foolhandy

It took 50 days to grow, and just 15 minutes to remove…

And wasn’t it fun along the way!

Why do people wear a tache?!

Which look’s the best for me folks?

Here’s the Wii Fit Hula Hooping Masterclass we’ve all been waiting for…

For some reason YouTube didn’t like them and wouldn’t play them properly so click on the links to see them :

Murph’s First Attempt At Wii Fit Hula-Hooping

Steve Showing The Moves That Are Set To Slay New Zealand’s Dance Floors

Heavy breathing courtesy of the cameraman!

Enjoy…

…gone.

In search of warm shade.

Gardener Monty Don says he is spending his time recovering from a stroke “pottering around and having a nice time”. It might not be glamorous, but it’s a simple pleasure, and it could be better for you than you think.

Well Done to the BBC for highlighting such simply and uplifting pleasures!

I did some gardening yesterday. The wonderful weather was there to be made the best of and so I cleared some of the longer grass around the edges, mowed the lawns, watered the potted plants and rhubarb and started work on our vegetable growing.

This was quite a moment, as I’ve never grown vegetables in my own garden before. Vegetables in other gardens and flowers in my own but not like this. The aim eventually is to have raised beds but we want those on the side next to the soon-to-be-replaced fence so I’ve delayed doing anything about them. In addition I bought a considerable number of small plants from the school gardening club and they needed planting.

As you can see I’ve had to lift the turf in a couple of places on the lower lawn. There are purple cabbages, runner beans, shallots & cauliflowers all planted a bit too close together… It was only once I’d dug out the first patch that I realised just how much I’d underestimated the amount of space I was going to need for the plants I had bought, and even though I then dug a second patch I think they’re going to crowd each other. We’ll see how they get on with limited personal space in the coming weeks. Incidentally, am I the only one getting a freshly-filled-grave vibe here?!

The garden’s looking reasonable at the moment. The sheds still require expletive prefixes and the new fence (when it happens!) will help but it’s not the place I was despairing with a month or so ago. Amazing what a bit of summer sun can do… My only complaint really is the almost complete lack of colour other than green. There are a number of red rose buds preparing to bloom just behind where this picture was taken but apart from that it’s down to the orange anti-dog netting the previous owners put up to break the monotony. That’ll be a goal for next year then.

It’s very easy to bask in warm shade when there is actually warm shade around to bask in. The past weekend is a typical example. Sat under the parasol on the patio having breakfast, mowing the lawn and smelling the freshly cut grass, sitting chatting at Thaxted windmill looking out over the fields - all in shorts and t-shirt and all without feeling cold or in need of some colour other than grey. There was no difficulty for me in submitting to a state of mind where all was good in the world. Senseless toil was as far from my mind as is possible when work is only a day or so away, and I fell asleep happy.

I have however been awake for the past two hours stewing. It’s all very well making decisions and intending things to happen but you can’t just click your fingers and be at a point several months down the line before you’ve lived through the here and now, making sure those damned hoops are satisfied… The balancing act is making slowly easing the system back to where you want it. If you’ve found yourself running again there’s folly in trying to walk before you can jog.

The sun is shining again today. I have important decisions to make and important work to do. I wonder how many opportunities there will be for basking today, either physically or mentally.

It’s very easy to bask in warm shade when there is actually warm shade around to bask in. The past weekend is a typical example. Sat under the parasol on the patio having breakfast, mowing the lawn and smelling the freshly cut grass, sitting chatting at Thaxted windmill looking out over the fields - all in shorts and t-shirt and all without feeling cold or in need of some colour other than grey. There was no difficulty for me in submitting to a state of mind where all was good in the world. Senseless toil was as far from my mind as is possible when work is only a day or so away, and I fell asleep happy.

I have however been awake for the past two hours stewing. It’s all very well making decisions and intending things to happen but you can’t just click your fingers and be at a point several months down the line before you’ve lived through the here and now, making sure those damned hoops are satisfied… The balancing act is moving slowly, easing the system back to where you want it. If you’ve found yourself running again there’s folly in trying to walk before you can jog.

The sun is shining again today. I have important decisions to make and important work to do. I wonder how many opportunities there will be for basking today, either physically or mentally.

Why? Well with apologies to Steve for cutting and pasting from a previous e-mail - here goes…

The hoops they get you to jump through and the lack of trust. Just taxing your car is so wrapped up protocols and presumption of guilt that if, like me, you’ve just recently bought a car you need extra documents and different pieces of paper. Why? Because the DVLA themselves haven’t processed the paperwork quickly enough. But because it’s assumed that everyone is trying to illegally register stolen cars I have to put myself out for their lack of efficiency. And what’s more, because the system is so complicated normal Post Offices can’t deal with it, so I would have had to go to my nearest DVLA office which is an hour’s drive each way. Oh, and I’d had to leave work early to get to the town Post Office because they’ve stopped village Post Offices issuing tax discs because of cost involved in training to make sure that people don’t cheat the system - and they wonder why people don’t make use of local Post Offices - because after all, we’re all bastards who are hell bent on breaking every law there is.

And then I went to the Co-op and the (probably) 12 year old lad behind the till made a big point of holding my £10 note up to the light to make sure it was real. I’d taken it out of the Co-op cash machine moments earlier, and what with having been turned away from the Post Office to go and get more documentation to prove I wasn’t peddling cut-and-shut Smart Roadsters (is this in fact possible?) I flipped. I just couldn’t handle yet another presumption of guilt. So I grabbed the £10 note off him and snapped that it was real and that I’d like him to check all the coins he gave as change because I didn’t trust the Co-op either and he looked scared and I walked out with my stuff shaking and close to tears because I’d let my frustrations with always being assumed by the state and businesses to be a criminal get to me in a fashion that’s so unlike me.

When I went back into town (with the required documentation proving my inside leg measurement…) I went back into the Co-op and apologised to the very wary looking check-out guy. It hasn’t made me feel much better, but I know I would have been unable to cope in my mind if I hadn’t gone back and spoken to him.

So there you are. I hate that I am seen as a drunk-driving, TV licence dodging, tax evading, money laundering, cut-and-shut merchant and so must be checked up on and judged as guilty until proved by myself to be innocent. And although it’s the same for everyone I take it personally.

And so enough is enough. There is another way…

I was listening to PM the other day and it was suggested that Disney films feature environmental champions. I’ve never been a great fan of Disney films but this song has always worked for me. Baloo an environmentalist? Maybe, but he’s definitely an idler…

Today the Government has promised that :

“…each child will have access to “at least five hours of high-quality culture per week.”

before stating that :

“The idea of the scheme we’re putting forward is very much for schools and local authorities to come forward with their plans.”

In other words they’ve come up with another pleasing sound bite without any thought given to how these five hours are going to be shoe-horned into an already overcrowded curriculum, leaving schools and local authorities to waste time trying to second guess the Governments ideas so they don’t get another bollocking from Ofsted.

And another thing :

“Some of this could be delivered in the school day, but also we want to give young people the opportunity to do more out of the school day.”

How long before the school day is extended?

Get the children in school so that the parents can work longer hours earning more tax for the Government money to spend on big houses and playthings to keep the children busy because after all those hours working to make life ‘good’ you’ve no energy to enjoy it.

It gets worse…

Sadly I missed the week itself but this Adbusters Slow Down Week Film is relevant every week…

In order to stop the film from playing every time this page is loaded I’m now just linking to it.

Click on the still to see it - it’s well worth it!

Completely unrelated to this post, the first test of the House Kitty Cannon Series took place yesterday.

Often spoken about in hushed, reverent tones I finally played it and now I’m one up after avoiding the venus cat-traps with the scores at 9-9. Updates on the next 6 tests in the best-of-seven series will be posted here.

Possibly.

The time spent in the garden on Sunday involved me trying to rid the gravelled area of brambles. I may end up feeling like Canute, because brambles are not a plant that takes being got rid of  lying down, but I had to do something because they were taking over a large part of the garden and the trailing branches were going over next-door’s fence.

Here’s the evidence of my labours, with before at the top and after at the bottom…

It’s a slightly different camera angle but it is the same spot in the garden. Some of the trailing branches were 2-3 metres away, and I had to cut back most of the bush the brambles were in because they’d become one and the same. It’ll need another going over because I couldn’t find the secateurs to use on the fiddly bits, and there’s still a large multiple-root clump sticking through the under-gravel plastic which will recreate the problem if it’s not dealt with, but other than that I’m quite pleased with the job. And only two small scratches to!

My dislike for VW is no secret, their cars and image being automotive magnolia.

Their latest advert for the Passat sums it up really. Why follow your whims and fantasies when you can be a smug dullard wanker and buy a Passat?
The tagline is “When all around are losing their heads, keep yours.”
PLEASE let me lose my head, PLEASE…