{"id":4531,"date":"2013-03-31T07:05:22","date_gmt":"2013-03-31T06:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=4531"},"modified":"2013-03-31T10:34:23","modified_gmt":"2013-03-31T09:34:23","slug":"31-march-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2013\/03\/31\/31-march-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"31 March 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What a wonderfully Spring-like week we\u2019ve had . . . not.<\/p>\n

\"Snow\"Each morning this week it seems to have dawned bright and clear but, by the time I\u2019m out of bed, showered and out the door for a stroll with the dog (and before you say anything, that is some times well before noon), the clouds have moved in from the east and we\u2019re back to what is clearly becoming the \u201cnorm\u201d for March \u2013 cold, overcast, breezy and grey. It\u2019s been the coldest March since 1962 and the fourth coldest since records begin, so they say. And, according to the forecasters<\/a>, the cold weather could continue for another month! Then again, these were the folks who forecast our \u201cbarbeque summer\u201d a couple of years ago when it rained more or less constantly so perhaps we shouldn\u2019t get too worried just yet. If they are predicting another month of winter, Spring must be just around the corner!<\/p>\n

This morning marks the arrival of British Summer Time \u2013 I gather that those of you in the States have already made the time-shift. I won\u2019t repeat my annual rant about how stupid this process is other than to say that we should go all in. If we really want to save daylight, we should move the clock forward three or four hours \u2013 that way, in this country at least, it would still be light at midnight and we would have saved hours and hours of daylight every day. The one I really feel sorry for in all this is our poor Molly who will have to wait an extra hour and won\u2019t get her dinner this evening until 6.00 pm.<\/p>\n

Another week has raced by but on this occasion, unusually, we have something to show for it \u2013 no thanks to me, of course. Penelope\u2019s office and workspace have been transformed by the laying of a new carpet and now provide quite outstanding accommodation. As mentioned previously, Ms Playchute has painted, and painted, and painted and the result, now that the carpet is down, is a quite fabulous space.<\/p>\n

The vacating of the office and workspace means that Penelope has had to relocate her office into one of the other bedrooms here at the Playchute Palace. Although she is no longer producing bespoke playchutes, she still has a number of ready-made, off the shelf playchutes for sale and, of course, she is also still selling playchute accessories including those foam balls so beloved of the cupcake decorating fraternity.<\/p>\n

First of all she decided to move into the middle bedroom, the smallest of the excess of bedrooms we have. After about a week, however, it soon became clear that she needed more space so it was all change again. This time she moved her office into what we always refer to as Nick\u2019s room (the one right at the top of the stairs) where she seems happily ensconced, for the time being. When she starts measuring up our bedroom I\u2019ll start to worry.<\/p>\n

\"Annabelle<\/a>
Annabelle teaches Grandpa how to use the iPad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We are looking forward to the arrival of Nick, Lucy and Annabelle for Sunday lunch. We had a brief visit with them on Friday afternoon when we popped over to collect a few spare bits and pieces for the newly refurbished workshop space. While we were there Annabelle decided that she wanted to watch a couple of her favourite programmes on the iPad. So, she \u201csigned\u201d that she wanted Postman Pat and then, a bit later, she signed that she wanted another programme called Tick Tock, I think. It was when she signed, \u201cGrandpa is smelly\u201d that I began to wonder whether this early form of communication is really all it\u2019s cracked up to be.<\/p>\n

For some reason I received a lot of clips this week as well as running across the usual mixture of \u201cstuff\u201d. Firstly, the following came from our friend Erik Benson \u2013 part of an \u201cinteresting lecture\u201d on the differences between men\u2019s brains and women\u2019s brains given as part of a marriage seminar delivered by Pastor Mark Gungor<\/a>. This is only an extract but there\u2019s a lot more on You Tube (and other places) if you are inspired or feel in need of laughing your way to a better marriage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n