Fifty, grey and shady

    Fight for the right to be savvy

   In "Ray Winston pose" Stuart returns from a sabbatical in England hunting sea coal, art deco pubs. Feeling fresh,       raring to go and yes, the wrong side of nifty fifty..

Turning forty was easy, crawling over the finishing line of the rich thirties, Iger blood and Adonis D.N.A. I dragged that massive bucket across the byb bye thirties line.

A very relaxed Stu helping orphand in Cambodia last year

 Forty to fifty?  Crossed all them crosses, emptie,d the bucket list, Divorce, tick sports car, tick, live in girlfriend, tick. Gout tick cancer scare, tick, negative equity, closed business, unusual parts of body hurting, running out of money, credit card theft, kids don't ring. Yes, tick tick tick...

And fifty?New bucket list...

Survive to sixty (pension matures)

Get teeth fixed

Getting rid of expensive car

Getting rid of spare tyre...

Not surviving to seventy (pension well blown)

The trouble is I lost the bucket..At fifty it is a life viewed through scratched varifocals. The rose tinted hippy shades have long been borrowed by my Gladstonebury bound neices.

Meanwhile down on the farm...

Seventy Years, Eighteen Months and One Hundred Days

To forgive  or forget or both or neither?

 It has just past seventy years since the liberation of Auschwitz and I think a few people like

myself were shocked to see how many survivors there still are. If we forget, we risk a repetition 

 of such atrocities, although with the rise of Boka Haram or Isis or the genocide in Rwanda or ethnic cleansing in Serbia might show no change in human behaviour is possible..

To forgive, is another thing. Germans are no longer right wing Nazis, and such an integral part of united Europe, Yes we should cautiously forgive. If we never forgave the man who stole your bicycle or threw a beer at you or took the last loaf of bread we would all be in a very bitter world.

Who needs to steal a bike? This handmade Dawes was left at the rubbish bins!!

I was sent a letter last week threatening me with a three month ban if I was caught speeding again within the next eighteen months from today... the fact that the speeding offence was four months ago apparently does not count... I sold the bat mobile and bought a 30 year old Renault 4, affectionately called the Ferrari. It will speed, but only over a cliff...

May I present Dona Julia, perkier than a Porsche over potholes..

And One Hundred days? The next election looms closer, the politicians can not even agree over television debates. Remember, you only get one days democracy every five years...at least you get a free pint if you vote UKIP, at least that is what Farage told me, on second thoughts try a party that doesnt try and win votes by criticising the other parties. The clue is in the colour of this text.

Down on the Farm

A very dry winter, even my meadow is growing slowly, We have started to put a roof on Galileo, and as suggested by volunteer Chris, we have headed for a reciprocal version.

Galileo, its twelve pillars of ex telephone representing time was our sun lounge last year

Playing on the ground to understand a reciprocal roof that needs no centre pole.. childsplay!

The reciprocal roof in place with a spiders nest of lats to support several layers of insulation 

 

We have decided to pimp it up by adding more side supports, wouldnt be eco enough if we didnt use every last stick of wood too big for the fire!! That is where we have got to at the moment, off to help our friends at Tipi Algarve for a couple of weeks,

And us

We took a couple of weeks touring around Morocco after New Year... sadly it was colder than here and although Chefchaoun was its usual fantastic self, a lot of Morocco, especially the North Coast has been converted to resort after resort, the bigger towns of Meknes and Rabat totally chocked with traffic. We spent a couple of nights in Cadiz on the way back and have decided it is nicer than Seville.. lots more walking streets and less traffic, e mail us if you want to know where to stay!!

Guess what I got for Christmas? An all singing all dancing glass cutter (that actually works!!

Old malt whisky bottle

The bottoms of Sagres bottle