Blue Witch

You're FIREd

And not an Alan Sugar or delusional picked-for-TV-entertainment wannabee oddball in their early 20s in sight.

It occurred to me this afternoon, as I was listening to a Money Box programme on R4 about retiring early, and what you have to do to achieve it, that there are at least 7 other people listed in my (hugely out of date but unalterable due to 'old code' impossible to update issues) sidebar who have also retired early. Most of them (sadly) left blogland long ago.

It was an interesting programme, although I admit to having shouted at the radio several times during it.

It's not that difficult, really.

Although... two years ago we were raking in around £300 a month in interest on (17 different) current accounts and 7 regular savings accounts, which is down to less than £100 a month now. Thank you banks. With CPI currently runing at 1.7%, and such offers dying on a near-daily basis, I am dubious about the future possibilities, unless you are in a hugely well paid job (which we weren't), and are comfortable taking huge risks with stock markets (which we're not).

I don't actually like the 'FIRE' acronym, or what its extreme proponents push (plenty of them available on a Google search, but, none I could actually recomment as I don't read them, or indeed believe in - most of - what they preach).

I'm actually uncomfortable being part of that 'movement' actually: I am sure that there are a lot of people who are retiring early who will run out of money before they run out of life, and will then need the rest of us to prop them up, and I don't think that is right.

I already know of several people who are stilll working, but taking money out of their pensions at 55 and 'blowing it', because they believe that The State Will Always Provide for those who haven't been prudent. Not sure what the answer is, but I am sure that it will become an increasing problem.

This, together with the huge complexities of the pension market that I alluded to last week, leave me hugely uncomfortable that those who aren't financially savvy, and can't do their own calculations, or live within their means, are very vulnerable to schemes and scheming individuals. My advice, as ever, remains: if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

Flying tonight

*cackles evilly*

Last seen in 2004.

Happy Birthday Mr BW!

Four and a half years after officially 'retiring', Mr BW can finally get his mitts on his retirement funds (with thanks to Golden Brown for delaying the process we'd always planned and saved for by 5 years). Despite working for the same company for the better part of 34 years, his funds are were in lots of different pots (several sales of the company, changes of pension providers and pension types, extra bits in AVCs and contracted out bits). Complexity.

All I will say about the process of sorting it all out is, it's next in the queue for companies to move in to fleece people who aren't good with figures and finance. Even the nice pot of final salary had 8 different options. Yes, 8! And the nice fat birthday present isn't in the bank today. Grrrr (but, realistically, we weren't really expecting it today).

I was absolutely determined that our savings pots weren't going to reduce in that four and a half years, and, despite all the banks continually cutting interest rates, and rates paid on current accounts if one meets their strict conditions, I have managed it.

It's amazing how little you can live on if you: practice 'repair, reuse, repurpose, recycle', don't engage in consumerism, don't eat or drink out, grow your own food, cook from scratch, make your own entertainment (by having creative interests and hobbies), generate much of your own electricity, can mend practically anything that breaks or goes wrong, don't need the latest gadgets or garments, and ensure you always get the best price for everything, particularly insurance and utilities. Mr BW has been giving talks to groups and running 'experience days' on subjects he loves, and this, together with h0ney sales, has nicely topped up the income from my pension. Actually, we've even managed to add to our savings, and we haven't gone without anything that we wanted. It can be done (but probably not if you have kids, have got divorced, moved lots, or haven't paid off the mortgage early).

Anyway, all my love and have a lovely day Mr BW xxxx
(and, as a special treat, you can have a day off from the spreadsheets... and we can have something other than blue string pudding and soup for lunch)

(pictures and prehistoric font size and colour use recycled from my post of 29.10.2003)

A thought...

...on bulldozers and ditches.

I can see a great plan here... not to bury the Deal, but to bury the current incumbent by using one of his previous lies to achieve another. Hmmm, tempting.

I'm still predicting 'we're not leaving'.

Thought for the day

"British journalists have become part of Johnson’s fake news machine

It’s chilling. From the Mail, The Times to the BBC and ITN, everyone is peddling Downing Street’s lies and smears. They’re turning their readers into dupes."

- Peter Oborne

I am increasingly concerned about the state of news reporting - particularly political media reporting - in the UK.

This article shows how British political journalists have got chillingly close to providing the same service to Boris Johnson that Fox News provides to Donald Trump.

Barbara Dickson on my mind

I seem to have been humming this tune for most of the afternoon.

So what happens now?

Another Suitcase in Another Hall

Never fool myself that my dreams will come true
Being used to trouble I anticipate it
But all the same I hate it, wouldn´t you?

So what happens now?

Where am I going to?

You´ll get by, you always have before

Where am I going to?

Call in three months time and I´ll be fine, I know

Well maybe not that fine, but I´ll survive anyhow

I won´t recall the names and places of each sad occasion

But that´s no consolation here and now.

So what happens now?

Where am I going to?

You´ll get by, you always have before

Where am I going to?

Don´t ask anymore.

FFS

I still say, it's not going to happen.

Democracy is dead. Long live democracy.

It was so much simpler in 1976.

Life, but not as we know (knew) it

The latest news (and Judge says proroguing is not illegal).

- From Led By Donkeys

And don't forget Parody Boris Johnson Twitter - scroll down to see video of IDS snacking in the HoC last night.

- The closest JRM's upbringing would allow him to get to actually putting his feet on the top table.

I maintain my long-term view that we're not leaving.

Thought for the day

"A nation of plenty so concerned with gain
As the seasons come and go, greater grows the pain
And far too many feelin' the strain"

- Isley Brothers - Harvest for the World (1976)

The Wednesday Question

Because comments elsewhere are sometimes worth recycling...

Is there something in the Labour Party Rules that says Jeremy Corbyn can't be ousted by a vote of no confidence from his own Party?

He is the one thing standing in the way of a different progress for the UK's future - as I understand it, only he can call a vote of no confidence in the current government and definitely have it approved (others can try, but the Speaker needn't give heed to the request), but no-one wants Corbyn to lead a Government of National Unity (which he is currently insisting on), so his call for a vote of no confidence won't be supported by enough MPs to be carried.

Give Labour a new leader (hence my first question) and there may be a chance. A slim may but at least there might then be some sort of effective Opposition.

Lack of a proper Opposition for the past x years is what has brought us to where we are now.

Three things that have amazed me recently

Our county police force and our local NHS Trust are both still running on Windows 7.

A local MP (now in the highest tier of government) replied to an email a good friend of mine sent just before that promotion with, "I am not minded to assist with this matter." No greeting, no sign-off, just those nine words. The lady in question is 80 and was asking for help with a problem of a sort that, once upon a time, was the bread-and-butter of an MP's work for their constiuents: rail commuters parking in her road all day (well, actually from 6am to 10pm) while they go to work in London, often blocking her drive so that she is completely unable to get out at worst, or, at best, to get out safely, a problem that the local council are completely failing to deal with, and the police aren't interested in managing.

People/journalists/politicians don't understand that wind turbines have to be turned off when it gets too windy. No, that major loss of power last week wasn't the Russians hacking the Grid (this time) (aside: is that running on Windows 7 too?), it was a demonstration of just how perilously balanced our ageing infrastructure is. And that's before every car is electric and needs 35kWh to drive 100 miles (that's around three times the electricity that the average UK home currently uses per day). Our major problems in this country aren't Brexit, despite what some would have you believe.

*****************************

On a brighter note in these dire political times, I heard on R4 last week that Spitting Image (18 series, 131 episodes) is coming back (although I currently can't find a link from a reputable source to confirm this). Until it gets here, this is nearly as good.

I particularly like the August 9th question, "Alexa – why does America have a gun problem?"

And so beginneth a new era...

... in which the UK gets Trump Lite.

Similar antics... waving words around, talking off the top of their heads with little regard for hard facts, buffoonery, teflonery (nothing sticks), inappropriate name dropping, dishevelled look, sexism, racism, homophobia, bluster, untruths, manipulation of statistics... all deliberate in cultivating their self-importance, their world, and their uncaring Capitalistic world view, in which money always trumps equality, the wishes of the affected majority, and common sense. What a load of de Pfeffel.

But, I continue to maintain my view that we remain in the Hotel California as far as the EU is concerned. My book is open... how long before Trump Lite revokes Article 50?

The Life Of

"George!" decreed Mr BW. "The Snail-let can be called George!"

"Why George?" I said, slightly miffed that my job as Chief Namer of Newcomers to The Coven was being usurped.

"Well, it's quite amusing, isn't it, you know... George and Mi1dred..."

I gave him a look of Extreme Witchy Distaste, and stated, in a That's The End Of The Matter way, "We are not calling the Snail-let after an ITV programme." A couple of years ago I finally met another person (an ex-blogger) who had been, as I was, denied ITV as a child on the grounds of taste. Old habits die hard.

"But, oh, inspiration just is not arriving... the Snail-let can't be called that, as it's too much of a mouthful..."

Inspiration then flashed, but not in my direction.

"Bri@n!" exclaimed Mr BW excitedly, "Bri@n! It's perfect!"

And so it was.

And today we go on yet another epic cross-country journey to collect him (one way and another we've done more miles in the past couple of months than we've done in the past couple of years... environmental credentials currently in little Blue pieces).

Anyone know where I can get a waterproof stick-on Bri@n decal?

Shape shifting

"What," I asked Mr Farmer, who'd phoned about something else entirely, "are those strange shapes that have appeared in your field behind us?"

I tried to sound as if I did not fear that they might, just possibly, be the unfortunate result of over-zealous spells. They did, after all, have more than a passing resemblance to a Snail-let being towed behind a Broom.

"Ah. Ahem. They are... erm, yes, well, they are weed control patches. Nasty things weeds."

I sighed silently and wished that he understood what he was doing to the soil every time he drowned it with chemicals.

I know what he's doing: and I know that the reason he has to so do is that he doesn't practice sound farmering methods. If there's a quick and easy pharma-farmer-fix, he'll take it.

What he should be doing is employing cultural methods: rotating crops (he doesn't, he grows wheat almost every year), burying weed seeds by ploughing (he gave that up 20 years ago, now re-seeding into stubble), plant in spring not autumn (nope, he plants in late August most years), and leaving the field fallow occasionally (what, no income at all for a whole year? Never!).

I can remember* spending many days of my summer holidays in my early years of teaching helping rogue fields of cereal crops when I lived in the West Country 30-odd years ago. Great fun, but hard work. Mechanical methods don't damage a crop, or reduce its yield, unlike spraying off (killing) whole areas with chemicals.

The huge rise in food allergies are, I believe, caused by chemicals sprayed onto food that is ever-increasingly intensively farmed.

Increasing population = increasingly more glysophate in every bite.

It's hard being an organic gardener when tonnes of unknown stuff is being regularly and liberally distributed just over the hedge.

* (surprisingly, given the amount of local farmhouse scrumpy we all consumed afterwards)

Note to self

Remember that when you debrief with parents after a frustrating meeting to discuss why a 13 year old's particular learning needs aren't being met within a school, the person who is failing to adequately identify, let alone solve or support, the problem (undoubtedly for many other students too), who happens to be the person in charge of that area, may be standing invisibly on the other side of an open window.

And that person may, as a result of what they overhear, decide to take early retirement.

I just wish that all my current community-supporting projects were turning out so successfully...

New adventures

Yesterday I did something that I said I'd never do. Never, never, never.

No, not join Farcebook or get a smartphone. Not that radical.

What we did was... we bought a snail.

"But it's a very very small snail," consoled Mr BW. "In fact, it's so small that it's a snail-let. And it has a solar panel."

Last week (and for several weeks before) we were searching for a small house.
But it proved too elusive, and tiny houses were just too reminiscent of our youth.

Plus, anything that we found in a rural-enough location to suit my sensibilities had all the same permanent risks of development roundabouts as we are suffering here.

And, realistically, running two houses, even if temporarily, for a couple of years, would have made a big dent in the Witchy Piggy Banks.

And then the environmental vandalism started in our lane. Hedges and trees being ripped out. Starting a process that is going to change the landscape from individual rural idyll to semi-urban anywhereness. We don't want to live in such a place, and we didn't choose to live in such a place when we moved here 24 years ago. It's heartbreaking.

We had to do something, so have spent what would have been the second home stamp duty on a snail. So it's actually cost less than half of what legal costs, purchase costs, moving-in costs would have been, and it should be a lot more fun.

A big bonus is that we can now spend more time visiting rural parts that we don't know, in the hope that we might stumble across the ideal future location, and we now don't have the pressure of moving from our main residence and selling the little house within 3 years to get the 2nd home stamp duty back.

Now, does anyone know anything about micro-caravans and the best places to stay that are small, uncommercialised, adult only, in the depths of beyond, and not necessarily with facilities?

Does anyone have a field we could visit?

Years ago, in another life, when I lived in South Somerset, we ran a CCC certificated site - which in those days involved cutting the grass in the field once a month, digging a new pit for emptying loos occasionally (and filling in the previous one), making sure the water tap in the yard was turned off tightly every night, and receiving £1.50 a night from people who stayed. There is now so much choice and it's all rather confusing.

Thought for the day

In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.

- Maxine Hong Kingston

First cut is the deepest

I now know why A&E Departments are so over-stretched.

Yesterday, I cut the end of my thumb on my dominant hand on a piece of broken glass flower that I was cleaning (stupidly with my fingers) prior to re-firing in the glass kiln to put it back together (we make it, a cat breaks it, and the kiln can mend it).

It was a deep cut, from side to side, and then down a bit, as I stupidly, without thinking, ran my thumb over the sharp broken edge to remove the mud, just above the upper thumb joint. I had just put the tenth piece of kitchen roll on it (the first nine having been sodden with blood to the point of being able to ring them out) when an old colleague arrived to catch up on the past 6 years since we last met.

She nearly fainted as I opened the front door, a trickle of blood running down my arm, jingled her car keys, and said, "Time for a trip to the hospital!"

"Nice to see you again too! But, it's fine," I said, "just needs a bit more pressure and then maybe some steri-strips."

"I've had two kids," she said, "and although it's a few years since I've had to take them to A&E, that definitely needs to go." (Aside - her kids are mid/late 20s now - one, she told me, is currently pregnant; I said, "Does she have a partner?" "Well, we assume that she did, once..." came the reply.)

I led her into the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, added some ice (when the sun shines, I can make ice), dripped some blood in by accident... tipped out the water and ice, refilled the glasses, and changed the 'dressing'.

"I can't watch that!" she said, "We need to go!"

"Stop fussing, it's slowing down. Honestly, it's fine. It will be fine. I've washed it out, sprayed it with anti-viral spray, and re-washed it. It will be fine. It hurts, but a couple of paracetemol will sort that."

We sat outside, enjoying the sun, by the pond.

"How many times did you take your kids to A&E?" I asked. She thought for a moment. "Oh... 40 or 50, in total, I suppose..." "Didn't you ever do a basic first aid course?" I enquired. "Well, it's better to be safe than sorry, surely? And I don't have the right bandages and stuff in the house." "Baaad mummy!" I joked. "You haven't changed, have you?" she said, laughing.

This morning I asked Cleaner BW how many times she had taken her her two boys to A&E (they too are now in their twenties). "Less than 20," she said.

Given that none of these four kids had any kind of chronic health condition, I was quite shocked by this. "Is that more or less than other people you know?" "Probably less, yes, definitely less," she confirmed.

I've been to A&E three times in my life. Once, aged 6 when I was taken by the school secretary, having fallen off a PE bench while (not) balancing along it, and broken my nose. Once, aged 17, having fallen from top to bottom of the long flight of stairs in the underground at Rickmansworth, while rushing for a train (that's my only trip, on my own account, in a blue-light ambulance). Once, aged 29, having fallen over on a dry ski slope and been crashed into by several other skiers, and having split my eyebrow open and dislocated my little finger (which I pulled back into place on the way to hospital, as no-one else would do it for me, and I knew it would have a worse outcome the longer it was left).

Yes, I have done many first aid courses (starting with first aid badge in Brownies) and progressing to first aid in extreme outdoor education (the trauma doctor running the training remarked that he had never met anyone so totally unflappable and clear-thinking in a full-medical-make-up, acted by actors, medical accident crisis), and I did once deliver a baby in a mountain hut near Fort William one New Year, when those there with me were too drunk to drive to the hospital, and the ambulance was delayed and then couldn't find the location (note - it was easier than delivering breech piglets) but, surely, not everyone goes to A&E for insignificant things?

Perhaps it's the fault of the system: if it cost, say, £20, to go to A&E, people might think a bit harder about whether they could just apply a plaster themselves?

How many times have you been to A&E?

How many times did you take your kids?

Thought for the day

"We have come to live in a society based on insults, on lies and on things that just aren't true. It creates an environment where deranged people feel empowered."

- Colin Powell

Thought for the day

"The day will come when man will have to fight noise as inexorably as cholera and the plague."

- Robert Koch (1843-1910), bacteriologist, recipient of a Nobel Prize in 1905 for his discovery of the cause of tuberculosis, anthrax and cholera.

Less Blue but much happier

It's been a brilliant week.

I must get more Witchy Powers in the week of our 25th anniversary (I shall return to that subject soon - and thank you for the good wishes).

Today, late-afternoon, the BW Party took control of our District Council :)

Well, the closest thing that there will ever be to the BW Party.

A non-Party Political group of local people who understand and care about local issues, with brains and aspiration. More Bins than Brexit round here - the opposite to what the media have been saying all day has happened across the country.

'Keep National politics out of Local politics' and 'People not Parties' have always been my mottos.

The way decisions have been going at District levels in recent times has really upset me. Anti-environmental, pro-over-development, pro-airport expansion, anti-local interests, and, most importantly, anti-the-work of many excellent (unpaid) Local councillors.

A couple of months ago, Mr BW was chased around the non-phone and non-internet connectivity of SA by them wanting him to stand for them on the back of the work he does (as an independent) more Locally, but, amongst other reasons, the thought of then having to work in a minority against the Smug Arrogant Blue Moneyed Gits, knowing that common sense and representing local interests would always lose out to whipped votes along National Party lines, was just too much for him.

As it turned out, the SABMG's have (against all the odds) gone from having overall control to now having just 4 seats left (of whom 3 didn't have residents standing against them, 1 is new, 1 was previously an independent, and 1 was one of only two to defy the whipped votes previously), with the Chair and Leader both having lost their seats, along with our two local Useless Blues (hurrah!). I'm amazed that it has missed the national news, but, it is so amazing that it was unsurprisingly overlooked as a place to send reporters.

So, I am delighted to admit to being wrong in my previous assertion that, round here, you could stick a blue rosette on a pig and it would get elected.

I'm sure it will be a different story come the next General Election - the Blue Rosetted Pigs will remain - but, for now, it's People Power all the way.

Today...

... we attained our first flower badge for longevity.

I'm still deciding whether the spelling mistake came into the choice. Regardless, I am delighted to finally have a rose of our own, given how many I have bought for other people over the years.

We also attained 14 cards - only two from people present at the first party (and none from those present at the first ceremony, which is unsurprising given that it was half way round the world), 3 beautifully hand-made ones, a twin pair and a quadruplet pair. What are the chances?

Yesterday afternoon we spent a lovely 3 hours rewatching our wedding/honeymoon video footage, and today we are heading up to a glassy cathedral, having yummy dinner and snoozes in a watery mill, before going to either a Fen or the coast tomorrow, depending on what the weather looks like in the morning.

We're taking some money and plenty of h0ney.... oh wait, no, that's not right, we're taking a cool box filled with ice and champagne (because £80 restaurant champagne is not Value, and I prefer drinking champagne in my nightie to sitting at a table with unknown onlookers). The silver ice machine, which started off as our anniversary present to each other (and a way of using up some of our over-supply of solar power, rather than donating it to the grid), ended up being a gift from the supplying company who sent out a second hand one then messed up the replacement. And I didn't even have to ask!

Only the current wind is reminiscent of the weather on the day, which was hot and sunny. And 3,600 miles away on an islanded Commonwealth country.

Plenty there for you to work on if you like cryptic challenges.

Thought for the day

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

- Edmund Burke

Politically motivated Art

I have 16 posts sitting in drafts that I have started in the past few weeks and then not had the enthusiasm to finish and post.

Part of it was that I was still really unwell, but the rest is that the decline in democracy, locally, district-ly and nationally, and the breakdown in morals and ethics in our society, and avoidance of some hard truths by those placed to take the hard decisions, is depressing me into inaction.

In such circumstances, I haven't had the urge to be creative. That is not good for me.

Most of the local centres that used to run reasonably priced arty/crafty courses have closed or put up their prices to unaffordable levels.

A few days ago I noticed a free, daily, online, 13 session, course on 'sketchbooks'.

It started today, and runs until May 4th (with catch-up access until May 18th), and, for those of you who may be creatively inclined, but currently in the doldrums, or who would like to start being creative but don't know where to begin (or are scared and would value a simple introduction), it might be worth a look.

A list of the sessions is here.

It's a bit American, and everything is a bit 'super-this' and 'super-that', and you need to skip the last minute of each video as it's a commercial, but the rest is OK - a nice concise reminder of the sorts of exercises I have done many times before, but which are just the thing to re-inspire and re-energise. I've even got Mr BW to participate!

Starting places...

Thought for the day

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

- Douglas Adams

7 weeks on...

Little Ben (faithful old tiny battery-operated alarm clock by the bed) told me it is 8.30am. Netbook clock tells me it is 08:47 (how/why do computer clocks go slow?). Radio 4 starts its 9am programme.

Is it any wonder I have no idea what time it is, let alone which day of the week?

It's 4 weeks today since we left South Africa after 4 weeks, 4025km and 4141 photos.

We had reliable internet and phone access on just 5 days, and variations on reliable/unreliable and internet/phone on the 23 other days. For most people that would be a disaster, but for us it didn't matter at all.

We went to places where most tourists wouldn't either go, or want to go. It was fantastic.

It was the year of the zebras, the three very old flat irons with interchangeable handles (weighing 6kg) that just had to come home with us for my collection, rain where there hadn't been rain for several years (much to the delight of the locals), and the stand-in taxi driver (arranged by our normal man who was ill) who had flu and kindly shared it with me.

And so it was that all the good of 4 weeks of hot sun (with warm rain short interludes) was undone with one nasty virus that has totally wiped me out... most days in the last 4 weeks have had to be spent in bed, and when I have managed to get up and dressed, I have often ended up being unable to do anything for the rest of the day, and if we have gone out for an hour (for example, to get plug plants from a local nursery) I have had a total relapse.

Hopefully things will get better soon.

Oh, and that might apply to that other Elephant in the Room too... all I can say is, told you so.