Went to bed last night thinking that all i had to do today was get the Astrological Association Diary up to date and upload it.
This morning, on waking, I remembered that I still had to do the online version of Transit. Somehow, I’d completely forgotten that – hadn’t even started it. So today, I’ve been frantically working on it.
I’ve nearly finished – just got to format an extremely long article and insert images. Should get it done before I traipse off to the Steading’s Samhain gathering later. I did bake a cake for that, and it has turned out exceedingly flat – B suggested I should pretend it’s a very large biscuit. Still, I have plenty of homemade wine to bring along as well – can you guess my cunning plan? 🙂
The rain stopped this morning, for a brief time, and me & B took advantage and drove out into a nearby forest.
A couple of weeks ago, Son had been to a small outdoor rave there. It was a beautiful spot, he told us, by a loch, surrounded by forest. It sounded attractive, so we decided to have a look at the place for ourselves.
Son was right. It was wild and remote, a flat meadow on the edge of a loch that was a mile up a forest track that was itself off a little-used rural road. Some small rowboats were chained to a landing stage nearby, but that was the only sign of civilisation.
Except for, off to one side, some ruins half-hidden in a beech grove; I love exploring ruins, so I went over for a look. My first thought was that it was an ancient ruined kirk; it was built in the old style, with rough granite walls. Moreover, it had a semi-circular gable-end. But inside there were two smallish rooms with fireplaces and chimmneys – it was clearly a cottage.
Or rather, had been a cottage – it was completely roofless. There were other building behind, all similarly roofless. One was clearly another cottage – again two rooms, both with fireplaces. A third building, with five rooms, seemed to have been storerooms or stabling – there wasn’t any fireplaces, or a chimney.
The buildings were clearly old, but bore signs of relatively recent occupation. A couple of exterior walls were pebbledashed and held hooks for guttering; the chimneys had been modernised, with metal flashing showing where they had adjoined the roof; one fireplace had been rebuilt with modern bricks. Finally, at the front of the first cottage, a tyre hung from a tree by a length of old blue plastic twine; at some point within the last couple of decades, a child had been playing here.
I started wondering about the history of the place; the two cottages could have been shepherds’ or crofters’ cottages. They could equally well have been a pair of Victorian hunting lodges – common enough all over Scotland. And the modern renovations? Perhaps a group of 70s hippies, come here to pursue a dream of self-sufficiency? I walked around to the garden area and looked for signs of vegetable gardening.
There was none – no overgrown fruit bushes, no plot outlines, no greenhouse base, no shelterbelt shrubbery. Moreover, the stone wall surrounding the place was only about three feet high; barely high enough to keep out sheep, let alone deter hungry deer. So – no self-sufficient communards, then. More likely, somebody’s holiday home.
There was something nagging at me – I went back to look at one of the buildings and saw it. Or, rather, didn’t see it – there was no sign at all of whatever roofs had once been there. No fallen beams, no jutting props, no roofing tiles, clean edging on the tops of the pebbledashed walls; at some point, all the roofing had been deliberately removed. Had the owners made the place uninhabitable after evicting squatters? Or had they simply decided that it wasn’t worth paying council tax and maintainence costs on a place that they never used?
Aty that point, B found me – he too had been exploring and and wondering and visualising. But where I had been deep in the past, he had been to the future.
“Over here” he said, and led me to a stream – small, but fast and deep. “perfect for a water turbine, wouldn’t you say? Especially if you put in a little dam about here…”
I smiled – “What we would do if we won the lottery” was something that we often indulged in. Now it was “What we would do if we won the lottery, bought this place and rebuilt it”. We walked back to the buildings.
B continued. “We could turn this building into bedrooms and a bathroom; this one could be a kitchen; we’d join it all up of course, with covered walkways…” To the building with the curved gable end: “This could be the main living room – that would be a splendid view….”
I joined in, seeing it all. “This bit outside could be a big conservatory – just think of sitting here on summer evenings watching the skies change colour over the water…”
“And we could put a wind turbine on the hill out there, cover the place with solar panels, have a diesel genny for backup in that space outside the kitchen, a wood store in the room alongside, wave bye-bye to the bloody power companies…. ”
“Some trees would have to go – that conifer is already leaning and I’m surprised that that beech hasn’t lifted that wall….”
“‘Course, we’d need a bloody big 4-track to get to and from town, even just to get up and down the track in winter weather – doubt if the postie would come down this far, so we’d have to have a postbox at the gate…. a caterpillar-track would be useful, if we were getting our wood from the forest…”
We stood there a while more, dreaming, and seeing what might be. Then the rain started spattering down and we ran for the car.
And went back home…..
I am bloody angry. We heat our house with coal. The coalman has just been for the fortnightly delivery, and the price of coal has gone up
This morning I watched the news, all about how two of our senior politicians have been swanning around some nice warm part of the world, getting freebies from a couple of totally honest (yes really, so don’t sue me) Russian billionaire businessmen.
B say we need some sort of revolution – the coalman agrees, so do I. Anybody else wanna join us?
From LJ Antitheism via BJSurvivor:
I am the LORD thy GOd and I give you these Ten Commandments:
1. I am He that brought you out of Egypt (like in the movie), You shall not returneth to Egypt, nor shall you think that the Pyramids are “cool,” “nifty,” or “symbolic.” That would be putting other gods before Me, and claiming that they are better architects, which is a sore spot and, hence, right out.
2. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vein. Drugs are fine, but mainlining ANYTHING is a bad scene.
3. You shall keep the Sabbath day holy, as well as Columbus Day Thanksgiving. Make sure to look for the bargains for these, though, but don’t let it stop you from spending. Remember: The more thou spendest, the holier thou art.
4. Honor they father and thy mother, even if thy father molests thee. For abortions shall not be legal, so thou art stuck with thy affliction… naneenaneebooboo.
5. You shall not murder, except in the name of Me, or the Pope or any diocese, or to convert heathens, or to defend democracy or to hunt queers, women, commies or sissies.
6. You shall not commit adultery. This applies only to married women. Sex is a bad thing as it promotes fun, which is right out, and must be stopped. I put all those nerves in thy sexual regions to fulfill My quota (damn union labor laws), but that doesn’t mean you can use them just for the sake of pleasure, which is unholy and against Me. Why this is, I don’t know, but I don’t need to, being God. Someone get these bugs offa Me!
7. Thou shalt not steal, unless thou art the Pope, any diocese or government leader, or really wealthy, or if thou canst somehow work it in to the state or national charter.
8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, unless thy neighbor is a commie, heathen or queer, which I despiseth, or unless thou art a Good Christian(tm), in which case thou canst do anything, so long as thou sayest that it is in My name (which thou wilt anyway).
9. Go ahead and covet.
10. Thou shalt not think. Thought is bad and may lead to Questioning, which is a mortal sin. Go to sleep. Feel comfortable in thy confusion and kill anyone who questions thou.
OK, reasonable, thoughtful Christians reading this are going to be offended. What offends me is that reasonable, thoughtful Christians allow the ignorant, fundie, idiot-fringe Christians to (mis)represent them.
Thought-provoking article in Wired.
Most counterterrorism policies fail, not because of tactical problems, but because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what motivates terrorists in the first place. If we’re ever going to defeat terrorism, we need to understand what drives people to become terrorists in the first place,,,,
,,,Terrorists, he writes, (1) attack civilians, a policy that has a lousy track record of convincing those civilians to give the terrorists what they want; (2) treat terrorism as a first resort, not a last resort, failing to embrace nonviolent alternatives like elections; (3) don’t compromise with their target country, even when those compromises are in their best interest politically; (4) have protean political platforms, which regularly, and sometimes radically, change; (5) often engage in anonymous attacks, which precludes the target countries making political concessions to them; (6) regularly attack other terrorist groups with the same political platform; and (7) resist disbanding, even when they consistently fail to achieve their political objectives or when their stated political objectives have been achieved.
Abrahms has an alternative model to explain all this: People turn to terrorism for social solidarity. He theorizes that people join terrorist organizations worldwide in order to be part of a community, much like the reason inner-city youths join gangs in the United States.
There’s a website called Fundies Say The Darndest Things! devoted to recording the inane/insane stuff that religious fundamentalists come out with on t’interwebs. It’s a pity there isn’t an equivalent site for Global Warming Denialists, as this (from one of my elists) would be a fine candidate:
If a weatherman can’t get the weather right, how can scientists tell us the earth is warming and we are the cause of it.
Yesterday, we went for a drive out in the the forest. Not far, just along the Old Edinburgh Road and around a few forest tracks.
Visiting a tiny loch, we spotted one of the new sculptural artworks that have been erected in this area – a tall conical spire of red sandstone blocks, built right by the waterside. Coming up to have a look at it, we found it had a horizontal hole through the middle, at just about eye-level.
There was no notice to explain it, nothing to identify the artist. But that’s how I like these sort of things. It’s sort of nice to come across one while you’re out exploring; I like it that they’re not identified, don’t have some pompous “artist’s statement” attached to them – I have always thought that if an artwork needed explaining then it’s not much good. These forest sculptures are just there, as themselves; you have to look at them and explore them for yourself, allow them to speak to you, without preconceptions. You can sit back and listen to their stories.
Well, it’s been quiet lately around here. Getting on with the gardening, though I’m in danger of overdoing things. Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours battling the hugely overgrown honeysuckle in the front garden. I started with the naive belief that I would merely have to find a couple or three main stems, cut them off at ground level, then lift out the rest. Naturally, it wasn’t like that at all.
The bush, as I said was vastly overgrown. Being a climber, it had curled tenaciously around everything in the vicinity, including a big cotoneaster, a sycamore sapling and a couple of other shrubs. It had wound so tightly around the sycamore trunk that the stems were actually embedded in the bark. There were hundreds of stems and shoots everywhere, all amongst the shrubbery; getting them out became a matter of slashing randomly at bundles of stems with the secateurs, then heaving mightily and dragging them out by the handful.
At the end of it, I was left aching pretty much all over, barely able to walk. My knees were about the only part of me not aching. Until this morning, when the situation was reversed. My damm knees were throbbing. So it’s mostly been a day of staying off my feet and necking paracetamol like smarties.
Still, it gave me time to think. For instance, about just how wise I was to begin this vegetable-gardening project in the first place. Not too wise, given my state of health; however, I’ve started it, so I’ll have a good go at finishing it. Once I get the plot cleared, it won’t be so bad.
And I was thinking some more about writing my life story. It’s high time I got it done. There’s bits of it all over the place, in my notebooks, my diary, my various blogs, forum and elist posts. I really should start collecting and collating them. I’ve been looking at various writing programs. I already use Jot Notes for all sorts of notes, thoughts. writings and my diaries; I originally started using it as a beta tester way back in 2000 or so and have consequently been getting free upgrades ever since. It’s an excellent little note-keeping program with only a few drawbacks, chiefly the inability to open two notefiles at once – that makes copying and checking between files difficult. So it’s not that suitable for what I need for this particular project.
Programs I’ve been looking at are (all Windows/PC programs):
Page Four. This is pretty much identical to Jot Notes, with just a couple of extra bells and whistles; like Jot, it doesn’t have the ability to open more than one file at a time. There’s a free version which is limited to three projects, and the full version is pretty cheap. However, Jot is even cheaper.
YWriter4 This calls itself “novel writing software” and that’s pretty much what it’s for. Admittedly, I haven’t spent too much time trying it out, but all the features overwhelmed me – it was just too damm complex. And I simply don’t need most of the features – character notes, location lists, plot outlines and the like. However, it you’re into serious fiction writing, this is probably just right for you. And it’s FREE! I repeat: FREE. For that alone, it deserves supporting.
Connected Text is actually a type of offline wiki, running on your own computer. Just like an online wiki, you can add hyperlinks, images etc, write your own stylesheet if you don’t like the default skin, hyperlink within the document and so on; it exports to RTF and HTML. It’s really more suitable for a research project or dissertation; once you’ve finished your project, you can upload it straight to a website. Quite interesting, not too expensive, and something I could possibly use sometime. But not at the moment.
Liquid Story Binder looks more promising. Like YWriter, it has loads of features, but they don’t seem to be aimed exclusively at fiction-writers; there’s lots of stuff to help in planning and outlining, plus there’s the ability to embed images and recordings. Unlike the other programs, I didn’t uninstall it straight way; two days later, I’m still playing with it. It’s a paid-for program, but the free trial version has all the features and is not limited at all. You only have to keep using it – it locks after thirty days without any use.
Well, it’s finally stopped raining – I’ve done no gardening done since Sunday. Didn’t manage any gardening yesterday, probably won’t do any today either – yesterday I got my new hard drive and spent the whole day just installing everything; I’m still dont finished, still got to copy over all my music and pictures, plus install one or two remaining programs (notably that godawful ecommerce program I have to use for somebody, which is so ancient that it won’t work without MSOffice and IE6; but I don’t intend to be the one to cough up £100 for an upgrade).
And today, which is still dry, we spent the whole morning collecting a Freecycled chest of drawers; we’ve driven all the way to Kirkpatrick Fleming and back – probably over 50 miles – because I got the place mixed up with Kirkpatrick Durham, which is only 10 or so miles away
Yes, I’ve started some serious gardening. A few weeks ago I came to two decisions. First, I have to get more exercise; second, the way the economy is going generally, getting a little more self-sufficient in food would be a wise move.
Exercise used to be no problem for me – not being able to drive, I walked and/or ran everywhere (very often weighted down with a huge shoulderbag packed with everything I thought I might possibly need – not including a kitchen sink, because I already had one at home). That was until 2001, when I developed arthritis in my knees, followed by all my thyroid problems, angina and high blood pressure. I can still walk round the shops and down to the village and back, but it’s hard work. Not just hard on my knees, but generally – I simply don’t have a lot of physical energy to spare any more. So I now spend far too much time sitting around and putting on weight (in spite of sticking to a diet).
Carol-next-door used to grow splendid vegetables on a large patch of the communal land around the houses here. Then a couple of years ago she developed spinal problems and couldn’t carry on with it. Nobody else seemed interested in taking the plot over, so it was left to grow weeds.
So – pondering my need for exercise, I thought that regular bouts of digging and weeding might be the exercise that I need. Plus, I would have the benefit of fresh vegetables, grown very cheaply; with the price of food rocketing, that’s a major consideration for us these days.
It’s hard work – the brambles, wild raspberries and nettles are up to six feet high in places; I haven’t even started serious digging yet and I need better tools. But I’m already feeling better – cant wait for Spring to start.
So the Large Hadron Collider got switched on this morning (and we’re all still here!). I was watching it on BBC News24; after the switchon, the presenter began reading out text and emails from the public. The very first one was, I swear to the Whatever:
“Are these scientists trying to disprove the existence of God?”
:facepalm: