Archive for the 'summer' Category
Bang! and the summer is gone!
It was a bit reductio ad absurdum, but I spent my last €20 note on a wallet. Then I was ready for the journey home, having spent all the cash I withdrew at unfavourable exchange rates from various cash machines.
Arrived back to find the usual pile of mail – this is rarely exciting, as there [...]
Filed under: Family, marketing, summer | 1 Comment
Summer Reading
Apart from The 26th Annual collection of the best in SF edited by Gardner Dozois, I have the following piled up for my 6 week summer vac.
1. Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones (in a near future, post political collapse, a popular musician is conscripted to win hearts and minds)
2. Best SF of the [...]
Filed under: SF, summer | 1 Comment
Tags: reading list
Blast from the Past: Avignon
Download link: Avignon
I wanted to write a road song, but without it becoming “2 4 6 8 Motorway” or some kind of truckers’ lament. This was inspired by a drive to the South of France a few years ago, which did indeed involve a stop at a hotel near Dijon for an overnight rest.
I’ve recorded [...]
Filed under: Entertainment, France, Music, Nostalgia, Travel, countryside, happiness, motoring, summer | Leave a Comment
I’m following the Olympics, of course, hoping for something exciting to happen, like a raised fist of protest, or a slogan scrawled on a teeshirt. So far there has only been a small war in Georgia, and a presidential resignation. To coin a paraphrase, the Olympics is a good seventeen days on which to bury [...]
Filed under: Beatles, Conspiracy Theories, Cycling, Entertainment, Nostalgia, being chippy, happiness, heroes, summer | 1 Comment
Tags: events, news, olympics, politics
super, originally uploaded by mcmrbt.
Just got back from a week on the island of Noirmoutier, off the Atlantic coast of France. Last night, because we’d been avoiding French-style seafood for a week (huitres, moules-frites, fruits de la mer etc.), we decided to have a proper fish supper. Two large cod, two medium, three large chippy-chips. [...]
Filed under: Culture, Family, Flickr, France, Travel, anxiety, being chippy, food, omens and portents, summer | Leave a Comment
Tags: economy, fish, fishermen, fuel crisis, fuel prices, seafood, Supermarkets
Alcohol-Free Beer News
That’s alcohol-free, not free beer, thrill seekers.
Tesco have had a flurry of new-to-these-shores alcohol-free brews on the shelves lately, but I didn’t notice because I’ve been shopping elsewhere, so there’s good news and bad news on the lo-no alcohol front. Bad news first.
The first bad news is that my local Waitrose (Milton Keynes, though a [...]
Filed under: beer, marketing, summer | 10 Comments
Tags: alcohol-free, beer, lager, NA, non-alcoholic
Something Old Something Flue
room_with_a_flue, originally uploaded by mcmrbt.
The woodburner is in. The installation coincided with the best weather of the year so far.
The job is far from complete, so we won’t be paying for it yet. They’ve got some making good to do where the old gas fire was removed, and they need to fit some lead flashing [...]
Filed under: Climate, Education, Family, Flickr, Technology, climate change, happiness, summer, teaching and learning | 2 Comments
Tags: energy, fire, heating, stove, woodburner
Climate bites dog.
The Met Office has issued its forecast for Summer 2008, saying, in brief:
Temperature
Mean temperatures are more likely to be above the 1971-2000 average. However, there is a slightly enhanced chance of cloudier and cooler spells.
Rainfall
Rainfall is more likely to be either near average or above average. The risk of exceptional rainfall, as seen last summer, [...]
Filed under: Climate, Education, climate change, media studies, omens and portents, summer | Leave a Comment
It’s Pancake Super-Tuesday
Photo by celesteh.
We’ve booked our holiday this year, we’re renting a place on the island of Noirmoutier, which is my fantasy place to live if I won the lottery. I know exactly the beach I’d build my whalebone shack on. Anyway, we thought the price for summer rentals was super-excessive, so we decided to go [...]
Filed under: France, SF, arts, omens and portents, sci-fi, science fiction, summer | 2 Comments
There Went Summer
Weather forecast is for lots of rain tonight, so I was inspired to mow the lawn today, for what might be the last time before a damp autumn sets in. There wasn’t a lot of grass. The two dustbowl patches I tried to sow with seed in the spring are still bald.
Ironically, my front lawn [...]
Filed under: Climate, Recipes, climate change, countryside, summer | Leave a Comment
Tags: autumn, blackberries, harvest, hedgerow, Supermarkets
