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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