Friday 27 February 2015

Weekend!

The weekend has finally arrived, and not a moment too soon! It has been a long and exhausting week, and we are now looking forward to a nice lazy couple of days.


Especially as it is Mrs RC's birthday on Sunday!  She is planning to celebrate by not doing anything except enjoy being waited on and pampered.  Should be a great day.


See you next week!

Monday 23 February 2015

Pride

They say that Pride is one of the deadly sins.  If so, I think it must cause you to burst.  The saying "bursting with pride" must have come from somewhere!

Anyway, I am currently bursting with pride because of our youngest son, "Arnie".

2 years ago he was a shy, chubby kid.

Now?  Take a look at this (sorry about the quality, blogger has degraded it horribly!):


He is squatting with 341 pounds (155kg) of weights.

At 16 years old, he took part in his first power lifting contest.  In the under 20s group, he won 2 categories and came joint 1st in the third.  He only failed one of his 12 lifts.  If that had succeeded he would have won all three categories.

So yeah, if pride kills I can die happy!

Just go back and watch that video again, will you?  Tell me you are not impressed!

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Spring?

It is a bright, sunny day here in Canterbury.

Last night was very cold and caused a heavy frost, but the sun is warm and soon cleared it.

Mr Chuffington the hedgehog also seems to think that Spring is near.  Over the last few weeks he went into semi hibernation, sleeping for a few days and then coming out to eat a few tasty meal worms before retiring again.  But yesterday morning, he did something that he has not done since autumn.  He started calling to other hedgehogs.  The sound is wonderful.  Imagine a large dog with a very sore throat trying to bark.  The pitch is surprisingly low, almost like the chuffing sound of a steam train - hence Mrs RC's choice of name for him!

The fish have been a lot more visible in the last few days too, no longer hugging the bottom of the pond, out if sight in the weed.

The bird table is as busy as ever, and each day we are visited by a mass of startlings and sparrows.  Mixed in with these we have a robin, occasional black birds and the regular groups of wood pigeons and doves.  They eat vast amounts between them, and scatter the rest over the front garden.  The fact that the stuff that falls on the floor tends to get left indicates to me that we don't need to put out more - surely they would pick the place clean if they were really hungry?

Oh, and the road works are still in progress.  Either they have changed the sign or I misread it at the beginning, but they are there until the end of the month.  I have to pick my way through sometimes (they do not leave a clear footpath like I think they are supposed to) but sending the cars on a long diversion does make my journey nice and peaceful.  It will be a shock when the road finally reopens!

Monday 16 February 2015

Phew.....

OK, I have not been here very much recently, but I have a great excuse!

I have just finished a complete redraft of my book!

Yes, for the moment it is finished.

I am sure there will be more changes, but I expect this to be just adding more descriptions of some characters and locations.  I like the way the story unfolds, the pace that it goes at and the ending.

I have now put a copy onto my Kindle, and will hand it over to Mrs RC for her to read.  She will be the first person to read the whole story, as is only fitting.  I hope she likes it and does not think I have wasted my time...

(I can't help thinking about the movie Funny Farm, where Chevy Chase and his wife have moved to the country so he can concentrate on writing his book.  He gives his wife a draft to read and it is so bad she cries....)

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Somewhere over the moonbow...

Saw this when I took the dogs out for their late night walk.  It was rather splendid.  Seemed to be caused by the moonlight shining through a fine, freezing mist.



Monday 2 February 2015

Feb already?

I will start with the sad news - the dove did not make it.  He/she (I was only guessing at its gender) went to sleep the other night and did not wake up.  It was a real shame, but at least he/she was warm and had food and water there for the taking.

A lot of other parts of the UK have had good snow falls in the last week, but not us.  Sticking out at the bottom right corner, almost touching France, our weather is often different.  We have it cold (the garden pond had ice on it this morning) but only flurries of snow that has not hung around.  Probably a good thing, really!



My ride to work has been quieter for a couple of weeks now, due to some road works that are diverting a lot of the traffic.  It should have finished last Thursday, but they started work two and a half days late, so are now over running badly.  This is not helped by the fact that their trenches all flooded over the weekend, so they now have a ton of water to pump out before they can carry on. 



I am not complaining, though. 

Selfish?