Saturday Night Diary: Green Fingers, Gas Guzzlers & a Fired Architect
Jonathan Sheppard fires his architect (ooh, get him!) and tells his wife to put her apron on. Brave man.
6 Aug 2011, 22:02
Yellow courgettes: A treat for Mrs Sheppard
* This move is yet another move towards direct democracy, and another reason why I would not want to be an MP. A member of the public can, if they have the inclination, launch a campaign to try to get parliament to consider debating an issue. They can table Freedom of Information requests to their hearts' content, which often elicit more information than a parliamentary question. They can speak their mind on any issue without having to bite their tongue for fear of not following the party line. It seems as though the power of the citizen is increasing at a time that the power of an individual backbencher is continuing and long may that continue.
* This week the twittersphere also picked up on the story that Paul MccCartney is to speak to police over phone hacking fears, and this time it is a non Murdoch paper. We all remember how we were told Murdoch must have known what was going on at organisations that he controlled. I wonder if the same standard will now be applied to other outlets? The cynic in me things it probably won't.
* Having just bought our own little piece of paradise, a two acre place in Lincolnshire, we were a little aggrieved to learn that as a new owner we would have to be on a water meter, as it had already been installed. How would I live the good life and have my veggie patch? Not to be defeated, this week four IBC containers arrived. They are the things that hold 1,000 litres of liquids and will now be used by myself to harvest as much rain water as we can collect. Who says market forces can't change behaviour for good. If it saves me money then of course I will be environmentally friendly. If it doesn't make economic sense then I won't.
* The veggie garden has been coming on a treat, and I have ignored all advice from seasoned gardeners and sowed full packets of seeds and then grown on as many plants as possible. The result this weekend is that we now have yellow courgettes coming out of our ears. Much to the chagrin of my wife, she has now been signed up to making courgette relish. My god, she'll be making jam before she knows it.
* For six weeks we have been 'working with' and I use the term loosely, with an architect. This week was the final straw when having constantly asked for drawing for a loft conversion and sun room, we received drawings of a huge round window combined with a rubber roof. Wouldn't we be the talk of the village. He is our architect no more.
* We are currently trying to sell one of our cars, which happens to be a 2 seater with a 3.2 litre engine, A garage where we were interested in a part exchange came up with a figure way below the market valuation. When I told him that with the joys of the internet you can't get away with offering such a low amount he said that no one wanted cars with such big engines and high insurance premiums as ours. The irony that the garage in question specialised in selling gas guzzling 4x4s in high insurance brackets seemed to be completely lost on the salesman.
Comments (2)
Subscribe to this posts's comments feed
My wife is a gardener and garden writer. She waters her garden (yes, it is HER garden!) but never uses a hosepipe. "It causes weak root systems" she says. If a plant is over-watered it does not need to develop deep tap-roots, apparently.
07/08/2011 00:57In all seriousness I was astounded at how much rain came off the outbuilding and with a little hard work putting up some guttering have managed to find a way to put it to good use. Though I do appear to be turning into my dad quicker than I thought.
07/08/2011 09:00