Lets get ready for Xmas

Things are quite civilised here at Penole, Xmas is coming and eBay has come to our aid as a flurry of sales boosted my pay pal account which the management was able to find various ways of emptying. All in all though we are ready for Xmas.

One last thing remained Television, now, this house has been TV free for quite a few years. We gave up on it a little while back. Reception out here has always been poor, we ended up putting in a satellite, obviously not a subscription to SKY Mr Murdoch can clear off, we had the channels that were free.

When the dish broke, we simply did not bother. We can watch anything we want online and in fact, when laptop is combined with projector we can have a whole wall of TV for anything important (like international rugby).

But of course mine is not to reason why and if truth were told recent watchathons have been eating into our broadband allowance, so, one day, the management announced we were going to have telly for Xmas.

This was, of course not going to be simple The old dish being long gone we had to get a new one, over to eBay, then a sat box, from a mate, then some cards - we were in business.

First of all put up a post serious amounts of digging by  myself and the management and we had a hole, dug in the biting cold wind.

Next the post, that was simple, we had a bit of telegraph pole which could be fine in the hole with a concrete plug. Taliesin and I worked away batching concrete and soon despite the rain the pole as in.

A quick session with the chainsaw created a flat surface to which the mounting bracket was bolted, I was surprised at how quickly I managed to  get the bracket attached the dish mounted and cable run into the living room. The cable supplied was exactly the right length - how good was that!!!

So this afternoon,  began the serious technical stuff. Equipped with an Ipad and an app we soon worked out where the satellite was located. Connected up the meter and  the box - nothing.

Several hours of increasing frustration  and rain, oh yes did I mention the rain.  A steady cold drizzling precipitation Made even worse by the signal meters reluctance to recognise anything. No matter how many twists turns or other things were tried.

When, eventually, hypothermia called a halt to proceedings, Branwen and I staggered back inside in a soaking sogg of wet clothes

I should have said that the main beneficiary of this project would have been big D who is a great fan of television and live sport. So of course he felt now would be a good time to contribute to the project. He came out of his room to see if it was working, saw it wasn't then went back in again.

 Could not have done it without  him. 

R


  
     
       

Da man and the dog

From the point of view of this blog, da man has not been around too much recently, then again, neither have I. Live has been a bit full on.

Da man though has stopped being a kitten and he is now an fully adult master of his human hutch. We have sort of tried to make allowances for his missing leg which is a hell of a lot more than he has, being seen up trees and on one memorable occasion hunting cows in the field next door.

There has however been a fly in the ointment in the form of a new addition to the house called Kennie. Now Kennie is a rescue dog about 2 years old a bundle of energy a collie and labrador cross - a colliedoor.

None of the cats have taken to Kennie, da man in particular. Da man is probably about a fifth of his size. The first time they met Da Man didn't like the look of him so he was very still hoping he would not be seen. Kennie didn't go for that and ran at him barking and snarling. Da Man decided this was an "out of here" moment and legged it out of the kitchen into the living room. Sadly the door at the end of the living room was closed and Da Man was cornered. "Dinner"  thought Kennie "Really? You think so?" thought Da Man.

I had been upstairs for the few moments this took to happen so by the time I got downstairs, the dog was running round  into the kitchen closely pursued by a black and white three legged ball of evil and fury. I think what was really annoying Da Man was the fact that this dog had started a fight and then refused to have one.

You have to admire him a bit.

R 
    

Sunday sunday....

Fostering can be a long slog sometimes. Quite often you work away at something for years then nothing happens. Sometimes the result of lots of work is seen a long time after you did it thinking nothing was going on.

Then something very special happens. Today our latest fosling, having turned 16 went off her own back, to help out in a local pub that does some ferociously good cooking. By the sounds of it she had a great time and the punters and owners were very impressed with her.  

Contrast that with some of our other fosling who are very strong believers in work. They believe everyone should work and work hard, otherwise where would the money for their dole come from??

G is a little bit of s success story, so far, 18 months ago she arrived with an expectation she might last a few weeks. Her ambition was to have a tent in the grounds of a homeless hostel, she is now thinking about university.

Things like this can collapse overnight, now she is 16, she is under loads of pressure to jump on a train and go back to Daycastle. We are not supposed to know this of course, but she has been exploring the issues in an indirect way.

Do we think she would be strong enough to cope back there, and not get drawn into the family dramas. This is where you have to be properly skilled, it would be dead easy to say "no", very appealing even. But then you are giving  your answer. The truth is, they need to work this one out for themselves. We're not the expert on them: they are.

That too is proper empowerment, not steaming in and making the call, letting them decide.

My gut feeling, especially after a esteem building day like today is that she might stay.

Then again......

 

           

Rayburn and she's happy

Some of our colonial friends won't know what a rayburn is so,  for them.

A rayburn is about 250 kg of cast iron and fire brick that can be used to heat your house, heat your water and heat your food. Ours only heats the kitchen and serves as a cooker.

the idea is that you use a small amount of fuel, the heat goes into the heavy casting and fire brick and takes a long time to cool.

We acquired ours off a free website about 2 years ago and  with a great deal of swearing it was installed in the kitchen

So anyway, couple of days ago we lit the rayburn and made use of one of it's properties, the one about staying warm for a long time.  A big joint of beef went in and was cooked very slowly over about 8 hours. The result was a near perfect joint, you really cannot beat a Rayburn oven. Cooking that involved about a bucket of fire wood, you really cannot go wrong. 

The Rayburn has been getting to stay on rather more this last week, i think the late summer is giving way to a winter blast. Rain and wind have hammered the window in my bedroom, there is something rather nice about wind and rain. So long as you are sat in a room that is at about 23 C with a big log stove blazing away in the fireplace.    

Maybe winter is not so bad after all.

R

The life exotic

Living out here in the wilds is often interesting and sometimes exhilarating and sometimes a downright pane in the glass.

We do of course have weather; when it's a bit sunny in town, out here it's glorious. When it's a bit breezy in town, out here it's biblical.

So a good few weeks ago when it was a bit thundery in town it was nuclear war level electromagnetic pulse out here. The phone system got blown to bits.

Modem, line filter, even the wire from the socket all got it. \

Also the underground cable on top of the mountain got fried.

This was our cue to log out electronically.

The BT Engineers were really good, it was the work of moments to work out that something was wrong.

Several days passed and an engineer came down the drive, he had been draughted in from away, we quickly established that I knew more about the local hardware than he did.

More than that, I was able to pinpoint where the fault was located. We have had so many faults at that point over the years it was a bit of a no brainer really.

Now,  lets do some history, over the last few years connectivity has been a bit of an issue. The underground link here was put in some time in the early 60's. This in turn meant that between ploughing and fencing and digging of slurry pits it had more joints than a Bob Marley concert.

A few years back BT caved in and agreed to renew the whole run, great news, they would of course do it in fibre so we would have super fast broadband. No, it does not work like that.

So anyway the cable was new so there would not be much to do. Except the fault was underground and this engineer had not done the how to use a shovel course so he could not dig.

I wondered how such a new cable was proving so faulty. He said no, the cable to the distribution box on the mountain had obviously been changed but the run from there, 10 M or so till it was running overground was the original stuff.

So BT had run new cable till the point where it split to serve lots of other households. Then not bothered to renew the last few metres as it only served 3 phone numbers.

At this point I might chuck into the mix some young people.

People have told me there is nothing worse than a room full of young people all absorbed in their electronic devices. There is a point there, and they have totally missed it.

Hell is a bunch of young people clattering away to devices that tell them; no internet

Day one is a bit hard.

By the end of the week they distraught, they were even contemplating talking to each other...

DVD's had to be watched, they even played chess a few times, this was crisis.

On top of this, it was showtime in university, i was delivering a new module for the first time and none of the notes could go on the students web page, problem all round then.

It was a long time before BT turned up with it's shovel by which time half the house was stir crazy.

Now, of course, we have half term. Fortunately it's half term with internet, the other possibility does not bear thinking about... 

  

               


 

Whose work is valued

It's been a long few months with a lot going on.

But we have arrived at a dark place really, the chief exec of Pembrokeshire has presided over a series of disasters, he has dealt with most of them by pretending they were nothing to do with him.

Now either he knew about them, so he should be sacked. Or it all went on under his nose and he did nothing about it so, well, he should be sacked.

Sacked means to me, up the road with a minimum of pay. Not a tearful goodbye with nearly 2 years pay in your bin plus your pension intact.

Especially when it's known you have already had a job created for you somewhere else.

For myself, 20 years as a foster carer and probably 10 years before that as a residential worker entitles me to the state pension with a bit chucked on top because it's likely I will be poor, is what I get as a reward for fighting the sorts who should be making sure services deliver but who spend their lives finding excuses for why they don't.

There is a logic in there somewhere - sadly i don't get it.

R  

Happy holidays...

Every so often we go off on manoeuvres to our little house in Brittany. In previous years these would have been an extended month long jaunt with the whole tribe, now with childer working and such like we haven't spend an extended time out there in many years. It's not that we could not have gone, the kids were quite happy for us to leave them in the house here for a month - yeah right as if.....

So anyway off to Plymouth we raced in the VW van, on to the ferry end ended a grueling 10 am till midnight traveling day. Next morning bright and early it was time to set about the task in hand. Said talks being rendering the place suitable for friends to visit in the next week or so. Significant strimming and mowing went on till we got to mid afternoon by which time temperatures were uncomfortably into the mid 30's, not mowing weather then.

Plan A had been a hard working day on the house then three days off. So anyway 3 days later.......

We had a broadly lovely time but the hard work and heat left us exhausted, the super powerful shower was getting used lots and lots of times. Often two showers a day per person.

We decided, one evening, it was time to have a moment and, later next month when G goes off on manoeuvres for a week, so we are off for a week where the two of us will do nothing. I can really see that happening too..

So on day the last there we were all loaded up, everything looking good for the early morning trip home when into the house came the Gwion. Best go and look at the van he suggested, a quick trip outside and the side door was hanging off. Just what we needed for the M5 on the way home. This was clearly a very technical re hanging job so I set about it armed with a block of wood and a a 10 lb sledge hammer!!

The trip home was uneventful but killing, 6 am start and rolled up the drive here at 8 pm. The trip leaving me wishing I really had got round to fitting that sunroof I promised myself a  good while back.  I have also become a bit of a fan of aircon, that would be a proper plus on the comfort front.

So anyway we are at home and catapulted into a new series of dramas around the mess big D is intent on making of his life. There is only so much you can do, when someone is determined not to help themselves it gets quite difficult. Because he has not returned the paperwork and forms, all his benefits have been suspended. He has no money to pay his rent but still expects to stay here and live here, it's like he expects everyone else to work so he does not have to.

The leaving care team are champing at the bit to pull his placement and drag him back to Daycastle and stick him in a hostel. He seems to think that if he pretends it's not happening then it won't.

R