The trailer for the Winter Olympics coverage on TV seems to offer the hope that the normally extremely dull downhill skiing will be enlivened by pursuit by packs of wolves, and that there is a decent chance of seeing an unarmed person irritatingly clad in lycra dismembered by a giant bear. 

Finally, sport I can appreciate! 

 ( Read more... )

- Snowdrops are out in the sunnier spots, and budding in the shady ones

- The odd primrose is trying on a flower

- I had to wait in the lane as I drove home last night for two blackbirds that were conducting a savage life or death struggle to finish and get out of the way. (I entertained myself by humming the Captain Kirk Duelling In Cage With Giant Forks music. You know the bit I mean...)

- I found a newt outside our back door last night. (I think he was just hanging out in a newty manner, rather than waiting to burgle the place)

I hope all of this activity will not be rudely cut short. I know it's been cold, beasties, but it's only the start of Feb, we could have weeks of freeze to come yet!

I have managed to expand 2.5kg of dried tripe to cover 18.5 days.  This works out as about £539 a year on tripe, which is a definite improvement on this summer's total of £775ish a year on tripe.

Dunno why I am so obsessed with cost of tripe in particular, but I just can't let it go!

Oh, also Az's insurance premium has gone up to £17.50 a month, which still seems quite reasonable. For some reason I pay Molls insurance, which was due in December, annually - that cost £312 this time round.

Apparently The Hobbit stage play is visiting Plymouth in Feb and I have been given some theatre tokens... 

Anyone know if it's any good?  I dunno where else this production has been.

Oldies Club has been asked to take another old greyhound, who turns out to be another of Mollydog's half-siblings, Jack's Jewel.  I wonder if we'll get any more of her sibs...?

As you've probably noticed, I am miffed about Dara O'Briain's part ownership of a greyhound which he showed off on telly, but which was none the less killed as soon as it broke a hock, before the TV program was even screened.

Pursuing this miffedness, I polled the Oldies committee, and with their consent and full backing, have been pushing the issue via the social media I have at my command wearing my OC hat as well as my own.  Am impressed by the speed and size of response on Twitter.

 Snow Bengal cat kept in rabbit hutch

Looks ever so much like our Suma...

I am usually loath to laugh at the incompetence of other people in my industry, cos, lets face it, nobody makes big stupid obvious mistakes deliberately, and those in glass houses etc. But this one?  I can't imagine ending up having done this one...

Client calls to say he has had a redirect set up by another company to a remotely hosted URL.  Redirect from 'promotional' address to 'real' address is taking forever to work, what gives, can I have a look for him.

I view source on redirect code, and find, on line 1, a redirect - followed by about 17000 lines of links to random spam websites.  

Seriously, this page which should have been a one-line redirect, is more than 17000 lines long, with every line but 1 being spam.  It was about 4Mb in size!   How did they upload that and not notice it?  If it was a virus or something, why did they not realise the file was so humungous when they uploaded it?   If it was deliberate, HOW did they think the client was not going to notice such a HUGE file loading...?

Spurred into action by the terrifying sight of catkins*, we tried to burn some of the mountain of garden fellings today, but everything was too wet.  Should have saved some dry kindling.  However, I did manage to lay** several yards of hedge, so that was an achievement.

Tomorrow I might try and saw up some kindling and store it in the shed so that next time we try to burn stuff we have something to start the blaze with.

* It can't be spring already! [wails] I'm not ready.   It's only January!

** not in proper hedgelaying manner, because I didn't have any stakes, I didn't bother with clearing out all the junk, and mostly I just hacked stuff off and chucked it all back in, but none the less the hedge is a lot smaller and squarer now.  I reckon the junk is probably good for bugs and stuff.

This article is about an episode of Three Men in a Boat, with Rory McGrath, Griff Rhys-Jones and Dara O’Brian, filmed in October.

They went to see a dog part owned by Dara race in Ireland - which is bad enough, given that the Irish racing industry is pretty grim.

The dog was Snip Nua, and the Irish greyhound racing board have now confirmed that Snip was put to sleep after breaking a hock last month. I cannot believe that Dara O'Brian cannot afford to get a hock problem fixed. I can afford to get a sodding hock problem fixed. This was a puppy, not two years old, if they had even amputated the damn leg, the dog would have coped well.

It wouldn't be a racing dog, but so what?  I believe it is wrong to breed dogs and then kill them for a night's entertainment.

I don't know if the allegation that Redwood Rio was injured on the actual night that the BBC were filming the race is true or not, but I think the less well of all three comedians, and after Molls recent hock issues, I feel a bit sick.

Despite the relatively cold weather and the fact that I pruned it right back against the wall last year, my fig tree is covered in the tiniest buds of things-that-might-become-figs-one-day.   You can tell them from leaf buds because the leaf buds are pointed and the tiny figs are round.

I am torn about my hazel hedges.  For a change, they are only one year away from cutting, so although they have put up myriad shoots, the shoots are as yet pretty slender.   I can cut them now, thus restoring the view for another year and improving the light, or I can leave at least some of them to develop, thus giving me hazel for beanpoles etc in future, but also a bigger task when it comes to cutting them and effectively turning them into a long thin coppice.  

Hmmm.  I think I should try and cut them this year.  I could try making a basket, that only needs thin shoots.   Also I have a feeling that the back hedge probably already has beanpole sized trees in it, that didn't get done last year.

I need to review my seeds and see what I need to get in for next year too. And move the strawberries.  I could do with getting some more bark ground cover for some of the paths as well, mine has become mulch.

Watching the first episode of 'Being Human' last night, my enjoyment of the plot (which was good, though it's not really going anywhere yet so early in the series...) somewhat distracted by one of the sofas in the house shared by the vampire, werewolf and ghost.

It's a rather battered bentwood 3 seater with green slightly embossed cushions.

For many years while I grew up, a bentwood 3 seater sat in our sitting room. A few years before she moved, my Mum had the whole set reupholstered in that same green, slightly embossed looking fabric. When she moved, she didn't have space for the 3-seater, so sold it.

I'm convinced it's the same sofa! Those sofas were never common, and the green fabric was not the original. I'm convinced our family sofa has a new career on telly!

Talk about distant connections to TV shows...

( Heroic strugglings of Royal Mail )

( Snow... In the Cornish Manner )( Read more... )

Updated later in the day because yet another snow post seemed like one too many! :
( The Saab lives up to her Swedish roots.  )

( Things I wish I'd said to an idiot )

Tara's adopters are suppose to be picking her up tomorrow: not sure if that is going to happen or not at the mo.

 ( I made myself an extra greyhound!  )

When snow falls maybe one year in three, or one year in four, for a handful of days, surely, surely it is more educational for children to be out in it, learning how it crunches, how it melts,  how to sledge, how to make a snowman, how to take photos of snow, how to go home and paint it -  than sitting in a classroom doing something they could be doing any day of the year, and wishing they weren't?

Apparently 80 schools in Cornwall were closed today.   I just cannot see this as the educational disaster that the local news suggests it is.

My knees are wet now.  I have been photographing Bert the Gargoyle in the snow, with fairy lights.   We've taken down the rest of the decorations but disentangling fairy lights from snowy bushes can wait!   Drying snowy knees smell funny.