Let Them Make Bread . . . . . .

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Damn its wet today, On the bright side I am glad I cut the grass yesterday as it now means it can go . . . . . .OOOOoooooo rain lets grow really fast . . . . . It also meant I spent this morning making bread as a chap is inclined to do bearing in mind I can make two things, Bread and Ginger Biscuits.  . . . (OOooo and Arty things)

The cats are sulking they don’t really like rain much either, and the House Martins who I forgot to mention yesterday turned up for the first time seem to be sulking also. It’s a long way from Africa to arrive just in time to find the rain has started.

Pesky Rain.

Actually as I type I can see a hint of sun, but it’s really wet so I still can’t get the roof of the workshop felted yet.

My wife received a phone call today to say her new glasses are now ready so we can go and collect them in the next few days. I have told her she will now see the handsome sophisticated me in all my glory once again, but she rolled about on the floor in hysterics pointing and saying I am mad and dishevelled  . . . Well I was very surprised I was not expecting a compliment.

Right I plan to wander about a bit and be the man of the house and look important in order to keep those cats in their place on the pecking order.

I may return later . . . . . or may not

OK I have but I have to admit I have not done a lot. Well it has been damp and grey so it is not really the sort of day folk get bouncy and enthusiastic in.

Todays Homemade Bread

How to use an Umbrella on a Sunday

It has been and still is, not a nice day, I refer to the weather, in fact it is worse now that it was earlier with the wind picking up and the rain increasing somewhat. Luckily it should not get windy enough to cause us any problems and despite the fact the front lawn is under an inch of water we are not going to flood due to the position of the house. But being Sunday means it is quiet and with the weather the way it is, it’s very quiet indeed, not even a Zombie is going to stagger about groaning in this. Interestingly one thing I have never seen before is a Zombie with an umbrella, I’m sure they must know about them and they are technically not hard to use.

Actually I take that point about the use of umbrellas back, because one thing I have noticed on the various news clips of the terrible weather Britain is having is that in many of then folk are battling against the wind and rain with umbrellas.  As you might expect I can hear you type, but in most of these cases the umbrellas are being flipped inside-out and the folk holding them looking stressed and wet. You see there are one or two important points to using umbrellas and these days they are even more important due to the ever increasing use of the small collapsible umbrella; a device which I think we can say is rubbish.  O yes the collapsible   brolly might be convenient to have when it is not raining but they certainly are not when it is raining unless you don’t know how to use an umbrella then at least they will flip inside- out and back again all day long.

So using a brolly correctly first you need to keep the front edge down and pointing into the wind, lift it up to far and the wind gets underneath and will do its best to pull it out of your hand or turn it inside out. You also need to keep the thing close to your head not three feet above it unless it’s a sun brolly or as posh folk call them parasols, try that in Britain and you will be a goner unless you are called Mary Poppins. Best not to tell folk you are Mary Poppins lets face it nobody liked her and she set Britain back 100 years in the minds of the rest of world.   The final point with an umbrella is they become unmanageable once the wind gets to a certain speed and it is like trying to hold a wild man eating mutant seagull over your head and lets face it if it was a wild man eating mutant seagull you would not hang onto its legs and hope it will keep you dry. So once the wind speed gets to the point you can no longer maintain dignity with a umbrella it is better just to fold it up and get out the rain as fast as possible rather than appear on the BBC news looking silly and holding a wild man eating mutant seagull.

Oooooooo yes I have done a bit of arty stuff today so all has not been lost,  although I have probably lost something somewhere today as I tend too most days. One advantage of having glue all over my hands is that I tend not to lose stuff as it tends to be attached to my fingers……

Knitted Beasts and Alien Hunters

It is wet today very wet and not really warm either so all in all it is not a nice day and not a lot is going on, much like last night where after I had returned from fighting off Banshees, Zombies and various Monsters with pointy sticks I was expecting at least one trick or treat visitor. I know it does not sound like a lot but as we live out in the sticks sort of protected by a large Zombie defence ditch and of course there was Mr Jones, alien hunter to the stars (alien . . . Stars . . . . .  HA HHAH AH HAH HAH HAhha ha ha haha hah ah ha ha) who was prowling about in a green alien suit in the woods shouting I AM YOUR FRIEND TAKE ME YOU LEADER……. Although someone in the village thought he said fiend rather than friend so started throwing turnips at anything that moved , including Guy who was dressed as a Fox (GUY FOX . . . AH HAHAHHH HAH HAH AHh ha ha hah ah ah) who then got chased by men on horses wearing rubbish Halloween costumes. 

Resulting in no visitors at all last night; last year a skeleton and his mum made it through the darkness of the night, woods, ditches, and electric fences so we did make sure we had treats to give people this year. I had even made sure they were inside little knitted beasts in order to maintain continuity with my diary, I guess this means I will have to eat them all myself  . . . . . . . AH DAMN . . . HAH HAHAH HAHh ahh ah ah hh hah hah hha ha ha ha  . . . .  I mean the treats not the knitted beasts, they will be locked away in the shed again until next year despite their little squeaks and squeals of protest  . . . . . . . .HAH HA AH HHA HHAH HAH AH HA HAH HA HAH AH HAH HA HAH HAH AH HA HAH ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

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Climbing hills, Art and Gazebos Flying South for the Winter....

Today saw the arrival of one of Britain’s truly classic events, something that has happened as regular as clockwork (we all love a bit of clockwork stuff) since the beginning of time, or at least the beginning of Britain. Yes today saw the arrival of a cold dull damp windy Sunday, just like the old days when grown men were small and small children were told to climb the chimney because it needed a bit of a clean.  Here in the rural areas of Britain this old method was very quickly superseded by using a chicken that would be lowered down the chimney by a rope tied to its legs. It was very effective because the poor old chicken would flap about madly dislodging all the soot, it was then often eaten for Sunday dinner, but although we still eat the chicken for Sunday dinner, it is bad form these days to clean your chimney with them first. I think it is still OK to send children up a chimney but it is seriously bad form to eat them afterwards and you will not be popular.

At one point this morning our gazebo attempted to escape by flying; now gazebos are quite good at takeoff, but lack any ability to manoeuvre with any sense of dignity, and quite frankly landing it beyond them.  I can understand that a lonely gazebo having watched all the swallows fly south for the winter would be keen to join them, but they do not have a natural ability at migration and are better hibernating in a shed or the like, much like a hedgehog. Anyway the gazebo now has a sore leg and will limp from now on, dad plans to fix it like new which might mean it will turn into an albatross shaped gazebo in order to give it a fighting chance of reaching a hotter climate next year.

We also went up a steep hill this afternoon to listen to the marches choir sing madrigals and other people playing flutes and a violin. Now some of you will note, this is not really the sort of music I would normally go to, but and it’s a big but round here they do great cakes and food so I was enticed by the thought of afternoon tea with loads of local homemade cakes . . . . .  I was not disappointed they were good.

As you can tell I have returned from the top of the hill where it was rather windy at times and now plan to do traditional Sunday Evening stuff in the best tradition of British life. Which is eat more food and lie about in a dishevelled manner on a sofa pondering Life the Universe and Everything. I will forgo the usual Sunday evening television however as it is probably rubbish and instead ponder the possibilities of Cardboard sculpture and its place in British art today. As Arty folk have to be thinking arty things all the time, it is entwined in the DNA of artists.   

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The probability of rain at the wrong time, buttered toast and the calculation of the hypothetical average.

It is Wednesday today about half way through a school holiday in late May and we all know what that means, yes the weather has taken a turn for the worse. It is strange because statistically I have now worked out that school holidays are mainly wet regardless of the time of year. It is possible to work out the probability using hot buttered slices of toast dropped onto the floor as the hypothetical average of the chances of rain.

If you then use a large steam catapult to fire small school children into random passing clouds at a fixed regular interval, by taking note of the state of them as they return to the ground it is possible to see that in most cases they are cold wet and suffering from shock, a clear sign they have passed though a thunder storm. Hot buttered toast never suffers from shock and sixty three percent of it lands happily butter side up allowing me to eat two thirds of all the toast (OK a few slices have a bit of fluff on but that’s fine). In contrast to only five percent of children who on landing will eat a slice of hot buttered toast. Eighty one percent of them will go and lie down, face down with there head hiding under the pillow and say get him away from me Mummy, I don’t like the clouds a clear sign that for reasons unknown to man as yet I really should be allowed to have my holidays outside the normal holidays. And if you do have children ensure you leave them in school when you go on holiday, I think you will find you are much happier (with the improved weather).

I spent a little more time sorting the garage today it is rather full as it was the overflow for stuff when we moved here 18 months ago or so. The garage at the time was the overflow and folk would look at things and say Ooooooooo I don’t know where that is going? ? ? . . . . stick it in the garage, it is a common moving house problem, and seventy two percent of houses have boxes of prized items in garages, cellars and attics doomed to a life in a box as a result of a house move.  Did you know that even in the bank vaults of the world there are items worth millions that have been stashed away by people moving and they will never see them again. 

Oooooooo yes Harry the Cat is wagging his tale at God.