Stu Downes Home Blog

Tickled me ….http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7181741.stm

Locally a quarry is planned and a public inquiry is due.  I’ve supported the Euxton Residents Against Sand Extraction by displaying their posters, attending meetings and financially.  However their latest newsletter / poster came with a great note….”stick this poster in your window to show you object to your neighbours” it made me laugh out loud

highlighted for you

If you don’t believe me go see for yourself

David put me in contact with the Lancashire Evening Post who have a green column and wanted more community input into their writing.  So I’m one of several who supply short posts on a voluntary basis, first effort here…

As the shops fill with Christmas displays, we all think about unpacking our decorations and many of us will just be starting our shopping.

For those highly organised who have completed their shopping I commend you!  For the rest of us the fun is about to begin of finding presents for people – but do we need to?
One issue is that most of us will receive presents we don’t want. Most of us will send presents to people who are really difficult to buy for, they “have everything”.  Yet we still feel obliged to buy something for them to unwrap.

My plan of attack this year is for as many people as possible to actually get them something they need.  If there is nothing they need then vouchers or a charitable donation will be the order of the day.  This brings the next challenge.
When purchasing gifts we’ll all see massive amounts of packaging.

In most cases the packaging is excessive because the sales and marketing folks are trying to show their merchandise in the best possible light.  The main aim in my purchases this year will be to look for products where the packaging has been kept to a minimum and, where possible, the products I chose to purchase will have recyclable packaging.  Then we wrap – but what with?  In many cases the wrapping paper available is not recyclable so I’ll be looking for signs which tell me whether or not it is recyclable.

It’s a time of goodwill, so I’ll also be trying to spread some goodwill towards the planet.

Life seems to fly by.  At home we are all prepared for Christmas thanks to Mrs Downes and absolutely no input from me (well minimal input!).  The boys are growing and we now regularly have baby walker grand prix events (not that Ryan needs one).  Aidan hasn’t quite the confidence to walk independently but will use any suitably sized implement to aid walking round the house (chairs, boxes, baby walkers, tables!).  Ryan now has to wear glasses, which we collected yesterday.  He is doing well with them but due to poor fitting he isn’t looking through them properly (so back on Monday).

My St. John work is quiet at the moment, to be fair they are actually quite busy with ambulance service work but I’m just too busy to assist between work and kids time just goes.

Still cycling to work, I must calculate my CO2 savings by doing it, or at least fuel savings, especially now we are hitting £1.07 per litre for diesel here.  I’m certainly trying to be more economic in terms of car usage and driving style.

Made me chuckle.

Forgot to mention in the last post that during our 10 day holiday young A who doesn’t take kindly to new teeth making themselves known to the world developed 2 of them.  Well 1 got a lot bigger and 1 was brand new … timing!  Still the swimming pool seemed to distract him although there were a few manic pram walks to try and calm him down when the drugs weren’t working!

We had a wonderful 10 days away recently, ok 2 of those were traveling but the journey holds its own delights.  Day 1 was the trip to Dover, the hotel we would recommend although young R was so excited that two eyes and a big grin kept appearing merekat style from his bed.  So at about 8:30pm we had to give up and switch all the lights off!  Then onto the “big big boat” - Ryan had been building up to this for months.  Once on board and up from the car deck Ryan demanded to go on the “big big boat”.  He had seen no evidence of a boat when we drove aboard so its only natural that proof should only come when outside on deck looking at another boat!  Neither of the boys have got any of their dad’s poor sea legs (although this time Mrs D was suffering - she blames post pregnancy reasons - maybe the wine??? I’ll let the audience decide [this may be my last post after that comment]).

We went to a holiday park about 150 miles west of Paris close to Evreux.  Apart from the pain of not having a kettle or oven we settled in and had a lovely time.  We saw one wasp in France, it didn’t like Seana so stung her!  After that we had a really nice time with the boys enjoying the holiday park’s swimming pools and playgrounds.  We did very little out of park activities but we didn’t need to.  English contact was rare so we both got to practice some French.  For me this meant rehearsing in my head what to say, saying it and being understood … but failing miserably to understand any of the response. 

My brother had recommended shouting slowly in English as an alternative.  We’ve seen that approach in Corsica in a restaurant.  We’d spoken French to the waiter who took pity and brought the english menu and spoke perfect english.  Shortly afterwards the loud “shout at you in english” table arrived.  The same waiter forgot all his english skills and the fact that he had an english menu (we sniggered - in french of course!).

Just had a lovely meal at home and I’m showing wildburro live writer.

For a few months now our shower hasn’t run hot, just luke warm.  Not an issue during the summer.  As the mornings cool we’d really begun to feel the problem.  The shower is just a complicated mechanical thermostatic valve.  Having dismantled this the local plumbing merchant told me to ring Bristan.  Well they were superb.  Our house is 4 years old, the shower had a 5 year guarantee.  We have no proof of purchase for the shower as we are the second occupants here.  No questions asked Bristan sent a new unit which arrived the day after I emailed a photograph of the valve.  So I will most likely ask for Bristan equipment in the future.  Customer care wins!

Do actually stop me feeling green on the Virgin Pendelino from London to Preston (yay)