Saturday, October 28, 2006
October Fly
10/28/2006
Autumn moves ahead with a stormy end to a fairly dreich week’s weather. We are at the end of the month and our potato crop is only half harvested, a good area of long grass and rushes also remains uncut. I am afraid that the wet weather in September slowed us down too much, now my November speaking tour of WI’s throughout the UK means that outstanding tasks must be pushed back into the short December and January days. However, with a bit of luck and a fair wind we will keep the old Tower of Glen Trollaigh up to scratch. Speaking of luck, dearest Dottie has been swinging from the castellations on her abseil rope, carrying out her autumnal gutter clearing and Ivy hacking, by golly she has managed to plug a leak in the chimneys serving the kitchen range that has eluded me for the past seven years. In fact, I was seriously considering demolishing and rebuilding the chimney head in an effort to stop the drip that falls on Mhairi while she brews up breakfast. The Tower of Glen Trollaigh is more watertight than it has been for a generation; however, for luck I clutch the wooden arm of my commodore’s chair, presented to me by the grateful board of the diamond T when I was sacked last year. The reason for my apprehension is that the next three months will be a major weather test of our structural ridgity.
Having survived midges, clegs and ticks for the last six months, I had almost forgotten the appearance of the maddening October fly. This dirty looking brute is only a housefly that has somehow managed to find winter quarters in my library, presumably surviving in the odd spill of Hendricks and cigar ash. I have another one in my motor and while all their peers have died off these beggars elude all efforts to exterminate them. Things came to a bit of a head when we had some dinner guests on Wednesday night and my library tenant found his annoying way into the dining room. Napkins snapped in all directions as the gentlemen strove to protect their ladies, however dearest Dottie called a halt after soup was spilled and glasses overturned. I have seen some toy crossbows advertised in one of the thousands of Christmas brochures that Postie heaves through the kitchen door on a daily basis. Perhaps if I order a few brace of these mini twangers a few of us could have a giggle or two hunting down the OF. The example in the motor will hopefully succumb to one of the several spiders that inhabit corners of the windscreen before I am reported to Plod for erratic driving by some quisling.
On one hand I am told that prisons and young offenders institutions are seriously short of beds, on the other hand the radio bleats that the answer is in speech therapy to change the lifestyles and habits of young criminals (as opposed to “serious” criminals, surely they are all serious?). I feel sure that communicating in any way can only be a good thing; it must be an obvious extension of this argument that it is even better for the 57% of yobs that now live without a father figure to be able to make their feelings known clearly in the Queen’s English. Nevertheless, we have a lot of work to do, particularly as this computer’s farewell each night is: “Windows is shutting down”. I rest my case, God bless you all and remember that the clocks go back an hour on Sunday morning. No this does not mean that you get an extra hour in bed, rather get up with the lark and thank God you are still on your perch. Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Sometimes It Is Obvious
10/22/2006
I read in the newspapers that 35 different flora have bloomed in a false Spring throughout the English counties. This has, of course, brought out the pundits by the bucket full claiming, on the one hand, that we are all doomed to death from starvation, sunburn and avian flu. However, on the other hand we are in for the hardest winter for a generation with many feet of snow, ice and accompanying death and destruction. One way or another it seems that we are all going to pop our clogs. Here the autumn colours in Glen Trollaigh are coming into their full glory and the red deer rut seems to be calming down, our shortening days remain mild and mainly dry.
Gardener’s World, one of my favourite TV programmes spent this week’s broadcast giving advice on lifting and dividing herbaceous plants, planting bulbs and great beds of Wall Flower for the Spring. This will be of great interest to the gentle gardeners of the Home Counties, however here at the Tower of Glen Trollaigh this time of year is spent topping long grass and rushes, chasing fat sheep, probing the depths of reluctant septic tanks and digging disappointing potatoes from a muddy swamp. This must be the often talked about difference between Town and Country.
“Madonna and Child”, rant the tabloid headlines, knocking the Macca v Mills divorce settlement out of the news for an hour or two. There is a considerable fuss about trans-race adoption and indeed all things inter-racial at the moment as all sorts of people who should know better dip their toes unadvisedly in this PC soup. I am certainly not going to follow their example except to recall a story that shows how sensible folk will often overlook the obvious in these touchy times. A decent English couple living in Eire have been muttering about litigation because their application to adopt in Eire was refused on the grounds that the couple were “not Irish enough”. On the face of it, this does seem a little hard, however, the Little Sisters, whom God preserve, had used this phrase to politely draw attention away from the good old fashioned objection to the application because the prospective parents are not Catholics. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.