Ramblings in Retirement

November 2006

Did you know that if you click on a photo it will come up enlarged? Try it

We arrived in Leeds on the 22^nd October as planned leaving behind warm sunny weather and arriving in the cold and wet.

Our next door neighbour, an elderly lady, had passed away so Penny and I decided to renew the fencing between our properties as it was likely the house would be sold and we wanted to have a little more privacy than the current fence allowed. (We need privacy)!!!! We were fortunate to get hold of the chap who did our front garden fence and although not the cheapest, he does good quality work and, could do the job immediately. In addition, we got him to reduce the height of a large cherry tree at the rear of the garden (about 30ft down to 15ft) My other next door neighbour has subsequently offered to practice his lumber jacking skills and has further chopped down the height. Thanks Charles and Evelyn.

The fence work took the best part of a week which presented Penny with the opportunity to redesign the remaining border (this meant that I had to dig out the existing deep planting, cover the area with plastic, buy loads of gravel chips and make the whole area ……Nice!

The second week was taken up with having workmen replace all of our windows, soffits, fascias and guttering (Yes we were having some expensive fun)! Being tied to the house, I found time to chop back the Lilac hedging in the front garden and do some general tidying up.

To cap it all, on the third week workmen dug up the road to lay a new gas main, supply pipes, cause general noise and traffic mayhem and cause an internal leak to a pipe joint in our property! This necessitated getting hold of a “corgi” fitter to find the leak and repair it. (these little dogs are really very clever and expensive).

On November 5^th we were treated to a re-enactment of WW2 blitzkrieg when it seemed that the entire population set off millions of pounds worth of fireworks, the noise was deafening for several hours as there is no coordination of events just groups, families and individuals blasting off all over the place.

Contradiction?

The British Government want to “manage” the populations lifestyle, this time they are putting together more restrictions on everyone to combat “Global Warming”. (This is actually pointless as India, China and the USA have not signed up to the “Kyoto Agreement” and pollute the atmosphere thousands of times more than we could ever do). The answer to this challenge is that Britain must show the way to other nations and be a good example. Contrast this with the decision to spend £30 billion to replace Trident Hardware (and another £50 billion over 5 years to maintain it) so that Britain has the capacity to “deter” whoever the President of the USA tells us to deter. In addition, Britain will fight for the right to set a good example and stop anyone else getting their hands on such weaponry!!! So there you have it, tax the masses to stop global warming and spend loads of tax £s on having a nuclear weapon which if ever used would mean that global warming would be the last of our problems.

Things you could buy with a £80 billion

Our local Chinese restaurant in Denia serves up:

Prawn Crackers, Chinese Salad, Spring Roll, Chicken and Almonds, Fried Rice, Crème Caramel, a half bottle of wine and a liqueur to finish for 5.40€ which is about £3.60. £80,000,000,000 would buy 22.5 billion meals and probably feed the population of Africa for a year (mind you the restaurant would get awful crowded)…………………………………………..or……………..

You could fund the NSPCC and ensure vulnerable children are never harmed again!

Global Warming Again

I was discussing the above theme of Global Warming with a fellow golfer and he was convinced that if the people of Britain did everything possible to stop Global Warming, it would be like an umbrella over the UK and only those other countries would suffer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bet he also believes that the “Umbrella” would only apply to those people in the UK who actively did something, and not to everyone!

Adverts

There is an advert currently advertising Anadin (or some such product), which says that it is “double strength”, to emphasise this, the script on the screen says that each 400mg capsule

contains the equivalent of two 200mg capsules!!!

Another advert tell us what to take for a “tension” headache, when I heard this at first, I thought it referred to a Attention Headache!!

Did you know you could have your house smell of “crushed silk”?? and Jasmine

Finally, we have all seen the heart-rending advert requesting donations to stop child abuse from the NSPCC, I found it in bad taste to see another advert using a similar voice-over suggesting we “rescue” some rice by adding a stock cube.

I was bored in Yorkshire or what!

We started our return by travelling to Scotland to see my Aunt who, after some time, now accepts some support from social services. She never fails to amaze us with her a sharp and witty humour and she is an amazing example to us all.

On the 10^th November, we travelled to the other side of Scotland to the town of Cumnock for the wedding of my niece. The weather was foul and it rained most of the day but nonetheless this did not dampen spirits and everyone enjoyed the day. Most of the men were dressed in highland wear and looked so smart as I’m sure you will agree.

The Happy Couple, Michelle and Rab

Family group

My sister Edie and the "real" MacKenzie

Enjoying the meal

I am pleased to say that we arrived back in Spain to nice sunny and warm weather (although there had been some much needed downpours the previous week) and our garden needed some attention, as did the pool.

In the ongoing crusade to minimise work in the garden, I have ripped out another bed and replaced it with white chippings and feature plants. In this instance, several mauve and several white creeping Lantanas. In addition we bought a small palm tree. I’m quite pleased with the result.

Our Poinsettia tree is an absolute delight this year, normally I cut it back quite hard in the spring after winter flower but this year I let it grow. You may remember the photo I sent in the summer showing how the tree continues to blossom but that was nothing to how it looks now as you can see.

Well that’s all for November, have a lovely Festive Season.