bunn

 I keep thinking I should post something here, and then I can't decide what, and so I don't, and this is a problem that really is only going to get worse, so perhaps I shall just do random bullet points. 

• House building work is still not complete, because the builders working on the bathroom have gone off to outdoor jobs while the weather is good. We kind of owe them one for having dropped everything to fix our house when the roof came off, so I haven't yet chivvied them about this.

 

• However, the downstairs rooms that were almost converted from a garage and then flooded and had to be entirely re-done are now pretty much finished. We haven't moved any shop stuff (from our roleplaying game shop, Shop on the Borderlands, for anyone still reading this who had forgotten) into them yet, but Pp is AT THIS VERY MOMENT driving home from Birmingham with a van jammed full of 20+ large boxes full of vintage roleplaying games, so that is about to change at any moment. 

 

• One thing that isn't quite finished down there is the under-stairs cupboard which we wanted to have a light come on when the door opened.  It still has wires just sticking out where that should happen.  I hope not live. But the rest of the cupboard is done, so I have started sticking garden tools and stuff in there. If the builders leave it long enough, I may even experiment with wiring up a light in there.

 

• I may also have to hang up the kayaks on their designated hooks, which apparently have wooden supports embedded in the wall, but never quite got put into place. 

 

• I haven't really been able to do anything about the garden since The Event, because all the tools and stuff were in a giant emergency dusty Heap in the porch, but we are finally getting to the point where tools are actually in known accessible places at last. I have plans to cut the lawns at last and clear up everything that died in the heatwave ready to start over. I may have a go at a bit of that this evening if Pp doesn't arrive shortly. 

 

• We frantically finished off everything that could be finished downstairs because Pp's god-daughter, who is seven, and her mum were coming for a flying visit and that's the only room that can reasonably have two beds in it.  We did a lot of things, including improvised D&D, painting minis, a boat trip, visiting a playground and Pembroke Castle, and of course walking the dogs.  Theo, being himself young and bouncy,  was very excited by the visit.  Rosie got a bit tired after a while. 

 

• We have bought a boat!  It's a RIB. A bit bigger than we had originally thought of, but it was available locally (third-hand) and a bit cheaper than we expected.  Slightly alarming, even having done the powerboat training course, that the manual was rather woolly about how and when to sloosh the engine out with clean water, but fortunately the people at the dry stack where we are storing it are really helpful and there's a chandlery.  It's really good to be able to explore further afield than the kayaks can reasonably take us, because Pembrokeshire really is on the edge of the Deep.  I love it. 

 

• My little lemon and blood orange trees in the sun room somehow survived The Event and are back in there.  The lemon is almost pathetically happy to be upright in the warm sun and regularly fed and watered again.  She is absolutely covered in lemon-blossom, and I think she may be going to fruit.  The blood orange has put out some new leaves, but appears to be sulking a bit by comparison. 

 

• I didn't want to claim on the house contents insurance. Claiming on the buildings insurance was bad enough, and anyway, nothing much that was destroyed really had any great monetary value, it was all a bit old and slightly knackered.  So I bought vinyl for the floor on ebay and we laid it ourselves, and I have been around the charity shops and bought a really excellent cheap charity shop sofa ( it's in two bits, which are supposed to form a corner but I've split them up) and a wooden dresser to keep art supplies in, which is a great improvement over the old shelves.  Drat.  I was going to post a photo but my Flickr login is on my laptop downstairs.  Never mind. 

I have been doing a bit of arting, and I shoved (I think) most of the recent bits onto my https://victoriaclare.com/ site today.  Most of the more recent ones are Tolkien, but I did some Stranger Things portraits in watercolour, some of which have come out quite well. 

I liked it a lot, and so did Pp, but I suspect it's one of those movies that depends enormously on your personal context.   It might even seem dull or confused if it wasn't a story you grew up with...

Pp correctly identified the Spitfire pilot as the designated hero of the movie, but I have to admit I was really watching for the boats, and I completely assumed that the old bloke and the two kids in the motor yacht were supposed to be the main heroes.  Where I grew up, someone had made scale models of all the Little Ships of Dunkirk and they were displayed at the local National Trust place, so that was my context.

It was a pity that I don't think they were able to show any of the Dutch coasters or Belgian ships involved, and I don't remember seeing any RNLI lifeboats either but perhaps I missed them.  It was nice to see the Medway Queen  (was that genuine? Wikipedia thinks she's still preserved... oh, hang on, maybe it wasn't the Medway Queen but the Princess Elizabeth paddle steamer?)  but I don't remember seeing any of the Isle of Man Steam Packet ferries, either, even if they had to cgi them in....  But perhaps I should re-watch now I've got over the tension of people being shot and trapped on beaches and in sinking ships (aaaaaa the sinking ferry full of people and the teacups and the floating sandwiches!  I was very tense at that point. )

I am not sure if this is really a good moment for yet another second world war movie... but youtube informs me that there is a Dunkirk movie coming up next year.    And I am a total sucker for the Little Ships of Dunkirk story, so I definitely want to see it.

 Apparently some of the original Little Ships took part in the filming!  So that is a reason to want to see it on its own.  There are probably actors and people in it, but I want to see the little ships. :-D

And while I am blethering, I thought I would link the history of the Tamar Barge Lynher here - she did not go to Dunkirk, being occupied as a barrage balloon platform at the time, but she is still an interesting elderly old boat, dating from 1896.  The photos are worth a glance: - quite a spectacular restoration story because she looks a complete mess having been hulked under the mud.  I will look forward to spotting her on the river next year!

I'd hate to own a wooden sailing boat - soooooo much work - but the sight of them always cheers me up. 

I mean, I'm not planning to move my bank account, because I am lazy and have both low standards and low expectations.
But I can appreciate this ad as a work of art.  It expertly expresses the qualities you'd want in a bank brand: strength, reliability, a long-term approach, an awareness of people as individuals. It could not have been made by any other business I can think of, which is surely part of the the essence of effective branding.

Plus

• The horses are all so beautiful and look so superbly cared for.


• I like seeing horses shown working in such a range of roles.


• The girl who plays the bride looks so genuinely delighted.


• The horse-drawn RNLI lifeboat.  I love lifeboats, and how often do you see an original lifeboat being moved as originally intended?  The lifeboat is the William Riley, built 1909,  bought, in a tragic state, on Ebay in 2005 and now magnificently restored.   (I feel obscurely guilty about the William Riley, because she fell into disrepair when she was on the River Taw near Barnstaple, which is the river I grew up sailing on, and I am pretty sure that if my Dad,  who was a relentless sentimentalist about old boats and the RNLI who had a habit of buying multiple copies of books from charity shops on the grounds that they were too good for a charity shop and needed rescuing,   had known the background, the William Riley would have come home with him... Lucky escape for her really, as I'm sure her current owner, the Whitby Historic Lifeboat Trust is a much more sensible arrangement.)


• I've just realised that the lifeboat in the painting I made of the Royal Jubilee pageant in 2012 is the William Riley!  I didn't recognise her before.

 The hounds and I went to Calstock regatta today.  We parked at the National Trust carpark at Cotehele house, just in case it was busy, and walked along the river to get there - but in the end, it was fairly quiet, for an event.  Good for Rosie's social skills.

We got there just in time to see the second race coming through the pillars of Calstock Viaduct. I hoped the train would go over while the boats were underneath, but no luck!  That's the safety boat painted white on the left.  It waved at me cheerfully when it saw I had a camera.  I waved back.

( With an excitable number of photos of boats )