Remember, Remember the Fifth of November – well I do remember the Fifth, but can barely remember if these events happened in October or the start of November as it is all blurring into one. November is a strange month where Americans wear a beard, Australians a moustache and we burn effigies and let off fireworks – I think we win on the fun stakes.
Ali joins Galashiels Academy on a Wednesday, comes back with new girlfriend on a Friday.
Plus c’est la meme chose, plus ça change [The more things change, the more things stay the same].
I joined blipfoto.com – find me at http://www.blipfoto.com/mikeforsyth – where we put up a picture per day (it must be shot on that day). My idea of photographing my poo each morning didn’t go down well with anyone so I have resorted to fluffier imagery.
We had a Firework party with Kim, Ali and Danni building an impressive bonfire (or binfire as it contained all the stuff we were getting rid of) and Danni was let loose with an axe on wardrobes and the broken chaise longue. Stuarts fireworks were professional with him darting around lighting them in sequences known only to him – we will need to add in music next time to drown out the Oooooos and Aaaaaaahs.
My ferrari laptop went over the banister a couple of months back and after a few heated exchanges with our useless insurance company I now have a settlement and am waiting to see which macbook pro to invest in, now that Leopard is here.
The Concept2 rowing machine arrived on a 3 month hire and we have to train to do the 46.3 kilometers to cross the Minch – currently doing one kilometre in a tad close to 5 minutes (although Ali can do it in 4 minutes), I did another 2 in 15 minutes so we still have a long way to go and some shorts padding to buy. We are reckoning on going out with the tide to row constantly for 6 hours between us to cross the Minch before the tide turns. Well that is the planning so far. The rowing machine has been very popular so far though.
Fly by night – Kim and I test flew the Quik GT450 but due to various delays I took off after sunset on a cloudy day to land (legally) on a dark dark runway lit by the GT450 landing light. We ordered the GT450 immediately but rangled over the colours so Kim went to the factory to be persuaded that the colours I chose were correct (although she also worked out that the pod colour and leading edge wing colour should match). Yellow to highlight the G-CWEB so people can shoot us out of the air easier.
Nov 10th is the traditional sacrifice date for sheep – this was before one had to deal with the British Cattle Movement Service (yes they also do the computer system for tagging sheep). Piers the tagger came up with our 20 tags and a pair of pliers… In the meantime Maurice our stud soay was found dead in the field, possibly a MooDunnit as Flora looked like she was whistling and looking in the opposite direction or the other chief suspect was the competitor uncastrated ram who seems to have turned into a bit of a bruiser. Because he wasn’t tagged thanks to the inefficiencies of the BCMS he was now ‘fallen stock’ and a lorry filled with cattle corpses arrived in the style of ‘Bring Out Your Dead’ Python sketch and flung Maurice’s corpse in the back. The crows had already robbed him of an eye but he was still smiling even in death.
We had the first clear out in a decade and filled a skip which arrived quickly but we are seeing no signs of it disappearing at all. Perhaps they spotted the large amount of batteries and CRT monitors in it under the dead plants. The jailhouse garage is now split into a workshop for Ali’s monkey bike and a stable area for Steph’s horses – so we have the delightful aroma of engine oil mashed up with horse poo.
To prepare for the sheeps exodus to the Galashiels slaughterhouse we purchased a new freezer. On opening the old fridge/freezer we found that the very old meat that was languishing there when its power wasn’t working properly was now crawling with maggots and was now a biohazard. Unfortunately John Lewis expect the fridge to be emptied before picking it up so Kim and Ali sprayed their masks with perfume, wore overalls and headed out to bin the stuff. I hid under the bed covers until it was all over and they came in retching to report on the successful but galling operation.
Viking Compasses were apparently off by 45 degrees hence Westray was called that because their compass reading said it was the most westerly of the Orkney Islands (when in fact it isn’t) – but then the Vikings did do some tremendous feats of navigation (and marketing in calling Greenland that even though it isn’t).
Ali returned from Maxmill with a new vocabulary and the searching question of why certain words were offensive so it was nice to find a table of offensive words in the Guardian.
Squirrel took her dog Bray for a wee walk up the hills and threw a toy over a fence for Bray to fetch, which she didn’t. This resulted in squirrel climbing over the barbed wire fence and becoming entangled and stuck – in the middle of nowhere with no assistance. She ended up tearing her coat and trousers and her leg and, with bleeding hand and blood all over her face, returned home to look for her tetanus jab dates. Unfortunately noone was there to film all this for youtube. I suspect any toys thrown in the future will have a line attached to recover them…
