Recent months have been hectic what with the Queen’s Jubilee and next day repairs to the bore hole. Visits from old friends included one of the ‘Goulding Girls’ and her vet husband and family members coming to help around the Holding. Shearing this year was late and we took the sheep to a friend where he and his wife made short shrift of our few ewes having previously shorn a thousand or so of their own.
Hospital visits to check on eyes (both good) and the assessment and removal of a rodent ulcer nibbling away the skin on top of my head took up some days, and whilst my scalp is still tender, the tightness and ache has gone, In the days following the op, three nurses and a doctor saw my scalp, and all noted the extreme neatness and tidiness of the stitching. This prompted me to write to Dr, Anita Takwale and her team. She is ‘top notch’ with the scalpel and needle, and a word of thanks would not come amiss. Trips to hospitals were then interspersed with visits to the dentist.
We completed a lot of arboreal work, electrics, and farm building repairs during which I used a one-handed battery chain saw for pruning up to 4-6 inches. Weighing less than a kilo, I found it a handy tool to leave in the vehicle ready for when an obstructive branch catches one’s eye.
Not so good however are cost increases of a 55-gallon barrel of red diesel. This has risen from £129.to £323. (1.62 per ltr) My tractor is 45hp, but a tractor of about 180 hp used by commercial farmers will use 22 litres per hour when baling, and a Combine cutting wheat on 45 acres will consume 350+ litres.. Farming has always been hard work, but increased input costs plus the add-ons from agents, processors, retail, transport, and Putin, means global food price rises.
On that note, Strategic thinking is always needed, but our present circumstances need tactical thinking and prompt action. Action is needed now, because Western political elites were too busy for twenty-five years thinking strategically about the wrong things. An economic mentor once said, “Nations need 5 strategic thinkers for every 30 tacticians and 65 doers.” We appear to have sixty-five strategists and 30 tacticians for every 5 Doers and not just in Government. It must change.
Visitor numbers to the Royal Welsh Show in July were down early in the week but returned to normal as the temperature fell for the final two days. It cost £32 to get in, but the ease of free parking and the bus journey to the entrance gates was impeccably organised as always. I like to see the machinery and livestock and learn a lot from all kinds of people. This year I met a chap who commented on my armed forces ‘veterans’ badge. He introduced himself and we discovered that he was stationed in Southern Yemen a couple of years after me, and whilst commenting on the temperature confessed he could not understand the media’s ‘hype on heat’ which he thought generated genuine angst in people.
His comments reminded me that in all the chatter about high temperatures, I had not heard mention of the need to ensure an adequate level of salt in the body. A lot was said about drinking fluids, but nothing about how low salt levels lead to lethargy and worse. I have experienced high temperatures in India and Arabia, as has everyone who has lived close to the equator. Even holidaymakers in the Southern Mediterranean know how to respond during hot days. Salt drinks are obtainable and take just twenty minutes to raise energy levels. Maybe, we hear too much about salt in processed food, and too little about the effects of not having enough? As with most things in life, a balance of information is important.
Finally, thanks to camera-man Dave Farrants, there are now four of my twelve-minute videos on YouTube, with shorter ones, to follow. I have been surprised by the interest shown by the couple of hundred people viewing them so far, particularly those in Dymock and Detroit who have used them as teaching and discussion aids. That really is an unexpected bonus.
Talking about an unexpected bonus, reminds me that paraprosdokians are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence is unexpected. As in:
Change is inevitable,
except from a vending machine
View from the Pew 