Walkies

We went for a stroll the other day - 4 hours including afternoon tea. It was a pleasant walk along the canal side, and would have been even better were it not raining. Yes folks, it's winter in the UK already. While Italy is sweltering in 40 deg, we have rain, rain and more bloody rain. No wonder they've colonised Spain.

We also went for a tour of the drains, sewers and loos of Bath last night. Not in 'em fortunately, but along their courses. Of course it rained then as well. You may not think that the history of drainage from Roman to Victorian times could be interesting but it was.

Lots of things that had been curious but are now explained.

The beer to finish with was pretty good too.

I'm chipping away at captions, but it is slow work. Otherwise I have nothing much to report. See J's blog for more info I guess.

Here's some pics to look at anyway.

Another family member...

Well, J and S just had a baby girl. (Does that make me an aunty?) Sky was somewhat of a surprise - not unexpected, but very quick to arrive. A 45 minute labour and she was delivered on the couch at home. J lost a bit of blood so was taken to hospital, and the couch will be a constant reminder of the event! All are well otherwise. Q and S were there to watch, fetch towels and boil water, so quite an experience for Q.

M has been made redundant so is desperately searching for work, without the backstop of a wife to keep him. I

wish him luck and hope he's successful, but GET DOWN TO THE DOLE OFFICE AND BANK! I'm currently filling in an application form for a police job - Criminal Intelligence Analyst. Sounds interesting, but will likely go into the black hole that every other application has gone into. Sigh.

I had a great find last week - a source of American photographs that will

fill a large gap in our coverage for the book IF I am able to get over there to make the matches. With no money I'm not sure how that might happen, but I'll talk to the editors. I also found the accounts of the men who actually made the link-up between the Anzio beachhead a

nd the main forces coming from the south. How lucky that those men go

t their information onto the internet. (And where would I be without the 'net?)

It has been raining a lot recently, but long term forecasts are actually for a good summer. We have had to cut our holiday time in half, but are going to the south of France for 10 days next month. Avignon, the Camargue, Nice, Aix-en-Provence, and so on. Should be great and J needs a holiday. We'll be meeting our friend SV in Nice for a day or so. Isn't that cool? We'll let you know if Nice is nice.

It was lovely to hear from RM who is well if feeling a little isolated now he has no car. We shared a book on the experiences of engineers in Italy during the war. Though it was British, it could as easily have been Kiwi or US or for that matter German. Similar jobs under very similar conditions...

We caught up with C and M the other night for dinner, some beers and a chat, and on Saturday we went to dinner at the home of one of J's workmates. Two great nights and it's good to get out of the house. We have such a limited social life at the moment. J did her Dr Doolittle impression and talked to the cats. It had an amazing effect on them - laike aural catnip - so I wonder what she was 'saying'?

Some of you may have heard that our car was recovered. It was almost intact though all the contents were gone of course (except a box of tic-tacs with 3 - count 'em - 3 tic-tacs remaining). Of course it belonged to the insurance company, who have passed it on to a storage company to dispose of. They were supposed to contact us with a price but even if they were to give it to us the expense of getting up there, driving back, fixing the ignition, re-registering it, etc, would make it uneconomic for us. We've only occasionally missed the car anyway, for weekend jaunts, and we can hire a car for the weekend for around £50 with Thrifty so that would be 12 weekends to make up the purchase price alone.

We have been for a few walks though, as Bath has plenty of things to see.

I've just been experimenting with ou suposed broadband connection. It's rubbish - avoid 3 mobile broadband like the plague. Anyway, it turns out that the booster antenna that we paid £70 for does nothing. I opened it up and it's just a brass plate in a box so I'm trying to get an expert opinion of what it should look like. Seems to me we were ripped off. Aside from that as soon as we try uploading anything the downloads come to a screaming halt. Ping times three times the recommended for gaming, 50 kbps upload and 200 kpbs download equal absolute rubbish. Looks like another fight coming up...

Mugged by the NHS

I've just got back from the dentist. For the first time since arriving in the UK I've managed to register with an NHS dentist and have a tooth looked at after my (private) NZ dentist's filling had fallen out leaving a huge hole. I don't have any reason to believe that today's dentist is any less professional but I came out feeling as if I'd been mugged. There is no pleasantry, no time taken to explain what was going on in any depth, and little discussion of options. Wham, bam, thank you man - that'll be £198 payable in advance. The British system has turned NHS dentistry into a factory process where the rewards are in getting as many people through the doors as possible, rather than any concern for the patient's well-being.

The bad news is that most of the tooth had to be removed, and that work he needs to do will take another two muggings - sorry, appointments. The good news is that the nerve was avoided, and it is half the price of private, which makes the price of a few extra platitudes somewhere around £200!

Meanwhile, Britain is enjoying a 'heat wave' so we are told. It certainly has been hot and we have suffered our first casualty. Our poor fridge gave up the struggle, and while the freezer still functions, the fridge itself only serves to warm things up. We have improvised and made it an ice-box, but the landlady is replacing it sometime tomorrow.

I have had more supply teaching which is OK, but I had a few run-ins with students yesterday which reminded me why I gave it up. At least you get variety. Yesterday I was a Spanish teacher although no hablo Espanol, a science teacher and a support teacher. Previously it was English.

Still no work, or even a sniff of work.