Windfall Machine!

It is amazing how many times a news article will celebrate the anniversary of a distant catastrophe with an update that includes details of how it is going to happen again on the same day many years on.

This week was the turn of Hurricane Ophelia - 2017.

Thirty years ago, the UK was smashed by a hurricane with several landmarks being erased from the land.

I don’t know where we were at the time,on holiday somewhere abroad I suppose. The news of the hurricane was not only surprising, but also created a feeling for me that it happened somewhere else and not to us in the UK.

The now famous weather forecast was born, where Michael Fish tells how a woman has phoned the bbc warning of a hurricane and then dismisses it with a “you must be joking” assurance that it is not going to happen. It made him famous around the world and probably also meant no one would trust him again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqs1YXfdtGE

This week has felt remarkably similar. There was a build-up, the hurricane, a red sun and a yellow sky all in the UK and yet I was away in Poland listening to the stories and having the same feeling as thirty years ago. This time the damage does not appear to be as extensive, thank god, but it hit the UK just as it had before.

At least the stock markets haven’t crashed yet, which was the follow up to the 1987 storm. But with the FTSE 100 at record levels – you never know what is on the horizon. At the time everyone blamed computer programs for causing the crash, with an unpredictable reaction to movement in the markets.

So what are we doing thirty years on ……

We are putting computers in charge of our safety by driving for us. The clever computers apparently learn a lot from crashing cars such that it won’t happen again in the same way, but we obviously don’t learn from past crashes quite so well. You can imagine in thirty years when the next hurricane comes our way, sitting in your driverless car being blown across the motorway into the on-coming traffic, whilst watching the weather forecast from 1987 being shown on repeat.

House Visitor

Talking of history repeating itself, we have had further episodes of animal activity this week. You are probably completely bored with tales of voles being brought into the house (excuse the pun), or random mice running around while we try to catch them.

Well as I left the building to go to Poland, another close relative arrived to spend a few days with my better half. On arrival she was greeted with a ritual vole killing, followed by vole consumption, just to make her feel at home.

For someone who is a bit tickled stomached she did remarkably well to drift by and let the cat get on with it.

The next morning, she then found herself supporting my better half in trying to catch a mouse as it roamed the house at top speed. Impressively she managed to take the picture opposite, having caught the mouse in a small glass.

Not bad, and try as we might to scare off our relatives they just keep coming back for more!

A gentle breeze is blowing across a cloudless sky with the temperature at a mighty fine 23 degrees. In the morning, as I make my way to the office, I reflect on the restaurant that I sat outside last night enjoying the company of others in the relative warmth of an autumn evening.

The weather is beautiful, and the beautiful people are enjoying the weather, as they strut around the main square taking in the various buskers or street entertainers. Even in October I find myself feeling a certain jealousy that the whole of Europe lives with an outdoor culture and yet we in the UK mostly feel chained to the indoors by the unpredictable weather.

But I have come to Poland complete with a horse cough and full cold, so a bit of good weather might do me some good, whilst a skin full of beer will soothe my throat until I get back to the hotel.

Syracusa

Our final story of our recent holiday, revolves around a fine establishment in Syracusa. Having spent a hot day walking around the town, we arrived back at the hotel to sit down in the cool and have a rest.

My better half decided to go and have a shower and put some clean “tatting about” clothes on. I settled down onto the settee to look at the news and relax a little.

It must have only been a few minutes when I looked up and noticed that a wave of water was slowly advancing across the tiled floor towards the rug on the other side of the room.

I jumped off the settee and looked down the hall that was now covered in water that had also flowed into the bedroom.

The shower was not draining the water out of the bathroom and was instead depositing it around the flat.

Quickly I stopped my better half from enjoying the shower any further, and I tried to go and find someone in the hotel. But the desk was not manned, as it was supposed to be. The young, trendy, twenty-something that was on reception when we arrived had now gone shopping and left the place to look after itself. I looked everywhere for a mobile number, including rifling through the lobby desk and room at the back. It then occurred to me that someone might be looking on, and might get the wrong idea as to what I was doing behind the desk of a hotel in Sicily when the receptionist was nowhere to be seen. All the stereotypical stories of mafia protection racquets rushed through my mind and I decided that being wet was probably not as serious as being knee-capped.

Finally, I found a number that I could call and got hold of the tanned shopper. “I’m shopping at the moment and I will be around in a few minutes to sort it out”, she said.

I won’t bore you with further details, but we were glad this particular receptionist was an attractive young lady with a very fine boyfriend, as he arrived on cue to fix the shower and clean the room. In fact, the clean he gave the room was the best of the whole stay. It wasn’t his job, or his responsibility but he waded in and sorted it out.

Having spent an hour sitting around, trying to avoid being in the way and wishing the whole episode was over so we could relax before going to get some food, I was most impressed by the sincerity of their apology. It is not often that things go wrong quite like that, but a genuine sincere apology goes a long way helping you move on and forget it happened.

Oven Dried Tomatoes

Last time, I described the end of the greenhouse growing season and provided a picture of the final produce. A spectrum of tomatoes.

Well, with that many tomatoes picked in one go, there is a strong chance they will go off unless you do something collectively. My favourite use of them is to oven dry them and use them as part of a pasta meal. This year I mixed them with some spaghetti, mozzarella, basil, onion, salmon and oregano and it made a spectacular meal. One of my best – although I say it myself.

Sadly, as you can see below, the aubergines were not as successful. There is nothing we could do with this one!

Apple Juice

As I have said in previous weeks, it has been a particularly good year for apples. I cut the trees back by a third in the spring and they have just spawned rampantly. With about three or four wheel-barrow loads of apples from our tree, topped up by some fantastic Bramleys from my mother’s tree, we have produced lots of quality apple juice.

My large apple press has now demonstrated its value in full, reducing the average previous cost of production from in the order of £30 per bottle to a fine £10 per bottle. (I knew it would pay back eventually).

We still have half the apples left and a weekend ahead of us. So we could be down to £7 per bottle by the end of the season.

It is actually pretty hard work and an activity that requires both of us to muck in. By the time we have pulped and crushed many kilos of apples and then bottled and pasteurised the output four or five hours can run away from you. We were knackered.

But the taste of the juice was fantastic – better than last time, and enhanced by the juice of the ripe flesh of Bramleys. They are tart to taste when eaten raw but the juice is perfectly sweet when crushed. 

Continued embarrassment for the movie industry this week. The link to this song might be a bit tenuous, but a young version of this group is a mesmerising image.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uh9NaICdVw

This final link is to a song that never seems to age.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsCdlX-5UjE

Have a great weekend!

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