THERE GOES JANUARY

And what a wet ,stormy and thoroughly miserable month it has been. Avies small world has been lucky so far ,unlike those poor souls in Somerset who I mentioned last night.

I find it incredible that the powers that be have seen fit to reject help from the Marines and plumped instead for the services of the Fire Brigade!

If you need to have pontoon bridges ,who better than the marines, all the Fire Brigade has is pumps and let us be fair, they have been singularly ineffectual during the pat month. When entire communities are cut of by flood and living literally in a cess pit for weeks one wonders at the Governments lack of positive action.

OK,OK, so D.E.F.R.A have met today , and while I am not au fait with their findings I would have to say that they are about a month too late.

One hopes that the problems face by these low lying towns and villages will bring to their senses the developers who are determined to build huge numbers of family homes in areas know to be at risk from flooding. One hopes, but one suspects that greed will triumph as usual , so that some time in the not too far distant future we shall be watching news reports telling of massive loss of life such as happened on Canvy Island in the fifties

To anyone rash enough tp purchase of of these death traps I say "Bon chance"

In Japan anyone caught building substandard housing,or making toys that are dangerous ,in fact any one caught endangering the public for profit is severely deal with,in some cases the death penalty is invoked.

I believe that the people who build these dangerous”family homes” should be obliged to live in them them selves, just as the supporters of a third runway at Heather row should be forced to live. ,r try too live under the flightpath.

That,s enough vitriol for tonight. January while it has been a very damp squib has held for me some happy moments as well as some truly sad ones and I expect we can all say as much.

As children at school we were taught a rhyme about the weather one could expect in the different months. February's was..February, fill dyke, meaning heavy rain. Well the dyke is full so perhaps we might have a change, February frost perhaps or February fluffy clouds, I'm off. I can hear the marbles rolling down hill even as I write!

A TROUBLED DAY AT AVIES

Before I commence this tale of aggravation and frustration I need to explain that on Tuesday Morning,the Local Authority refuse collectors failed to take away our re cycle, ours and several others in the lane.

So it was that yesterday Pa gave them a call about it and they promised to come and collect the stuff this morning.

This morning at 6 55 am I was awakened by a violent hammering on the door and a lot of shouting, it took a while for me to collect myself and as I struggled down the stairs(There was not time to call the stair-lift) I wondered if perhaps there was a gas leak or perhaps the river was about to inundate us. I opened the door and there in the lane I saw the errant refuse collectors.

One of them,

a red faced individual with receding hair emptied our food waste bin and them holding it high above his head he proceeded to throw the object as hard as he could,so hard that it landed half way down the garden path. During the course of his actions he had continued to rant,b it was not until he returned to the house in company with fluorescent yellow colleague that I realised the burden of his utterings.

“Where's yer plastic, where is it eh, where's yer plastic.” In fact there should have been a large bag of plastic waste with the food waste. Unfortunately we have been obliged to remove it from the pavement as it kept getting blown about and had caused a number of complaints.

The red faced character gave me to understand that it was all my fault that he had been sent out at the crack of dawn.....that it wasn't his round,that we were wasting his ******* time!!

All this he screamed like a man demented while flailing his arms.

I attempted to explain to him the reason why the plastics bag was in the yard and not on the road side,it was clear that he expected me to bring it out to the road. In my nightdress and slippers and still half asleep I gave him to understand that he would have to get it himself and the sound and fury became even greater as barging past me he took the plastics bag to the truck before casting it to the ground at the side of the road.

Of course I have lodged a complaint and I expect to here within a few days.

Later in the day I received a letter from the Estate Manager to let me know that they intend to begin the destruction of my orchard soon. Would I like to talk about it,he asked....you bet I want to talk about it. He tells me he may use contractors rather than estate staff, this is ,presumably so that when the wild residents in the orchard are disturbed it will not be estate workers in court.

They may well tare down the trees and level the fruit beds but every move they make will be filmed and should any harm befall either bird or beast I shall have the evidence to stop any further inroads.

This has worked before and it will again. I cannot imagine how they can level the ground on which there is a fox earth without destroying the cubs which will be born in a few weeks time. Even if the work begins next week,this will leave the foxes no time to find another earth. The earth has been used by the same pair for some years, and we have watched the young kits playing in the orchard,they have become members of our family and although they lead totally normal lives in the wild the have been know to come and ask for help when in trouble.

There are at least half a dozen hedgehogs hibernating in the undergrowth soon to be ripped out.

Hibernating newts frogs and toads.

There is never a good time of year to destroy such valuable habitat, every living thing will be destroyed by the action of a greedy landlord and a local authority which cares more for section 106 money than it does for the land in its care.

We have fought a bitter battle and in spite of all we shall fight on, because if a conservation area such as this is not safe from the developers then nowhere and nothing is safe.

A WOEFUL WINTERS TALE.

Many years ago when I lived in the Peak s of Derbyshire I was told a tale or two on the long cold winter evenings either spent by the fireside of more likely propping up the bar at the old Mucky Duck!

One is never certain if these tales are true,often there is a tiny nugget of truth wrapped up in a mire of local mythology. To demonstrate this fact, there is a Pub called The Mermaid high up in the moorlands ,beside it is a pool which as well as being the haunt of a beautiful mermaid , is reputed to be bottomless. One day a party of art students ,of which I was one decided to find out, we acquired a diving suit and on a brilliant sunny afternoon our adventure began.

We attracted quite a crowd and the pub did a roaring trade. The diver waded into the middle of the pool,stumbled over a bicycle frame and barked his shins so badly that he had to give up.

Another recruit fared little better, he removed from the pool amidst cheers and applause two more bicycle frames ,two decrepit prams, sixteen oil drums and the fender from a mini cooper!

I shan't trouble you with the whole list,just the highlight you understand.

We were disappointed of course but the landlord was so pleased with his busy afternoon that he invited us in for drinks, we finally left just before closing time that night!The pool was not bottomless but on our way down l

the road as we passed the pool ,the simmering shape of a pretty young woman appeared for a moment before vanishing in tot he pool. Not the Mermaid but the ghost of a young woman, who on finding herself in trouble appealed to her lover for help. The young man met her beside the pool one night and there he drowned her.

Considering her condition everyone believe it was a suicide,but the guilty party eventually confessed after being followed home by her ghost night after night for a month after her death.

Spooky or what?

Anyway, back to the weather story. High in the Dark Peak,a wild and lonely place you understand, a dreadful tragedy overtook a family and in the space of a fortnight three of them were dead. The first, the father of the family went out to look for sheep and got lost. Search parties were useless and his body was not found for a week when the thaw came.

The second victim, the eldest son was out searching for his fathers body as the thaw was rapidly melting the ice. The river was a torrent and as he crossed a pack horse bridge it collapsed and he was swept away. That night they brought home the body of his father,the son was not found for a week,his body had become entangled in a rotary clothes drier and was found by the local rag and bone man.

The third victim in this tragic family was the Grand mother who while throwing some potato peelings into the midden missed her footing and fell in, The accident was seen by the driver of the mobile village shop. He manfully strove to pull her out and did eventually mange to do so. Unfortunately he was not man enough to give the old lady mouth to mouth resuscitation....well under the circumstances.........! To make matters worse the families name was Weatherall, rather ironic don't you think?

The Local news paper picked up on the story and in true tabloid fashion ran the headline “Winter weather wipe out Weatheralls .” The Weatherall family held a single funeral service for the three unfortunate members, at the local parish church on sunny day a few weeks later.

This time the headline trumpeted “Sun shines on the Weatheralls at last”.

True or false, your guess is as good as mine, but I would hate to be in that reporters boots if the Weatheralls catch up with him.      

THE HORSE DRAWN HEARSE

Another cold,wet,grey winters day (sounds like some Simon and Garfunkel lyrics) the sort of day that inspires you to contemplate having a duvet day,especially when you have not slept well.

We all got up and went through the motions,my son took out the trash, I made my bed and tidied the bathroom while Pa set about getting dressed. I would not say that we were miserable ,but, subdued would ,I think best describe the general mood of the morning.

We ate our breakfast of hot griddled pikelets with maple syrup,(I thought it might cheer us up a little) after which my son went back to his writing and Pa and I washed the dishes while I bemoaned the fact that I to go out to buy some special cat food for our fussy cat Twiggy.

The light drizzle turned to torrential rain the identical moment I stepped out of the front door and continued unabated until my return,shortly after the weather reverted to a lighter drizzle... typical!!

As I jettisoned my soggy togs I noticed a funeral courtage passing our house. Living a we do between a church and two graveyards it is in fact quite commonplace. Of course the old grave yard at the rear of our cottage has not seen a burial since 1800 and frozen stiff , however the new one situated at the other end of then lane is quite busy.

For instance, at the bottom of the cemetery there is a small pedestrian gate ,and it is inside this gate under the shelter of some coniferous trees the smokers,wretched outcasts of the smoking staff of a nearby hospital congregate to enjoy their surreptitious fags. At lunch time their can be quite a crowd and the pile of cigarette butts can be a serious hazard to suede shoes!

A little further up the cemetery path are some rather lovely but unfortunately derelict buildings some of which once held services for the dead of various denominations ad faiths. Another equally ornate but much smaller building once housed the gravediggers tools of the trade,mattock,spade, that sort of thing. This building is now used by the spliff smokers who had gained entry through a damaged side door.

Some what further round the building the serious junkies hang out, the hospital is on the other side of the cemetery wall so they don't have far to go if things go wrong.

Isolated as it is ,it is used by the local contractors as a good place to park up and down a few tinnies in hot weather of take a snooze if the weather is bad , as I said the place is quite busy.

Back to the hearse. It was exactly like something out of a dickens novel, four beautiful black horses,plumed with black feathers and caparisoned in black harness. The driver and his assistant wore black cloaks an each black top hate. The hearse itself was polished to the last degree, shinning glass, sparkling brass fittings ans the black wood look as it it had been lacquered.

I had heard the sound of horses hooves seconds before I saw the hearse and would have loved to photograph this spectacle, unfortunately the whole courtage were travailing at such a pace that they had disappeared before I could reach for my camera.

The horses at the gallop careered down the lane followed by a long line of black limousines attempting to keep up while maintaining their dignity, in this they failed.

Now I have to admit that I have no idea why the horse drawn hearse was behaving like the lead wagon when the redskins attack, to me it just seems odd that in an age when every blesses thing is done at the double why go to the trouble of hiring this antiquated form of travel to slow things down to a sedate pace and then drive live Jehu past the waiting mourners, they behaved more like a Victorian Fire engine than a hearse. If it had been summer time I would swear that one of the horses had been hit by a warble fly. Or perhaps the entire party were trying to get the burial over before it began to rain again,who can say ?

Whatever the reason dignity and decorum were definitely not amongst us today, I just hope the driver managed to get the horses to stop at the cemetery gates, otherwise next stop, Great West Road.

DOES ANYONE KNOW THE PRICE OF BIRDS EYE MAPLE /

I return to the subject of last nights waterlogged blog! To say that the weather has been inclement is much like saying that the eruption of Vesuvius created a bit of dust!!

This analogy is not as random as you may think for just as Vesuvius rendered whole towns in to useless ruin so the continued rain is returning to ancient flood plains all over England and is showing no sign of retreating.

Take a look at the Somerset Levels, many years ago the area was called “the Summer Country”for only on the dry summer months was the land visible, for the rest of the time it was , as it is now hidden beneath the winter flood waters . Rivers are reconstructing themselves and we are powerless in the face of such force.

When the alleged grave of King Arthur was discovered at Glastonbury Abbey the tombstone was inscribed with the legend “Here Lies Arthur in the Isle of Avalon” and it is true that parts of Glastonbury,in particular the Tor have a claim to the title.

If I is true there is another legend which says that. “When the island of Avalon reappears Arthur will return.”

Judging by aerial photographs of the Somerset Levels we shall not have long to wait to learn the veracity of the legend.

Sitting here listening yet again to the horizontal rain lashing the windows and watching the gale driven water finding its way into the house via any small crack or imperfection in the seals it seems somehow more like the Wrath of God, than just a bit of bad weather.

Perhaps now is the time to think about the building of an Ark! Of course successive short sighted |Governments have closed down most of the ship building in the British Isles so we had better be swift about it. After all if the Scots do secede from the union they will hold the winning hand since most of the ship building is still in Scotland.

With that thought in mind,does anyone know the price of birds eye maple?
Answer: Theeehapence a foot.  ( a poem written by Marriot Edgar in 1932 and performed by the great Stanley Holloway

SUNDAY,DAY OF RUST

Our village,like many another in England and Wales is ,not to put too fine a point upon it sodden! I can count on one hand the number of days on which it has not rained during the past month and it seems certain that we have not yet seen the last of the wet spell.

Everywhere the ground is waterlogged and squelches horribly if one is foolhardy enough to walk upon it,allotments and gardens are deserted at a time when many keen growers of vegetables would be hard at it preparing the ground for planting. Alas,my own gardens are destined to be much neglected this year as I am now finding walking, indeed even staying on my feet very painful.

My brick sheds are dry,in so far as there are no leaks in their roofs but the amount of moisture in the atmosphere makes me very glad that I cleaned and oiled my tools at the end of the year and that all electrical equipment is suitably wrapped. Even so rust is appearing everywhere, most particularly our wrought iron fence which seems to have been washed clear of paint and is now a fashionable rusty red hue.

Metal arches, bird feeding equipment, gates and so forth are also following the fashion and are rusting with a will.

A friend of mine told me that he had purchased a wire brush to tackle his rusty double gate,if only it would stop raining long enough for him to do the job, and another desperate soul was actually seen painting his railings in the rain!!!!

At our local hardware store such things as fence paint and outdoor paint are super glued to the shelves as are the young plants on offer (far too early in my opinion) and the garden centres hopeful display of lovely but prohibitively expensive garden furniture is as badly neglected as their potato sets.

Sundays these days are spent on other things than D.I.Y. and gardening, and as we all contemplate the damage done by the wet weather I will wager that there will be more painting than gardening done this year.

On a brighter note during a brief trip out during an even briefer dry spell I came across several Hazel bushes each one resplendent with wildly waving catkins of bright gold. A little further on the first white tips of pussy willow were struggling to break from their winter prison.

There is always hope and I hope very much that with all the rain we have had there will be no talk of hosepipe bans this summer. Of course this cannot be guaranteed as we have seen in the past,I for one will have something very choice to say should the unthinkable happen...again.

GETTING CHEFFY

Today I finally ran out of steam. After another night of no sleep and appalling pain the morning found me more tired than when I lay down and I was frighteningly weak. I managed to get up and make a pan of porridge for breakfast (I have a new spurtle I wanted to christen) and breakfast was lovely,unfortunately I kept on falling asleep at the table and eventually I had to admit defeat and allowed myself to be packed off to bed.

I propped up my swollen feet, snuggled into a fleece rug and tried to sleep but it was no use,still I was at least resting and for that I was thankful.

I was able by dinner time to make a lasagne along with some garlic bread the troops were delighted do that was all right.

I seem to be getting worse quite quickly now and my concern for the boys is growing,my confidence in them has also growing as my son becomes more and more proficient about the cooking. He now had a proper chefs apron and really looks the part.

As in all he does he takes a real pride in his efforts and shows great promise in matters culinary.

I hope to feel better in the morning,but in the event that I am still feeling shaky a rabbit pudding is on the menu,it is a breeze to make takes all day to cook and costs the minimum effort for someone who is feeling unwell. I shall serve this glorious dish with a quadrille of winter root vegetables and a rich rabbit and port wine gravy.

Well it won't do for me to lose my position as head chef too soon!