Loft and window cleaning

Many is the time, when things are going badly at work and the weather is good, that I look outside and long for the apparently carefree existence of the window washers. Well this evening Sophie and I lived out this fantasy. Making effective use of the scaffolding we rappelled to just above the roof of the conservatory in order to clean the roof as it had some moss growing on it. Sophie dropped down first, just to make sure the top anchor was secure, no sense in me falling through pains of glass.

Mind where you point the hose Sophie...

I've just wet myself, no not from fear.


Some pictures as the loft has progressed









The view from the loft windows

Movie recommendation

Tonight we watched Hot Fuzz





This is a very British, spoof movie in the same genre as Shaun Of The Dead.

Highly recommended.

Join me on the dark side

Just in from watching THE movie.
Must perform magic, kill, drink blood, eat children ....

Why did I not listen, when the signs were so clear ?

Harry Potter - the antichrist ?

With the release of the movie Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix expect a deluge of commentary on how evil these books are and how they are corrupting the youth.

These nutters at PawCreek ministries claim - 'The Harry Potter books are just another means of blinding millions to the truth. When people love imagination, superstition, paranormal intrigue, witchcraft, and sorcery better than they love truth, the Creator will allow them to be filled with their own desires. When the cup of sin is full, the King will say, "It is enough."' There is more, just follow the link.

Backing up these beliefs are ChristianAnswers.net.

Are these people serious? These are BOOKS, and children, myself included, love the idea of a magical world where spells and potions are possible and where pictures talk and amazing creatures exist.

Thus far, despite all five of us in this family having read all the books at least a couple of times, the worst side effect I have noticed an intense desire to read. For instance we attempted to read the last one aloud as a family but Stephen, we later discovered, had woken in the middle of the night to read ahead (this was a direct breaking of the commandment "Honour thy father and mother"). Oh and to be fair there is a fair amount of squabbling over the amount of time each person gets reading each book before having to pass it on to the next in line.

Do these people want us to stop reading books dealing with magic and fantasy? Should we burn them? Should we issue a fatwa on J.K. Rowlings as for Salman Rushdie. No of course not. So either read the books and see the movies or get a life and focus on something really important.

Week two without TV signal

The scaffolding is still obscuring the satellite dish, so no TV.

We are coping as follows

1. Video coverage of topical news via Internet only - me
   
2. Lots of Wii fitness tests and practice - Sophie and Emily
3. Youtube - Stephen
4. Reading - Annalise and Sophie
5. Organising of digital pictures - Annalise and me
6. Catching up on our DVD subscription backlog - all

I think lack of internet access would impact us much more.

Legacy, what legacy ?

So with Tony Blair resigning, and the subsequent talk of the nature of his legacy, I have been giving some thought to my own legacy. What has particularly alarmed me is he speed at which the builders have been at ripping, tearing and generally teasing the wood-work in our attic into a well designed living area.

Compare their work to mine today .....

My current project is adding functionality to a set of eclipse plug-ins that will aid software developers with the incorporation of a specific security framework used in my company into their own software projects. This security framework is also my responsibility. Now if you are a software developer, or at least a software developer using Java and Eclipse, you may have little idea about what I just said but if you aren't I bet you haven't a clue - and this is my point.

The best outcome for this project is that it improves productivity but because security requirements are so diverse even after using the the plug-in manual tweaking will still be required afterwards. Some people will use it while others will choose not to. Within a couple of years technology will have moved on and there will be a good chance it will become redundant.

Developing software can be considered architecture but despite the use of design patterns like facades, factories and singletons none of what we develop has the endurance of a cathedral, a house or even a loft conversion. No future archaeologist is going to be digging and stumble an eclipse plug-in - "thought to be particularly fine specimen of software dating from the early 21st century".

If this wasn't bad enough none of my children have yet sailed solo around the world, climbed Mt Everest or K2 or in fact become child prodigies at anything. This despite all the advantages of genes and environment.

Would some-one please notice me.

Climbing - Craig yr Ogof

We had a successful days climbing yesterday. Preparation didn't include taking a road map but the navigation system got us as far Llanllyfni (spelling correct) where upon we had to start using our intuition and bland directions to the car park. This process was complicated by the low cloud cover obscuring all the peaks.

This was the road trip

We had to fight our way past these predators on the 60 minute approach route.

One of two lakes below the mountain

Our first sight of the entire climb - it is the peak without cloud cover.

and a few minutes later

View from the base of the climb

Climbing finally - this is first belay position

Despite only starting the climb at mid-day we had a late lunch half way up on a grassy belay stance with beautifully exposed view of the lakes below and the sea in the distance.

Pitch 4 was a complicated by the fact that it was getting late, the wind had come up and I had pushed on past the recommended belay position. Running out of protection and rope I was forced to find a belay stance based on my remaining gear, largely slings and a pair of nuts. The howling wind made communication very difficult and Stephen often mistook the bleating sheep down below as me trying to say something. Thank goodness these were Welsh sheep otherwise they might well have bleated "off belay" or "climbing".

A full six hours and 135 metres later we made it to the top - a most enjoyable climb.

We got back to the car at 7:30pm. During the return trip we stopped off at an Indian and Bangladeshi restaurant that we had noticed 12 hours earlier on the trip. This pushed the estimated arrival time to 2:21AM and feeling really tired, despite stopping often for coffee, we finally gave in to sleep for a couple of hours and subsequently only arrived home at 5:30AM.

The rest of the days pictures are here

Craig yr Ogof

Loft, Skittles and Climbing trip

So the kids are in bed and about to turn in myself. Stephen and I have just completed preparations for a climbing trip tomorrow - The same trip we planned for last weekend. This is a 3.30AM start and a same day, 10PM, return.

I returned home today to discover we now have stairs to a 3rd floor - no need to climb the outside scaffolding, oh and also a note to say we owe the first installment of the building costs from the builders - how touching. I wonder if during the building of the great Cathedrals the Bishop was presentd with a bill each week for the duration of the 100 odd years taken to build them.

Annalise is out partying with work people - supposedly "skittling". Why she can't just settle down and help us with the trip preparations I don't know - something to do with modern decadence and the subsequent decline of the traditional wife.

Good night.

Croquet - the slippery slope to a wheel-chair

Until a month ago I had never ever lost a game of croquet. In fact I had never even played that game, except for one occasion several years ago when we accidental broke a hoop, by bashing it into hard ground, while on a rural retreat. We then had to secrete the equipment back into the shed so as to not incur the wrath of the surly games keeper.

I am not sure which of the following is the most disturbing:

1. That I am now routinely invited to play the game during lunch times
2. That I have on several occasions I have accepted said invitation
3. That when playing I have a strong desire not just to win but the thrash my opponents.
4. That I have now lost several games of croquet
5. That with my right arm crippled by a repetitive stress injury (mousing), I am now only invited for croquet games. No tennis, no lunch time swimming (as though I would drown), no lunch time run (do I run on my hands ?)
6. That this might be a slippery slope to joining the chess ladder or bridge club.

If only my arm would improve enough so I can push iron over in gym.

I have looked for, but not found, a version of Wii Croquet. It is probably much to dangerous - imagine what might have happened if these people had been playing croquet - Serious Wii Injury

Checkout competiveness

I am still smarting from a shopping trip this evening where we were beaten so badly in the checkout queue.

We have builders in our house and they need tea and biscuits. While not wanting to stereotype people, we didn't think they would enjoy either the Chai Tea or Lapsang Souchong.

Usually our groceries are delivered, especially the cleaning stuff, but tonight was an emergency shop - cleaning supplies and motivational foods.

The woman in front of us in the queue had

1. Three bottles wine, two white one red.
2. one red pepper
3. Half a cucumber
4. pack of small mushrooms

A high scoring basket I think you will agree.

Stacked up against this we had

1. Tons of cleaning supplies
2. 8 packs of biscuits
3. Toilet paper
4. 4 frozen pizza
5. Two litre organic semi-skimmed milk
6. salmon (not sure if it was wild)

Our only items that had a positive score were #5 and #6, and then only marginally because the milk wasn't skinny and the salmon may not have been wild. This against a very tidy basket of items - all scoring very highly.

I wanted to make eye contact with her, by way of saying "This isn't who we are - we are shopping for others with a lessor taste" - but I think she was to snobbish and consequently pretended not to notice.

I despise snobbery, who does she think she is ? Someone should tell her we are not "what we eat" or "what we buy" !

And to be quite honest some of us are above all this anyway.

Scaffolding

The scaffolding arrived today in preparation for work staring tomorrow on out loft conversion.

It's been put up at the back and is about two stories high. It is just perfectly positioned to obscure our satellite dish - so no TV for the next 8 weeks. It is times like this that make a family either grow stronger or turn in on itself. Sort of like in "Lord of the Flies". I love experiments like this. Stephen is contemplating lifting the wooden flooring to provide a clear line of sight for the satellite signal and I'm waiting for a plank to come crashing through the conservatory roof.

On the up side it looks like we can use the scaffolding as an abseiling platform.

What to Ask Barbara Kingsolver ?

This wednesday Annalise and I are attending a talk by Barbara Kingsolver about her new book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" - a book about eating local produce.

I just don't know what to do though. "The Poisonwood Bible" and "Prodigal Summer" are two of my favourite books but my new passion is agriculture.

Should I use to opportunity to ask her to critic a chapter to two of my writing or instead ask her for advice on dealing with the pests that have eaten one of the leaves of my Baby Marrow plant ?

I fear she will only have time to do justice to one of these issues.

Looking out a rain splatted window

Ever since we got back from camping and climbing in Wales earlier this year I've been hoping to return in order to do some of the longer climbs there.

Unfortunately the rope work is rather complicated for five climbers over six pitches and 120 metres so I thought it best that initially just two of us do a climb or two.

This week Annalise has been sick, otherwise I would have been planning a trip to Craig yr Ogof with Stephen this weekend.

Had I been uncaring enough to even contemplate going I might have realised that we would need to leave at 3:30am in order to travel the 5 plus hours and hike the 45 minute approach route, do the climb and then return by 10pm that evening. I would have known where to park the car, the quickest route and where to fill up with petrol. I would have convinced Stephen that he wanted, and indeed needed, this experience and we might have planned the trip to the minutest detail.

But no I am not uncaring and insensitive. For if I was we would have had to pack rain gear to cope with the 40mm of rain falling today in Wales and predicted again for tomorrow. Had I been the least bit uncaring I might have brought up the time 17 years ago when I cancelled a trip to the Drakensberg mountains on account of her been morning sick with Stephen.

Of course I did none of these things because I CARE.

Desolate day

We intended to go climbing today. Damn weather, it has rained all day apart from the odd half hour, in a rather feable attempt to lure us outside.

It is some, but not much, consolation that we did do some indoor re-organisation.

I noticed these "witch" birds from the bedroom window.

They may appear blurred but I am grateful just to have caught them unawares before they morphed into innocent little robins.

I know they are must belong to a witch because there are about 100 of them and they sit watching us and then every so often return to somewhere quite close to report back. Sometimes they gather on a lawn across the road to discuss and to scheme.

Notice how these ones are trained to sit equi-distance apart. I suspect these are the elite flock, and smart - really smart.

Real Tennis outdoors with balls

Inspired by hours of Wii tennis in our lounge Stephen and I had this wild idea about playing the real, outdoor version on a proper court - just like people played during 19th and 20th centuries before games consoles were invented.

We cycled into the high-street and located a sports store, similar to the Wii games store but with a much bigger selection of bats, rackets and balls - none of which look exactly like a games console controller. The staff seemed a little confused by our desire to play "real outdoor tennis like they used to" but I think they were history majors because they figured out what we needed and we left with two rackets and a quiver of balls.

If you are familiar with a Wii remote you will need to understand that these rackets are almost, but not quite, unlike the white wand shaped remote that fits so well in your hand. Firstly the safety wrist strap on each racket is missing (what were they thinking?) as are any additional buttons at all. This should be obvious when you realise that they did NOT have electricity when these rackets were popular.

We located the court - they are much larger than they appear on our 37inch TV screen. We played for a couple of hours. It is nothing like Wii tennis, and the differences extend to more than just the proximity to the fridge.

You are probably asking which I enjoyed the most. Well both forms have pros and cons.

The downside of racket tennis

• The balls are the same colour as the court and indeed the surrounding foliage (seems like bad design to me)
• The balls tend to leak through the fence and one has to risk stinging nettles to get them back.
• Missed balls have to retrieved, sometimes from several courts away, - they don't just appear in your hand
• You get wet when it rains
• The court is slippery when it rains
• It gets hard to see when it gets dark
• The sound effects are a little unrealistic - no crowd cheers for example and a duller "thunk" on contact with the ball.
  
• If the sun shone you could get skin cancer
  

The upside of this form of tennis

• Great feedback in the racket (you really feel the ball striking the strings)
• I think it is little more tiring and hence a slightly better workout than the more common Wii sport
  
• It's cool to be able to tell people - "I played tennis - outdoors with balls"

A word of warning though. The lack of a wrist strap on the racket suggests that children should not be playing this version. Keep them indoors and in front of the TV.

Our next experiment is going to involve cooking like in the old times using the same techniques used in Wii's "Mamas cooking". We must get a fire extinguisher first though because this can be really dangerous.

Self mutilation

This is a follow up to My Computer is Crippling me and the recent Wii injury.

Today I had my first appointment with "my physio". I've never been able to say that before. "My dentist", "my solicitor", "my hair dresser", "my broker", "my gynae". Well one out of five is a start.

I have Repetitive Stress Injury, RSI in my right arm. A result of years of computer use and bad posture.

The cure apparently involves

• 90 degree angles between every body part and every other body part
• Frequent breaks, perhaps I should take up smoking.
• Raising my desk
• Raising my chair
• Moving one of my two LCD screens to the right
• Avoiding chicken wing arm movements while driving, sitting and riding the bike (pretty much any time I am NOT impersonating a chicken).
  
• Oh and if this wasn't enough I should mouse with the left hand and not the right.
• Notebook computers are bad
• Numeric key pads are bad (they make the keyboard wider)
  

Lastly it would be better if I could get a job without any repetitive movement - I'm thinking professional fighter - never hear them complaining about RSI. If you hear of any left hand only fights, nothing very violent or involving chickens, please put in a word for me.

I have a follow up appoinntment next week - I do so want to impress ....

The God Delusion

I recently completed the "God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

He writes brilliantly and he has inspired me to read the entire Bible, not just the familiar bits, - I wonder how long it will take ?

Three issues have been on my mind today -

1. The knighting of Salman Rushdie by the queen and the subsequent protests from Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.
2. The 100th day in captivity of BBC journalist Alan Johnston
3. George Bush's latest stem cell research veto

People with a strong faith, Christian, Islamic, Jewish or any other should be able and willing to defend their ideas, in deed and in debate, without bannings, death threats or other forms of intimidation. An Omnipotent God doesn't need any earthly protection from competing ideas.

Apart from the obvious attack on creationism and the literal interpretation of the bible Dawkings makes the following points

• We don't get our morals from religion - What is morally acceptable today has changed so much in the last 2000 years while the Bible and Koran and remained the same. We just pick and choose those parts of the Bible and/or Koran that are convenient.

• It is problematic to defend the belief that science governs the physical world while God governs the spiritual world and that there is NO interaction. The problem stems from the belief that God responds to prayer and intervenes in physical matters. Science should be able to detect such interventions yet it has not found any such evidence even when it has tried.
  

I would be interested to know what other people make of the book.

Preparing for the worst - "agricultural ruin"

No sign of growth. The marrow looks the same while the rest of the crop looks slightly less "perky" than on initial planting.

Hopefully they are like new-born babies and are expected to loose weight in the first few days.

Yikes - It is raining even harder

I worry the crop will be washed away. The rain is deafening on the conservatory roof.

Why did I even bother with the watering can ?

New growth

This evening after work we went down to the nursery and bought

• A climbing rose
• A red pepper (might it be green ?)
• A replacement wall bracket
  
• A marrow (I think they like to climb ?)
• An aubergine, eggplant, or brinjal (Solanum melongena)

I re-hung the front-door flower basket (the previous bracket was rusted), planted the veggies and the rose.

The rose will grow horizontally towards the house until it hits the wall, it will then it grow upwards a metre or two when it will turn around the corner and fill the space above the kitchen window and the upstairs bed-room window. A hope I got the rose programmed to do this !

I don't expect the crop of vegetables will feed the whole family through the winter - heavens we haven't enough space to store such a crop - but it will be satisfying to watch them grow, I can see them while using the computer.

I found a dead bird, could this be bird-flu ?, and performed the required burial away from veggies - might this have affected their organic status ?

Actually I've always felt farming was more of an art form than mere utilitarian food production. I would be tempted to paint my cows and sheep in bright colours and mix my wheat, sun-flowers and poppies.

It has just started to rain and is getting dark outside - I made a scratch on the fence above the red, or green, pepper so perhaps tomorrow I'll detect some growth.

Fathers' day

We were planning on going climbing today but the Wii injury has put paid to that idea.

It turned out to be a really nice day however. By the time I was out the shower this morning Emily and Sophie had served up coffee with Belgium chocolates. Annalise and I then moseyed done to the corner store for the Sunday papers which we consumed over the course of the morning and then Stephen cooked lunch in the garden while Annalise weeded and I lay in the sun "healing my back".

Thanks guys - nice day.

A Wii Injury

I woke up on Friday morning with a back injury. The only explanation is a Wii injury from hitting home runs on the baseball game the night before. Surely they should provide a Wii warm up routine before letting one play.

I'm on some potent pain killers - at least strong enough to allow me to play Wii tennis without wincing. Guess I'll leave the baseball alone for a while.

Return from Paris

After the week in Paris we all squeezed into our much more humble home in Reigate, England. Some pictures of another memorable week.

Picnic at Dover Castle - food included left overs from the previous nights Indian meal


Dover beach - the beach of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach".


The site of the Battle of Hastings 1066. To think so much, yet also so little, changed on this beautiful hillside nearly a 1000 years ago.


Inside the kitchens of King Henry VIII at Hampton Court


The girls who literally camped in the back yard.

Wonderful time in France

The trip to France was wonderful. It has been so long since any of our holidays have not centered around rock climbing.

Being with friends each evening as we looked out the window at the Eiffel tower allowed for good food and discussion after each days sight seeing.

Thanks Martha, Steve, Ivonne and Sophie for making it a great trip.

Some of my favourite pictures of the trip.

View from top of Notre Dame Cathedral



Poppy field at Giverny - Monet's home villiage


The location of Monet's "Water Lillies"


We bought this picture and studied it while resting in Giverny. It is now in our lounge.


The Louve


The landmark that guided us home each night and that made doing the dishes each evening such a pleasure.


Evening boat trip on the Seine



Picnic at Fontainbleu


Under floor lighting at the Arc de Triomphe

More pictures can be found here

I Hate Embassies

We leave for Paris via Euro star on Sunday and consequently spent most of today in London in the French embassy, we had to wait 6 weeks for this appointment slot.

We joked on the way in that we would NOT mention

a) That Stephen needs a separate visa for each of his personalities
b) That Sophie has two hearts, slime for blood and is actually an alien (as in out of this world)
c) The tragic reversal French socialism with the recent election results.

Little did we know, none of this would be our undoing.

It was hell.

It turns out that birth certificates we have for the three children are "abridged" certificates IE. they are missing the parents names.

Stephen and I dashed to the South African High Commission - and yeah they can provide the full birth certificates - we just have to wait 4 months.

Result no visa for kids.

These birth certificates have in the past been used for visas to the USA (multiple times), the Netherlands and UK but they now NOT good enough for the French.

So we have three children with the same last name, we have their passports, their abridged birth certificates, they even look a little like us, they will testify that we are their real parents but this is just not good enough.

My computer is crippling me

So how is it that I can pull myself up using my right arm without pain but an hour of mouse movement, while using the computer, or of picking up a kettle causes me intense pain. The pain is in my forearm.

The last few days at work work have been hell. I have one of those mouse pads with a wrist bump that I think contains a used and discarded silicon breast implant. (No I am not in a position to perform a real comparison). Using this is worse - at least it is more painful to use.

Perhaps I'll have to move into a career less demanding on my body. Damn, got to reach for the mouse to click publish for this post

Ecomomics

A few nights ago I started reading "The Under Cover Economist" by Tim Harford.

It is making me feel a little bit "suckered", these sneaky, manipulative supermarkets - the lengths they go to. For instance I did not know that they make the store brands look deliberately unappealing on purpose - I thought they were just saving on the graphical design costs. No they want you to spend more on the other brands. These are just there for people who are price sensitive and they would loose these shoppers otherwise.

I did not know that they "discount" some items and increase the price of other items just to create price confusion and increase the amount we each spend. That organic and fair trade items have a far higher mark up than needed to cover their supply cost. Reaching for these items is like saying to them "I am price insensitive, charge me more if you like".

sigh ...

Day out - Swanage

Yesterday we made the 2.5 hour trip to Swanage, on the Dorset coast to do some sight-seeing and climbing on the sea cliffs. This largely trad-climbing area, ie no fixed bolts, and with access only by abseiling down to just above sea-level.

This means that taking kids is a little more complicated as it is far better to have children running around below the cliffs than above them.

This is above the cliffs

I wasn't able to get many pictures of the actual climbing as the logistics of getting Emily tied in on the cliff edge was to much of challenge.

This is what is over the edge

I dropped an ATC device over here - fortunately it didn't hit Annalise below and Emily could give me her one.

Now she is happy - although a few minutes previously she was shouting from the bottom trying to make herself heard over the crashing waves.

After we had climbed enough we explored Swanage and took an impromptu boat trip to examine the cliffs from below.

This is a view from the sea. This is not that same cliffs we were on as these have nesting birds using them and thus they have climbing restrictions during summer months. Note the lines on the cliff run horizontal and then vertical - a result of plate techtonics.

The rest of the pictures from the day are here

Climbing, Tintern Abbey and Stonehenge

We rose early on Saturday as we took my niece and nephew climbing and sightseeing in Wales. It was Justin and Tamarin's first time rock climbing so we looked for something doable but with good views and an adrenaline rush. Symonds Yat, where we first climbed on arriving in the UK, had potential as it had very accessible climbing, great views and was close to Tintern abbey and Chepstow Castle. We made a full day of it - mixing climbing with sightseeing.

We did an initial small climb to sort out the safety issues and see how people handled the rock and heights.

Tam descending after her climb

Justin at top Sophie doing the same climb Then we moved onto the what we call "the pinnacle". After the lead we set up a top-rope and brought people up one at a time so that we were all on top of the pinnacle, and the world it seemed, - tied onto webbing around the edge of the table top. I got the opportunity for pictures from above as Tamarin, Sophie, Justin and Annalise climbed it. From the top one can see kayakers on the rapids below on the winding Wye river. Tam first Justin next View from the top After a late lunch we drove to Tintern Abbey - this abbey dates from 1131 - more pictures and information here Followed by Chepstow Castle and lastly Stonehenge All the pictures can be seen here, Click the image below. symonds-yat-rock

Climbing in Portland, Dorset

Today we travelled to Porland, Dorset to climb on some of the sea cliffs.

Wonderful day despite the 6am start.

portland

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Bank Holiday Weekend in Snowdonia

We had a magic time in Snowdonia.

Plenty of climbing, nice camp sites - we did not want to return.

So many sheep !!!!

wales-2007

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