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4 February 2012

Posted by DMC on 5 February 2012 in Diary |

I haven’t mentioned recently the pain that I was suffering from a night in my joints. Much of it has been alleviated by’ ‘my lovely’ coming down regularly to turn me over and therefore relieve the pressure. However, even with all this special attention . I have had one or two quite miserable nights when my right shoulder and right hip in particular, have been almost unbearable. I’m going to have a nerve block injection from the pain, consultant towards the end of this month that will only sort out my shoulder. It may be that I will have to rely on even stronger painkillers at night, for the other joints, t as there is no way I can have a general anaesthetic and an operation on my knee.

Awoke this morning to a completely carpet of white frost covering the garden. Heavy snow is forecast for tonight, and with the underlay of frozen ground is likely not to thaw out but to leave a dangerous driving surface. A month of freezing Arctic weather has been promised to us. We just hope that a small window appears. next week to allow girls and all the other people to travel to Wales who wish to celebrate the life of my dear mother-in-law.

Regular readers will recall the extensive media cover on the removal of the so-called’ travellers’ from Dale farm at an estimated cost of £18 million., After 10 years of court action. the local council was given permission to remove them which they did however almost immediately they started partking their caravans on the approach road to the farm, which is where 20 or 30 of them remain today and the council faced with further court action in order to get them removed. It really is a nonsense. I cannot imagine any other country in the world, even from the so-called civilised Western bloc, putting up with this sort of nonsense.

The chairman of Basildon Council seems adamant that they are going to make them pay the eviction costs. I know that we have been told that many of them own grand villas in Ireland but it seems that there is some difficulty in matching with properties , Surely this can only mean lack of cooperation from the local authority who must know who are the owners, It will be interesting to see how the council achieved its objective of getting money from these’ travellers’ it’s not as if they have not been offered alternative accommodation or sites-they have, but have always found a good reason for rejecting them. I think the time has come to ignore the humanitarian pleas concerning the children and the old folk and take some positive hard action against these people who, frankly, are being a bloody nuisance.

We have a not dissimilar situation with the ‘ professional’ protesters’ camped around the entrance to St Pauls Cathedral .

In fact, they have established a proper county providing hot drinks meals etc to these protesters Against Capitalism. What I don’t understand is why the authorities have to go court to have these people removed. Surely they’re breaking some by law or other. What surprises me is if I decided to pitch my tent on a pavement in London or on a traffic island somewhere, or perhaps in St James’s Park I’m sure that the police would have powers to come and arrest me and moved my tent as an obstruction. Yet when it comes to protesters such as these have attracted a great deal of media coverage, they tend to’ walk on eggshells’ and go through great contortions in order to remove them. Of course people have the right to make their voice heard by peaceful protesting but not to the point where they are costing the country millions of pounds and causing a great deal of local disruption. I’m not suggesting we get the troops out and know them down as they would be in some Middle East countries that perhaps the odd water cannon in this freezing cold weather might have a salutary effect!

I received a comment yesterday fromone of my readers asking me what I thought about the landlords who were evicting tenants now with a view to letting out their properties during the forthcoming Olympics. This came from America so there must be something in the newspapers there that suggested that this happening. I have neither read nor heard of such a thing happening in this country. What the commentator from America, perhaps does not understand is that it takes a minimum of six months to remove a tenant who refuses to leave. Witness the problems we have had over the Dale farm travellers and the St Paul Cathedral campers. What is more likely to be happening is that anyone, including council tenants, who have a flat or apartment within the Olympic area, will vacate them for a month, probably staying with their in-laws, and make a packet from letting them out for that period. All totally against the terms of their tenancy, of course, but I suspect the authorities will close a blind eye to it., And I certainly wouldn’t object. Good luck to them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make some serious money.

I recently purchased a decent web cam for my mother’s husband, Richard, and last evening with the first time we have got him to use it properly, with Paul’s help we can not only see each other but also hear each other, After a few minutes chatting with Richard, my mother appeared, took one look at me and uttered her first immortal words on this miracle of communication , “You need a haircut.“. That’s another is for you. So much for the joys of seeing each other on Skype!

One of the’ ‘old faithful”, Judith William Powlette, who came to the village almost precisely at the same time as us ,just under 50 years ago, came to see me this morning. Then another’ old faithful’ Jill Simpson pocketed briefly the place was bustling, but the visits were short and sweet and it was nice to see them and keep in touch.

For today’s diversion. I am going to show you a fascinating way of projecting images on the facade of a building,, this one on a store in Berlin. Some of you may recall a similar display on the front of Buckingham Palace, last year sometime for some celebration or other. It is very clever. Click here and see if you agree with me.

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