where art collides philosoperontap

Our brightly lit kitchen contrasts strikingly with the miserable February morning out there. Gloomy. I have a home made bagel (yes, yes another THG talent – worragal!) in the Dualit toaster and some bacon under the grill. Gotta set myself up for the day as there is a big rugby club funeral to go to. Terry Cleaver, Tex, was a legend at Lincoln RFC and I imagine there will be a huge turnout. 

There are loads of stories about Tex. I remember watching a game once and at half time all the spectators hot footed it to the bar. Tex walked in in his playing kit so I bought him a pint thinking must only be playing the first half. He downed that beer and then strolled out to play the second half. Tex was always the judge in tour court sessions and attained his legendary status by missing the flight home on the Prague Easter tour along with Paul Clarke. Couldn’t find the way back to the hotel having not slept for three nights. That tour was the first in living memory where we actually brought some kitty back with us. Beer was that cheap. We drank the rugby club dry for £57! Today I’ll be wearing my Prague Tour tie out of respect. RIP Tex.

No fox news to report since Sunday but I did get some video footage at 3.28pm as it strolled around the garden for a bit.

Gloomy or not, THG has gone out running with the Pink Ladies Running Club.

Fox visits since 23rd January
23 Jan 20.58
24 Jan 02.31
25 Jan 06.36
26 Jan 10.45
27 Jan 22.38
29 Jan 16.21
29 Jan 17.44
29 Jan 23.44
30 Jan 12.54
31 Jan 16.39
31 Jan 16.58
01 Feb 06.49
04 Feb 14.03
Because I didn’t get to report them whilst we were away in Espanya.

Post brekkie cup of tea in the snug with THG. I have my Bose noise cancelling phones on so I don’t have to listen to the nuze. It’s all about Don. I find anything related to Don to be offensive and try not to listen/watch/read.

Animal sightings at 03:57 and 04:02. Can’t quite be sure whether it was hoofed, vulpine or feline as it only briefly appeared at the edge of the lake cam field of view. Defo didn’t roam around the lake, shed or greenhouse. Cctv didn’t help either other than perhaps to err on the side of fox/cat. Must have been fox I think.

Good night watching huge footy in the shed with THG last night. Liverpool. Cut her arm open and she bleeds Scouse. Conveniently the Liverpool strip is red innit 🙂 I fell asleep on the sofa to find that the rest of the house, ie THG, had gone to bed! Normally I’m the first to go.

The rain falls steadily on the demesne of THG. I am in the shed getting ready to do some admin. Bills n stuff. Packing for Seville is mostly done. Just have to be careful not to keep shoving stuff in the case just because there is room. Not yet decided which carry on to take. I don’t need to “carry much” and thus the Stubble & Co Adventure Bag might be overkill but it is a handy bag with lots of useful pockets, a zipped laptop compartment and a slot that lets you slide it down the handle of the suitcase so I think I’ve just persuaded myself that it is the one. Room for the duty free on the way back as well!

Rain is forecast all day. Ordinarily we don’t play golf if the weather is inclement but I’ll have to see how it goes this pm. One of the boys wants to play regardless of whether it is raining or not. Will defo be in the strugs afterwards, hence the need to have finished packing today.

Potentially might get some work done in le jardin today. It’s much warmer than it has been. There is a slight threat of rain around lunchtime. If not today the defo Wednesday. This is in keeping with an executive decision I made to nominate one day in the week for non sitting at the desk activity. Start off with a day and who knows where we might get to 🙂 

The pressing garden work is the pruning of apple trees and the vine. These, together with the wildflower meadow are my responsibilities. I also have an application that requires the use of my new socket set which you can imagine is quite exciting.

The other garden related job this week is happening at the weekend when @Adie is swinging by to bottle the cider we made during the 2024 harvest. It’s looking beautifully clear. Gemini offers the following insight into what we might expect potency wise:

• Natural Fermentation (No added sugar): Most standard apple juices have a starting gravity between 1.040 and 1.050, yielding an ABV of roughly 5.5% to 6.5%.
• High-Sugar Harvests: Exceptional years or specific apple varieties (like those from the 2025 harvest) can produce natural ABVs of 8% to 10.5% without additives.

As this is from 2024 we might expect 6% which is strong enough. I do need to sort out some bottles. Might have to tip some cheap lemonade and similar purchased for a party but never used. Will keep you updated obvs. Didn’t harvest any last year due to mobility issues affecting my enthusiasm. In 2026 my bionic powers should alter that.

There is news from the lake this morning. We had two overnight visits from the herd: five past ten and twenty five to one. Seems to me that the fawn is getting bigger, as children do. Although we only have firm evidence of two animals, the exciting thing is that I think we see three pairs of eyes in the earlier vid. Two having emerged through the hedge and potentially another pair still within the hedge. Check out the pic and vid to see what you think. 

The camera isn’t set to record long enough clips to validate this. Might have to change that, at least as an experiment. We have 30GB of usable storage and it loops round and overwrites the earliest media when full. I deleted the content once last year before we went away (late summer?) but there is still a gig and a half of free memory so increasing the length of the clips shouldn’t be a biggie from the perspective of timeframe storable in memory. Only needs to be able to cover a few weeks really rather than months. I download vids of interest on a daily basis or in a batch if I’ve been away.

…

The walk to the shed was done without the aid of a jumper which has been discarded due to the clement weather and the heating has been turned down. In fact it almost feels like a spring day. The birds are in fine voice and the red arrows (I assume it is they – can only hear them – it could be some jets from Waddo) are practising in preparation of the 2026 display season.

Video clip length increased to 15 seconds fwiw. Fox came at 16:04.

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Was in from the shed by five fifteen. Figured I’d spend some time with THG but she is hard at it in her sewing room. We are off back there to watch the Liverpool game later so doesn’t do me any harm to take a break.

I spent the afternoon, once back from the pool, looking at drovers roads and similar. I have Davies Family Tree Locations in “My Maps” in Google maps. It registers a number of features such as farms, churches and woollen mills and now I’m adding features of interest such as Roman roads and drovers roads, both of which touch our spaces. Pubs called Drovers Arms also feature. There is one down the road from where we lived. Bit of a clue there as to the route of the drovers innit. Also fields called Cae Nos (Night Field) which were used by drovers to park cattle overnight. There are a few other landmarks I’m looking at but there’s no point in telling you it all in one go.

The point about the drovers is that we would have sold cattle to them, or they would have sold cattle on our behalf.

Dylan Thomas would sometimes write 200 versions of a poem. Was watching a program about him last night. You don’t see that these days with word processors where versions overwrite themselves in real time. Doesn’t quite carry the same romantic vision. I also heard that he made much use of a thesaurus. It makes sense although it somewhat tempers the image of him as the ultimate wordsmith. It makes me feel a little better that sometimes I am scrabbling around for a word that I know is there but I can’t quite lay my hand on. Sometimes it eventually comes to me but sometimes I have to make do with a lesser alternative. Not that any of it really matters but I do take pride in my words. 

This morning’s Sunday Service is coming from the Isle of Man.  Quite enjoying it. Some nice vocals. Enhanced by the fact that I grew up there. We are off back there before Easter. They are talking about the fact that they have 27 dark sky places. I’d be quite tempted to experience one but the problem is we are in Peel and by the time it gets dark we are usually in the pub.

This next trip we are on the boat from Heysham. It’s a longer journey but gets in at a more sensible time than the cat from Liverpool otherwise we’d have caught that. At least they have nice cabins with double beds and balconies on the Heysham sailing. Believe you me if it’s rough being able to lie down on a bed helps. In those circumstances the balcony is somewhat redundant. 

Uhoh. They’ve slipped a happy clappy modern job into the running order.  Soz IoM. The radio is going off. The pic is from the webcam on Peel Breakwater. One of our fave spots. Petty deserted at the time of the pic. There’s a caff there where you grab a cuppa and sit on the roof watching the boats go by. Saw a basking shark, once. At one time I was Mayor of Peel Breakwater caff until I dumped 4square as a waste of time. Ditto Lincoln Cathedral.

It was cold overnight and the frost lingered but now it is warming up and the garden is a mess of dull grass and soggy wet leaves. I do have a job to do. THG has identified a place on the wall where she wants a picture putting up. Not much of a job you’d think but picture hooks are rubbish these days. The nails bend all too easily. Probably always have done. I might try drilling a hole with a v thin drill bit first. See how it goes. There is no rush, unlike yesterday’s dash for the Park Run.

Breakfast was a small bacon roll and a slice of sourdough toast with THG’s very fine home made orange marmalade. It must be said that this is a great batch. Best of our married life, fair play. 

Re read a book on life and traditions in rural Wales last night, specifically about the woollen industry. It was interesting to observe that the industry really took off in the mid nineteenth century at the same time that my 3g grandfather Benjamin Davies got into the business around 1860 running the Abersannan woollen factory in Llanfynydd. This was a small spinning mill and the building is still there today. I suspect he didn’t own this mill. Then he moved to a place called Felin Obaith (hope mill) in Rhiwadar, or Bird’s Hill. Three of his kids got into the business including my own 2g grandfather JP Davies who after a number of interim stages ended up at Maesdulais mill in Porthyrhyd where my dad was born. The industry went into decline after the first world war but the mill continued to function for some time after that. JP died in 1928 but one of his kids, “Twm Ffatri” continued there. Don’t know when they finally shut up shop but my sister Sue remembers seeing the factory equipment still in place. The decline of the business at Maesdulais reflected what was happening in the wider industry. Sister Sue and I both have blankets woven at Maesdulais.

My current activity is still very much centred around our time as farmers and I’ll get to looking at the woollen industry in the fullness of time.

Fox came at 8pm last night. THG is off to church.

Had an appointment at the surgery this morning at 8:30am. It was my decision to book it at that time. My logic is that the earlier in the day the appointment the less likely it is to be delayed by overrunning previous appointments. It is only a 5 minute drive from our house so not too bad really despite the fact that I had to get up at the unearthly time of seven thirty or simlar. Who knew that time even existed?

I left the house at just before eight fifteen, brought the brown bins in, scraped the ice off the windscreen and set off. At the docs the system you use to let them know you’ve arrived denied my existence and suggested I spoke to the receptionist. This was fine because at that time of day there was no queue.

Said receptionist, having ascertained my identity, asked whether I got the text message? The nurse had called in sick and I’d have to rebook. Sigh. The sms arrived at 8:02. No, I didn’t see it. I have most notifications switched off as otherwise my phone would be constantly dinging. These things happen. I’ve rebooked for Tuesday at ten to nine. That extra 20 mins in bed makes all the difference.

Ah well. Had I thought about it I could have swung by Fosters to pick up some bacon for THG’s 100th Park Run celebratory brunch on Saturday but I didn’t. I’ll pop down a bit later. Life eh?

Coming back to the early start, if I thought that was bad, when we fly to Rome in March for the rugby we have a 06:50 flight from LHR T5 so we are staying at the Sofitel which we like which softens the blow a bit. There are loads of other BA flights to Rome but I booked it months ago before the rugby dates had officially been announced so I used points. This way I could easily cancel the flight if it turned out that the dates were wrong and the early flight was the only one available for booking with Avios. A few weeks ago I decided I needed to recover the points to use for a different trip so I looked at a paid option instead. A single was by then £750. Each. There are two of us! I stuck with the free flight. We can have breakfast on the plane, fwiw. I might sleep the whole way.

On the plus side we land at 10:25 so should be at the hotel by noon and can do some touristy bits. Our pals don’t get there until the evening. Mind you Rome is somewhat mind boggling when it comes to touristy bits. There are so many of them it’s difficult to focus and we’ve had a few trips there over the years so none of it will be new (geddit?). 

The hotel is near the Vatican so might nip and visit the Pope on Sunday morning. Always good for a blessing. At least the last one was. It’s part of the job description. That and being the final approval signature when it comes to dishing out new sainthoods. There are some things where you have to have the top guy in the signoff loop. The top mortal anyway. One assumes that the candidates will already have heavenly approval or they wouldn’t have been able to pull miracles out of the bag in the first place. It’s how it works.

Fox came at 21:17 last night. Something also set the lake cam off at half three in the morning but there is nowt visible. Seem to get a few false positives from time to time. I knew to look because earlier I’d looked at the cctv and the back garden camera also registered movement at that time and I could see the lake cam infrared light come on. This can only be seen because the cctv also uses infrared. Interesting. Tharrldo.

Totes freezing out there. Sub zero. The lake will be frozen. Take care not to walk on it folks. That water is deep and the ice may not yet be as thick as it needs to be.

We had a high number of fox visits yesterday from, I do believe, two different foxes. Times were 11:49, 20:39, 22:44, 00:04, 07:46. The new one, which came at 11:49 whilst I was in the shed but didn’t notice at the time, has a white chest and looks to be a bit slimmer than the regular one. I ran a comparison AI analysis and on balance I think they are defo two different animals. I don’t have the same chest pic of both of them but I believe I’m right. The analysis also suggested that the regular fox is a vixen from the way it marks its territory. The area around the lake is rapidly becoming a fox superhighway.

THG has gone running. It’s her 99th park run. She was worried that it might be called off due to sub zero temperatures but no it is still on. I shall be going to watch her 100th next week.

I am currently producing a model of the farming year in our family farm Maesnonni in Llanllwni at the beginning of the 1730s. You might think this is a little unusual but it is what it is. It is an interesting and challenging detective story. Because of this my mind often turns to what they would be doing in Maesnonni at this time of year, especially with the freezing temperatures we are currently experiencing. 

They didn’t have central heating and double glazing I assure you. In fact they would have had a large fireplace in the kitchen with not very good insulation albeit 29 inch thick walls. Actually I’m not sure about the walls as that is the thickness of the “new” farmhouse built in 1804. The older one would not have been as salubrious. It might even have been modeled on the old Welsh longhouse with family accommodation at one end and the livestock at the other. 

With 31 cattle probably not., They would have been housed separately.  We don’t really live in a real world. They would have been tucked under multiple blankets, breath freezing. I wonder how they used to light candles and fires. I can’t imagine they kept something burning all the time. Flints maybe?

Last night was nearly a full moon here. A few stars to be seen but not many really due to the light pollution around us. 1730s Llanllwni would have been pitch black but the light on a starry night would probably have represented good illumination.

We were walking to the Bailgate on New Year’s Eve. This was an achievement in itself but that’s not the focus of this story. On the way we passed a family group with a little girl holding her blind grandfather’s hand. I assumed it was her grandfather. He was slim with white hair, a small pointed white beard and in his free hand carried a white stick. It really grabbed my attention. She can’t have been more than six and it made me think what confidence she must have to walk with him along the pavement like that. A real responsibility. 

I made a note on my phone after they had gone by. I did go through a phase of carrying a small notebook to scribble down such observations but the stylus in my phone is a good enough replacement, albeit ethereal. A notebook is a more permanent record. Our lives are moving into the aether anyway. You can choose to embrace this or not adapt to changes in our world. This does occasionally make me ponder. 

I write a lot of stuff. Nowadays it is mostly online but I do have diaries going back to my childhood. These days the diary is online but that early record of me exists and will be there if ever the kids want to look at it when I am gone. Assuming they can read my handwriting!

Philosopherontap has over two thousand eight hundred published posts, mostly by me although there have been a few guest poets over the years. I did publish a book of poetry from pot years ago (still have some copies if anyone wants one) but once the site is no longer supported/hosted it won’t be available. OK there’s the wayback machine but you can’t guarantee that will last forever. trefor.net had more than three thousand posts but that site is now very much archived as read only.

Does any of this matter? Probably not but I do like to think that I will have left some kind of footprint on the planet even if that will fade and eventually disappear under the sands of time. Printing all the posts might add a bit of longevity but that would be v expensive and constrain the viewing content to whoever held the copy. I doubt the British Library would want it.

I suspect that it does matter a little more than we really think. In conducting my family tree research I occasionally come across (very) old newspaper articles that refer to documents seen by the writer that would be of great interest to me. Church records, diaries, stuff like that. My 2 great grandfather William Davies was a poet who went by the handle of Y Bardd Coch or the Red Bard. I’ve found references in newspapers discussing his stuff but very little of the writing is to be found. It may be there at the bottom of some distant relative’s cupboard but I can’t tell. It would be quite nice to be able to read his poetry. He did write the elegy on his gravestone in Abergorlech churchyard which I have seen and copied and I may have a snippet from elsewhere.

Ah well. Once the earth is demolished to make way for the interplanetary superhighway nothing will matter anyway (I maintain stocks of beer and nuts in anticipation of the day – if you know you know).

This morning’s problem is to see if I can find logs of a suitable size in order to light the fire again. We have lit it most days over the holiday and today we have our last batch of guests coming for lunch. Some of THG’s family who happen to be staying in the area for a few days. I’m going to have to sort through the logs and see what’s lower down in the pile.

THG herself is off out weight lifting this morning. How many people can do one handed pressups with a clap in between? Not THG actually but I thought I’d ask the question anyway – see who salutes etc 🙂 

Unless you are in the retail or hospitality industries most people will not be at work today even though it is a Friday. Doesn’t seem much point in going in for just one day does there? I guess some folk are v keen, or essential workers. I will be doing some actual work work next week meself – shock horror probe. I won’t trouble you with the deets. Don’t worry, I won’t overdo it. Be assured. Britain needs ssureds. Another new word!

Fox: 9:35pm.

…

Talking about things being demolished to make way for a bypass I note that the Mint Leaf Indian restaurant on the A46 near the A1 roundabout at Newark is set to be demolished to make way for road improvements. That roundabout does need something doing to it as it is quite dodgy negotiating the right lanes. However the demolition of the restaurant saddens me a little.

Yonks ago when we started Timico the business was based out of the stable block at Langford Hall, just a few hundred yards down from the Mint Leaf. At the time it was a Little Chef but when they closed down that chain the property was taken over the curry house that we now know as the Mint Leaf opened. Dean Bruce and I decided we would check it out for lunch – see if they had any lunch deals to offer.

The waiter who greeted us outlined a lunch deal. Don’t recall the details. I do remember ordering a meat madras. When another waiter returned, who turned out to be the owner, he asked us if we were happy with what we had ordered. I said yes but if it wasn’t too late could a chicken tikka masala be doable instead of the madras as part of the deal. The owner looked bewildered and said they didn’t have a deal and that it was the waiter’s first day on the job! Hey ho 🙂 Hopefully he didn’t get into too much trouble. 

We didn’t go again. Not because it was bad food. It’s just that I wouldn’t normally have an Indian meal for lunch and living in Lincoln it didn’t make sense to go all the way to Newark in order to get a curry fix.

Traditionally I considered the gap between Christmas and New Year’s Eve to be somewhat boring. Tedious.  Tedious to the point I would sometimes go in to work rather than waste valuable holiday allowance on taking days off. The weather would always be dull and in the past we would be stuck in the house waiting until the coming of the new year kicked life back into gear.

Nowadays I don’t need to worry about how many days holiday I have left and whilst the weather has not changed, although we are entering quite a cold patch which does make it more interesting, the days seem not to be so boring. Maybe this year it is because we have had two Christmases, one at my sister Ann’s and the other here in Lincoln. Two great family get togethers and the main cohort of the Lincoln bunch only just left yesterday so we are only just now getting back to normal. If there is such a thing as normal.

THG has been busy in the kitchen making things that use up foodstuffs that have inevitably been surplus to requirements. Today the last of the beef will go into two beef and mushroom pies that will be called upon on some future date when deemed appropriate. A couple of quiches have used up some bacon lardons, cheese eggs and, cough, broccoli. I even offered to turn the crappy white sliced loaf into breadcrumbs if any of it survives these last few days where the one remaining offspring and her husband are still in residence.

Twenty twenty five was a good year for the Davieses on a number of fronts with Hannah getting married to George and Joe and Lucy becoming engaged. THG and I have a deep sense of joy over this. We are very happy with the new family members and the wedding in particular was one of those truly memorable and joyful occasions. We all like a good wedding and this one was particularly special.

I had two new hips, the first in February and the second in October. As I look at the year in the rear view mirror the first new hip is pretty much perfect and the second well on the way to being so. I shall probably name 2026 as the year of mobility. Shake it baby.

Our Tom cast off the shackles of employment and embarked on a career of business and self employment and John in Berlin continues to make inroads into his musical career. 

Whilst one of my interests in life is history and in particular the history of my own family I try not to dwell on the past but the aforementioned highlights do bring with them a sense of deep satisfaction.

I am particularly excited about 2026. Don’t want to jinx it but yanow, you have to have a positive attitude to these things. I don’t do new year resolutions but I am quietly looking forward to a quiet, dryish January which this year will end a week early when we head to Seville for the half marathon. After this week I am also restarting my membership at Total Fitness which was put on hold for hiphop2. Gotta get back in the pool. 

We have some new bathroom scales which THG had requested for Christmas as the old ones were kaput. Now some of you might think that is the equivalent of buying her an iron, or a hoover, but that is what she asked for. I got her mechanical scales “as used in doctor’s surgeries all around the UK” because I didn’t want fancy battery powered ones and at the docs’ they always give a little lower reading than the old John Lewis number at home so that’s a result. Not tried them yet meself but I want to get this weekend out of the way first. THG is off to the theatre in London with Hannah leaving me to my own devices so I consider that to be the final fling of this year’s midwinter holiday.

We are off out tonight for a bit of early supper. Couple of beers in the Bailgate first. I am not a massive fan of the traditional new years eve. All that Auld Lang Syne stuff feels a little like false bonhomie to me. So we will be home early and leave the revelling to others. We did look at booking a hotel somewhere but everywhere is either throwing a big NYE party which we don’t want or isn’t and we run the risk of not being able to find anywhere to eat and having a boring night in the room.

Might light the fire later. We don’t light the fire that often as it is in the front room whereas our time is mostly spent either in the kitchen or snug. And the shed obvs. I’ll also be using the workshop more in 2026 once it has been cleared of all the boxes that are normally full of Christmas decs and stored on shelves in the garage. As it is it is a struggle to get anywhere near the bench and as for the steel shelving with all my tools, fuggedit. I did battle my way through to drop off the new socket kit that I bought for meself and gave to Santa to wrap.

Anyway gotta go, for the mo. I leave you in the hope that 2026 will bring world peace and universal happiness. If that doesn’t get me a Nobel Prize I don’t know what will 😉 

Oh and keep Saturday 5th September free – not the bank holiday as originally mooted. I need to firm up on the deets but that is my target date for the philosopherontap 18th birthday party. Will be back in touch re that when I firm things up.

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Deer visited the lake at thirty one minutes past midnight.

Well. Great afternoon of golf yesterday. The golf itself was not of the highest order but the craic was. Got off to a good start with a par on the first at Pebble Beach and I won with the best gross and after Adie’s handicap had been applied. Jezzer took the longest drive being the only person on the fairway. We were an eightball. At two hours it was the longest three holes of golf I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Yes it took two hours to play three holes. We did manage to tee off on the par 3 fourth just to have a nearest the pin competition but ran out of time before we could finish the hole. Several of the lads went off the course and onto the beach.

Beer was £7 a pint. Afterwards we went next door to the Square Sail (Wetherspoons) where beer was £2.35 a pint. Neither were particularly good and in fact I didn’t finish the £2.35 job. For convenience we went for dinner at Zizzi’s. Wouldn’t bother again. The high point was when they brought Simon’s prawn skewer starter whereupon three of us consumed a king prawn each before he had noticed it had arrived. When his eyes did alight on it he complained to the waitress that he only had two prawns which he thought was a measly portion for the nine quid or whatever it was. We gave her a good cash tip.

THG came and picked me ‘n Adie up from the end of Lucy Tower Street whilst the others moved on to Molly O’Briens or whatever the new Irish bar is called that is now installed in place of Patisserie Valerie. At home I watched the Imps beat Barnsley and some of the Luke the Nuke game but as I was falling asleep by then I went off to bed before the end of it.

There ya go. In the middle of all this the golf committee took an unanimous vote to elect Rory McIlroy as our new honorary Life President and I was tasked with writing to him to tell him the good news and to invite him to come and play a round with us next time he is over. I wonder if he has ever played in an eight ball.

Thassit. Need to drop our John off at the stayshun for his return trip to Berlin. He has a gig on New Year’s Eve and needs to get back. We will be seeing him again in Seville next month so no sad tears of farewell as he is waved off from the door.

Fox visited at 02:13.

News idea. No repeats of news items on the wireless in the morning. I predominantly listen to the wireless whilst lying in bed in the mornings. I’ve developed the knack of filtering out a lot of it but it is noticeable that each bulletin mostly repeats everything from earlier ones. I get to the point of thinking to myself “yes I know this, you already told me”. Ok in all fairness to the beeb they very much have to assume that people are tuning in at staggered times. Not everyone gets up at five thirty to go for their morning run.

Perhaps the old broadcast method of distributing news is coming to the end of its natural life and we are all about to move to an app based approach where we can specify exactly what we want to hear. In my case I could say I only want to hear that we didn’t win the cricket once and I don’t want to hear anything that involves politics, religion or bad things generally. Maybe I just have to stop listening full stop.

On the positive front we had another great evening at the Morning Star celebrating the mid winter solstice. The Guinness flowed freely, we sang heartily and Ness the landlady had ritually slaughtered a pig earlier in the day and turned it into sausage rolls which were consumed during the half time break. She also distributed a wonderful concoction of dried fruits wrapped in pastry that are commonly known as mince pies.

Got home to find THG, Tom and John in the shed watching Luke the Nuke steamroller his opponent to cruise into the third round of the world darts championship, or whatever it’s called. Is it possible to cruise in a steamroller? All down to your definition of cruise I guess. I wouldn’t bet against Luke winning the tourney again this year.

Got a few errands to run today including picking THG and Tom up from their downtown shopping spree. Been actually thinking I might nip downtown meself. I haven’t totally made my mind up on this as ordinarily it baffles me as to why anyone would want to go there. However my new found mobility has brought with it a self confidence and a sense of curiosity. Where would the world be without curiosity? More cats obvs. Parking might be an issue. See how it goze.

We normally at this time of year go on our annual expedition to the Cheese Society where we buy far too much cheese and spend a lot more dosh than might considered to be sensible (not by me of course). When I say “we” it is usually me and one of the kids. Joe probs. However Joe ain’t here this year and I’m thinking I might cut down on the amount of cheese I buy. Maybe even get it from Waitrose. We don’t need it until the 28th which is when the Davieses are having our Christmas dinner this year. Every year I lament the non availability of Bel Paese cream cheese on the shelves. A seasonal delight stemming from my childhood. That and tubes of Austrian smoked processed cheese. We used to fight for the round end bits. You can still get these but not the Bel Paese. Huh. Christmas is also the only time of year I buy TUC crackers. Man can live on cheese and TUC alone. And crispy duck and cheese and onion crisp sandwiches etc. 

Anyway, gotta go. A cup of tea and a bit of toast await.

The fox btw came at 04:27.

Yuk. When I say yuk I mean yuk. It’s orrible out there. Foggy. Or is it mist? Not sure I know the difference. The lake cam is misted up, or fogged. We had two sightings overnight: 03:02 and 07:53. Fox. THG would have been in the kitchen at the time. Might even have been looking out the window at the time. Didn’t see owt but there again it’s v misty, as you know.

Today is a v busy day. THG is off park running and when she gets back I have some shopping to do: Gruyere, strong cheddar, steaks, 250g pork, bacon and soresedges. Amazing how quickly the bacon goes down when the kids come home. Steak and chips monday night. What’s not to like?

Then it’s the over thirties disco at Home night club from 3pm. Be there or be square 🙂 Meeting beforehand for “pre’s”. Yanow the score. Get loaded up before hitting the expensive night club scene. Have decided to wear my tropical trefbash shirt. It will be its third outing. Second since the bash itself. Like I said. Busy day. Busy busy busy. No commas needed there just to emphasise the business of the sentence. I’m hoping that the night club will have laid on some extra seating. It is the over thirties afternoon after all.

Blast. Rain is forecast today and I was going to prune the apple trees and grapevine. Blast Blast Blast Blast Blast. Yesterday was too wet. It was forecast to be nice today but now it is not. As I already said, Blast. 

Ah well. I might go swimming instead. That’s an indoor activity unaffected by the weather. Many of this afternoon’s sessions are showing the maximum availability. I’m hopeful that this means there will hardly be anyone else in the pool.

I can hear the rain beating on the bedroom window. I wouldn’t say it was loud enough to drown out Radio 4 on the wireless but it is definitely noticeable. I might need to wear a coat on my journey. Hat as well. When you are a glasses wearer a wide brimmed hat does a good job of keeping rain off your specs. Saves you having to dry them when you reach the shelter of the shed and avoids the risk of knocking in to anything due to blurry vision caused by raindrops on the lenses. Today’s top tip. 

I mentioned the shed but the same rule applies wherever your ultimate destination might be. I try to make these laws of physics as general as possible as it increases the chance of them being accepted by the global academic community. The experts. Those in the know. 

It is dark and dismal out there. Dark and stormy. No sun in sight. I daresay most birds are sheltering in their nests. Shelters. Places of safety. 

The winter solstice is this coming Sunday. Same day as the Morning Star carol session. Something quite apt about that. This feasting (Ness usually lays on some mince pies for the singers) at this time of year dates back millenia. Our singing of the Christmas carols is merely a modern way of celebrating the end of another natural cycle. Another lap of this planet of ours around that blazing (sometimes) ball of fire in the sky. 

Lunch on Sunday is pork. This is quite apt as pigs were, as you probably know, on the menu for these solstice celebrations of old. We won’t be gnawing at bones whilst sat around the blazing fire. Twill be a more refined, modern version. A pork casserole, perhaps flavoured with a splash of calvados and a swirl of mustard and served with a selection of nutritious vegetables. Might light the fire though.

Breakfast is something that the ancients might well have similarly partaken. A mix of grains, seeds and dried berries with a dollop of fermented milk (is yoghurt fermented?) topped with some preserved berries picked by THG and I during this year’s harvest. We are surely in tune with the planet. Raise your hands, palms facing upwards and repeat after me. Ommmmmm. I am now going to consume a hot drink made by infusing boiling water with some dried leaves, picked at dawn from the upper slopes of a hillside in northern India and purchased from a merchant recently returned from a long and hazardous journey to those exotic climes.

Coincidentally, and whilst I remember, I have my annual eye test tomorrow at Clearview opticians. I suspect I will need a slightly changed prescription of lens. I’ll have to sell a pig to pay for it, unless Clearview will accept one directly in exchange for the new lenses. Suspect they don’t work like that otherwise they would have had a picture of a pig in the window next to the VISA and Mastercard signs. I can but ask. Probably easier for me to use my card though especially as I don’t actually have a pig to sell. That was me being creative with words, metaphorically speaking.

Did you know that in 18th century Carmarthenshire only one farm in eight had a boar. Neighbouring farmers would have to take their sows next door to be serviced to ensure the continuity of their bacon supply for the following year. In return for the “service” the owner of the sow would do a day’s work helping with the harvest the following year. I do like a bit of bacon and now know where to go to get some in.

My grandparents used to keep a pig in a sty at the bottom of their garden and our house in Greetwell Gate also had one. The deeds specifically mentioned our right to keep a pig which we used to do but in the fridge or freezer, already slaughtered and then not a whole one. It was only when they passed a law making people take such animals to an abattoir to be slaughtered that people stopped keeping them at home. Abattoirs were either too far away or too expensive. The disappearing customs of old. I’m sure I’ve told you this before. The good old days…

No fox news.

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Fox news update. I spotted him in the garden at 14:17hrs. Plain daylight. Now I know where he exits and goes into next doors’.

What use is sitting alone in your room? Go for a walk to Tesco. Actually I don’t like going to Tesco. It’s not my thang. Waitrose is currently out of walking range although that state of affairs won’t last long. The issue is likely to me more down to whether I can carry my purchases home. Don’t need to make an expedition of it although I do have a very good rucksack I bought for the coast to coast walk. German job. Can’t remember the make but if it comes back to me I’ll let you know. It’s a red one and was used as my day pack. Deuter, that’s it. Looked it up.

This is a somewhat convoluted way of saying I’m off to Waitrose this morning. I also told meself I’d do some tree and vine pruning but it is looking a bit wet out there and I suspect tomorrow will be drier. Why do something today when… Manãna. I like using that word because I like the ã with the twiddly thing on top of it. Dunno what it’s called though I daresay someone will tell me.

My other job today is to put up a mirror in our bedroom. There are two aspects to this job: the positioning of the mirror and its physical affixing to the wall. The latter is the easy bit. The former involves agreeing to where it goes. More’s to the point its height above ground. THG chooses the perfect position for someone her height. This means when I stand in front of the mirror I see my chest and not my face. 

Ok there is a school of thought that says “how often do you actually use a mirror Tref” and adherents to that perspective are to a large extent right. I certainly don’t need a mirror to brush my hair. The only time I ever really need one is when I put on a bow tie and need to check the angle of the dangle, so to speak. Nevertheless it would be nice if it was at the right height.

I have been reassured that this will be the case when siting the new mirror but I know darn well that said piece of glass is not big enough to cover both our needs. Probably isn’t anyway. These things aren’t chosen for their practicality but for their appearance. Woteva 🙂 

Went to the carol service at THG’s church last night. She was singing in the quire so figured it was the right thing to do. Not been for perhaps twenty five years. Not since the time when half the carols were happy clappy modern rubbish. Bland was an understatement. This one kept to my vision of what a carol service should be like. Robbie the vicar did slip in the occasional religious pitch but that is his prerogative. It’s his ball. I let it go. We all know that carol services have nothing to do with religion really. That’s why I do the Morning Star carol session every year (coming up this Sunday 6.30 for 7 – get there early if you want a seat and wrap up warm as it is in the beer garden to accommodate the crowds). It even got a mention in church last night. This thing is bigger than both of us 🙂 

Fox news: appearances at 01:17 and 03:13. That is all.

btw walked to the church, then on to the Morning Star and then home – one giant leap for Trefkind

First relaxing morning at home for a few days and some lake cam action to catch up on. Reynard appeared each night since my last report and the deer once.

The weather today is sunny which is in marked contrast to yesterday where it chucked it down all day. In fact the whole time we were on the golf course. They shouldn’t really have let us have the buggies because it was too wet. We wouldn’t have played without the buggies. Certainly not me. Home and showered and then off to the Strugs followed by the new Cathedral View curry house in the Bail. We had a nice enough meal after which THG came to pick me up whilst the rest of the fourball went to the Castle Hill Club to finish off the evening.

Today’s main job is to cook a casserole ready for tomorrow’s lunch. Mary Berry’s beef cheeks with horseradish or some such similar concoction.Contains a spoonful of curry powder I note. I just need to nip to Waitrose to source some celery plus I have a voucher for a free jar of Bonne Maman jam. Qu’y a-t-il à ne pas aimer? Might even stop off for a cawfee if anyone is around.

It has to be lunch tomorrow as THG is performing in the church choir and needs to be there for five pm to tune up. I might light the fire, cmon baby. We only usually do Sunday lunch if we have visitors but this week it is just the two of us. I’m thinking this will be my first time at a church service, weddings apart, for maybe twenty years. It must be love.

Tree is up btw.

Lake cam timings:
Wednesday: fox 21:21
Thursday: fox  01:34 
Friday: fox 05:00, deer 16:35 and 04:10

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Just back from Waitrose. I should have bought a lottery ticket really as I got the scanner right. When I scan my waitrose barcode I like to try and guess which scanner lights up and this time I got it right. Result eh?