, following Adam giving me money to invest in government premium bonds back in November, I actually won! I got three lots of £25. Not a massive amount, but better than a smack in the eye with a wet kipper!

I was also pleased to see that Hillside had put some horses on our meadow. Normally, between November and April/May the meadows are empty (apart from the occasional deer, pheasant, partridge or fox finding safety there!). I’m not sure whether the horses themselves would be quite so chuffed but, as Hillside have recently rescued some horses that had been abandoned on one of our moors down in the south of England I imagine they’re not used to being shut up in stables so Hillside have probably left them on the meadow. However, they have been provided with nice “designer” coats which the Hillside people come out on a regular basis to change, and at the same time check them out and feed them, so they’re still far better off in the meadow than they were when they were abandoned with no protection, health checks or food.

I spent last weekend doing a bit of online shopping. I thought it was about time I ordered some seeds and plants from Suttons. I never know what to get my elderly mother for Mother’s Day – she’s now in her late 80s and doesn’t really need anything in particular, but she does still enjoy her garden, albeit she now has a “little man” in to cut the lawn and just put a few plants in for her now and again, so it makes sense that I order some bedding plants for her. These normally arrive at the beginning of May but I make sure that her card is with her by Mother’s Day.

Right, now back to my articles published so far this month. The first is based on happy and healthy foods - those that keep your spirits up particularly during the cold, miserable months of winter when you can’t get out and about as much as you’d like. It’s good to see there are some healthy options out there to keep you smiling rather than reaching for the chocolates or cakes!!

My second article is also a health based one which shows that vegetarianism may keep your heart healthy.

So if you combine the foods that keep you happy with those that keep your heart pumping and you could be destined to a long life.

My final article is a bit more unusual. It’s a short biography of a lady called Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Although she is connected, to a certain extent, with the above two subjects she was certainly ahead of her time – a Victorian woman who longed to study medicine and went on to do all sorts of good works for womankind. Strangely, as I was researching I discovered that she had strong connections with my local area – she lived for a good number of years in my neighbouring East Anglia county of Suffolk; living in the coastal resort of Aldeburgh which, in itself, has a long and fantastic history and is a real hot spot for holidaymakers in East Anglia due to its picturesque buildings and streets.

And finally, again on the old health subject, I came up with a quick and simple, relatively healthy dish. Asda, on our last online order, made a bit of a cock up. We asked for 500 grams (about 1 lb) of fresh salmon fillets and some imbecile managed to read it as 50 grams (about 2 oz)! As you can imagine, 2 ounces of fresh fish hardly fills a gap in your teeth let alone provide a meal, but I made good use of it by frying up some chopped onion and red pepper in a drop of olive oil, adding the salmon with some soy sauce, garlic, tarragon and pesto and serving it mixed up with a couple of ounces of pasta. It was absolutely gorgeous so I might just try it out with some trout fillets I have in the freezer next time around.

And there you have it. A full update of what's happening here in rural Norfolk. I currently have another health article waiting to be published which relates to artificial sweeteners in diet sodas so hopefully that'll be up and running shortly and ready to pass on to any readers out there!

Disasters and Disgusting Desktop Dining

2013-02-09T07:01:00.000-08:00

This is a photo taken from our office window recently. Just managed to catch the late afternoon sun with a mist drifting in across the thick snow! Now you know why I love working from home rather than in the city! But life isn't always as idyllic as this here in rural Norfolk! Read on...

The week seemed to start off fairly well. I had a good balance of work and writing but then, as they say, all good things come to an end and this was certainly true over the last week!

Thursday seemed to be the catalyst! My day started off OK but late in the afternoon, Caroline, head of department at my typing agency, contacted me to say that one of my regular clients had some urgent work which needed to be done that evening. He was in the process of uploading it onto the agency’s website and Caroline wondered if I’d be prepared to type it up. As she offered me double time for doing it I agreed.

Unfortunately, for some reason the dictator had problems with it uploading and, once it got to 5.15 and it still hadn’t arrived, I decided that Adam and I should have a takeaway meal. Somewhat conveniently we have access here in the UK to an online takeaway delivery website called Just Eat so I went online and ordered a special kebab meal, This costs us around £14 but it’s such a feast that we normally have enough to last us for two or three meals – it’s one of the takeaway’s “meal deals” and we get a huge foil container of kebab – shish, kofta, donner and chicken; two large portions of fries; two pitta breads; a portion of salad; a choice of two sauces (we go for one chili and one garlic); and an “extra” which gives us the choice of a bottle of soda or a garlic and cheese pizza – Adam and I always go for the pizza.

My work eventually arrived at about 5.30 so Adam sat downstairs, watched a bit of TV and waited for our meal to arrive while I worked. As luck would have it, I was actually uploading the finished work onto Outsec’s website at about 7.00 when Adam shouted up the stairs that our meal had arrived. By the time we’d eaten, cleared up the kitchen and had a shower it was almost time for bed so I didn’t feel I’d had a particularly relaxing end to the day.

I woke up on Friday knowing that I’d already got a load of work left over from the previous day so, in order to save myself too much stress, I decided to start work at about 8.15 and by around 10.00 I finally felt I was coming towards the end of it. Typically, as soon as I’d begun to relax a little and thought I might have time to do a bit of research for a further article, a mass of work came in from two of my clients. These particular clients, it seems, regularly store up their work throughout the week and then send it all in on a Friday!

I got stuck in, had a quick lunch and then just waded through the remainder of that work – not a particularly healthy lifestyle but I really wanted some “me” time following my stressful and long working day on Thursday Again, I was just catching up nicely during the afternoon (it must have been around 3.00), Adam was sitting beside me playing his Farm Simulator, happily gathering hay with his new baler and feeding his cattle(!) when suddenly there was an almighty bang and all our electrical gadgets went off – the lights, our PCs, our phone … everything! Adam discovered that one of eco bulbs had blown in the uplight in our office and by the time he’d discovered the problem, and managed to fix the light socket etc I’d lost about half an hour of work time.

The only good thing about this blow out is that it waited until after our local electrician had changed our fuse board, which meant that Adam no longer needed to spend ages trying to link us up with fuse wire but was able just to flick a switch!

By the time I’d fired up my PC again I discovered that Caroline had sent through an hour and half’s dictation from one of my clients which he needed back before the weekend. He’s a lovely guy from Oxford but his dictation is appalling. I decided I’d make a calming cup of tea and indulge in a chocolate chip cookie before I embarked on his work and, once again, I had to work after 5.00 to get it back to him before he left his office at 5.30. So much for wanting a less stressful Friday!

Following our electrifying bulb blowing disaster, I had one of my “sneezing fits” – sneezed non stop for about 20 minutes or so. I suspect it was due to the fact that Adam had disturbed dust that had gathered in the blown light fitting but, whatever it was, it left me feeling positively yucky – my head was fuzzy and I had a headache, my throat was sore and I just felt as if I wanted to go straight to bed when I finished work. I’m just so pleased that Adam’s a dab hand in the kitchen – we normally have oven cooked fish and chips on a Friday but as I just didn’t fancy that, Adam made me scrambled eggs (ideal for sickly people!). I spent a couple of hours sitting by the fire trying to get warm and then, eventually, had an early night while Adam continued with his farming.

And now, on Saturday, I still seem to have an “overhang” from yesterday’s sneezing and have a dry throat so I’ve decided to update my blog and I’m going to pace myself as far as my housework is concerned. Once I’ve “blogged” I’m then going to spend the rest of the weekend sorting out one or two articles for publishing next week, interspersed with the old household chores. At least while I’m sitting at my keyboard I can take in loads of fluids and, by way of a treat, I’ve taken a couple of fresh cream cakes (eclairs) out of the freezer so Adam and I can have one with an afternoon cup of tea.

And talking of eating/drinking at the keyboard, I did find time to research an article in the middle of the week. Again, thereby hangs a tale!

I sent it through for publishing and, as it was based around germs and bacteria that lurk around workstations, I suggested it should go onto the Health website … but no, the publisher knows best and it was stuck on the Computer website under a sub-category of Hardware! I left it there for a couple of days and found that only 30 people had read it. I emailed the publisher and asked for it to be moved into Health but my request was declined. I thought perhaps they might relocate it at least to the News website but, once again my request was declined. Eventually I sent a message to one of the main guys and told him that the article really wasn’t about computers as such but was a health issue surrounding workstations and, having reviewed the matter, he agreed and eventually, come Friday, he ensured it was placed on the Health website. So, now that it’s on the right site I’m happy to share it with you.

So there you have it. Seems that no matter how hard I try to live a quiet life out here in a lovely peaceful village, I’m doomed to failure. I’m beginning to think that working from home isn’t all it was cracked up to be. What is it they say? The grass is always greener …?

Spixworth Going Live

2013-02-05T03:59:00.000-08:00

After giving you a glimpse of our snow in Spixworth, I thought I'd look ahead to the summer months hence the picture above - clear blue skies, lush green grass and trees in full bloom! I know I shouldn't be wishing my life away but I'm tired now of constant frost, snow, sleet and high winds and long for the (hopefully) warmer days of spring when I can spend some time out in the air and trying to get my garden looking a little more ship shape - at the moment it's more like a ship wreck!

Since my last blog we've had upheaval at home. Our house was built back in the early 1980s and, as such had an old fuse box. It was fine in its day but now, due to the mass of electrically run gadgets and gizmos we have at home, Adam thought it was time to get the fuse box updated. He decided that although this would cost a fair old whack, it'd be safer for us and would be a good selling point if we decided to move. We don't plan to move but with both of us now in our 50s we thought we'd look ahead to retirement and maybe move into a bungalow in the village.

You may remember from a blog I did two or three months ago that we had a "handyman" in to wallpaper our lounge and (we think!) that he may have put kitchen roll or some of the thick, absorbent "elephant sized toilet paper" type stuff that decorators use to mop up spills of paint or paste, down the loo and blocked it. We looked in the local phone book and found a young plumber, Scott, who lived just up the road from us who came out and solved the problem. During his visit we discovered that he had a brother, Frazer, who was a qualified electrician and so we asked Frazer out for a quote and he seemed bright and intelligent, and appeared to know exactly what was needed. His quote was reasonable for the job in hand and so we invited him out to do the work. He arrived last Wednesday with a pal and immediately got stuck into the job.

As you can imagine, working from home as a typist/writer and electrical work just don't mix - basically I had to take a day off as the power was on and off for long periods of time. We thought everything was going well but then Frazer said that under current "government rules" he had to carry out tests on all sockets and light fittings to ensure that they were up to scratch before he could "sign us of" as a safe house. We hadn't banked on this so following the fitting of the fuse board he then had to unscrew every socket and every light fitting in the house. Needless to say, he had a problem Houston!! Our lovely new wall lights weren't up to scratch. Forgive me now for giving a "dummy's" description but it appears from my VERY limited experience that they weren't connected to an earth wire which means (I think!) that we're more susceptible to electrocution if we start future electrical works around the lights.

We had three options. We could take up the carpet and the floor boards in the bedroom above the lounge to try to tap into the original centre ceiling light fitting; we could take down all the coving on the wall/ceiling above the lights and then channel new earthed wires down the wall to the light fittings, which would mean totally wrecking our new wallpaper; or we could buy more expensive and less easy to find wall lights that were double insulated - which apparently meant the lights were themselves earthed and so could be wired into the unearthed wires we already had in the wall. I hope all of that makes sense - it certainly didn't mean much to me! All I could deduce was that it would cost us huge amounts of money to go via the bedroom/ceiling light route as we'd have to get someone in to put everything back as it was. Alternatively we could go to the expense of having new wire put down to our current wall lights which would involve getting builders/decorators in to replaster the wall, buy and fit new coving and then repaper the wall or, the moderate expense of our time searching for double insulated wall lights and paying out about £50 each for those new lights. As you can imagine, we opted for the "moderate" option!

We thought we'd start searching the web for the light fittings on Saturday when I had a day off to concentrate on what wall lights were out there. I know I work from home and have spare moments when I'm waiting for work to come in, but I didn't want to rush into buying the first thing we saw.

On Saturday mornings we do like to have a bit of a lie-in so it was annoying when we were rudely awoken at about 8.00 by the phone ringing! We ignored it as my mother, being forgetful, often forgets what time it is and phones us up at strange hours. Less than half an hour later the phone rang again so Adam and I decided we may as well get up. We thought maybe we could at least have a leisurely breakfast before starting our search for new lights but, once again, the phone rang mid bacon sandwich. Adam picked up the phone and we discovered it hadn't in fact been my mother phoning us frantically earlier in the morning but it was his friend from Great Yarmouth who had a problem with setting up some new bit of hardware he'd put in his computer. This news didn't actually come as a great surprise because, unfortunately, Nick is not the handiest person when it came to DIY and delicate jobs.

Having spent an hour on the phone trying to talk Nick through what he'd done and Adam making suggestions as to what to try next, Nick still couldn't get his PC to work and said he'd probably have to wait until his brother returned from a weekend away and then borrow his car to take the PC into a local store.

Almost as soon as Adam came off the phone he had his sister from Essex on the phone. She'd been trying to contact him for the last hour to let him know that his sister from Sussex had been taken into hospital with a suspected heart problem.

By the time he'd finished his conversation with his sister it was getting close to 12.00 so we decided to have a coffee and I'd phone Mum - I usually phoned her earlier in the morning but due to events I hadn't been able to and I thought she might be worrying. That conversation took about an hour which led us nicely into lunch.

Over lunch I decided to look up "mobile" PC repair people who could perhaps help Nick with his problem so he wouldn't have to wait for his brother's return from holiday to return to his daily PC "fix". I found one which had been running for 10 years, was no fix no fee and there was no callout charge!! Adam phoned Nick to give him the details but by this time, Adam seemed to have developed a cold. In normal circumstances we would have had paracetamol and codeine tablets available as well as Lemsip hot drinks (the equivalent of a heated dose of cough mixture with decongestant combined!) but "when he got there, the cupboard was bare and so poor Adam had none"!!!

He was feeling pretty miserable by now - he had a headache and felt cold so he went downstairs with his tablet PC to sit in front of the fire in his rocking chair and watch some video on YouTube. He's currently into farming and truck driving sims and he's found this fantastic guy from Gloucester UK who plays similar games and makes brilliant videos. If anyone's interested, he's called Stockoglaws!! But he doesn't just do sims - he's done videos on all sorts of games including Minecraft!!

I have to admit that I wasn't in the mood to do much on my PC so I joined him in front of the fire relaxing in my reclining chair and played a game on my laptop which I'd bought from Big Fish. In between levels however I did do a little bit of housework!!

During the afternoon Nick telephoned to say he'd phoned round one or two shops in his local area that he'd found in the Yellow Pages but all of them made out that this was going to be an awkward one to fix and would need several hours' work and, being unemployed, Nick didn't have enough money to pay them huge amounts. He'd then phoned the "mobile" people I'd found on the internet and they said they'd call out "tomorrow", i.e. Sunday!!

Adam and I had an early night and decided we'd try and get our lighting job done in the morning.

Sunday dawned. Adam was still feeling a bit groggy but wasn't as bad as he'd been the previous day so, while he was looking for lighting, I put an order in from Boots (UK chemist) and ordered some cold remedies and painkillers so we were prepared for the next cold to hit the household and I took the opportunity to order various smellies and beauty treatments (I'm in real need of something miraculous here but settled for my usual treatments which don't actually seem to work!).

After searching for some considerable time we did eventually find some half decent wall lights - twice the price of the current ones we had of course!! Adam emailed a link to Frazer the electrician just to make sure they were OK before we ordered them only to find that upon arrival they weren't right for the job!!

Once again, we seemed to spend the day on the phone! My mother phoned to let me know that her friend Hilda (who must be pushing 90!) had had a fall. She lives with her daughter, Yvonne, in a "granny annexe" and her grandson, Adam, is currently working out in Australia. Yvonne has a webcam attached to her PC and Adam has one on his so they usually have a chat over the weekend. Apparently Yvonne had just linked up with Adam and shouted through to Hilda to "hurry up" if she wanted to see and chat to Adam. Hilda, taking Yvonne strictly at her word tried to "hurry" but being elderly had faltered and fallen and badly sprained her ankle and bruised her leg.

Following that "disaster call" we received a call from Adam's sister in Essex to say that his sister down in Sussex had got a chest and lung infection and would remain in hospital until the Monday.

After that Nick telephoned to say the "mobile repair man" had arrived and the job hadn't been a major one as suggested by his local shops. It was merely a matter of Nick not having pushed hard enough on the connecting plug of a bit of his hardware. So the PC technician had been in and out in about half an hour - as Nick had to pay a full hour amounting to £50 as the PC had been fixed, the guy tested a lot of other bits and pieces to make sure they were working OK so, all in all, it had probably saved Nick a trip into town which would involve him in paying his brother for petrol, paying for parking and then it seemed paying big money for motherboards, graphics cards or whatever he had managed to get his PC fixed and having it "health checked" on a Sunday for £50!! A bargain!!

We then had a phone call from DFS Furnishers who told us that they now had our sofa bed in their local store and wanted to deliver it on Monday.

Adam then decided to go upstairs and do a bit of "farming" on his PC and I played a bit more of my game on my laptop but disciplined myself to a certain degree by doing a bit of housework in between each level of my game. By the time I got to bed I felt that I'd achieved quite a lot - I'd dusted, got some washing done, cleared out and shredded some old bank statements I'd had lying around, cleaned the kitchen floor, cleaned round the bathroom and ordered things over the internet that I hadn't found time to do over the last couple of weeks and, into the bargain, I'd also had a bit of "me time"; playing my game, getting an article published which was rather a bizarre and yet sad story I'd read about in the national media Snake on a Plane and watching a bit of TV.

Having come back to a pile of work on Monday morning I did manage to get through it fairly swiftly and spent an hour or two working on my next article so you can look out for that in the next few days and this morning, Tuesday, I've finally found the time to update you with my blog while I've been waiting for some work to come in ... which has now arrived! I'm now off to Hampshire in the south of England and then off to the tip of the UK - Scotland. Sounds brilliant but in fact it's just typing up a few letters!!

Winter Hits Spixworth With A Vengeance

2013-01-28T08:28:00.001-08:00

It seems an age since I was last able to update my Spixworth Sentinel. I've been busy at work so have only been on to send through a quick appeal on behalf of Hillside Animal Sanctuary asking my Sentinel friends to sign an online petition relating to the governing of slaughter-houses here in the UK.

We've been having a fine old time of it with the weather. For the last two weeks we've been practically snowed in but yesterday (Sunday) the weather changed "for the better" - I use the term loosely as it actually teemed down with rain and blew a gale ... but better that than days of relentless snow and ice.

Adam and I took advantage of our long awaited freedom and gaily donned waterproof jackets with hoods and walked round the block to post some letters which had been hanging around for two or three weeks. Adam being somewhat weightier than me didn't seem to have a problem but I was finding it was a case of "one step forward, two steps back" as the wind caught me off guard. We seemed to be the only idiots who ventured out in it as, unusually for our little village, we didn't see a cat let anyone to chat to on our 30 minute walk to the post box and back.

During the cold snap our two cats decided it was best to stay in but eventually their bladders and/or bowels got the better of them and they had to make a mad dash out through the cat flap, a quick squat in the most sheltered spot and then back in. I, on the other hand, took pity on the birds and i could be seen with my hoodie, stout shoes and woollen gloves hanging up a good supply of suet balls in the garden hedge and placing a couple of metal trays of bird seed mixed with peanuts on the ground for the larger birds.

But my weekends were spent quite productively in looking out some interesting stuff for articles and getting them published but unfortunately I didn't then have time during the week to give you all links so you could enjoy them too!

Added to my workload during the weeks, i also had a problem with my elderly mother. I'd bought her some warm pyjamas for her birthday and she phoned me in a right old tizz about a couple of weeks ago saying that she'd laid them out on her bed ready to wear but later in the day she'd found they were missing. She was adamant that they were there before she'd ventured out to Sainsbury's supermarket but weren't there when she got back! It was all I could do to stop her from phoning the police to report a robbery!!!

I told her not to get herself in a lather over it and set about ordering her a new pair - and while I was on the Matalan website I also noticed a few bargains for myself! No sooner had I received notification that my order had been despatched, when she phoned me to say that she'd solved the mystery.

"After my walk in the snow to Sainsbury's today", she began, "my back was beginning to ache, probably because I was a bit tense walking on the snow and ice, so I got my hot water bottle to put behind me, made myself a cup of coffee and settled down to watch a film on the telly.

"I then ventured round to see Jessie Next Door and take her her lottery ticket, came back home, did some housework and had my lunch. By that time my back was aching again so I went to get the hot water bottle off the sofa so I could heat it up again but it wasn't there!

"I searched high and low and then wondered if I'd put in in my hall cupboard with my ironing board and hoover by mistake. The hot water bottle wasn't in there but I did find my pyjamas in a plastic bag! Now all I need to do is find my hot water bottle!"

I know I shouldn't find it funny as Mum's obviously getting forgetful due to old age, but Adam and I found it hilarious! One problem solved for Mum but another taking its place.

On top of that, Adam's sister in Essex had had to have her 15 year old dog put to sleep and obviously she was pretty distraught. So I had to go online and order a bunch of flowers to be sent to her. She phoned a couple of days later to say she was absolutely thrilled with the flowers ... and chocolates! I hadn't noticed when I ordered the flowers that if you spent over a certain amount the flower company threw in a box of chocolates for free!

Anyway, back now to my recent articles. The first one relates to the banning of bottled water in Massachusetts. Let's hope it's a sign of things to come - we need to start looking at ways to save our beautiful planet and this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Having decided to try the new diet fad of taking Raspberry Ketone tablets twice a day (which coincidentally didn't work for me despite me spending a fortune on them!!) I thought it'd be interesting to see what other weird and wonderful diet fads had occurred over the years.

Adam is particularly into new technology, gadgets and geeky things and he was interested in an article I wrote about a "waterproof Smartphone".

In between writing and publishing my articles I'm looking at websites where I can publish work and get "proper pay". I've published one children's poem so I'm hoping to build on that with a few more ideas I have lurking at the back of my mind. I've also dug out some old children's stories I typed up on Word Perfect pre 2000! I thought, now that I'm more of a seasoned writer and having gained a little more confidence in my abilities, I might just try to get them published, but I'll keep you all posted.

Oh, by the way hope you like my photo of the snowy meadow. I took it a couple of years back but it gives you some idea of how beautiful our outlook from our office here in Spixworth is - whether it be mid summer or mid winter!

URGENT APPEAL FOR ANIMAL LOVERS

2013-01-24T07:26:00.001-08:00

The horses in the above picture were taken from my back garden. These horses belong to Hillside Animal Sanctuary and are put out onto this meadow from late spring until early autumn. All have been rescued from abuse and cruelty and are now safe and secure for the rest of their lives thanks to Wendy Valentine and her team.

However, I have received a distressing email from Hillside asking for my help to get a Petition signed on behalf of animals, and more particularly horses, that are being abused in slaughter-houses. If you love animals then I would urge you to add your name to this online petition and pass on the link to anyone you think would like to add his or her name.

If this article is sufficient for you to consider giving up meat and going vegan or vegetarian you may want to check out a couple of web sites I've recently come across.

The first is a vegan e-book and the second is an excellent vegan website.

Hopefully my next blog will be a little more positive and light!

Christmas in Spixworth

2013-01-02T07:29:00.000-08:00

Don't panic Britain; we haven't been hit by snow storms over Christmas but thought you might like a picture of our meadow from a couple of winters ago just to add a touch of Christmas to my blog.

So, 2012 has now gone and we're into a fresh year but will "13" be lucky for Spixworth? The jury's still out on that one, but Christmas 2012 didn't turn out too badly even if it was a bit muddly.

On Christmas Eve I found it was hardly worth sitting here in my home office waiting for work but at least I was able to finish at midday. I was expecting my sister, brother-in-law and 13 year old nephew to call me and arrange to come over at about 3.00 and, as in previous years, as soon as I finished work we went online and ordered a takeaway to be delivered at around 7.00 (this year we opted for the Brit favourite of fish and chips) which allowed time for us to have a cup of tea, sausage roll and mince pie and, of course, a good old natter with my family but unfortunately this wasn't the case!

My sister telephoned me just after 4.00 to tell me that she hadn't had a very good day - she'd been expecting to start her little part time job in her local convenience store at 7.00 am and then finish, as usual, at around midday but due to sickness and holidays her boss had asked her if she minded staying on for a few more hours. At this time of year when she'd had to buy Christmas presents and other extra bits and pieces she didn't want to turn it down so she'd ended up working right through until 4.00. She then had the prospect of preparing Christmas lunch for the family (5 in all) the following day - herself and Harry (my brother-in-law), Dominic (my nephew), my mum and Harry's mum. On top of that her two stepsons (Neil and Craig), who are both in their early 20s and have partners, had announced they'd like to go round on Christmas Day for afternoon tea. She's always pleased to see them and was thrilled that they wanted to go round on Christmas Day but this, of course, involved cooking extra sausage rolls and the like, so she'd now got to set to and start baking!

Despite being invited to either mine or Gillian's for Christmas Day every single year since my father passed away in 2000, my mum has for the last four or five years flatly refused to leave her home and basically doesn't want to see us! She's elderly and, it seems, is turning somewhat cantankerous in her old age. Gillian and I often arrange to go over to hers or take her out during the year and she accepts; and then we're put off - on occasions I've found myself being "cancelled" the night before I'm due to go over there because Mum's decided to "go to the hairdresser's instead"! At least I know where I stand in her line of priorities - marginally above her trip to Sainsbury's supermarket to get some bread and milk but below her visit to the hairdresser.

Anyway, that aside, the result of Gillian's predicament meant that Harry and Dominic would be coming round to ours on their own on Christmas Eve to exchange presents, thus giving Gillian time to herself to gather her thoughts and get cracking with preparing for the big day!

We'd assumed that Harry and Dominic would be over within quarter of an hour or thereabouts so hadn't thought this would upset our plans but, in the event, Harry and Dominic arrived at about 5.15, which was OK but not ideal.

They had a cup of tea and a chocolate chip cookie or two and we thought they'd be gone by about 6.00-6.30 which would still leave Adam and me to spend a bit of time together to unwind before our food was delivered. Dominic, being a young teenager, obviously isn't really interested in the conversation between three old farts so we handed him the controller for the Wii so he could play a game or two. I use the Wii primarily for exercise - I love jogging and cycling on Wii Fit Plus with a little bit of yoga and aerobics thrown in! This isn't exactly Dominic's cup of tea but we do still have the good old standby for when he visits - Wii Sports which he's still quite happy to play.

Unfortunately, he saw that we'd signed up for Netflix on the Wii so, instead of choosing to play a game, he was drawn to a Christmas comedy film from two or three years ago. This instantly drew Harry's attention so we all sat around watching a mind numbing "comedy".

Our fish and chips were delivered and Dominic and Harry showed no signs of wanting to move so our meal had to go into a warm oven until they went home. I could see that they weren't going to leave until they'd got to the end of the movie which still had about three quarters of an hour to run, so I made Harry another cup of tea and, as I hadn't taken back the chocolate chip cookie packet from the coffee table beside him, Harry managed to polish them off. I love them making themselves at home but I certainly hadn't expected Harry to hog all the cookies while Adam and I sat there waiting to enjoy our fish and chips which smelled mouth wateringly delicious!! Still, at least I felt I was giving Gillian longer than she'd expected to get to grips with her preparations.

Fortunately our fish and chips didn't seem too much the worse for wear for having sat in the oven for almost an hour but both Adam and I were starving by the time Harry and Dominic left so I suspect we would have settled for burnt offerings! To have sat there for heaven knows how long smelling them but not being able to eat them was pure torture!

The remainder of Christmas Eve was spent relaxing and speaking to friends in the US and Germany before we went to bed at about 1.00 in the morning.

I phoned Gillian almost as soon as we got up at about 9.00 on Christmas Day as I knew she'd be busy.  Gillian said she'd spoken to Mum to make sure she was still coming over, still expecting her to cancel at the last minute but she was utterly amazed that Mum sounded quite upbeat about her visit!

Gillian said that as Mum was now definitely going over to hers for the day, Harry would pop round to ours on the way back (which would be some time after 12.00 - close to lunch time!) and bring Mum with him as she wanted to deliver her Christmas present to us.

As it was so exceptional for Mum to be out and about on Christmas Day we didn't like to refuse so, once again, our Christmas Day was completely topsy-turvy. Instead of eating at 1.00 as planned we had to set it up for at least one hour later. We'd wanted to have roast pheasant but, instead, settled for roast chicken. Pheasant, being a denser meat, needed cooking for slightly longer and as we had a defrosted free range chicken in the fridge we put off having the pheasant. We knew that the pheasant would keep for some time as it's a game bird and is quite happy if it's left to "hang" for a few days.

Mum and Harry arrived at about 12.30 - Harry (as per usual!) didn't refuse a cup of tea but we didn't get out any biscuits!  Before they'd arrived I'd put the chicken in the oven so after they left - at about 1.30 - I decided not to opt for the home cooked roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings but, instead, in order to save valuable time, settled for "Aunt Bessie's" frozen roasties and Yorkshires which would be done in about half an hour. While I was sorting out the stuffing and gravy Adam quickly prepared the Brussels sprouts and we eventually ate about 2.15.

Needless to say, this threw our day out completely!  Due to having our unexpected visitors and having to re-arrange our schedule, we hadn't had time to open our presents which we normally did over breakfast. Between my telephone conversation with Gillian and Mum and Harry's visit, we'd had Adam's two sisters on the phone to us, so once we'd finally finished our lunch at about 3.00 I made a cup of tea and we settled down to open our presents. Adam and I had each given the other gift vouchers plus one or two stocking fillers. I'd bought him some special chutney (which he loves in sandwiches and with cold meats) - not your normal run of the mill supermarket brands but from a specialist delicatessen. I also bought him some lovely hand made chocolate bars and chocolate buttons (with a twist - they were cappuccino flavoured rather than just bog standard chocolate!).

Adam had bought me the Mamma Mia DVD and a couple of other DVDs. I absolutely adore early 20th century silent movies and he'd managed to find a couple of British ones rather than the more readily available US ones. One of the DVDs was more of a "silent documentary" which contained real life footage of life in Edwardian England - from the rich to the poor. I haven't watched this yet but it'll make a very welcome addition to my steadily increasing library of historical and crime reference books.  The second DVD consists of a couple of British silent movies from the early 1920s which had been discovered very recently ... presumably tucked away in someone's attic! So you can expect to have links to some interesting history articles in my blog some time soon!!

Usually by this time we'd have been ready for a buffet tea but, having eaten a late lunch, we decided to watch my new Mamma Mia DVD and eat afterwards. Fortunately I had a nice variety of frozen party food so after the movie I stuck the oven back on and we had a piece of hot quiche and a few odd prawny "nibbles" - prawn and sesame toasts, prawns in batter and the like, with some dips. I'd forgotten until I dragged the party food out that we also had some buffet strawberry and mandarin orange cheesecakes and some mini chocolate eclairs so I brought a few of those out too! By the time we'd eaten this "afternoon tea" it was almost 9.00 so we watched The Grinch for the umpteenth time and then went to bed just after midnight and looked forward to a good lie-in on Boxing Day.

It hadn't been an ideal Christmas Day but it seemed to have panned out quite well in the end.

On Boxing Day we were rudely awoken at about 8.00! My mother obviously decided that we didn't deserve a lie-in and called to let me know all about her day at Gillian's. Thankfully, whenever she calls, the conversation is always about her and I rarely get to say anything so I just switched off and added the odd "oh" and "mmm" to the conversation. By the time she'd regaled me with her news I was wide awake so Adam and I got off to quite an early start for a Boxing Day. We just spent the whole day relaxing as I knew that I'd be back at work the next day. Fortunately my typing agency only opened from 10.00 until 3.00 between Christmas and the New Year so I did get a bit of a lie-in. Very little work arrived as I imagine most of my clients were off so I was able to do odd bits and pieces around the house and just checked my email in box every quarter of an hour or so in case anything came in.

While I was waiting for the work to drop in I did manage to get a recipe published. Over Christmas I think most of us tend to over-indulge in rich foods and during the intervening period of Boxing Day and the New Year, we're looking for something a little lighter. However, we are still entertaining friends and relatives so it's not always easy to come up with something a bit special but this recipe for Cured Salmon and Tortilla seems to fit the bill. It makes a change from meat but is still warming and filling.

I hope that 2013 turns out to be lucky for all of you but, from my point of view, I'm not banking on it ... I'm now about to start compiling my blog regarding New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and already I'm beginning to think it may not be a huge improvement on last year!

Christmas is Coming ...

2012-12-20T06:50:00.000-08:00

So, Christmas is almost here! Thankfully I think I've done all the necessary ... although I'll probably discover on Christmas Eve that I've forgotten something essential!

Christmas this year seems as if it's crept up on me. I thought I'd got loads of time to get my Christmas cards posted until I suddenly realised that the last post to ensure the cards got to the recipients on time was 20 December and I'd had my cards sitting on the dining table for a week. I'd primarily left them there hoping that the weather would pick up so I could walk up to the post box but, in the end, we had to go out by car. I'm not being a wimp here you understand ... I know I'm water proof and can put on a warm coat but bearing in mind I live on the edge of a village and need to take a 20 minute hike to the post office and another 20 minute hike back, the prospect of walking in high winds and driving rain isn't too appealing!

While we were out in the car Adam and I took the opportunity to do a "top up" in our local Co-op shop. Needless to say, once we were in there we not only went for the essential fruit, veg, milk, bread etc but ended up getting some frozen "party food", i.e. mini sausage rolls and other nibbles that we could just put in the oven for quarter of an hour to make a quick and no nonsense afternoon tea over Christmas.

So, what are my plans for Christmas? I'm working for my outsourcing agency right up until lunch time on Christmas Eve. I don't have to as I'm self employed but I know that many of the other typists either go away for the Christmas period or have children at home that they want to spend time with, so I always like to make myself available to Caroline, my Head of Department, just in case any work filters through. I've worked for Outsec Typing Agency (who outsource dictation to provide employment for work from home typists) for nine years now and they've looked after me very well and so I like to repay them by putting myself out just a little bit if it helps ease their stresses over Christmas.

Once we get to Christmas Eve I usually have my sister, her partner and my 13 year old nephew over. They visit my elderly mother first and have a quick lunch and exchange presents with her. She suffers from osteo-arthritis and can't see very well due to cataracts so it's no surprise really that she'd rather be on her own - and stress free - over Christmas. As she says, the weather can be unreliable which means she'd worry if either my sister or I had to travel the 15 miles or so through along narrow winding and normally unsalted roads and, if she came to stay with either Gillian or myself then she wouldn't feel able to get up in the middle of the night if her osteo-arthritis kept her awake. Another factor that has to be taken into account is that Gillian's and my bathrooms are upstairs which is difficult for her when she's not particularly mobile.

On the way home from Mum's, the "gang" stop off at ours for a couple of hours during Christmas Eve afternoon for a cup of tea and a mince pie. Sometimes Gillian and I will have a quick tipple ... a glass of sherry or port normally ... and poor old Harry, who always ends up as the driver, has to make do with cups of tea, bless him. Dominic, being only 13, will normally settle for a half pint ... No, not beer ... Coke!!!

I can remember how boring it was at 13 having to sit and listen to my parents and various aunts and uncles chatting when I was bubbling over with excitement at the prospect of Christmas Day so "Uncle Adam" normally sneaks off upstairs to the office and, as by the time of my sister's arrival I've finished work, Dominic sneaks off with him and both of them play PC games - Adam on his and Dominic on mine.

Once my brood have gone, Adam and I usually settle down and have a glass of wine and either enjoy a good steak from a farm where we know the cattle are well cared for and raised organically and free range, or settle for a takeaway which we order on line and get delivered. Either way, we make the most of the few days I get off work.

Christmas Day usually starts with Classic FM on the radio - they tend to play nothing but Christmas carols and music - and we open our presents over toast and marmalade and a cup of tea. This "opening ceremony" is always interrupted, but not in a bad way! All members of Adam's and my family ring up and expound on how wonderful our presents are and wishing each other a good Christmas.

Once the presents are open it's usually time to start the Christmas lunch. This year we're having a locally shot pheasant so again, we know it's had a reasonable life out in the undergrowth and we also know that at least the poor little thing had a chance of escape, unlike the "factory farm" bred pigs, cattle, sheep or domestic fowl. Needless to say, we really go to town - all the trimmings including stuffing, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, Brussels sprouts, Yorkshire puddings and some other veg. This is topped off with a good thick rich gravy and bread sauce. For dessert, we find it a bit heavy going trying to cope with Christmas pudding or mince pies so we settle for something a little lighter... usually trifle or gateau.

If the weather's good, we take a walk around the village to get rid of a few calories and it's always a treat to see all the kids from the area showing off their new bikes or remote control cars etc!! If the weather's bad then we'll settle down in front of the fire in our armchairs having put on the dishwasher from our "mega lunch" and maybe watch a bit of TV or a DVD or, if not, we sometimes revert to a board game or two!! Who knows, I might even do a bit of blogging or article writing!

We have a buffet style tea - a pick 'n' mix of nibbles washed down with tea and then again, for the evening, we do whatever we feel like doing but it's usually assisted with a bit of booze as neither of us have to go out in the car over the Christmas period.

Boxing Day we do much the same, just slob around and do whatever we want. We get up when we want and go to bed when we want; we eat what we want and sleep when we want! Once again I tend to do a hot lunch - sometimes a roast or sometimes just a gammon joint with chips.

And then, unfortunately, I'll be back on the treadmill on 27 December ... up at 7.30 ready to start work if there is any ... things are usually very slow indeed between Christmas and the New Year- but needless to say, because of the lack of regular work, I am able to just set the volume on my PC quite high and that way I can hear if any emails or messages come in alerting me to those essential few minutes of dictation to boost my meagre earnings for the month of December and then I wander off and relax while I'm waiting.

There's one thing I do know for certain ... I won't be earning money from Google AdSense during December. Can you believe that I ... an honest, friendly, fun loving, 50 year old country girl ... have had my AdSense account blocked?! I've been given no reason why I should be banned and, of course, Google won't now pay me what money I've earned over the last couple of years. Talk about Scrooge ... Bah, humbug!!!!!!!!!

You can see my tale of woe in the link below and you'll also see there are a heck of a lot of other people who have found themselves in a similar situation. Oddly enough, this article has sparked my highest "audience" yet when it comes to readers. Over three days I had over 1,000 people read it.

Google Adsense - Bah Humbug!

I think now all I can do is wish all my readers a very, very happy Christmas ... but you may like to check over the Christmas period as I may have time on my hands to sort out another article or two, start up my newest "stories" blog or even my "journal" blog which I'm hoping will consist of one or two tales from my family archives. Both my mother and father as well as myself have had quite interesting lives now I've sat down and thought seriously about it.

This is your roving reporter ... Jackie from Spixworth, signing off now for a few days!

Autumn Days and Allergies

2012-11-26T03:50:00.003-08:00

This may not be a picture of Norfolk but I discovered it when I was researching my latest article and found it so appealing I thought I'd share it with all of you.

The article was based on something I'd read about; the connection between health and access to open countryside. It's something that I'd just managed to work out for myself but it took a team of researchers to discover the reasoning behind it.

It seemed logical to me - for thousands of years humans had lived out in a natural environment alongside nature and it wasn't really until the birth of the industrial revolution with its factories and tightly packed terraced cottages that people couldn't easily gain access to the countryside and were forced to live unnaturally close to each other.

But here you have it - the science behind the sense!

Allergies and Acinetobacters!

Unfortunately, during last week I didn't actually go outside into my lovely Norfolk countryside but at least was able to look out at it from my office window - and gloat that I hadn't got to go out in the frost (at the beginning of the week) and pouring rain (in the latter part)!!

Sunday and Monday weren't bad days - they were certainly crisp, and even the cats decided not to go out after breakfast; Kizzie (who loves sitting outside) spent about quarter of an hour each morning looking out of the cat flap debating whether or not she should go out for a quick pee or remain indoors with her legs crossed! After careful consideration she decided that the crossed leg option was preferable and disappeared back into her basket, snuggled into her fleecy blanket and remained with legs crossed until lunch time.

I did venture out - briefly - just to hang some washing out rather than have it hanging around indoors or using the uneconomic and decidedly eco unfriendly tumble dryer. It may not have got completely dry but at least it came back indoors with that wonderful "ozone" fresh air smell as opposed to the more artificial fabric softener/tumble dryer sheet one.

My mother, whose birthday it was last Saturday, phoned me on Thursday and said that she'd received a Royal Mail card through her door saying that she'd need to go to the Post Office to pick up a package as "insufficient postage" had been paid - she owed the Post Office £1.09. She wondered if it was me that had sent anything to her; if not it had probably been my sister. If it was neither of us then she was disinclined to pay it. I told her I had sent her a medium sized birthday card and, as she said she hadn't received it, we decided it must be that.

Our local postman, Keith, had told us that recently, due to cheaper courier services for packages and more emails being sent (whether letter form or birthday/new baby etc cards), Royal Mail were losing out on post so, as postal workers were retiring or leaving for other employment, those that were left were having to take on larger delivery areas which resulted in post being delivered to some homes mid afternoon rather than the traditional "breakfast time". Now I can see why our national mail service is failing! We're so restricted as to what we can post by normal 1st class. At one time, if a letter or card was under a certain weight it would automatically get there but now it seems, I can't even send a medium sized embossed birthday card to my mother without going to a post office and getting it weighed and measured ... and then I have to pay more for the postage than I do for the card itself!

As far as parcels are concerned, we no longer use Parcel Force (who were once part of Royal Mail) as once again they're more expensive than couriers and the parcels, even at the cheapest rate, take days sometimes to arrive at their destination compared to "private" couriers who charge less and normally deliver within a day or two.

Last weekend was grim weather-wise. Saturday was frosty first thing but by mid morning the clouds had thickened and we ended up with a horrible cold, damp mist. The cats had run out of biscuits so Adam and I decided that, despite the weather, we'd be healthy and walk into the village to the local Co-op. We took a couple of bags with us - one that could be folded and zipped up which meant that Adam could shove it in one of his pockets, and the other was a small hessian bag which I bought to support Hillside Animal Sanctuary. We managed to fit everything we wanted into the zip up bag so I was left carrying the hessian one.

On the way back we took a little detour through an area of Spixworth called Gregs Meadow and, to our amazement, found that nobody seemed to have collected any of the crab-apples - there are bushes jotted all around the boundary. As I had a spare bag we stopped to grab a few so I could make some crab-apple jelly. It's always a joy to spend an autumn day rummaging around the Norfolk hedgerows to see what fruit and nuts nature can provide for us.

Thankfully Adam's over 6 ft tall and was able to reach some of the higher, better quality fruit so we didn't have to rely on the windfalls, and any of the fruit that was knocked off the bushes by us and fell to the ground should rot down a little and provide food for small animals and "ground eating" birds such as blackbirds. So everyone's a winner!

We got home feeling decidedly damp but invigorated too so, over a cup of coffee, I phoned Mum to wish her a happy birthday and then settled down at my PC to do a bit of online shopping ready for Christmas and interspersed that with a touch of housework.

Sunday was pretty grim but with a tiny little bit of sunshine (during which time we managed to take advantage of the solar power by shoving on the dishwasher!) and then it turned horrible again. It was pretty depressing so I set to and set up our Christmas food shopping order from Asda (sister company of Walmart!). It's brilliant - I've now booked a slot for the week after next and I can add or delete items at any stage between now and 10.00 pm the night before the delivery.

It takes quite a while to do but it's amazing how much money I can save compared to a "normal" trip to the supermarket as I can set myself a target amount to spend and then, if I go over the budget, I can go through what I've got in my basket and either delete an item, reduce the number I've ordered or replace it with a cheaper alternative. It's particularly useful if you're on a tight budget.

I then decided I'd just play a game on my PC - Adelantado, a cheapo game from Big Fish. I know I'm in my 50s but it doesn't stop me from being a kid in my spare time!!!

And now, here we are back to a chilly Monday morning and, having just completed my first job of the day I'm left with a little spare time on my hands to update by blog over a cup of steaming coffee and a "dunker" - a biscuit that I can dip into the coffee!

Health, History and High Jinks in Spixworth

2012-11-17T04:03:00.000-08:00

Thought you might like a picture taken in the nearby village of Coltishall. It's the village of my birth and I spent many a happy hour when I was little, paddling a little further downstream where the water level was a little lower. The photo was taken by me from Coltishall Common which was owned by Kings College, Cambridge and which many years ago, was a fairly rough piece of land where local people took their livestock to graze and where wherries used to moor up in order to unload their grain which was then transported to the local granary a few hundred yards up the road.

Now it's a place of leisure; cruisers carrying holidaymakers who moor up and spend time dining at the local pubs (which were, in days of yore, serving more basic food to the hard working wherrymen and slaking their thirsts with a pine or two of ale!), walking and generally enjoying the peace and tranquility of Norfolk life! But as you can see, on the opposite side of the bank farmers still graze their cattle.

And now, from peace and tranquility, to the fast lane of my home life in Spixworth - well fastER but still not reaching the 60 mile an hour speed limit!

Following our disaster last Friday with our plumbing - a blocked loo, eventually we had a nice plumber turn up with his teenage son, and he managed to fix it within minutes so at least we didn't have to spend the weekend pee-ing in a bucket!

I was tempted to do some vacuuming and dusting as Danny the Decorator had finished putting wallpaper up in our lounge, but, as he hadn't started on our porch, Adam persuaded me to put my feet up and relax. So, apart from cleaning all the "necessaries" like the loo, bath, kitchen etc, I did very little, other than play a game from Big Fish called Farm Tribe. In fact I played it so much that I actually finished it. I then noticed that Big Fish had brought out Farm Tribe 2 so, being the last of the big spenders, I paid out a fiver and have now started that!!

I was still desperate to get out into he garden but rain stopped play so there was very little else I could do that was relaxing - I really should have started filing last year's tax returns for Adam and me but, as Adam pointed out, they didn't need to be lodged until the end of January so I may as well have a quiet weekend to recharge my batteries.

Before I knew it, Monday had arrived and Danny, as he'd done all the previous week, was on my doorstep at 8.30 waiting for his early morning coffee. As soon as he'd come through the front door he set up his steamer to get rid of the old wallpaper in the porch and while that was gearing itself up into action, Danny was doing likewise over his coffee!!

Adam and I then disappeared upstairs to let him get on with it. He'd finished by Tuesday lunchtime so he helped Adam to move a big, heavy wooden bookcase from our small office back down into the lounge, had a coffee and then went home although he'll probably be back in the spring of next year to redecorate our bedoom. We've already picked out the wallpaper we want

Wallpaper

But for now, we've had enough of decorating although Adam still has to put up shelves, coat hooks etc in the porch and lounge and we need to move our furniture around following Danny's removal of two brick built "units" either side of our fireplace.

The week was good for earning mega money for my Christmas coffers but didn't leave me much time for article writing but I did spend time over my breakfast, lunch and for half an hour or so when I finished work in the evening to look into an interesting news story about the use of turmeric in cancer treatment.

Curry Cancer Cure

My spare time was a little limited as my mum (who's now in her mid 80s) was getting in a stew over various things. She'd had a gas man out as her central heating radiators seemed to be getting too hot and she thought the thermostat might be on the blink. She'd called out a "gas engineer" who spent about 10 minutes looking at it and then proclaimed that she needed a new boiler which, in itself, would cost around £1,000 without the fitting. Mum said she'd have to think about it and the gas engineer charged her a fair amount of money for his 10 minutes and left cash in hand. He didn't leave the usual certificate that all her other engineers had done over the years, nor did he leave a receipt.

I suggested tht Mum might want to call British Gas to see if they'd come out and give a second opinon; besides being very well qualified, they also looked after young families, the disabled and the elderly very well - giving them discounts and, in some cases, free assistance, including the installation of boilers.

Mum phoned me the day following this visit and said that she'd noticed that a couple of her houseplants which she'd had for a number of years were now shedding their leaves and wondered if there may be a gas leak following this engineer's tinkering so, in order to put her mind at rest I went onto Amazon and bought her a battery powered CO2 detector for under £14 which I had sent to her direct.

The next day, Mum phoned again to say she'd tried phoning British Gas but had to keep hanging on the phone as they were "busy". She said that she'd got papers all over the place for when she was able to get through but she wanted to go out to Sainsbury's to get some milk, bread and other essential food items so didn't want to spend hours hanging on the phone. I told her I'd contact British Gas by email and see if they could perhaps phone her back - which I did - and then I phoned her back to say that they'd try and contact her by phone or me by email within 24 hours. That was Thursday; it's now Saturday and they've neither contacted me nor her so looks as if I'm going to have to give them a boot up the bum!!

It's just the sort of aggro I don't need when I'm busy working but I'm determined I'm at least going to get this blog up and running before I start lodging Adam's and my tax returns online. I'm then planning to do a bit of dusting and titivating before I start compiling the tax return ready for next April.

Hopefully next week I can then get started on my Christmas shopping online and writing out my Christmas cards! It's never ending here!

I did find time to put in a meat order yesterday evening, ready for Christmas. I use an online free range/organic company Free Range Meat UK. Free range and organic meat is far more expensive than that from more intensively reared stock but my conscience is such that I felt uncomfortable eating the run-of-the-mill factory farmed animals. But this company do cheaper cuts as well as wild fowl/game. So I've stocked up my freezer with a couple of cheaper joints of beef, a cheap joint of belly pork, a cheap joint of boned and rolled lamb, as well as pheasants, partridges and pigeons and even a couple of large porterhouse steaks for New Year's Eve! All in all, for around £60 I've got enough meat there for at least a month and with a relatively clear conscience. Ideally I would love to be a vegetarian but, at the moment, I'm far too keen on it; although I am tending to go for wild fowl, game and fish these days.

Well, the tax return beckons!! And, if I have time tomorrow I may just have another little play of Farm Tribe 2.

Spixworth Seaweed and Sanitaryware

2012-11-09T08:32:00.001-08:00

This week has been a bit of an up and downer. Our decorator arrived on Tuesday to put up new wallpaper in the lounge, hallway, landing and porch. He's a local guy; very scruffy, smells like a fag factory but doesn't stop working. All I do is provide him with coffee and the odd chocolate biscuit and he works like a demon.

We're now through to Friday and he's hoping to finish everything bar the porch today but he's going to need to steam off the paper from there and says his brother-in-law has got his steamer so he's going to get it back over the weekend and get to grips with that next Monday.

Paper looks fantastic and, with our new wall lights, the lounge looks incredibly bright. Unfortunately bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen now look very dull and grimy in comparison.

So all happy and bright on that front. But last night after Danny the Decorator left, we noticed that our bog was filling up to the brim when we flushed - obviously a blockage in there somewhere. Adam tried using a plunger but to no avail so had to phone a local plumber this morning. We're just hoping that it won't overflow before he gets here because if it does, the water will go straight through the ceiling and down onto our lovely new wallpaper below.

Hopefully the plumber won't take too long to get here but he's already got some other call outs in the village so who knows?! In the meantime, trying not to drink too much tea and we're going to have to persuade the decorator to do likewise.

This week started off hectic with work but I did have time to sort out an article. Living so close to the coast I'd never really considered going to the beach on a nice bright autumn day and collecting seaweed! It's incredible just how nutritious seaweed is. We seem to get loads of bladderwrack washed up on the beaches here so I might look out a few bladderwrack recipes and give it a go.

Bladderwrack

I already take kelp tablets. Don't know whether it's a mental thing or whether it does actually work, but I have to say that I definitely feel better after taking them and notice I feel more sluggish without them.

Kelp

Hope you all find the link below interesting and maybe some of you "coastal bods" might look on our poor neglected crops of seaweed with a bit more interest when you're next out walking the dog along the beach!

Benefits of Seaweed

DIY Demon in the House!

2012-11-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday dawned cold but bright and, amazingly, I managed to get some washing dry outside before the night closed in at around 5.00. Isn't it lovely when we put the clocks back to GMT ... not!

Just as well I could hang the wet linen outside as Adam, my DIYer partner, decided he'd start demolishing a brick plinth we had in our lounge. It'd been there since we moved in in November 1998 and we'd been planning then to get rid of it! As you can imagine, the lounge was full of brick dust but thankfully I managed to shut myself in my office with the door closed and the heat on, block myself off from the pounding of the hammer with my headphones on and work.

Today, however, is cold and wet - typical as had our grocery order from ASDA delivered this morning. Thankfully, although it was drizzling and still cold when it was delivered we didn't have a deluge of rain. Now, all is calm - everything is packed away and I'm now writing this while I'm sitting in my warm, cosy office waiting for my next batch of work to come in.

Yesterday I did a bit of delving into my news archives and found a weird item relating to Honduras. I hadn't been aware that they had the highest murder rate in the world per inhabitant and, although somewhat disturbing and whilst I feel really sorry for the victims and their families, the article itself did make me smile!!

Here's a link - hope you, like me, can see both the serious and the slightly more amusing side to it!

Fights and Funerals

Courage, Coins, Caterpillars and Compost!

2012-10-30T05:06:00.000-07:00

The last week or so has been a bit of a liquorice all sort! I've been busily working - having now netted a few new clients from the north of Scotland right down to Devon and Cornwall! Have on line typing job, will travel - and I don't even need to pack a suitcase but just sit at home with a mug of coffee and wait for the "ping" of another email dropping into my mailbox.

Last week, however, it seemed everything was going to pot outside of work. First of all I wanted to transfer two lots of money, at weekly intervals between the two, into premium bonds. I set up a transfer with my bank but discovered that the first payment hadn't gone through on the due date. So spent an absolute age on the phone trying to get through to the bank. Eventually I got through to a lovely guy called Rob at the call centre. He told me that, because I'd asked for the money to go through on a Sunday it couldn't be processed until the Monday and then couldn't be passed through to the National Savings premium bond account until the Tuesday. He told me it'd normally go through on the Tuesday night at close of business but he'd transfer it immediately. He then confirmed that the next payment would go through the following Monday morning, bless him!

In some respects this annoyance turned out not to be so bad! He suggested that, as I would now have close to the maximum amount in premium bonds, I stood a far better chance of winning a small amount so it might be a good time to open up an on line ISA account - which allows me to put about £5,000 a year total into it - and that way I could put my meagre winnings into it to gain me yet more tax free interest. I already have an ISA with a different company but as I pay into it monthly and the credits each year are less than the £5,000 or so maximum it should work quite well as I can pay any extra into my new ISA.

On top of that mini disaster, we discovered that our electric meter had gone wrong! We were no longer getting the cheap night rate. Thankfully, now that we have solar panels, we tend to make use of any power we get from those during the day but we then had to contact Scottish Power who sent out a meter man. He's now fitted us with a spanking new meter so we're hoping it might just last us a few years!! But it was bloomin' inconvenient not having any hot water for a day and a bit! I can now imagine what it was like before we had hot and cold running water, although I had to rely on kettles of hot water rather than boiling up the old fashioned copper from the Victorian era!!

We then had to spend last weekend packing up and storing china, etc as Danny the Handyman (I thought!) was coming over on Monday 29 October to start decorating but, having spent all day Sunday packing everything away, I realised that he wasn't actually coming until November (doh!!!). But again, looking on the bright side, at least we're ready well in advance so we can relax a bit now.

Adam's been busily building up some new wardrobes and other bedroom furniture - our furniture is getting on for 25 years old now so it was about time for renewal. Unfortunately, my old grey stallion ain't what he used to be, so having spent almost a day putting the thing together, he's now mucked up his shoulder and his back so our bedroom is somewhat in disarray and I have to breathe in deeply to squeeze past the wardrobe shell to get to bed.

Never mind, it'll look great when it's done.

Now for the bit of my blog you've all been waiting for. I get to share my recently published musings with you!!

I've always enjoyed poetry and, lying in bed early one morning and unable to get back to sleep, a kiddies poem came into my mind. I got up when the alarm went off and quickly jotted down a few notes and eventually I managed to form a neat little rhyme. Hope you enjoy it!

Sir Dominic the Gallant Knight

As you all know by now, I'm really into animals, wildlife and the environment so I was thrilled to read about a survey which had shown that many of our UK butterflies that had been fast disappearing from our landscapeshad increased in 2011 due to perfect weather conditions.

UK Butterfly Survey 2011

I then came across a rather strange, but a bit worrying, article about some new UK coins that could cause skin problems. Thankfully I'm a tough old bird so I'm hoping they won't affect me!!

Silver Coins and Skin Conditions

Again, being all for environmentally friendliness, I was appalled to read a survey on how much food we waste here in the UK. I'm pleased to report that I don't really fall foul of this survey but I think many of you out there will be guilty and hopefully shocked by the statistics. I've added some thoughts on how you can use up some of the food items they're mentioning - and even if you're not too concerned about the environment, I suspect the majority of you, particularly as times are pretty hard at the moment, will be interested in the money you can save by using up odds and sods of food!

Frugal With Food

Well, that's all folks. Speak to you all soon

Can Dr Who's Sonic Screwdriver Help our Local Environment?

2012-10-15T04:43:00.001-07:00

Another little bit of Spixworth above. This is where two "major" roads collide on the outskirts of the village!

Since my last blog things have been a bit more exciting on the home front – some of the excitement was welcome, other less so. But either way, it all contributes to a less tedious day!

My work seemed to start off quite well in the early part of the week but dwindled off substantially by the end of the week which gave me time to do a bit of research and publish a new article.

Researchers at Dundee University have managed to come up with a useful Dr Who Sonic Screwdriver type contraption which can help in the medical profession. Being a country girl, I can see great potential for this and I’ve actually emailed the head of the research team to see if he can foresee a use for it in my environment – farming, agriculture, forestry or ecology. He probably won’t respond to me as I’m a mere amateur journalist but it’d be nice to see if this could be stretched still further.

Sonic Screwdriver

I then decided I’d try and get into a bit of children’s verse! Not my usual sort of thing but I have on from time to time bought blank greetings cards which have caught my eye and composed my only little short poems to suit the occasion and I know my family always appreciate the personal touch. My first poem revolves around a little boy who imagines he’s a knight in shining armour, off fighting battles in order to rescue an imprisoned princess. To my surprise it seems to be going down rather well with my readers on Triond so thought you might like to read it too.

Sir Dominic the Gallant Knight

Having got these published and logged off from work on Friday night Adam and I spent a quiet evening in front of the TV. A friend came over for the day on Saturday and I had hoped to get the lawn cut but, because of torrential rain the night before, there was little likelihood of that. I decided I’d put that off until Sunday in the vain hope that the weather would remain relatively dry … It did. However, on a more uplifting note … I contacted our lovely handy man, Danny, informing him that we’d now bought our wallpaper for the lounge so he could begin work on deconstructing some brickwork in our lounge which comprised a sort of corner TV and video unit and a small side shelf The aim is that he’ll take out these two pieces of DIYers handiwork, salvage what bricks he can and use them as “upstands” for some small steps down from the bottom of our garden to a bit of land between our garden and the fence to the Hillside Animal Sanctuary boundary. We need this to be discreet because strictly it’s not our property, but Hillside are happy just as long as we plant it sensitively to the environment and it’s horse friendly! We’d already been down and planted a cherry and hazel tree and some raspberry plants which we knew would thrive and, if the horses did decide to add a bit of fruit and nut to their diets, it wouldn’t do them any harm at all. Once Danny’s done that, he’s then going to repaper our porch, lounge, stairway and landing. He told me he’ll ring up and probably come over one day this week.

This coming Wednesday we should also be having some new bedroom furniture arriving. This entails Adam hammering out our old so-called fitted wardrobes – again a bit of a Heath Robinson affair done by our rather slap dash previous owners. This entails me going through the wardrobe and packing everything away until Adam has had time to construct the new furniture.

On Sunday we woke up to a bright and chilly morning. We drew up our military campaign style day. First of all I wanted to invest some money in our government set up savings/lottery type scheme – the premium bonds. You can do this online so, having transferred the money from my savings account into my current account, I tried to create a standing order. The bank aren’t keen to transfer more than a certain amount in one lump in case my debit card had been stolen, so Adam and I thought it best if the large amount I wanted sent to the savings scheme was split into two and sent one week apart.

I managed to the final stages of the transaction and it then asked for the pin number on my debit card. I’ve had the same one for years but, I think, due to all the other numbers that had been swirling around my head, I managed to get a couple of the numbers in my pin the wrong way round so my card was locked.

In order to unlock it Adam and I had to walk to our Co-op local village store where there’s an ATM. I say we had to walk – we could have taken the car but as the weather was gorgeously sunny we thought it would do us more good if we took a walk.

When we reached the shop we thought our luck was in – no-one was standing by the machine so I went straight in, shoved my card in the hole and asked for my pin number to be unlocked. It then asked me to confirm my pin, which contains a number 2. It took me about five minutes – for some reason the number 2 key didn’t work very well but with a certain amount of perseverance and violent persuasion the machine eventually relented. We thought it might be a good idea if we popped into the village shop just to let them know that the number 2 was dodgy and, of course, while we were in there we couldn’t resist just having a wander round. We hadn’t had any breakfast and the smell of hot sausage rolls pervaded our nostrils so we came to a unanimous decision that we should buy ourselves a couple – by the time we’d walked home (about 20 minutes) they’d be just the right temperature for eating with a hot cup of coffee. I’m beginning to wonder if the knackered Number 2 was deliberately set up by the staff in the shop to entice people in to report it … and then shop! I’m not usually swayed by conspiracies but there’s just a little lingering doubt in the back of my mind regarding No. 2!!!

Mission one accomplished – debit card pin number reset, sausage roll digested, coffee drunk, now onto the second mission.

Logged into my bank account and went to create a standing order to the government’s NS&I (National Savings & Investments) scheme. Keyed in all the NS&I account details – sort code, their bank account number, our reference number and clicked the button to create the desired transaction. My bank acknowledged it and asked me to confirm the details were correct. Adam noticed that my bank had decided to stick a couple of zeros on the end of the NS&I account number! So then had to go through the rigmarole of phoning my bank to make sure this was right.

Having gone through the usual banter – press this number followed by # if you want blah blah blah; press that number followed by # if you want blah blah blah … eventually I got to a stage where I could press 1# to get to a customer services adviser. I spoke to a lovely guy called Matthew who told me that the 00 was an “old fashioned” way of differentiating a current account from other account types so, as it was a payment to NS&I this 00 would be fine. I just hope he’s right, if not I may have lost £!4,000 somewhere in the pipeline!!!!!

Mission two accomplished. Now for the third mission – cut the lawn. No way, Jose! By now the weather was windy and overcast. If I’d still got my old push mower I would have gone out there but as the one we now have is electric I didn’t fancy getting caught in a thunderstorm – could have ended up an extremely electrifying experience!

So, instead, Adam and I went into our own little dream world. We weren’t looking for the £1m win from our premium bonds but we did think it’d be nice if we could afford to buy a decent bungalow with a lovely private garden. We thought that if we won enough money we would buy a property in our village outright and then we could just take as much time as we wanted to emptying our current house before either selling it or renting it out. We found a lovely bungalow with a decent sized secluded garden, four bedrooms, a lovely sun room and even a garden pond so we could take our fish with us!! It was only £190,000 – an absolute snip!! So all we need is a win of around £200,000 and we’ll be well set up. Once we’d moved into our new bungalow and sold or rented out our current house, we’d have enough cash to invest so that I could actually give up work and just spend time writing. Well … in my dreams!!!

During this “dream time”, I really should have been emptying out the wardrobes but, by the time we’d awoken from the dream, it was getting dark, it was cold and miserable and it was time for supper. It was so much later than we’d thought so we had to resort to fast food – frozen fish pie with broccoli and peas, followed by tinned fruit and cream!!

Thankfully though, it wasn’t too late in the evening for me to catch up with the “gong home” results for Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor. As far as Strictly was concerned, I wasn’t too surprised that one of our children’s TV “national treasures” Johnny Ball was voted off – he’s now getting towards 80 years old and it was obvious that he’d find it difficult to do the lifts and fast dances later on in the series and I don’t think he was too surprised either. But as for X Factor, I couldn’t believe that the two least favourite acts with the public were an excellent young boy band and an “over 28” lady who had the most incredible voice – a slight gravelly, Janice Joplin type. There’s a guy from Essex who managed to slide through to the final 12 acts and I was convinced that people would vote him down to the final two this week but, as with Jedward a couple of years back, who weren’t particularly talented when it came to singing but were extremely annoying and ever so slightly entertaining – sort of a mini guilty pleasure – he managed to wing it and lives to fight another week and so our beautiful Scottish diva has been sent home, much to Gary Barlow’s chagrin!!!

And now, here we are back to Monday. Had no more than a few minutes’ work through so I’m sitting here compiling my latest blog. I’m then going to get on with a bit of article promotion on Google etc and then, if I have time, I MIGHT just start emptying out the wardrobe. Failing my enthusiasm to do that, I’ve got another article in my mind and I’ve got a few jottings in my notebook for a new children’s verse.

Hope you enjoy reading the article/poem and I'll keep you posted as to whether or not I hear from Dundee University.

Autumn Marches on Apace

2012-10-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

Today I thought you might like to see the beautiful interior of Spixworth Church. You've seen the inside so many times over the last few months so thought it was about time for you to take a peak behind the front door!

Following my blog of yesterday, I was my usual boring self. Had quiche with a baked potato, sweetcorn and spring onions followed by some fruit – still sticking to my healthy eating regime (day one had gone pretty well!!) – and then settled down in front of the TV.

Adam and I don’t always see eye to eye on what we like to watch but there are a couple of programmes we both love – one is QI a semi-quiz show in which four comedians try to answer some really intelligent questions put forth by the fabulously talented and highly educated Stephen Fry. As per usual, in amongst all the really interesting “well I never knew that!” type reactions from Adam and me, there was some hilariously funny banter going on between the comedians.

We followed this up with one of my favourite celebrity chefs – Nigella Lawson. I love her for her normally quick and easy recipes and Adam loves her not just for her culinary skills but for her sexy presentation and two further assets (and these are not her cooking skills!). Her father was a well known and respected MP in his day (Nigel Lawson) and very occasionally we get to see him sitting with his daughter at the dinner table obviously enjoying a tasty home cooked supper!!!

Adam then decided he’d like to go back up to his computer to play Guild Wars with some of his US friends and I stayed down and decided to watch a documentary I’d recorded on the British witch hunt trials which took place round about the reign of James I. East Anglia where I live was one of the most prolific trial areas and masses of poor innocent women were burnt at the stake. The documentary indicated that these witch burnings were so huge that often villages resembled bright burning forests which could be seen for miles. I can only imagine the stench of these burning bodies must have been horrendous and, as for the cries going up from the pyres, I think I probably would have packed my bags and gone out into the wilds until it was all over!

Following a surprisingly good night’s sleep after watching my rather gruesome documentary, I woke to find that the downward spiral in weather conditions from the previous day had begun! Yesterday was most definitely autumnal! But I wasn’t prepared for the hard frost that I woke up to this morning!!

Without being too graphic, I got up this morning and, as I walked towards the loo I noticed through the opaque glass which looks out over our driveway towards Joy and Peter’s roof (our next door neighbours!) that certain of their grey tiles were tinged with white. I instantly surmised that this must have been due to frost – although Adam did point out to me later on, it could just have been that Joy had had a disaster baking and a mass of flour or icing sugar had blown up onto the roof! Nice one Adam!!!

After conducting my ablutions I went through to the office to switch on my PC and looked out over a very crispy meadow. I suspect that if this weather trend continues then Hillside Animal Sanctuary will have to take the horses back to over-winter in their stables. I love autumn but I do miss seeing our lovely rescued horses. Once they’re taken back to the sanctuary I have to wait until at least April before they make another appearance.

This morning, following the frost, continued to stay crisp but bright so I decided it was a good time to hang out a load of sheets and towels but sod’s law struck – almost as soon as I’d practically frozen my fingers to the marrow struggling with the cold wet bedding etc, the sun disappeared behind the clouds and I’m now looking out at a grey (but thankfully still dry!) sky.

The morning didn’t go too badly all in all; had a good amount of work but still managed to find time to look at a few articles etc on the publishing site I use. This in turn led to an article in which I vented my spleen! The publishers had introduced a “flag” button at the bottom of each article to try and dissuade bad writers from profiting at the expense of more serious and competent writers. I used this flag button from time to time to ensure that the integrity of the site continued but, for some inexplicable reason the “flag” seems to have drifted away on a breeze! This means that, once more the more passionate writers amongst us are losing out big time on viewers.

If you click on the link below, you can see exactly where I’m coming from!! It’s a bit like Speakers Corner in London – the publishing site gives us all a chance to have a rant and share with others of a like mind.

Oh Flag It!!

Following me throwing my toys out of my pram, a little disgruntled, I went down to get a sandwich only to find that there was just one crust left. Neither Adam nor I had remembered to get more bread out of the freezer so I had to settle for biscuits (with a smattering of Marmite) and some cheese. I left the crust for Adam as he’d had to go to the dentist a couple of days ago and had a tooth removed so he’s been drinking lukewarm tea through a plastic drinking straw and living on soup. I knew he’d never be able to cope with crackers so, being the kind and thoughtful missus I am, I left him the soft bread which he could dunk in his tomato soup!

It’s now 3.30 so, as there’s no work in the offing at the moment, I’m gong to take advantage of the situation and grab a cup of tea, a choc chip cookie and probably play a bit more of Adelantado game. If any of you good folks out there want a simple, cheap, strategy game then go to Big Fish and download a free hour’s play.

Autumn Has Arrived in Spixworth

2012-10-09T02:40:00.001-07:00

I thought you might like to see just how rural it is out here in Spixworth. This is one of our "main" roads on the edge of the village. It's not exactly dual carriageway width, but it's such a beautiful and peaceful part of Norfolk and I wouldn't want to give it up for the hustle and bustle of town life.

The last week has been hectic at work with people desperate either to get their houses onto the market hoping to get a sale sorted out before Christmas and then move in the New Year or those who are desperately searching for their ideal property to buy and then move in before the end of November; just in time to be ensconced in their new home before the real onset of winter.

Due to that, I haven't really been able to get my head down for any serious writing although I did find time last Friday to publish an article on some archaeological finds at Furness Abbey in the Lake District. I had several family holidays up in the Lake District when I was young so anything to do with their history is always of interest to me. I've given you a link which not only gives details of the finds but also tells you a little about my memories of the area from back in the 1960s.

Furness Abbey Finds

Following the publishing of the article I then settled down for a "game" weekend on my PC. I might be over 50 but I do love a computer game!! I'm not into the "hack and slay" type games but do love a bit of strategy. One of my little indulgences is being a member of Big Fish Games. They bring out a new game each day. The games aren't exactly "up to the minute" type stuff but as I had an email from them informing me that they had a "BOGOF" weekend - buy one get one free - thought I might as well see what was on offer and ended up buying two games for a fiver!! Absolute bargain.- Adelantado Trilogy (Part 1) which sends you out to far flung lands; you have to make friends with the natives, help them rebuild their villages, go on quests and discover new lands. The other one is Farm Tribe where you build up a farm, make up recipes and sell them at market to buy a wider variety of fruit, veg and flowers.

On Saturday, I had wanted to get out and cut the lawn but as it'd been raining heavily overnight (evidenced by the "lake" which had appeard in the meadow at the bottom of the garden) I didn't think it wise to take an electric mower out onto sodden grass! But I did get some exercise - I had a form that I needed to get off to our Premium Bond people - a bit like a national lottery only you stand a better chance of winning and your money is invested where you can get hold of it again within a few days, rather than buy a "raffle" ticket and lose the money! Adam said that if we walked into the centre of the village we could catch the post as it went at 12.00, rather than the 9.45 collection closer to our house. This walk turned out to be a bit of a "walk from hell" for me. I hadn't particularly wanted to waste three-quarters of an hour walking into the village and back but Adam wouldn't let it rest so I caved in.

It looked to me as if it might come on to rain so I took my "pack a mac" - an extremely rustly pink plastic jacket which you can roll up and stick in a pocket. It's ideal if you're out walking and get caught in a shower but, as it was cold I decide to wear it over the top of a thick cardigan. I'd only worked a few hundred yards when I complained to Adam that the jacket was somehow getting caught on my cardigan and dragging it off my shoulders.

We stopped momentarily and I undid the jacket, did up a button or two on my cardigan and then zipped up the jacket again. We went another couple of hundred yards and I could still feel something "slipping". I then discovered it wasn't actually the cardigan but my bra strap so throughout the walk I had to try, discreetly, to hitch up my strap! Not a good start to the walk really.

So, more than a little disgruntled, we got to the post box, only to find that the post collection times had changed - the letters were now picked up at 11.30 instead of 12.00 so we'd missed it!! Might just as well have taken a 10 minute walk to our nearest post box!!

Most of the remainder of my weekend was spent on discovering new lands in Adelantado until I got stuck in one area; I'd almost denuded my newly discovered land of trees but couldn't speak the lingo of a native blocking me from discovering things further afield. In the end I had to give in gracefully for a while and, as it was about 5.00 on Sunday afternoon I went down to prepare the roast chicken for dinner. Adam carried on playing the game on his PC until I called him down for his meal and then he hastily got back to his PC to see if he could find a way past the point of no return!

I did spend some of my weekend watching movies and TV programmes I'd recorded. A new series of Strictly Come Dancing has just started on the BBC and a new series of X Factor has started on ITV (one of our commercial channels in the UK).

As far as X Factor is concerned, I can already see potential in all four categories - the boys, the girls, the groups and the over 28s but it's going to be a tough call!! As far as Strictly is concerned, there are one or two celebrities there that seem to have potential - a lot of them I'd never have imagined in a million years that they'd be good movers with a sense of rhythm; never judge a book by it's cover they say, and for once 'they' were right!

I watched the movie Glorious 39 - a romance/thriller/espionage type British movie. It was a superb movie and right up my alley based around the Second World War and I just couldn't fathom it until very close to the end. I just didn't know who could be trusted and who couldn't!!

I watched a couple of documentaries I'd recorded about serial killers, followed by a drama based on the story of the wife of Ronnie Biggs - he was a major "part" of the Great Train Robbery gang over here in the UK back in the 1960s. Unfortunately, I'd got myself lovely and cosy and comfy in my armchair; tucked up in my snug, cat on lap, cup of tea and jaffa cakes by my side and I found myself drifting off to sleep so missed most of the programme - just as well I've recorded it as I can now rewatch the bits I missed.

Before I knew it, the weekend had flown by and here I am, back into another week of daily grind interspersed with a bit of writing and and game playing.

I noticed this morning that suddenly the leaves out on our hedge are starting to change colour and the birds are literally flocking to the garden to take the berries before the frosts set in. We've got a native British hedge so the birds are well supplied with a variety of berries and nuts.

And talking of birds - I've just discovered that Jays love eating acorns and, as they fly above, they scatter acorns over the land in their droppings and so new oaks can grow. Unfortunately, due to farm pesticides and factory farming, Jays are not as prevalent as they once were. So once again, well done humans, you're slowly obliterating not only the Jay but also our oak forests. We have oaks out in the woodland beyond the meadow but, as these ancient oaks slowly wither and die, they're not being replaced quite as readily as they were in the past before us mortals decided we knew best!

Oaks were a mainstay of our ship building industry amongst other things and I'm just glad I'm not going to be alive and kicking when the last oak is finally wiped out!!

When will we learn? We think we're intelligent and maybe we are but it doesn't always pay to be a smart ass - sometimes I think we should take a step back and just go with the flow of nature!!

Anyway, hope you enjoy the archaeological article!!

Rain Rain Go Away!

2012-10-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

I thought you might like a change from my usual picture of Spixworth Parish Church so have gone for one of the River Bure in my childhood and early adulthood village of Coltishall, just three or four miles to the north of my now home village of Spixworth. This picture is of the village common which is strictly owned by King's College, Cambridge but, from what I can remember from my primary school history days some 40 odd years ago, was given rights by Henry VIII for villagers to use as amenity land and to graze livestock.

Well, autumn has arrived with a vengeance - it's windy, it's turning chilly and it seems to rain constantly at the moment although I'm hoping the sun's going to shine on this righteous person over the coming weekend so I do my winter tidy up in the garden. At least I now have a "garden waste" wheelie bin provided by my local council so I don't have to try and cram all my dead summer plants into my composting bin.

I haven't had much time for writing over the last week or so due to my "day job" but I have produced a couple of new articles this week.

Have you ever wondered when the current mania for clench fisted salutes comes from? I'd just assumed that this was a form of rebellion against the government and had basically come about since the 1950s or 1960s but I was amazed just how long ago it was first noticed.

Clenched Fist Salute

And today I've published an article about a new irrigation system set up in Chile with the help of a German solar power company. As Chile have huge expanses of desert it seems logical to harvest the sun and one fruit producing company there is going to use a solar system to pump water during the daylight hours and then will water it's vineyard by night.

Solar Powered Grapes

We have 12 solar panels on our roof here in rainy Norfolk and even we're seeing the benefit. My electricity bill has gone down by over £15 a month and, on top of that, under a government incentive scheme, we're receiving cash back for using renewable energy rather that fossil fuels. Admittedly we spent £8,000 fitting the panels but due to incentive scheme and savings in our electricity bill we should soon be able to get this back and, of course, it's also a great asset if we come to sell our house in the future.

So there you have it - a boring and exceedingly dull few days in Spixworth although tomorrow morning should be a little more exciting - we're having our supermarket order delivered to us ... mmmmm cream donuts and fresh cream eclairs for afternoon tea :-D