Category: General

Yesterday reached 70! Blazing sun and bright blue cloudless sky.  Absolutely ridiculous, things busting out into leaf overnight a good three weeks early.  Flowers appearing by magic!

Continue reading “Ludicrous Weather.”

It has all been a very peculiar winter here.  The weather has been rather coldish and wet with interminable rain but nary a snowflake to be seen, not one.  Then all of a sudden, it stops, gets 20 degrees warmer and full on sunshine!  More like all of sudden it is a different planet!

Of course none of this is to do with ‘global warming’, it is just the usual oscillation of the Pacific doing its El Nino/Nina bit, we have one like this every 5 years or so.

I too have had a peculiar winter to say the least, last Autumn I complained to the doctor of a persistent pain in the back.  Always wanting to know the worst and anticipating a healthy dose of lung cancer after smoking for literally 50 years I manned up, or rather womanned up and presented myself for the usual battery of tests.  Lo and behold, more bloody gall stones!!  Of all the gall! Only about 15% of humanity manage to get them more than once evidently, these are made in the liver on a deo ex machina basis and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it but fish them out!  These beasts were the size of rocks, they were duly fished out but had caused massive reflux through blocking the tubes.  All this was done without any real inconvenience but then the real kicker!  The reflux had been aspirated into my lungs at night and gently acid etched the whole surface!  The pulmonologist assures me the condition is reversible, so off we go with various drugs etc to put it right.  Then the Damocletian blow! Normally the putting it right is accompanied with large doses of antibiotic to keep other diseases away but I can’t use them as I am totally allergic to virtually ever oral antibiotic.  So being in a very delicate condition, I must not be breathed on by anyone or else I’ll end up in the local Lazar house(hospital) in an oxygen tent!

OK folks, you know the drill, retreat, load for bear and mine the drive!  No visitors, cancel everything, go nowhere, do nothing etc etc!  Now this all gets very very boring, so to keep busy I have been growing things on in the greenhouse awaiting the day to get planting outside.  Then the weather broke and a frenzy of activity has taken place, well I’ve got so much in there it all has had to be moved along the system at a great rate of knots.

Early peas, broad beans all out and going.

Continue reading “Happening now with Optional Acid Etching”

Never have I read of such total incompetence.  A la DM.  The need for troops and helicopters to ‘rescue’ rural people.  (We already know town dwellers are witless wonders!)

What is wrong with them?  If you live in remote rural places you take great care to have sufficient stocks of everything thereunto!  Admissions of running out of fuel and food for man and beast after 4 days is ludicrous in the extreme.

Anyone that relies on anything but coal and a solid fuel central heating system wants their heads examining as all other fuel systems require electricity to drive the furnace, most solid fuel systems will still work on convection!  Coal is delivered in the Autumn by the ton!  You can guarantee that the electricity will go out, so oil lamps with sufficient spare wicks and oil are de rigeur, (yes, they are still made as are old fashioned mantles!)  If you have any sense a small generator just to run the freezers.  Sufficient box milk, flour and yeast and you are in business!

Continue reading “I really do get so bloody angry!”

It is early October and the weather is mild on the South China Sea. Hong Kong is beautiful as always, cooler and dryer than during the summer. The city is remarkable. Despite its reputation for being cosmopolitan, ostensibly a glorious marriage of Chinese and British civilisations the city remains at its heart thoroughly Chinese. That is not to say that the British have not left their mark on the city. Traffic flows on the proper side of the road, the left. Despite the best attempts of the Chinese government to undermine traces of the British past signs are still found now and again. The street names are often British in origin – Hennessey, Morrison, Queen’s Road East. Place names are much the same – George V Park, Aberdeen, Victoria Harbour. Even the tea here is a bit different. Of course the actual tea itself is Chinese; there is no other way about it. The preparation is different, never-the-less. There is milk and a bit of sugar in it. This is a-typical for the Chinese who prefer their tea mild and natural. Through the hustle one sees order. People queue prior to entering underground trains. There is a bit more attention paid to not simply ploughing others over. This is utterly unlike the mainland where a mad dash for anything resembling an open seat is seemingly inevitable and one learns simply to push ahead without regard for others, a sort of universal understanding that no offence is intended. There is no other way, after all, the move with so many people around.

Continue reading “For October.”

 

 

Wish I could do that!

Whatever you think about the UK Budget, it has had the welcome effect of severely discumknockerating the watermelons!, so it cannot have been all bad!