Blue Witch

The Friday Question

I finally have a new laptop, so there is hope that BW may improve its schedule (and ability to include pictures) sometime soon, once Mr BW has finished setting it up and making it look nearly the same as my old one which has limped on for at least 18 months past its sell-by date.

I have a theory that Microsoft have been filling up the hard drives of any machines still running Windows 10 with pointless and bloaty updates, to force people to buy new equipment. I did get a new one some months ago, but it refused to connect to the wifi and was doing lots of silly things that weren't right, so it went back.

This time I have the small cousin of Mr BW's new laptop, so hopefully he will know how to do anything that stumps me; there is method in my madness. Plus it was £300 off at Costco, who give an extra year's warranty with every purchase. But why my lovely old little netbook could have an 11.5 inch screen and weigh just 1090g when this new one weighs half as much again and has a 14 inch screen I have no idea. Progress, eh?

So that makes a new printer, a new wifi extender, and two new laptops that have had to be purchased in the last month. Ouch.

The week before last we went away for three nights, and we're going away again for two nights to a classic car rally over on the coast. We will be staying on the site (in a country park on the coast) in Bri@n - who has not been towed, other than around the block, for over 5 years. Mr BW has now added 'caravan servicing' to his skill-set, thanks to YouTube. When you live in the middle of nowhere, and the nearest place that might be able to service your caravan is over 60 miles away, it is senseless to tow your needs-looking-at-to-ensure-safety pod that far, so the only option is DIY.

As I don't drive Mi1dred, I have to drive Mr BW's car, towing Bri@n. I have only driven Mr BW's car 3 times before, as I hate all the unnecessary electronic gadgets that can't be turned off. What could possibly go wrong? ;)

I realised that in the past 5.5 years since we moved here, I have only (so far) had 7 nights away from homes. 3 plus 2 days last year, and 3 days this year. I had maybe 20 nights at Coven Sud and Mr BW had probably 150 more than that down south, but those don't count as they were still in a house we owned.

7 nights away from home in five and a half years. That's certainly a record for us. But, as I always say to people, as we moved to a place where we holidayed happily for 15 years, every day still seems like a holiday.

How many nights have you spent away from home since March 2020?

A sight worth seeing

If you happen to be awake around dawn any time in the next few days, can I recommend going outside and looking east, about 45° up?

Venus and Saturn, the two brightest planets visible from Earth, are currently within a degree or so of each other - a conjunction. They are closest on Tuesday early morning, and with the 4th heatwave of the year building, I would think that the early mornings are likely to be clear.

I picked up a copy of Waitrose Weekend when popping in for some milk on the way back from my textile group yesterday afternoon. They rarely have any of these free papers left by Saturday afternoon, and I rarely read it (we use it for the hens), but, at the bottom of page 4, this phenomenon was described.

I happened to wake up soon after 4.30am this morning, and it was visible for nearly an hour: Saturn on the left and Venus on the right. The full moon was 180° from it, at around the same height. Truly magical. I'll add a picture tomorrow.

It almost makes up for the full moon spoiling the Perseids this year.

It's August the 4th

Rain rain rain from the early hours and wind wind wind from 10am. 50mph wind.

Storm Floris.

Not what one would expect for the time of year.

We'd battened down the hatches in readiness, but with trees in full leaf and some in full fruit, and vulnerable bean poles, there were always going to be casualties. Flattened flowers can just be cut back and will probably have another flush of flowers once they have recovered.

We'll have to sort it all out in the morning as the wind is forecast to be strong through to the early hours. Just what we didn't need to do as we are going away for a few days, and having already spent much of today dealing with an idiot building society who managed to transfer the whole of an ISA into one new bank rather than send one third to one place, one third to another, and retain the last third. Of course, we are now left to ensure repayment is made, and then to reapply for all the new ISAs again, and fight the bungling one for loss of interest and compensation for maladministration (including the person who made the error attempting to cover up their bungling by lying). Bang goes another day. If not two. Or three if we have to involve the Ombudsman.

All this around trying to pack and leave everything watered and fed enough to leave for a few days, and Mr BW also having to set up his new laptop that arrived this morning just as we were going out to Nice Nearest Neighbour's to deliver her birthday card and present.

We thought that after we waved goodbye to the final workmen, back at the end of June, life would be simpler and our time would be our own again. Fat chance.

I don't know if we are just very very unlucky with all the appalling service we receive, or whether most people don't have time to notice, let alone sort out all the mistakes that companies make.

The Bank of England's Base Rate (so interest rates in general) are predicted to come down 0.25% to 4% on Thusday, when their Monetary Policy Committee meet.

Food inflation is predicted to rise to 6% by the end of the year.

And the government's emergency warning system is being tested again on Sunday September 7th at 3pm.

The end of the world could be coming...

Admin eats time

Once upon a time, from 1985 to 2020, all our insurances were due on the same day in the third week of August. This nicely concertinad insurance renewal into one day of admin time for 35 years.

Then came 'The Great and Prolonged Move North' and 'The Building Projects' plus the necessity to buy new cars, which have now resulted in 3 different renewal dates, thereby now kissing goodbye to 3 days of my available daily active hours every year.

If you carry out extensive building works, many insurance companies simply cancel your insurance once you notify them (as you legally have to), leaving you high and dry and scratching around for a new company that will cover you at short notice, for exorbitant rates. If you buy a new car, many insurance companies hugely inflate your premiums, or refuse to cover you at all (if your new car has a soft top), and all brokers have gigantic admin charges for alterations, so forcing you to look elsewhere.

And so it comes to pass that we now have one renewal date in February, one in August and one in December rather that just one date for all three in August.

So, I started the week looking around for insurance for Mr BW's car. Current company wanted 55% more than I got it for eventually, with better cover, and the promise of a brand new car if it is ever more than 60% damaged in its first 2 years (who needs Gap insurance in these circumstances?). I could have got it for half the renewal price, but budget insurance (2.9/5 on Trustpilot) is too much potential hassle, and better safe than sorry.

On Monday I decided I'd had enough of paying Octopus 70p per day standing charge when we only use 7 or 8 units of electricity per day, and are sick of their inane 'save money by cutting down on usage between x and y hours' when you just eventually get 5p for having sat in the dark for 2 hours. Plus, our fixed tariff with them runs out in 8 weeks anyway. Some comparison site searching and then looking for reviews made us decide that changing was the best bet, and at midnight last night (just 30 hours after deciding) we moved electricty company, and they've already picked up our smart meter readings. No more waiting a month, or even a week, for changing. £148 per year saved. All good. I think that makes the 7th electricity company we have been with in just over 5 years here. One was the inherited company that we changed from immediately, 2 went bust, leaving us with the 'supplier of last resort', from whom we quickly moved, and the final one was a 'once good, now too big for their own good' company.

Today was spent agonising over where to move some ISA money - after MSE (and other more academic sources) suggested that their info was that the base rate would come down another 0.25% on Thursday week, I realised that the nice flexible ISA instant access I'd been watching an nurturing was dead and that I needed to move quite a lot of money elsewhere pronto. My transfer went without hitch and (amazingly) despite being told it would take up to 15 days, I've just had an email to say that my money is already with the new provider.

However, yet again, Mr BW's auto-ID checks failed (how mine pass every time while his fail every time I have no idea), and depsite having (against my better judgment) to email in a photo of his photo ID (driving licence), the receiving company still have not confimed acceptance. Looking elsewhere found that the rates offered in the MSE email this morning are being pulled faster than a dodgy dentist (ie seemingly most of those in the north) pulls teeth, so a strongly worded email has been sent to the offending company demanding that the rates offered be honoured as the delays were entirely their fault. We'll see...

I forgot to mention that all our technology is going wrong at the same time, yet again.

A set of new inks for our old HP printer is now £185, or £90 as compatibles. We swopped to remanufactured cartridges 3 years ago, and I've now had issues with 4 compatible cartridges. Despite the re-manfacturers giving a 12 month guarantee, they just ignore you if you email with evidence that cartridges have failed (so leaving you to the mercy of credit card company chargeback, and all the hassle that entails).

I was intending to get an Epson eco-tank printer, but, in researching it, found so many complaints that I then didn't want to go that route. I also discovered that HP now do a tank machine, so managed to buy a new machine (originally £279) with (supposedly) 3 years ink included, for £169 (after manufacturer's and Costco discounts). I don't want to junk the old printer, which is perfectly fine, apart from the cost of the ink now, but I have no choice. What is the point of HP selling a brand new machine, with a 3 year guarantee, and 3 years of ink, for less than the price of one set of new inks (which last us about 8 months)?

I'm beginning to think that I am the only person who actually cares about this sort of thing any more. Am I?

Tomorrow's post will no doubt contain moaning about being forced to get new laptops. Yet another time sink.

Another star

Mr BW has a badge, like those that McDonald's employees sport.

One star for every demonstrated and perfected skill.

It's a bit large now, and a bit cumbersome, so it is very heavy, and he can't actually wear it any more.

I think that The Black Familiar looks after it, as well as Mi1dred, in the workshop/garage.

This week it gained another 2 stars: the recycling star - awarded for cutting off useful cables and plugs before taking something to the tip, without being reminded; for asking people offloading many useful things - obviously from a house clearance - from a hired van at the tip, if we could have some items (spirit levels and metal supports); and for bringing back some shredded cardboard (that I had absent-mindedly put in the kitchen recyling bin) for b33 smoker fuel rather than putting it in the recycling bin at the end of the drive.

And the slating star, for reusing large quantities of slates, and wood from previous building phases.

Here are some photos of the stages of the wood store construction, which includes a slated roof, made from the leftover slates we made the roofers leave behind (there were 200 of them, they told us they cost £2 each, and £400 wasn't coming off the bill if they took them away as they were planning, so they stayed here, after I noticed and Mr BW intervened). It has been constructed on the east wall of the house, between the chimney pillar and the edge nearest the revamped conservatory.

Before:

With the (Mr BW made) steel supports and roofing support timbers:

Roof starting:

Roof continuing:

Dividers:

Reusing the forged gate - that Mr BW made for the field gate at Coven Sud, that we moved North - as a camouflaging rose support:

Now we just have to fill the wood store with all the timber (largely trees that we chopped down as they were in the way of the various building projects) from the collapsing former wood shed (once a dog kennel), and with the rest of the yet-to-be-chopped-up remaining old roof timbers.

Strangely, today our chosen episode of Johnnie Walker's SOTS, Ghost Edition, was from 3 years ago, weeks before The Proper Queen died, and featured pre-amble from when the England Women footballers won the last trophy.

Pointless pastimes

There seems to be an outbreak of 'forest bathing' being promoted in our locality.

This seem to involve sitting or lying quietly in a field or wood and breathing and listening.
A two hour session is just £38.62.

And then there is the other latest craze: 'sound bathing'. This seems to involve sitting or lying on a mat in a field listening to gongs and metal bowls being banged while emptying your mind. It's 'transformative' apparently, for your mind, body, and spirit. At around £20 a 40 minute session in a group of 6, in my opinion the thing most transformed is likely to be the organiser's bank balance.

And then there are the 'Digital Detox Days' held at various venues within the county. You pay to have your gadgets put safely away in a locker for a day, while you do other more exciting things.

Well, no thanks to paying for any of the above. Every day encompasses most of those things around here. I am saddened that anyone feels it necessary to pay someone else to take them for a walk or sit in nature to listen and notice their surroundings. Or to relieve them of their gadgets as they are too addicted to pass a few hours without them.

It's great to be eating almost entirely from the garden, and satisfying to have almost all the materials we need to do almost everything we want - many of them salvaged from past building works.

This week Mr BW has been building and slating a log store, and we have been designing another fused glass top for an outdoor table - this time with a strelitzia design.

I just wish we could get rid of all the wasps... never have we seen so many, and they are a big threat to the b33s.

Birding

There is a huge murder of crows that flies menacingly around the local area. It mostly settles in some trees a few hundred yards away, but just recently a few bold members have started alighting on the summerhouse roof. Banging a pair of flip flops outside the front door usually dispatches all of them for the rest of that day, but there are several hundred of them, and in full flight it is scarily like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds. Once the wheat crop is harvested, I expect the farmer will send the crow murderer out again, like he did last year, and the murder of crows will end up murdered. Here's hoping it doesn't start at 5.30am like last time, as we woke thinking WW3 had started right overhead.

There is also a flock of goldfinches, maybe 50 or 60 of them, who flitter about, and often alight in our old plum tree sometime around 5am. I didn't know that goldfinches flew in groups, or, until just now, that the collective noun for goldfinches is a charm.

Mr BW rescued a tiny bird from the greenhouse the other day.

At first I thought it was a greenfinch, then I thought it might be a juvenille goldfinch that had somehow got separated from the charm. It wasn't singing, so we couldn't use Merlin to be sure.



Having now looked at images online, the beak doesn't seem correct for a goldfinch.

Maybe it's a wagtail? The beak is more wagtail-y, but the tail feathers don't seem long or slender enough.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Learning the hard way

Kippy (in the comments) and Mark Twain (allegedly) are correct: house guests are like fish; they are only good for three days.

The OFBW left on Tuesday morning after 7 days and 6 nights. We did not invite them for this amount of time, they chose it.

In advance of their visit we had emailed them a long list of suggested places to visit, with links, so that they could do some research before they arrived, and I gave them my box file of maps and leaflets of interesting day trips when they arrived.

We suggested two joint outings and assumed that they intended to go out on their own the rest of the time. However... it soon transpired that they intended to stay around the house and grounds for most of the time, taking photos and sending them to all their WhatsApp groups, and then telling us what their various family members, friends and acquaintances thought of our house/garden/plants/bees and butterflies etc.

Now, I am a lot more tolerant than I used to be these days (largely because the middle of nowhere with the nearest neighbour half a mile away has little to annoy anyone), but I do not see why I should put up with other people sitting at our table, playing on their gadgets, with their phones pinging multiple notifications every minute.

I also object to photos of our lives and surroundings (that will be geotagged because most people have no idea this happens, let alone how to turn it off) being sent to all and sundry, with no control over where they end up. AI is advancing fast and will soon be building information grids which are as yet unimaginable in terms of sourcing, complexity and usage. Because I couldn't think of a polite way of telling them that we didn't want them to do this, Mr BW had a quiet word with them on the second day, when I wasn't around. I know the undesired behaviour continued, but at least it was more subtle.

I also object to a guest going through the contents of my fridge (and passing comment on the desirability or otherwise of items), and helping themself to my alcohol (in one case before noon), including (after drinking everything else) a can of stout that I had intended to use to make a cake, even if they later replace it and then ask, "When are you making that cake?" at every opportunity. Needless to say, I didn't. And even yesterday I found a half-empty bottle of white wine in the drinks fridge that I certainly didn't open.

I now have a new definition of 'hypocrisy' - wearing t-shirts "made of sustainable bamboo" and evangelising about it, with no idea/interest that bamboo isn't actually that sustainable, with slogans like, "Because there is no Plan B", when each of them drives a car that does fewer than 35mpg, and takes at least 8 flights a year, half long-haul, and one of them still drinks water out of single-use plastic bottles.

For them, every outing has to have at least one visit to a coffee shop. For us, who waste neither time nor money on such fripperies, and anyway don't drink coffee, that is very frustrating.

We also had to sit through endless tales of other people's lives, and complaints about the hospitality they'd been provided from various of their other family and friends. I pondered aloud, in a sarcastic tone, "I wonder what they say about us when we're not there?" which did at least elicit a long pause and then a change of subject. Interestingly, it emerged that they had fallen out with two sets of friends and a sibling and his wife during stays with them. In hindsight, I should have said, "Are you surprised?" but, I was brought up to be better mannered than that, and was, at the time, dumb-struck by their complete lack of self-awareness.

On Saturday I took these bottles to the bottle bank on my way to therapy (AKA (fleece) spinning group). Yes, there are 21 of them, and there were another 7 beer bottles, of which Mr BW and I only consumed one each, with a curry.

Probably half of the contents of the bottles was drunk by Mr OFBW, who is now undoubtedly exhibiting signs of alcoholism (hiding a bottle under the table and sneekily topping up, filling a glass to the very top them gulping half and then refilling when he thought no-one was looking - after a professional lifetime of observing in classrooms and four and a half years of overseeing builders, if I am in the vicinity, I miss nothing - etc etc). The very long-suffering Mrs OFBW is clearly aware of the problem, which might actually be longer-standing than I think.

I could not have ventured out of the house before yesterday, such was my level of exhaustion after they had gone.

It was the third heatwave of the year in these northern parts, and I spent the week loading and unloading the dishwasher, cooking, and repeatedly walking the length of the longhouse from the ice cube maker or freezer to the kitchen to keep certain people supplied with ice. As a reward, I now have a sharp pain in the heel of my right foot when weight-bearing (I think from walking bare-footed on our hard tiled floors much more than usual). I have also now ordered an insulated, lidded, ice bucket.

How we used double the amount of electricity we usually use, I have no idea.

And I haven't even told you about what happened when we had one of the usual spluttering orange water problems on the Friday, or the toddler tantrum when Mr OFBW discovered that Mr BW had inadvertently used his bottle of sparkling water that he had put in the drinks fridge, to make tempura batter...

Yes, I don't think they will be coming to stay again any time soon, and I doubt we will ever go to stay with them in Suffolk as I still have a panic attack every time we get to the big roundabout on the outskirts of N'Castle which proclaims that the turning to the right is for "A1 - The South". I really really don't want to go back down there.

As far as I am concerned, in the case of the male of the species, the 'O' in 'OFBW' might now stand for 'Once' rather than 'Old'... 29 years after meeting, and once with a lot in common, after that visitation, it is clear that we are now walking very different paths, with very different interests, expectations, understandings and conceptions of the world.

The week ahead

The great thing about having people to stay for a week is that you get round to doing all those deep-clean household chores that you wouldn't dream of asking your cleaner to do, but that you never quite get round to yourself the rest of the time. Those jobs that you don't need to do when people are only coming for the day or even for a night or two, because they won't have the time or the opportunity to notice.

And so we now have clean Aga lid and oven door insides (I think this is only the second time they have been done in 5 years since the Aga was installed), clean fridge, clean drinks fridge, debugged ceiling light covers, de-crumbed kitchen drawer corners, and de-fluffed bathroom cabinet drawers. We also have ironed tea-towels and pillow cases and new toilet brushes - the first renewed set since we moved in. Maybe that is too much information? There are probably other things too, but I can't remember them now I am trying.

The farmer took the sheep from the field behind us off this morning and they returned what seemed like ten minutes later, but was probably two hours, minus their coats. At least they look clean again, and given how hot it is predicted to be again by the weekend, they will be grateful.

I have written on a piece of card that I shall keep close to hand (but hidden away), "Mr Old Friend BW can get very annoying after a couple of days. Remember he will be going home soon."

He probably has a similar card with a similar message about me.

We love him dearly, having known him for nearly 30 years, but he is not the best of house guests, and not very good at helping out. Fortunately Mrs Old Friend BW usually makes up for his short-comings.

Mr BW and I are betting on how many days we are going to have to endure him going on and on about the Black Sabbath goodbye gig that he went to last weekend, and whether or not he will turn up wearing That t-shirt.

I took the glass recycling to the bottle bank in the nearest village yesterday on my way to somewhere. There is still no glass kerbside recycling in these rural parts, which frustrates me greatly as the county council provide that service in the towns (where there are of course numerous bottle banks in supermarket car parks) but not in the isolated areas where it is really needed.

Our glass bin is a standard size swing bin and holds probably 25 empty bottles. I am wondering how many bottles will not fit into the bin by the time they go home next week. Faites vox jeux.

You need to know that Mr OFBW used to work in the drinks industry and knows his wine. One memorable night, way way back last century, when they lived next door but one to us down south, and Mr OFBW still had lots of free sample bottles, we polished off 10 bottles between the 4 of us. Actually, Mrs OFBW probably dropped out at Bottle 6 (she has always been a lightweight, or more sensible, depending on your point of view), and I probably dropped asleep before Bottle 8, but Mr OFBW and Mr BW were still drinking when Mr OFBW insisted on opening Bottle 10, proudly proclaiming that it had a list price of over £80. 10 bottles between 4 when you are in your early 30s would have been just about OK, except that a taxi was picking them up to take them to the airport to go on holiday very early the next morning. How they woke up on time I still don't know to this day.

We are certainly in for an action packed week...

A matter of degrees

Where we used to live, it was 35°C today. Here, it was 16°C maximum, and 14°C and drizzly for most of the afternoon.

We know because The Old Friends BW are coming to stay in a week's time - the first time we have seen them face-to-face for nearly 4 years - and we were emailing to confirm the arrangements.

Never before have we seen a 19°C difference in temperature between two places in England that are 300 miles apart.

We went into town: everyone else was wearing winter coats. We had on summer attire.

It occurred to me that if it were winter and 14 degrees, we would be wearing many layers and turning up the thermostat. In winter I would feel cold at that temperature: in summer somehow it just seems different; refreshingly cool.

We are drowning in berries. They are ripening faster than we can pick them. Delicious.

The day we never thought would come

1.25pm, Thursday 26th June, 2025 - the roofers exit stage left:

The renovations, extensions, remodelling, and general future proofing are all done, all finished, 5 years, 3 months, 13 days since we moved in, just before the first Covid lockdown, and 8 months, 16 days since we eventually sold Coven Sud (so finally had enough pennies to finish all we wanted to do).

There's definitely another post coming soon about the re-roofing just completed, including how I had to peel some stickers off their star chart on Tuesday (something I spent all my working life telling teachers, parents and others never to do) due to my raised blood pressure, but how all ended happily with an excellent job that exceeded our hopes, the area around the house cleaner than it was before they started, and everything now uncovered, stowed and ship-shape. And nothing broken by either roofers or scaffolders!

But, for now, we are celebrating.

Almost immediately they left, with home-made strawberry ice cream (with added chocolate drops on top for Mr BW) and a bottle of Cava:

And very soon with a very early night with no need to wake up at 6am to be ready for workmen before 8am.

And breathe...

The Darker Side

No matter how long I live in the NE, I will never get used to light between 3.15am and 11.15pm, at this time of year. Even the four hours of 'darkness' aren't really dark.

it's very discombobulating, because if you go to sleep before dark, and wake up, you never know whrther it is still light from the day you fell asleep, or from the next day's dawn.

It's strange, because the nights in the winter in the NE never seem that much longer or darker, although I know they are as we had four and a half years of being able to compare the weather and day lengths of the two locations through remotely viewing the CCTV security cameras at Coven Sud.

The series finale week of Countdown is sadly marred by the guest being Not Johnnie Walker, Whispering Bob 'The Teeth' Harris. At least Colin Murray is taking the piss out of his bragging this time around.

Slating, rain and ice

It's been quite a week.

2 four letter words in the same set of Countdown letters on Monday/Tuesday, amazing temperatures (day and night) at the end of the working week, Paul Heaton and Rianne Downey on the Isle of White today. And The Orange One doing what any thinking person has worried about.

But, closer to at home...

This middle section in the picture is the only bit of the original house roof still not replaced, just a week on. The back, including replacing a Velux (no, they don't pop out and in as easily as the manufacturers claim) and 4 dormer tops, as well as the slates and the decayed woodwork, was done by Thursday lunchtime.

I drove back down the track yesterday afternoon around 5pm after attending my spinning guild meeting and looked with concern at the LHS front. There had been intermittent rain showers all day and the overnight forecast was for torrential rain. Despite the roofers saying that all was watertight after the slates and old tarred felt were stripped on Friday morning, and the new breathable membrane and battens installed, I was worried.

I woke up soon after midnight last night: there was lightning and thunder from the SE (Cumbria) and from the north (Scotland), of a continual, prolonged, spectacular type I last saw over 31 years ago on a little island in the Bahamas where we got married - although then we were under it, rather than watching it from tens of miles away. But, Mr BW (having been supervising and assisting the roofers, and coping with all arising eventualities, all week) snored through it all, and it, amazingly, didn't hit us. As promised, all was still dry this morning.

The roofers have been amazing.

Despite living over an hour to the south, the two company owners have been here every day from 7.45am. Over 100 hours of work this week, plus travelling. Because the unnaturally high temperatures (28.5°C in the shade) meant that they had to go home early afternoon on Thursday and Friday, at the point of heat exhaustion, despite wearing hats, shirts and sunscreen (unknown in ones less than 30), one of them was back with us at 20 to 8 this morning (Sunday), and worked through 5 downpours (refusing a towel to dry off as, "I'd never live it down!") to finish the front LHS slating.

I have never seen tradesmen work as they do.

They turn up when they say they will, work non-stop, irrespective of weather (with no phone scrolling), until they leave, use the bins provided rather than just drop wrappings, sweep up every night and check for stray nails in the drive, don't swear continually, ask if their radio is too loud, and remember to say please and thank you for refreshments provided. They communicate well, reply to messages promptly and helpfully, and say goodbye and ask if we are happy at the end of every day before they leave. They even sent a text message apologising for accidentally having gone home with our tray and empty cups in their van on Thursday! Plus, they have offered to clean the external top windows and UPVC edges/windowsills when they have finished, before the scaffolding comes down. Best of all, they take their power tool batteries home to charge each night, rather than plug every gadget they own (irrespective of whether they are using it here) into our electricity, as most previous workers have.

At last, 5 years on, the perfect workmen. They do exist!

Fom the outset they have insisted we only pay anything at the end, when we are completely satisfied. Today, after a discussion about the plan for the next week, we offered to pay an amount now, so that we could be sure the roofers could pay the scaffolders, to be sure the scaffolding would be taken down on Friday, before the roofers go on their holidays next weekend, but he wouldn't hear of it. It is lovely that he is so trusting, but I do fear for his future as his work expands.

The end of the 5 year renovation/refurbishment/extension project is in sight...

To celebrate, and as a reward for the ice-cream loving Mr BW's hard work, I have bought an ice cream/gelato/sorbet/frozen yoghurt making machine. A proper one, with a compressor, not just the £20 freeze-the-bowl for 2 days before each use version I bought (and later junked) a few years back. So far we have pineapple frozen yoghurt, and frozen (commercial) smoothie versions (both yummie, made in less than an hour from start to finish). I have chocolate, and rum and raisin, planned for tomorrow. Only good ingredients, no additives or fillers, and no added sugar, as the ingredients in the products available in the shops just leave me cold.

Anyone have experience of such machines and any sources of good recipes?

No hanging around here

The roofers arrived at 07:50am this morning. Considering that they live over an hour away, we were impressed. "No time to talk or drink tea!" they declared when offered a cuppa first thing.

Within an hour they had the stone ridge cappings off, and had already stripped the slate off one quarter of the back of the roof.

The lad (who looked like the younger brother of one of the two roofers) did a good job in getting the slates down and stacked into the back of our trailer. Because, if you have a new car, just 15 weeks old, why not use it rally stylee to move your old roof down the sheep field the other side of your fence so the slates can be easily thrown over the fence to be nearer their final resting place - under the hedge as 'mulch' to stop the weeds, and on the slate garden that we are in the process of creating? Beats hours of back-breaking wheelbarrowing.

One of the other firms who quoted for the work thought he would re-use the existing slate. Looking at it, it's third hand at least already, chipped, discoloured and generally disintegrating, so it was a good job we didn't choose him. And, despite not using new slates, he was £7K + VAT more than the ones we chose!

The nasty old Velux in the upstairs bathroom came out with a bit of brute force:

We didn't imagine that they would get that far today, so had only 10 minutes to get the bathroom cleared, the electric mirror cling-wrapped and the bath protected with big sheets of cardboard and a tarpaulin. It's a good job we can think and work fast!

By 2pm, the three of them had stripped all the old slates, felt and battens off, and installed new breathable membrane and new battens.

Apparently it is now weathertight, and this will be tested tomorrow as it is meant to drizzle all of the working day. There is no other rain at all in the forecast until Wednesday week, and if today is anything to go by, they will be long gone by then.

Now, if only all our workmen could have been this good... I guess it's called saving the best til last.

And we are off again...

For the next 2 weeks, we will be replacing the roof of the original house, the Velux window in the upstairs bathroom, and the flat tops of the dormer windows on the back of the house.

The roof was very tired (having been done in 1974 to the cheapest possible specification), but not leaking; it could probably have waited a few more years, but we wanted to do it now, while we were doing it on our terms, rather than on 'emergency' terms. Future proofing is all.

The salesman who sold me my car back in December recommeded the roofers. The roofers recommended the scaffolders, who were excellent. After 3 sets of bad scaffolders on past phases, it was great to find some good ones. And they even said thank you for the refreshments we provided!


Yellow wagtail site foreman on the ridge:

Missing mortar on the ridge, with old flat roof felt:

Supplies were delivered yesterday (including 2,600 new slates):

The roofers start on Monday.

Wish us luck...

Things ain't what they used to be

Customer disservice goes from strength to strength.

We have 4 or 5 ongoing unresolved issues with goods and services we have purchased. None of them trivial, all of them things that could and should have been resolved straight away, and all of them utter time-sinks.

Companies no longer seem to bother to respond to emails in a timely manner (if at all), and issues are handled by a succession of people who rarely leave the previous email chain intact, so it is never clear to the next person who picks up the issue what has been happening (or not happening), or, in most cases, even what the issue is.

Emails seem to be answered in foreign countries by people who have a very limited command of English. Plus they seem to use a random selection of cut-and-paste phrases which together are absolute nonsense.

Take this example reply to the 4th email I sent to a company regarding missing parts (and this is not an isolated incident, and the only thing I have changed is the writer's name at the end):

"Good Afternoon,

We extend our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this situation may have caused.

We are disheartened to learn about the issue concerning your order. It has come to our attention that the parts have not yet arrived. We consistently strive to provide exceptional service, and we greatly value your feedback. We would be grateful for the opportunity to rectify this situation, as you are a valued customer, and we do not wish to disappoint you. We have been in communication with the production unit, which has informed us that the parts are currently out of stock. We sincerely apologize for this and assure you that once they are restocked, we will ensure prompt dispatch.

We truly regret the inconvenience this has caused you. Should you have any further inquiries regarding this matter or any other concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. Our operating hours are from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM every day.

Best Regards,
CustomerServices"

There are lots of companies who now supply goods under more than one brand name, and so many items that you cannot now buy from anyone other than these huge conglomerates. Once small independents who used to provide excellent quality and service have now been bought up and swallowed by huge conglomerates who keep the once-reliable brand name but increase prices and put customer service offshore or into call centres who handle problems for multiple organisations - only you don't find this out until you have an issue and start investigating online, or until your email is eventually (accidentally) answered from another company's email address.

The other day I was e-chatting to an English friend who has lived in the US for many years now and mentioned how appalling customer service was these days. "Ah, good old Blighty has finally caught up with the US in that regard!" he said.

Progress, eh?

We made that

I went up to the top garden on Friday to check on the hostas. The only benefit to having had 66 days without rain (the driest spring for over 100 years in this part of the country) is that the slugs and snails have been non-existent. We put out (home-made) slug traps in the third week of February, which attracted the over-wintered early spring ones (hundreds of them, and a mouse), and haven't seen any evidence of their nasty destructive habits since. We used to use slug nemotodes, but they have become so expensive, and we would need so many packs to effectively cover the area of our garden, several times a year, that we had to find a better way.

As I turned round to go back to the house I suddenly noticed how the spring flowers had come out this week.

"Ooooh!" I thought as I looked at the display. "We made that!"

A great feeling of achievement, finally back to where we were down south about 10 years ago (when we were at Peak Garden, before local development aorund there took the joy out of everything).

And for not very much: a lot of plants from cuttings or divisions from our garden down south, a lot of plants bought very cheaply at local village plant sales or from roadside stalls, some grown from seed and some grown on from small plantlets bought cheaply from online commercial companies. Oh, and a lot of nurturing, largely by Mr BW, who actually likes weeding.

To further our future-proofing plans, after a lot of research, we have bought a ride-on mower for the orchard/meadow. Last summer it was taking me 4 hours every week to cut just the paths with a powered petrol mower, and Mr BW 4 knackering days (on and off) to cut the lot down with a petrol strimmer and then remove the strimmings in late summer (as you need to do with a meadow). I can't manage to mow for 4 hours every week any more, and there are plenty of other things Mr BW can do with 4 days.

Plus, Vroom Vroom can do the job much better than I ever did, in 28 minutes flat, including getting out and putting away (and I'm getting quicker every time). Mr BW is not allowed to use Vroom Vroom as it is far too much fun.

Vroom Vroom can't access the garden lawn, so we bought a Goat.

However, it proved impossible to train it or keep it under control, so it went back to The Long River. Let's not even mention the saga that became, but it did involve a Section 75 intervention.

As the technology clearly isn't quite there for our upper lawn needs yet, I decided that we would reduce the garden lawn area. This is the third time this border has been extended (it's never been quite right anyway), and, given the grow-through of what was once sheep-proof grass from when we originally made the border in 2020, and extended it two years later, we reluctantly decided that we needed to kill the grass with weedkiller before we started.

Mr BW sprayed in late evening, after our Buzzers, and other beneficial insects, were home for the night. We garden organically, using permaculture principles, and it grieves me very much to have to resort to chemicals. But, I guess it is all relative, given the horrors that the local farmers constantly spray on their food crops, by date rather than need.

In another week we will be able to remove the dead grass, add grit and compost to the expsoed soil, and then plant up. We have lots of perennials, grown from bare roots, to put in.

The weather at yesterday's show turned out OK - just a couple of short light showers, but those who go regularly say that there were far fewer attendees. For a one-day agricultural show, with a usual attendance of around 20,000, this could be disasterous.

I spun up 420g of fleece in the day, which is a huge amount (the carded prepared batts filled a 42 litre trug), and talked to what seemed like hundreds of people (one of the stated aims of the group is public education), but could have been more or less. I just know that we got home at 5.23pm and I was fast asleep an hour later.

There were supposed to be 8 of us demonstrating, but one pulled out the day before due to her husband being unwell, so another also couldn't attend as she couldn't then get a lift. This left 6 of us, and, unbelievably, only two of us had brought anything to display, or indeed our traditional wooden sp1nning wheel5.

Only two of us were there demonstrating all day: the others seemed to spend their time wandering around and returning with carb-laden sauce-dripping handfuls of unnecessary calories that made me feel unwell just looking at them. As soon as one 'snack' was finished, they seemed to go off in search of the next. Each of them must have spent at least £40 in the day on over-priced and unhealthy food and drinks. Mind you, there seems to be a large plateful of some chocolate-based confection with green lumps (smarties?) in it, attempting to hide in the fridge, and I did not make it or indeed put it there.

This is what happens when events are just left to happen rather than be properly organised. I must sit on my hands and keep my mouth shut or I know I will end up with the show organiser role.

The pigs were in the next but one marquee. This isn't a pig county, so there weren't many, but there was a Middle White: my second favourite breed. I always think they resemmble a Large White that has had an argument with a wall:

There was finally rain here last night - enough to fill the smaller water butts where there is only one on a downpipe. It's been intermittently showery today, but with sunshine in between. The rain has finished off the final tulips, but the alliums have taken over.

Missing times

Forgive me Blogland for I have sinned. It has been 15 days since my last post.

My life is in shreds and I have been dyeing.

The Shreds

When the conservatory was redone, the 40+ bankers' boxes of suspension files and paper files that had been waiting in there - some since since September 2022 and others since October 2024 - to be gone through and shredded were moved next door into the lounge.

The lounge is now designated as The Library as it is doubful we will ever again use it as a lounge: the new room, with its solid insulated roof and solar-powered Velux windows with roof blinds, and powered window blinds (yes, we are future-proofing), is 20 degrees cooler by day and 10 degrees warmer at night than it ever was when it was made completely of glass, so should be able to be used all year round. Plus I have bought a Dyson hot and cold non-fan fan. So, these boxes of solid paper have finally been getting processed. Most people would do this sort of stuff before they move house, but our move wan't like that, plus I didn't want to get rid of stuff pertaining to Coven Sud until we no longer owned it. You never know what will come in useful.

Having already killed two and a half normal paper shredders in the last 5 years, I invested in a semi-industrial shredder and have done 40 giant thick black bags so far. As the local council will not take shredded paper for recycling, and as there is far too much to compost at once, Mr BW has been burning it so that we can use the ash on the fruit trees and bushes. It seems only right.

The papers were about half and half, work case files (quick to do) and old financial etc documents (slower as there are some things that need to be extracted). How things have changed in the banking game over the past 30 years! I have kept some gems that I might eventually get round to posting.

The dyeing

We've now had 66 days without rain here - well, a tiny bit of drizzle in mid-April on the day they finished off the new what-was-the-conservatory (which is wonderful now) and 20 minutes one Thursday late afternoon about a month ago when it poured for 23 minutes, but otherwise none at all. Drier than down south! Unheard of up here. All our water butts are empty and have been for weeks - and we have 19 of them, all huge, totalling 7 cubic metres (being a Longhouse 30 metres long - we have a lot of roof to catch water so we might as well store it for use in the garden).

But... it is due to break tomorrow. Rain all day. Guess who is demonstrating spinning of f1eece at the Annual County Show - now in the rain - tomorrow? I must be mad, but I was asked, so I didn't like to say no...

So, I spent most of 2 days this week dyeing then drum carding the fleece I will be using. I like to confuse young visitors by suggesting they go and find the blue sheep and then come back and tell me where they found it.

I killed one of our 4 old microwaves in the process (the LH one). RIP and that's another glass turntable for my collection. Always useful. As we no longer use microwaves for cooking food, I don't know what I will do when the remaining ones die.

This is the dyed fleece drying in the once-conservatory in what I have called 'a woman's work is never done' corner. My collection of old flat irons:

And then I have been helping a young friend (who I actually taught to read when she was a failing reader at age 9) 'proof read' her latest two 4,000 word end-of-module essays for the MA in English Literature that she is doing at a Russell Group University. The 'proof reading' she requested turned into needing to be 'heavy editing' and 'teaching how to write an essay'. How anyone can have an A* at GCSE, an A at A Level, a 2:1 BA, and still not know how to write an academic essay is totally beyond me. That has taken up probably 30 or 40 hours since the beginning of the year. I appear to have agreed to similar input into a 15,000 word dissertation. Do I get half an MA if she eventually passes? One can only wonder how many advanced qualifications only succeed because the writer has a learned friend, or pays for an editing service. Having reviewed the papers from when I did my Masters 36 years ago now, during my shredding process, all I will say is that qualifications definitely aren't what they used to be.

There aren't any groups of retired men round here who meet up to do anything other than drink, and talk about the price of sheep, and most of the retired are 80+ anyway, if not 90+ (farmers don't like to retire) so Mr BW has to make his own entertainment. The 'M3ns' Shed' in the nearest town (12 miles away) consists of 2 very elderly ex-engineers and about a dozen care-in-the-community or learning disabled younger men. We went to their open day last summer. The 2 leaders were very keen for Mr BW to join them. Mr BW was very un-keen to join them. They wouldn't let us go until they had his phone number so they could keep in touch with him, and, I am ashamed to say, it was easier to give them a false number than to explain why it wasn't going to happen.

But, finally, to fill the void, Mr BW is, unexpectedly, and slightly unwillingly, after the recent local elections, now Administrative Lord of the Manor. He knows more about official governance and procedural matters than anyone else for miles around (due to him having been trained down south, where they actually bother to train people to fulfil voluntary community roles, as well as a lifetime of professional business experience and knowledge), although he lacks the network of local contacts, not having lived here for 20 generations. Given that he will never have lived here for 20 generations, and has been doing most of the development work for the past 4 years anyway, it's probably going to be OK. At least it will get him to meet a few more local people, even if it is mostly the ones who are annoying the locals and contravening local sensibilities.

So, that's (most of) our news: how about yours?

Distraction

I am not religious.

I do not condone or understand war.

I am unimpressed that the Catholic Church have chosen to detract from VE80 today by announcing the new Pope.

Am I the only one who finds this very distasteful?

Mayday, mayday, mayday

The Ballerinas and Princess Irenes are at their best:


The meat factory in the field behind us grows daily:

This scares me:

But not because of the rise of a Trump-like mentality in the UK, or that Mrs Badenough (our previous MP) has suffered a crushing defeat (which she fully deserved - we have first-hand experience that, as media commentators have said, it's true that she is uninformed, arrogant, and could start a fight in an empty room), but because many of the new councillors will have no idea of how 'officialdom' works, what can and can't be done, and will require so much hand-holding and education by council Officers that costs will rise and efficiencies will decrease.

We are now living under a hung council (although fortunately our county councillor in this area might be in a minority, but has not changed colour):

What scares me more than the state of the political world is that we have had no rain since mid-March, aside of a drizzle on the day the conservatory revamp was completed in the first week of April and a few spots last night.

The northernmost county is not supposed to be the driest place in the UK, but, from conversations with old friends down south, they have had much more rain than us in the last 8 weeks. The water butts are empty and the reservoirs are so low one would think it was the end of the summer.

That was the week that was

The auricula theatre, moved from Coven Sud, looks better than ever, despite being on a north-facing wall now, when it was on an east facing wall before, even if some of the pots are a little on the large size:

Mr BW worked very hard over the Easter weekend, completing all the jobs that needed to be done to get everything ready for the carpet fitters on Tuesday. When we booked them I allowed an extra few days, because I am now an expert on Project Creep caused by the vagaries of workmen.

It was all done in the nick of time, with the aid of a few Bunny Chomp Chomps (Malteasters) and Bunny Bang Bangs (the Gigantic Bunny is now residing with The Deceased Pope). Actually, probably not, as that bastard thing that ruined so many trees, and was over twice the size of The Black Familiar, and nearly as big as a small child, must surely be in Bunny Hell now.

The carpet was fitted, and part way through (just below) I had a horrible feeling that I'd messed up on colour choice and picked Old Peoples' Brown. The take-home samples were out with someone else, so I had to make a choice in the shop (or, more accuratly, in the shop car park, where there was natural light) by comparing swatches of the existing colour and what I needed it to match to.

Fortunately, once fitted and flat, with the light falling on it, it was a neutral colour, of various fawns and creams, and exactly matches the exterior paving, as I intentended. And hopefully won't show the muck. Not very sensible to have carpet in a conservatory, but there was carpet before and tiles would be just too cold for most of the year, and this is commercial quality looped berber, allegedly cleanable with bleach.

Mr BW also nearly managed to get my objets and pots back as I would have arranged them:

When we went to the viewing day of a farm dispersal sale yesterday he spotted something he'd been wanting for a long time:

So, having researched its worth, I decided what I'd pay (which was double what he said he'd pay), and eventually got it today for £10 more than his top price. I also successfully bid for lots of other metal objets, some for his sculptures, and some for my garden collections.

While viewing yesterday we were chatting to the farmer selling up and retiring. I love farm sales, but I am always sad for the outgoing incumbent. A lifetime of useful things and tools of the trade reduced to a few lines of numbered lots in a barn:

and the larger items and machines outside:


The retiring farmer asked Mr BW what had caught his eye, and when Mr BW told him, and said that he wanted to use it for its proper purpose, rather than a decorative piece, he seemed pleased.

All the locals who work the land were there, nothing like a farm sale to bring them together, most of them built like the proverbial 'brick shit houses' and in clothes, and with dogs, that haven't seen a wash this year:

All's well that ends well:

Hot Cross Bun Day

I can guarantee that I am doing something this Easter Weekend that no-one else is.

Scooping/pouring vermiculite between a dwarf stone wall and a dwarf block wall and between the dwarf block wall and the internal plasterboard. Currently at 260 litres, and it might yet settle some more before Mr BW finishes making and securing the windowsills, particularly with some well-directed prodding with a reclaimed wooden sapling stake. Prodding that needs to involve minding the electric cabling that runs inside the wall, and ensuring there are no pockets under the dots and dabs of the plasterboard. There was supposed to be vermiculite insulation in the wall already, from when it was originally built on in 2006 by Bodgit and Coverit the previous owners, but, as ever, they clearly failed to check that the workmen did the job properly and there seems to be one ten litre bag in the whole of the wall's cavities rather than the 300 litres it needed.

Mindnumbingly slow and mindnumbingly boring. It's relieved me of 6 hours of my life so far.

Mr BW has just realised that when we take off the plug sockets to paint under them, it is highly likely that some flakes of vermiculite will cascade out as there are holes in the back boxes (that the fronts screw into) to allow for different cable entries. I've just realised that if the back boxes are metal it is highly likely they will have rusted (like the pins in the carpet gripper) and will need replacing with plastic ones. It's never-ending this project... except that our parts need to have ended by Monday evening as the carpet is being laid first thing on Tuesday.

What are you doing this weekend?

Easter Bunny Count: Mr BW 9, The Black Familiar 12. She has the battle scars to prove it, and the sawdust to prove she's been supervising Mr BW cutting pieces of windowsill:

One big bunny bugger still eating our trees and plants and escaping murder.

A Paneful Tail

We'd noticed that some panes of the new conservatory glass had stickers on the outside, and some on the inside. Well - the glue from the stickers, as the labels themselves had been scraped off. Fortunately I'd taken a photo of the glass when it was on the pallet, because, well, you never know when photos will come in useful.

The information on the stickers themselves made absolutely no sense:

Now, what would you think (the bottom line of) that meant?

When we asked the roof boss man about this 10 days ago, he said it didn't matter which side faced out, but we were unconvinced, so, when Mr BW got back from his week away, he sent an email to the window manufacturing company.

And so it came to pass that a window man turned up this morning to turn 6 panes around to be the same way as the other panes. And all was well. Well, we hope so.

The roof men have now finished. Almost all is now good, and Mr BW can polish the bits that aren't. As well as do all the other jobs that need doing before the carpet is laid on Tuesday.

However, as one workman job finishes, another re-opens... some of the composite 'slates' on the summerhouse/museum roof have changed colour in the 15 weeks since they were installed.

Apparently there were some rogue batches that didn't have UV stabiliser put in. Why, oh why, are we always the ones to get the rogues?

Conservatory revamp latest

The plasterer who failed to attend the weekend before last arrived at 7.17am yesterday. He took one look at the amount of boarding and plastering work to do and phoned a friend who turned up at 11am.

They finished here at 3pm, and were then off to another job. I strongly suspect it was a 'put aside your other work and do this as first job when you get back from your week's holiday or lose our work' directive from the roof installation company. Previous issues aside, they did an excellent job on what is a very difficult 'P' shaped roof with two huge Velux windows.

As it is now:

As it was on Sunday:

As it was 2 weks ago:

This pair made the least mess of any of the 5 different sets of plasterers who have worked here.

I have now finally (on almost out last project that needs workmen) deduced how you work out how tidily tradesmen will work and how well they will clean up. It's so obvious once you've clicked. I have no idea why it has taken me so long.

It does not involve looking at online reviews, or asking other people they've worked for.

You simply look at their vans, and their clothes.

The ones here yesterday had pristine vans: clean and polished outside and neat and orderly inside. The worst set of plasterers (the local ones who were our only option in the middle of the first covid lockdown when we were first here) drive around in a filthy rusting van, which is a huge, grubby mess inside, everything thrown in together, not cleared out for at least the last ten years, and even on a Monday morning they wear dirty (non-washed) clothes.

Fortunately, I have a day's peace today, with only Mr BW working here - cutting, fitting and painting the new skirting boards and windowsills, levelling the concrete floor and painting the ceiling. The latter two jobs not for a while as the plaster needs to dry first. The good thing about Mr BW as workman is that if I don't like how something is looking, I can just say, whereas with workmen, it's almost impossible to say anything negative without being in fear of them walking away. Not that that's ever happened, but only because when I can see that things are going really badly I get Mr BW to tell them and hide.

We have now discovered another big issue that will have to be rectified by the window company while the roof finishing crew are here tomorrow, but more of that another time.

It drizzled a bit last night - the first rain in nearly a month. Tomorrow, finishing off day (ie sticking on all the internal and external cover strips and soffits, and cleaning all the plastic and glass), it is forecast to rain all day.

Given that the new carpet is being fitted on Tuesday, and Mr BW still has a lot fo do before then, and it's chocolate eggcess weekend, there is no room for further delay caused by workmen. Hmmmm.

Bad practice?

"Will you come round in the morning and witness my latest will?" asked Nice Nearest Neighbour.

Given that she has witnessed umpteen documents for us, including several at ten feet with her own pen during covid times when we first moved in and were signing off various covenants, I couldn't say no, even though she wanted me to appear at a time I would rather still have been in bed.

She employs a will writer. This profession is not regulated. This is not the first time she has used this woman, who, I discovered, is very middle-aged and very personable. Think Sarah Raven crossed with Kitsty Allsopp and you'll have the right image.

She appeared at NNN's front door, just after I had (and I was ten minutes early), with a brown A4 envelope and a stapled bundle of maybe 8 sheets of paper.

With little pre-chat, but lots of podgy-faced smiles, she informed NNN that the brown envelope contained a copy of what she was about to sign, together with her invoice ("which I'm afraid has a little uplift due to the number of new beneficiaries you've added this year"), instructed NNN to initial in the bottom right hand of each page and then sign and date on the last page.

I shuddered inwardly. NNN is lovely, but she is a widow in her 70s, with no children, and has lived alone for many years. No she doesn't have cats. Over the 5 and a half years that we've known her we've learnt that she needs to feel that any ideas are her own and that she is making all the decisions, so it is often hard to offer advice.

"Erm... do you think it might be a good idea to read everything through before you sign?" I ventured. "Oh, it's OK," she said with gay abandon, mid-initial, "I've already checked it online." "Even so...." I said, "Do you know, Mr BW still always reads through every last word before he signs anything even if he's read it before. It's very easy for the electronic draft versions to get muddled up in the printing..."

Mrs Will Writer snorted. NNN laughed, "Oh, we're OK BW, we've worked together before, I trust Mrs Will Writer implicitly!"

I know when to admit defeat, and dutifully signed and dated on the dotted line where instructed.

Mrs Will Writer left, telling NNN that the will would be deposited with the National Will Register, and the £30 annual fee plus handlig for that would be invoiced as normal.

After she'd left, NNN opened the brown envelope. The 'invoice' was for £350 plus VAT. For adding a couple of beneficiaries on this 'annual review'. Yes, she comes to see NNN at home every year to review her wishes, and visits again if any changes are required. But £350? And £30 annual fee plus 'handling' and VAT for will storage?

NNN seemed a bit put out by the amount. "It was only a couple of small changes!" she said. I saw my opportunity.

"Yes, but, more importantly, how do you know that what you signed is the same as the copy of your new will in the envelope?" I asked. "I always check documents side-by side, and then take a photocopy or photos of each page of the final signed and witnessed document." NNN looked at me as if I was mad. "Oh, I've known Mrs WIll Writer for a few years now, all is always in order!"

I chose not to ask how she knew that, if she'd never checked.

I have no reason to suspect that Mrs Will Writer is disreputable, or is taking NNN for a ride, although I do feel that a (chargeable) annual review of a will for a widow with no direct family, leaving the bulk of her estate to charity, is rather excessive. I also wonder how someone working alone in a non-profession service can be VAT registered (ie have a turnover in excess of £90,000). And I do think that anyone who doesn't insist that their elderly client reads a document before signing it is encouraging an attitude that is far far too trusting in this day and age.

Am I just over-cautious and cynical?

Do you read documents before signing?

None of you believed me...

It is magic because it flew in having journeyed from Lincolnshire via High Wycombe (my home town) and The Borders (which is one hell of a roundabout route), because it was on a mixed load which included enormous control panels for a gigantic - let's say - weed factory which is being set up and run by the government.

I Googled and it really does exist, and we know exactly how far it is from The Coven in miles, although not the exact location. Mind you, the new conservatory workmen think we have such a facility of our own, as the first-floor bedroom just above the new roof has a windowsill currently covered in tomato plants which are now nearly 2 foot tall. I saw them looking up and laughing, and I don't think they believed me when I pointed out that they are tomato and not weed plants. Mind you, it's a thought...

Our postie has a knack of turning up at interesting points in many of our projects.
Fortunately, he is a man of few words and keeps his own counsel.

I call this image 'GPO: The Good Old Days'.

Now, if anyone knows where there is a grey 1970s c0in p@yph0ne for sale, please tell.

Here's my cunning plan to keep the lambs from the butchers' knives:

One yowe (I speak Northern now) in the field behind us lambed yesterday afternoon, and the second lamb looked decidely frail for a while, but eventually it picked up and is fine this morning. All the rest are still to pop.

Lamblets

Mr BW found these two looking at him when he went to the bins on Sunday morning:

Being quite high up, they lamb comparatively late in these parts, so the first ones are just beginning to pop out.

The temperatures by day are high teens, and it's been very sunny with blue skies for well over a week now, but by night it's still getting down to zero, with hard frosts most mornings. It hasn't rained since the 18th of March, and then not much, so it is scarily dry everywhere already.

In such nice weather, many farmers leave all but the first-time mums out in the fields to get on with it, and spend their days touring their fields to check all is well and provide supplementary feeding (sheep nuts and hay).

Clearly out-of-touch with what happens in the most rural parts of the county, the council have chosen now to sequentially close the roads to do yet more ineffective and short-lasting patching. To get round the need to apply for road closure permits weeks ahead, they are claiming that all the repairs are 'emergency repairs' so they can cause havoc to the poor farmers trying to get from field to field to provide maternity services. What would normally be 2 mile circular trips are turning into 10 mile trips.

While little lambs are cute, I can't get away from the 'meat factory' aspect. I am hatching a cunning plan.

10 years on

We always had a plan to retire at 50.

No kids, no dependents, good fiscal management, living within our means, frugal outgoings, overpayments into pensions, serious saving, all on track... and then Goldfish Brown changed the rules, meaning that private pensions couldn't be accessed until 55. Grrrrr.

Then, unexpected company takeovers and restructurings meant that Mr BW was still able to exit the corporate world at 50, with a beyond good redundancy deal, which enabled us to have 5 careful years before pension began.

Mr BW's last day of corporate world work was 10 years ago today.

Yes, 2 days into the new tax year, on a day chosen by us, to get maximum tax benefit.

5 years down south, during which Mr BW continued to do some self-employed work as a speaker and a teacher of courses on traditional crafts, to enable us to survive. And then 5 years up here, renovating and supervising renovators, with a big side of regular journeys to the south to keep Coven Sud going until it eventually sold, which is, unbelievably, now 6 months ago.

The Conservatory revamp should have been finished last Friday, but of course wasn't. The plasterer should have been here Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday, then, at 7pm on Saturday night, we got a message to say he wasn't coming on Sunday - no reasons given. We told the boss that the finishing crew were not to turn up today as planned as there was no point until the plastering of the new internal roof was finished (too much dust and mess that they, not us, should clear up).

So guess who turned up at 8.50 am today? Boss man plus foreman, with the rest of the lads loitering at the bottom of the (400m) drive in another van. We sent them on their way with their tails between their legs, but very apologetic, and acknowledging and understanding their failures, and totally on the back foot and wanting to make things right and meet our requirements.

Nothing is happening this week now as Mr BW is away and I am not prepared to supervise workmen on my own - I am totally exhausted after last week and have had enough of that! Workmen in the North - even the young ones - are beyond sexist and they give me the creeps. Next week, when Mr BW is back, hopefully, it will all be finished off.

In other news... Clem Burke of Blondie fame has died at 70. Saddened, but I was always touched by your presence dear.

That sort of thing - plus the experience of my recent brush with premature impending death - just makes me more and more convinced that we made the right choice in retiring early. Almost everyone we know has chosen to retire before state pension age None of us know what the future holds. Why wait?

Sunday

At 7pm last night we got a message saying that the plasterer was "now unable to attend your job tomorrow" (no excuse given), but that the finishing crew for the structure would be with us on Monday as planned..

Given that Sunday had already been moved from Saturday, and was originally expected on Friday, we sighed deeply and retaliated, stating that, for reasons of cleanliness and aesthetics, we would not allow the finishing cleaning and trimming until the plastering was complete.

Anyone who has ever had plasterers in will understand this. We have had 4 previous experiences of plastering crews, and well understand the mess they make. Never again.

We have no intention of doing the end cleaning up ourselves, and plastering after the protective film is off new windows is deifnitely not a good idea.

We've stated a schedule that suits us, which no doubt will not suit them.

No problem, the money I withdrew from savings to pay them on the day they should have been finished (last Friday) (the remaining 50% was due on completion to our satisfaction) is now safely residing in the new tax year's ISAs and new fixed rate savings accounts. My head is spinning from 4 hours of advanced money management and unexpected account opening.

It is scary how quickly the best rate accounts are disappearing from sale. Thank you Orange One, attending the Lettuce Truss School of Economic Management was never a good idea.

Once the work is finally finished, trust me, they will be waiting exactly the number of days that we have waited after the agreed completion date (which was last Friday) for their payment.

Mr BW is away all next week, so has spent the day making use of 'gained' time and getting ahead of schedule on skirting boards, mending some internal stone wall, and making good some imperfections in the internal walls remaining from the original structure. And rectifying imperfections in the work done to date. Good job they left all their supplies here on Friday when they knocked off for the weekend.

One day something we pay other people to do will run to plan, and be completed on time.

I'm not sure which day, but I live in hope, because, without hope... well....

5 days

Monday morning:

Monday evening:

Friday evening:

Total cost: 20 hot cross buns, 300g of butter, 30 chocolate bar biscuits, 150g of coffee, 20 tea bags, 6 pints of milk and a kilo of sugar, and many sleepless hours trying to stay one step ahead of them and ensure everything was as it should be and that everything we needed to finish off was ordered. Unfortunately, because they were half a day behind on Monday evening because N'c'le won the cup for the first time in 70 years and then they had to have a celebration last weeked, it is not now finished as it should be, and we have the plasterer coming at 7am on Sunday morning and the delights of more workmen on Monday.

But... it's getting there. And it looks much better than it does in the pictures. Some of you have seen the original in real life, and so will appreciate the difference.

Tis the season

We have a few relief post people around here, trained up to cover our usual postie's occasional absences and days off. Actually, postmen, but one's not allowed to call them that these days is one?

There was one today who hadn't been for a while. "They gave me the code for the new gate!" he said, "But I can't see it?" "It's open" I pointed out, "Because of the workmen." "More workmen?" he entoned. "I'm sick of supervising workmen," I confided. But at least the gate is now adjusted to work in winds. Finally, nearly 7 weeks on. And, for the future, Mr BW has now extracted from them a link to the online installers' instruction manual.

And then we decided to leave the workmen to their insulation and tiling and we decamped an hour south to see a roof our chosen roofer is currently working on. The slates were fine (using new slates worried me, but good ones aren't shiny, we discovered), and we pushed him to give us a definite date for starting, weather dependent. "May" given last December had turned into "before the winter" by yesterday, to "June or early July, before I go on holiday abroad" today.

Beautiful countryside to drive through, narrow rural lanes, lots of hills, heather being burned off to regenerate it, warm and sunny, top down. A million mles away from workmen, expanding airports and increasing Orangeness and global disharmony.

Current Bunny Count: The Black Familar = 5, Mr BW = 8. In... is it 3 or is it 4 weeks? Something like that. They, of course, have made more in that time than have been relocated to Bunny Heaven by Bunny Chomp Chomps or Bunny Bang Bangs. I hate waste of any type: if only I knew someone who liked rabbit pie or wanted a rabbit fur coat. It's against my vegetarian principles, but it's rabbits or trees and veg, and the latter wins every time in my book.

While it's (finally) been glorious full sun and warm by day for the past 4 days, it's still close to zero at nights. And, everywhere is soooo dry and the reservoirs are all very low for the time of year. The climate seems to be changing nearly as fast as my levels of fitness.

Conservatory

Three young and keen workmen this morning, plus the "Installation Manager' who I swear introduced himself as the "Insulation Manager". Although, given the amount that has been used in the roof, he could well be the latter.

Five young and keen workmen this afternoon. I don't think we have seen any workmen work that hard ever. They just didn't stop, and neither of us saw them even looking at their phones, let alone wasting time on them. Unlike the two - older than us - workmen from the window company who failed to complete their task on Monday, so putting the job half a day behind. Not only were they a man short but they stopped for 20 minutes every time we made them a cuppa, and were constantly scrolling on their phones.

How we put up with two and a half years of workmen most days just a couple of years ago I don't know as we are absolutely exhausted.

It's amazing how quickly you age, and start to feel you are ageing, once you get past 60.

On something I half-heard on the radio the other day, they were discussing how some care homes only show old TV programmes, like Only Fools and Horses, The Good Life, and Bergerac. I've never liked the former, but do like the last two. Apart from the extreme sexism of the episode of the latter that we watched tonight. I'm surprised they showed that again these days, but it does demonstrate the difference in attitude that 40 years makes. Or maybe that should be 'acceptable to be broadcast attitude'; as, certainly in the North, every kind of non-PC -ism is still in widespread evidence.

I hope I never have to live in a care home, but I could quite happily watch just old TV programmes, as long as plenty of them were about gardening and exploring the geographical and geological treasures of the UK.

A warning

Dear Workmen of Numberland

IF you turn up one man down on Monday because of "The Toonies' Celebration" on Saturday, so putting out the whole construction schedule on our conservatory's 'top hat' (and so all our plans for the next 3 weeks, and maybe beyond), DO be aware that we WILL tell your boss when he turns up unannounced on Tuesday to see how the follow-on constructors are doing with completing the remains of your tasks, as well as their own. Very subtly, but we will tell that you weren't honest and didn't admit the issue, so preventing substitute labour being sent.

Similarly, if you piss off home at 4pm without making any attempt to remove all the old screws from the wall, or the old silicone, and without telling us that you have dislodged 5 stones in the old dwarf stone wall while (unnecessarily) shaking down the structure that you were removing, plus leaving 3 screws and umpteen pieces of plastic in the drive, we will tell. Not least because it took us 3 hours (each, so 6 hours in total) to sort out and clear up your mess last night.

Plus, just to say, if the householders have been kind enough to provide limitless teas, coffees, chocolate biscuits and hot cross buns to you, and lend you their ladders because you claimed to have left yours on the last job, do please remember to thank them before you leave.

Love and kisses

Blue Witch

Today's three (young blokes, polite, explanatory, and appropriately deferential, with a tidy van - always judge workmen on the tidiness of their vans) were much better. The UPVC 'frame' is now up, and the roof aluminium supports.

In other news, Gate Bloke is finally to reappear to do the resets on Friday. Apparently.

And Old-Part-Of-The-Roof-Re-Roof Bloke (the very final task, not urgent) has tonight now unilaterally moved himself from "May" to "Before the winter". Grrrrrrr.

In other other news, it's finally been a glorious warm and sunny day, and maybe summer is finally coming. It's been a veeeery long winter.

The current score

Fruit and native specimen trees, minus 10.

Mr BW, minus 7, plus a few hundred quid and some slugs.

The Black Feline Familiar, minus 5.

Easter Bunnies, minus 12.

Tomorrow work starts on a 'Top Hat' for the Conservatory. Replacing all the (mostly) blown double glazed units with new windows and a solid insulated roof.

It is supposed to take 5 days, but undoubtedly won't. It has already started to go wrong as (it is claimed by the window company) the roof company ordered the incorrect Veluxes. As premonitioned by me. After a mini-tantrum on our part, they seem to have found a way around. My judgement is suspended, but teetering. Let's not mention that the roof company measuring man made all the dimensions 3" less than the - separately measured - window measuring man, but we did notice and did point this out, in writing.

Over 6 weeks on, we are still fighting Electric Gate Man to get him back to adjust the sensitivity of the new front gate, because it won't open when it is windy. Which is, of course, most days up here on our windy ridge. Mr BW originally wrote them a good review, which they needed as a start-up company, but that is likely to be revoked.

It's been a hard time, with a month of facing impending mortality, and wondering whether all our efforts for a happy retirement have been in vain. A '2 week NHS pathway'... which anyone who has been on one will understand... and then totally inconclusive results, and total indifference and reticence to review regularly, as per official guidelines, from medics. One thing that never occurred to us was that, even if we could afford private medical care if push ever came to shove, there might not be that choice in the NE.

How have things been for you?

Because Joho says he's bored with beaches...

We've been chasing (far too many times) for the registration number for Mr BW's new car, as the new insurance can't be sorted until we have a registration number, and the cost of the new policy is rising by the day as 1st March - the date of inception - gets ever closer.

At first we were told it couldn't be allocated until the car (a 'special build' as we required a towbar and a heated front screen) was in the country. The website says it has now 'landed', but today there was some rubbish about the salesman's admin person having to go home at 3pm and not being in again until Monday. Having been admonished by Mr BW, the salesman then rang me and said he'd, "Noted your husband's expressed displeasure, so I've called in a favour and a colleague's admin assistant is now doing it instead and you should expect the list of numbers to choose from by email in the next 10 minutes." I'm left wondering how many tens of thousands of pounds one has to spend before one gets decent service these days, without hassle or having to be assertive. I already know what we will be putting on the inevitable feedback form on him that we will receive...

I'd insisted on seeing the choices for plates as I am very particular about such things. They don't like giving you any choice at all these days, but, they were eventually persuaded.

In the eventuality, all the choices (ie all their allocated numbers from DVLA) were horrible, but some of them were hilarious. I'm surprised that a couple of them were even considered suitable for issue.

The choices were:

BW25 FFS
BW25 FEK
BW25 FEM
BW25 FFO

We decided that any of these choices would only be funny for the first ten minutes, and eventually went for a choice that was the abbreviated name of an ultra-high-tech product manufactured by the company with whom Mr BW spent his working life. As Mr BW said, ultimately, it was the sales of that product that had paid for the car.

It's hard to believe that it is now almost 10 years since Mr BW retired. Or, as he said at the time, as it was 17 years before his official government pension age, he took his 'gap year'. Which has turned into a 'gap decade'.

Our new entrance gate was initially installed 2 weeks ago today, but their electrician, originally due at the beginning of last week, turned out not to be available until today. And then, the job could still not be finished, as a crucial component was 'not in its box', so tonight the gate is still secured shut by a loop of old-fashioned sisal baler twine off a large spool that I purchased at the local auction a couple of weeks ago.

They might be back tomorrow afternoon, depending on how quickly some cement they are laying elsewhere sets, as they want paying and we made clear we wouldn't be paying until the job was actually completely completed and working to our satisfaction.

FFS. We clearly should have picked that registration. You just can't get the staff.

When you've had enough of gateposts and gates, there's always the beach...

Too obvious

From time to time I realise that something I have been doing for years and years is not the best way.

Yesterday I had such an epiphany.

We spent 3 years with a seemingly endless stream of tradesmen who needed regular watering (for which read tea-ing and coffee-ing). I sourced 24 cheap white mugs, and, it being Peak Covid, when they had finished a cup they had to put it in a washing up bowl of bleachy water, and, at the end of the day, we put them through the dishwasher.

We had a list of names and requirements blutached up in the kitchen: beverage of choice, milk or not, sugar or not. We had plastic "Builders' Trays" (which also went throiugh the dishwasher at the end of every day) and these were lined with a sheet of kitchen roll (if there were a lot of them) or a post-it if there were only 2 or 3. On this paper we wrote the codes for which cup was which, by the base of the cup. For example, C1, C2, T3, T5 (yes, really) etc.

Yesterday, when the two were here digging out the old stone gatepost and then putting in the new, quarried to order, one, my lightbulb moment came when I realised that all I actually needed to do was to write each cup's contents on the cup handle, where it joins the main body of the mug, with a black sharpie. The pen ink washes off easily in the dishwasher, and no bits of paper blow around.

Doh.

Anyone else have these sudden realisations?

Renovation Update

It is now 15 weeks and 6 days since we finally sold Coven (aka Millstone) Sud.

If my observations and calculations are correct, I don't believe that any other houses have sold (purchases completed) in that Parish since then, and several others that were sold have now fallen through and are back on the market. There are now more than ten times the number of properties for sale in that Parish than there were pre-2020 (and twenty times more than at most times within our nearly 30 year memory).

Many of the new builds that have led to many long-term residents wishing to exodus the area have had significant price reductions (think, over a million pounds originally, down by several hundred thousand: which is farcical when the mere reductions involved would buy several average houses in our now-local villages), yet still remain unsold. There are also more new builds built but not yet displayed online for sale, and yet more green fields with planning permission that have not yet been built on. I'm very happy to see greedy developers getting burnt, but less happy to see people, in the 'unable-to-sell' position we were in for over 2 years, still desperately trying to sell. Not all of them are able to take the financial hit that we did in order to make a sale.

Every day we thank our lucky stars that the right people came along when they did.

During the 4 months that have elapsed, we have put plans in place to complete all of our desired and/or necessary projects here:

Summerhouse/Museum (completed before FOTCR™)

Replace old stone drive gatepost (today - the insurers of the delivery van that hit and demolished it nearly a year ago finally coughed up after a lot of 'persuasion')

Replace rusting decrepit 50+ year old metal driveway gate with a rabbit and hare-proof electric auto-opening variant, designed by us but manufactured in Cumbria due to it being, at 4.9m, a bit big for construction within Mr BW's facilites (tomorrow and/or Friday)

Replace 19 year old conservatory windows (most double glazed panels now blown) and glass roof with new windows and a warm roof with Velux windows, hopefully making it more usable year-round (contractually, signed today, for completion before Easter)

Replace the remaining old slate roof of the house, with its rotting soffits and damaged guttering and downpipes, and ridges and water tables with departing/departed pointing, disintegrating felt-covered dormer window tops, and a rotting Velux window, with a complete new roof (which was considerably cheaper than doing all the jobs separately) (May)

Replace both BW Brooms (11 and 12 years old respectively: mine already, sadly and unexpectedly; Mr BW's on 1st March)

Source a ride-on mower capable of cutting paths/the grass in the orchard/meadow (delivery in the next few weeks; hurrah, no more exhausting having to push a mower not fit for purpose, so living on borrowed time, around)

Buy lots more engineer's toys for Mr BW's workshop (I have no idea if this project is/will ever be completed - more items arrive by the day)

Buy a... something I have always wanted... the 'flying delivery' will be very interesting... (arriving within the next month, apparently, once its restoration is complete, although ascertaining exactly when is more trying than herding cats)

As Old Friends BW remarked recently, "You never let the grass grow under your feet, do you?"

All those projects also nicely reduce the 'interest on savings' that the tax man will get too.

It is scary, after so many years of frugality, spending that much in the space of a few months. As I've said to several people, "We did our time - our years in the South - to be able to afford our retirement in the North."

But, all this is our future proofing. Doing all the necessary jobs to see us out, while we are still easily able to research and supervise them, and (hopefully) have time to enjoy them, is important.

Powerful again

The power eventually came back on yesterday evening after nearly 56 hours.

Scoakat asked how much fuel we are allowed to store: and therein lies the problem.

You are only allowed to source/transport 20 litres of petrol at a time, and you can only legally store 30 litres.

A generator uses about a litre an hour, so (if we had only the allowed 30 litres) we need to go out every day for fuel. This is a 26 mile round trip which takes at least 2 hours in bad weather - even if it is safe to go out, which it often isn't when the power goes off due to extreme weather (usually wind or snow).

While you can apply for a special licence to store more than 30 litres of petrol, you need a specialist tank (cost - thousands of pounds), and I don't think we'd be granted it. Plus, you really wouldn't want to keep more than 30 litres as petrol goes 'stale' in a couple of months.

We are slightly better placed now in that we have Zebra (who runs on petrol) rather than 2 diesel cars, so we can keep more 'in stock' (although illegally) and rotate it through Zebra every few weeks, rather than needing to go to the fuel station every single day.

The electricity distribution company always leave 'Isolateds' (as they call us) until last for reconnection after extreme weather as they have strict metrics for getting certain %s of people back on supply withint certain time frames, and getting our dispersed rural dwellings back on supply quickly doesn't bump up the numbers enough, so we always have to wait until the end. But, they refuse to give any consideration to bringing round a fuel truck to supply us with petrol - the isolated farms are OK as they have huge tanks of red diesel (for agricultural purposes) and huge diesel generators, but the isolated houses are left to their own devices.

They are happy to pay for us to go to a hotel, and will provide vouchers for hot food, but that is no good when you have animals to care for, live 13 miles from the nearest place that serves food all day, and need to keep your generator topped up with fuel to keep your hen protective electric fence, freezers and heating controls going.

A lady who lives a mile or so away with her husband in a rented house (so they don't have a generator or a generator port - and rely on a solid fuel fire for heating and a very old Rayburn for cooking) in her late 70s/early 80s with severe MS was told by a call centre operative yesterday, after ringing to say they were very cold after 50 hours off supply, "Have you thought about wearing a hat or getting some extra blankets?"

On one of my early calls to them, I was told that I should have candles and a torch with batteries to hand at all times, and that many tinned foods, such as baked beans, could be eaten straight from the can with no need to heat them. All I said was, "You live in a town, and probably with your mum and dad, don't you?"

The sheer ignorance of the call centre staff makes me very angry, and despite all we were promised after Storm Arwen, this weekend's repeat storm situation stress-tested their plans and found them severely lacking, on exactly the same points as previously. And it's not that they weren't told.

Now, can you imagine how we'd cope if we had electric heating, electric cooking, and an electric car? And people wonder why we chose oil and petrol rather than electric...

And there are thousands and thousands of people like us in a similar situation, and most of them also have very little insulation in their old stone houses, so they are hard to keep warm even when there is electricity. It's not easy to retrofit wall or floor insulation into any house that is any more than perhaps 100 years old, and many people who live in this sort of house in a rural area (particularly in the North) do not own their own homes, and have landlords (often the 'landed gentry') who are not interested in upgrading their (often inherited rather than deliberately bought to rent out) property stock. I don't know what the answer is, but it isn't to keep giving grants for energy efficiency to those savvy enough to apply for them, because those who need the measures most are those least able to access them.

Powerless: Day 2

31 hours on and the estimated supply restoration time is now 11pm tomorrow night. I had to phone to ascertain this as we have received no info since yesterday.

The repair job is still 'unallocated'.

"We can put you up in a hotel or send you a voucher for some hot food!" said the woman on the phone. Not helpful.

As Nice Nearest Neighbour said, this is just like a repeat of Storm Arwen and its aftermath, and they clearly haven't learnt a thing about what people in isolated areas need.

Interestingly, the 'line down' problem appears to be in or near the same inaccessible location as it was after Storm Arwen. How about the distribution company invest some money and put those clearly 'highly vulnerable to extreme weather' cables underground? The fibre broadband company managed to put all the fibre cables for the whole area underground in about 3 weeks...

And our energy supplier's usage page is now telling us that there is a problem with our smart meter. Erm no, the problem is that there is no electricity to flow through the smart meter, not that the meter has a problem...

Weather Report: Storm Éowyn

Commentator Caroline kindly asked, in the comments box below (which has now autoclosed as it's been a while): I was just wondering how you're surviving the latest storm. How bad has it been?

The wind speed began to build at around 2am yesterday, and got to 70+mph by 6am. It was then 60+mph for most of the day, with frequent stronger gusts. It was only when we went outside that we appreciated the true velocity. I'm glad I'm not an 8 stone stick insect because I'd have blown away!

The power went off at 10.45am yesterday, and the electricity distributor haven't even got anyone to where the high voltage line is down yet (despite erroneously sending several text messages during the day saying that it was back on). The latest news is that they 'hope' to have 'assessed' the situation by late afternoon today. 73 households are off, which is a huge area up here - tens of square miles, and no-one seems to know where the line is down.

The generator port was our best ever investment, as it allows the central heating and Aga controls and lights, TV and other low power appliances to run, albeit not at the same time. It doesn't allow us to run anything that is power hungry (eg vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, washing machine, greenhouse heater).

This is our 5th power cut since 31st December. One 5 hours, two just a few minutes, one nearly 13 hours, and this ongoing situation, currently heading for 22 hours, with no end in sight. We were 11 days without power after Storm Arwen...

Thankfully there is no significant damage that we have noticed yet - but the house has been here since the late 1600s, so has seen it all before, and we have designed everything we've done to be as robust as possible - and we are very careful not to leave anything around that high winds could pick up.

The wind was supposed to drop around midnight, but it is still fairly blowy now.

How has it been where you are?

The Cold

We still have iced snow here, with - 9°C expected tonight, and even colder temperatures tomorrow. Several hundred feet below us, down in the valley, the snow is almost gone.

Having - until recently - lived in a very flat county for nearly 30 years, I still find this demonstration of 'O' Level Geography learning interesting. And yes, I have previously skied and walked in mountainous areas and seen this phenomenon there, but it's somehow different when it is 'at home'.

I realised while watching the weather forecast on TV this morning that I am no longer looking first at East Anglia, then at the northernmost county where we now reside.

I think it took me about 8 years to stop looking at the south west first, when I left there for the east in 1991. However, I do still look at 'other places I have lived' after digesting the meteorological joys in store in the NE.

Do other people who have lived in different areas of the UK do this too?

In other news, I think/hope/believe that I now have my young friend trained up in essay writing, and enjoying her writing process. How someone can get to Master's Level these days and not know how to write a structured and coherent course paper, when they have already been studying English at an advanced level for five and a half years, scares me.

She tells me that she has asked one of her lecturers for guidance on another piece of work, but has been told that, "I don't respond to emails because it is bad for my mental health!" and that she must see him in person. He doesn't have a regular 'office time' and is not prepared to be tied down to appointments, so expects students just to catch him when he happens to be in the Department. Given that she is - for financial reasons - living at home, some 45 miles away from the Department, and that the return train fare is nearly £50, this seems very unreasonable to me. She has asked him for a brief telephone conversation or a video call, but he says he only sees students in person. Complaining could be very counter-productive I fear. This is what you get for your £12,000 a year course fee these days.

Still snowy

There's still snow here, frozen solid, and not about to thaw anytime soon according to the weather forecast, despite beautiful sunshine and crisp blue skies all day.

At this time of year we usually have pretty sunrises sometime around 8am, even if it goes on to be grey all day:


And often nice sunsets around 4-something-pm, and getting later every day. It was still light at almost 5pm this evening.

I have spent the day sorting out the sewing room, shredding old papers (39.5 bankers' boxes to go, then we can have the summerhouse 'top' redone) and cleaning (with white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda - works a treat), polishing, cataloguing and preparing my old £1 coins and pictorial 50p pieces for display:

Note one silver coin and one fake (hmmm, and maybe 2, looking at that image now). Neither noticeable before cleaning.

I eventually decided to make the coins into coasters (for use in the new museum/summerhouse), and ordered what I thought were appropriate acrylic coaster 'blanks'. The 50ps fitted OK (kept in their places by washers from Mr BW's magic washer and O-ring box - we'll be taking a coaster apart next time something for repair needs one that size):

But the £1 coins didn't fit (they were slightly too fat - I understand their pain). Some Magic Tape may come to the rescue tomorrow, in better light.

Having referred to Wikipedia and DG's excellent guide to £1 coins I worked out that I am only missing old £1 pieces from 3 years (1988, 1992, and 2011, just in case anyone has any spares).

I had done this exercise some time ago, but the written evidence has seemingly disappeared. Odds-on I'll find it inside of a week.

Winter Wonderland

Mr BW has been out in the snow taking pictures.

And then taking down the FOTCR™ decorations. All reused every year and now probably carbon neutral after so many years.

I have been trying to tell my young friend gently that writing in To The Lighthouse Stylee is perhaps not the best way to approach her work. I always hated Virginia Woolf, and I still can't decide whether it's my issue or hers.

It being Sunday afternoon we are, as ever, listening to Johnnie Walker (but now Ghost Edition), which today is the Juke Box Edition from early 2021. Sad, and doubly sad because R4's Dead People's Programme couldn't even be bothered to broadcast his obituary in a timely fashion last Friday.

Does anyone know how we can easily make a track recorded from the TV/digital radio onto hard drive recorder (so in video format) into an audio-only track? Mr BW has been copying from the recorder onto DVDs, so he can then play as a DVD via his (old) laptop (that has a DVD recorder built in) and external speakers, but it is very time consuming (transfer only happens in real time). If we could get it from the DVD format it was recorded in, into MP3 (or audio-only) format, we would have a lot more options for playing it more easily. All suggestions welcome.

The snow on the Velux windows in The Atrium is melting in a most peculiar way. We are hoping that it will clean them as it slides off:

It does show that the extra cost of triple glazing is worthwhile though.

Our snow is lingering as it is drizzling, but it is so cold that the drizzle is freezing before it hits the ground. We have the generator fuelled and ready to go again, just in case.

It amuses me that we had a hand-delivered notification from the area power distributor that they will be turning off the supply all day next Thursday (when the maximum forecast is for zero degrees) so that they can replace equipment to ensure 'future resilience'. FFS, the time to do that is in the summer, surely? Years of neglect but unwarranted ongoing fat bonuses for directors and dividends for shareholders...

I am 22 today!

Nearly forgot. Happy BlogDay to me.

I am currently attempting to proofread a young friend's first course paper for her English MA. I can't decide whether I am just too old, too cynical, and too far removed from academic study to understand it or whether it is a complete load of bollocks. I asked for a copy of the official style guide and that didn't help. Either way, I have a dilemma.

The snow is set to fall again. The generator is ready to go again.

At least in the North they make an attempt to grit the roads - I got pebbledashed 3 times during a half hour journey home from a craft group meeting this afternoon. Mind you, there is a one mile stretch of pure sheet ice along the lane outside where it hasn't yet been gritted. That'll be fun tomorrow.

It hasn't been above freezing by day or night for a couple of days now (and this is set to continue for the next week) but by Wednesday it is forecast to be minus 2°C by day and minus 8°C by night, plus windchill from a northerly wind. Anyone got a pattern for knitted bootees for hens?

End of year, end of era

Saddened by the news that Johnnie Walker died earlier (at 79), a year to the day since his last live Sounds of the Seventies on Radio 2, and 9 weeks and 2 days after his last radio broadcast.

What a legend.

The torrential rain and strong winds (40-50mph) have been relentless here today, but the wind seems to be set to drop around midnight, and then temperatures plummet to 5°C maximum by day and below zero at night for the foreseeable (ie the next 14 days according to the weather forecast), with sleet and snow, but also sunshire forecast.

I'm not a great one for reviews of the year.

Our 2024 summed up in 3 words would be: selling, sorting, completing. What would yours be?

We haven't been on holiday for nearly 5 years now, and have only spent 5 nights away from home this year (which is 5 days more than in 2023). But, we now live in our English Happy Place, so every day is a holiday, in the middle of nowhere, in an area of outstanding natural beauty, and as it was always late October/early November when we visited, we are used to leafless trees, short days, and inclement weather (although we were only saying this morning that there were never such strong winds and such torrential rain then).

And, oops, just as I was about to hit publish at around 6pm, the power went off.

We'd been expecting it all day, with this weather.

We are now running on generator power.

I rang the electricity distributor, just to check they knew about our outage, and was delighted to experience their new customer focus, tell the customer everything we know, mode. It was almost worth all the hours I have spent on the phone to them telling them that they weren't doing enough, in previous years' power cuts.

There are currently 245 customers off (which is an area of probably 20 square miles), with 500 already restored, and our circuit is only off so the linesmen can work on the downed lines about 5 miles away, as-the-crow-flies. So, hopefully, with no actual local damage (yet...), we will be back on inside of 11 days, as was the case last time there was an extended issue.

The nice man on the phone even apologised for 'spoiling your evening'. I didn't tell him we were only doing the usual, and didn't have a wild party planned.

Happy New Year to you all, and thank you for reading and commenting throughout the year; here's to the next one. Perhaps with more pictures.

Top that

We were finally having a nice lazy morning, watching telly in bed, having had a nice decadent breakfast of oat and banana pancakes with creme fraiche and my jealously-guarded-until-now this year's one jar of home-made strawberry jam (made with slugged and/or bird-pecked strawberries - waste not want not) when the roofers that the car salesman (who is currently part-way through a house renovation over on the coast), had highly recommended, rang to say they'd be with us in 45 minutes.

They wanted to come out before the FOTCR™ but we put them off as I was out on that day as sussing out workmen is a Two Witch Job. They promised to come out before New Year, and we hadn't had to chase them, so they were already in our good books before they arrived.

After an hour of looking, listening, discussing and measuring, they assured us that it would be cheaper and more sensible to actually replace the whole of the roof to the double storey bit that was not touched during the renovations/extension work, rather than to do the repairs and replacements that were actually warranted in the short-term. While the roof is currently sound (for which read, not leaking; there are many broken or cracked slates and almost all of the pointing along the ridge and water tables needs reinstating), it is unlikely to see us out, and there are already areas of concern, particularly the felted flat roofs over the dormer windows, and the soffits and gutters that Bodgit and Coverit (the last owners) had had done - when UPVC plastic was simply stuck over rotten timber, meaning it now sticks out too far in relation to the roof slates, which causes water to run down the stone walls in torrential rain.

We had vaguely already thought about replacing the whole roof, and deemed it sensible but likely prohibitively expensive. We have got quite good at pricing building work, and had decided that repairs etc would be x, and a new roof at least 3x.

No tradesman in the NE gives quotes within at least a week, and often a month, of being asked, and rarely without being chased. I think they all have a Tradesmen's Agreement about that, and we get sick of chasing them.

We already knew that the roofers' order book was full until at least the end of March, so we were expecting their quote sometime just before then, after at least 3 chases from us.

Imagine our surprise when we received their quote late afternoon, and it was less than 2x for everything we'd discussed. Which will totally future proof the house, and mean we are replacing the roof in our early 60s rather than as an emergency when it leaks in 10 or 20 years time (when Mr BW likely won't be able to get on the roof to effect temporary repairs).

Replacing early 1970s bitumen felt with modern membrane will also make the house more wind resistant, so better insulated and warmer. Currently the tiny loft hatches in every upstairs room tend to lift a bit in extreme weather as the wind gets under the slates - and storms seem to be getting more frequent.

So, at some point this spring/early summer we will be entertaining more building work. AGGGHHHHHH!!!

Now, who can tell me why people give 'older' people calendars as festive gifts? We seem to have acquired three this year. Do they suppose you need to keep more check on time post 60?

I wouldn't mind, but I always buy the same pig calendar every year, as soon as it is published in September, so they are utterly redundant. As two of the giftees visit quite regularly, we shall have to put them up somewhere visible. Call me ungrateful but don't give me calendars, give me wine!

One question - does anyone have any experience of rubberised flat roofs? Down south we replaced a felt flat roof with a fibreglass roof/balcony, but rubber options weren't available then.

Finally

The objets are organised.

The pigs are in place. I didn't count them, but nearly a thousand I'd guess.

The MuseumHouse is full - well, at least until I find some more objets (easy round here with regular auctions in at least 3 places, the like of which I last saw down south 25 years ago or more), when I will find space.

Mr BW has done a sterling job of keeping me regulalry supplied with food, drinks and meals, and putting up hooks where required.

But, who in their right mind would spend more than 4 days in temperatures of a maximum of 12°C in an outbuilding 15 metres from their house when it was a cosy 19° inside their house? Yeah, I know, I know.

While curating my collections, I've been listening to 2 audiobooks. Books that I would never have read on paper, but which were fascinating as audiobooks: Douglas Coupland's 'Generation A' (15 years old now, but the only thing he got wrong was smartphones - which he foresaw as PDAs, and I'm more and more convinced that the end of b33s is nigh, as in the book), and Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May's 'Peculiar London'. Very different to the other B&M mysteries, which I have enjoyed, and I'd call it fascinating rather than peculiar, but interesting nonetheless.

We haven't had any fog here at all - although it seems that it is going to be wet, windy, and minus 8 by Thursday. But, it's been at least 2 degrees warmer up here than in the south for at least the past week.

How have you spent the last week?

Another unboxing day

One more day unwrapping and arranging my objets should get it finished.

I decided today that I should have been a museum curator.

Acrylic mini-shelving was a great discovery, and a great investment.

Now, if I could just think of a good way to display all my pictorial 50 pence pieces.
And work out where my collection of old £1 coins is hiding.

RestDay

I said I'd post something every day in December, and I'm nearly there, so I'm not giving up, but, havng done nothing useful today (give or take sorting a few end-of-month financial things, putting one load of washing in the machine, and winding one bobbin of previously-spun yarn onto a niddy noddy, tying it in a few places, and putting it in water with conditioner to soak overnight).

I'd dearly love to know why Google keeps reverting to google.com, even though it has noted my location (as it tells me at the bottom of the page). I can no longer get it to return 100 results at a time on a search either. Is this because it is punishing me because I don't have a Google account to sign in with?

If so, it will have to join Twatter/X, Pinterest, Farcebook and Instagram in no longer being part of my life as none of them now allow people to look but not join. Their loss.

Unboxing Day

Yet more unwrapping and re-staging of objets was planned for today after a very happily lazy day yesterday when we did not even bother to get dressed.

But some people had other ideas for our day.

If you were a normal person, you wouldn't drop in on people you hadn't seen for 8 or 9 years (when you all lived down south), unnannounced, yet alone late morning on Boxing Day, would you?

And bring with you an uncommunicative 20-something year old with a surgically implanted smartphone and headphones that your unwitting hosts had last seen when she was a baby, would you?

No-one normal would make a 100 mile round trip on the off-chance that their once-just-slightly-more-than-acquaintances would be in, would they?

Mr BW's facial recogniton software (he sees people for one second and can identify them in any situation for the rest of all time - what the police call a 'super recogniser' I think) malfunctioned for the first time in over 32 years. Also abnormal.

Two hours later they departed, leaving my plans for the day in tatters, and our FOTCR™ snacks in crumbs.

Now, I love welcoming people who have let me know they are coming (even if only half an hour before) but even Nice Nearest Neighbour knows better than to call unannounced.

Grrrr.

"It's Christmas Day in the morning"...

...as Mr BW always sings, once the reused for umpteen years Advent Calendar is empty of chocolates.

Many fewer times than normal this year, as he has been on Indoor Duty while I have been unwrapping and arranging objets onto the summerhouse shelves and bookcases he has painstakingly constucted to my exact(ing) requirements.

I'm bored with unwrapping presents now.

Actually, many of them I have actually unwrapped before, as many of them were FOTCR™ or WitchDay presents in the past. We don't really 'do' presents, we just store up things we find all year and give them to each other on the recommended/appropriate dates. And waste paper wrapping them up.

The International Space Station has been passing overhead on most mornings for the past week. Unfortunately we have only seen it once due to low-hanging cloud, but it promises to re-arrive tomorrow: Wed Dec 25 6:06 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 46°, Appears: 45° above SSW, Disappears: 10° above ESE.

Joyeaux Noel to you all.

32 on 23

I've had a lovely day rediscovering, and working out how to resdisplay, all my objets as I unpacked them from boxes packed in December 2020 newspaper into their new home in Museum Summerhouse.

Mr BW supplied full boxes at a suitable rate, together with regular refreshments, and took away the empties.

It was after dark when I finally gave up as there is no electricity supply to out there yet, and I didn't have a headtorch, but that should be rectified in early January. The electricity, not the headtorch, as that is simply a question of ensuring light is on head before darkness falls.

An errant Evri delivery man had a shock when he detoured from his track back to the entrance gate as darkness fell to nose into Museum Summerhouse, only to find a person in the summerhouse waving very very slowly, from side to side, at him. I hope he thought I was a ghost. He certainly looked as if he'd seen one. It will be interesting to see what transpires next time he delivers.

Tonight we celebrate 32 years since we first met. Which, Mr BW reminds me, was at 9pm. These days I've usually been asleep for an hour and a half by then. How times change.

All presents are now wrapped, all festive chocolates deposited on appropriate windowsills, and a temporary fix on the Aga made: put the oil flow on manual and sod the expense. Hopefully the required spare part should arrive tomorrow, provided that Special Delivery by 1pm works as it should. I bribed the postie with some home-made FOTCR™ goodies today (for which he seemed genuinely touched), so hopefully it will.

Is there really still another day before the FOTCR™? I am tired of receiving daily emails from every company from whom I have ever bought something: wishing me well, with an underlying message of 'buy more of my stuff'. No, just no.

How's the excitement level in your house?

My hot rod has failed

The Aga is not working properly. FOTCR™ dinner could be consigned to either Mi1dred's tea stove, or Bri@n's propane stove.

Or both, which would give us 3 burners but no oven.

Maybe we could cook inside a tin in the wood burner?

Or in the incinerating bin outside?

What fun! Not.

I should have realised when the kettle took 10 minutes to boil this morning, but I was doing other things at the same time and was just irritated rather than inquisitive.

Luckily, when the Sunday dinner wasn't cooking as expected, Mr BW remembered what one of Mi1dred's sisters' daddies (who used to be an Aga service man) told him when we had a similar problem at Coven Sud, years ago.

Now, can we get a spare part in the next 2 days? Not in these parts I fear.

But, really, a vital part on a premium priced appliance going wrong in less than four and a half years? They don't make 'em like they used to...

What a brilliant finish to Series 90 of Countdown though. Give or take Christopher Biggins' extremely sexist comments in the second semi final. I still can't believe that Channel 4 thought it was acceptable to broadcast them. Anyone else see that and wonder?

In the Blowy Midwinter

Happy Winter Solstice to you all. It all gets lighter again from now on.

It's been blowing yet another hoolie here since late yesterday (40 - 50mph winds), and it is all set to continue until tomorrow evening. Such stormy weather is now so much the norm that we never leave anything around outside that might blow about, and the henhouse has two huge lumps of stone on top so it doesn't blow over.

The sunny day forecast all last week for the 25th has now morphed into a cloudy day, albeit an 11°C one by day with 8°C by night.

It feels like FOTCR™ Eve, but the calendar tells me there are still 3 whole days before then. We're all stocked up, with the final grocery delivery arriving shortly after 8.30am. I do hope it's not the growers who are bearing the cost of all the cheap veg being sold by the supermarkets, but I fear it might be.

Today I have been making non-sausage rolls (2 sorts), nut roast, and adding heading tape to voiles for the summerhouse (got to stop those nosey delivery men looking in at my objets). Mr BW has been painting shelves, putting up lights, Briwaxing anything old and wooden, and doing mysterious things in the workshop that I have yet to fathom.

Seasonal

We took Nice Nearest Neighbour to see the UK's tallest living FOTCR™ tree today.

We had a flask of tea and cranberry and cheese puff pastry pinwheels in the car park to save getting a load of germs in the cafe which would disenable the festive season.

We are therefore now officially old.

Resurrection

No, it's OK, I haven't muddled up my Christian festivals.

But.

IT is BACK.

IT has been banned from the house for years - since Mr BW carved it in fact. At one point I threatened to put IT in the wood burner.

If you are a long-term reader, you might recall the nightmare horrors of ITs inception.

But now, I have thought of a good use for IT.

I have been talked into teaching a small group of ladies who like knitting but have never been able to master crochet, to crochet, in January.

In my time I have taught quite a few people to crochet, but only on a one-to-one or one-to-two basis. The main thing that beginners struggle with is corerct tensioning, largely because they cannot master how to hold the yarn, and even if they have grasped it one week, by the next they have often forgotten again. If I'm not constantly having to re-demonstrate correct threading, I can be helping individuals gradually learn the stitches (which are actually just loops or various descriptions).

And this is where The Thing comes in. IT can be a 3D model of 'correct' yarn threading. The yarn will also keep IT under control, and if IT starts misbehaving, IT can be tied down to a table.

Mr BW has been playing with his new/replacement toys and made The Thing a metal stand.

Drills, lathes, welders, angle grinders, you name it, he's enjoyed playing with it today. Think of all the tools James May has in The Dull Men's Club and that's Mr BW's workshop, albeit in an eighth of the space.

He's also stuck a hole up IT's wrist so that IT can't creep across the floor when I'm not looking.

But we still haven't got any cards or decs up.

And no, I shan't be asking IT to give us a hand.

Report back

I got a BW Blue train for my WitchDay. As you can see, it was very speedy.

I have no idea what all the different colour trains are these days, but we also saw a silver one with red doors, and one that looked like it was painted in the old-stye British Rail blue/off-white colourway. I think I need an I-Spy Guide to Modern Train Liveries.

We were up at our favourite beach near Berwick for low tide at 9.30am yesterday (which meant we got to see a spectacular sunrise as we crossed lots of moorland on the way up) and had an enjoyable couple of hours amongst the rocks collecting pebbles and shells, lunch on the (almost deserted, save the occasional dog walker) beach, then went to Bamburgh Castle - first time we have ever been, but we've just treated ourselves to a year of Historic Houses membership (basically, most/many of the private houses not in NT or EH). £18.75 per person, plus £5 parking has always seemed too much for a couple of hours' visit there, but free is OK! Will only need to go to 3 sites and it will have paid for itself. The castle was all blinged up for the FOTCR™ so we will have to go back in normal times.

It was meant to drizzle all day but didn't, although sunset was almost the only time we saw the sun. But, as is so often the case on the coast, the ever-changing quality of the light was amazing.

Tomorrow is Decorating Day at The Coven. It is not allowed to happen before my WitchDay and will be minimalist.

Are you decorating/decorated? I know someone who has 5 decorated indoor trees!