Saturday 31 May 2008

Squirrel Nutkin


When I cleaned out the larder, one of the out-of-date items was a packet of desiccated coconut. I emptied it into the bird bowl and it proved very popular not only with the tits but also with the squirrel. I took this photo through the kitchen window using the camera on the mobile phone which was a recent upgrade – pretty good, isn’t it!

Friday 30 May 2008

The good news - epilogue to woes

In yesterday's blog I mentioned the radio-controlled watch that wasn't telling the correct time ... last night I had another look at the data-sheet and discovered where I had gone wrong when re-setting it, and now it is showing the right time. Result!

I also mentioned that Argos had offered to replace the dysfunctional strimmer with the new model if I paid the difference ... today Vic gave me a lift into town with the 'wee beastie' (my pet name for the strimmer) and I returned it to Argos. The same young lad was serving, so knew exactly why I was there, and gave me the happy news that the new model had now been reduced in price. Instead of having to hand over ten quid, I received the ever-so-slightly more powerful (30cc compared to the old 25cc) new strimmer plus a £2 refund. Bonus!

PS This might amuse: I have a tendency to make lists such as shopping lists, 'to do' lists and so on. Yesterday's 'to do' list was written on a piece of paper from the 'scrap paper' drawer. It was blank on one side, and had two lines from a Christian worship song printed on the other. The 'to do' list was on the blank side, then when I was jotting down the bank account details for the account I was paying the money into, I scribbled them on the flip-side. At the bank where I was paying the cash in, when the (good-looking young male) cashier asked me for the account details, I handed over the piece of paper - only then did I notice that the printed words proclaimed:
'And I, I'm desperate for you
And I, I'm lost without you'.
I do wonder what he made of that!

Thursday 29 May 2008

Catalogue of Woes

When I was admitted to the Ridgewood back in mid-April, my watch was put in a safe (which is pretty silly because it’s a very cheap watch – I bought it off ebay for £10.50 – but it was at least accurate, being controlled by the Radio Time Signal). Presumably because it couldn’t pick up the signal in the safe, the battery depleted. When I got my watch back and came home, I looked at the data-sheet to find out how to change the battery. The instructions said to post the watch off with a £5 cheque to an address in Aldershot, which I did. A week or two went by and I began to wonder how long before I’d get the watch back. I looked at the data-sheet again and found a phone number. I rang … and learned that as the company was no longer trading, the watch and cheque would be returned to me in due course. It finally arrived on Tuesday. Vic managed to get the back off and tell me what battery I needed. I made a special trip to Boots yesterday and bought the battery, which Vic fitted last night. All should have been well – but so far it hasn’t managed to adjust to the right time.

Meanwhile …
I have a petrol strimmer to cut the grass over the allotment. It was new last year, and performed brilliantly until recently when it began to tease the grass rather than cut it. It has had a new strimmer line fitted, a new spark plug, and the air filter cleaned (not to mention fresh fuel), but still isn’t working properly. I checked the guarantee card – it has a two-year guarantee – and rang the helpline. Customer services arranged to send me a Warranty Repair Form and told me to take it to the local garden machinery repairers. The form arrived today and I’ve rung around but without success – it seems none of the local Garden Machinery repairmen deal with Spear & Jackson strimmers.

Meanwhile …
To improve security on internet banking transactions, Nationwide have issued customers with card readers. Last night I tried to do some internet banking but this particular transaction required the use of the card reader. Problem is the card reader was issued to Vic (presumably as he is the first-named account-holder on the joint account) and he rarely has any dealings with that account. He did manage to find his debit card and was confident he remembered the PIN number, but the card reader was saying it was the wrong PIN. It hadn’t occurred to me when the card reader arrived addressed to Vic, that effectively it meant internet banking was now only available to the first-named account-holder on a joint account.

Meanwhile …
I’d arranged for the annual boiler service to happen today. Frustratingly after all the rain we’ve been having, today dawned bright and sunny … and there was me stuck at home waiting for the service engineer. I rang the Nationwide and arranged that at some point today I’d be along to withdraw a large sum in cash. The receptionist politely explained that I needed to give 48 hours notice. In return I explained how I had been unable to carry out the transaction by internet banking and WOULD therefore be along to collect the money in cash today. After a brief delay she came back on the line and agreed that the money would be available, and could I bring along proof of identity.

Happily the service engineer arrived before lunch. The boiler is in an awkward place, high up on the wall in the larder. By the time he arrived, I’d removed everything from the larder, evicted all the spiders and hoovered up all the cobwebs. After he left I finished cleaning the larder, threw away one or two items that were past their sell-by dates and was feeling that sense of accomplishment, of a job well done.

I walked into town and withdrew the money from Nationwide, walked to another bank and deposited it there. The beauty of doing that is the money doesn’t vanish into that ‘black hole’ of the banking world for 4 days where it is considered to be in neither one account nor the other for the purposes of interest calculation. If I was to be denied the convenience of internet banking … In due course I plan to write to Nationwide and suggest it would have made sense to approach joint account-holders and enquire who would be responsible for internet banking if the card readers are only to be issued to one account-holder.

I walked on to Argos and explained the problem with the petrol strimmer. Having struggled to find an adequate response himself, eventually the young lad serving me called the manager over. After some further discussion, I suggested that the manager might like to replace the faulty strimmer with a new one. He consulted his catalogue and found the model is no longer available but a slightly more powerful model is selling for £10 more. He offered to swap my faulty machine for this new model if I would pay the £10 difference. Result!

Back home I got ready to go over the allotment … but by the time I was ready to go, the clouds had gathered. Oh well, at least I got to update my blog.

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Famous Prayers


The Serenity Prayer
(attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr)
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that should be changed and the wisdom to know the difference.


Our Cell group is manning a ‘Prayer Tent’ at our ‘Church in the Park’ event this weekend. It’s going to be a gazebo with a multi-coloured silk lining and colourful accessories inside to make it feel vibrant and lively. I suggested we display famous prayers and prayers of famous people, which suggestion was accepted, so today I spent many happy hours creating the display. It was a pleasant task: googling the prayers, finding illustrations, printing them out on brightly coloured paper, laminating them, punching a couple of holes and threading coloured ribbon through to hang them. In my bedroom I have a ‘Wall of Wisdom’ – a display of various wise sayings, prayers, etc, and no doubt these will join those after the weekend.

Prayer of St Richard of Chichester
Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits which you have given us,
for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us.
Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,
may we know you more clearly,
love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.

Daily prayer of Mother Teresa
DEAR JESUS, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.

The Lord's Prayer (quoted from 'The Message' translation)
Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what's best— as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You're in charge! You can do anything you want!
You're ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.

Sunday 18 May 2008

HFE Bill - my thoughts, part two

One of the amendments being tabled is to lower the abortion limit and this is a piece of legislation I would like to see in place. It has been shocking to read some of the abortion statistics, and to discover that Britain is well out of step with other European countries in allowing late-term abortions. On the news we’ve seen the celebration of life in China as survivors are pulled from the rubble of the earthquake – the irony struck me considering the demonstrably high value being placed on human life by the Chinese rescuers making every attempt to bring people alive from the womb of the earth, contrasting with my own country’s demonstrably low value being placed on the life of a baby in the womb of a mother who doesn’t want it.

In college I shared a home for a while with a very lovely and well brought-up Catholic girl who had campaigned against abortion. When she became pregnant, she stood by her principles and carried the baby to full-term, gave birth and gave the baby up for adoption. It wasn’t easy for her, being an unmarried mother and continuing her studies – very inconvenient – and her parents were not incredibly supportive. I believe she wasn’t allowed home during the pregnancy (to protect her younger siblings from learning of her immorality, I seem to recall). How I admire her moral courage which meant she gave the gift of a beautiful new-born baby to a couple who had desperately wanted a child to complete their family but were unable to conceive one themselves. To me, that makes a lot more sense than the current state of affairs, where thousands upon thousands of potentially healthy babies are aborted, whilst thousands of couples who long for a baby can’t have one without the thoroughly intrusive and heart-wrenching business of fertility treatment.

Friday 16 May 2008

Moral Dilemma

Recently the Church leaders exhorted us to support the campaign against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. I listened, and yet I couldn’t understand how my church friends and leaders could be so sure that all parts of the HFE Bill were evil, to be condemned and campaigned against. I wasn’t getting the same whispers from the Holy Spirit at all. I thought about the abhorrence that was being expressed at the concept of ‘Saviour Siblings’ … but isn’t that exactly what we proclaim Jesus to be? If that concept is a godly one … ? (“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways”, declares the Lord. Isaiah 55:8)

There is a human phenomenon identified as ‘contempt prior to investigation’. It is a potential trap we can fall into if we accept someone else’s judgment on something we haven’t looked into for ourselves. I’ll confess I haven’t invested the effort of reading the HFE Bill, yet as I listened to what was said at the church meetings, my thoughts turned to a young man for whose healing I’ve been praying since he was about 7. He’s now in his mid-twenties. He suffers muscular dystrophy. It seemed to me that the Holy Spirit was whispering this was a step towards a world where hereditary disease would be a thing of the past.

Other scriptures that came to mind were:
‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.’ 1 John 4:18
‘To the pure, all things are pure …’ Titus 1:15
‘All a man’s ways seem innocent to him but motives are weighed by the Lord’ Proverbs 16:2

I wonder if it wouldn’t make more sense to pray into the positive gains that the scientific research might provide rather than to project our fears onto the canvas of scientific research; to look trustingly towards the light rather than watching the shadows on the wall of the cave.

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Hard Work, Synchronicity, Miracle

Bank Holiday Monday

Wet start, but it turned into a sparkling sunny day. Did some weeding over the allotment in the afternoon, and planted up some iceberg lettuce seedlings donated by another plotholder. Sowed some radish and spring onion seeds. In the evening Vic and I went over David’s and met his new bird – a Senegal parrot – and I cemented the introduction by hand-feeding him/her apple for a while. The bird is still young enough not to have moving from one perch to the next fully figured, and his/her clumsy attempts can be entertaining. Colouring-wise, he/she is green on top with a yellow/orange belly and looks like a cross between David’s previous birds, Connie the maroon-bellied conure and Billie the sun conure, but with a shorter tail. Photo may follow in due course.

Tuesday 6th May

Glorious day! Fantastic summer weather. Brian had the day off and picked me up around 10 am. We put in a couple of hours over the allotment, getting the top netting on the fruit cage and preparing the ground where I sowed some more seeds: carrots, parsnips, swede and beetroot. After lunch we put in another couple of hours weeding despite the heat.

In the evening Vic and I went over David’s where I put in another hour’s hard work cutting the knee-high grass in his back garden while the boys chopped down the trees in the front to create enough space on the drive for him to park his car off-road.

Wednesday 7th May

Synchronicity: In my ‘Quiet Time’ I’m following the UCB publication, ‘The Word for Today’, and the Foundation for Inner Peace publication, ‘A Course in Miracles’. Today’s Word for Today carried the story of an eagle egg hatched under a hen along with her other eggs, and how the eagle grew up thinking it was a chicken, engaging in chicken behaviour along with his ‘siblings’, until the day an eagle flew over the chicken yard and the eagle who thought he was a chicken looked up and realised he wanted to be like that eagle – he spread his wings and discovered the power to fly, to soar above the mountain peaks, to be his true self, the creature he was made to be.

Then I turned to Lesson 128 in 'A Course in Miracles' which spoke of soaring beyond the petty scope and little ways of the world we see, about the things which bar our awareness of our true self, of rising far above the world:
W-pI.128.6. Pause and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world, when you release your mind from chains and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. 2 It will be grateful to be free a while. 3 It knows where it belongs. 4 But free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. 5 Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love. (from A Course in Miracles, Foundation for Inner Peace)

Went back to the Ridgewood today for Doctor’s ward round. The ‘Section’ has now been lifted and I’m classed as a voluntary patient on leave. Medication has been reduced – hooray!

Back home I moved the surviving herbs from the aearogarden into the outdoor herb garden, sanitised the aerogarden and replanted it with the salad greens kit.

In the evening Vic drove me over the allotment so I could do some watering – it’s been another gorgeous summery day – and then we spent an hour over Dave’s where I finished cutting the grass in the back garden, and he and Dave finished chopping down the trees in the front.

Went on to Cell group. Folks were very emotional tonight in response to the miracle – Micky had become blind on 24th April due to a haemorrhage at the back of his ‘good’ eye (he’d previously been unable to see with one eye, but had had 20/20 vision in the other). The church had responded with prayer and fasting, and this week Micky’s daughter had driven down to lay her hands on him and pray over him. He’d felt a bit strange afterwards and rested for a while – when he got up, the healing had begun and gradually through today his sight has recovered to the point he can now recognise faces! The specialist had seen him today and conceded that ‘Nature’ had done what he had been unable to do, and begun to disperse the blood clot that had blocked Micky’s sight.

Sunday 4 May 2008

And finally ...

Cycled to church in the morning – get spiritually fit, as the saying goes. The first part of the route is uphill, but it’s quite nice freewheeling most of the way from there.

Invited Dave over to join us for Sunday lunch. Afterwards he guided me through the transfer of the other two email identities. When he’d gone home, I tidied up the old PC, disconnected it and crawled around under the desk getting the new one hooked up to the appropriate hardware. Finally sorted!

Saturday 3 May 2008

Gives the phrase 'walking on egg shells' new meaning


A photo from the local Horticultural Society's Spring Show
Good weather all day – Vic came over the allotment with me and sorted out the guttering on the potting shed, so that it feeds into a water butt. We went to B&Q to buy some brackets and union pieces. Would have been simple, had the stock not been jumbled together in one location. In the end we took all the stock out of the location and put it into a spare trolley, sorting it as we went to find the bits we wanted, then dumping the rest back on the shelf. The process took a good 20 minutes, and the Express Self-Serve checkout failed to live up to its name when the pieces were too light to register on the scanned items scales.

Back at the allotment he dug a hole 18 inches deep and we filled it with stones, to act as a soakaway should the water butt overflow (it has a clever little valve system to redirect the water so you can pipe it away where you choose). Whilst he was digging, he called me across:
“You’ll never guess what I’ve found!” We tend to think of egg-shells as being fragile – but since I’ve been working the allotment, I’ve discovered just how tough that stuff is. Instructions for a good compost heap recommend that you crush egg shells before composting. At first I had literally just squeezed them in my hand and dumped them in the composter. When I started using some of the compost, I discovered that the egg shells remained more or less as they had been when I crushed them and put them in there. Even so, it was a surprise to find a nearly intact egg shell at the bottom of the hole. It must have been there a few years without breaking down. These days I leave them out to dry then grind them to a fine dust with a pestle and mortar.

Whilst Vic was doing the guttering, I was digging over one of the beds ready for summer planting. The Horticultural Society secretary came over and asked if she could photograph me as I worked, as she has to put in a report on the allotments to the Council and wanted to show that allotment-holders aren’t all retired men. Far from it! Apparently it’s really trendy to have an allotment these days – the ‘must have’ yuppie accessory. Don’t know about that, but I do know I like eating the fresh veg I’ve grown.

Friday 2 May 2008

More frustrations but also good news

This morning I was up bright and early and the weather looked lovely: blue skies! Sunshine! Brilliant! I decided to get my bike out and dust it off, to speed up my journeys to and fro. It took 10 minutes to retrieve it from the little shed at the bottom of the garden (battling cobwebs and barbecue and shredder). Rode it down the path and noticed the tyres needed pumping up. Wasted another 20 minutes trying to pump the tyres up with the pump supplied (which was never very effective). Hunted in the garage for the footpump and adaptor ... phoned Vic ... he thought the adaptor was in one of the little storage trays hung on the garage wall ... finally found the storage tray he meant - no adaptor. Hunted some more and found a better bicycle pump. This one did seem to be putting air in, but when I tried to take it off again, I unscrewed the tyre valve and the tyre very quickly deflated. Thus what had been intended as a time-saving option … wasn’t. More frustration, as though the PC problems weren’t enough!

I thought about walking the bike into town and dropping it off at the bike repair shop on my way over the allotment to have the tyre and inner tube replaced – that would have been a good idea, but by then the clouds were starting to form and I just wanted to get to work as quickly as possible before the rain started.

Anyway, the good news is that I did manage to get some work done over the allotment this morning, including planting up some baby lettuces that Patrick gave me. More good news: I thought the purple sprouting broccoli was finished before I went into hospital, but it’s still sprouting.

At the end of the day I phoned around the various bike repair shops and got quotes, and discovered that the one I first thought of (the one on my way over the allotment first thing this morning) had the right tyre and inner tube in stock and repaired it for me on a while-u-wait basis. At least the bike is now sorted.

Thursday 1 May 2008

More frustrations

It has been a week of frustrations for other reasons besides the PC. The weather has been atrocious much of the week – very stormy. I’m not allowed to drive for the next three months. The car sits there mocking the fact that I have to walk everywhere, which of course takes a lot longer than driving. I’ve only managed to spend about 4 hours working over the allotment altogether, in between the rain and hail, and got wet walking home again. Then today I had to visit the dentist for a large filling to be replaced temporarily. Ultimately the tooth will need a crown. The full treatment programme will cost almost £600.