The wonderful snow.

The wonderful snow.

Sunday, 5. December, 22:31

And so it came to pass that I ordered some more solid fuel ( Coal ) because I heard that all of England was due for a cold snap. I didn't want to be caught out and left in the cold.

The coal was due for delivery on the 26th of November. The sky unloaded snow on the 26th,27th,28th and 29th of November-it paused for a while and continued upon its merry way on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of December. So there was quite a fall of snow to contend with.
Unfortunately, the coal that I had left ran out on the the 29th... no heating.
I tried 'phoning the County Council Helpline for assistance- they were good enough to send a fan heater out to me. I was told that, even though I am officially recognized as being a person in need of
assistance, they cannot give any more help because I have the facilities to boil water and I can feed myself.
So here I am, sat in a room that has a temperature in the range of 5-10 degrees Celsius being told that there are people worse off than me.
Upstairs, the thermometer in my bedroom seems to be stuck at 0 degrees.
I do have some coal coming tomorrow or Tuesday. But they won't deliver it if there is any ice to deal with...and guess what? My house is surrounded by ice. I've tried to carve a path through the ice, but it just froze over again.
Oh well, I'll just have to wait for the thaw.

Kids?

Ho-hum.


 Apparently I've managed to 'upset' one of the '  'ard boys ' of the locality in which I live.
Well, this really worries me-not.
It irritates me in the same way that banging your funny bone irritates, it isn't that serious but it is still an inconvenience.
The Kid is about 15 years old, he fancies that he is going on 25 and also fancies himself as a bit of a 'gangsta'. He is in fact, a sad little twit, a chav, who it appears is descended from a line of alcoholics and drug-abusers.


 Both his parents and grandparent are known to have 'partaken' in the past. In fact, grandfather was taken off to hospital a couple of days ago as the result of some kind of spree.

I was just walking passed the house of the Grandparent, minding my own business, when the verbal abuse started up again. OH SHIT!

 This abuse ( including threats of violence ) have been occurring intermittently for about two years and, I thought, had been sorted out after the intervention of the police.
Not so. This kid is either just a little too stupid to understand the consequences of his actions or that he is so full of himself that he believes that he is untouchable.
Anyway, there he was " giving it large" with the usual insults and threats of violence towards me.
I decided too try to solve the situation by going and having a chat with someone who lives nearby his grandparents house. This person is one of the most level-headed and reasonable men that you might ever meet.
He is also subject to a similar level of abuse from this kid and his merry band of Cohorts ( aged from 10 to about 14, average is about 12 )

After a quick discussion it was decided that the police should be involved once more. They were called, a protracted conversation took place between this other person and the police and finally they condescended to send out an officer. I went home, although not until I had given grovelling thanks to this other person.
As I sat in front of my computer keyboard I reflected that perhaps my approach to dealing with situations such as just had occurred could do with some modification.
You see, my approach is one that might be described as " fighting fire with fire ", a policy that usually works.
It does sometimes go wrong, with interesting results ensuing, but normally enough fear is created to quell all but the most ardent of antagonists.
Maybe it is because I am getting older and slower that fisticuffs seems no longer to be viable proposition.
Perhaps it is because the pain resulting from such an activity lasts just a little too long that I ought to seriously consider a more pacific plan of action.

The First of October

I am actually feeling quite happy today.The weather is being very autumnal-in that it has been raining for most of the day. This would, as a rule, cause me to feel most miserable mainly because of the limitations that it would place on me.

I have to rely on Public Transport to get around for any journey other than 'popping around to the shops' and standing around waiting for the bus or train to arrive in the pouring rainis not an activity that I relish- so another bloody day looking at the monitor screen of my PC was all I had to look forward to. OH GOODY!

Mind you, it wasn't all doom and gloom.

No siree, not at all.

Today is the first day of some golf tournament or other at a place called " Celtic Manor " near the Welsh town/city of Newport. This event is supposed to be so important that the BBC, in it's wisdom, saw fit to concentrate all the resources of one of their five national radio networks to the reporting of the activities that are associated with this golf tournament. I have never been able to understand as to just why sport; and the reporting of it, is deemed to be so important.

For crying out loud, sport; in its many forms, is nothing more than a way of taking exercise, a way for a person to maintain their fitness, both physical and psychical.

You know-" a healthy mind and healthy body" ?

An explanation...

I don't suppose that anybody will read this, but what the heck, it gives me something to do.
Today is Tuesday the fifth of October.
The weather is- well-it is  appropriate for this time of year- which is kind of re-assuring I suppose.
It has been raining.
 The little river that runs its course on the other side  of the road that my house is by has looked more like an extended smear of mud for most of the year, actually looks like a river now.
It is actually called the River Wollen and it flows down to and through a shallow gorge that has been given the name of  " The Creswell Crags ", even though the gorge has the postal address of Whitwell

So September comes...

So September comes...

and with it the rain.

I suppose that Summer is over, not that it really ever arrived.

There hasn't really been a summer this year, just some days when the Sun has shone and the temperature has been a bit higher.

A fairly average English Summer.

The weather

The weather, or rather the temperature has been falling for the last few days.
So much summer I suppose

Mind you, if the temperature rises after the second week in September everybody is more-or-less obliged to make some comment upon the ' Wonderful Indian Summer' we're having.

Typical!

What fun!

What fun I have had today.

Today being Friday I thought that I might take it easy and just mooch around the house.

Breakfast and then a slouch around the village to see what, if anything, was happening.

Not a lot was going off so I thought that I might go and buy some food from the Welbeck farm shop. 

This I did noting the hordes of tourists visiting The Creswell Crags Visitors Centre on my way. 

After all this exertion I didn't feel like doing much else other than checking the internet out for something of interest. All went well until I downloaded and installed an update for my modem dongle from Microsoft after which the bloody thing stopped working! 

I tried to solve the problem-no, that didn't work, neither did that, I decided that I needed a new modem.

So off I went to Worksop to get a new one. It amazes me how much foul language I use when performing a simple task

 like installing the new dongle. I mean, it's supposed to be a simple matter of plugging it into an empty USB slot.

 The computer, for some reason thinks otherwise because it uninstalled the keyboard and the mouse. Then I remembered to put the sim card into the new modem dongle and everything is more or less tickety-boo-well it seems to work.

 What an exciting life I do lead!

Umm...it's more or less Thursday...

Well, that's Wednesday done with- the clock has just chimed the hour. ( Well, whined more than chimed, the battery needs replacing.) Today, or rather yesterday was -well- Wednesday-the middle of the week. It was a typical day in that it was middling boring-nothing that couldn't be coped with.


Although to tell the truth, there was some excitement. I went out  and had a look at the newly re-decorated community resource centre. It provides space for a coffee shop, that also sells bric-a-brac, books and suchlike.
And more importantly, it provides various education courses for the people of this village. This place is like many other settlements the whole world over. It was formerly a coal-mining community- a " pit-village ". Its whole reason for its existing was for the mining of coal. Before the pit was here, there were only a number of farms.

For about 90 years the pit brought prosperity to its owners and a kind of living to the folk that were employed in servicing the pit and its workers.

Then in in the 1990's it was decided, by the Government of the day, that Coal was no longer the fuel of choice. So they instigated a closure programme for practically all of the collieries in the British Isles.
With a speed that was alarming the industry changed from being a major employer to being part of  " our heritage ".
Of course, not only did all the colliery workers get thrown out of work but all the associated industries lost the majority of its trade and with it came more unemployment.
And did the Government plan for anything to replace this loss? It did not. It crowed loudly that the " free market " will provide a suitable replacement, And the " free market " did provide a replacement, in the shape of drug-pushers  all dedicated to giving a " little something-something" to those souls enterprising enough to thieve goods and money from others so that they might find some kind of chemically induced peace...
Hmm...

Ashbourne ' 09

Some images of the Royal Shrovetide Football game at Ashbourne, Derbyshire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Afternoon

Another Day Being the occasional semi-coherent ramblings of someone who is overfond of laying in bed and watching the passing clouds through his bedroom window.

The weather 

The weather, or rather the temperature has been falling for the last few days. 

So much summer I suppose.

Mind you, if the temperature rises after the second week in September everybody is more-or-less obliged to make some comment upon the ' Wonderful Indian Summer' we're having.

Typical! 

After hauling myself away from watching the clouds go by, I actually left the house and did some shopping. 

The need to get some food down my throat was quite pressing.

After buying something or other I headed home.

My progress was arrested by someone I know and we fell into conversation. 

Before long the subject of conversation veered around to the internet.

Somehow the writing a 'blog cropped up, the other person stating quite categorically that he couldn't write one because he hadn't got the time.

As I walked home, the reflection that time is what I have a surfeit of trudged wearily across my mind and it did not please me. 

I am going to have to cheer myself up somehow. 

Let's see, perhaps a film (DVD) might help-let's see-what have I got? 

The opera " Satyagraha " by Philip Glass? 

Hmm...180 minutes plus with no interludes? 

Nope, my bladder nearly burst the first time I watched it. 

It's an amazing piece of work which I love but I just didn't have the stamina for.

How about a bit of Britten? Peter Grimes: all about social isolation. 

A riveting work expertly performed by the composer with Peter Pears taking the lead role.

Not the most cheering piece, so perhaps not. 

Likewise for other Britten operas...nope. 

Amelie: a piece of cinematic whimsy with an underlying positive message- okay, I'll watch that. 

While I was looking at this piece of French whimsy the thought occurred to me that I am probably a miserablist . 

With this realisation I felt happy.

Another Day: This is a view of Edale from the backside of Mam ...

Another Day: This is a view of Edale from the backside of Mam ...: "This is a view of Edale from the backside of Mam Tor."

This is a view of Edale from the backside of  Mam Tor.

Today the weather is okay.

The weather today is okay- at least it isn't raining.
 This being the case my first thought I had when I looked out
of my bedroom window this morning was, " Great, I can get all of those pairs of Jeans washed."

and not " Good, I can go to Edale and climb up the back of  Mam Tor and listen to the silence. "

As I was pegging the washed clothes out on the line I reflected that I must be getting old because it wasn't all that long ago that 'doing the laundry' was an irksome chore that could be avoided by going for a bracing walk around places such as Castleton in Derbyshire.

It's Nearly Tuesday

Blending the content seamlessly-I have noticed how easy it is to get " fat-fingered " when making an entry via the QWERTY keyboard.
I spend about half as much time again correcting errors as I did typing the deathless prose in the first place.

It's still Monday

Despite carefully checking my first posting, a mistake still managed to slip through.
 It's a good job nobody else saw it.
I mean how embarrassing!
 All that effort to produce an article that was cogent and I make a simple mistake like that!
Anybody capable of thought might deduce that the possibility exists that I may be a little to self-absorbed
if I feel the need to make a comment about such a thing!

Heaven forfend!

Today is.....Monday

I like the way I managed to hide most of my double-chin when I took that snapshot of myself.
Well-this is grand isn't it?
I've managed to get myself a blog, 
It's like this... I had nothing better to do. A mad experiment that I tried out on myself involved using the Google portal to peruse " free porn ". Which is something that I did for a few days, just out of curiousity. I didn't actually subscribe to any of the sites that I saw.

I wanted to see what sort of feelings such a course of action might evoke in me and I can safely say that watching paint dry is far more exciting than viewing the stuff that you will find on such websites.

Thomas Hobbes wrote in " De Cive " or " Leviathan " that apparently, a person chooses to undertake a particular action because they believe some advantage will result from the execution of such an action.
What I have actually gained from such a pursuit is that there is actually no such thing as " free porn ".

There is always a price to be paid.

If a person is mug enough to want to watch more of such crap the price is initially financial.
There is another effect perhaps of greater concern concerning both the " free viewer "and the
"payee" and that is the way that viewing such material seems to desensitise the viewer.



 Perhaps Celibacy wasn't such a bad idea after all...