Rural Muse - Blogs http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php en Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:29:53 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg Rural Muse - Blogs http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php A SURPRISE VISIT AND RENOVATIONS UNDERWAY http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=95 Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:22:11 GMT Much to my horror, in the midst of all the chaos, my sister announced that she and my brother in law were unable to wait any longer and were planning... Much to my horror, in the midst of all the chaos, my sister announced that she and my brother in law were unable to wait any longer and were planning a visit. Looking at the state of the cottage I realised that it would be a very long wait indeed until completion of the renovations. On one of our walks around the town we had noticed a gorgeous cottage in pretty gardens which flowed down almost to the lake edge, closer inspection showed it to be a B&B or rather a self contained cottage. Perfect solution, we booked it for a couple of days.
Inspecting that cottage had me mentally swopping homes or at least envisioning a fairygodmother, her wand ready to work her magic on mine. The owner however, knew my cottage from earlier times and assured me it was once a lovely home with prize winning gardens, and could be again.
Her cottage had magnificent lake views and at dusk platypus could be spotted if one was quiet enough.
Both native ducks and domestic ducks grazed along the foreshore making a very peaceful picture.
Those few days passed too quickly and all too soon we were once more saying goodbyes … at least in the interim the electrician had finished the rewiring and we could now start on some painting. Time to decide on colours.. yet again! … I love cottages in varying shades of cream and yellowish, clotted creams, white I find too stark, especially in a wet and cool area, however as this cottage was already painted everywhere in light yellow I felt something drastic was needed .. a touch of colour.
Preparation took longer than the actual painting. The ceilings were the original baltic pine but had been painted at some stage. They were very badly discoloured and large gaps had opened up between the boards. We bought the gap filler by the carton. OH painted a coat of 3 in 1 and then 2 topcoats of finish paint, even in a small room it was time and labour intensive but the finished result was worth it. Instead of white (for the ceilings and woodwork) we used “breadcrumbs” which became a different colour depending on where it was used but basically it is a white with a hint of grey.
The bedroom became the palest of peach. The hall likewise combined with a dado of Hot Spice to jazz it up. New light fittings were installed, curtains hung and at least I had one lovely clean finished room, a refuge from the rest of the cottage. Before and after photographs below.
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]]> SummerSkye http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=95 The beginning ... start of the renovations .. http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=94 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:26:16 GMT The past twelve months have brought lots of changes, once again I am back in my beloved Tasmania, though in a different area to where we previously... The past twelve months have brought lots of changes, once again I am back in my beloved Tasmania, though in a different area to where we previously lived. This time fate has brought us to the central west close by the majestic Cradle Mountain area.
We purchased a cottage, sight unseen, via a realestate website; to be honest we did know the area and had house hunted here previously, it was the cottage itself that was an unknown factor. The photographs looked promising, it certainly had potential and looked as if more hard work than cash was involved which suited us fine. In reality it needed a lot more work than we had anticipated, although I think this was reflected in the purchase price at a time when house prices were on the rise everywhere.

Our friends and former neighbours offered us the use of their campervan to sleep in until our furniture arrived; I was so glad at night to escape to the clean, snug van after a day spent cleaning and scrubbing. The cottage itself is small, basically 4 main rooms, divided by a central hallway. An addition at the rear which comprises a large laundry/ mudroom, a small study (converted from a former pantry/storeroom) and the bathroom is still on the “To Do” list although urgent changes have been made.

All of the cottage was layered in nicotine smog … I can think of no other words to describe it. Walls, ceilings, light fittings, carpets, kitchen cupboards, windows .. everything!! To a non smoker the odour was abhorent and even after we had cleaned everywhere, I could not return home without a faint odour of smoke assailing my nostrils, infact it remained like this until the new paint went on some weeks later, long after the carpet, curtains and light fittings had been flung outside awaiting transportation to the tip.

The cottage had a newish kitchen fitted .. so new infact that the oven and cooktop had no wiring to connect them and naturally, being an old cottage there was no easy way of adding the wiring. I only found this out after putting the kettle on and waiting patiently for it to boil. A frantic phone call to the local electrician followed. On inspection it became clear why the appliances had not been wired in, the entire cottage needed rewiring and a new switchboard was also needed before anything could be connected. In the bathroom the hot water system had been altered to plug into a powerpoint instead of being wired in correctly and one light bulb hung down between two rooms with a piece cut down from the ceiling into the wall for it to sit in … a disaster waiting to happen. This work was likely to gobble up thousands of dollars from our already small budget.

As usual things got worse before they got any better … next day as we were out inspecting the garden, (which was thank goodness very pretty if wild and overgrown) we had a visit from a local council officer, asking if we would like to buy the adjoining 2 blocks of land to ours. It turned out that our land finished right on the edge of our driveway and half of our garage plus the hothouse and clothesline were actually next door!!

Council was in the process of sorting out vacant land (unpaid council rates/tax) to be auctioned off in an annual land sale. Some fast negotiating saw us purchase the 2 blocks, one of which has a lovely natural water well/spring and the other a creek boundary for the grand sum of $750 each. This was really bargain basement buying and gave us a total land area of almost 1 and ½ acres with the creek meandering through all of the blocks. It did however further deplete our small budget for renovations even further.

I have attached a couple of eary photos, look at the marks on the walls from the smoke!!
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]]> SummerSkye http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=94 RETURN TO TASMANIA .. a new adventure begins http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=93 Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:19:13 GMT I have just spent over an hour writing out the first piece of my blog ... only to lose it all when the computer shut down IE for some unknown reason... I have just spent over an hour writing out the first piece of my blog ... only to lose it all when the computer shut down IE for some unknown reason ...
Out of time now so I will return and retry tomorrow ..
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]]> SummerSkye http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=93 Intelligent Colour http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=92 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:54:54 GMT I was ruminating in the bathroom when my gaze lighted on one of the many plastic tubes thereabouts, it was a black tube, standing on its cap and... I was ruminating in the bathroom when my gaze lighted on one of the many plastic tubes thereabouts, it was a black tube, standing on its cap and proudly proclaimed “Nº7 Intelligent colour”.

My thoughts went straight back to the 1960’s when Painting By Numbers was a new craze and children would receive small, simple pictures with about six tiny plastic pots of paint and an embossed cardboard “canvas” about 16cm x 10cm. Though still at primary school, I took this to be something of an insult that my artistic flair should be constrained by a printer’s line and that the mystery and magic of words was wiped out with the names of the paints being replaced by a dull number; goodbye vermillion and topaz, hello 5 and 7.

But here I was, facing a tube marked “Nº7 Intelligent colour”, what could this be, an answer to one of the mysteries of early life? But this only posed more questions; is it the colour that imparts intelligence in some magical way or is this the colour that people display when they exude intelligence? I really must see what this miraculous hue was!

Have you ever been disappointed by an ill-conceived Christmas present? As a teenager my brother and I were each given a sort of jewellery tray with some lidded compartments in sumptuous flock velour blue and an Irish linen tea towel. I know what you are thinking, this was a merry jape where the real presents were in the tea towel drawer in the kitchen or a fabulous voucher or ticket was inside a compartment but no, as excruciatingly funny as my father thought these gifts, that was their sum total. Oh how we enjoyed our parents Christmas cheer…

Well I removed the cap of the tube and saw……………beige. Beige? Was this an advertisers witless attempt at humour? Again memories flooded back. The 1960’s are often characterised as times of bold colour, bold patterns and a breakaway from post-war austerity. Well my parents embraced this new era with all the alacrity of embracing a grizzly bear; there were aspects that they liked but they were wary of getting bitten.
Look at a 1960’s sit-com and there behind the G-Plan furniture, lava lamp, Print of child with enormous eyes and trio of ascending ducks is wallpaper in a bold pattern and garish colours, it is the defining point of the ‘60s house, but not our house.
Our house was new in 1964 and so should have been riding high on the new wave of interior design and indeed, many of the features were there, we had “Marley” folding doors between lounge and dining room, central heating, serving hatch, front porch and rear conservatory with a small patio, it should have been sit-com heaven, but for the walls; in the era of riotous wallpaper my parents stuck (metaphorically) to paint, but not a riot of colourful paint, just paint.
The front porch would raise expectations in any visitor, double-doored cedar wood with large windows and a green felt flat roof, this was a cutting edge entrance indeed. But inside, oh dear, the walls were “off-white”. My wife has never understood my aversion to insipid shades of white like barley white, apple white, peach white or any other similar concoction, but she never had to listen to the interminable decorating discussions of my youth: “shall we have a bit more colour this time dear?” “oh yes, shall we have cream or off-white?” “How about magnolia?” “What about buttermilk?” I could have screamed, my favourite racing cars were sky blue and orange, flower power was in vogue, Ford sold cars painted lurid orange, bright yellow, Aubergine and purple, while my parents main concern was that buttermilk might appear as dark as mushroom, or buttermilk may just be too yellow, and in any case the Marley doors were in light beige and the contrast of white skirting boards against brown parquet flooring was enough colour for any right minded person, so they redecorated with off-white and cream instead.

My children sometimes see film or TV shows from the 1960 and laugh at the outrageous prints in fabric and wallpaper but the only prints we had were Constable’s Haywain over the (gas) fireplace and the Lowry print in dreary black white and grey opposite.
My youth was very nearly a black white and grey existence until my mid-teens when the financial independence of a paper round and freedom of my own motorbike combined with the change from black and white TV to colour (I watched men land on the moon in black and white in 1969) and suddenly I was enjoying a technicolour world.

So now, in the new millennium, when something which is advertised as “intelligent colour” transpires to be beige, I am confused, disappointed, irritated and almost outraged, beige is insipid, dull, turgid, it is not “colour” and certainly not intelligent yet my wife bought it; I worry that my wife is becoming senile. My granny used to wear beige corsets, I saw them on her washing line.
Beige is the colour of “surgical appliances” and “surgical supports”, fortunately I saw my wife in her underwear and it is an all black ensemble so I am not married to a granny type yet, but I must be on my guard, this foundation cream is the first sign of mould from which social rot may set in, I like life in colour, my motorbike is “burning orange” but my car is “dark khaki”, I must be careful that I don’t allow more than my hair to go grey.
So let this be a warning to all, colour is vitality, vivacity and joy, so start wearing purple, not beige! ]]> Clunkshift http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=92 more photos http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=90 Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:15:56 GMT having to attach a couple at a time despite resizing them having to attach a couple at a time despite resizing them
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]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=90 Photos of Ascension http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=89 Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:32:15 GMT Here are some photos that relate to my blog about Ascension Island Here are some photos that relate to my blog about Ascension Island
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]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=89 Ascension Island http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=88 Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:34:46 GMT Here are some long overdue notes about our few days on Ascension Island on the way home The Pilot said his flight plan took us to 10 degrees South... Here are some long overdue notes about our few days on Ascension Island on the way home

The Pilot said his flight plan took us to 10 degrees South of the Equator and then he’d turn right and land. That’s exactly what we did. As I was sitting on the right, I heard the engine noise change and looked out to see Ascension Island down below on our right. It was the smoothest descent and landing I’ve ever known, not like the feeling of dropping down each floor in a lift. I suppose it’s because there’s nothing else around, on the ground or in the air.

It was light as we approached at around 1900 hours, (local time – same as UK and 3 hours ahead of the Falklands) and, despite being still thousands of feet up, the temperature outside the plane was 10 degrees, as warm as on the ground in the Falklands. By the time we passed through immigration and got our luggage (a very informal affair), it was dark and there was no hotel minibus. Not to worry, the local police car was just heading back to town and said they’d stop by the hotel to tell them that we’d landed. That was our introduction to Ascension and an indication of the laid back attitude.

We’d booked an air conditioned room as the temperature in Ascension remains in the high 20s all year, day and night. We got two fans and four French windows. When we queried it, we were told that the price we were quoted wasn’t for an air conditioned room and we could upgrade if we wished (at a cost). We decided, though, that our large living room and bedroom on the ground floor with a patio, garden and the French windows, were preferable. On arrival home, we checked the email that did indeed tell us we were to have air conditioning for the price we paid. Oh well, c’est la vie. It was nice enough, although hardly luxurious.

That first night was very hot. In fact it was so hot for all three nights that we had all four French windows open (fly screens firmly in place) and a fan on for most of the night. The mosquito net proved very stuffy, but we couldn’t find any insect repellent, so it was a necessity. I never used to be attractive to insects, but I think it must be the Tamoxifen sending out pheromones. I had some really nasty bites in New Zealand and quite a lot in Chile.

We’d hired a car for the Wednesday, with no idea of the price. We were given no briefing about the functions of the car or road safety and didn’t even have a map, just a few tourist leaflets to go on. A day’s hire meant 24 hours, which, I suppose, compensates for the slowness of the reception staff in dealing with our booking:we were told to just park the car back on the forecourt of the hotel with the keys left in “same time tomorrow”.

Ascension is very dry and barren and covered with black or red volcanic rock. In the museum, a UK newspaper report from 1888, stated how arid it was, but, apparently, it is becoming more humid although it “never rains”. My hair was testament to the humidity: it curled up immediately I stepped off the plane. No more smooth, almost shiny, soft water Stanley hair. In the middle of the island is Green Mountain, cloaked in mist and clothed in trees, ferns and plants that grow as houseplants here. Military settlers planted yew and Norfolk Island Pine, (for wooden masts) and Banana, Ginger, Coffee, Prickly Pear and Guava (for eating). Elsewhere, there is no grass (one or two very well tended gardens had lawns) or soil. In town, the edges of the roads are demarked by white stones, surrounding little beds of volcanic clinker containing a planted acacia or mimosa. Outside of town there is just scrub with self-sown acacia and mimosa and some weird fossil-like cacti.

Ascension was always an important stopover for the British Navy being right in the middle of the Atlantic, 7 degrees from the Equator and thousands of miles from the south of North Africa and the north of South America. But it was not settled until 1815, when the British posted some Marines there in case the French tried to use it as a staging post in a rescue attempt of Napoleon, who, of course, was imprisoned on St Helena. The marines tried to live on Green Mountain, and to capture the cloud as water, but it proved too unhealthy and they move down to drier climes. However, a sanatorium was built on Green Mountain in 1867 for fever victims, so maybe the damp was good for recovery from fever!

In the 19th Century Ascension’s position was also important for the undersea telegraph cabling of the Atlantic. The museum has some fascinating information about the history of this and the mind boggled about this feat of engineering – the historical equivalent of the internet. The engineers made it up as they went along, inventing ways of surveying the sea bottom and laying the huge, heavy cable.

We soon realised that Asi has been used for scientific purposes through the ages. Georgetown, the fortified capital, where we stayed (there is nowhere else to stay), was, obviously, at some stage, the Cable and Wireless ‘canton’. Around the coast, at the only safe swimming beach (I say ‘safe’ but there were ‘danger radio waves’ and ‘high voltage’ signs all around!) is the BBC World Service repeater station. Further around is the European Space Agency tracking station and part way up Green Mountain is the now defunct tracking station for the Apollo missions! And there are the UK and USA Airbases, the US one very functional looking and the UK one we saw (called Travellers’ Hill) surrounded by bougainvillea hedges and lawns and trees planted between the accommodation blocks. A place called Two Boats, inland from Georgetown was very pretty. Laid out like an English village, with plenty of gardens and bougainvillea hedges and a bar/café/nightclub with a terrace looking down the hill towards the coast, it appears to centre on the school, so it might be where the expat teachers, a couple of whom I know from the Falklands, hang out.

The beaches are beautiful, a mixture of white and black volcanic sand which is, apparently, magnetic, and crashing waves. The black sand makes the beaches warm, and so Ascension is an important turtle nesting site. The turtles make their way from Brazil to breed and to lay their eggs, deep in the sand, from late November, so we did see a few bobbing heads and one or two tracks first thing in the morning, but they weren’t arriving in sufficient numbers for us to hang around on the beach after dark. The newly hatched babies depart in about February, and don’t mature until they are about 25 years old, when they start making this journey back and forth every 3 to 4 years, to the same beach on which they were born. So how did mankind reward them for this effort? Catch them as they came ashore, threw them onto their backs so they couldn’t escape, kept them in rock pools and sold them, alive, to passing ships, to be killed, later, on voyage, for meat! This ceased only in the 1940s when it became commercially unviable, not for ecological reasons.

Other wildlife were red land crabs crossing the road on Green Mountain, black sea crabs all over the rocks and black fish in the water at the swimming beach. The first Marines brought donkeys who now roam as wild animals, and we saw signs warning of cat traps, so ships’ cats must have run wild too. Asi is special for birdlovers, with Fairy Terns, Frigate Birds and Red Necked Francolins nesting there.

Ascension is an Overseas Territory of the UK, like the Falklands, but is governed with St Helena, so it has a resident ‘Administrator’. The Govt office is in Georgetown, as are the Police Station, the hospital, the museum, the Post Office and the Conservation Office. There is also the Cable and Wireless office, a supermarket, some gift shops, a bar, the hotel a bakery and three cafes. Lunch appears to be very important and people move between the three cafes eating substantial meals more suited to November in the UK than the Equatorial heat. The supermarket is adequately, if boringly, stocked and has a butcher’s, not open for all the three days we were there, one of which was early closing for the whole town Some shops are open only for a day a week! Foodstuffs arrive on the RMS St Helena that travels from up from Cape Town to St Helena, which has no airport, and on to Ascension. So the many St Helenians living in the Falklands have to fly to Asi to catch the boat if they want to go home. This makes the airbridge even more important (I presume that St Helenians living in the UK use it too). A lot of the people living in Asi are St Helenians: there is no indigenous population. So the supermarket has South African foodstuffs, including eggs, which amazed us, as I don’t know how old they must have been. (Crocus, I made a note of some of the things we had – Moir Greengage Jelly, Black Cat peanut butter, Liquifruit juice, Beacon Niki chocolate bar and Wonderbar chocolate with nuts.)

Although a Falklander told me that, when she lived on Ascension, she picked tomatoes every day of the year, there was a distinct lack of fresh veg and no sign of a market garden. But the food in the hotel was excellent and included fresh veg, so it must be available.

As I type this it is a month since we left the Falklands and I’ve exhausted my memories and brief notes of information about Ascension. On Friday 21 November, the check in for the flight home, which had left the Falklands earlier that day, (where the temperature had climbed to 21 degrees and we’d missed it), was just as relaxed as the arrival, with no computerised ticketing or luggage labels, and we sat in the terminal, as we had done several times before, whilst the plane was refuelled, and whilst the sun set on our adventure.

I have a bit more to say about the journey home, and that’ll be it for my blog! ]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=88 Still being a pest http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=86 Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:47:27 GMT We unplugged my mom's phone to pack it, and plugged back in our landlord's phone which we hadn't known was here, hence bringing mom's, but we kept getting the dialling tone, so I finally gave in and came back on line. It's Sunday teatime. We're probably being charged for these extra days and I'm well within even a half month's download limit, so I thought I would show you what a gorgeous day we had yesterday. Bright blue sky and, yes, windy, but the wind was coming from the South (straight from Antarctica, so very cold), which meant that most of Stanley, which is on a North facing slope, was sheltered from it. The sun was warm, but we still wore jumpers.
We wandered around town, had breakfast out, then drove to Gypsy Cove where we saw dolphins (Peale's?) and nesting cormorants and a night heron. Also saw some baby Upland Goslings and ate some wild Scurvy flowers. nded the afternoon in the Narrows Bar, and actually sat outside on the North facing deck. Home to kedgeree made with smoked Falklands mullet (we'd had squid again on Friday) and, today, it's mutton chops. They're just about ready, so I'd better go.
Today it rained for most of the day (the sun has just come out at 1700), so we packed, cleaned the house and went for a last swim.
Ta Ta
J
PS frost forecast overnight with snow on hills. Wintry showers at height tomorow with sheep chill factor at 81 - danger level. Fickle Falklands weather!
PPS I can't get any photos to attach. I think all the Falklands must be trying to share the bandwidth tonight. I'll try sending them via good old BT next week. ]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=86 Goodbye from Stanley http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=85 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:39:26 GMT I'm desperate to keep in touch and hang on to, and share with you, the last moments of being here on line. Knowing our luck and Cable and Wireless we'll be switched off first thing tomorrow.
I was hoping by now that I could send reports of balmy summer evenings, but we have had 50 mile per hour winds today (forecast, at least, and it was blustery, but not sure what the gusts actually measured) and it's still chilly. Temperatures reach double figures most days now though, but only just. No getting away from the lovely light evenings and mornings. Sunrise is just before 5am and sunset after 8.30pm. I've been soaking up as much of the Milky Way and the Southern Cross as I can, and trying to watch a complete phase of the moon, waxing and waning the other way up (that definitely happens), but we've not had that many clear nights. I've also, for the umpteenth time in the Southern Hemisphere, tried to categorically state the direction that the water goes down the plughole. Clockwise seems favoured in the bath here, but it can be easily encouraged to go anti clockwise.
As C (who I was covering for) is back, I'm sitting at someone else's desk, exactly where I was for a year in 2002/3, with a better view of the harbour, the flag and, because it's a bigger window, you have time to look up when you hear a tornado coming, so I'm happy to have been moved.
I put up the flag yesterday and, when I walked away, it was at half mast, so I hurriedly unhooked the rope and yanked it up higher, in case people driving past thought someone important had died!
I know I'll think of something profound to say as soon as I press send, and I must call it a day sometime.
Maybe there'll be a wireless hotspot in the hotel on Ascension. The Obsidian -have a look at the website and think of us there from about 10pm UK time on Tuesday till about the same time on Friday in temperatures approaching 30!
Last day at work tomorrow, still lots to do, then a weekend of packing and visiting old haunts and having a last swim, Monday paying all the bills and an early morning drive to MPA on Tuesday to check in around 8am.
I can't believe that I'm talking about days next week and that next Saturday I'll be walking through the door at home (and fetching Amber!!!!!)
I must go, it's 8.40pm and is almost dusk.
love to everyone from both of us. ]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=85 Wildlife, Remembrance and Coming Home http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=84 Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:52:35 GMT Don’t get too excited, I can’t write much about wildlife, although I know that some of you are more interested in this aspect of the Falklands than... Don’t get too excited, I can’t write much about wildlife, although I know that some of you are more interested in this aspect of the Falklands than all the other things I’ve described. It’s just that I can’t do it justice. I see ‘ducks’ and ‘seagulls’, where OH names Steamer or Logger ducks, Patagonian Grey ducks, Teal, Kelp Gulls, Antarctic Terns, Cormorants, Southern Grey Petrels, or Kelp Geese. (Even as I type this, mister know all informs me that the bird hoping about on the lawn is a Black Headed ground Tyrant) I do have my favourites though. I love Upland Geese (I’m bringing two ‘virtual’ ones home, called Stanley and Harriet, to live with my ‘virtual’ donkey, Cameron. It’s obvious what Stanley is named after: Harriett is named after Mount Harriett, visible from Stanley. They can’t be called ‘Two Sisters’, because I have to have a male and a female, as they mate for life and are lovely to watch when feeding. One keeps watch while the other one eats until, by ESP, they agree to swap.) I don’t like Turkey Vultures. I love Oystercatchers (OH says to mention that there are Black and Magellanic types). Haven’t seen any two ringed plovers this time, but I like those too, nor any Night Herons.
I love ordinary birds too. There are gorgeous Meadowlarks: the size of a blackbird, with an even sweeter song, feathers coloured like starlings, a black and white eye stripe and a vivid red breast startling even from yards away. It’s brighter and across a larger area of the chest than a robin. Thrushes are russet brown, with yellow legs and beak. Both the Meadowlark and the Thrush are unafraid, so you can get really close to them. There are also siskins and sparrows. There’s a little native wren (Cobb’s Wren) but I don’t think we’ve seen one. I have a list of 10 native ‘garden’ birds. In Camp, we’ve seen crested Caracara and a sort of Chilean Swallow, very angular and black and white.
I haven’t mentioned seals or Southern sealions, or killer whales.
We’ve seen a school of 5 dolphins out at Gypsy Cove along with the Magellanic Penguins (see earier blog).
I took photos of the rescued, oiled, penguins last week. New to us. there was one Chinstrap, OH’s first sight of King Penguins (4), 3 Rockhoppers (our favourite) and a Gentoo. The photo of the Chinstrap isn’t very good: I’m hoping I took a better one with the other camera, but shall have to wait for Truprint for that.
A really good website, that will do much more justice than I can, with photos and info, is Visitor Falklands,or try Falklands Conservation.
Oh, and there are lots of very friendly tabby cats….. but they don’t count as wildlife….

Remembrance
There’s quite a buzz here this week. About 70, I think, veterans and/or relatives are here for the 11 November commemorations. Locals are hosting them, and have done before, but soon there will be a Lodge they can stay in when they carry out their pilgrimages in June to commemorate the Liberation, and in November.
We walked down to meet the parade, accompanied by the RAf Cosford Voluntary Band, heading towards the Cross of Sacrifice, the War Memorial at our end of town, next to the Cemetery and the 1982 Memorial Wood, for the two minutes’ silence at 11am. There was a small ceremony earlier at the Liberation Monument (outside my office) at the other end of town.
My, it was windy. The FIDF had to stand to attention at an angle and most of the military had their chinstraps down. We stood in the shelter of a long wheelbase Rover and it was swaying!
HMS Iron Duke is here. Prince William was part of the crew that helped out in the Caribbean after a recent storm, and took part in a drugs raid there too. The Falklands’ authorities are proud of their £1m cocaine haul last week: it was on its way to Spain. The chap whose house we are staying in is very witty and runs the Chandlery. They took a half page ad in the Penguin News this week, advertising “The White Stuff, with a street value of 78p per kilo” – flour!!
The Iron Duke is ‘parked’ just outside the Narrows and little launches have been coming and going all weekend. Young men in t shirts (they must think they are still in the Caribbean) are strolling all over town and sitting outside The Globe. The sun is gorgeously warm, and yesterday there was no wind, but today – phew! Sunglasses and a scarf. (PS 36 miles per hour recorded this afternoon, according to the BBC.)
OH was supposed to be going on a Round Robin flight today, but we got a call at 9am saying that the pilot might choose not to fly because of the wind. It’s a shame, because the trip took in Pebble Island, Carcass Island, Saunders Island, Port Howard and Hill Cove. OH’s been standing by to go for a week and we’re running out of time. It’s being paid for by the firm he was asked to give a bit of ‘management consultancy’ to, as they can’t pay him. They are also buying us a lovely Falklands cookbook with fantastic photos in it, including ones of some people we know and our Rover! And it was why we went to Port Howard, to stay at the country home of the boss, but we’d like to think of them as friends now, not work colleagues (esp as they own the wool shop!).
Tomorrow, we’re having a private viewing of Cartmel Cottage, a settlers house that has been recreated by the museum with rag rugs, a peat toilet and sackcloth curtains. There’s a whole row, called Pioneer Row, still lived in. They were settled by demobbed soldiers, like ‘Fencibles’ in New Zealand and Canada. Entry is included with the museum, but the season hasn’t really got going yet. However, I really wanted to go, because of my interest in settlers and because it wasn’t a public attraction when I was here before.
Back to the veterans. There are all sorts of trips and a dinner dance planned for them. We shall be meeting two on Wednesday as we are going to dinner with Eileen and Colin who have two staying. Females, and I’m not sure if they are military themselves or relatives. They might be the two sisters who have brought down their father’s ashes, to be scattered where their brother fell in 1982. The father came on an earlier pilgrimage and asked to be laid to rest near his son. It all feels very poignant here, looking out of the window across at the road name ‘H Jones Road’. We saw someone, after the ceremony, up in the Memorial Wood, on a mobile phone, presumably ringing the UK ( a new phenomenom) to say “I’m standing by ‘his’ tree”, 8000 miles away.
Eileen is the Training Manager and she stayed overnight with me in about 2004 in the UK. She’s always inviting people to dinner here. I love her house, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ as it’s heated by an aromatic peat fire, and is surrounded by Macrocarpa, so she grows her own fruit and veg. It’s Eileen who’s trying to get the handchime group started again, and it’s her at this end of the row in the photo I sent. She trained to be a teacher at Keele University. Colin and Eileen, both teachers, came down after the conflict to help with the reconstruction. I have a photo of me, in her garden, in December 2002, nursing a baby duck, in short sleeves! (Me, not the duck). Sitting on a nappy (the duck, not me). She still has the duck, ‘Stidgy’, and it came to say hello on my second night here this time, when I went to a meal at Eileen’s, but it was cold and dark so we quickly walked past the duck to go inside. I’m hoping that, as it now isn’t dark here till 8.30pm (sorry to rub it in), I can look around the garden and say hello to Stidgy properly when we go on Wednesday. Just shows how long I’ve been here that it was getting dark at 5pm when I got here. I know we’ve put the clocks forward, but we’ve still gained more than two hours of light, just in the evening – I was awake at a quarter to four the other morning and the sky was already lightening. Sunrise is now at 5am.
Coming home
Oh well, we’ve started to pack, I’ve used the last of the flour to make rolls, which I thought we could use ‘as and when’ rather than a loaf and we’re planning our last meals. Local beef today (the joint was cheaper than the green beans bought to accompany it!) and we’ve bought another pack of lean, sweet, diced mutton, but it’ll have to be our last. Lunch out with the office on Thursday. I’ve done as much as I can at work, although the CE has a master plan for restructuring Govt which will involve Policy change and training for managers in devolved decision making to move them on now the new Constitution has been agreed by Her Majesty, which, in itself, devolves some of the Governor’s powers. I’m already talking to the HRD about me working remotely, on broadband with ‘Track Changes’ switched on, to help with some of the workload, but you can’t carry out training without being here……. But the CE will probably buy it in from some super-duper management consultancy rather than an old public sector hack!!
So, although I don’t like anything to end, I’m getting excited about coming home, cos the lovely thing about this whole experience is that, however much I love it, I don’t hanker after living here (there’s not a tomato to be had in town this weekend). I just want to keep in touch and would hate to think that I’d never come again. It has been a totally different experience this time, having OH living here, rather than just visiting me. And he loves all the same things about here that I do, so I don’t feel as though I dragged him down here.
The phone/internet will be switched off on Friday, so that they can prepare our bill for Monday, so I’m not sure how many blogs will come after this one (Hooray, I hear you cry). I might buy some internet time at Ascension, or send you lots of rubbish once I get home.
As well as planning our last meals here, we’re beginning to plan our first meals at home. Somehow, I think it will involve a lot of green veg….
As ever, my blog has descended into musings about food. I’ll go.
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]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=84 Jottings and photos 31 Oct/1 Nov http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=83 Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:45:29 GMT Three weeks today, we'll be home. Looking at things with fresh eyes and pinching ourselves again that we're really here. Bracing ourselves for coping with real life and responsbilities again. We both have colds.
Jottings then :
• First cruise ship in today. It was miniscule, (MV Endeavour) so it docked at FIPASS (the floating dock inside Stanley harbour), rather than outside of the Narrows, off Gypsy Cove. We shan’t see any of the big ones, whose 1000 tourists double the size of Stanley, as they don’t start in earnest till December. PS just heard that, on 9th March, there’ll be 6000 people arriving !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Hot off the press: there was a major cocaine haul here today (31st October). £1m worth, from a fishing boat. There was actually a news flash on local radio and we’re waiting for further details.
• I was, as expected, sick, on the 8 seater Islander on the 45 min flight from Stanley to Port Howard. The flight, due at 5pm had been brought forward to 3pm (I had to take a couple of hours off work, but had worked over in any case) to try to avoid the forecast wind, but it was still very bumpy. Port Howard was just as nice as we remembered: it has a real villagey feel. The gorse hedges were coming into flower, and there was a fantastic sunset on the Saturday. The people we were staying with took us to their portacabin across camp on the Warrah River and we walked about 4 miles along the river bank. The weather had much improved and, occasionally, we were out of the wind, in temperatures in double figures. Surprisingly, the two hour boat trip back across Falkland Sound was really calm and my stomach didn’t notice the motion, as I stood up on deck, out of the wind, in the middle of the ship just letting my legs absorb the roll and looking back towards West Falkland watching the mountains turn hazy. It was actually soporific.
• As it is Halloween, and the office is off to a fancy dress dance that won’t really get going till 10pm, we’ve ‘conveniently’ booked to go for a meal at the Malvina House Hotel, so that we can’t attend. As it happens, we are glad we decided to go tonight, because the Cosford Area Military Band will be down for Remembrance Sunday and are giving a concert in the Town Hall next Friday, so we intend to go for that.
• The only dairy in the Falklands is up for sale, as the Development Corporation has decided it can’t subsidise it any more. Islanders seem to prefer Chilean long life I’m afraid, and, despite a lot of development over the period since I’ve been here (milk comes in cartons rather than bags, and you can now get skimmed, semi and yoghurt) and the promise of a contract to supply MPA, the military base, they’ve decided it has to be sold. Seems sad, despite, I know, lots of dairy farmers selling up in the UK, that it can’t be kept up. Anyone want to buy a dairy? I think the Kiwi (not sure) managers want to keep it going, but don’t have the capital, so you wouldn’t have to do the milking….
• Temperature today was forecast 17 degrees, and, apparently reached almost that on Thursday, but sleet forecast tomorrow.
• As he doesn’t get airsick, OH is hoping to take a ‘Round Robin’ with FIGAS (FI Govt Air Service). It’s a new venture, providing, for £50, a seat on an Islander flight taking passengers to the Islands and settlements. You go wherever they do that day. They’ve said that, because he can be flexible, they’ll look for a good weather forecast, and an interesting schedule, and ring him the day before.
• From tomorrow they’re going to be streaming the Falkland Islands Radio Service on the internet! I can listen to Children’s Corner at home! Podcasts to follow! PS just the morning progs to start with, so no Children’s Corner yet.
• I’ve been to hand chime ringing again. It’s addictive, yet nerve racking. I’m allergic to adrenalin, so can’t understand the buzz I get from the fear of seeing those notes blur before my eyes.
• The wool shop has a shop assistant vacancy – I might not come home. Discovered that the people we stayed with last weekend own the shop! On the subject of wool, I read an earlier blog where I said I’d bought some, after raving about some that cost £6.50 for 50g. The 11 balls I actually bought were of the £3 for 100g Aran. A bit of a difference, but still as nice!
• It’s 1820 and we’re eating at 1900, so, as it takes all of 5 mins to get to the restaurant, I’d better get changed.
• It’s now Saturday afternoon. Bright sun followed by squalls. We walked down to get the Rover, after leaving it behind last night, and walked into a squall of tiny bits of hail, which stung our faces.
• As we’ve had a complete month together here, we’ve just totted up our finances. We reckon we’ve spent an extra £400 on living expenses. That includes £95.99 for internet access, £8 for the phone and, of course £15-20 every time we ring my mom. We’ve also bought a bottle of Pisco (to make Chilean Pisco Sour) and some wool, of course, and a meal out, but diesel is cheaper, so mainly it’s food and electricity. We haven’t counted OH’s flight here and back (£1500). We still have an oil top up to buy, so it’s a good thing I’m earning, as all the bills at home still have to be paid (and the cattery) Most foodstuffs are about two and a half times UK prices.
• Still on a sombre note, on Monday, I’ll have been here for 74 days. That’s the length of time the Islands were occupied by the Argentineans in 1982. And, of course, they didn’t know how long it would last. I am interested in the perspective of the Islanders about the war, cos there is so much information about the military perspective. I have read ’74 Days’ by John Smith, and I made myself read it in real time. In about 2004, the days of the week were the same as in 1982, so I started on 1 April and read each day, each day until 14 June. I tried to get a sense of how long it went on, but, of course, it took only about 15 mins of my day, not 24 hours as John and his family had to endure. In the museum, there are some more accounts of people’s experiences. We mustn’t forget that three, I think, women Falkland Islanders died during the fight for Stanley, from the gunfire from British ships. They are named on the Liberation Monument outside my office, along with merchant seamen and ships’ cooks etc, who got caught up in the conflict despite not signing up for fighting.
• There are people here who dread Bonfire Night, because of their memories of the sound of the shelling etc. However there is a big bonfire party held at Mare Harbour, the military port near MPA, normally out of bound. Trouble is, because of the light evenings, it doesn’t start till 8pm, and it’s on a work night and an hour’s drive away, so we might not go. I didn’t go in 2002. There might be something in town as there was at the Cathedral.
• Just to rub it in about the light nights, sunset here this week will get to past 2000 hours, and sunrise will get to before 0500.
• When we were at Port Howard last week, we got back to our hosts’ house after our drive out, to find a basket of Gentoo penguin eggs in their porch. A limited number of licences are given out to collect a limited amount of eggs. We had high hopes of being offered one for breakfast, but they weren’t mentioned again. It was at Port Howard in 2001 that we had our first and only penguin eggs. OH had fried and I had hard boiled. I took a photo for you anyway.
• Other photos this time include a view of the Warrah River and one on our walk along the river bank and a stone run. As we have borrowed a card reader, we have a variety of software opening our photos and causing some confusion. I have resized these in Windows Picture Viewer, to ‘email – large’ and would welcome feedback as to whether they are still too big or now too small. They look too small here to see the beauty of the landscape.
• If the weather is better tomorrow, or Monday lunchtime, (it looks gorgeous out there now, but very blustery so we’re staying in and OH is cooking squid for tea) we want to go to the Ag Dept, as they have some rescued penguins from the oil slick caused by the ‘Ocean 8’, which caught fire in Berkeley Sound, just outside the Narrows and sank earlier in the year. It has been pumped out this last week by a contractor. They have a King, a Rockhopper (our favourite) and a Chinstrap, which we’ve never seen, and, apparently, you can see them behind the building, in a cage. My colleague went up there yesterday to get some antibiotics for her cat, and said that a member of Falklands Conservation was just returning with the Rockie, who keeps escaping! We must get to see them before they are released (or the Rockie gets too far away to be caught).
• The Ag Dept is also the vets (did I mention ‘Dog dosing day’?). My colleagues’ cat had returned after two days missing, with a bite on her rump. Because my colleague says she is a devil to get to the vets, she took a photo of the wound, emailed it to the vets and had a prescription made up on the strength of the photo! ]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=83 This happens every time! http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=82 Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:41:42 GMT I save a draft and then it seems to post itself and I can't get back in to post my photos.
Here are the photos to go with the latest blog (31 Oct/1 Nov)
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]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=82 Jottings and photos http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=80 Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:42:21 GMT I've been jotting down various bits and pieces to tell you - see below.
Our flights home have been confirmed and, as soon as we get a positive reply to our entry applications to the Ascension Island Government, we can confirm the hotel room that we know is available, so we're all set for leaving here on 18 November and arriving home on 22nd. I've already been asked to deliver Christmas cards and presents for the St Helenian girls in the office who have relatives on Ascensions. 4 weeks left then for us to seize every day (one moon cycle for to watch the upside down waxing and waning). There's lots of work for me to do, though, to justify them keeping me on, so that's another reason for looking forward to coming home - I shan't have to go to work! Almost 14 hours of daylight now to make the most of.
I'll also attach a few recent photos if I can.
My jottings then:
• I mentioned in a previous blog about the deaths in the hospital fire of 1984. I knew of only three, but there, in fact, 8 deaths as a result.
• Down the corridor from my office, the meeting room is called the Liberation Room because…... it’s where the surrender was signed by the Argentineans on 14 June 1982, and there’s a copy in a frame on the wall. It’s like living in a history book. We live on the corner of H Jones Road, (he died at Goose Green) and McKay Close (he got a VC on Mt Longdon) there are roads called Jeremy Moore Avenue, Holdfast Road (where Jeremy Moore held the troops back while he waited for confirmation of the surrender), Thatcher Drive and we can see Mt Longdon, Two Sisters, Wireless Ridge and Mt Kent. And those are just names that might be familiar from the 1982 conflict; there are also connections with battles between the South Atlantic fleets in both world wars. Jersey Road, where I lived in 2002/3 was built after 1982 following a donation from the people of Jersey who knew what it was like to be occupied. A lot of the other road names are familiar as influential Falklands’ families.
• I’m reading a book by a woman who went to South Georgia with her wireless operator husband in 1956/57. She was very friendly with the policeman’s wife there, who was a Falkland Islander, and her three children, including chubby little Peter who was 4. When I’m training in the FI Defence Force Classroom, almost weekly, the Commanding Officer lets me in and lends me the laptop. It’s hard to believe that this chap, in full fatigues, is the same little Peter, who ran away when she first said “Hello”!
• My boss, who runs her family farm about 15 miles away, as well as being Director of HR, is having to go regularly to check on her pregnant sheep. She brings orphans into town to match up with bereaved ewes. She hates turkey vultures and has just applied for her seasonal licence to shoot them, because they are protected. The other day she found a newborn lamb running around with an eye and its tongue pecked out! And before that, a heavily pregnant ewe, unable to run off, laying down while a turkey vulture pecked at her udder! Yuk
• A couple of weeks after I got here the “sheep chill factor” made its Spring reappearance on the weather forecast. They give an index number (as low as 65 – low last week in the warm sunshine and 72 – moderate in cold North Westerleys and over 80 - danger level, over the Peat Cutting holiday weekend when we had blizzards and hail), which is the risk to newly shorn sheep. Not sure who would be shearing just yet, but I suppose they have to start at some point to get them all done ready to ship the wool.
• On the subject of wool, I have re-read my blog that raves about the better quality aran here this time made from local merino wool. I said it was a good price and then mistyped the price and left you in the dark. For info it is £3 for 100g. Not like the handspun, multicoloured hanks at £6.50 for 50grams. They are gorgeous though….. PS Have now bought 11 balls to bring home.
• There are no adverts on BFBS. You really don’t miss them. We do get public service announcements though, and there’s a good one (maybe “good” isn’t the right word) where it shows the fire service turning out, at a leisurely pace, to a motorway, which has been closed in readiness. Ambulance and Police look at their watches expectedly, and the queues of traffic look on interestedly. Then it shows a motorcyclist leaving his place of work, and speeding towards the motorway, coming down the slip road and, eventually, having a spectacular crash just at the spot where the emergency services are waiting for him. Of course, you’ve realised he was an accident waiting to happen. Did you know that military service people are twice as likely to die on the roads than their civilian contempories? Sobering thought.
Another pair of adverts feature a young woman and a young man preparing for a night out. She rips her tights, breaks the heel off her shoe and smears her makeup. He rips his shirt, throws a tin of veg soup down himself and pulls his stud earring out of its hole. The strap line is “You wouldn’t start an evening out like this, why end it like this?”
• We are trying to ‘seize the day’ and make the most of warmer days as the weather is so changeable. On Thursday 9 October we went for a stroll after work on Surf Bay, a very accessible white sandy beach a mile or so from Stanley, on Saturday 11th we walked all around Stanley for about three hours while visiting the library, the other end of town and on Monday 13 October we went to Gypsy Cov, again after work, to make the most of a sunny afternoon. There are now more Magellanic penguins coming in to nest, and we saw 5 dolphins, probably Commersons, make an arc and dive, one by one. I imagined that they were ‘coralling’ a shoal of fish. However, we are kicking ourselves for not walking out on Friday 17 October, as when OH picked me up from work there wasn’t a breath (really!) of wind, the harbour was like a mirror and the sun still warm. But I’d worked late (all of 5.30pm!) after completing my last Recruitment and Selection course, he’d cooked a squid and octopus tea and there was a bottle of Newcastle breathing, so we went straight home. We did stop to photograph the daffodils by the Liberation Monument spelling out dates. !992 was clear, and 1982 was obviously there, but we think that they also ‘spell’ 1592 (the year that John Davis first sighted the Islands), and, more blurry, 1690, when John Strange landed at Port Howard.
• On the subject of Port Howard, we did mention to each other that it was one place we’d like to revisit this time, but hadn’t done anything about it till we were invited there by the family who run the farm. We are flying out there after work on Friday 24th and coming back on the Sunday on the brand new ferry across Falkland Sound, the stretch of water between the two main Islands, East and West Falkland. Both the 8 seater Islander aircraft and, I’m sure, the 2 hour boat journey, will make me feel sick, but I’ll have to grin and bear it for the experience and the views.
• I’ve discovered that I can’t adopt the gorgeous tabby cat at the Falkland Farmers’ shop, as she’s 13 and wouldn’t cope with the journey, even if she wasn’t loving her cosy bed in the shop and saying hello to the customers. I’ve had reports and photos of Amber and am getting excited about seeing her again – IF she’s cuddly and hasn’t grown too aloof.
• I had a request played on Children’s Corner on 18 October. It was “For Judith, who goes into her second childhood when she listens to Children’s Corner” from OH, but they played a modern version of Nellie the Elephant, not the Mandy Miller one!
• I’ve been hand-chime ringing and might go again. I called it “hand bell” ringing till I saw the chimes, but they are not bells, they are like cast iron tuning forks with a striker on the outside. I can’t read music so found it really nerve racking listening to the other chimes, counting the notes on the page and coming in when I recognised my notes (I had two!) on the stave. One tune had a repeat, but our experienced team leader pointed that out before we started and was very patient and, luckily, they were recognisable tunes, so I could tell at least whether the notes were heading up or down. I had to concentrate so hard that 2 hours went by without me noticing. They say that bell ringing and tai chi are the most difficult things to concentrate on and I’ve done both now! Although they probably mean real bell ringing with a rope.
• I had a letter published in the Penguin News on Friday 17th. I wanted to congratulate the work that has been done on a heating system for the swimming pool. It is the warmest I’ve ever known it (it used to take your breath away when I was here before, but I still managed to go twice a week for a year), and was almost too warm to exercise last Sunday, and I understand that it now gets its heat from a by product of the power station over the road, so that’s a ‘green’ solution.
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]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=80 My Letter to Nannie http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=78 Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:17:51 GMT For Nannie's funeral service each of the grandchildren are writing something to put into a little booklet that will be distributed amongst the attendees (seems strange to call them 'guests'!). We did this with Papa, and each of us has kept a copy.

So I thought I'd share with you the piece I wrote for Nannie:

Dear Nannie,

Well there you are my chickadee! This is not a goodbye, it’s a “see you later”. I don’t when I shall see you again, but when I do I’m sure that there’ll be enough tea and cake laid on to feed a small army.

So in the meantime, I will be carrying with me all the life lessons that I’ve learnt from you, and will also make sure to equip my children with the following plethora of life skills:

The Rules of Life According to Nannie

  • Always be posed and ready with cake-o-meter (both index fingers and thumbs) at appropriate times (e.g. weddings, afternoon tea, birthday parties).
  • In relation to above, always remember that a “thin” slice of cake can always be a little big bigger, thanks. No, bit bigger…
  • When sitting at the table, always seize the opportunity to exercise fingers and hands via mimicking the playing of jazz piano.
  • When in company, try to opt for “bloodknock” in favour of otherwise unrepeatable profanities.
  • Consider that there is never an inappropriate time to shoot peas across the dinner table. Boxing day dinners in posh gastro-pubs are a preferred location.
  • No matter how small the gap, the Laws of Driving always stipulate that a bus CAN fit through there, so drive on. Ignore any alarmed looks or protestations from any passengers present.
  • In addition to the above, remember that after me, you’re first.
  • No matter how black and squashy a banana may seem, or how much fur a Satsuma has grown, the squeezy test must ALWAYS be undertaken.
  • NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY. EVER.
  • If you dare to place shoes on the table, you’re very foolhardy. And asking for it.
  • Remember that a pantry and all its contents are for life, not just for Christmas/birthdays/other.
  • The above also applies to tins of condensed milk.
  • Consider that Best Before and Use By dates are irrelevant, and any food item can be frozen for up to 10 years.
  • Afternoon Tea is the most important meal of the day.
  • Knitting is a mandatory task and Arran knit should be effortless and second nature.
  • Make do and mend, and always have the Radio Times to hand.
  • Remember that Clutter Saves on Waste. And Recycling.
  • Quite simply, a bunch of flowers is like soul food.
  • You’re entitled to your opinion, just as long as you realise that I know best.
  • Remember that there’s only one of you, so take care of yourself.

So thank you Nannie for just being you. I wouldn’t change you for the world, and one day I hope to hear your roaring laughter again.

Toodleloo, Love Lucy x
]]> Oola http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=78 <![CDATA[Photos - don't hold your breath....]]> http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=77 Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:24:37 GMT I think these photos are doomed. I can't tell if you've got them or not, so am posting again. The extra one is one of the old Rover and our temporary home
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]]> JG http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/forums/blog.php?b=77