Ducks on Wheels

Today was fun.

We had a menagerie of kids down on the plot enjoying themselves so I didn't get much work done: just spent some quality time with chickens and children. What the hell, I'm on holiday. I think I will just let the pictures tell the story - but notice our broody hen Olive. Can't wait to see what hatches!

Plotters

There is light at the end of the tunnel.


There is also light at the other end.

Before the advent of the diesel engine, the way they got through the tunnels was to lie on your back on top of the boat and use your legs to push yourself through. This will account for the large amounts of small change to be found in the silt at the bottom. For some reason it was impossible to get the horse to lie on its back to perform the same service.





We were having a moan about the weed wrapped around our propeller when our neighbour at the water point told me he had had a whole carpet wrapped round his which damaged the prop shaft and cost him £800 in repair bills. Made me momentarily pleased that I don't own a boat, though in reality I would like the freedom to go anywhere anywhen that ownership would grant.

On the Caldon canal on the way up to Leek you have to raise a number of lifting bridges; two of them are manual and one in Stoke is electric for
which you need the appropriate key which we discovered we had lost on the way back. So we moored up next to a metal casting factory alongside tanks of liquid oxygen, nitrogen and argon and waited for a boat to pass that never came. Well, it was the end of the day anyway so we just made dinner and went to bed. In the morning we had breakfast and waited for another boat which still didn't come. By 9.30 we gave up and rang the British Waterways Board office and pleaded insanity. They sent a very very nice man along with a key who released us from our imprisonment alongside the tanks of liquid gas.



When we got back to Stone we found the Phyllis May. A very very famous boat in Canal boating circles. It's owner, Terry Darlington, has taken this boat on completely barmy journeys across the English channel and all the way down through France to Carcassonne and also down the Eastern seaboard of the USA all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Those of you know a bit about how these boats are built and how they sit in the water and handle will immediately recognise that this is a completely insane thing to do. Of both these escapades, Terry has written delightfully funny accounts and I can heartily reccommend Narrow Dog To Carcassonne to you for a wonderfully entertaining read.


Or have a gander at Terry's website where you can see pictures of this insanity and wonder how Jim does that thing he does with his ears.

I'm a little surprised the frog on Terry's tiller did not jump off a long time ago. Guess his arse is just welded down. Poor chap. We thought we would ask to borrow Phyllis to do Niagra Falls! You never know.

Pipers

The only rational thing to do in a mad mad mad mad mad world is to plant potatoes.

These are Maris Piper and may their tubers tubusculate tubulescently.

Red Nose Day

10 years ago to the day this was our little contribution to Red Nose Day - for my overseas readers, a day in the UK, where we all try to do something funny for money and donate to the comic relief charities.











That was then........and this is now.

Little boo now nearly as tall as his mum and delights in sitting on barstools in posh hotels chatting up the waitresses *sigh* I have to say, he is better at it than I ever was.









Happy Birthday Little Boo








But he only made it half way through that pudding........

A sandwich walks into a bar and sais "give us a pint". Barman sais "we don't serve food".

Joiks!

I love the traditional singing of the Sami reindeer herders: it is so evocative and it does seem to capture so much of the essence of the places or people they sing of. I like it best sung a cappella, though of course you can find modern versions (even heavy metal for, goodness sake) of the songs or joiks, as they call them.

Here is our version of a traditional herding tune from Norway done on hurdy gurdy, flute, accordion and guitar in a very non traditional way. It is called Trill Trall

The bit about shit from pineapple jam is nowt t'do with me I tells ee.

This floor is so cunningly designed, it's under my feet wherever I walk...Gasp!

I'm celebrating Darwin's 200th by drinking tea and holding interactive species learning seminars in my bedroom.

I have invited Ray Comfort and Chuck Missler to speak so that we can get a balanced perspective on the thing and to provide powerful counter arguments to Darwin's theories.

First up Chuck explains cogently how life cannot have gotten started without divine intervention.



Next up, Ray will effectively counter the theory of evolution with reference to a bannana.



We will have a hard time countering such enthralling scholarship.

I note that Ray has just offered to pay $20,000 to The Richard Dawkins Foundation For Reason and Science if he can have a face to face debate with Richard. If he takes a coconut, I am sure he will be able to demonstrate how the fist bra was made....thanks be.

Holes

We are spending half term playing catch up on the allotment. Beds that should have been cleared and manured before Xmas still need doing. In the last couple of days we have dug over some of these and prepared a bed for the broad beans. Also sown in pots or trays, leeks, diamond aubergine, black prince tomatoes and mayan indian tomatoes (both from Terre de Semences).

In the big greenhouse I built some staging for seed trays out of bits of an old wooden bed frame. I've built it so that it can be easily disassembled and stored away when not needed. This should stop me reinventing the wheel every year with whatever timber happens to be at hand.

Tomorrow is table tennis and haircut day and Saturday is Heat the Streets .....we know how to live it up up here I tell you!

Oooo, I just heard that the National Trust is going to make land available for 1000 more allotments. Good for them; wish some local authorities would follow suit now.

Recommended reading: Holes by Louis Sachar

Little n Large

There is a lot I would like to blog about at the moment but nothing is clearly in focus so I can't: at least not without boring you to tears or me shedding them. So be it.

As you can see from the picture of the eggs, one of our girls is just taking the piss out of us but without video surveillance, it is impossible to tell which one.

Talking of detective type things, I have today opted to follow seven blogs and have had to hire a team of private detectives to keep up as they keep surreptitiously diving into doorways passing notes to one another and discussing strange strange things. Consequently I love them all.

Hey Stonehead !

Stonehead: Why can't I read your blog now?...It's asking me for a password. Whassup?

Apple Trees

In flurries of snowfall we planted out the two new appletrees - a Royal George which is a cooker and a Ribston Pippin, a Yorkshire bred variety and an eater who's name I will probably forget and end up calling it a Branston Pickle.

Underneath the snow, the ground was not hard to dig and I dug down fairly deeply and filled up with a mix of well rotted pigeon shit and compost and then topsoil.

I feel unfit after a winter of not digging very much and spending too much time trampling my fingers across a keyboard. However hard I try, I cannot make this an aerobic exercise.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

I see the white vans passing from the city out into the dusty countryside; past the olive groves and the goats looking up, their bells tinkling. The vans, the Metaphores, carrying the meaning of peoples lives in the chairs and tables and tv sets and cd racks and knives and forks and sofas and beds piled up higgledy piggledy in the back.

For that is what metaphor means: to transfer; to carry meaning. Our language is riddled with it and it rattles around like a skeleton in the cupboard of our vocabulary. Once, the words and phrases, these metaphoric skeletons, had flesh too: they meant something in the culture in which they were created, and everybody understood it.

In the busy dockyards of England where they built the great fighting ships for Drake and Nelson, the workers were allowed to carry home off-cuts of wood, not above a yard long, to fuel their home fires. The port authorities became suspicious that workers were taking timber that was far more valuable than just firewood and they stopped the practice - which the workers had come to view as their 'right' - every job should have a little perk, no? The workers were incensed and felt huge resentment that this boon was taken from them, so they downed tools. The bitter disputes were eventually resolved by the authorities reinstating the practice, but the workers had to walk out of the dockyard gates with the timber carried very visibly on their shoulders so that it could be seen not to be above a yard in length. They deeply resented this lack of trust but had to grudgingly comply if they wanted to take any wood home.

This is where we get 'he has a chip on his shoulder' from. The metaphor is a skeleton which once had flesh. Though the flesh has long since decayed, we still understand the meaning very well. But therein lies a problem. Though it enriches our language and transfers meaning well from one generation to the next, unless we understand the cultural context in which it was created and unless we appreciate that the language should not be interpreted literally, (eg in the way that Christian fundamentalists do it), then we can run into great difficulties because culture changes so dramatically over time.

Lets say we've dumped ten thousand tons of high level nuclear waste with a half life of 25,000 years. Lets say in that time that a catastrophic event takes mankind back to year zero and it takes ten thousand years to recover. In that time, the language, the written word, may change utterly and completely beyond all recognition. How can I convey to my great great great great great great grandson not to go digging around on that particular clump of our wonderful planet.

I haven't got a clue, and though it's brass monkeys out there, the sun is shining and the world has a soft blanket of snow, like glitter on a party dress, and I have an apple tree to prune and two to plant; chickens to feed whose knickers I will not count until they are washed.........er!

"and to the rhythm of the drum...I beat myself to kingdom come"....er

I am going to have a serious rethink about my own musical career.....



Then again.....

Duk Pu Ping

When I was a lad, we were only aware of the existence of a few of the martial arts, karate; ju jitsu; kung fu. Now they seem to have multiplied exponentially and you can do all sorts of exotic things like Bok Fo Do or Fu Jow Pai or Kuk Sool Won or Chun Kud Do, to name but a very few. As for myself, I did Aikido, which means Way of Harmony; supposedly one of the least aggressive and more defensive forms, a bit like Tai Chi Chuan with teeth. I enjoyed it until I did my knee in spectacularly; not practicing Aikido, but during a game of football - and it's never been the same since - boo hoo :-(

Thing about the martial arts is, well, they're just so....martial. Whichever way you cut it, they are about violence. Violence, sadly, just seems part of the human condition, doesn't it? From your pub brawl to your phospher bombs in Gaza and daisy cutters in Afghanistan.

On the plus side it's good aerobic exercise and they can teach balance, self control, coordination etc, and I'd like to think Ben would (using these techniques), stand half a chance up against the increasing number of der brains on the streets who seem to delight in beating people up for the sake of it, for fun, on a whim.

It's a nice little earner for Mr Dojo owner though isn't it? Have to be a bit wary of that you do. I mean, look at all these kids crowded into a grading session all paying fifteen squid a time to get their white belts and a 2c certificate. They are so bunched up there's barely room for a bad hiccough without twatting someone in the eye. When I complained about that the excuse was someone had made an administrative error and two sets of letters had gone out instead of one....scuse me. I let it go though as Boo would have been heartbroken not to get his belt today. He got it and he's happy. I just have to put up with him now coming at me like a windmill on speed yelling Hoi, Hoi, Hoi or Hhhuuuu Ya! while aiming devastating punches and disemboweling kicks in the general direction of me bits. I'm quite attached to, and fond of me bits though: they still have a bit of life left in them; so I do my best to remember whatever Aikido moves I can to protect them and yell Hoi, Hoi, Hoi and HHhhuyyy Ya to you to.... in as convincing and japanese a manner as possible.


When we gets home I am at the kitchen sink washing and peeling potates to have with the evening meal. He opens the door and stands looking at me with this glint in his eye. I KNOW what is coming next. I make a mind bogglingly fast shift into the defensive stance of a master brandishing my peeler and look at him with steely yet calm yet stangely quiet and determined eyes.

I inform him in a deadly whisper of menace that he is looking into the eyes of a master of Spud Pi Ling.

Time And Relative Dimension On Plots

Later on.....

The Doctor arrived with the Master; both completely legless after a heavy session drinking tonic screwdrivers on Galafray.

They messed the scale filters up something chronic. I'm putting them to bed with the chickens. Serves em right.

Silly Girls

The greengage finally got planted today. So, nearly, did a couple of hens.

Greengage

It would be nice to start the new year by planting this greengage tree but the ground is just rock hard.

We've also a cherry and a peach tree to put in. Just have to wait till it thaws a bit.

Lovely day to start the year though.

Words worth

May I wish all my readers as much health, peace and happiness as another spin around our beautiful sun can bring you.

I'll see this one out with a song; Words.mp3

Words are gentle words are strong
Words are used in every song
Words can heal and words can part
Words can even break your heart
Words say nothing or a lot
Sometimes words are all you've got
Words like love or guilt or blame
Snow or fire, wind or rain
Spoken lightly or in jest
Words are used in every test
Words can give and words deny
Words of truth, words that lie
Words begin and words can end
Some you get and some you send
Words can can smile, words can cry
Words can speak but never sigh
Words are spoken, words are read
Some are whispered in your bed
Words like always, wrong or right
Some just drift into the night
Eat your words and drink the sky
Words can make a humble pie
They burn like fire and freeze like ice
Some command a heavy price
Words reveal they also hide
Silence is a word denied

Laugh or Cry?

Now then, after you've heartily overstuffed yourself and then slathered yourself in the perfume of choice, you will be aware (will be made aware), that now is the time to rush out and buy a new sofa prior to plonking oneself in front of the boob tube for some mind numbingly seasonal entertainment. Yep, perfumes are out and sofas are the next big thing. Goody.

As Jonathan Bignell explains “The semiotic analysis of advertising assumes that the meanings of ads are designed to move out from the page or screen on which they are carried, to shape and lend significance to our experience of reality.”

Oh dear, dear Humanity; such things make me laugh and make me cry.

Fortunately, there are other things in life to make me laugh and make me cry.

This year......

Laura made me laugh.

Nick made me cry.

Over to you then?

EDIT: But srsly; is there not something wrong here? We accrete possessions to fuel our vanity and hope to find that some of their worth will rub off onto our own person and enrich us somehow and we buy (literally) into this delusion while our true poverty is hidden behind an illusion of wealth.

As EM Forster aptly puts it in 'Howards End', "We are reverting to a civilization of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the middle classes accreted possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty." Later, he has the somewhat flighty and romantically inclined Helen Schlegel say....."in the end, the world will be a desert of chairs and sofas - just imagine it! - rolling through infinity with no one to sit upon them." I can't put it any better than that really.

Eau de Plot...because it's worth it.....

For your loved one this Christmas...........

Because you know who you are and you know what you're standing in and you know what you smell like and you know where your plot is and you know what your going to plant and you know where you're going to plant it.

Only £49.99 per 100cl bottle direct from clodhoppers outlet (while stocks last).

Puddlesome

At some point this winter I want to get round to doing something about this soggy area between the shed and the greenhouse on the top plot. It is permanently waterlogged. It makes the left side of the greenhouse too wet and even when it's sunny and hot and you want to collect some water from the barrels at the back you'll find this patch still annoyingly puddlesome.

Truth is, I keep putting it off: partly because I want to do it when it has at least dried out enough to dig sensibly, and partly because I'm not really sure what the best thing to do is. Maybe just dig a soak-away trench? There isn't a natural slope away from this spot and the water butts being where they are probably don't help matters.

Sometimes, you just get those jobs that you'd rather would just go away and leave you alone, but every time you look, there they still are pestering you like an ill mannered Cornish pixie.

Anyone else got jobs like that? What are they?

Robin's Hoodies

Tibbs lay stretched out on the front room window sill at Malkin Tower gazing out over Pendle Hill, its frosting of ice crystals giving it the appearance of a giant wedding cake. He watched Alizon walking up the path towards the front door; she was enjoying scrunching up the ice in the puddles beneath her black boots.

Demdike sat snoring in front of the fire as usual; it was her favourite place for spending the long cold winter months. She stirred as Alizon clattered in through the door, throwing her cloak across the back of a chair and struggling to cast her boots off so she could warm her chilled toes in front of the fire.

‘W’er you bin?’ Grumbled Demdike, disturbed from her dreams.

‘Bin to London,’ answered Alizon, twinkling her toes in the warmth from the fire.

‘London eh, whatever for?’

‘Folk ‘av bin askin us to sort out this credit crunch business; sum as are losin ther jobs n homes n all and sum ar worser n that even.’

Tibbs stretched out his paws and jumped down off the window sill to come and curl up on Alizon’s lap.

Demdike sat up and leaned forward to stir the pot of onion soup simmering away on it’s cradle in the fireplace. She gave Alizon a quizzical look and settled back in her chair. ‘What av you done?’ She asked suspiciously.

‘Is that soup done?’ Asked Alizon, avoiding the question; Demdike did not always approve of Alizon’s witchcraft: it was too modern for her tastes…. too… method school.

‘No,’ answered Demdike ‘now, what’ve you done girl?’

‘Well...I..er…..oh, not much, really. Just tinkering, really.’

‘And……?’

‘Well, just sort or rearranging the government a bit, that’s all.’

‘How, exactly?’

Alizon decided that it was useless to avoide Demdike’s questions: they would go on and on and on, all night if needs be, till the truth came out.

‘Er…..well, I sent Gordon and Alastair away for the weekend.’

‘Oh, good grief…..where to?’

‘More…er… sort of when and where to, really’

‘C’mon girl.’ Demdike gave her a sharp look. ‘Where, when?’

‘Oh, medieval England, about 1263, give or take. Sherwood Forest to be precise. I gave Robin and Alan a Dale the weekend off. Be good if they bump into the oak dragon, don’t you think?’

Somewhere in Sherwood, 1263, give or take…….

“Kind gentlemen and yeomen good
Come in and drink with Robin Hood.
If Robin Hood he be agone
Come in and sup with Gordon Brown.” ..(?..no idea)

“No! those days are gone away
And their hours are old and gray,
And their minutes buried all
Under the down-trodden pall”
“Though their days have hurried by
Let us two a burden try.”…(Keats….no?)

Gordon: You look good in those tights, Darling.

Alastaire: Thanks.

Gordon: And what’s with those eyebrows? Bet they’re a chick magnet.

Alastaire: Sometimes. What are we doing here?

Gordon: *shrugs*

Alastaire: What shall we do about this economic downturn?

Gordon: I know, how about we rob from the rich AND the poor and give it to the banks instead?

Alastaire: Yeah, that'll work. How do you do that thing you do with your chin?


……meanwhile, back in Malkin Tower

A pall of golden light spreads across Pendle Hill as the sun begins to set.

Demdike chuckles heartily. ‘For once, Alizon, m’dear, you’ve excelled yourself.’ She ladles some steaming onion soup into Alizon’s bowl and hands it to her.

‘Got any good ideas for Cameron?’

‘Hmmmm’

Cluckold

It was love at first sight. I didn't really stand a chance. I am cluckolded.

Today we dug up another load of King Edward and Desiree spuds; they are keeping amazingly well in the ground, and some turnips and parsnips to make a fine winter vegetable stew. I gave the mint bucket a short back and sides and snipped out the old rasberry canes.

Vive La Lune

If you're a bit of a luney like me, tonights the night if you have clear skies where you are. The moon is usually about 385,000km from Earth, but tonight it will be closer at around 363,000km and should appear bigger and brighter than normal, specially at moonrise.

Postgate

When Ben was a wee nipper we watched a fair bit of childrens tv together. For the most part, I hated it; the modern kids programmes are full of sound and fury and a completely uneccessary manic energy going nowhere. It gave me a headache and left Ben (probably) feeling bemused and over excited. It was TV designed to cater for ADHD kids in the worst possible way. When I (we) could stand it no longer, we would invariably put on something like Tales of the Riverbank with Johnny Morris or Oliver Postgate's Ivor the Engine or the Clangers and breathe a sigh of relief. These were programs with heart, soul, a storyline and above all lots and lots of space. They served me well in my childhood and they have done the same for Ben during his. There really should be a law stipulating that every half hour kids tv show must contain a minimum of ten minutes silence.

Rant over. Fairwell Oliver and thanks. We'll miss you.

Chillfactore?

'Girl's pink salopettes. Suit age 7 - 9 years. Elasticated waist, very warm and used for only one holiday and 2 trips to the Chillfactore.'

I saw this on the notice board at work. I am clearly the wrong sort of person to be working here; I do not know what salopettes are and I suspect I would not even be allowed into a 'Chillfactore.' Is it somewhere you have to drink a Latteh?

Postscipt: I have just found out what salopettes and girls are. *blush*

Alio

One of our favourite tunes at the moment is this slinky mazurka (ALIO) from Pascal Rubens. Apart from the main theme being a beautiful melody, the tune lends itself to endless variations and we have never ever played it the same twice yet and probably never will.

Sorry, but you get a chair moving, fridge rumbling, fire burning, clattering version performed in front of the fire on a chilly winter evening last Sunday.

Pratt St

'Can you tell us where Pratt St is?'

'Camden Town or Kirkaldy, take your pick, and don't you know better than to disturb a lady when she's having a dust bath?'

The Moon is Falling The Moon is Falling

'Dad dad, the moon fell out the sky!'

'Better put it back then son, can't be doing without the moon.'

A Touch of Frost

The cold clear bright days are just the best; I feel happy and glad to be alive on days like this.

Apart from cuddling a chicken, there's not much to be done in the garden; the ground is just like rock and even the pile of muck is too difficult to dig into to spread on the plot.

Looking east over towards school in the valley and a snowy Clougha Pike in the background. Be good to get togged up and climb it on a day like this.

Gotta walk down to feed the chooks though and then go to work.

Living on a Prayer

Since we're on a musical meme it's Ben's turn tonight. He sang with 7,999 (give or take) other kids last night at the MEN arena in Manchester.

I take my hats off to the organisers. Anyone who can get 8k kids to give a passable rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody deserves a big up respec and down pointy fingers with the middle two tucked in....(what is that all about?). I didn't post that one though, it's too big so here is Living on a Prayer by Bye Jovi Bye bye babee bye bye etc..........