A short life

I can remember the first time I felt anything; one second I wasn’t aware then I could feel the sun shining down on me warming my limbs, I could feel warmth and the shimmer of the breeze rushing over me. I stretched my awareness out and could sense others like me surrounding me, some had been aware for some time others were still crawling towards awareness. None of us could see nor hear or smell, we just ‘were’, we could sense everything, we knew what was going on around us, we could others like us and understood their needs, yet we did not talk to others as sound is alien to us.

As I stood there I could feel things crawling around my base as base that consisted of millions of tentacle like creepers covered in the finest filaments of hair whose purpose was to suck in any moisture and nutrients from the ground to feed the rest, the same tentacles dug through the soil and helped to anchor me in place as they grew outward and downward in search of moisture. It was in these tentacles that I felt movement that was not my own, as worms ate their way through the soil occasionally they ate through my smaller roots other life also made its home under my protection; I was home to millipedes, centipedes, wood lice and various other insects, all paid for their protection by tilling the soil around my roots allowing me to move freer towards water and life. Continue reading “A short life”

How to deal with a whole salmon

I have lost count of the number of meals I prepared over the Christmas and New Year period, but have now reached a point where we are simply using up the left overs. Tonight I will be making fish cakes with the salmon, left over from New Years Eve lunchtime. The salmon has already helped to provide for 14 and there’s a decent part left.

I was lucky, in that I was in the right place at the right time as the fishman in Sainsbury put out the new batch of whole salmon just before Christmas. It was marked at £8 and was suitable for home freezing, having not been previously frozen. I was unlucky, in that when I arrived home to put the salmon in the freezer I discovered that the small freezer which forms the bottom of my kitchen fridge was failing to keep the contents below -6c. Continue reading “How to deal with a whole salmon”

Variable justice

I recently read a report about two Frenchmen who are alleged to have knocked down and killed a young Israeli woman at the end of September. They had left a nightclub (in Tel Aviv, if I remember correctly), leaped into their rented 4×4 and driven off at speed.  They did not stop after the accident but simply took the first plane out of Israel back to France. Shades of DSK?  Now one of them has been stopped and fined for speeding on the A8 motorway in the South of France in a car rented at Nice airport, according to Nice Matin.  France does not extradite its own citizens to stand trial in other countries, but it strikes me that this guy is going to kill or seriously injure someone else soon.  It would probably make France a safer place if he were banged up in an Israeli jail. Needless to say that is where the family of the victim would like to see the two Frenchmen, but they are refusing to return to stand trial.  There’s something wrong with this system, I feel.  Should an Israeli citizen knock down and kill a French person in France and then escape back to Israel,  I’m sure the French government would be demanding action.

PIP

There has been a lot in the press about faulty breast implants from France and the danger they pose to women if the implant leaks or otherwise.

Though I see the danger I do not see why these women who found the money for the implant for their vanity (or to please their man) now want them removed FREE by the NHS. Sorry you paid for them privately, now either they should pay for the removal or the hospital that implanted them should remove them for free as they are faulty goods.

A removal paid for by the NHS will divert funds away from real sick people who are ill through no fault of their own. Te expect the NHS to remove them is wrong.

Of Moles and Men

With apologies to John Steinbeck.

Two stories in the paper that make me wonder just what happened to good old British humour and wry look on life.

First Betty Boothroyd has been inundated by people protesting about a comment made during an interview in which she complains bout the moles in her garden. Out of 5 mole traps 4 had been sprung and the mole population had decreased, her comment was “soon have enough for a moleskin coat”. Obviously this has been leapt upon by the loonies who love to put us down and take away any fun comments, such as shooting strikers. Continue reading “Of Moles and Men”

Sign of the Times?

Back in the late summer the Creekers met and decided to pave our access road. It had once been maintained by the County but about ten years ago they decided the last half mile or so was not theirs and abandoned it to its fate. Several of us appealed the abandonment, pointing out that the road had been regularly plowed during the winter and the local school bus used it when there were schoolkids to be hauled. “Nope” they said “If we did that it was a mistake, it’s not ours and we don’t want it”. The road had never really been paved, it was made by spraying tar and rolling fine gravel into the surface repeatedly over the years and twenty years of unmaintained use had almost destroyed the lot.

We got some estimates from several local paving outfits and decided on who would do the job. Not a cheap process building roads, they all proposed stripping the surface completely and relaying the lot in two three inch layers of hot rolled tarmacadam.

Continue reading “Sign of the Times?”