It turned out to be an interesting evening yesterday, in that we had our first power cut for at least 4 years on the Island. We still don't know why the French grid went down, Gurnesey and a lot of Normandy lost power as well. Very romantic with candles. Lovely to have a chat with the neighbours, the children had never experienced a power cut. They loved it.
What was truly impressive and gets my vote of 5 star impressed-ness, is that our electricity company managed first to get a quick 10 minute burst up after a few minutes, then had our back-up power station fired up and operating in 45 minutes. All essential services got power first, and the Hospital backup generator kicked in perfectly. Well done you guys. How about some mini bio-stations on trickle feed then?
Well today I met my answer to prayer, a semi retired builder. We talked about the kitchen wall, and it was wonderful to have someone who talks 'can do'. The worst part of the wall is going to be removed, and I am taking his advice on his preference to use plywood to re-line the area, and then he is going to tile it for me. I am also going to hopefully end up with the cables behind the wall, and a flush light switch. (Surprising what makes me happy!)
He is also going to tidy up the kitchen, re-align any doors replace the plinth which is a bit scuffed and do a bit of new boxing to tidy up a scruffy corner boxing. He should be free to do this in a couple of weeks. He just seems the sort of real, honest to goodness, knows what he is doing and gets on with it sort of person that is so easy to work with. I am sure God must have felt like that with Noah!
Got the flooring measured up, for the kitchen and hall and stairwells, so will have it all done within the month.
This just makes me feel so much better, so I managed to do some work on a portrait I am doing of our friends Granddaughter. She is a pretty young thing, and I have realy enjoyed working on this today. I am even pleased with it! It is a gift, because we are using all their collated records to research our family history, and they realy went out of their way to help the Canadian cousins that visited recently.
My beloved Husband did his first meals on wheels run today, and loved it. I am going to do it with him next week, and then if we can work out another day when we swap cars, I will see if I can share a run with someone else. You do it on alternate weeks with another person, so you can cover for each other for holidays or sickness.
I don't know if other countries have meals on wheels. It's a volountary deliver a hot lunch to elderly people service. The food is cooked here by the Hospital service and volounteers go pick it up and deliver it. At the same time check the person is OK, and have a little chat with them. It means a lot more people can stay in their own homes rather than go into nursing homes. In many areas volounteers cook the food as well, especially in outlying comunities throughout the UK. We have been saying we will do this for ages, we got spured into action as there are a couple of chef's proming it in the UK. The new slogan is 'deliver a difference'. Brilliant work from the 'Hairy Bikers'!
I thought the Kaiser Report was a bit random this morning. Who on earth was the guy being interviewed? I remember when we had the Great Storm in 1987, (can't remember if that was before or after the '87 crash) I am not going to say which weather reader said 'no we are not gong to have a double whammy storm' as he did get it wrong big time. I just think the guy Max interviewed is either paid to keep his mouth shut, or he is living in la-la-land.
It is not ok to say you live in luxury and don't expect to be affected by what is happening to people with 'real' jobs. That was a disgusting comment. How many people does he walk past every day near where he lives that are realy struggling within the gridlock of personal debt, unable to get legiimate credit at a reasonable rate against income and assets, because everything is actually in such negative equity right now.
They are not even going to bother trying to re-structure the economies. Frankly I just can't see that being a solution. It is a gridlock, because if interest rates go up we will have instant negative equity on the property markets. The only collateral the banks have is property owned outright, and forclosures. What can you do with a 3 hotels on Park Lane and Mayfair if no-one left in the game has any money? .. .. .. You put the box away, and play another game tomorrow.
As Max pointed out with his little pink ball, if someone could buy it on e-bay for 20p, but a bank gets 20 million for it, it's still 20! Just that 1p of my real money is worth 1 million to a bank. Do you think they are going to let me borrow any of their 'Big Bang' money? (No point in calling it inflated, we are a Universe away from that already)
Nope. They can't admit that while I have 1p in my pocket that belongs to me legitimately, I am one heck of a lot more solvent than they are! Hmmm I feel rich, I must have about £3, and a few coppers in cash.. .. .. think I might buy something big, like a whole country! Oh sorry that's what they are trying to do with Greece, actually for Greece I might even go as far as a fiver, I could check my jacket pockets I usually have a few bits of loose change somewhere.
Well that's enough lunacy for today. Sweet dreams everyone, dont let the stock markets get you down, it's only money, it used to grow on trees, now it gets delivered in shipping containers.
Anyway, another bit of mental excercise put to rest, I suddenly realised that 12.9735 inches is the answer to that old question 'how long is a bit of string'! It's my ball of string, and I can cut it where I like. Apart from bringing up a lot of exchange rate data, there is a nice bit about inversion curves if you type this into google. I am sure there is a predictable algorythm for exchange rates. In fact everything has it's 'peak moment'. Perhaps that is what that 'vision' of a frozen cap on that mountain was the other day. I know it sounds ridiculous but would fixing exchange rates worldwide, (for good) have the desired effect right now?