Phantom Tree-Cutting

I have been hearing some really strange noises outside on the estate over the past week or two. The noises were loud mechanical and sort of high-pitched. I couldn't work out what it was and where it was coming from as it was quite difficult to ascertain from which direction it was coming from. A bit like when you're driving along on a road somewhere and you hear a siren, probably a police car, ambulance or fire engine but it's hard to know where it is, whether it's behind you, coming towards you or from left or right. You don't know whether to pull over to the side or the road or just slow down, but then you see whatever it is in your rear-view mirror. All was revealed the other morning when I was quietly sitting in the lounge and I could hear this sound outside. Then something began moving along the Redway, which runs along the back of our garden.  The phantom machine! I could see a yellow machine, or SOMETHING, slowly moving past, something which must have been on the back of a tractor or similar machine, with what must have been a sort of hydraulic arm with some sort of cutting attachment on it like a mower which moved up and down and was cutting some of the branches of the tree which grow along the edge of the Redway. I became somewhat concerned that it would break through into our garden. A section of our fence has been blown over and is virtually vertical and awaits repair by our landlord (it's at least four months since they came out to look and told us that it would all be replaced, but as we've heard nothing further we're beginning to wonder whether all that was just to get us to sign a new tenancy agreement.) and I from where I was sitting indoors, really imagined that this beast of a machine was going to break through into the garden. It was moving along and making a lot of noise, not just the machine, engine, noise, but the breaking of branches as it cut them as it moved along. When I went out onto the Redway later when I walked over to Milton Keynes Academy to meet Carol from work I could see where this machine had been. It looked as it it hasn't actually cut the branches but merely broken them off and left a really ragged edge. Also, all along the verge they had cut the bracken and brambles and it looked quite clean and tidy, but there was still a lot of litter and rubbish left which should have been removed. When we went for a walk with the dogs along the Redway a few weeks ago we noticed a similar thing with trees and bushes. It looked as if some sort of large creature had been past and broken off the branches. I think it was the untidy finish which was such a shock, not a clean cut to them. Perhaps it's to encourage new growth or something, but it was the fact that it looked so untidy which was what surprised us.

Its been a very over-cast sort of day today. Generally, the weather has got worse over the past week or so. We've been spoilt with the so-called 'Indian Summer' and then the tail-end of the hurricane which was spinning towards the British Isles across the Atlantic Ocean and the wet and windy weather which we had here (but actually, not too bad in Milton Keynes, fortunately.) It's undecided as regards rain and it's been mostly dry with occasional rain today. Carol is on Half Term next week. She has a day today doing teacher training, which she tells me is generally very boring, just listening to people rabbiting on. I can identify with this, as I've had to endure some really dull training days with the jobs I've had, particularly in care, where you have to do the compulsory stuff like manual handling and food preparation, which can become so DULL you want to scream, but it would be no good if you did and just have to put up with it, unfortunately.

Worsening Weather and Traumatised Dogs

Apparently we're in for some really bad weather. We're supposed to get the tail-end of a hurricane, which is currently crossing the Atlantic from America.  Called Hurricane Gonzalo. Where do they get these names from? Why are they sometimes women's names but then men's names? Is there anything in the fact that they are either male or female names?  A fortnight's-worth of rain is expected to fall within the space of eight hours, while gusts of wind of up to 80 m.p.h. (128 k.p.m.) are expected to be recorded in parts of northern Scotland. So, can the B.B.C. please not send their television reporters to cover these weather conditions, particularly not to the edge of some harbour, with waves lashing and boats being tossed by the waves? Similarly, when there were floods a years or two ago, they had to rush a television crew together with reporter, to some far-distant village which was cut off by rising water, several feet of it filling some street and then putting their reporter in the midst of it all in Wellington boots, wind cheater, oilskins, or whatever, just so the person had stand and chat to camera. It's laughable when they are telling people to keep away from such places and then put their own reporters in danger, together with crew. Do they expect to be rescued when there is a real problem, putting the lives of the rescue service at risk? No sense really.

As I write this the wind is increasing. It is actually quite sunny and bright here in Milton Keynes as I can see out of our lounge window into our garden, but the wind is most definitely getting stronger and the leaves are falling from the trees. 

It's also that time of the year which both our dogs dislike. It's around Hallow'en and Guy Fawkes Night (November 5th) when we get all those fireworks let off and so scaring the dogs. Poppy in particular, but Alfie doesn't like it when there is an unexpected explosion which sets him off barking. We'll be glad when it's over and done with for another year. I think it's fine when Guy Fawkes Night is over and done with over a few nights, but it's made worse when some idiot decides to set of fireworks randomly which causes the problems. I don't imagine it's just our dogs which get upset. Poppy goes and hides under the nearest piece of furniture whilst Alfie barks. It won't just be dogs. I would think cats would be traumatised by the noise as well as any other pets people would have.

Wild, Wet and Windy Weather

The past couple of days the weather has been wet and windy. A section of garden fence is now almost vertical. As I sit and write this post I can see through into the area that borders the Redway behind our house. The other day I couldn't find our Yorkie, Alfie. He had gone through the gap and did manage to get back through into the garden, but he has a habit of wondering off through any gaps in the fence as he's a very inquisitive little dog. He went through into our neighbour's garden as I reported on here a couple of weeks ago, and he did come back through. We have to keep and eye on both dogs whenever they go into the garden, because the the possibility of them getting through the fence. The landlord had promised to replace the fence a couple of months ago, but, as yet, there seems to be no chance of this work being undertaken. There isn't much left of that section of 'fence' (for want of a better word) as it is so rotten it will not stand up to much more being done to it such as having nails driven into it.

Great British Bake Off

It's surprising how addictive the television show "The Great British Bake Off" can be. I suppose you could ask, doesn't it fall into the category of 'reality' television, competition, gameshow or reality, because it has real people put into a situation that they wouldn't otherwise be put in, or perhaps it's got a combination of all these.  I'm not a great reality television fan. In fact, I detest it. I cannot see what the attraction of 'Big Brother' can possibly be. Merely watching a group of non entities living in a house and having their every move poured over by the media, Facebook, Twitter, the Red Tops and so on, just doesn't make very interesting television I'd rather watch the testcard (if they use one still, which I very much doubt). For a start, I hate the term 'reality television' because everything you see on television is fake. The very picture you watch is an illusion. Made up of 625 lines and flickering at a rate of something like 250 frames a second. The image you watch has been edited carefully. Put a camera in front of anyone who isn't trained as an actor or other performer and they will react differently. Some people clam up, whilst others 'play' to the camera. Then the images you see are carefully edited as I say. This particularly for something like 'Bake-Off' because the time scale of each episode has been condensed. The contestants have, say, two hours to bake a cake or whatever and it is filmed and edited to take perhaps 15 minutes on screen. The director and editor will edit out the extraneous matter, the un-interesting bits and keep only the most interesting bits. How do we know what bits have been re-shot, with the camera in just the right place to get the most interesting view of something? We can never be sure. Do Sue and Mel spend a long time composing what we imagine are off-the-cuff remarks? Does the director make sure that they are put in just the right place so that they can come out with these remarks? And the double entendres, those little gems such as 'soggy bottom' etc etc, put in to get a cheap laugh?

After all that, I think I like it because the contestants are interesting. They're not celebrities. They have interesting lives. We can, as the viewer, identify with them all, or most of them. There's the builder the grandmother, the former practice manager of a doctor's surgery. Nobody is generally nasty to one another. There is no viewers' vote. It doesn't get spun out for ages and ages before we learn who has been voted off at the end of each week's programme. No baying audience as there is on 'Strictly Come Dancing' who clap and cheer at every little thing the dancers do. And the setting is somewhat different to most other similar shows. A tent in a country house garden where the weather seems to interfere on a regular basis. How the production company manages to keep the rain out whenever there's a downpour is a mystery to me. Have you ever been in a similar tent when there's a rain storm? You can't seem to avoid the drips. Not every tent in one hundred percent waterproof. And the biggest mystery to me is, how do they manage to keep secret each week's vote-off and most importantly, the over-all winner when it is filmed so many months in advance?

Side-Effects of Flu Jab and Strictly Saturdays

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, Carol had her 'flu jab in Sainsbury's on Thursday evening. Mine was yesterday morning at Ashfield Medical Centre. I was beginning to think that I was getting a slight reaction to the jab with some muscle and joint pain as we sat down to eat our evening meal whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing. (I'll mention that a little later in this blog.) Carol, though, has had quite a bad reaction this morning (Sunday) and as a result we didn't go to church. I went to Lidl on Oldbrook Boulevard. I was really surprised by how busy it was in there. The first Christmas products are beginning to appear on the shelves and as a result you can't always find exactly what you want. In this case, stuffing to go with this evening's roast chicken. I then went into the Tesco just over the road, one of those 'mini' or 'convenience' branches. I was surprised how few people were in there. I'm not surprised as Lidl is so much cheaper and I could not find any Paxo (stuffing) for the chicken. I looked up and down the aisles but not a single packet could I see. I purchased a Sunday Times, using a self-service till and then walked out. I drove to the shop in Eaglestone, and sure enough, I found a packet of Paxo immediately. This must say quite a lot about the current retail situation in Britain, with Tesco once upon a time being the strongest supermarket chain, and since the financial crash of 2008 such 'discounters' as Aldi and Lidl have changed the way most people shop for groceries, being around 15% cheaper than the four major supermarkets, Asda, Morrison, Sainsbury and Tesco.

As for Strictly Come Dancing . . .  as far as I'm concerned the novelty of seeing celebrities making fools of themselves on the dance floor is beginning to wear a bit thin. The show is over-hyped and it's all over the tabloids and Facebook. You can't seem to get away from it from early September until Christmas. There's nothing at all wrong with the dancing, it's the over-heated audience that gets me. They cheer and clap at the slightest thing, cheering and making stupid noises. And why do they insist on putting people in the front row of the audience who you can see clearly behind the presenters when they are talking, a woman was on there last night who was dreadfully over made-up and kept staring at the camera. A real distraction.  Can they not just fade them into the background? Do we really need to see these non-entities so clearly? Bruce Forsyte, who didn't actually do a great deal when he was on, is sorely missed. I don't know what it is but he did add a certain élan to the proceedings, even though his jokes were somewhat tired.  Those two women, Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly really don't add a great deal. Never have, since this show began. How did the B.B.C. think that Tess Daly was a replacement for good old Sir Bruce Forsythe I can't think. She has all the talent of a shopping trolley. Though, in all honesty, there wasnt a lot for Brucie to get his teeth into in the first place, nothing to be 'hands on' as he would have been in the 'Generation Game' or 'Play Your Cards Right.' Lets be honest, an hour and a half of this is really far too much and Craig Revel-Horwood's miserable face is enough to put you off your rice pudding. Can he never say anything nice to anyone? I know he's been cast as the pantomime villain but it is wearing a bit thin by now.

The lighting and set design are really brilliant. When you compare it to the travesty of the revived Sunday Night At The Palladium, which has been done on the cheap and has all the atmosphere of a Sunday night at the local village hall, no expense has been spared. The way they can transform the set for each couple who dance is amazing. All done with lighting and digital effects. The moving digital  lighting which is used around the staircases is spectacular.

Greg Wallace got booted off the show. He deserved it. His dancing was like a flat-footed Teletubby. Judy Murray was not much better.  It must be very difficult when you are, in effect, in the shadow of a far more famous son or daughter, as she is. You can forgive her nerves, as most of the rest of the celebs should be used to the cameras, the audience and so on. But she wasn't much better. At least Tim Wonnacott made a brave stab at it, even though he wasn't a particularly brilliant. I don't expect he'll last much longer. Just have to wait and see.

Weather Changes and Flu Jabs

I had to be at Ashfield Medical Centre at 8 this morning as I had to have my annual flu jab. Because of having had a heart attack I am one of the 'at risk' groups who automatically get a flu jab before winter starts and there is a likelihood of being infected. It can be quite life-threatening if you have flu whilst having a heart condition, apparently. I arrived with around 15 minutes to spare and got the car parked and then stood in the queue which had already started to build up, with around 20 people standing on the steps outside the surgery door. It was all good natured and the rain clouds were building up as we waited and hence there was a possibility we might get wet. I did feel what might have been a raindrop, but I'm not sure. We got inside once the doors were open and then there was a wait of a few minutes before I got to the lady on the reception. She put my name in the computer database and registered me and I had to wait a further ten minutes or so before being called into the doctor's surgery. The actual jab was totally painless and I was out again within two minutes and driving home. Fortunately there was virtually no traffic as I drove back to Eaglestone.


The television forecast has been correct: it is now very much colder and wetter today than it has been for the past few weeks. The Indian Summer is now over. It's been raining, not particularly hard, but it's been raining nonetheless. We went to Staples to buy some computer printer ink cartridges and other items and it was reasonably dry and we went out, but on getting back home, having been to Waitrose, which is a mile and a half further down Chaffron Way from home, it was raining quite hard.

Funny Alfie!

Our Yorkshire terrier, Alfie, is a real character. He has lots of toys which not only keep us amused, but he gets a great deal of amusement himself from them. He has a typical Yorkie habit, no doubt how he would kill a rat (which is what they were originally bred for) by picking it up and shaking it vigorously and growling noisily. We witnessed his ability to kill a rat when we had them running around our former home in Cownhill. One morning he managed to corner a huge rat in the kitchen and he dispatched it by shaking it. This is mentioned in more detail in an earlier post on here. He has a basket of his toys (shared, I hasten to add, with our other dog, Poppy.) He can be most protective of these toys which we have managed to purchase over a number of years from supermarkets and pet shops in and around Milton Keynes. This evening he was playing with one such toy, which is a sort of monkey creature. He shook it so hard it flew across the room and behind the television set. I could only reach it by using a broom handle. He then shook the toy and it again flew across the room. He darted round behind the sofa, came out the other side and bounced- or appeared to bounce- from one side of the sofa to the other. Really amusing. He has a Comic Relief ball, which is bright red and with a silly face embroidered on it. When you drop it on the floor, an electronic chip inside is activated, and it has the sound of a rather over-acted giggle and laugh, which sets off Alfie barking. It is quite amusing when he throws his head back and howls at it. He even knows that if he prods it or drops it it will start making it's giggling sound. This ball is kept on the bookshelf in the lounge and he knows exactly where it is kept, and when he wants to play with it he will go to the shelf and stand with his front paws on the top of the first shelf and stare at it until you take the ball down from it's place and drop it on the floor.We don't allow this much more than once a day as his bowing can begin to get a bit annoying and may upset our neighbours.

550th blog post: Sunny Start to October

This, for those who are interested, this is the 550th post I've written on this blog. Just thought I'd mention it. Not only that but I've been writing these posts for 6 years, beginning on 27th September 2009. It seems amazing to me that I have managed to keep these musings going, although I'm not so sure they are all particularly interesting. And it's been seen, or at least, according to Google's statistics, had 23, 430 page views.

It's the 1st October and it's as sunny and warm as it was in August. There's something definitely odd about it being this warm. On B.B.C. Breakfast early this morning the forecast said that this warm weather had something to do with the Gulf Stream and that it has moved north or something, but that the weather was going to break and we were going to have rain and high winds in the next couple of days.  

I'm busy currently ringing round trying to get a quote to have our car serviced. We went out in it the other Sunday, and as we went down the A5, just before we got to the roundabout for  Fenny Stratford and Dobbie's garden centre, we could see smoke pouring out of the exhaust. Other drivers in cars which were following us were keeping a wide berth and some were apparently signalling. I wasn't driving so I couldn't see, but, looking in the rear-view mirror I could see a could of blue smoke which appeared to be following us and most definitely was coming out of the exhaust pipe at the rear of the car. We got to the roundabout and pulled in near the garage next to the new McDonald's and looked at the rear of the car. The smoke had stopped even when we put our foot down on the accelerator pedal. The smoke seemed to vanish as quickly as it appeared. We drove back through Fenny Stratford and Simpson because Carol didn't want the embarrassment of driving with any more smoke coming out of the exhaust. We had intended driving through Woburn deer park as it was such a sunny morning, but the smoke from the car put an end to that. As a result I am looking for the cheapest quote from garages to have the car serviced, with oil change, filters etc etc. We also have a problem with the windscreen wipers as none are working at the moment. Anyway, the most expensive quote was £200 and the cheapest £85. 

Not going out at the moment because we have a grocery delivery coming from out on-line shop from Sainsbury's and it's booked to arrive between 11-12 this morning. They usually come quite promptly so there's not a lot to do apart from me writing this post.

A little while later . . .

I could have started a fresh post, but I didn't see the point. The Sainsbury's delivery arrived at around 11.30. As I was taking the delivery in and about to put it away, the telephone rang and I went to answer. It was Sainsbury's pharmacy. It seemed a bit of a coincidence that I was dealing with the Sainsbury's delivery, but never mind. Both Carol and I have our repeat prescriptions made up by Sainsbury's. You ring about a week in advance and they deal directly with the surgery at Beanhill. Then around a week later you go in and collect the ordered medications. It has gone very well for the last year or so. You have to remember to order so that you have enough medication to allow for them to make up the order. It seems something went wrong with Carol's prescription which I had telephoned in well over a week ago. The Sainsbury's driver had presumably gone to the surgery to pick it up and it wasn't ready. So I had to drive to Beanhill to get the printed prescription (which, according to the lady on reception, had only just been prepared.) then drive to Sainsbury's to get the order made up. I was surprised how busy it was as it seemed to be crawling with office staff who must have been on their lunch breaks. I bought a sandwich because I would have made something to eat after I had put the grocery delivery away. It just goes to show that it only needs one element of the system with the repeat prescription to go slightly wrong to cause a lot of other problems.