Summer is here

Summer really is here at last...

I don't think I have ever had the log stove lit in June before.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr

R

I've been driving in my car.

Today was started at silly o clock for a Saturday and a run out to drop Bethan at work.

The magic carpet C5 then eased us 50 miles North to where the seller of the VTR was, very sensibly, still in bed.

For her own and, I am sure very well thought out reasons, the student then headed off in exactly the wrong direction for home. She did eventually change course and we ended up pointed for home. We took in a auction we used to do en route and she noted the time and date of the next one - not a good sign.

The VTR is a real monster car, personally I love it, goes like a rat up a drain pipe but if you are not in a hurry it's a nice car to drive too.

The last stretch home, our B road back lane special stage, she claims she was not trying but was seriously amused at the faces I was pulling trying to keep up in the monster C5. She might not have been trying but I certainly was!!!

We've done 1300 miles since buying the C5 and it is on it's second tank of fuel.

OK so a tank is about 70 litres.

That's good, very good.

R

Monitoring writing

You might have noticed a little logo on my blog for statcounter, this is a little thing that monitors how many people click on my blog every day and where they come from.

I have been getting a bit perturbed that I seem to have an avid reader in Scranton USA. Isn't that where the CIA are based?

Next time you see me I might be in Cuba wearing an Orange overall....

Panorama and people.

For the overseas readers the BBC do a headline documentary called Panorama.

Last week they pulled a bit of a journalistic coup, they got inside a private care home and revealed some pretty terrible abuses by care staff who were running a reign of terror.

There has been a national outcry, media frenzy and general governmental tutting that they will make sure it never happens again. There have been arrests and promises that people will be charged.

Whether they mean using poorly trained, badly paid staff, to "care" for people, in usually understaffed places, to warehouse the vulnerable and economically sidelined in profit points for the private sector will not happen. Or will it mean they will stop anyone ever finding out what happens in those places, is not clear.

This week they did a programme about children living in poverty. It was truly grim, easily as grim as last week.

Trouble is this is about people being poor on benefits, somewhere where there are serious cuts in prospect.

Children living in misery and damp and spores and missing meals and lacking clothes and being bullied and driven to attempt suicide. A young man transformed by 9 pounds spent on his haircut. You could almost measure how that haircut changed his view of himself. That was a young man of 12 who anyone would be proud of. It broke my heart and drove me to despair too.

Humanity has been silent. The government is not up in arms. The previous government set itself a target of removing child poverty, but then carried on an economic system that guaranteed it's continuation.

We are the only ones who can change this, maybe the spring should not be limited to the Arab world.

R

Wild weekend

There was a time when a wild weekend would have involved music beer tents and frivoloty.

Now our wild weekend meant a hitching of the caraven to the 806, lots of pressure washing to make it look presentable. Then out with the boat on to it's trailer and seriously powerwash that.

A constant procession to the burning pit and lots of burning.

Finally Branwen and I heaved the 25 horse power outboard to the car and put it in the boot of the simply massive C5.

The date for Branwens official birthday party has been set a facebook event page opened and we are away!!

R

Changed ideas.

Obviously, things have changed. The guy drove past the top of the drive and well suprise suprise he could see bugger all.

So now we have the nightmare scenario, a surveyor is coming to call on Monday.

The nightmare is not the surveyor but the student who will have us chasing our tails for 3 days making the place look worth more than a decent 3 bed semi in town

R

A house surveyed.

As part of the new financial deal the house has needed to be surveyed and valued.

This has produced a flurry of activity, extra areas put to the mower, paint has been thrown around a mass tidy of everything to make all appear a bit more orderly so the surveyor will give the place a high value.

So far so good. Then of course as we tore round the county in the C5 the phone burbled and it was the valuer. He who is only allowed to view the house from the top of the drive (half a mile away) and from there guess how much it is worth. You really could not make this stuff up. Though of course it means all that work is for nothing.

Well no it might be for quite a lot only the valuer will never see it.

R