Another week! Every week that passes we march steadily towards Spring and warmer weather. Excellent! It’s been a good week – we even had two outings!
On Wednesday afternoon Lady Penelope and I meandered down the road to visit Michael Heseltine’s garden at Thenford near Banbury. We’ve been many times in the past at different times of the year and it’s always been lovely. We’ve not been at this time of the year before and, indeed, I’m not sure it has been open at this time of year before. The occasion was an opportunity to see the Snowdrops in bloom and it was nothing short of sensational.
I knew that there were a lot of different types of Snowdrops (Galanthus for those in the know) but I don’t think I’ve ever had the opportunity to see hundreds of different varieties in one place. According to their web site, Thenford has about 400 different varieties! (Even more astonishing – there are, apparently, something between 1000 and 1500 different varieties of Galanthus).
Some were in clumps, some were relatively recent arrivals and had yet to mature and fill out. Others were rivers of white blossom cascading along the paths and, in the various varieties, so many ever so slightly different patterns on the petals. We found a couple of favourites – one called Lucy which had a lovely pale green stripe down each petal and one called Penelope which was, as you would expect, simply gorgeous!
You can see some of the least bad photos I took – they don’t begin to do it justice. Absolutely stunning.
As if that wasn’t enough excitement, we had another outing on Wednesday evening. This time we went across to Daventry to lend our support at the District Council Planning Department’s consideration of the plans to build some new houses and, most importantly, a new Medical Centre in Byfield.
It’s been two years since Penelope went to a similar planning meeting and there has been almost no progress since then. The community desperately needs a new medical centre – the existing one was built to accommodate a patient list of about 4,000. There are now closer to 10,000 patients on their books and it can be very difficult to get an appointment. A landowner is willing to sell some land to a developer who put together plans to build about 70 houses as well as a new medical centre. The hold-up appears to be with the Highways department who have been asked to come up with a solution to the issue of how the traffic from the new houses will merge safely on to the existing road infrastructure. It seems that in the two years since the last meeting they’ve not been able to meet with the developer to try and come up with a solution. Not good enough! I guess we’ll be back again whenever they complete their work and the application comes in front of the planning committee once again.
Another segment of my virtual bike ride along Route 66 was completed this week. I rode from Winona, Arizona to the Bearizona Wildlife Park (with a short detour to peer over the rim of the Grand Canyon).
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . in about 1964/65 or thereabouts – our family took the first “real” extended holiday/vacation that I can remember. My father had hired a house boat for a few days on Lake Powell on the Utah/Arizona border. It’s a long drive so the plan was to camp enroute and visit the Grand Canyon before making our way up to Lake Powell and the houseboat. My father had borrowed a tent from some neighbours and I seem to remember my mother suggesting that he might like to have a practice run at erecting it.
Of course, this was utterly unnecessary – how difficult can it be to put up a tent? So we set off and drove to Oak Creek Canyon just south of Flagstaff for our first night. We arrived quite late in the day but eventually found a spot on which to pitch the tent in a very popular camp site. My father unpacked the tent and then spent the next hour or so scratching his head, crawling inside the canvas, exploring the tent from every perspective but he could not work out how to erect it. (I remember that his efforts caused some amusement amongst the assembled neighbouring and presumably somewhat more experienced campers). Nevermind, this was Arizona after all and, as everyone knows, it never rains in Arizona. So, we kids (the five of us – my youngest sister Sarah had been left with an aunt) simply laid our sleeping bags inside the doorway of the tent. We had the ground sheet underneath us and the rest of the canvas providing a covering and before long we were snoring away very contentedly. My folks made themselves a little bivouac just below the tent and we all settled down for a well-deserved rest.
Sometime later that night it began to rain. We were fine, snuggled as we were inside the tent, even if it was not erect. My folks, though, were out in the open air so they retired to the “comfort” of the car.
And so, it continued to rain. Unfortunately, my father, in searching for a site on which to “pitch” the tent, had managed to choose what had been a dry creek bed. And, since he had laid out the canvas so that the door into which we had slid our sleeping bags was uphill, the dry river bed, which had now become a torrent, was merrily flooding into the tent. In particular, it was flowing into my youngest brother Steph’s sleeping bag and he awoke with a distinct damp feeling. Although there was no danger, as I recall, of us being washed away, we were all, by this stage, wet and pretty miserable. Eventually, the five of us made our way up to the station wagon in which my folks were happily slumbering and, after some shuffling about, we all spent the night in somewhat uncomfortable conditions but at least in the dry. I suppose I should point out – my father suffered with a bad back. So, he had to stretch out as best he could in the back of the car while the rest of us sat bolt upright in the seats. I don’t think any of us got much sleep.
The next morning the extent of the “disaster” became apparent – our sleeping bags, clothes and just about everything else was soaking wet and caked with mud. Quelle merde! We packed up as best we could, drove to Flagstaff and spent most of the rest of the day putting clothes and sleeping bags into the machines in one of Flagstaff’s finest laundromat.
For the rest of the holiday we stayed in motels (apart from the few days we spent on the houseboat). Finally, on the drive home, my father slammed on the brakes and pulled into a layby at the side of the road. I don’t think he actually yelled, “Eureka!” but he had finally worked out how to erect the tent. Clearly, he had been pondering this dilemma for days and suddenly realised that the tent was rather like an umbrella – it had a central pole from which various spokes stuck out. He got the tent out and, in a matter of moments, had it erected by the side of the road. Just to prove that he could do it after all. We ended up spending the next night (our last on the road) in the tent camped alongside Lake Mead. It was absolutely baking hot and no need for a tent but we were determined to use the tent at least once!
I was ZOOMing with my siblings yesterday evening and we got to reminiscing about this trip. My sister Susie later sent the following along which was taken on that trip on a “hike” to Rainbow Bridge in Utah.
Sorry the photo has deteriorated somewhat in the 50+ years since it was taken. Still, you can see by the expression on my face that I was seemingly as keen on walking then as I am now!
Good to see that the Rainbow Bridge is still as stunning as it was in 1965.
YCNMIU
The Prime Minister has been busy this week rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. He is under extreme pressure given that he almost certainly broke Covid restrictions at various Downing Street parties, lied about it repeatedly until the evidence in the form of photographs emerged, then claimed that he thought these “parties” were work events and no Covid guidelines were breached. He is desperately trying to shore up support amongst his loonier backbench libertarians so he has carried out a reshuffle of his cabinet. Half a dozen or so of his advisers have resigned (whether they were pushed under the bus by Boris or whether they resigned in disgust at his rampant lying and corruption is not clear) and he has appointed a bunch of lunatics to help him run the asylum. The only qualities the members of the cabinet now share are their unwavering loyalty to Boris (they know that no one else in their right mind would appoint them to any position with any responsibility) and their dedication to the shitshow that is Brexit.
The most startling of these new appointments – Jacob Rees-Mogg, possibly the looniest of the looney who worship at the alter of Brexit (but who also made sure that he moved his hedge fund’s headquarters to Dublin so that he could continue to operate in Europe once the shit hit the fan) has been appointed to the new cabinet position of Minster for Brexit Opportunities. One of his first actions was to write an editorial in one of the right-wing rags asking the public to let him know of any opportunities they could come up with. Seriously.
So, more than five years after the referendum we have one of the main cheerleaders of the Brexit disaster (because his hedge fund has made a bucket-load of money with more to be made in the years ahead) asking the public if they can help him find anything positive. You could not make it up!
Oh, and by the way . . . apparently Boris has done such a splendid job at defeating Covid, all restrictions in England are to be abolished by the end of February. The scientists disagree but, of course, this is all about appeasing his backbench libertarians and nothing to do with keeping people safe. In any case, if we are to regain our “world-beating” Covid death rate we’ll have to up our game. We’re currently only fifth in the world in terms of total Covid deaths – surely we can do much better than that!
I ran across the following the other day:
Just about sums him up.
One of us in this household is looking forward to the Superbowl; one of us couldn’t give a toss. I ran across the following on Facebook and it reminded me of someone I know . . .
To be fair, she has a tried and tested system for predicting the outcome of most football matches. Some years in the past she has chosen teams with “animal” names, i.e., the Dolphins/Eagles/Rams, etc. This year though she tried out a new strategy – she selected, where possible, teams whose name begins with a “B.” Thus, the Bills, Bengals, Buccaneers were her choices and she had an outstanding first round. Now, we’re whittled down to the Bengals and the Rams. So, we’re on opposite sides and I am afraid I may be subjected to a certain degree of trash-talking if the Bengals should persevere.
And finally, finally – Valentine’s Day tomorrow.
Hope your mailbox is overflowing.
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, be careful, wear a f**king facemask in crowded places and keep your distance. And keep safe.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg