...for my nice pension, even if you froze it this highly inflated year. But would it be too much to ask that each oily who comes to fiddle with our chronic-shite internet set up should be briefed on the findings of the last one? I oughtn't to grumble, I suppose, but when did 'ought' stop me? Today's man, one of the elite broadband shock troops, arrived some minutes after the 08:00-13:00 window I'd stayed in for, repeated all the tests his colleagues had done, replaced the router and set up the new one, leaving me to do the necessary on the computers. So, our computers are talking fluently to the router, and the router is talking fluently to the network, which unfortunately fails with depressing regularity to talk to itself. Watch this space. Shit: I have all this to start again with Frogtel now...
We're gradually getting our plants planted. Whacked in a lot of zinnias, helichrysums etc yesterday, and hope for the best. Rain would be good at this point: the water butts are empty.
Monday 28 June 2010
Saturday 26 June 2010
Summertime blues - and reds and yellows and pinks and....
Though I'm asleep for both sunrise and sunset at this time of year, it's always sad to know that they're starting to get closer together again. Some good weather to come, though, so make the best of it, eh? I wonder if it's summer lethargy that's turning various tradesmen into zombies. We've been chasing a couple of them for weeks now.
The garden is just so rewarding at this time of year, even if the weeds are growing faster than the stuff we want. The iris sibirica has almost finished flowering, so I've hacked off a couple of bits to give away to friends and neighbours. One called me over last weekend to show me one I'd given him last year or the year before. Flowering fit to bust - he was delighted. The penstemons are coming into flower now, and they will fill the garden with reds and pinks right through to the frosts. I potted up some seedling penstemons during the week, so we might just get some new colours from the mixed packet. Yet to start flowering are the achilleas (this year's seedlings), rudbeckias (some of our seed and some of Sutton's) and the echinaceas (last year's very slow seedlings, now showing signs of flowering for the first time). We appear to have about a dozen apples on our little tree, but since everything was late this year, I wouldn't be surprised to lose some in the June Drop. But in one experiment, comparing seed we saved last year with Mr Sutton's - same plant and variety - ours have done better, and a number of packets have been complete failures. Time to change seedsman, I think.
Hugely frustrating week in court. Not one of the several trials I was listed for was successful. We had last-minute changes of plea, prosecution withdrawals and dismissals. And worst of all, one matter has to go for re-trial because of crass ineptitude by an official. Can't say more about that one, other than that we were spitting feathers! Still, one nice plea from a familiar face up on a drunk and disorderly: 'on this occasion, sir, Not Guilty'.
The good news is that I've spent lots of time drinking tea and putting the world to rights with some thoroughly good and likeable people - one of whom, incidentally, chaired my second interview for the beakdom 7 years ago. More disruption to my tea and chat schedule is on the way, though. Under a pretty major programme of court closure now out for 'consultation', one of our three Courthouses is to close. I read this morning that the work is to be moved to Courthouses in two neighbouring bench areas, but that the Magistrates won't: logically, we'd henceforth have to be be in the rotas of all three benches. I suspect that MoJ really intends to move some of the Magistrates and will offer that as a concession to show that the 'consultation' has achieved something. In darker moments, I suspect we're moving towards a single bench for the whole county. It's an odds-on cert that Government would like to do away with us altogether, and replace us with stipes sitting alone. Just because lay magistrates have been around for close on 650 years and adjudge 95% of criminal cases in England and Wales doesn't mean it's the right system, after all. But at £100'000 a year in salary alone, multiplied by the number of stipes they'd need - our county alone would need a good 30 - I don't somehow see that threat as altogether imminent.
The garden is just so rewarding at this time of year, even if the weeds are growing faster than the stuff we want. The iris sibirica has almost finished flowering, so I've hacked off a couple of bits to give away to friends and neighbours. One called me over last weekend to show me one I'd given him last year or the year before. Flowering fit to bust - he was delighted. The penstemons are coming into flower now, and they will fill the garden with reds and pinks right through to the frosts. I potted up some seedling penstemons during the week, so we might just get some new colours from the mixed packet. Yet to start flowering are the achilleas (this year's seedlings), rudbeckias (some of our seed and some of Sutton's) and the echinaceas (last year's very slow seedlings, now showing signs of flowering for the first time). We appear to have about a dozen apples on our little tree, but since everything was late this year, I wouldn't be surprised to lose some in the June Drop. But in one experiment, comparing seed we saved last year with Mr Sutton's - same plant and variety - ours have done better, and a number of packets have been complete failures. Time to change seedsman, I think.
Hugely frustrating week in court. Not one of the several trials I was listed for was successful. We had last-minute changes of plea, prosecution withdrawals and dismissals. And worst of all, one matter has to go for re-trial because of crass ineptitude by an official. Can't say more about that one, other than that we were spitting feathers! Still, one nice plea from a familiar face up on a drunk and disorderly: 'on this occasion, sir, Not Guilty'.
The good news is that I've spent lots of time drinking tea and putting the world to rights with some thoroughly good and likeable people - one of whom, incidentally, chaired my second interview for the beakdom 7 years ago. More disruption to my tea and chat schedule is on the way, though. Under a pretty major programme of court closure now out for 'consultation', one of our three Courthouses is to close. I read this morning that the work is to be moved to Courthouses in two neighbouring bench areas, but that the Magistrates won't: logically, we'd henceforth have to be be in the rotas of all three benches. I suspect that MoJ really intends to move some of the Magistrates and will offer that as a concession to show that the 'consultation' has achieved something. In darker moments, I suspect we're moving towards a single bench for the whole county. It's an odds-on cert that Government would like to do away with us altogether, and replace us with stipes sitting alone. Just because lay magistrates have been around for close on 650 years and adjudge 95% of criminal cases in England and Wales doesn't mean it's the right system, after all. But at £100'000 a year in salary alone, multiplied by the number of stipes they'd need - our county alone would need a good 30 - I don't somehow see that threat as altogether imminent.
Thursday 24 June 2010
Ducks and Drakes
Super afternoon in court, doing benefit fraud, truanting etc. And it would have been nice if the prosecutor had (a) shaved and (b) veiled his abdomen from public view by doing up his shirt. Ugh.
But at least I started the day in good spirits, following a visit from a pair of young mallards in the back garden this morning.
Our BT Total Broadband is proving to be BT Total B*ll*cks. So 'twill be on the Monday morning that the Oily comes to call. Again.
Monday 14 June 2010
Smiles and snarls
Lovely news today: Anna and my nephew Richard are to be married next spring. (I have 11 months to save up.)
After last week's rain, the garden is looking really good, though I sez so meself as shouldn't. Since the last time I blogged about it, lychnis, a fuchsia (the RHS one: ie from cuttings nicked from a hedge in Rusthall High Street), a cistus and more of its helianthemum cousins have come into bloom. I got the grass cut yesterday, and that always improves the look of the place. The pond is rather green, though, so Martyn has treated it to a filtering and uv treatment contraption. To install it, he has had to lift a bit more turf - loud applause, because that means less cutting. The resulting extension to the bed behind the rockery is now populated with annuals and perennials, so I think I'll soon be able to clear one of the cold frames and get it out of the way till autumn cuttings need the space (it's rather in the way when I go to fill a watering can from the water butt). A propos the pond, by the way, the blackbirds are regular visitors: they have developed a taste not only for the tadpoles, but also for the fish food. As if we don't give the buggers enough to eat already!
Spent a while with the motor trade this morning. Egg1 is showing a couple of warning lights now, both related to systems that hadn't been invented when I bought my first car. They would need expensive diagnostics and replacement parts, so given that the thing is perfectly safe and functional, I think we'll let the trade sort it out for the next owner. Gone, alas, are the days of no fix, no fee. So we're the thick end of £80 down for no beneficial result, dammit. Imagine, therefore, my joy on returning home to find a tax disc reminder. All dealt with quickly and efficiently on line, though the language of one of the DVLA screens upped my blood pressure a bit: how about this as an exemplary bit of English:
'Need a new driving licence quickly, use our online service, its convenient, easy to use and you'll get your licence quicker.'
Anyone beat my count of six glaring mistakes in not quite two full lines? Mediockrity rools, innit?
After last week's rain, the garden is looking really good, though I sez so meself as shouldn't. Since the last time I blogged about it, lychnis, a fuchsia (the RHS one: ie from cuttings nicked from a hedge in Rusthall High Street), a cistus and more of its helianthemum cousins have come into bloom. I got the grass cut yesterday, and that always improves the look of the place. The pond is rather green, though, so Martyn has treated it to a filtering and uv treatment contraption. To install it, he has had to lift a bit more turf - loud applause, because that means less cutting. The resulting extension to the bed behind the rockery is now populated with annuals and perennials, so I think I'll soon be able to clear one of the cold frames and get it out of the way till autumn cuttings need the space (it's rather in the way when I go to fill a watering can from the water butt). A propos the pond, by the way, the blackbirds are regular visitors: they have developed a taste not only for the tadpoles, but also for the fish food. As if we don't give the buggers enough to eat already!
Spent a while with the motor trade this morning. Egg1 is showing a couple of warning lights now, both related to systems that hadn't been invented when I bought my first car. They would need expensive diagnostics and replacement parts, so given that the thing is perfectly safe and functional, I think we'll let the trade sort it out for the next owner. Gone, alas, are the days of no fix, no fee. So we're the thick end of £80 down for no beneficial result, dammit. Imagine, therefore, my joy on returning home to find a tax disc reminder. All dealt with quickly and efficiently on line, though the language of one of the DVLA screens upped my blood pressure a bit: how about this as an exemplary bit of English:
'Need a new driving licence quickly, use our online service, its convenient, easy to use and you'll get your licence quicker.'
Anyone beat my count of six glaring mistakes in not quite two full lines? Mediockrity rools, innit?
Thursday 10 June 2010
The garden has been bringing us something new practically every day. Oriental poppy, cistus, helianthemums and now a few roses. And some of the rudbeckias I sowed turn out to be petunias. Explain that.
That apart, I've been having a couple of really lazy days - minimal housework and gardening, a bit of baking and a lot of reading and surfing.
Saturday 5 June 2010
5 June
Iris sibirica coming into flower. It's so short-lived that I almost want to set up a deckchair beside it and watch it all the time it's flowering. Cuttings from Ma's plant are a few days behind that from Miss's stronger-coloured one. Both lovely anyway. Annie next door came round with a dollop of a yellow flowering something or other yesterday, and it is now in the ground. She went home with seedlings and cuttings of a number of things from the staging, and that has relieved the overcrowding a bit, and at the same time given us that nice feeling that comes of sharing bits and pieces with fellow gardeners.
BT's latest emissary arrived this morning, having moved our line to a shorter routing from the exchange to our nearby cabinet, thus restoring service, and at the best speed we've seen here - not that at 1.9mb/s it's anything to email home about, even if one reliably could. The duff bit of cable identified by yesterday's man turns out to be of aluminium pairs: a solution that's just about OK for analogue voice telephony, but hopeless for high speed broadband. He has reported the cable as faulty, anyway, so we'll watch this space.
BT's latest emissary arrived this morning, having moved our line to a shorter routing from the exchange to our nearby cabinet, thus restoring service, and at the best speed we've seen here - not that at 1.9mb/s it's anything to email home about, even if one reliably could. The duff bit of cable identified by yesterday's man turns out to be of aluminium pairs: a solution that's just about OK for analogue voice telephony, but hopeless for high speed broadband. He has reported the cable as faulty, anyway, so we'll watch this space.
Friday 4 June 2010
4 June
Good news: the weather is glorious, and the garden is responding well to the warmth. Several helianthemums (last year’s seedlings) are in flower, a couple of whites and a number of different pinks. Watching out now for some yellows and oranges, but we’ll get what we get. One lupin (a plant bought a couple of years ago is flowering vigorously, and some of last year’s seedlings are also putting up spikes. We have a row of foxgloves against the fence where I guess I must have scattered some seed a couple of years ago. Our experiment with thunbergia alata (black-eyed Susan) is interesting: I saved seed from our plants last year, and sowed them the same day as a fresh packet of seed from Sutton’s. Ours are quicker to germinate and more vigorous in identical growing medium and conditions.
What other good news? Well mixed, when it comes to cars and television. Egg1 passed its MoT yesterday, but not without expense on a couple of new tyres and a new gaiter on a drive shaft joint. We now have our new Sky box, so can once again sit and gawp at the moronic diet dished out by the TV companies. News on the washing machine front and my back is less great. The washing machine will happily stick on the wash part of the programme all day until kicked, and my back feels like it has been kicked by a donkey. Keeping moving helps, so I shall presently go and pull the washing machine out and give it a squirt of WD40. Would that the same were possible with the back.
Most troublesome, though, is the absence of internet service. After three years of slow and intermittent service, two technician visits and countless conversations with nice, if scripted, people in Mumbai, the hub telephone stopped working a few days ago, and the whole bloody issue ground to a halt yesterday morning. After the usual screen-dictated conversation with Mumbai, and a call thence a little later to say that the fault had been cleared (only to be robustly assured by yr. obed. servt. that it jolly well hadn’t!) they finally agreed to send a techy. He arrived this morning, and after much testing, a trip to the exchange and pulling up three manhole covers, identified a faulty stretch of cabling in the street. At this point he left, saying that he’d gone well beyond the time allotted for the job, and had on pain of managerial chastisement to move on to the next one, leaving us high and dry, Mumbai saying they couldn’t make another appointment until some time next week. At which point, cranium having renewed its acquaintance with rafters, I was told to expect a call by 2:00pm telling me whether they can reschedule someone to fix us up sooner. So, another few hours trapped by the telephone. This is all hideously reminiscent of the dialogue des sourds with Frogtel at Easter time: and of course the issue is still not sorted there either.
If you get to read this today, it’ll be thanks to the good offices of KCC libraries, though I’m not sure whether they’ll let me upload from a flash drive.
Post scriptum from Rusthall Library: yes, I can upload. Phone call before I left for the village: BT techy No. 'n' arrives tomorrow at 8:00, will stay till the work is done and service is restored, and I'll get a call later soliciting feedback. It sometimes pays to stamp one's size 9 a bit.
What other good news? Well mixed, when it comes to cars and television. Egg1 passed its MoT yesterday, but not without expense on a couple of new tyres and a new gaiter on a drive shaft joint. We now have our new Sky box, so can once again sit and gawp at the moronic diet dished out by the TV companies. News on the washing machine front and my back is less great. The washing machine will happily stick on the wash part of the programme all day until kicked, and my back feels like it has been kicked by a donkey. Keeping moving helps, so I shall presently go and pull the washing machine out and give it a squirt of WD40. Would that the same were possible with the back.
Most troublesome, though, is the absence of internet service. After three years of slow and intermittent service, two technician visits and countless conversations with nice, if scripted, people in Mumbai, the hub telephone stopped working a few days ago, and the whole bloody issue ground to a halt yesterday morning. After the usual screen-dictated conversation with Mumbai, and a call thence a little later to say that the fault had been cleared (only to be robustly assured by yr. obed. servt. that it jolly well hadn’t!) they finally agreed to send a techy. He arrived this morning, and after much testing, a trip to the exchange and pulling up three manhole covers, identified a faulty stretch of cabling in the street. At this point he left, saying that he’d gone well beyond the time allotted for the job, and had on pain of managerial chastisement to move on to the next one, leaving us high and dry, Mumbai saying they couldn’t make another appointment until some time next week. At which point, cranium having renewed its acquaintance with rafters, I was told to expect a call by 2:00pm telling me whether they can reschedule someone to fix us up sooner. So, another few hours trapped by the telephone. This is all hideously reminiscent of the dialogue des sourds with Frogtel at Easter time: and of course the issue is still not sorted there either.
If you get to read this today, it’ll be thanks to the good offices of KCC libraries, though I’m not sure whether they’ll let me upload from a flash drive.
Post scriptum from Rusthall Library: yes, I can upload. Phone call before I left for the village: BT techy No. 'n' arrives tomorrow at 8:00, will stay till the work is done and service is restored, and I'll get a call later soliciting feedback. It sometimes pays to stamp one's size 9 a bit.
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