the tele saga...

Now here's a tale - last January I bought a new tv, ready for the change to digital and HD should I ever feel the need to pay for the priviledge of watching things highly defined. A thingy on the back of it broke within the first week but as I'd probably rammed a scart lead in too forcefully I over looked it. Within a few weeks I re-packed it into its box carefully in readiness for moving house. It didn't see the light of day again until October when my youngest daughter magically set it up for me - she managed to get freeview channels without the need of more dosh going in an outwards direction and even more leads and equipment, however, there was a strange pink vertical line about two thirds across, so I took it back to my nearest Currys.

It was hard explaining that it had been set up twice during a few months at two different addresses. Once they'd grasped that I did not live at the address they'd secreted on their system and inevitably suggested that I'd caused the pink line when I moved, I then had another upwards struggle to launch. I could have told them as I didn't know what the pink line was I doubt I could have caused it, me thinking that pink lines smack of designer capabilities I don't have.

There followed a long process of them arranging to take the tv to give to one of their 'tech guys' to fix - I'd been thinking that as it was under twelve months since I'd bought it they'd give me another one. That is the statutory position but I didn't know that then. When I was asked did I want it fixing in situ, and if it couldn't be fixed then it would be taken away I explained that I'd made the sixty mile round trip becuse it states on their website that if the faulty tv is under a certain size then take it to ones nearest store. If I left it with them then I'd have to collect it when it was fixed as they couldn't deliver it back to me. If they couldn't fix it within 28 days then I could have a replacement.

All the time I'd been watching tv on a pc and a laptop which has been very hit and miss given another saga ongoing simultaineously - the saga of intermittent broadband, men up poles, wires trailing and wet plaster and lots else.  Sometimes downloading tv programmes worked but it all seemed to depend on whether next door had their washing machine on or if a Union Jack was flying at Sandringham, I don't know...

On the 29th day another dimension of madness began, about the store not having a phone number accessible to the public and no one ever having heard of me - but, someone in a call centre thought that perhaps I might get a letter from the store soon telling me to go and collect another one as their records indicated the tv could not be fixed. A letter eventually arrived but it's a mystery seeing as no one had seemed to know about me. I set off to get my replacement, but silly me, I ought to have foreseen that the model and make would no longer be available and I ended up parting with an extra fifty quid for the only non 'in your face' black tv that would suit.

Tentatively I set it up as best I could. The sofa is a long way from the only place the tv could go because of a short ariel lead and various inadequacies of the so far incomplete living room. As a consequence I had to squint and concentrate very hard to make any sense of the menu of scheduled programmes.

For example, I found a channel previously unknown to me 'Yesterday' or yesteryear or something, and I thought I'd struck lucky one afternoon when I glimpsed a programme entitled 'Hildegard of Bingen' because I'm into that sort of thing.  After about fifteen minutes waiting for it to start and wondering why I was watching a program about the last world war I walked to the tv and pressed the right buttons and found out I was actually watching a programme entitled 'Hitler's Bodyguard'. Thankfully youngest daughter decided to visit again just in time to set it all up properly for me, just in time for Christmas too, but I still couldn't read the scheduled menu from where I sit.

Then on Christmas Eve, about 1953 hours, not long after I'd driven said daughter over Exmoor to catch her coach back to the Midlands, Patty decided to eat the remote control.

I couldn't be doing with jumping up and down trying to press buttons and knobs so it's been back to the downloads on pc and laptop and a crazy broadband connection. Naturally a universal remote control will not operate this particular tv, so tomorrow it's back to the tech guys.

Meanwhile, here's another pic of Larry who it would seem is improving but whilst his front parts look about right for a young ram his nether regions are those of an old man sheep. A chicken coop is in the planning stages for I am to have my first chuck in with a neighbour's so I can learn the ropes. I only need about four eggs a week, if that, so this will be interesting.

By the way, I don't know if anyone who reads my blog ever listens to some of the music links I post in the sidebar - this week's TouTube clip is of one of my first ever favourite songs, and I still remember clearly going to see Jethro Tull at The Free Trade Hall, Manchester in the 70's.

once there was a sheep in the garden & I think it's still there when the sun shines...

Long story, nothing to do with me, honest! His name is Larry, an about eight month old ram that was failing to thrive and was dispatched to be shot and fed to some hounds. He's safe in my garden, for various reasons, not least because I'm vegetarian. My garden has the best grass in his opinion, catches the sun more than most, and when he decides it's time to go back in his stable accommodation my path is the most direct route. He is still not anything to do with me, but one of my neighbours is totally responsible.

He is a character, as sheep go. He wont stay outside if the sun isn't shining, and he has his molasses in an orange B&Q bucket, nowt else. He doesn't seem too fond of my herb garden either but is partial to ivy.

Patty and my cats are gradually getting used to him. He reminds me of an ex father in law.

I'm still planning my christmas decorations in matt silk emulsion in white for the ceiling and possibly buttermilk for the walls. One of my daughters has decided to take refuge here for a while, and as well as down sizing my living accommodation I have now traded in the family motor for a small, older girly thing that I'm enjoying greatly.
      

I am fond of doves, and would like a dovecote one day, but in the meantime there's a very special one in Dunster nearby with a history. Here are photographs of a few I have around the cottage. 

Many years ago a former neighbour in Birmingham took me to an exhibition of artwork by a local artist, a really lovely person, and he gave this to me.

              A GIFT FROM A FRIEND                         A CHRISTMAS CARD                                A UNICEF LOGO

   

May the sentiments of the coming Christian festival touch your life in ways you wish.

May messages for peace and hopes for a healthier planet grace your presence too.

May the imminent winter solstice be a warming and contented time for you.

From the Dead Wood Winter Starts to Lessen

May the beauty in fallen larches

Crested, twined curved twists and bows

That mystery granted in the arches

Always be a transforming legacy.

May the sad decay of rotting birches

The home for generational nests

Refuge and perches, always be 

Fruit of turning tides of change.

Soon, may life donating tendrils

Emerge from these embered leafs of life

As winter created emptiness fills

With increasingly warming silvery light.

(c) e j scott dec 09

a message...

I visited Hen's blog today for the first time in a while, and she'd posted a video back in November of Joanna Macy, who is someone I know little about but I shall find out more. I met Hen earlier in the year.


I feel comfortable with these observations and ideas and it helps me as I struggle with opting out and opting in whilst for the first time in my life I've had a condusive environment in which to listen to myself think, opportunity to mull things over and please myself.  ABOUT JOANNA MACY


I am not 'Christmassy' this year - I've catered for and looked after many family members in the past, cooking for twenty or more some years and this year I shall be alone. I'm okay with that although I'm finding it a little difficult when people ask me what I'm doing for Christmas, so I shrug and say something about not doing Christmas.


Both my daughters are working and with their respective partners, and neither can make the journey down here as well as everything else they have to do, college courses, partying, sleeping and recovering etc... and their father had an accident a few weeks ago and they've both been looking after him. But we shall spend time together in the new year. I would journey up to the Midlands and further north to be with them were there places for me to stay and slots in their agendas, someone to care for my animals in my absence, but it's not to be this time.


I'm loving looking at all the wonderful things bloggers are posting about in the run up to Christmas, sometimes that is. To get too caught up in it all is to lead myself into sadness, and I would urge people who are in a similar situation as myself to reveal themselves so that loners won't feel so alone. I'm saying that not in some 'sad loner' tone, far from it. It is however, rather difficult to be alternative when people are so involved in practices and customs that perhaps they wholeheartedly want to be involved in, or perhaps would like to extricate themself from but can't.


I know Christmas is not perhaps an occasion of Christian celebration necessarily but instead a wonderful time to be with family and relish that togetherness, make the effort to pull everyone together again. Sadly that isn't possible for everybody.


I'm enjoying looking at the holly and pine trees on Exmoor when I walk the dog everyday, and so many robins, mostly plump ones too. I'm also enjoying the opting out of Christmas things although if I'm not fast enough with the tv remote the adverts make me wince. I know that if/when grandchildren enter my life I shall be retrieving the decorations etc from the attic, spending gladly on presents to make their eyes light up. 


In one particular box wrapped very carefully in tissue paper and bubble wrap is an elaborate band of musicians and choristers with a repertoire of over thirty carols, and the final one, (I forget what the proper title is) I know as 'Keep the Red Flag Flying' - for this merry band was made in China.


I'd taken my eldest daughter when she was about two years old and still an only child out in her pushchair to see the decorations and displays in a department store, and on seeing and hearing the band her reaction had been such that I had to buy it. I'd just collected the Family Allowance from the Post Office so I had the cash burning a hole in my purse.


Until recently I had aged relatives to care about and cater to, or for. I've had extended family through marriage, a sister and a niece and nephew who were close enough to be involved with, friends. It's all feeling a little 'ghosts of Christmas past' so I am looking for a project to keep me going.


There's a 15 litre tub of trade white silk matt emulsion I keep tripping over...