Winter arrives

Winter arrived today, causing the usual chaos. On my journey into work this morning I saw three cars in trouble before I reached the main road.

I took this picture from the back door at around 7 this evening, not bad if I say so myself!!

Pampered Pet!!

Here are a couple of pictures of Oscar in his usual laid back pose, pampered, moir?

All go

Last night I visited Sherwood Lodge in Nottingham as the guest of David Smith who I met through my late friend Geoff Parker. Sherwood is a very friendly Lodge, and I am hoping that three or four of their members will come and visit us in March.

Three Masonic functions this week, including a visit to Spilsby, December is going to be a very busy month!

Wednesday last saw my second evening in the chair as WM, 83 people in attendance, a superb evening enjoyed by all. It has taken 10 years to get to this position, and all the way along, people have told me how much I will enjoy it, and how quickly the time will go, they are right on both counts. We have a busy December with various Masonic social events etc, so am looking forward to a few days off over Christmas to recuperate!

I have scanned some photo's today that I have borrowed from my ex Mother in Law, they are pictures of the farm from years ago, the one shown here is from around 1955, a great example of the transition from horses to tractors, it must have been an interesting time.

The Chair

Well, tomorrow night is the big night, I finally attain the chair of the Alexandra Lodge, they said it would take ten years, and it almost has!

John and Jen, the lanlord and landlady of our local pub, have bought a boat, and Gill and I went down to St Ives last night to have a look and pass on a few tips. Daniels Dream is a Sea Aird 24, fitted with a 140 hp Mercruiser petrol engine, and looks to be in excellent condition.

She is currently moored at Jones Boatyard at St Ives on the Great Ouse, a really lovely river with a constantly changing landscape and a number of really pretty towns to visit like St Ives, Huntingdon and St Neots.

John very kindly let me take her (him?) out for a short cruise, most enjoyable.

Fingers crossed for fine weather this weekend for the European Finals at Santa Pod, and Goodwood Revival the weekend after.

Netbook

I have bitten the bullet and treated myself to a Samsung NC10 Netbook. It is extremely light, very portable, and as long as you accept it is never going to be as fast as a full size laptop, it is fine for everyday tasks. I have also got a mobile broadband dongle to go with it, but not sure yet whether I will keep this. It is on a month by month contract so I will give it a couple of months evaluation to see if the 5GB allowance is enough.

Combined

Today we have been combined, the field of Oilseed Rape that has surrounded our house on three sides disapeared in the space of around three hours, having taken since last September to grow.

It had effetively blocked our view when sitting in the garden as it had grown to around 2 metres high (I'm trying to go metric, it was 6 feet high really) and now we suddenly surrounded by open views again.

nigelburch.wordpress.com for drag racing related comments and pictures.

The Kitchen is finished!!

The kitchen is officially finished!!

It has taken the best part of 5 months, but three weeks last Tuesday the new kitchen was declared finished and open for business. It has been a bit of a learning curve but we have got there and it was worth the wait, we will be having a kitchen warming party in the next few weeks to celebrate.

Busy times

We have just returned from two busy weekends, weekend of the 20th and 21st, we went to the wedding of my cousin Gordens oldest daughter Wendy, just outside Farnham.
We had an excellent weekend, staying as guests of Angela and Ben, Gill and Angela grew up together in Thailand and have remained in touch ever since. Ben is a fellow petrol head, used to drag race in the States in his youth, even owning his own speedshop at one point!
Weekend just gone we went to London to see BB King at Wembley Arena with friends Trevor and Sue.
Gill and I went down on Saturday and fought our way from Wembley to Richmond (two and three quarter hours!) to see Gill's friend Barbie, another longstanding friend from South African days.
Had lunch with Barbie, got back to the hotel just as the heavens opened on Saturday evening.
Trevor and Sue came up on Sunday morning, Trevor having returned from the States on Saturday afternoon after being delayed at JFK for seven and a half hours, put our problems on the tube into perspective!!
Great concert at Wembley Arena, BB King was supprted by John Mayell's Blues Breakers, but BB was the star, 83 years old, on stage for 2 hours and then after the last song, put his hat and coat on, waved goodbye and left. Brilliant!
Came back yesterday morning, back into work today where the A/C broke down after 5 minutes and they cannot come and look at it until tomorrow.
Joy.

Election night

Having done the job of poll clerk at the last District Council elections, I decided that this time, for the County and European elections, I would like to be a counting assistant to see the other side of the democratic process. I arrived at the South Holland Centre in Spalding just after 21.30 hrs and took my place at one of the tables. Nothing much happened until around 22.30 when the first of the ballot boxes started to arrive, and the first job was to verify the returns, in other words make sure that there were the number of voting slips in the box that the presiding officer had declared. I thought that this would be a mere formality before we got on to the real work of counting votes. Wrong. We finished verifying just after 03.00hrs! The counting itself was a much quicker process, that said, it was 05.30 hrs before I got home, too late to go to bed and be back in the office for 07,45, so I did a few jobs and was back in the office at 07.30.

I must say that unlike being a poll clerk, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and will definitely volunteer again, might be as soon as October, who knows!

What fun

Here is another bird picture taken on the bow of our boat last week on the Broads, the Herons were so tame, we saw one on another boat, perched on the bow rail like this one, ride all the way across one of the broads, he must have been on there for at least 10 minutes, easier than flying I suppose?

Electioneering seems to be crawling to a minor crecendo here in rural Whaplode, the BNP were first into our letterbox, and also first into the rubbish bin, there is a real danger that they could make inroads this time. I do hope people are sensible and do not let the MP's expenses crisis, scandal though it is, tempt them to start voting outside the main three parties. Voting for the also rans who really do not have much of an idea about politics, but hey, sounds like fun, will simply waste votes and give the less than ideal mob a foothold. My opinion only, by the way!

Norfolk Broads

I have just returned from a week on the Norfolk Broads with friends Scott and Di, unfortunately Gill was not well enough to go, she had inherited the cold that had kept me off work for most of the previous week.

The weather was reasonably good, sunshine and showers, but never stopped us from doing what we wanted to do.

There was not as much wildlife as I had hoped, although we were lucky enough to see an otter, first I have ever seen, but did not manage to get a picture.

I did however, manage to get a picture of a coot with the strangest feet, he came and perched on the dinghy I guess they help him paddle faster!

Back to work this week, only 114 emails yesterday morning, so back to reality.

Mr P

Andrew Petcher has mentioned on his blog 'Have bag, will travel' how he nearly sideswiped a pheasant over the weekend, and asks the question how could anyone shoot such a magnificent bird?

This reminded me of January last year when for two or three weeks, when I went out to the car in the morning, this beautiful cock pheasant was waiting for me, he was so tame I could almost touch him. They really do have the most striking plumage, and I managed to get some close up pictures of him which I think you will agree, show him off at his best.

We called him Mr P, and he is still hanging around the garden now, but somewhere along the line last year he injured his leg, so he now hops along like Long John Silver without a crutch, but at least we know it is him! Click on the pictures to see a bigger image.

More odds and sods

Despite the best efforts of the weatherman to convince us it was going to be wet, the weekend has turned out to be great for getting loads done in the garden. The veggies are all coming along nicely, at this time of year they seem to grow overnight.

The house is surrounded by rape this year, and as the wind has been in the South, there is an all pervading smell of the stuff in the house, great for the hay fever!!

 Andrew Petcher http://www.petcher.blogspot.com has very kindly acknowledged my lucky guess at identifying an Oystercatcher for him on his blog, well worth reading as he goes into great detail about all his subject matter, I have certainly now learnt a lot about the Oystercatcher!

I bought a vacuum cleaner for the pond on Saturday as we are having problems with the water foaming whenever the pumps are running, we have had the water tested and it is fine, but I think 18 months of waste fish food, leaves, and the natural by products from all the fish (and with last years hatch, there must be well over a hundred) laying on the bottom cannot be doing the water any good, so decided to try and get some of it out. Problem is, it sucks the water out and discharges it out of a pipe connected to the bottom oh the vacuum, the pipe is only about 2 metres long, so we now have very well watered flower beds that smell bloody awful!!

Oh well.

Scott and Di came round last night and we went to the Blue Bell to discuss our forthcoming holiday on the Broads, it will be good to get back onto the water again.

The kitchen continues

We are finally in a position to be able to use the kitchen, the tiles are now sealed so we can use the hob, and the oven arrived unexpectedly on Wednesday and is now functional.

We still have a lot of finishing off and decorating to do, but hey, what else are weekends for?

Last weekend we went up to Derwent water in the lake district for a couple of days and stayed in a hotel that I have always wanted to visit ever since I have been going to the Lake District.

My interest in the hotel stems from a poem I remember from when I was at school in Farnborough, all I could remember was the line 'this is the way the water comes down at Lodore' and it was the Lodore Falls Hotel (formally the Lodore Swiss) that we stayed at. Using the power of Google, I was able to find out that the poem I remembered was by Robert Southey, one of the Lakeland poets, and is an onomatopoeic poem he wrote for his children whilst visiting the hotel.

How does the Water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy ask'd me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he task'd me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word
There came first one daughter
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store:
And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so should I sing
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.
From its sources which well
In the Tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For awhile till it sleeps
In its own little Lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-scurry.
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.

The Cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among:
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound!
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and scurrying,
And thundering and floundering,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And diving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore

Kitchen update

I suppose I should have known that it would take more than a fortnight before we were back up and running again with the kitchen, but once an optimist, always an optimist!!

As I write, we are getting there, the wall is being tiled today, the new induction hob is in, and tomorrow the sink should be fully functional.

We are still waiting for the oven, don't expect to see that before the end of the month.

It has been a bit of a bumpy ride, the kitchen was 4 days late arriving, then there was stuff missing and other stuff damaged, on one of the worktops you could see where a forklift tine had gone into it. Hey Ho.

One of the funnier aspects of the whole affair has been Oscar's constant spider patrols, with all those units having the potential for spiders to hide under them, he has been very busy checking!

We are off to the Lake District next weekend for a couple of nights, hopefully by then we will be almost back to normal.

Catch up

Once again I have been remiss in the updating of this blog, and as it looks as if I have 2 followers, using the excuse that no-one reads it probably does not cut it any more!

We are busy at the moment preparing to have a new kitchen installed, we have had some structural work done and are currently sealing the Travetine flooring that will be laid once the old kitchen is taken out. This is due to happen a week tomorrow, the 16th Feb. We have allowed 2 days to take the old kitchen out, three days to lay the floor, the new kitchen should be delivered on Saturday 21st, then start installing the following Monday. We will be a fortnight without a kitchen so that is going to be fun, I suspect our local pub, The Blue Bell Inn, will see an increase in takings over that period!

The snow has not caused us major problems although it did take me an hour to get to work on Thursday, and Gill left work in Stamford at lunchtime on Friday as it was snowing heavily again.

I lost a good friend recently, I met Geoff through sailing connections a number of years ago, and finding that he was also a fellow Mason secured our friendship. We often visited each others lodges, his was at Chilwell in Nottingham, and although he was diagnosed with lung cancer just over a year ago, he had seemed to be doing well, I was so hoping he would be able to see me go into the chair of Alexandra lodge this coming October, he would have been going through the chair of his own lodge at the same time had things gone to plan, but sadly, not so.

We have just been out to lunch at Moulton with Frank and Mo, and it was good to see some friends of many years standing, Clive and Jakki Mayes, who we have not seen for a couple of years. Hi Clive!!

Thats it for now.