Tigers!

You may accuse of of being a bit of a fair weather supporter - but actually it's more the fact that highlights of all premiership games are televised on one of the few channels we receive - so it's fun to follow a team, and the fact that its my home town team makes it exciting for me. So I'll support Hull City while they are in the Premiership.

Played Points

	Liverpool							9	23
	Chelsea							9	20
	Hull City							9	20
	Arsenal							9	19
	Aston Villa							9	17
	Man Utd							8	15

Tonight Hull play Chelsea, and then on Saturday, Man United. I'll post the league table here now, as I suspect things may look very different come Sunday.

I am stunningly amazed and greatly amused by Hulls success to date. Fingers crossed for tonight!

Mercury and Gold

One of the goats was looking a bit down in the mouth yesterday - so it was molly coddled and Jussi decided she'd best take its temperature. This is done anally and Jussi decided to do this without my help. The outcome was that the thermometer was inserted but said goat then balked and escaped Jussi's clutches. When she caught up with the goat there was no thermometer.

When I arrived Jussi was tryig to search the ground - straw bedding (but you'll appreciate, quite deep and, erm, wet and browned) with about eight goats nudging her and displaying a great willingness to 'help'. We cleared all but poorly goat out and systematically searched the whole stable. No joy.

Perchance, my love, the thermometer went further in, not out. So I held goat while Jussi poked around 'inside'. No joy.

So we had to search through all the straw and shit again. There was no way we could leave a glass mercury thermometer either on the floor or in the goat.

Straw is quite pretty really. It catches the light and flashes little golden glints (can glint be a noun?) - rather like you might expect a thermometer to glint. So searching through the straw the second time we took a great deal more care.

As we neared the last patch I was preparing for further internal investigations (as it would be my turn eh) when Jussi found it. Oh how I celebrated.

All in a days work...

When dost one don ones thermals?

Visitors in August were disappointed when I snarled at the idea of lighting the fire in August. It may have been a little cold - but if the fire is lit in August what is left when it really gets cold?

Yesterday was cold. Today is colder. Jussi was out to check the goats at 6 and I came down to light the fire (first time success, Mike). I planned to light the fire, get dressed and then go up and see if I could help Jussi with the goats. Trouble was I couldn't move away from the fire on account of the warmth. Eventually the thought of thermals spurred me to action. (In as much as I got dressed - haven't made it up to the goats yet, although Jussi has returned so I'm off the hook for a while).

And I was pleased to see a gritter lorry come all the way to the end of our lane. Hurray for the Cuuncil.

As I write this the snow is flying past the window, almost horizontal, occasionally carrying a little Ailsa with it. I guess this is good news - all the snow must be landing somewhere to the left of us innit. And the thermals seem justified.

But it's only October - what on earth will I be wearing in February?

Fire places

People think I'm mad, but I quite like this fire place. But there is no room for it in our plans. On such a stormy day it's as well to be working indoors. So here is Shona setting about its destruction.

Where are the cats?

Storms? Please ignore that last post - that wasn't a storm - a mere sea side breeze.

This morning I set about extending the drain around the stables. I gave up when I was blown over pushing the wheel barrow. Then Jussi told me about the Nissen Hut:

I guess the removal of the roof had weakened the structure - so plans of rebuilding it need to be, erm, adjusted. Meanwhile the wind had wrecked the coal bunker - and blown it across the garden.

"So that'll be why they tie everything down" said Jussi. Actually she's quite shaken - there's stuff being blown all over the place - it's quite dangerous. And that coal bunker was the cats house. Where are the cats?

Storms

On Wednesday night the TV transmitter was in someway incapacitated by the winds. This matters not a jot except that we missed Heroes.

Last night was even windier. It's not like we were really lying flat on the floor trying to hold the cottage down but it did feel at times as though we should. This morning we awoke to find the garden completely re-arranged. Him up there obviously decided that having rubbish bins next to the door was ludicrous, and as for having a table (a fairly heavy table at that) - well that's just silly - he decided to turn it up-side-down to teach us a lesson.

Most other things seem in tact though. But there are much wilder and colder storms forecast for next week.

This weekend we have Mike and Shona, and the weekend after next, Tom and Mhairi who will be trying out their new camper van. I hope they bring lots of rope so we can tie it down. (That's not such a joke - caravans tied to houses and trees and things are a common sight hereabouts).

Sunrise 08:10, sunset 17:50

Jussi generally disapproves when I 'go off on one' on this blog. But I can't resist this little ditty that I've thrown in to No Impact Man to stimulate some debate. What do you think?

So, to develop a theme I started in Rising from the Ashes:

There are three things I should expand upon:
1. Democracy promotes mediocrity. I mean that democracy naturally tends towards the middle way. Most of the time this is good - but when there is a real crisis, the middle way is often not enough. In the crisis we are in it's very difficult to see a middle way.
2. Democracy panders to the short term wants of the masses. Well it does. It's very rare to see the democratic process elect a Government promising to cut standards of living or even moderate increases in taxes.
3. Democracy lacks the courage to make difficult decisions. Politicians have to be looking ahead to the next election and so politicians defer difficult decisions.

I'm not saying that difficult decisions never get made - but it's rare, and there's a long lead time.

In the environmental catastrophe we are entering we don't have time to procrastinate. We don't have time for the majority to catch up on the need for urgent action. And they may well never catch up - in our world of free speech there are plenty of nay sayers denying climate change has anything to do with human activity - and some of these are backed by big money and therefore get a disproportionately loud hearing.

It's a tough dilemma - there are many examples of malicious non-democratic systems and I fear any diminution of the power of the people. But the thing about climate change is that we NEED to act really really fast or it'll be too late. And although all the little things like switching lights off help, we need a fundamental shift in value systems - away from 'stuff' and towards something else - probably something closer to the values of the worlds old religions - Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam,Judaism etc. We've existed on these values for centuries, and mostly without democracy.

In western democracies politicians are generally try to get elected on promises of more stuff.

And anyway, we shouldn't forget that many (if not most) democracies have substantial minorities who get overlooked and are condemned to real deprivation and suffering. Democracy is good for the majority - but does that make it the best system we can come up with?

Democracy is a relatively new experiment. It's worked very well - but are we now seeing its short-comings coming home to roost?

If democracy can't defeat climate change I suspect climate change will defeat democracy anyway. As populations migrate because of flooding, drought and food shortages and social cohesion collapses, 'democracies' will be forced to enact new powers of control and 'states of emergency'. If this is inevitable, maybe we should be planning now what we want, because I don't think martial law appeals to anyone.

The Love Shack

Muppet, the male, has been busy. When he arrived, all the females were vaguely interested in the new boy, but none of them wanted anything more serious. Day two was a different story! All of our adult females were queuing up for his attention, tails wagging furiously. He did his best to keep them happy to the delight of the children. He started with Margo, swiftly moved on to Bonnie, and split the afternoon between Bonnie and Gwendolyn. The next day was a bit calmer. Margo and Bonnie seemed over their ever-lasting love, but there was still a fair bit of action with Gwendolyn. The children had lost interest by then, so observations became a bit vague. There is a chance that one or two of the goatlings got involved, but whe can't be sure.
Then there was nothing for two days. The poor boy was trying his best to interest the females but none of them let him anywhere near them. Until one of our sleek goatlings, Gwennie, started wagging her tail late yesterday afternoon. Today the two are inseparable.
So - we're confident that four of our seven females have a chance of being pregnant. If the last few days are anything to go by, the remaining two or three goatlings should follow soon. Then we'll have to wait and see if any of them come into season again. If they don't, we can assume that they're in kid! Watch this space...

Rising from the ashes

Iain Macwhirter is a columnist for the Sunday Herald and is the best commentator out there by far. This week he suggests how we can develop a new economic system that actually learns from the events of the last few weeks. And builds a better place in the process. It reflects what I've felt for a long time. It is a long piece but well worth reading.

Could it happen? Somehow I doubt it.

And a more radical stretch of thinking is that the real root of our problems is democracy. Democracy builds mediocrity by design. It is an experiment that has lasted a few hundred years and just aint cutting it. It creates policy and action that appeal to the short term self interest of voters, and sometimes self interest isn't what's needed - like now with the whole climate change thing. But what the heck do we replace it with?

A half-hearted fanatic

I must be a fanatic eh? I mean anyone who chucks in a comfortable life for .... this .... must be mad. Visitors and friends often have great ideas about being REALLY alternative - composting toilets being the top of the list of the suggestions we get.

The renovation of the house provides lots of opportunities to go deep green and install various wildly high-tech or low-tech gidgets and gazmos - but you know what? - it's hard enough doing the basics without being fanatical about it. We'll do what we can but will often compromise. And then I saw this - which really chimes with me.

Sunrise 08:08, sunset 17:53

I was up before breakfast helping Jussi to clip Muppett's hooves and the weather was good enough to snap the piccies on the last post. It was a glorious morning light. I stayed up to extend the ditch but only managed a few feet before I was snowed off. This piccy shows the sun peaking through the snow-laden clouds over the common. The picture doesn't really do justice - that washed-out sun was really pink.

This is the second day of really squally showers. Annoying cos you cant really get on with things. So you retreat inside and then start feeling guilty when the sun comes out. Go outside and it starts to rain/snow.

And the smell of billy goat is starting to pervade everything. It just doesn't wash off your hands. Sticks to clothes like super glue. How do you describe a smell? Well it's sort of deep fluorescent brown with streaks of purple and orange. Very unpleasant.

Celebration

A wee celebration of the things that Malcolm and Helen helped us to achieve over the weekend.

The raised bed was made from roofing from the Nissen hut and rescued fence posts.

The ditch was dug to try and stop the water coming in the stables. There's always been a collection of water in the stables but we thought it was coming from above (cos, like, there was no roof).

And here are the kids checking out Merlin on-line. It's taken through the window :- hence the reflection of me.

Lessons

A simple and obvious one - but when digging ditches, dig towards the water you are trying to drain off, rather than away from it. If you dig towards the water, the earth you're shifting is reasonably dry and easy to shift. If you start at the water you're always humping heavy slush.

But I've no hints on how to deal with the string mines we encounter almost every time we dig a hole anywhere. String mines are a real pain to dig through.

Up the workers!

Malcolm and Helen have now left - leaving in their wake a trail of construction.

From helping to fix, make and dig they've been an enormous help over the last few days - often with very little support from me and Jussi. Apart from taking the roof off the Nissen hut they've rescued a heap of fence posts from the old fencing which is being dismantled, fixed up the roof of the stable, collected a load of horse manure from the local riding stables, built a raised bed, dug a ditch around the back of the stables ..... and drunk one vast amount of whiskey while keeping us well away from the TV of an evening. Coupling the late nights with the early mornings has been exhausting, but wonderful. I'd show piccies, only every time I step outside the door with the camera the rain lashes down.

We're settling back to our quiet routine now, and looking forward to Mike and Shona being here next weekend. In between times I think we've promised Ailsa some sort of birthday party.

Malcolm

We are really enjoying having Malcolm, Helen, Nuala and Corrie here. They've recently returned from a years travels - including lots of woofing - and their experience and insight is joyful, interesting and useful. And they work hard.

Here is a piccy of the Nissen hut taken last August. The wind had taken a fair bit of the roof off since then, but Malcolm got to work stripping the rest of it in preparation for a new roof later. Helen helped and I helped for a wee while - it was hard work!

The children have been delighting in monitoring Muppets adventures with his new female friends - he's having the time of his life! Looks like we'll be having a very busy end of March with goats kidding all over the place.

Those new goat pictures in full

Can I just mention that billy goats like......smell. Just be thankful no one has invented smelly PCs. Ailsa, as you can see, delights in the smell and is very proud to reek. I drove Muppet (for it is he) in the van for 7 hours yesterday - almost retching the whole way because of the fumes.


The two kids -Crystal (the one with the ears - like prepare for take off), and Trixy (the nubian) are cute as cute as cute cute cute.

A digger at the door

This weeks Saturday surprise was a digger at the door "come to do the fencing". What? Nobody told us.

So that was the weekend, helping, re-organising, negotiating. It has taken months to get the fencer here, it feels a bit petulant to complain that he turned up without warning us he was coming. Now he tells us he doesn't need much of the stuff we bought for him (fencing, posts etc) but we don't have enough wire and other stuff. Mmmm.

Ailsa's birthday yesterday - great fun.

We have Malc and the gang coming at the weekend. And Mike and Sho are coming for a return visit the weekend after.

Today I'm driving south to Montrose, then picking up a male we are borrowing from Arbroath and a couple of kids. Returning tomorrow - so no blogging til Thursday at the earliest.

It's all go you know!

Washing hazard

Hanging the washing in the wind is bad for your crotch. (When Ailsa is at school anyway). This is on account of the washing blowing away and you having to climmber over the barbed wire fence, on tippy toes, to retrieve said washing whilst being visciously molested by the washing that stays on the line.

Puts holes in yer scrotum so it does.

That van bill in full

£979:95

Motoring costs

On Wednesday it costs £324 smackeroonies to get the car through it's MOT. Today we'll pick up the van which I put in for a general service in advance of the long trip to Arbroath to pick up more goats. I'm guessing it'll cost the wrong side of £500. Can't wait!

Meanwhile the nice lady at the garage where the car was sorted noted my consternation at the cost of the MOT and said "Well at least your money has gone to a good home [meaning the car I think] - I mean you don't want to leave it in a bank do you?"

Stormy weather

The winds! the winds!

Ach well - for a moment there I thought we were going to declare war on Iceland. Imagine all those chip mums having to go without their 4 west country pork faggots for 75p, and having to put Bjork into some detention camp.

It amused me in a completely non-amusing sort of way that the UK Govt used anti-terror laws to freeze Icelandic assets. The Althingi is one of the oldest parliaments in the world, at their last election they had an 86% turnout of the electorate, but that wont stop our Gordon branding them all as terrorists. Excellent.

It is this abuse of powers that makes the whole 42 day debate so serious. Yes, perhaps, 42 day detention without being charged could stop a few terrorists. But the power to detain for 42 days could also be mis-used because if the Iceland Govt can be labelled as terrorists so can you and me.

Sign the petition here.

Now. Thank you.

I understand nothing

Children often have the best answers. This is often exploited by campaign groups who will put a politician in front of children who ask them plain simple questions and refuse to accept obtuse answers.

We are all children when it comes to this financial mess. I understand nothing and I see no reason why we shouldn't scrap the whole dollar-based banking nonsense and return to the good old days of the gold standard. No hang on - let's go a step further - let's not return to the gold standard - that's pre-1970 for heavens sake - that wouldn't be progress would it? No let's create a new standardisation of wealth. Let's make it a Carbon standard - lets base our entire financial system on carbon in the same way as it used to be based on gold.

Suddenly you can make money by saving carbon. Suddenly throwing carbon away - making useless goods - just becomes too expensive to contemplate.

I'm far from the first person to propose something like this - and I think others who've suggested similar stuff understand what they're talking about far better than I do. But hey! - The worlds finances are kaput - it's a great time to sweep it away and start afresh with something that respects the fact that the planet is finite (as is gold, whereas the capacity to print dollars is limitless, or so it seems).

Not the sharpest coin in the biscuit tin

Fug. Fug of virus. Neither of us are feeling too bright, despite this morning being a bright and sparkling one. There's not much work going on around here. Now I don't want you to go off thinking we're self pitying lily-livers - cos we aint - and there's still the base-load of work being undertaken but some of the other stuff - fixing septic tanks, roofs, digging test holes for foundations of potential extensions, preparing ground for poly tunnels and and and aint happening. On a day like today it feels particularly bad. Days like this are becoming rare - we need to make the most of them.

Financial times
Meanwhile I run out of metaphors for the jaw dropping torrent of bad news from the financial markets. It seems we're there's some hard times ahead. But what? Has anyone found an analysis that understands what all this means?? I'd love to know.

There's many parallels to be drawn between this crisis and climate change. Not least that many were predicting the current chaos long before it happened but everyone seemed powerless to do anything about it. Governments should have regulated? But that would have hit corporate profits and national wealth. Individuals should have acted more responsibly? But what effect does my visa bill or over-optimistic mortgage have on the big picture? Everyone who looks at these things could see a collapse had to happen. Well we're seeing it collapse now and we'll feel the financial pain over at least the next decade or so.

In the climate change debate we're seeing the same inaction for the same excuses. And I'm afraid history tells us that nothing seriously will be done to stop it - despite overriding evidence - until it is too late.

Hope?
Unless perhaps, the way out of the forthcoming recession is a massive expansion in renewable energy applications. Let's spend our way out of this recession - get a solar panel on every house heat pumps and turbines everywhere we can - let's go for a major restructuring of the power grid and decentralise the whole thing, whilst also investing in tidal and wave power.

In the recession we'll be less able to afford stuff (from China) - which is good news for the climate. If there's money to be spent let's make sure that the investment is for the future of the planet and not on gadgets and gizmos and cheap clothes that hardly ever get warn. And while we're at it let's re-align our value system so that we appreciate things that will last rather than the transience of this years model.

I've no idea how this can be engineered on a political level. But it seems the days of laissez faire are over and now Govts are now buying back control of the financial systems and waking up to the need for regulation. So maybe they will have the power to do this.

This might make the whole financial chaos good news in the longer term. There will be the horrors of real poverty as the recession bites. But this is nothing compared to what mother earth has in store for us if we don't start behaving ourselves. NOW.

Sunny Mornings

Wow! Look at this for a glorious October morn. This is Rebecca taking the goats out (It's not a very good picture but she wouldn't let me post a different one).

Unfortunately Jussi has come down with the cold I've had and she's tucked up in bed (though she was up at six to do the milking etc). Why aren't I doing the milking and stuff in the morning?

It's been lovely having Rebecca here - she's made all the right noises about the goats, the cheese and she's done a sterling job with finishing off the barrel of beer that needed emptying.

And just look at this:

Pos		Name	P	W	D	L	F	A	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1		Chelsea	7	2	2	0	8	2	3	0	0	6	1	+11	17
2		Liverpool	7	2	1	0	4	2	3	1	0	6	2	+6	17
3		Hull City	7	1	1	1	4	8	3	1	0	6	3	-1	14
4		Arsenal	7	2	0	1	5	2	2	1	1	8	3	+8	13
5		Aston Villa	7	2	1	0	6	3	2	0	2	6	7	+2	13
6		West Ham Utd	7	3	0	1	10	6	1	0	2	4	7	+1	12
7		Portsmouth	7	3	0	1	6	3	1	0	2	3	10	-4	12
8		Man Utd	6	1	1	0	3	1	2	1	1	5	3	+4	11
9		WBA	7	2	0	2	6	6	1	1	1	1	1	0	10
10		Blackburn	7	1	1	2	2	7	2	0	1	6	7	-6	10

a glorious morning indeed. Unbelievable. It really warms me cockles to see Hull City doing so well - anything coming out of Hull with any modicum of success is thrilling - but this is simply unbelievably unbelievable.

First snow

OK - it's hardly time to get the skis out but this morning we had half an hour of hard hail/sleet/snowy stuff and it didn't feel like anything to rejoice about. For the past week we've had strong winds and lashings of rain and even though it brightens up beautifully from time to time it still feels as though the interminable onslaught they call winter is setting in.

And already the wind has started to peel away the new roof we've put on the end stables. It has been windy - but it's not been really really windy as we know it gets up here. This isn't good news at all.

My sense of siege has been heightened this week by a wicked cold - the worst of which I now seem to be over. But it was a grim affair. Of course I battled on in a spirit of total self sacrifice and I don't think any of the family noticed I had a cold at all. Well maybe a little.

But it's been a busy week (all things are relative). We've had a visit from a man who's advised what to grow (try it and see!), a Govt Fella to check that we've been telling the truth on grant applications and a meeting with a Govt Lasssie about another set of grant applications we're planning for. The plans have arrived all ready to go of for permissions for renovating the house (although we've had to return them because there's things missing), we've sourced a male (in Arbroath) and some extra kids to keep Flavia company, and organised the van to be serviced before I go off and collect them.

And Rebecca is coming to see us this weekend. Yippeeee!

One reason to stay

1. Aaaaaah - this is good!
   

Four reasons to emmigrate

1. Southerlies that drench you head to foot as you step from the door.
2. Easterlies that bring water in spikes that drive holes through yer delicate skin
3. Westerlies that drive the rain up yer trouser leg
4. Northerlies that manage to combine all three of the above