Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Senior moments
Two bad ones in the last couple of days. First, while watching BH carry the waste bucket off to the compost heap, I open the cupboard door under the sink with the intention of tipping what was left in the tea pot into the same waste bucket - which was not, as it turned out, there. One half of brain plugged into compost was not connected to the other half plugged into tea. Stopped in time.
The good news is that there are signs that the rats are taking the bait in the compost heap. Let's hope that it does its stuff. Presumably I will no longer be able to call anything grown on my allotment organic as I can't imagine that whatever the active ingredient is in the rat poison qualifies. So what do organic people to about rats? Perhaps they have a rat shoot with special shot guns in the way that it is alleged Harrods have an annual rat shoot in their extensive basements. But then perhaps not, there being a strong correlation between membership of the orgies and membership of the veggies.
Second, while looking for a pub I used to visit occasionally near Clapham Junction, managed to walk right past it. Was not convinced that this was the case until we hit the terminal T-junction. On the other hand, the error meant that we found two new pubs, both interesting, in differant ways, and sampled one entirely new beer. There turned out to be an excuse in that the missing pub had been refurbished and no longer sold warm beer, an example of that rather large number of pubs which seem to have gone in for rather precious refurbishments, presumably in an attempt to grab lady trade to make up for the absence of smokers.
But I am becoming telekinetic (or something) because the car came out in sympathy and had it's senior moment. That is to say it refused to start for BH. Option 1, flooding. Option 2, damp weather and car standing in drive. Option 3, one of the cells in the battery gone. Managed to start the thing, then again later that evening and first thing this morning so maybe we are looking at option 1. For some reason all our cars seem to end up suffering from starting problems. No idea what it is we do to them. Let's hope this one - which has so far been good in that department - is not about to join the club.
In an effort to keep the brain on the move and having got bored with Soduku (not, I hasten to add, because I found the puzzles so easy), had a go at the code word underneath. Got as far as seeking a five letter word of the form 'b--mb-' and settled for bimbo, thinking that bombe was too obscure for this sort of puzzle. This resulted in the puzzle containing a very large number of o's which clearly did not work. I tried bombe and that seemed to result in an unhealthy population of e's. Gave up at that point. The answer was indeed bombe - with the quibble that bimbo is in my OED (a sort of drink) and bombe is not. Will I have another go?
Managed to get to the baker and almost back before I started getting wet. Set out just after a sharp shower, everything looking very bright and beautiful. Bark of the trees glistening blackly. The beech trees in the run up to Cheam looking particularly special. But then caught 5 minutes from home by the next shower. But my posh new sweater - rather a hand me up from the sprog - holds up well; just about the right warmth to wear over a shirt but without a jacket in this sort of weather. Multi coloured affair with the colours of a Jacobs sheep, hand spun and presumably hand knitted by some energetic old lady in the Northern Isles somewhere. My second most posh sweater is about twice the weight at2 pounds and 2 ounces, came from a charity shop, and only claims to be hand assembled. Nothing about hand spinning or knitting on the label and it only came from lowly England rather than the more interesting Celtic fringe or the Northern Isles.
The Metropolitan Police continue in the news with the resignation of a senior officer over some expenses and relationship kerfuffle. Very British that someone resigns without being (seen to be) pushed over some footling misdemeanour - but not a flicker when some dreadful cock-up results in someone's death. As they always used to say when I was little, about the only thing a civil servant could be sacked for was for fiddling his or her expenses. Never mind the battleship sinking with all hands or losing the department of ag and fish.
The good news is that there are signs that the rats are taking the bait in the compost heap. Let's hope that it does its stuff. Presumably I will no longer be able to call anything grown on my allotment organic as I can't imagine that whatever the active ingredient is in the rat poison qualifies. So what do organic people to about rats? Perhaps they have a rat shoot with special shot guns in the way that it is alleged Harrods have an annual rat shoot in their extensive basements. But then perhaps not, there being a strong correlation between membership of the orgies and membership of the veggies.
Second, while looking for a pub I used to visit occasionally near Clapham Junction, managed to walk right past it. Was not convinced that this was the case until we hit the terminal T-junction. On the other hand, the error meant that we found two new pubs, both interesting, in differant ways, and sampled one entirely new beer. There turned out to be an excuse in that the missing pub had been refurbished and no longer sold warm beer, an example of that rather large number of pubs which seem to have gone in for rather precious refurbishments, presumably in an attempt to grab lady trade to make up for the absence of smokers.
But I am becoming telekinetic (or something) because the car came out in sympathy and had it's senior moment. That is to say it refused to start for BH. Option 1, flooding. Option 2, damp weather and car standing in drive. Option 3, one of the cells in the battery gone. Managed to start the thing, then again later that evening and first thing this morning so maybe we are looking at option 1. For some reason all our cars seem to end up suffering from starting problems. No idea what it is we do to them. Let's hope this one - which has so far been good in that department - is not about to join the club.
In an effort to keep the brain on the move and having got bored with Soduku (not, I hasten to add, because I found the puzzles so easy), had a go at the code word underneath. Got as far as seeking a five letter word of the form 'b--mb-' and settled for bimbo, thinking that bombe was too obscure for this sort of puzzle. This resulted in the puzzle containing a very large number of o's which clearly did not work. I tried bombe and that seemed to result in an unhealthy population of e's. Gave up at that point. The answer was indeed bombe - with the quibble that bimbo is in my OED (a sort of drink) and bombe is not. Will I have another go?
Managed to get to the baker and almost back before I started getting wet. Set out just after a sharp shower, everything looking very bright and beautiful. Bark of the trees glistening blackly. The beech trees in the run up to Cheam looking particularly special. But then caught 5 minutes from home by the next shower. But my posh new sweater - rather a hand me up from the sprog - holds up well; just about the right warmth to wear over a shirt but without a jacket in this sort of weather. Multi coloured affair with the colours of a Jacobs sheep, hand spun and presumably hand knitted by some energetic old lady in the Northern Isles somewhere. My second most posh sweater is about twice the weight at2 pounds and 2 ounces, came from a charity shop, and only claims to be hand assembled. Nothing about hand spinning or knitting on the label and it only came from lowly England rather than the more interesting Celtic fringe or the Northern Isles.
The Metropolitan Police continue in the news with the resignation of a senior officer over some expenses and relationship kerfuffle. Very British that someone resigns without being (seen to be) pushed over some footling misdemeanour - but not a flicker when some dreadful cock-up results in someone's death. As they always used to say when I was little, about the only thing a civil servant could be sacked for was for fiddling his or her expenses. Never mind the battleship sinking with all hands or losing the department of ag and fish.
# posted by Jim @ 7:15 AM 
