Sunday 29 August 2010

Charity day....

Today Taliesin and I had a charity day.

This poor chap had filled his diesel car with unleaded fuel, this was a 300 pound bill to come round and sort his misery.He would not jhave known that 300 was the start price, they would charge him for lots more on top.

Being nice chaps we elected to help him and drain the car.

Took a good few hours but we got all 75 litres out of his car.

Of course we were then stuck with rather a lot of contaminated fuel, what to do?

Turns out though it is just ideal for a green goddess.

Carnival tomorrow and I have promised his kids a front seat in the fire engine. 

R

A suprise of serenity

Now it has been a long time since I have had to mention my superb step daughter Serenity.



Serenity, it should be said enjoyed little short of legendary status amongst my foster caring companions a few years back but all that changed. Well, untill this weekend.



Serenity has taken up one of these extreme diet things, phrases about bodily purity have been heard together with explanations of how, after all sorts of cleansing, austerity and portions that would be considered tight at a nouvelle cuisine restauraunt, she was to be  gradually reintroducing her body to food in about 2 weeks.



Now at this stage two things arrived together, the first being her birthday and the second grandad taking her children away for the weekend.



Taking full advantage  she decided to reintroduce her body to a chicken vindaloo curry with bombay potatoes, rice, onion bahjees and nan breads. To keep these company she slugged down an impressive amount of wine which she adulterated with vodka. 


Not given to half measures, this was not enough, getting into her stride, next day she was seen returning from the chip shop with chicken and chips, waving the corkscrew in a purposefull manner.




The outcome was of course pretty spectacular the mid afternoon peace at our house was shattered, Serenity was dying, she had diabetes pancreatitis, stomach ulcers, appendicitis gall stones and sudden onset bowel cancer - all that before she had even seen the doctor. .  

Her mother took off from here at a serious pace leaving the rest of us to cope as best we could which was fairly well. Picking Serenity up in passing off she went on hospital bent.

On taking a bit of history, mother came up with a causal link to diet. Serenity was adamant; this was the end, and she was weakening by the minute.

Of course, the medical establishment has a long history of diagnosing mysterious maladies and frankly they begged to differ  with Serenities explanation.. Ever professional the doctor did not give in to hysterical laughter as the tale unfolded Frankly though, they could not conclude that death was imminent.  They thought her sudden stopping of the diet might be highly significant, suggesting that maybe she had gall stones.

Serious maternal pep talks were required and, in the end Serenity went home, her dad dropped her children at her house not ours.

A cause of serious  worry removed, Serenity ill was one thing, but her children dropped here for a couple of nights, no lets not go there.....






 


work in progress

We have embarked on a summer of huge works.


Next door the old farm house is sort of getting there lots of new windows doors and adding a new layout upstairs so that, in a few years we will have a small house next door we can move into and let out the huge old pile here.



This all makes sense with Branwen off to uni in a year Bethan madly in love and the foster children all growing up.



It will be odd though moving to a more "normal"sort of a house.

The drive also has been virtually relayed Now I need to draw up some plans for making a Green Goddess garage.

Especially as Branwen and my rebuild of the ignition on Isabelle was such a storming success. Yesterday complete with a tank full of water it was off to the show with a vengance.

Pulling really well, and thanks to a ludicrously innacurate device breaking speed limits all over. 

Of course shows not by rivers are not proper GG do's at all.

Tomorrow is the carnival - by the river.....

And I have just realized I didn't mention A levels, the pre university qualification.

Bethan got 2 C's and 2 D's a miracle considering she has spent 2 years doing next to nothing.

Branwen in her intermediate AS exams got a creditable 2 A and 2 B grades.

She scored nearly 100% in photography, should think so too, the nikon we bought her cost a fortune!!! 





Tuesday 24 August 2010

Has it really been that long?

It has been some summer, little of which I have shared this year.




Starting with the drive to the ferry which went like the works of a clock.



Well Ok it might have been an idea to rush through a change of the front wheel bearings as they are both in terminal decline.


"Making a bit of a noise" leaving here soon elevated itself to deafening and has remained so ever since. 


I could remove the stereo for all the use it is, you cannot hear a thing over that din.



But I digress, we had a wonderfull time away and fitted in lots of things I should have written up at the time.

Life, of course was as you would expect it and we had to rope the trailer back together when it started to come apart before of course one of the canoes got off and walked when we were doing about 50 round a bend. Last weekend we were volunteer stewards at a festival, so we went even though the weather forecast would have worried Noah. Naturally, many of the other stewards saw the forecast and stayed home. We had a busy weekend  then...

So all in all it was a normal summer for us.

I cannot really spare time to write as the shear volume of work to do here is crazy.

There are monumental mounds of wood to be cut.

The drive has been relayed - well we nearly finished it and the other bit of the house is being seriously worked on.

I will have another post soon just to keep the blog live.

R







 


Sunday 1 August 2010

Have a body...

Mine has been in a state of rebellion for the last few months.




I just woke at silly o clock, having fallen asleep late last night in a limping bit of pain, it's very early in the morning,  my joints are not quite teenager but they are better than they have been for a while.


 
I am almost looking forward to a 250 mile drive....




Hmmmm



Report back in a couple of weeks.



We are sailing...

So of course the whole plot is packed.



Of course not.

So much left to put in there.



Tomorrow of the bright and early we set off for Plymouth.



The trailer is hitched the 606 is loaded all we have to do is get in the cab and move on.



We will try to keep you posted.

R