{"id":5756,"date":"2014-02-09T07:05:08","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T07:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=5756"},"modified":"2014-02-08T20:46:10","modified_gmt":"2014-02-08T20:46:10","slug":"9-february-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2014\/02\/09\/9-february-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"9 February 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Floods\"<\/a>Welcome to soggy, squelchy, sodden, mushy and moist Byfield. Yes, it\u2019s still raining and more is on the way. It\u2019s been the wettest January since records began<\/a> and we had three times the \u201cnormal\u201d amount of rain last month which is always a pretty wet month! An item on the news night before last told us that our reservoirs are full and even if we had no more rain at all, we have enough water in the system to last until September. So, hosepipe ban by about the middle of September, I reckon. It\u2019s also been pretty mild which I suppose is the silver lining to these particular rain clouds \u2013 day before yesterday I heard and then saw our first housefly of the season! Even the weather forecasters are beginning to get a bit embarrassed \u2013 \u201cYes, more of the same I\u2019m afraid, Fiona\u201d as they give us the forecast they could have given every night for the past eight weeks. They\u2019ve started describing it as a \u201cconveyor belt\u201d of storm systems which keep coming one after the other after the other. And last night I ran across an article warning cat owners to keep their pets indoors<\/a> due to the danger of them being blown away by the gale force winds. Frankly, it\u2019s all getting a bit tedious.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"grandma_reading_to_annbelle_and_ben\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Apart from the weather, we\u2019ve had a pretty good week. After the sadness of losing Penny\u2019s mother, there have been lots and lots of \u201cbusy\u201d things to do which provide a mindless distraction. Many, many thanks to all of you have written, telephoned, e-mailed or otherwise contacted her to provide your support \u2013 it has been much appreciated. Our Ben flew in on Wednesday to spend a bit of time with his mother (and me, I suppose) and it\u2019s been a real pleasure having him around. All too brief, of course \u2013 he flies back to Los Angeles this afternoon. But, while he was here we\u2019ve been able to fit in a splendid meal at The Inn at Farnborough<\/a> with Nick as well as a playday with Nick and Annabelle.<\/p>\n

\"Nick's<\/a>Yesterday, we were invited to Nick and Lucy’s for a sumptuous lunchtime feast. Nick had done chicken breast and salmon with pesto which had ground almonds in the pesto and flaked almonds on top, hassleback potatoes<\/a> (very tasty) and a carrot and leek tart with balsamic vinegar all of which was accompanied by a delicately seasoned curry sauce. It was sensational!<\/p>\n

Apart from all that, it\u2019s been pretty low-key here and so a couple of snippets I\u2019ve run across over the past few days and weeks will have to suffice.<\/p>\n

Firstly, the account of a cow shed in Germany which exploded<\/a> due to an accumulation of methane gas emanating from the cows contained therein.<\/p>\n

\"Scary<\/a>Secondly, some photos from the Guardian of the world\u2019s scariest bridges<\/a>. I have to say, these don\u2019t, to my mind, look all that scary but then again I have never been much bothered by heights. I dare say many people would find them pretty scary.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, an article with appropriate contemporary images from the BBC web site on \u201cButtock cupping and other health cures<\/a>\u201d which piqued my interest.<\/p>\n

And, to finish, an excellent cartoon from the Guardian by Harry Venning entitled \u201cThe Art of Looking.\u201d I can sympathise because I know that Ms Playchute intentionally hides things and then pretends to find them with no difficulty even though I have spent hours and hours looking in every conceivable location.<\/p>\n

\"lost_keys\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so annoying!<\/p>\n

Love to you all,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to soggy, squelchy, sodden, mushy and moist Byfield. Yes, it\u2019s still raining and more is on the way. It\u2019s been the wettest January since records began and we had three times the \u201cnormal\u201d amount of rain last month which is always a pretty wet month! An item on the news night before last told … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “9 February 2014”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-1uQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}