Morning spent sawing the wood up into fireplace sized pieces. What did people do before chainsaws? Should have enough for a very cold winter.
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Cutting wood
Sunny all day. First started work on the spare room, moved the power sockets and removed the radiator in preparation for the dry-lining, due to start on Tuesday. Also filled the gap between the window frame and the wall with expanding foam. Caused a little grief to Rosemary. She thought I had not prepared adequately. The foam would not stop coming out of the nozzle and it has to be admitted, it went everywhere.
Mowed the lawn and the borders of the field. Then spent the rest of the afternoon sorting out the wood shed.
Paul Sinha
Supper tonight was at the Olive Branch, a Mediterranean style restaurant. Did the three courses. Afterwards met Ed to see a show on the Royal Mile. It is called the Free Fringe. Four comedians performed, unfortunately missed hearing the first, because of the poor sound system, and also we were standing by a fan. Very good show by a very young black comedian, and finally an excellent stand by Paul Sinha, he is an Asian Gay comedian who loves football. He has a show at the Pleasance Courtyard.
Andy Parsons
Back to work today, a shock to the system. Ate a curry at Zest. Tried to keep the quantities down by not eating rice. Good meal though. Met up with Ed Aldridge after the meal, and visited the Stand, where we can some standby tickets to see two hours of ablib stand up comedy by Andy Parsons and another Scottish comedian. They were commenting on all the events of the world, and took turns. First I heard of the Asians being thrown off the flight from Malaga. That is how topical their show was.
Saltire
Up again late, had a cup of coffee and a croissant in a nearby café. One event booked for the afternoon, and that was a Russian Clown Mimes from St. Petersbourg. The show was called the family. It is basically about a family of four children, their mother and alcoholic father. The father was always trying to leave home, only to be reconciled with his family. The children were always playing tricks on their parents. I won’t say any more, because I would not want to spoil the fun, though expect plenty of audience participation.
The evening was spent at the Saltire, and a meal in the nearby pizza establishment.
The Car
We went off to Ikea to buy a small cupboard. Did the usual tour through the show rooms, located the cupboard, noted its flat pack location. Then had lunch of one dish of Swedish meatballs with two forks.
Of course the cupboard was not available, out of stock.
Now it was on to Luton to pick up my car. As we entered the drive to the car park, I suddenly realised there was a serious snag. I had not brought the car key with me. So back home, no missions accomplished.
Next day we successfully picked the car up from Luton.
Wedding anniversary
Decided to visit the Plough and Anchor for lunch, one day until our wedding anniversary. Rosemary and I had an excellent lunch from the a la carte menu. Rosemary chose the Shredded Crispy Duck, and I the Steak Neapolitan. After the meal we lay around like rotten sheep. Managed to get out and mow the paths through the fields after the rain had stopped for a while.
Warwickshire
Went to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Warwickshire.? Mixed day, with some showers, and still very cold for the time of year.? No snow showers though.? Had the usual excellent lunch, with a lovely tender and well-cooked leg of lamb.? We had a lovely walk down the lane, viewing the flora in the lane banks, and commenting on the expense the council had gone to in placing gates and bridges on the ill used foot paths.? Back to the house for a cup of tea.
Recorders Day, Green Park, Aston Clinton
Recorders Day, Green Park, Aston Clinton, Saturday 1 April 2006
We went along to this as members of the now defunct Bucks County Council Ponds, Pools & Puddles project. Unfortunately the main protagonist, Martin Harvey (of Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Environmental Records Centre (BMERC)), was very ill with flu, but others from BCC stepped bravely and ably into his chair.
Steve attended two sessions, and R one, on using a digital camera to record wildlife. Steve was delighted to hear both people had SLR cameras, just like him. Apparently it completely justifies his new Canon purchase and the extension rings he “had” to have. One piece of very good advice was to read the camera’s instruction book thoroughly, which he did when he got back home and found out quite a few things.
R heard a lecture on wildlife recording in general – interesting points, for example so few recordings of rabbits have been done in Bucks they look like an endangered species! Is the Great Crested newt really endangered, we wondered? Why do we always record the unusual and ignore the commonplace? We also heard a lecture on being a species champion (for a moth).
Leaving was slightly complicated by the car’s hand brake having got stuck, but a few strategic thumps and we were away. Local rabbits posing for counting and recording purposes when we got home; red kite hiding.
A very inspiring day attended by representatives of many organizations and groups specializing in local natural history or different classes of fauna (eg bat groups) and flora (eg fungi). We recognized a few faces. An excellent buffet lunch was had, too. Specialist bookshop https://www.pemberleybooks.com/ held a display. To share wildlife news, discussion and identification tips in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes join the BMERC egroup. Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BMERC/
and click on “Join this group”.
PSD Day and Wine Angels
Monday and Tuesday were spent at the Radisson at Stanstead. The hotel is right next to the aerodrome terminal building.
The days were spent hearing the latest news about the company, product and project updates and networking with our colleagues. A rather difficult task when you never see them from one event to another.
Hotel was nice, with a feature called a Wine Tower. This is a tall tower behind the bar, where wine bottles are stored. Wine Angels are hoisted to the top to select your bottle of wine, and then perform acrobatics on the way down.
Evening was spent eating, drinking and importantly networking.