First Blog of 2014

By now, the wishes for a good new year must have been made to one another. Christmas, though not many weeks ago, seems to have been consigned to ancient history. Forgetting what was behind may not be easy, but already we press on forward into what we hope the new year has for us.

For Irene and I not only will our annual adventure into the normal continue, but we shall be treading into foreign territory. Some of this territory will be familiar, but some will be strange indeed; especially the China part. Bag packing is underway, foreign money bought, tickets filed and maps of Guangzou printed.

So far the year has been far from boring. There have been reasons why this year is not having the joyful start that we hoped for. But good things have happened.

Today, as I write, I am not overjoyed as I sit in the increasing cold waiting for plumber to call an hour ago. As you will know, there is Dr Who time, normal time and plumbers’ time. I should be going off to our Monday afternoon café. Perhaps the heating will be fixed in time for me to walk down.

Apart from the trip to come our big news is the installation of solar panels. They were fitted efficiently by friendly staff at a good price. (£0.00). Thanks to sunny days we have already seen the meter stop sometimes, go slow sometimes and go backwards at other times. Stopping is good; it means that we are not buying electricity from our company, nor is the solar panel company being paid for supplying power to the grid. One thing we did not bank on was having half the roof tiles removed and stacked in the garden.

 Despite the frequent passage of rain storms over us we were able to have a short walk. On Wednesday we had to go to our friend Margaret’s solicitor and pass over her financial affairs. This gave us a chance to have some recreation. This started with cream covered scones at the garden centre near Ilkeston. We then parked at Cotmanhay and crossed a bridge at the well named ‘Bridge Inn’ and walked along the Erewash canal until we came to Shipley lock where, in an interesting way the canal crossed the Erewash river.

The start of the walk

Muddy path

The wind turbine had it sails a few days after this.
Apparently the residents did not know
about it until they saw the mast

The river below and the canal behind

Before getting back to the car we spied the entrance to a community farm and went to look. We were greeted by a young man who informed us that it was now closed for good. Apparently the new landlord of the pub wanted the land back to put caravans on. This is so sad given that this is a ‘deprived’ area and the farm is well used by schools and other groups. Apparently the local residents have also objected to them re-siting the farm on an area next to an existing farm.

Our friends Paul and Mary have invited us for dinner and Monday night and Joni and Fiona have invited us to dinner on Wednesday night.

So now to ring the plumber again.

From next Monday the blogs will be via http://wearekiwisnow.blogspot.co.uk/