2025 Quick Daily Posts

[richardandtracy]

Thank you Mabel. Much appreciated.

Regards,

Richard.

[Serinde]

Couldn't have said it better than Mabel. Squeaky was such a character and his own self right to the end. So sorry.

[richardandtracy]

He was a character right to the end. We will miss him so much.

Regards,

Richard

[richardandtracy]

We have a distraction of a sort..

CitiFibre is digging up the road outside our house to put in 'SuperFast' broadband. May be useful, may be not. There seems to need to be a different cable to each house. At the moment we get 50MBps which isn't bad, certainly an improvement on our 33k dial-up of 10 years ago and then 2.5Mbps during the 2020 Covid lockdown.
I wonder if we'll be forced to abandon the analogue phone. If so, we won't have phone contact with the rest of the world in a power cut. Mobile phones simply don't work in the house, and once we go to digital phones, they won't work in a power cut because the power supply to the router goes. So, after a century of continuous service obligation, going to digital telephones means the service fails at the first power cut. Is there anything to learn from Spain & Portugal this week?

Our remaining cat Ozzie is normally spooked by everything happening on the road outside the house, but he was unphased by the cacophony from the road being cut, dug & re-laid. Strange what bothers cats.

Regards

Richard

[Mabel Figworthy]

The digital-phones-in-a-power-cut problem has worried me terribly right from the start. Never mind Spain and Portugal, last year several areas up north (i.e. Not In London) were without power for several days - back-up batteries simply will not cut it in those cases. (And don't get me started on the "we will provide extra battery back-up for vulnerable people"; as if non-vulnerable people [and what are those?] couldn't possibly suffer a heart attack or a serious fall or any other thing that might necessitate calling 999.)

[Serinde]

That was certainly our position during Storm Eowyn. We had various ways to keep the phones charged (a power block and our car battery in a pinch). We set the phones against the front window to catch any passing signal (DH and I are on two separate networks for a reason!), but if the local mast is out of action, nothing will help if the analogue phone isn't available. Check with BT about how it plans to roll out the digital phone switchover in your area. In some instances, BT will allow customers to keep their landline for a longer period of time. Obviously, other suppliers may vary.

During the storm we also discovered what it meant to have no other source of energy apart from electricity, our gas hob having been replaced with an induction hob. Luckily, our wood burner, which sits slightly proud of the fireplace (by design!) allowed us to heat water, soup, etc on it. Exactly what I hoped when I argued for it to be put in this way. We had one toasty room and a way to make supper. We only lost power for 7 or so hours, unlike some poor souls, but we could have made it work for a few days. Washing would have been interesting... but those of us who remember the '70s in the UK, also remember unheated bathrooms. Back to the Future!

[richardandtracy]

We do try to have an alternative for everything, but it doesn't always work.

Water: We have a tank in the loft and one in the van (quasi motorhome).
Heating: Fireplaces and a cast iron wood burner stove. We have <lots of> wood for fuel.
Cooking: Gas oven and hob will work without power. If no gas, we have a two ring propane stove in a removable cupboard in the van.
Toilet facilities: we have two Port-a-Potti's, on on the van, and our old van's one. Will do us for a couple of weeks.
Electricity: I have an old 110V generator which can be bumped up to 240v with a site transformer. Not very reliable, will only use if power is out for 24hrs or more.
Phone: Effectively no mobile signal in our little valley and we really rely on landline for analogue phone or mobile by 'call-over-wifi'. So, if the power is out, we don't have any phone once the digital switch is made.
Flood: we can live in our pole-barn if the house is uninhabitable. It's 4ft higher than the house ground level, so with any luck that would be enough. It is possible to install a heating stove from the house fairly easily.
Wind: The valley seems to be steep enough that damaging winds don't curl down into the valley to cause problems.

With any luck, most likely problems have a contingency plan. The one that has me most concerned is a wildfire. We have a wildlife garden, which means lots of trees, shrubs and long (dry) grasses over a large part of the garden. Getting rid of the 'fuel' means getting rid of the wildlife friendly features. I don't want that, any more than the house burning down. I'm stumped for a way to satisfy both, so at the moment wildlife win. We do have less vegetation near the house, but I doubt it would be safe in a medium to large wildfire.

Regards,

Richard.

[Mabel Figworthy]

We returned from the Netherlands last Thursday, too early (through my bad planning) to participate in the 80th anniversary of Dodenherdenking (Commemoration of the Dead, 4th May) and Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day, 5th May), but I was able to leave my tribute a few days early.

Ever since I sat next to Sir David Willcocks (conductor and composer) at a dinner 14 years ago and heard how he fought at Arnhem (and thanked him) I particularly remember those who were willing to lay down their lives but instead came back with the scars and the memories.

[Serinde]

A good thing to have done, Mabel.

I have no memory of national commemorative events in the US when I was growing up apart from Memorial Day. Even 4th July wasn't militaristic, and more about parades, bunting and picnics. As a result, I have been fighting a certain cynicism about them in the UK due to all the hype that surrounds anything to do with WWII, even when I understand why. But the men in my family were in the military and fought either in Europe (uncle; USAF) or the Far East (father: Marine Corp); younger uncles in Korea, brother in Viet Nam (another Marine). Another brother (US Army medic) and son (British Army; Sigs then Artillery) never saw action, thankfully. I'd prefer there to be more jaw jaw and less war war. Alas, powerful men have other ideas.

[richardandtracy]

I am less convinced by the increase in noise around VE day, because empty things make more noise, and the commemorations are getting noisier and noisier. My fear is that they're getting emptier & emptier. I'd be more convinced by quiet commemoration, when there is time and space to think, analyse and ruminate.

My Grandfather was in the 7th Armoured Brigade, and arrived at Belsen the day after it was 'Liberated'. He always feared he'd killed hundreds, in an agony of empathy they gave every last scrap of food they could get hold of, and in their ignorance of how to treat extreme starvation probably overloaded the poor people's systems, killing them as certainly as giving them nothing would have done. As a fairly senior officer, he gave orders to release stores that meant many more died than would have done if he'd not been there to order it. Apart from saying he was there on the second day after 'Liberation', Grandpa only once in a while spoke of what he did, though he never spoke a word about what he saw, but his eyes... they said some of the things he couldn't.
Every year he attended the Armistice Day ceremonies and silently attended, went home and never spoke again about it.
My Grandmother was somewhat more voluble and told us stories of how Grandpa was posted as 'Missing, believed killed in action' (I have that telegram she received) in May 1940. The few other family stories we have all came from my Gran, presumably Grandpa told her once & she passed them on thereafter.

So, the noisy VE Day commemoration compares to my Grandfather's silent memories. And the noisier and noisier commemoration looks increasingly tawdry. In some ways I think it's as bewildering as the excess of emotion when Princess Diana died. That, I felt, was emotional incontinence, not the sort of thing one should do in public.

Regards,

Richard

[Mabel Figworthy]

Thank you for sharing the story of your Grandpa, Richard; it would be an honour to add him to my commemorations in future years.

I'd be more convinced by quiet commemoration, when there is time and space to think, analyse and ruminate.

Very true Richard; I find the silent procession (with muffled drum; the "silent" refers to no chatting) held in my town and many others very moving, and it gives me the opportunity to really think about the people I'm remembering and honouring.

Dutch television used to show two ceremonies, the official one with all the bigwigs in Amsterdam, and one on the plain among the dunes by Scheveningen where many resistance fighters were executed, which is completely silent apart from the tolling of one enormous bell, rung by volunteers and with a guard of honour taken from the branch of the military which ran the resistance during the war. It is getting ever more difficult to find the latter on television, which is a great shame as it was by far the more impressive of the two.

[Serinde]

Perhaps now the 80th anniversary has come, the PTB will let the thing rest?

In the past, there was no time to commemorate past wars because generally they were stuck into a new war, perhaps allied to the nation they were just fighting with. So, in that sense, I suppose that this long period of peace in (most of) Europe can be seen as a success?

[richardandtracy]

It can be seen as a success.
However, it looks as if the seeds of its end may have been sown through sheer carelessness, ignorance or short term political expediency.

I had written a lot more, however to avoid politicking I'll make holes in my tongue instead.

When I first started thinking of an answer in this post, I thought of the 'peace' after 1815 up until 1914, and on closer review came to the conclusion that inhabitants of France and Germany probably didn't think of it as a particularly peaceful time, and that calling the time 'peaceful' was an excessively anglophone view.

Regards,

Richard

[Serinde]

@ Richard: I'd be interested in your views -- probably better for discussion in the Stash & Grab, as you allude.

@ Mabel: Speaking of impressive, I came across this last night (only 2 years late). Damn clever, these Dutchmen!

[Mabel Figworthy]

Ooh, that is impressive! I've actually never been, must put that on our "to visit" list.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Looking forward to this workshop at the Drapers' Hall next Monday. And as I was looking into my walking route from the Tube, and possible lunch venues, I found that only a street away was The Dutch Church, celebrating its 475th anniversary this year. I never even knew there was a Dutch church in London! So I'll go and visit that either before or after the class - I made sure to plan my train with plenty of spare time.

[Serinde]

Very, very nice venue for your workshop!

[fccs]

I’m catching up on forum posts and just wanted to send condolences to Richard and family. It’s so hard to lose our pets.

[richardandtracy]

Thank you Debbie. Much appreciated. We really miss Squeaky, he's been with us so long. In fact we only got him close to a year after moving into our current house, so thinking of the place & him are almost synonymous.

Looking at Mabel's workshop venue.. Oh boy. If that's the workshop (usually held in a shed), what's the living room like?

Regards,

Richard

[Mabel Figworthy]

This is the drawing room of the Drapers' Hall, one of the more modest rooms. The Livery Hall has to be seen to be believed.