I've given up

I spent most of this morning trying to download new antivirus software, software that was recommended to me yesterday by both my sons.  First I went to the trouble of uninstalling the software that came with my new computer on the grounds that having two antivirus programs can cause problems when they start arguing with each other.  Then I tried downloading the new software.  Five times I tried and five times the download hung on me at the same point.  Now I've been stopped from trying any more times, five attempts being the maximum.  So I've downloaded a different package just to ensure I have some protection.  Meanwhile, I have emailed the other company asking for help, but I think I will just desert them - and ask for my money back.  There is supposed to be a 7-day cooling-off period.

But I'm cynical.

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Blogger is playing silly buggers.  There were three comments to yesterday's post but not one came to me by email!

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Cloudy and dismal outside today after a bright, sunny day yesterday.  Too dreary to bother taking photos today, but I did take this one yesterday while walking round the ramparts of the Roman Camp that is Iron Age but not Roman - if you see what I mean.  This is the view to the north-west over the golf course.

The chicken

I've been feeling out of sorts the last few days.  Didn't really want to do anything, it was all too much trouble, mainly because I was feeling knackered.  Having allowed myself a lie-in this morning (all of 45 minutes!) I'm feeling a whole lot better.  So, for what it's worth - and that ain't a lot! - here's a little story.

Driving back to Brighton one day down the M23, I glanced in the mirror and saw what appeared to be a chicken running down the road.  Another glance a couple of seconds later confirmed that it was indeed a chicken - and it was gaining on me.  Very soon it actually passed me and I noticed that it had three legs.  Intrigued, I pressed down on the accelerator to follow this strange bird.  When it took the Warninglid turn-off, I followed.

That bird ran through the country lanes like a demented road runner; it was all I could do to keep it in sight.  Eventually, it turned into a farmyard.  By the time I pulled in, the chicken had vanished.  I got out of the car and, as I stood there scratching my head, an old man came out of a barn.

"Excuse me," I called.  "I thought I saw a three-legged chicken turn into this farm."

"Ar," replied the old boy in a strong Sussex accent.  "That'd be 'bout roight.  Oi breeds 'em."

Seeing my astonished face, he went on to explain.

"You see, there's the three on us - me, the missus and the boy - and when we have a chicken dinner, we all wants a leg and there's terrible argyments.  So Oi decoided ter do summat 'bout it and Oi bred these 'ere three-legged 'ens."

"But has it made any difference to the taste?" I asked.

"Oi don't roightly know," replied the farmer.  "Oi'm still trying to catch one of the buggers."

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It's a bright, sunny day today and forecast to stay that way all day.  A bit on the chilly side, perhaps, but not as bad as the photo on our kitchen calendar for this month.  For several years I have had a calendar printed specially, using photos I have taken myself.  I don't choose the pictures, that's a decision I leave to the Old Bat.  This was her choice for January a rather bleak view across the South Downs.

Dry January

I can't remember the last time I had a hangover.  It's not that I'm boasting about it: I am simply stating a fact.  But it may well lead you to the conclusion that I don't drink to excess, and you would be correct.  I like a glass of wine with my meal - in fact, a glass and a half most days - and i will occasionally take a drop of Scotch as a nightcap.  Even over the festive period of Christmas and the New Year I have remained as abstemious as ever.  Not completely abstemious, but just cruising along at my usual pace.  Because of that, I have had no great incentive to dry out and join the Dry January crowd.

I didn't join the crowd in November either.  As I already have a set of facial hair, I could hardly do anything much about growing a moustache during Movember.

But there is something about these charitable fund-raising stunts that bothers me.  Take Dry January, for instance.  There are, I am sure, some people who are going dry for 31 days as a way of improving their bodies, letting the alcohol fully out of their systems.  And good luck to them if that's what they want to do.  But why do they have to dress it up as a great personal sacrifice and get other suckers to sponsor them?  Could they not just hand over to the appropriate charity the money they would have spent on booze if they had not gone dry?  In any case, unless one is an alcoholic I don't see it as much of a sacrifice to do without alcohol for a month.  I suppose the Dry January-ers get some sort of a kick out of doing good.

I'm not a fan of sponsored events of any kind - gum sucking, silences, marathons, climbing Kilimanjaro, trekking to the South Pole.  I am quite happy to donate to charity - but I want to do it my way, and I want to choose which charities I will support.  Being brow-beaten into sponsoring somebody not to drink for a month is not the way I want to do it.

And here ends the grumpy old man's rant.

Bows and arrows

Yesterday afternoon my car was in the garage for the annual road-worthiness check, the MOT as it's known.  The garage I use is in Patcham, the part we call "the old village", and I took the opportunity to stroll around while the car was being given the once-over.  As I wandered through the churchyard - that's All Saints' church in the picture - I pondered about the fact that most ancient churchyards have at least one yew tree in them.  I had a vague idea why this might be but I have since checked it out.

Although nobody knows for sure, there are several theories but the most popularly held seems to be that the yew tree heartwood is the best for making the English long bow and the practice of archery was at one time strongly linked to churches.  It was in the year 1363 that King Edward III decreed the Archery Law, which commanded the obligatory practice of archery on Sundays and holidays, for 2 hours supervised by the local clergy The Archery Law "forbade, on pain of death, all sport that took up time better spent on war training, especially archery practice".  King Henry I later proclaimed that an archer would be absolved of murder if he killed a man during archery practice and in 1542 another act established that the minimum target distance for anyone over the age of 24 years was 220 yards.

I have read that in York it is perfectly legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow - except on Sunday!

And while we're on the subject of archery-related trivia, there is a story - probably apocryphal but fun all the same - about the origin of the two-fingered V sign salute.  The story goes that back in the 14th and 15th centuries, when England was at war with France on an almost continual basis, English archers were supreme as the French had not adopted the long bow.  If an English archer was captured by the French, they would cut off the middle and index fingers of his right hand so that he could no longer hold an arrow as he drew the bow.  The English archers adopted the tactic of taunting their French opponents by waving those two fingers in the air.  Personally, I think it more likely that the French would just kill their prisoners - unless they were wealthy men who could be held for ransom.  All the same, it is an amusing little tale.

Rest and be thankful

It would be good to relate that when I rose from my slumbers this morning and threw open the curtains, I was greeted by blue skies and a sunny day.  It would be good - but it would not be true for the simple reason that it was still dark when I half fell out of bed today.  Mind you, by the time it was light we did have some patches of blue.  It felt quite balmy walking the dog after breakfast as there were still some blue spots overhead and the wind had died down.  Having said that, according to Alexis the weather girl, things will liven up again over night.  All the same, it is good to have at least a brief respite.

Not that I really have anything worth complaining about.  There is no tide mark around the walls of our ground floor, we are not even surrounded by acres of water.  We have suffered no loss of electricity so we have heat and light - and have had without break.  We have food and drink, and are able to restock without any difficulty whenever we want.  Things could be so very much worse and I am, truly, thankful for that.

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To continue our tour of the Stanmer estate, today we go right up through the woods to the Upper Lodges.

Zero gravity

I do sometimes have to wonder about my dear wife, generally known as the Old Bat.  This is a name she gave herself a good many years since.  She was preventing one of our dogs doing something - I no longer remember which dog or what it was wanting to do - when she (that is my wife, not the dog) remarked that the dog was thinking something along the lines of, "The old bat won't let me do it".  Naturally, the name stuck.

But to get back to the point.

I need to explain that when we had our kitchen extended some 30 or more years ago, there was a gap between the end of the cupboards under the working surface and the cooker.  This gap was ideal for telescopic towel rails to be fitted under the worktop, one of which supports a hand towel.  Now, whenever I wash my hands at the kitchen sink, I take the towel out to dry them, then pull out the telescopic rail and carefully fairly casually replace the towel with about half of it hanging down each side of the rail.  This seems eminently logical to me, but the Old Bat adopts a different approach when she wants to dry her hands.  She leaves the towel on the rail and reaches under the worktop to use it, pulling the towel down a little on one side as she does so.  The next time she dries her hands she pulls it down a little further.

I'm sure you won't need me to tell you what eventually transpires, but I will do so anyway.

Yes, that towel ends up with three inches hanging on one side of the rail - and three feet on the other.  Then it falls to the floor.

I'm not sure if the old darling was away from school sick on the day that gravity was explained or if she was too busy yakking to her friend - the one who later married my friend Chris and is now Mrs Chris - to pay attention.  I have tried to explain that zero gravity doesn't exist here in Brighton, but to no avail.  She still expects the towel to stay where it is even if it does hang on by a thread.  I suppose it just goes to show that you can't teach an Old Bat new tricks.

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If, instead of turning right to go past Stanmer church, one turns left, one passes the small country museum and ends up in the council nurseries.

Hoist with my own petard.

Yes, that's me.

Two or three months ago I wrote a piece in Brighton Lions Club's monthly newsletter in which I complained that the club was spending too little money.  I went on to suggest that the club members needed to be more proactive in finding suitable causes to support.  I don't think my comments caused it, but the Lion who had for many years been responsible to investigating grant applications asked to be relieved of the duty.  There wasn't exactly a stampede of volunteers to take the job on so, after a reasonably delay, I told the president that I would do it on a temporary basis.

I have now been given the 16 chock-full ring binders that contain all the paperwork for every application over the past umpty years that my predecessor had been doing the job, together with numerous other books and papers.  I have to confess that I shall not be as pernickety in questioning applicants for funding as he was, although it is certainly my intention to exercise due diligence.

We do have to be a little careful.  Some years ago, another Lions Club near us suggested that the local clubs should contribute to a charity which produced a talking magazine.  They were looking for something in excess of £50,000 to switch from using tape cassettes to CDs.  This money would, they said, cover the capital outlay and the increase in running costs for three years.  Some of the other clubs were a bit gung-ho but we wanted more information.  As a result, we discovered that they had no plans for fund-raising to cover the increased running costs at the end of the three years.  More importantly, we discovered that during the previous few months, the £20,000 that had been in their bank account had mysteriously disappeared.  They were never able to explain this and the charity was wound up very soon after.

Then there was the time when one of the leaders of a youth organisation complained that the Lions never supported them and they needed £350 to do something.  I had a quick look and discovered that the local branch had more money than the Lions Club, well in excess of £70,000!  I suggested they spend their own money first.

I already have three cases to put to the next meeting of Brighton Lions.

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A couple of doors in Stanmer: first, Stanmer House, then one of the cottages in the village.