We once lived here

Here it is, the grand old house where we lived for more than five years bathed in the watery rays of a short lived November sun. Now we've moved on and beyond and the old ranch will hopefully have new and happy inhabitants. Today's two van, two car furniture move went remarkably smoothly (but a few weeks of planning and shuttle runs of prized possessions had taken place) and we're in, The Sky and BT Broadband are both working and only umpteen cardboard boxes remain to be emptied. Tea? Prosecco and fish and chips. A hard wired cooker and other utilities to follow.

Unrelated rodeo

Moving house is hard work, as is real work. Both of these things are happening right now and are unavoidable and I can't be bothered to cook. What better then than an occasional extra protein and junk booster meal, it's time to return to Burger King for the Rodeo BBQ and a cheeky wee latte.

All power is...

USA: Is the tide rushing in or rushing out? Over here in the European backwoods and mother of parliaments the USA Election looks to be a peculiar and frankly distastefully undemocratic spectacle. Hysterical supporters chant meaningless  slogans and invest disproportionate amounts of faith and belief in flesh and blood politicians who they expect to improve their common lot, someplace in the future. Like some crazy Middle Eastern funeral passionate people throw themselves at unworthy saviours and swallow media driven soundbites  as if they were divine and profound utterances. Money pours down a star spangled drain of rallies and events, buttons and banners and wall to wall TV commercials. Ugh! It's all  an ugly piece of human circus and the lowest level of distorted and disfigured politics. A broken system relying upon fickle swing States and a belligerent and hostile congress that ultimately must be wrestled with and tamed. Meanwhile the poor, the needy and the ignorant look on from hurricane shelters and housing projects. All power is tyranny...sometimes.

Birdhouse in your soul revisited

Part of the great house moving experience: Moving the bird house(s). In this Kansas blue variety (that nicely matches the Provence blue of the new house) we found this sad little abandoned egg sitting alone  in a very well constructed and cosy nest. The hard work of nest building had unfortunately come to nothing, out there in the wild it can be tough raising a family. I also suspect that one of our cats may well have had a paw in the demise of the egg's parents. We'll try again in our new location come the spring.

Movin' on up

Cheese and chocolate melted back up tapes (remember them IT Guys?), a tasty and hot snack after  the afternnoon exertions of dumping the old cooker.  Nigella eat your heart and soggy middle out.

View from a car-wash. The clean car lasted about 12 hours.

One quirky, watery moon over West Lothian, one of the last we'll see before all the fireworks and passing grocks obliterate things.

We're frantically packing, boxes and trugs are everywhere, stuff is sorted, discarded, punted, picked and slowly transported.  It seems we've gathered and  imagined numerous possessions. Things unseen since the last move appear as if by magic and remind us of what we didn't do or forgot. It's a fascinating time. Dismantling the trampoline, unbuilding beds, doing those well avoided odd jobs that take little time anyway. Then before the crunching back ache takes hold we slump back into the warmth of the remaining couches and watch the bare walls and the Saturday telly and consider turning blood to alcohol. Tomorrow we're back for more, packing and revision, relentless laundry, fiddly allen keys and bunks and melted cheese on chili...oh and wet and muddy football somewhere.

More banana

I took a banana to Birmingham and brought it back uneaten...kicking the can down the road. Eating an apple in the airport...leaving the bath plug in when showering...warm feet on a cold day. Hot pasta with torn chicken...reading Kindle prose and packing stuff into cardboard boxes.

It's slowly occurring to me that common blogging is fading away, as if someone had thrown a cup of water on a witch, moved on to other things, other methods, other social media, other worlds.

Don't eat the ham

Ham: The note said quite clearly don't eat the ham but alas I saw the note too late and by that time I had in fact eaten all the ham. It was of course incorporated into a little salad ensemble. Tasty.

Packing books: I was impressed that whilst packing that awkward category of books labeled "For the Garage" they all seemed to sit rather well together in a box and none of them resorted to spontaneous combustion or anything weird. The books were (and in no particular order); The Koran, The New English Bible, The Life of Buddha, The History of Witchcraft, some Richard Dawkins' stuff, Das Kapital and the Simpson's Scripts Series 4 & 5.

Wedding ring: I thought I'd lost it, I emptied out and checked three wheelie bins in the frosty dark whilst wearing a very becoming head torch (two blue recycles and a black messy bin), searched the house, began to unpack the "For the Garage" newly packed books - then I found it in my pocket. Phew.

Get one here

An oil tank that is, you know you want one, you might even need one. Just think of the 1200 litres of gay and/or merry Christmas Kerosene you could store there, just the ticket for family and friends and waifs and strays as the tail end of Hurricane Sandy Denny sweeps across the flat and pointy bits of Central Scotland as it inevitably will (so we can blame more of our serial misfortunes on our American cousins and/or global warming and instant packet soup). It'll be on Gumtree any day now and of course the lucky buyer will not only collect  it they will also uplift this wonderful garden feature that will enhance any sweet and twee suburban garden or wild country croft. It is of course empty but you can have the pleasure of filling it yourself with whatever you like, it may stink of oil for a bit though. Buyer beware and so on.

Edinburgh Daily Photo etc.

The unexpected and cold clock shop in Sighthill reminded me of a Joni Mitchell song, not sure which one but  that's how my thought processes seem to work from time to time.

Shop girls posing and giggling in a Jenner's window. I liked the hat sported by the bag lady on the left.  They seemed  amused and approved of having their photo taken by some daft middle aged shopper. 

We wandered around the capital city today in the watery sunshine. I visited Jenner's cafe for the first time in my life and supped a sunny latte and a chunk of chunky cake. Older ladies tried hard to look young and also tried softly to look after some errant grandchildren, always a cafe irritant, they sorted themselves out eventually. As the crowds gathered and circled we searched in vain for bathroom fittings, treasure chests and fancy bulbs that resemble candles. Ladies posed and chatted in shop windows and we thought about the poor guy who looks after all those clocks, this must be an awful day for him winding them up, down and backwards. I tried on tweed jackets and looked thinner than David Bowie, such was their power of optical illusion and perspective distortion. It's all in the herring bone, speaking of which I'm right back into the world of sardines - just open a tin and it's Grecian summer time somewhere. In other news the Kindle Fire HD is quite a tiny beast, could be a life changer as I'm dragged kicking, screaming and mystified into whatever century this happens to be.

Autumn trees

This nice tree is slowly changing colour as the seasons move on, the clocks change, the sun drops a few miles in the sky and the timber wolves come down from the hills ready to feast on the charred bones of lost tourists. Yes it's just another normal day in our new, ready to be explored and ploughed around garden.

Rak 600

Once I thought that all toilets and their seats were the same, designed by Leonardo Da Vinci or some other bloke like Tesla a thousand years ago at the edge of civilisation. Turns out I was wrong, I've discovered today that there are other kinds, ones with strange fastenings, in odd shapes with Italian designed features and special toggle bolts to hold them in place. I am humbled and mystified and now stuck with a spare seat that does not fit this wondrous new toilet.

Not so bad

Three beautiful Slushies photographed at the Manchester Lego Emporium and Life Long Learning Experience.

Of course things are not so bad, so says me, the ever optimistic global warming, doom and gloom denial merchant. Today I learned that there have been bumper rice and grain crops this year in lovely green Botswana, in Chile's river valleys the cotton yield is the highest ever, in the Solomon Islands the fish markets are operating at record highs. Meanwhile the Antarctica ice fields are getting colder and thicker than ever and some Rockie Mountain glaciers are growing backwards into their deep frozen mountain origins. It is however a shame that back here Autumn is upon us and that there are no horse chestnuts, no plums on the plum trees and no apples on the apple trees but clearly other parts of the world are doing OK. I also hear that you can get eight (8) Appletastic Pop-Tarts for £2 and that our dear friends at Shell and BP are selling their finest petrol for a mere £1.35 per European litre. So big fat chins up everybody and shove a little more oil into your Volvo.

Unravelled weekend

Late night birthday music with disappearing participants. Photo courtesy of Mr D Reilly.

A long weekend away from work fairly addles the brain, I needed the merry-go-round to stop this morning so I could step back into my comfortably institutionalised world (as described by Groucho) and so allow normal coffee drinking and health biscuit munching to prevail - and indeed it did. I do realise now that I've developed a taste for Scouse ( an English  food with Scottish roots), beetroot balls (?) and squeezy strawberry jam. None of these things will smooth the long journey towards my next birthday but they help along with the batch of whisky I've acquired. Now all I need to do is gather together the right tools and step again out into this dark and potholed world and build a self assembly bed or two.

Sheet music

The farewell bonfire containing yet another burning shed.

Never cool but still shit hot musicians.

After four days of organised chaos I'm slowly regaining my faculties and my a constitution is also coming back to normal, phew. Wednesday night saw us suffer a spectacular power cut that lasted more than twelve hours, not a great start for our road trip (2 x sons and 3 x grandsons) to Manchester. We left in the cold and dark and didn't stop until we reached the warm MacDonalds at Penrith. Then it was heads down and straight onto Old Trafford for a museum visit and tour of the stadium, all very good, then the movies and food in the evening. Next day we had the full blown Lego experience and then a rainy drive back up the road for a 10cc gig in Edinburgh.

10cc were never cool or popular with my rock and roll buddies. I recall being in Jersey in 1974, my ownership there of Sheet Music was subjected to a fair amount of derision and scorn, I'd brought it into our band's hippie barn and it was treated as if it was some kind of nasty infection. Of course we were working our way through Zappa's Grand Wazoo, Little Feat's Sailin' Shoes and other stuff by Poco, Pink Floyd and Bad Company. A shame really, 10cc's music still stands up pretty well after nearly forty years and the current touring band are excellent though I must confess I've not kept up with their recent output. Anyway I did rather enjoy the gig, as did a few thousand other noisy over fifties.

Saturday was all about kicking off the twelve hour party that marked my birthday and saying goodbye to Abercorn once and for all. The party ran almost to plan but with some fiery additions, a burning shed (as is the custom) and a burning birthday cake (which isn't any kind of custom), minor fireworks as Tesco allowed, dancing, drinking and a late night live jam. I was shattered but happy when we wound up and down about two.

Today was a mixture of clean up and recovery and visit for all to the new house. This was after scoffing a huge haggis and venison based breakfast - next, the tough stuff, the actual house move.

Birthday portrait

There comes a time - when you reach a certain age and some things just seem to fit.

Through the door to the blue light

I was writing a dull and predictable piece about organised religion and control and misery, the act of hiding in plain sight and generally pouring more petrol on the highly unpleasant Jimmy Savile bonfire. It was as if I had to prove some important point to somebody, most likely myself. I read about fundamentalist cults and the birth of public relations, all quite unfunny. Then I gave up on that and had a cup of Minestrone soup in order to return the blood to my head and hands. That felt better. Then I discovered the Google doodle about Winsor McCay and Nemo in Slumberland and suddenly it was all about the wondrous thing that is curvilinear projection and those great cartoon vistas that McCay created and that nobody really cared about except some geek at Google today (or about six months ago at their really cool planning meeting in Google HQ).  Anyway, everything that you ever wanted to know the answer to is on the other side of that door, the strange blue light breaking through the edges kind of gives it away. I'm headed there now.

Don't try this at home

Should really be accompanied by Tom Petty's Free Fallin' I suppose.

Gates v Jobs

Performance indicators: At odd times this week I've been mixing music and generally fiddling with files and programmes in a desperate bid to squeeze some creative wonder juice from machine to machine and then out into the world but alas, I am already undone. It's the doubtful pleasure of working between the twin evils of Apple and Microsoft. Sometimes I don't know if I'm coming or going or ready to commit axe murder on some Chinese built piece of plastic and recycled metal. Windows always wants to stop, reboot, reinstall and then procrastinate, like having lunch will someone who cant quite coordinate talking and eating. Apple is like some stubborn psychopath who must have his own way and his own terms met, tells you so repeatedly and you then have to go along with it or else out comes the big knife. This isn't what you expect from IT (well it is because it's been doing it for bloody years). In some naive future fantasy I've spawned I imagine that somehow all IT will be straightforward, benign and simple to use, it will anticipate problems and glide through tasks. We will be like gods as we walk amongst the bright shining screens and images installed in our dwellings, the smoothly running electric servants that have captured our ideas and wishes then uses them to turn on the microwave or knock off a quick novel or two by reading our wonderful thoughts. This would be progress. Until then it's as if we've been kidnapped by two malevolent powers, neither really wants the ransom money, they just want the pleasure of witnessing your slow torture as you try but fail to anticipate their next fiendish and twisted move. Of course there is always the PC and right-on solution of Ubuntu but that's a bit like having to learn fluent rhinoceros in order to type a telegram onto toast and then send it to a penguin in South Georgia - and about as much fun.

Sky

Today's conversation with Sky TV helpline wasn't too bad an experience. I only queued for about five minutes. It did take three attempts to get my vocal rendition of the post code to stick  in there, the robot had some trouble with my phonetically challenged E apparently. It's all sorted now albeit it seems a pointless part of the process. Eventually some presumed real person asks you for a postcode at the next step anyway so what if anything is validated by the exercise? Next minute I'm talking to a real man, he's happy, I can tell, he's buzzing 'cos it's a Friday. He sounds like he's stumbled onto Lance Armstrong's long lost stash of testosterone and jabbed a few syringes of the milky fluid into his posterior. We do the business in no time and he passes me the reference number for the call. It's all fixed he assures me. Then he closes the call with the immortal words, "and you have a really nice day and take care out there!" I imagine he's winking at me, grinning, pointing and wagging his finger, like some Cohen Brothers  detective or county sheriff on speed. Then I think, what the hell does he know about "out there" that I don't. Maybe something or somebody  from up in the Sky is really watching.

Appliance of the day

Yes it's an oil fired boiler, what a fine little machine. Got some spare oil or kerosene lying around somewhere? This bad boy will soon scoop it up and burn it all away in no time at all.