The Old Man Loses His "Independent"

The Old Man is bereft. The days are counting down (end of March) to the loss of his beloved "Independent" print-copy newspaper. The thing he adores most in his life. The thing that puts structure into his days. The thing he drives a six-mile round trip each morning to collect. The thing that accompanies him on shopping trips, into doctor's and dentist's waiting rooms, on long drives and the occasional forays into pastures new. The thing that dictates where he lives and stays... "Where can I get my paper?"

The answer my dear, I'm afraid, will be ... on the internet. And the Internet be a place that The Old Man do rarely visit. Hard-wired as it is into a cold and cheerless room in our granite cottage in the Far West whose reluctant wi-fi do not penetrate its interior granite walls.... whose mobile phone reception be limited to whatever inconvenient spot within the house or the garden a bar of signal can be obtained....

It is no good telling him that he will still have the i - albeit under new ownership. He has only ever bought this paper as a "completist" gesture. (See previous post). He cannot read any other newspaper... they are all dross as far as he is concerned or else owned by unspeakables.The man is genuinely bereft. He do feel he will be deprived of news of the modern world: politics, economics, the arts, society ... and I do feel for him. I too do worry that we are slipping away from an informed view of the wider world (by the time the Govt will have done for the BBC and flogged off Channel Four, us traditional, Murdoch Empire-avoiding couple be scuppered....)

And of course I do wonder what else I can use to mop up the gales of rainwater what do sweep under the back door on a regular basis.

Too Wrapped Up

My dears. I have neglected my blog-posting most woefully.
It is cold. I am an elder person. I am so wrapped up against the cold of the house (rural heating... bottled gas... and so on) that I just roll around the warm sitting room like some kind of fattened seal.
My room what I do blog from be very cold. What? I do not have wi-fi and tablets and stuff? This is a house full of tablets I do assure you. But not of the digital kind. And contrary to popular belief some homes of the older granity kind have problems with their wi-fi getting through the internal walls to nice, warm, comfortable spots in which one can sit and blog-post. Smart phones? Well I do not have one of course. And if I do... it has been known for people round here to have to climb up onto convenient rocks (outside) in order to get that wonderful thing known as a signal.

Anyway, as I say, I be too tightly wrapped to bend in the middle, never mind putting one foot in front of the other. If you knew what sending this communication do cost in terms of dripping nose and numb fingers.....

It's All Down Hill

At the top of the New Year... The Old Man's brakes fail. On the car, you understand. It can only be down hill from now on....
Most worrying for The Old Man of course... is... How to get his daily paper (four miles to the shop... bus service as functional as a trike with broken handlebars....)

The man is distraught.

Getting The Goat... Or Two

It's been a very rural week. The other day I'm sitting at me desk and do hear a bellow. Looking out the window ... I see a gent walking along our narrow lane in front of quite several bullocks who be following slowly, looking very puzzled and bellowing occasionally. Altogether there are four people providing the bullock escort but I be amazed. Not seen this sight before... though it is perfectly possible as we have plenty of fields around. I just watched and hoped that none of the animals do attempt the downhill slide of our drive!

Then a day or so later I'm looking out of the same window to see two goats stepping along in a wide-eyed, curious manner. I do shoot out the front door (thinking of the narrow road they be approaching... with its fast four-be-fours...) closely followed by The Old Man who announces they have gone down the row adjoining. Fortunately they have stopped to investigate a neighbour's front drive. So I do whip past them and double back in a nonchalant "How d'ye do... fancy seeing you here." kind of way.
Have you ever tried guiding goats? Me, neither. But with The Old Man calling in an encouraging way and me trailing on behind... we do get them round the corner and heading home. (Yes. I do know where they come from.) And anyway I spot a young man with a feeding bowl heading towards our strange procession. Clearly he knows when he have lost a goat... or two.

Spring: Red In Tooth And Claw

At last we have sun. Greenery showing. Hellebores, primroses, daffodils and camellias.
I need to get on and sow some vegetable seeds... the early peas and broad beans. The early potatoes are chitted and ready... just got to get their bed ready for planting.
Yesterday watched a pair of magpies building a nest in a spindly conifer down the way... they've lost nesting sites with trees coming down and people have cut down quite a lot of conifers round here. Anyway they do bury themselves into the branches, trailing long, uncooperative twigs and chucking at each other. Towards evening The Old Man watched a stand-off between them and a rook or a crow... he couldn't make out which. The bigger crow saw them off. But later I saw the magpies collecting again. Sure enough they were back in the spindly-tree... building again. Last year the pair tried three times to nest in this site. At least twice their nest was destroyed by rooks or crows...

This morning The Old Man is greeted by half a rabbit on the front path. Later I do bury the fluffy, grisly remains. Things is hotting up on the nature front.

In The Dark...

Ooh-er, there we be this weekend... watching the ultimate phase of the excellently dark, sweary and blood-spattered "In Bruges" on the old DVD player... when the brilliant Brendon Gleeson makes an explosive point and POOF the lights go out!
Darkness  and powerlessness abounds. Followed by an early night, after listening to the transistor radio for an hour or so, then sprinting to catch the fading heat of the electric blanket.
We break out  next morning into the fully-powered nearest town to purchase a kettle! (Heating water in saucepans be a pain we do find.) Thanks be for the gas hob.
In all there be nearly 24 hours of powerlessness. Lots of torches and candles. But power is restored in time for this week's episodes of BBC4's latest subtitled thriller "Salamander". In fact Belgian-themed crime thrillers are sustained after a slight interruption.
How are you getting on with "Salamander"? I like it fine... another outsider/conspiracy fest. What a lot of bird song in the background. You noticed? And The Old Man be coping with it.... except when he thinks it is set in Denmark. He be very pleased it is in 45 minute episodes. But then he has to wriggle a lot.

Pardon Me... But The Weather Here....

... as in most of UK... has been awful. But we be safe. I do sit here in West Cornwall and listen to things rattling in the wind and wonder if anything is going to fly off the house. It hasn't so far. The Old Man already do have the aerial replaced from the last blow... before Christmas.
And we do have just a drip or two come in when it do the horizontal rain thing. The other day the rain be coming in under the side door... so horizontal be it. But... we do not live right at the seaside.... nor by a river.... nor in a valley... nor on top of the hill.... We do have an unmade lane that we live by... no tarmac to repel the water into our home. And there be a field above that.... grass and stuff to soak up the rain.. Like I said. Under current conditions, we be safe.

Porthleven is fairly close. That has had a right battering and makes it on to YouTube and the national news. A friend has his small boat there. It was in the harbour when the inner harbour timbers went. But his boat is safe, thank heavens... hauled out in the rescue mission... and now back home in his garden.

Me? I do feel  rather stir crazy. Every time I look out the window and see a break and blue skies I do walk into another room and find rain and hail being slung at the windows by a mighty gust of wind. I know I should get out there before I lose the use of me legs.....

However.. a short break to London by train do seem out of the question right now.... what with floods, storms and landslips... I believe that be about two or three more places a train can't get through... let alone the destruction of Dawlish.

Still Raining...

And The Old Man is still fuming over the analysis of the Somerset Levels flooding as pundits still talk about rivers overflowing their banks (not the core of the problem) and angry members of the public still seen intent on confusing The Environment Agency with some kind of environmentalist pressure group.
Meanwhile the constant rain is revealing some of West Cornwall's inclinations. A house in Camborne did a partial collapse the other day when mine workings opened up underneath it. (No one hurt... family had moved out when the cracks appeared the day before.)
And a day or so before that... a hole (another mine-working collapse) appeared at the side of the main road in the village of Rosudgeon... between our village and Penzance...
On hearing this last piece of news The Old Man showed alarm.
"My newspaper!" cry he. For this indeed is the village where he gets his daily paper.
Me? I'm too busy frantically trying to recall how close the nearest workings are to us, according to the mining survey. (You really have to have one of these before you buy a property down here, you know.)

The Old Man And The Somerset Floods

He be still spitting feathers... OK... some media coverage at last but not exactly in-depth... (That do read like a bad pun in this context!) ...nor accurate... say The Old Man, who do grow up not a million miles away from the Levels or "The Moors". In fact he do grow up on a hill from where you could see for absolutely miles... but given the nature of that landscape... it be a pimple by Cornish standards.
So... where was he?
Aah! ....Nobody reporting on mainstream telly or radio, nor indeed the honchos pronouncing, seems to give due respect to the fact that this is drained wetland... (for may be a thousand years?) not rivers overflowing their banks. Paterson and his "cutting trees to block flows and re-planting..." don't apply to this fen-like place.
The Environment Agency's "Can't put the silt on the (dredged) river banks because that will obstruct run-off from the fields..." makes The Old Man apoplex. The field drainage never relied on "run-off"... cause they be pumped. The clue is in "Pumping Station" like where Paterson did look around on Monday.
I do like to think I am indeed a bit interested in the environment. The sad thing is that....in some angry and popular reactions...the Environment Agency equals "environmentalists". I don't think so. An Agency is an Agency (in this case related to DEFRA) ... not a movement of green-thinkers.

The Rain... The Levels... Paterson...

... it raineth everywhere and everyday....
Not least in The Old Man's childhood home of Somerset.
And The Old Man do spit feathers that national news seem to be ignoring the plight of the flooding on the Levels... as is the government. Today DEFRA Secretary of State Owen Paterson (grouse moor owner, climate change sceptic, the minister who accused the badgers of "moving the goalposts" after the results of the badger cull proved debatable) finally visits the flooded villages and farms. And has outraged the local people ... by not speaking to any of them according to The Guardian.
Nor do we hear anything from neighbouring MPs... not least and not surprisingly Lib Dem David Laws whose constituency borders the flooded areas. It is left to Conservative MP for Bridgwater Ian Liddell-Grainger... not always the voice of liberal views and green issues....to be the lone voice of protest on the part of his constituents. But...  he does not seem to appear to have the ear of his fellow Tory MPs.
What no photo call Mr Cameron? Actually... I am surprised.

Madame Deficit Considers Rural Life And Chilblains

Alors, mes enfants. I do love the pretty, rural life, don't you?... Peace, tranquillité, a simple way of living that do bring us connection with the earth..... Mais... How can this poor person have this "chilblains" thing? They have lived the life of a generation blessed with ease, free education, jobs and pensions. And gold-plated pensions too, yes? It is not possible that they can be cold.
After all, this kind government do agree that the cost of energy and fuel be outrageous at the moment. They do declare that the price of Gas and Electricity must be reasonable, yes? That suppliers must put their customers on the best tariff. Pouf! Naughty suppliers.
Nevertheless I agree that the government does not appear to have given much thought to the particular fuel cost problems of those who live a life of charm in the countryside. In such rural areas there is not always access to supplies of Mains Gas. People may have to use either Oil or LPG for their heating and cooking. And it appears that Oil and LPG do cost much more than Mains Gas.

So... for example... we have this particular couple... who do not run the hot water except during the couple of hours in the mornings and the evenings when the LPG central heating is on.... Even so the LPG do cost more than one hundred pounds per month. (They have already switched supplier - a choice that has become almost impossible over the years because the area's main supplier (a nationwide company) have bought up most of the local independents.) Remember also that this fuel bill is for LPG alone. There are Electricity bills to be paid on top of that. And there is no recourse to "dual fuel tariff" deals in such households. No electricity supplier includes Oil or LPG supply in such price schemes.
Alors! So...
Cold hands, cold water, un peu de fragilité... et voilà... lumpy, blistered, itchy chilblains...

I can only suggest that, if this man's hand is so cold, he can chop wood to keep it warm, non?

Sunday Morning

...Spending it chasing off the sparrowhawk who is patiently and outrageously waiting on a stake next to the bird feeder... queuing at the "canteen". Shoo... shoo ... shoo go I.

Spending it holding up the bean canes whilst The Old Man hammers more stakes into the ground and we tie it all together... against the forecasted gales.

Spending it up to me wrists in brioche dough... massaging in the butter .... gloop... yum.

Spending it listening to The Old Man's CD of  Ry Cooder & Corridos Famosos "Live in San Francisco".

Heat And The Badger

Wonderful dry heat...and still spending most of the time ferrying water to the vegetables. We's picking peas and broad beans...

The Night Badger (cos that's who we think it is...) is getting desperate and digging potatoes again. This time he/she have resorted to eating them. But obviously they are not high on the list of desirable food as I usually find a half-eaten, drool-covered potato dropped somewhere on the path. I just mend the damage and dig the spuds from the plant that the critter have picked out.

The other day I go into a particularly "neglected-in-this-heat" patch of garden and am a bit bothered to find a mega pile of earth and montbretia corms against the "hedge" (wall to some).

I don't mind Badger patrolling through of a night if it don't do much damage... but I'm not so sure I want Badger setting up home here. I understand the pressures on the critter. Four houses in our tiny row of eight are building (or planning to build) houses in their gardens, one of which did have a badger sett.... don't know if it still does. This means that although we do not have a huge garden .... soon it will be the biggest in the lane.

Nevertheless I still ain't got room for a Desperate Badger.

Later we work out that Badger have got desperate hungry in the dry heat this month. (Hence the potato diet.) And we do reckon that it may not be trying to dig a sett.... but.... sadly for the bees.... have dug out a nest of red tailed bumblebees... cos we notice a lot flying around the place. These bees often nest underground at the base of stone walls.... and bees' nests can be eaten out by foxes, badgers, weasels.

Sorry bees. But I am a bit relieved badger ain't moving in..... yet.

PS. Looking around the web for more about "building in gardens" I do find a property developer's site that do reckon this hysteria about the loss of gardens to development be all whipped-up by the media. Sigh!

Hot

... I tell you I spend all day ferryin' water to the vegetable plot.
I be picking the first sizeable pan of peas today... And the strawberries? There are lots and I have to make tiny batches of fresh jam to keep in the fridge to keep up with them. We do never get round to getting a freezer.

The garden has patches of waist-high grass which we call "wild areas"... and visitors call "hay-fever sumps". These have some powerful tall ant hills. This place have also attracted what seem like resident pairs of Ringlet butterflies. They flit around amongst the long grasses in a very floppy, summery manner.

The field over the lane has been cut and baled and I look out the window to see slow-moving parties of rooks browsing in the stubble for food ... The ground must be hard and dry now for food-hunting critters.

I'm too hot to move. But I must not stare into the mouth of that old gift horse.  It's been a long time since we had this kind of summer.

Last Sight Of Shiver Me Timbers Salvo Yard At Long Rock....

Walking in Long Rock we do see the dismantling start on that wonderful reclamation landmark ...  Shiver Me Timbers..... A long battle lost.

Good news is that the stock and business is relocating to local industrial estate in nearby Crowlas.

Bad news... luxury property development taking it's place. 

Hi-Ho...Hi-Ho... Tis Off To The Lemon Street Gallery We Go...

The other day I do take a ride of one and a half hours on the bus... I wouldn't mind but half of that journey-time is spent circling my nearest town's supermarkets .... to Truro. I goes to meet up with a friend and wander around the place for a few hours.

I do reel out of Truro Bus Station speechless from the journey... though it be all very interesting... looking down on the fields and chickens and short fat ponies and buzzards sat on hedges and so-o-o much mud and standing water on fields you would not believe...
and because I be so speechless... we do go and inhale some coffee.

Then we call in at Lemon Street Gallery which is currently running an exhibition of wooden reliefs, constructions, and drawings by Scottish sculptor Doug Cocker until March 9th 2013. I've not seen his work before and particularly like his "Geography" series -  a set of relief panels described as "stained and painted  hollow wood constructions"... and also his series of pencil drawings. There are a lot of pieces on show including wooden assemblage panels and "constructed monoprints". The exhibition fills the three floors of the gallery. Have a look if you are in the area.

After all of this I be speechless with unaccustomed chat and viewing and we do stagger off for more refreshment before I fall asleep. Innit dreadful when one has reached the age when tiredness causes huge chunks of one's vocabulary to disappear quicker than a coastal path after a rainstorm. All those "Erms" and "Whatsits" and "Can't think of their names..." I positively blush at my social unease.

A Garden Is A Lovely Thing...

Just heard that a fourth household in the lane is trying for planning permission to build in their garden. There's only eight or nine households in all.

Hey-ho. A garden is a lovely thing but not as profitable as a building plot.

A February Walk: Birds Do Fly

Today the wind do blow and rain do spatter. I do wake up in the night to hear something skitter down the roof above. I do think.... "Ooh dear. Is that a roof tile?" But this morning there is nothing to be seen. The Old Man wonders if it be a small piece of tree or bush.

The other day we do take a wet, windy walk down from our village towards Hendra near Praa Sands. Never walked that way before. Big bare fields with the remnants of cauliflower ("broccoli" in Cornwall) and cut maize stalks. Water run-off like a small stream at the side of the single lane road.

Coming back, about 3.30 in the afternoon, we do stop to look at the flocks of birds flying in the sky. Big groups in formation. I be very pleased to spot the blunt ended wings and floppy flight of Lapwing. I love these birds and have not seen much of them in recent years. Then I do realise that there is another large flock of birds, flying higher above the lapwings. These are smaller and sharper. The two groups interweave like some kind of winter "tweed" of birds and sky. Later... The Old Man reminds me that Golden Plover do mix with Lapwing and they are said to fly higher. Perhaps that's it.Anyway it be beautiful to watch and I be happy to see such a large group of the birds.

Looking around the web I do find this recent article in The Guardian about the flocks rising.

The Old Man Goes Stir Crazy

Normally The Old Man lives to drive to a shop. It is not just the shopping that he do live for you understand. It be the driving also. But recently the car starts to make a strange sound.... And the garage says: "Bearings." The car must come in for repairs for a couple of days.

The calculations for catching a bus back from delivering the car by 8.30 a.m. are made and soon the deed is done. And  then....
The Old Man goes stir crazy.
He has no means to get anywhere except shank's pony (it be raining all the time) or.... The Bus.

The Bus.
We do look at the time table again.
...(Where I do find that the Bus Company have already removed the "reinstated" through-bus to Truro for instance... and have replaced it with the old system of changing buses. The journey will take one and a half hours each way. Admittedly this be an improvement on the two hour changing-bus journey it used to be... nevertheless... I am not so sure about plans to meet up with a friend for lunch. Three hours travelling for lunch? Well at least I do not have a medical appointment at the Hospital. Been there... done that... not fun. And I could read a book.... perhaps finish it whilst about it. And I do be a privileged money-wasting pensioner what do get a bus pass, hence the journey do not cost me the £7 or £8 or so that it probably be by now.)

One day into his driving "cold-turkey" experience, The Old Man breaks..... consults the bus timetable and sets off into the damp gloom for his two hour round journey to pick up the newspaper from the shop four miles down the road. Me? I's just relieved that he do leave the house after all that pacing around....and wondering when the garage will ring.... And I do find that it be true that The Old Man is also addicted to newspapers.

After another twenty-four hours of agony The Old Man sprints out of the door when the call from the repairs shop comes.... to collect his beloved vehicle of independence. He leaves his lunch on the worktop. The front door crashes shut. He do work out he can just catch the Next Bus.....

Madame Deficit Admires The Rural View

Oh my dears, as you know I am a lover of the countryside and all things rural... But even I do pause for thought when Planning Minister "Nick" Boles points out the "moral right" of people to have their own homes surrounded with garden. How hard it must be to be a modern Tory... straddling so many viewpoints. Presumably these "moral right" homes should only contain the appropriate number of bedrooms... (see previous post). Consequently, he do say, we must be prepared to start building on open land, tout suite!

Brush away those open fields and rural views. Don't you know that the built environment can be beautiful too? says Mr Boles. Oh but I do, Mr Boles... you can see an example of my own architectural inspiration in one of my previous posts here.

Brush away those green hills and fluffy sheep.. (Oh dear but I be so fond of the petit fluffy mouton things). Brush away the objections of those National Trust 'latter-day Luddites'. (Alors! Was not Daddy Boles a National Trust Chief Exec back in the 1970s?) Build, Build, Build.... but nothing "pig ugly", mind. We must have standards, but let us not stand in the way of progress. Fill the view with lovely, lovely buildings. I am particularly fond of those bijoux estates of houses with gardens... the ones that hunch up together for comfort? Where you can gaze out of the kitchen window at your own patch of lawn, raise your eyes... and stare into the eyes of your neighbour at their kitchen sink ten feet away. Such bonhomie.

And let us not stop there. We must be practical. Nuclear power stations. Lots of those. If we can get some poor mutt to pay for them. Let not the Luddites stand in the way of progress. Let's not mess around with wind turbines. No.. all the fuel generation can now take place where Mr Osborne prefers... out of sight and underground. Aah the joys of fracking.

Build... Build.... However.... I do be a little concerned at the prospect of more rain, Mr Boles. You know.... all those inconvenient floods we do have recently? It just may be that concreting over those useless green fields may contribute to the problem of drainage? Where do the rain waters go? Perhaps I speak out of turn. I just be a little old fluffy head brioche-eater. But.....

Better to build on stilts perhaps?