Wild Fires, we had two in our area yesterday thanks to our great local fire departments and forestry service crews they were contained, but right after the first fire started phone and internet went down. This meant we could not keep tracking what was happening. Smelling smoke and not knowing status of fire is very un-nerving. Local fire warning system is up and running with back up, but this is a final warning system before evacuation orders are given. Graven Image, trying to keep her fire panic brain under control for the rest of the summer.
Thanks all, Two evacuations in 5 years, and one being a trip to escape with flames on the side of the road has left me over anxious I think. We are much better prepared now. Everyone has been mandated to remove all weeds and brush around property, trim trees away from buildings, community wide fire alarm sirens have been installed. Our electric company has informed us they will turn off power if wind becomes heavy on hot dry days to prevent fires from downed lines. We now have our snug little camper packed and ready to go at all times. So most of the anxiety comes from my over active nerve system, not my brain thinking I am in immediate danger. Oh yes, and arson guy of two years ago is locked up tight in jail.
I understand that yesterday must have been a real worry for you - particularly as your phone and internet were down! Am very impressed at the precautions you have taken though in protecting your house, and the camper sounds an excellent precaution too. A toast to your fire departments and the forestry service crews
We are still waiting for the sentencing of the two brothers who conspired to start our massive bushfires two and a half years ago. At least they changed their pleas to guilty at the eleventh hour, which saved us the trauma [especially Mrs BA who had a very close call when the school at which she taught was only saved by waterbombing about ten years ago] of presenting victim impact statements. We still have stuff in boxes as she finds it so difficult to face the sorting and possible discarding of damaged treasures.
Silly question, perhaps, but, if the bozos pleaded guilty, why the delay in sentencing? And have they been in jail (presumably on remand) since being arrested and charged?
They were not remanded in custody, and only pleaded guilty at the very last minute. They were meant to be sentenced earlier in the year, but there was some procedural issue, and now they are caught up in the backlog in our magistrates' courts.
At least they have caught and are on their way to being sentenced... but I'm sorry that Mrs BA is still affected by the fallout of all that you experienced. I found wild fires (seen when I spent a couple of years in South Africa), extremely frightening, and I wasn't even close to being threatened by them.
Thanks for the info, @Barnabas_Aus . Hope they get looooong sentences...
Meanwhile, TICTH BoJo The Piffler, whose elevation to Supreme Unwanted Lord Of Boris Island has resulted in record high temperatures (clearly, the Gates of Hell are gaping wide).
Quite. As I suggested elsewhere, it is God's Wrath on us (well, 90,000 old white farts) for 'choosing' the Piffler.
There is a chance that tomorrow may see 40C in southern BojoHell...
BTW, Lydd Ranges are a virtually uninhabited part of the world, in the grasp of the Military, but the pleasant little towns of Lydd, and New Romney, are not far away...
We get them in soggy South Wales, but then we have firebugs. Arson is quite a problem especially in the upland areas during the summer holidays, although the yoof find nothing as entertaining as a burning tyre dump, which can take a week to burn out.
... Lydd Ranges are a virtually uninhabited part of the world, in the grasp of the Military, but the pleasant little towns of Lydd, and New Romney, are not far away...
Isn't the area round Dungeness the only bit of Britain that's actually designated as a desert?
[tangent]
I'm rather fond of that bit of Kent - D's sister lives in Faversham, and we try and fit in a trip on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch whenever we're visiting her.
[/tangent]
Not sure if it's an official Desert, but it's certainly rather Desolate!
In all fairness, there are some interesting plants which seem to thrive on the otherwise unpromising shingle, and there are still some picturesque wooden cottages amongst the more recent bungaloid growth.
The 15-inch gauge Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway is indeed a Gem, and well worth a visit (I have no shares in the company, I hasten to add). Alas, the aforesaid coastal bungaloid growth means that views from the trains are now somewhat restricted. https://rhdr.org.uk/
We went on the RH&D in 1989, and it's the only railway where I've felt travel sick. Dungeness was cold and foggy, and pretty dispiriting. I had wanted to go to Canterbury, but Darllenwr wanted to go on the railway. The travel sickness was explained when I found I was pregnant with Lord P, who has developed into a rivet counter!
("Rivet counter" - extreme railway fan)
I've always taken a "Rivet counter" to be an extreme model railway fan - i.e. making sure that the model has 269 rivets on the side tank (as per the prototype) rather than - gasp! - 271.
Models or full size, a rivet counter is a rivet counter. He even bought a book of railway line plans, which was just that - schematic maps of railways.
No, no - we must get this correct, as Sanity depends on it.
BT is quite right - an enthusiast for full-size railways (of whatever gauge) may well be a Rivet-Counter, but s/he is properly known as a Ferroequinologist.
Indeed so. And railway line plans are interesting - surely everyone one wants to know the position of the Down Line advance starting signal at Abergavenny (Brecon Road) station before it was moved 50 yards to the west in 1936?
Seriously, though, FWIW one of the best features of a certain pictorial series of railway history books is the provision of large scale Ordnance Survey maps of the stations...
But yes - Rivet Counters, Ferroequinologists, et al, can be excruciatingly Teejus about the subject.
And they tend to speak in a certain kind of voice (my son was exceedingly good at imitating this) which, sadly, also used to be common among Baptist Church Secretaries when imparting the Notices.
Models or full size, a rivet counter is a rivet counter. He even bought a book of railway line plans, which was just that - schematic maps of railways.
Whatever the details, this is a clear sign of good and healthy parenting for which you will surely earn a lifetime of gratitude.
Update on my car. The delay picking up was due to someone having given the repair company a mobile number with a wrong digit, and no landline. Car picked up. I rang them to see if they would do the hoof door as well, privately paid for. Nothing came back from that, and yesterday I found out why. A letter announcing that it was a write off, with the work costing more than its value.
I have now initiated the purchase of a new one, an updated model of the old.
And contacted the loss adjusters or whatever they are about the stuff I left in the old one.
At least I hit the right time at the dealership, as they are trying to shift stuff before the end of the month, and the finance company is offering £2000 off. I actually don't need to go through finance, but £2000 is worth it as I can then pay them off early anyway.
The root of all of this, which I don't intend to vouchsafe all details of because it includes some personal stupidity and a misapplication of the text "I was a stranger and you took me in" (and reporting someone I took for a gardener to the police and Action Fraud), was my doing a good turn to someone. His huge empty garden waste bag fell off his trailer, and I stopped when he did to tell him about it as he had not responded to my headlights.
I have lost a lot of money. My garden (which had become seriously overgrown) is not what it should be after the attention of gardeners. Hopefully he will get picked up. At least for having the wrong number plate on his trailer.
This has not been a good fortnight.
This is unbelievably petty but it's annoying me. A local history facebook page has been posting stories of people who were hung for assorted crimes, usually theft. Each story usually narrates that the person had been convicted of theft and imprisoned or flogged, then convicted again, and imprisoned or flogged, and was eventually hung as a habitual thief.
And underneath there are always some people who keep posting about how, if flogging were brought back there would be no crime, because flogging is such a good deterrent, based on the evidence of a story which clearly states that the first, second or umpteenth flogging had failed to deter the miscreant, who had ended up being hung.
Or they post something about the lack of crime in the good old days when they have just been reading about crime in the good old days.
I don't think it's petty at all. A fascinating (frightening?) look into how we humans can ignore what's around us or evidence presented and stick to our beliefs. Well worth a scream at the end of a post.
Hope the other Facebook posts you looked at were more heartening.
Its like the punishment book in schools. Same names over and over again, caned, slippered, hand hit with ruler, over and over again.
Please explain "slippered" in this context -- Google seems as baffled as I am.
Plimsoll, tennis shoe, trainer etc, size 10, applied vigorously and viciously to the posterior. I speak with the authority of one who has undergone the treatment. It was normal and acceptable practice in English grammar schools.
Thanks, all. I assumed it was something like that, but I'd never heard of it in any book (95% of the novels I read are English), and Google was no help.
Those who went to school in Scotland will be able to tell you all about the tawse, as well. (Also known as the Lochgelly tawse from the home town of its principal manufacturer. Lochgelly isn't known for much else).
When my wife started teaching in 1977 (primary!) she was issued with a tawse. I think she did use it a couple of times, gently, on the hand. Today she would think it barbaric to do so.
For those who don't know the tawes was a thick leather strap with a divided end, which was the business end. The boys on my bus used to run a tally on who could get belted most often in a week. But if it was Mrs Townsend it didn't count because "that was just a tickle". They thought they were he-men in training. Maybe they were. It was used far more on boys than girls, at least in my school.
One of my teachers used to lay a piece of blackboard chalk on his desk and thwack it with the tawse, reducing the chalk to a little pile of dust. It was incredibly effective way of improving classroom behaviour. I don't think he ever had to use it on a pupil.
Baptist Trainfan, if your wife still has her tawse, it might be worth quite a bit. A few years ago I googled to find one for sale, thinking that it would be a good visual for a lecture on Victorian education I was going to deliver. They were a) eye-wateringly expensive and b) being marketed to a rather...ahem...niche market. I had google ads popping up for dominatrix and "naughty schoolgirl" outfits for some time thereafter.
Comments
Meanwhile, TICTH BoJo The Piffler, whose elevation to Supreme Unwanted Lord Of Boris Island has resulted in record high temperatures (clearly, the Gates of Hell are gaping wide).
BBC News tells me that even parts of my home county (Kent) are on fire...
https://twitter.com/kentfirerescue?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1153926516021059585&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fengland%2Fkent
There is a chance that tomorrow may see 40C in southern BojoHell...
BTW, Lydd Ranges are a virtually uninhabited part of the world, in the grasp of the Military, but the pleasant little towns of Lydd, and New Romney, are not far away...
I still blame BoJo (for everything). He is GOD'S JUDGEMENT on us, as was revealed to me only last night in a (heat-engendered) Dream.
[tangent]
I'm rather fond of that bit of Kent - D's sister lives in Faversham, and we try and fit in a trip on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch whenever we're visiting her.
[/tangent]
In all fairness, there are some interesting plants which seem to thrive on the otherwise unpromising shingle, and there are still some picturesque wooden cottages amongst the more recent bungaloid growth.
The 15-inch gauge Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway is indeed a Gem, and well worth a visit (I have no shares in the company, I hasten to add). Alas, the aforesaid coastal bungaloid growth means that views from the trains are now somewhat restricted.
https://rhdr.org.uk/
("Rivet counter" - extreme railway fan)
BT is quite right - an enthusiast for full-size railways (of whatever gauge) may well be a Rivet-Counter, but s/he is properly known as a Ferroequinologist.
Seriously, though, FWIW one of the best features of a certain pictorial series of railway history books is the provision of large scale Ordnance Survey maps of the stations...
But yes - Rivet Counters, Ferroequinologists, et al, can be excruciatingly Teejus about the subject.
And now back to the infernal condemnations ...
[/gentle hostly nudge]
Seriously though, if there's a lot of rivet counters on board, why don't you start a dedicated thread upstairs?
Whatever the details, this is a clear sign of good and healthy parenting for which you will surely earn a lifetime of gratitude.
It had better be in Purgatory, then. It will be full of zealots and generally harmless lunatics who have All The Answers.
I like the 'harmless' bit...
I have now initiated the purchase of a new one, an updated model of the old.
And contacted the loss adjusters or whatever they are about the stuff I left in the old one.
At least I hit the right time at the dealership, as they are trying to shift stuff before the end of the month, and the finance company is offering £2000 off. I actually don't need to go through finance, but £2000 is worth it as I can then pay them off early anyway.
The root of all of this, which I don't intend to vouchsafe all details of because it includes some personal stupidity and a misapplication of the text "I was a stranger and you took me in" (and reporting someone I took for a gardener to the police and Action Fraud), was my doing a good turn to someone. His huge empty garden waste bag fell off his trailer, and I stopped when he did to tell him about it as he had not responded to my headlights.
I have lost a lot of money. My garden (which had become seriously overgrown) is not what it should be after the attention of gardeners. Hopefully he will get picked up. At least for having the wrong number plate on his trailer.
This has not been a good fortnight.
And underneath there are always some people who keep posting about how, if flogging were brought back there would be no crime, because flogging is such a good deterrent, based on the evidence of a story which clearly states that the first, second or umpteenth flogging had failed to deter the miscreant, who had ended up being hung.
Or they post something about the lack of crime in the good old days when they have just been reading about crime in the good old days.
Aaaarrrrghhhhh!
Hope the other Facebook posts you looked at were more heartening.
Please explain "slippered" in this context -- Google seems as baffled as I am.
Plimsoll, tennis shoe, trainer etc, size 10, applied vigorously and viciously to the posterior. I speak with the authority of one who has undergone the treatment. It was normal and acceptable practice in English grammar schools.
He never, ever used it. The mere threat was enough - which probably says more about my Dad than about the slipper!
Mrs. S, who lasted one whole term in her Dad's class
Baptist Trainfan, if your wife still has her tawse, it might be worth quite a bit. A few years ago I googled to find one for sale, thinking that it would be a good visual for a lecture on Victorian education I was going to deliver. They were a) eye-wateringly expensive and b) being marketed to a rather...ahem...niche market. I had google ads popping up for dominatrix and "naughty schoolgirl" outfits for some time thereafter.