Happy new ear - nose job next

As the old year finishes and I have to get used to signing things 2012, something which usually takes till November every year, it's time to sit back.

It's difficult to envisage that this time next year things will be a lot better, in fact there are plenty of portents of doom in the offing.

One of the most difficult economic periods for this country and we have Clegg Camerron and Osbourne at the helm. Whilst there is a lot to be said for having skills in smashing up restaurants and getting daddy to buy you out of the mess you make, I think I would rather a dour Scott in charge of the treasury.

The terrible fact is that the last time things looked this bad in the world. And it was a banking crisis that ended that one too, the world only properly came out of recession when governments were throwing millions at going to war.

I am not sure that would be my preferred option.

R

Martyred to the Green Cause

Here at Penole we are martyrs to the green cause Not for us the midwinter tumble drier to control the monster mountain of washing. No the line is up in the living room and, while the student is doing some essay about illness and health, I am in charge of clothes drying.

This involves log stove at full chat and washing everywhere, it's like a sauna in here. 75 F and 60% humidity.  

Of course this is both  a lot cheaper and a lot greener than electricity - but god elp us all, reckon I will have melted by the end of the night!!!

R

Dealing with banks and rating agencies

Someone quite clever once suggested that if you rob Peter to pay Paul. Paul will still be your mate. Now, apply this to thhe screwed up economic system in which we live and think..... Are Moodys et al Peter or Paul. To the streets..... R

Boxing day without boxing.

Well, we survived.

Boxing day was gotten through with a remarkable lack of fisticuffs, If cornered and in total confidennce i would say I have quietly enjoyed having all of my children here with me and her for the last couple of days.

That is all over now, Bethan has gone to her boyfriends and they all seem to have somewhere that is not here to see in the new year.

So, this new year is likely to be quiet by any measure, in a true measure of how things are, our village local looks set to close in the new year.  Of the pubs on the square only one is likely to be open at midnight, one closed months ago and another closed just before Xmas.

The pubs that are doing well are the very small wholy owned little pubs that were of no interest to the big chains who are now stuck with big pubs no one can make a living out of.

Today we made our first tentative forray into the market town, for a time of recession there seemed to be a lot of money about. It was life in hands time on the driving front how the road was not paved with bits of broken glass and twisted plastic I will never know.

Peace on Earth - yeah right.

R 

Xmas spirit

Throwing a load of people related by an accident of birth together at a time when emotions are high is not necessarily a good thing.

The bleakest deepest part of the year when you cannot simply run outside to escape the carnage is perhaps a less wise way of plan things. 

Of course we are trapped in this time scale by the Christians taking over the midwinter feast for themselves. Truly interesting programme on BBC radio 4 yesterday about Constantine and the Christians. How the Romans took on board the church but in the process removed the theology and it's underlying politics. Reinventing it as being about a baby in a manger and a man on a cross whilst removing a lot of what came between.

Today though is a family day, Serenity and her children, making it about 15 people in the house A sight best enjoyed through my beer goggles.

R

Clyche arian cyn y wawr.

So the morning has broken, she and me are having a who can be the most ill competition. The young people have some new dance game on the Xbox which is keeping them quiet.

The fire is in, the living room is at 70F.

It has been a strange Xmas; Tesco the night  before last looked as if it had been hit by a plague of locusts with empty shelves everywhere. But it was quiet, bookers yesterday was quiet.

All i all I am feeling pretty grim, elevated temperture, sweating like a fountain, crashing cough general Bleugh.

Not well in fact. There is at least a decent red breathing in the livig room.  

I think the world is going to wake to the most horrendous economic hangover in the new year.

R

SEasons greatings

This is a mythical time of year.  People buy into the notions of peace on earth and goodwill to all men.

What a load of tosh, yesterday, in Bookers someone elbowed me out of the way to get to the checkout first, that simply does not happen in that beacon  of take turns, the wholesaler.

No such rituals in Tesco's,  a brisk scrap saw us in a parking space. Peace and goodwill were in very short supply as we  careered and crashed round the aisles, hundreds of pounds added to our over breeze later and we were ready for home.

Of course this is easy to say but not so easy to do. It's lucky I am used to driving in France so the mass cutting up, pulling out in front of and planting the car into the roundabout routine was no suprise. I am going back tomorrow, think I might use the looming presence of the Green Goddess to calm things a bit.  Tomorrow will be the day everything goes on reduction and clearance at Bookers.

That of course is all against a backdrop of a student who has the plague and is, at the same time trying to do her Eugenics Essay so she can do her Stress essay and her third essay whose subject I have clean forgotten before going on to her 4th essay to do with dissability by the end of January and there's two exams in there somewhere too.  

Today is a date of great significance to us here at Penole. 18 years ago right now. I was out on the M4 in a 1950's Bedford flat bed truck with all my wordly goods in the back. My mate chopper was behind me in a Renault Traffic also loaded to the gunels. We arrived here in some trepidation, the aga was nearly out,  the coal central heating had clearly been out for a long time. There was no coal or oil and it was the night before Xmas.

In the living room it was exactly 70 degrees faranheit colder than it is today and today it's 75 F.

There we sat the management and I with 3 babies in ski suits in sleeping bags.

The adventure had begun.

R