Cornish Floods and Northumbrian Snow!!!

[A photo taken of part of our back garden forty minutes ago.]

This morning we have awoken to massive snow scenes. We are due to go to a Winter Wonderland Day at Kielder. It will be interesting to see whether we get there! Everyone in Northumberland/North East has been advised to stay at home today!!

I was thinking that we are either afflicted by floods and/or snow these days. Our hearts go out to everyone who has been caught up in the very recent flooding in Cornwall. We have many friends down in the West Country and it’s an area we have visited many times as a family. Before we decided to stay up in here in the heart of Hadrian’s Wall Country we made several trips to Devon and Cornwall to look at properties to buy with an eye to setting up in business. Mr. H. (Nigel) used to be a scuba diving instructor down in Newquay before the place became ultra fashionable. We also considered buying a self catering and B&B business in the delightful town of Camelford but, in the end, this area kept drawing us back again and again.

Everyone dreads something awful happening to their homes and I freely admit that I am much more conservative (with a small “c”) than Nigel. Given the chance I would have an insurance policy for just about everything. Luckily we do have home insurance for our two properties (and blessedly) they are both situated up on hills.

I was quite taken aback to read an article in which up to a fifth of folk in this country have decided to cut back and not have any home insurance. I can completely understand that money is extremely tight these days and that food and warmth come high on our agendas. I would, however, strongly urge everyone to consider having some home insurance. It is possible these days to shop around and get a good deal.

All sorts of things can happen which surge up out of the blue.

I met a wonderful family locally, a few months ago, who’d had the misfortune of having their boiler serviced only for something to go wrong. Their entire house ended up being covered with oil and its residue. When I talked to them they seemed to be handling the whole situation magnificently. They were being extremely pragmatic and, luckily, they were covered 100% for everything. They were still forced to look for alternative accommodation (potentially for months) and knew that they would have to replace everything in their home.

And it’s not just the big things we have to worry about. Lots of little things can go wrong too…cameras, laptops, games consoles lost or broken and anything electrical malfunctioning. Touch wood - nothing serious has happened to us yet. (Although if I could get my/our lost photos and data back by claiming on my home insurance policy believe me I would!!!)

In ancient Roman times a sophisticated financial system also existed which I am only just beginning to understand. I can imagine that valuable objects, such as works of art and jewellery would be used as “home insurance”. All these ideas brilliantly come together in one of my favourite books – in Dickens’ novel “Great Expectations” particularly when the bill collector John Wemmick, acting as clerk to Pip’s lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, turns out to be very keen on “portable property”.


[Chapter 45 – Dickens – Great Expectations (Conversation between Pip and Wemmick in the latter’s “castle” where they are toasting sausauges for the Aged. P’s breakfast.)]

In fact, Wemmick, advises Pip to get hold of Magwitch’s portable property to ensure that Pip is properly set up for life:

He laid his hands upon my shoulders, and added in

a solemn whisper: "Avail yourself of this evening to lay hold of

his portable property. You don't know what may happen to him. Don't

let anything happen to the portable property."


Ooh! The suspense! I just love it!!! (And I'll let you know if we ever get to Kielder today to see Wintry Scenes, Santa and the Elves!).....

Latin and Greek for All & Felix The Fast Tractor

I met the author of Felix the Fast Tractor yesterday at Hexham Christmas Fair and I immediately wanted to rave on about her books.

Catherine Cannon is based in Cumbria, Penrith and she has written four books about Felix. The illustrations and storyline are delightful and my little son (aged 4) already loves them. They are a good mixture of story and fact e.g. "Want to know more about low-loaders?" (a different fact tip is written inside a tractor tyre in the corner of each page at the bottom). We have searched and searched for books a bit like Thomas, the Tank Engine, but they seem to be thin on the ground. This is why it is so fab to have a local author discussing life on a country farm with some interesting facts and tips. The stories are all about a family: Farmer Story, Mrs. Story, Max, Lucy and their dog, Ben..not forgetting Felix the Tractor! There are more (f)activities on the Felix website and a competition to win a ride on a tractor on Facebook. My daughter (aged 7) loves the Felix tales too!

Catherine Cannon has not paid me to review her books and we paid to buy them...that's how enthusiastic I'm being! (I've asked her if I can display Felix on my sidebar. ) The marvellous and very lifelike illustrations are by Jean Murphy and June Allan.

At the fair I also met Julie Oswald from The Cloth Shed and her vintage stall looked very inviting. So I'll be popping over to her blog and website on a frequent basis. She's just blogged about her recent visit to Paris to see her daughter (and there are some super photos of Paris all lit up for Christmas). She recognised me from this blog (I'd not met her before) which knocked me for six. I'm chuffed to bits! She's a lovely person too so why not take a look?

I also caught sight of a £2.5m campaign being rolled out by Bettany Hughes, Ian Hislop, Colin Dexter, Boris Johnson, Tom Stoppard, Joanna Lumley to name just a few to get Latin and Greek taught in all Britain's state schools within ten years. The article "Latin lovers march on UK schools" was printed in yesterday's Sunday Times (page 3 main news section). It is impossible to reproduce it here sadly. Bettany Hughes, who is spearheading the campaign, was quoted as saying that she gets 150 mails a day from people asking where they can go to learn Latin and Greek. Minimus has sold 115,000 copies now and the movie 300, about the battle of Thermopylae, took $72m in its first weekend.

Forest Murmurs (a.k.a Fr. Michael Brown) reproduced the Bettany Hughes on Women's Hour Transcript (talking to Jenni Murray) here and there is a fascinating debate on the level of interest in Classics (at a local level) as well in his blog's comments' section.

I cannot contain my level of excitement at this. We are currently deciding how best we can teach it here - say, over a weekend, as I'd love to teach it from the New Year onwards and combine it with a site visit over to Vindolanda. My brain cells went into overdrive at 2.35 this morning sufficiently..so...that I could not get back to sleep! I've started teaching it for practice to my mum and Patricia, a fellow volunteer. So hopefully watch this space!

(P.S. My City memoirs (Part IV) are on their way...)

News Roundup

I'm writing this from another computer (the B&B's) and have ten minutes to write this post.

So...I thought I'd throw a few thoughts down.

1. Grandpa South is up with us for a couple of weeks. Hence schedule has gone out of the window. Nice to have him here. Must get his reminiscences about World War II down on paper or video or something. Like his son he has a few tales to tell. Including guarding the Royal Family at Windsor Castle during the War. Hates talking about it but it is all fascinating to hear none the less.

2. We've managed to gather together some photos from the computer crash of a few months ago. I'm looking on the bright side that we didn't lose everything. There is a lot we still do have.

3. The Summer season has been incredibly busy and we've enjoyed it. Bookings beginning to come in for next year already!

4. There are lots of things I do want to talk about but don't want to spoil the broth. I'm too aware and perhaps too superstitious that if I talk about them here before they are ready to be hatched then...everything will go to pot. So I'll talk about them at the right time.

5. I've got onto the Vindolanda dig next April 2011 - first time for me. Can't wait!

6. Will do an update of my "annus horribilis" (horrible year) some time. I know I promise you lots of things on this blog and then somehow don't deliver. I want to deliver...but it is all in my head and I hope to get them to the page/blogosphere at some point. In my life I do usually achieve my aims (and ambitions) so, mark my words, I'm pretty determined to get them all done. (In the meantime have stopped promising. Maybe watch this space?)

7. You may have noticed that I've started Tweetering or Twittering. Despite my initial scepticism I'm finding it hugely rewarding. If I'm not blogging you'll find me there mostly. Try it. It's good fun! (Haven't quite got to grips with Facebook as yet. Possibly a lack of time?) BTW Stephen Fry is back!

8. The funny thing is...as this country gets more miserable about life in general...I feel that I'm getting more and more cheery about it all. I'm hoping it is age and that I'm getting older and more wiser. Or perhaps just gone a bit daft in the heed? (Southern translation : head).

9. Read recently in my favourite magazine "The Radio Times" a most wonderful paragraph by Eddie Mair of the PM programme on Radio 4 (RT current edition p.133). "Somewhere in the mists of time (ie, I can't be bothered checking) ...Respected financial institutions were collapsing like Chilean mines and taxpayers were bailing out banks with enormous cheques which, curiously, for once didn't take three days to clear." Forget Robert Peston and Nick Robinson ...give me Eddie Mair any time for summing up the financial debacle in a mere 28 words. Sheer brilliance.

9 mins. 55 seconds and counting: Back soon!!!!

(P.S.: Where for great ideas come from? "Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down; but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies, frequent coffee houses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle, reinvent." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11706476 I'll also Twitter this article. There's a short video there as well.)

P.P.S.: I do bank bash I admit it. I'm also trying to do it in a constructive way. I am enthralled by the City of London i.e. by those who made it both financially and physically and historically. Always have been. The banks really do need to pull up their socks. They need to wake up to the fact that they need us...the little guys. The depositors as well as the borrowers. And when they do wake up...I'll stop bashing them.)

P.P.P.S.: I urge you all to pop over to Dumdad's blog. I've never awarded him an award which is absolute laziness on my part. It is brill. His blog is all that I aspire mine to be. I will scale those dizzy heights one day. I hope. Cheers Dumdad! I hereby convert my earlier virtual award to a real rollickin' good read award! Image created by Little Miss H. Text added by her ma.