My son is helping in the kitchen garden at school as one of his AOB activities. He came home yesterday with a selection of radishes which are delicious.
“Slight slug damage,” he says.
“That’s OK, ” I reply, trimming off the bits that look nibbled.
“Mrs S says we’re going to get some of those slug frogs.” Continue reading “Slug frogs”
I have just been, for the first time in my life, to donate blood…and I have to say that I feel very good for doing so.
I haven’t ever felt that I could do so before, due to my alcoholism, but as I have been on the wagon now for a year, thought that it was about time to do somehthing about it. When my mum was so poorly with her cancer she had what seemed like dozens of pints of blood transfused, also bone marrow transplants and several other things that helped prolong her life, and if some kind souls hadn’t donated, her life would have been alot shorter.
It was a bit of a strange experience, and all of the so called do-gooders of the villiage were there, but am sitting here sipping my tea and feeling like I have finally done something worthwhile.
xxx
Much has been written about the Crimean war, numerous accounts point to praise the heroism of Florence Nightingale. One of the sad facts of the war was the many of the soldiers died from Cholera and poor medical attention than died in the actual fighting.
Historians have recorded of the woefully inadequate supplies, military command (as exemplified by the charge of the Light Brigade) was woeful, and the care of sick and wounded patients was barbaric and medieval in its operation. Wounded soldiers regularly had their entire limbs amputated when simple surgery may have sufficed and many soldiers actually died from the medical knife. Continue reading “Heroes part 2”
Once you leave Millau behind you are firmly in southern France. The autroute crosses the beautiful plateau de Larzac. Home to one of the more interesting personalities in French politics, José Bové, our best known shepherd, destroyer of Macdonalds and enemy of genetically modified crops. A pretend peasant who spent part of his upbringing in California and can tell the American distributors of modified corn why he doesn’t like their products in their own language. The craggy rocks like bent over old ladies dot the lansdscape with its sparse scraggy vegetation. Then the road plunges spectacularly off the plateau and down onto the coastal plane. We are heading for Continue reading “A night in a convent”
This picture graced the front page of my local daily this morning, I thought that I’d share.
Brazil awarded a domestic consortium rights yesterday to build the world’s third-largest hydroelectric dam in the Amazon rainforest, the last time this happened hundreds of thousands of environmentalists, movie stars and other do-gooders landed on Brazil’s jungles to whinge, whine and moan about the possible destruction of the greatest jungle on our planet.
I still remember those days, virtually everybody jumped on the bandwagon with speeches, books and cries of “Ban the Dam” and after a short period of time in which even government pressure was placed on the banks financing the project the entire deal was killed off.
Do you remember what happened immediately after?
30 Million people living along the coast found that the long awaited jobs they were hoping for never eventuated so they moved into the jungle and started burning and slashing it in order to carve themselves a living, they are still at it.
So if any of you have any ideas about somehow complaining about this new project please remember that it is not only the poor people of Brazil that will benefit from it, so will the jungle.
I for one intend to fight anybody who tries to stop it with all my skills
A short time ago i commented on a post from Bearsy.
You’ll see it in the recent comments if you are interested.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. So, coming back after a tour of favourite blogs Elsewhere, I was pleased to see others had commented too. I clicked, expecting elucidation and got the message ‘no posts match your search’.
Now, Lent is over and I’ve had a glass of wine since i got home, but I am by no means under the influence.
So, please could someone explain what is going on?
Thank-you.
If you want to find me I’ll be on my page.
I’m not a book-worm. To be perfectly honest, I don’t read much. If the book does not get me within 50 pages, I usually leave it.
A couple of months ago, a book in Turkey became very popular, usually I keep a suspicion distance to over-promoted pop-culture items. Anyway, this time I failed and decided to buy it. (Note, I said buy, not read. 🙂 ). Because it contained essences from the great Sufi, Rumi.
So I did. I started reading it and it really got me. I finished it within 3-4 days. It’s one of the best I’ve read in a very long time.
Good evening fellow members.
You have no idea how happy I am to see Boadicea’s first evening comment appear on here.
It allows me to relax, with the different time zones I’m quite happy to park off and watch the site from round about 4ish ’till now.(Or a tad earlier if I’m home)
I can now (as I always do) move to the lounge and relax, I’m not sure if members here realise or comprehend the effort that has gone into establishing and maintaining this place, I perform the most minimalist of duties and find it sometimes burdensome, Bearsy a hat tip from me.
Holiday pics should be reasonably uncontroversial.
Had a great time down in the Sout West. Thursday night I worked late and shot off to Saint Flour. Lovely Auvergne town that we visit regularly. It is high up on a rock with cliffs all around. As we arrived shortly before midnight the flood lights were still on and the town looked magical attop its steep rocky slopes. The hotel owner left the door open so we could quietly sneek into our room without disturbing the fellow guests.
Getting away from your own business for a week is always tough, you basically have to catch up several days work before leaving. The last day I work from six to whenever but always leave that night. If I wake up the next morning in my own bed something else will crop up to delay departure.
So out of bed Friday morning, croissants and coffee, then a walk up the steepest street in the world and a reconnoitre around Saint Flour. Not for long we are heading south. And yes to the beautiful Millau viaduct. I am not convinced that they had actually to cross the valley but could have routed the road around. But anyway the result is pleasing, yachts sailing across the Massif Central hills.
A good oggle but on we go, the south is calling.
Boadicea's Chariot 
You must be logged in to post a comment.