Good morning from a currently damp Jersey due to overnight rain but it looks like we've got another fine day ahead of us.
Afternoon all, another very hot day. Been taking more water from the house to my veggies, yet when I spoke to friends in Dorset last night it was tipping it down with rain and they wished it would stop. It has always been cheaper for me to book a ferry when going to England in £'s rather than €'s until today. When I did some sums I found that because of the lousy exchange rate of the pound the price was just about the same. The answer is to cut my visits from three a year down to two to save money, something that a number of others here are talking about. Apart from even less chance to see WFC I will not miss it that much.
Morning all, warm, dry and sunny here again. Water restrictions are in place for the farmers, and you can see some things in the fields that are not growing as well as in more normal years. Off to do some more painting for my daughter this morning before it becomes too hot. The plasterer who has made a great job of some of the house has gone missing, and it really needs him to finish if the house is to be habitable for Christmas.
Scaffolder has arrived so that a builder tomorrow can put in a cavity trap above our extension roof which the Building Inspector has insistedon as the original builders failed to do any damp proofing
Just back from the Ageas Bowl, wondering again how the English with our climate invented cricket. One hours' play and three hours watching persistently grey skies. The floodlights were on. Had it been a one-day game with a white ball play would have been continuous. A red ball is apparently too hard to see under lights. Well when I played you were expected to see it in virtual darkness against quick bowlers with no helmets for protection. It seems a matter of umpires with a set of regulations about bad light no-one else can understand and players with no powers to over-rule them, despite both teams having an interest in winning the game at this stage of the battle for the title and against relegation, can leave a patient crowd with nothing to watch. Very frustrating!
Good morning all from a warm and dry Weston-super-Mare! Lots of rain promised for later, hopefully it will let me get to town and back before it starts! Have a good day!
Morning all, blue sky and another warm day in store. Yesterday I added a new string to my bow, sheep rescue services. My daughters garden is a large area fenced off from the fields behind the house with pig wire, and some stupid animal had it's head through it trying to get at some green vegetation. I had no idea how long it had been there, but it was well and truly trapped. As hard as I tried to push it backwards with it's ears held down, it tried to come towards me. Eventually having made the opening as large as possible, with one foot on the bottom wire holding it still, I used the other foot on top of it's head to push it back through. It scampered off seemingly none the worse for wear, just leaving some wool on the wire to show where it had been. Many farmers are having to feed their cattle with winter feed as there is no grass growing and it is common to see tractors with large water containers heading off to fields where they have cattle or flocks of sheep. No doubt when it does decide to rain it will not stop, but I have no idea when it will start.
You should have called me in - while in Wales we became particularly good at rescuing stupid sheep - but also managed to help goats and cows too. Funnily enough the pigs always got anywhere they chose to go - strong little ..... ers
We have quite a few mainly non-venomous snakes around. One, who is known personally as Sid lives in our back garden, spending the afternoons sun bathing on the wall. He is rather splendid, silver and grey and about a metre long. At one time Mme had a nice strawberry patch in front of the barn that was netted to prevent the birds having the best of the crop, but the trouble was that snakes became entangled in the netting and had to be cut free. Sometimes when cut out they would play dead, so I would take them down the road and put them in the grass verge. Within a matter of minutes they would come to life and be off.
Good day.. Update - my hard drive shorted out and started smoking... resulting in a dead power connection...it all melted So I have been reliant on my phone and a really poor tablet for a week.... we are just moving to a new drive etc..... but been a mighty challenge
I hope it is long lasting. If it is Tarmac make sure it is not a bit left over that you can have on the cheap.
Good morning all from a warm and drying out Weston-super-Mare, it rained nearly all day yesterday from around 10 am. Have a good day!
Morning all, somewhat overcast in rural France this morning, meaning it is a little cooler. Just been reading an article about University students who come to mainland France to do their studies from the overseas departments. Despite speaking the language they have problems communicating because of their accents. A French native however pointed out that he grew up in the north of the country, but when he took a job in the south west he was treated as a foreigner because of his accent. Strangely enough I was speaking to someone last year who told me very accurately where I live. I would have thought that my command of the language was heavily overlaid with English, as it almost certainly is, but somehow I must have picked up some regional twang. I must admit that when I hear people from some parts of the UK these days, I have to ask Mme what language they are speaking.
I knew a German a while back who had received lessons for years from a Scottish teacher and he had a very decided twang. Within a few years Jan Molby was speaking English with a scouse accent, so it can happen. Fortunately I learned German in Hamburg, and they say that the best German is spoken between there and Hannover - when I moved here I had real problems with the Cologne and Rhineland dialect, and they knew that I had lived in the north.
