Gallows Humour...(If I'm Spared)

There were some lovely poppy pictures among the blizzard of
Armistice Day posts on Social Media. This is not my pic,
just one I blagged off the Internet.

A return to blogging, of sorts, though I'd ask you to indulge me in one more where I wax philosophical and slide in a  bit more navel-gazing. All triggered by the combination of my life-threatening episode and then (now) having too much time on my hands to sit and think, plus a bit of Armistice Day and all that talk of death and surviving. It is natural to have that stuff at the front of your thoughts and then we listened to one of Elizabeth's 'History of Rome' podcasts with the title "Chickens Coming Home to Roost" and, Bingo! I had a framework on which to hang all my random thoughts.

Love some of the pictures that Windows uses on log in screens.

When you are young and vigorous.... indeed, right up to your 61st Birthday in my case, you assume you are bullet proof. Well, I did, anyway; perhaps I should speak for myself, not go generalising. You assume you will outlive all those people older than your self, the next generation upwards and all who are obviously, visibly less healthy - more over-weight or heavy smokers and drinkers. You only half listen to news reports of the bed crisis in the Health Service, people sleeping on gurneys in hospital corridors, long waiting lists. Those things affect OTHER people. Cross those bridges when you come to them.

Larch down by the main gate. It's deciduous
but only does this thin yellow for Autumn
colour.

When I was working in the UK as a 'baby' Manager, the firm (Exel) launched a campaign to try to control the level of absence among 'the lads' (the warehouse order-assemblers, or "pickers"). Some may have heard of it; it was called "Bradford points". You racked up points for the number of sick/absence episodes times the number of actual days taken and certain levels of score started you on the disciplinary trail - counselling, verbal and written warnings, through to eventual dismissal.

Oak leaves.

Some of my colleagues went a bit wild with this, using it as a tool to "get" at the lads they saw as lazy or shirkers and it quickly gained a bad reputation.

Our new patch of forestry to the north of us, down in the bog

I may have been a bit smug - I had the best attendance record on the site; just 3 or 4 days sick in 20+ years - but I like to think (I hope!) I was a bit more compassionate and gentle with the stats than that. I disciplined very few and sacked none. Now, of course, with the wisdom of 20/20 hindsight, I can see that I would have been out on my ear if they'd applied Bradford to this 2018 episode - 2 weeks in hospital and now 16 weeks unable to work! I am glad my conscience is clear on that one.

Geese near the front drive.

We are both amused to by the 'gallows humour' around some of the conversations we inevitably have on the subject. My big yellow hi-viz coat is definitely past its sell by date, a bit tatty and threadbare in places. We both wax a bit pragmatic when it comes to spending money on these things till we get me through the heart-operation and we both remember our belovéd friend Diane (known to this blog as 'Diamond' early on).

Beech lit by the evening sun.

When she was well on with the cancer, struggling through the chemo and bone marrow transplants and so on, she managed to stay, mostly, quite happy and chirpy. We'd be chatting away about what we might do 'in a while' or after Christmas or even into the next year and she'd suddenly drop into the conversation with a twinkle in her eye and a mischievous smile, ".....if I'm spared, of course". She was half-joking, of course, not trying to shock us. She was enjoying the chance to say such a semi-dramatic thing for real.

Rooster pot-au-feu under construction. 

But what else is new? The cooking has taken on a bit of a French theme with a couple of house favourites appearing in the authentic style as learned by the Woman of the House while in Toulouse s a young 'au-pair'. One is pot-au-feu. I did this to our latest rooster. It is basically a one-pot casserole of the bird and big chunks of veg but when you serve it, the dish comes out as 3 courses. You start with a bowl of the broth or soup. Only then do you dig out some vegetables and then, finally some of the meat which has had 3+hours slow cooking and falls off the bones; no need to carve.

Horse Chestnut sticky-bud. Excellent source of "propolis" for
the hive bees.

The other dish is 'boulangère', in this case lamb, but you can do it with any meat. This is another 'peasant' dish from poverty stricken rural France. The idea would be that in the village, very few folk could afford to light an oven every day, but the local baker (boulangère) would have had his oven going every day for the daily bread, so the local ladies would assemble that day's lunch (including spuds) in a one-pot casserole and trot along to the baker for him to stick it in his oven while it cooked. I guess they handed over a few centimes for the use of his heat.

That 'hen in question' has developed int a fine rooster. Bad move.

Evenings are drawing in now and I have had to bring my poultry supper and bed times forward another quarter hour so that everybody is locked up safe before it gets dark. Everybody gets fed now at 16:15 and they are locked away at 17:00. Touch wood we have not actually seen the fox since 3rd September but we just know he/she will be back as soon as it gets frosty.

Finally we had a bit of a disappointment (but no damage done). Regular readers will recall our enjoyment of one of our best ever Help-X volunteers, Laura who mowed the place to within an inch of its life when she was here in May. She was delightful and were sorry to see her go.We told her she'd be welcome back any time, working or just resting. Well, last week we got an e-mail from her saying she was still "out there" Help-X-ing  but had a problem with a booking in Portugal and asking might she swing by here for a week. Of course, we said and started preparing for her arrival. But then she found a farm in the south of France, much closer to her home and didn't need us after all. Ah well.

Another 'not mine' pic, blagged off the Internet.

That is pretty much it for this one. Good Luck, now.

Keepin' it 1600

It might be mid October but the sap's rising in Co. Roscommon.
This in-calf heifer got in with the 'boys' by mistake.

The reason this blog avoids the wise blogger's 'troika' of taboo subjects (politics, religion and money) has less to do, in the first case, with the wisdom and more to do with the fact that politics leaves me cold. I am delighted to vote on the day and have enough interest to make sure I am voting 'sensibly'. I then take an interest in the results but once they are in I pretty much put the whole malarkey back in its box till next time.

Whole leg of pork gets its dry-cure

Contrast that, if you like, with Liz's driving passion to eat, drink, sleep, knit (?) and work through every minute of the pre-match analysis, then stay up all night while the results roll in AND, afterwards, to stay well abreast of things and in touch with all the expert moves and howling gaffes of the candidates and politicians in power. This applies equally to UK, Irish, Euro and American elections as well as all the sideshows that come along in the form of referendums (referenda?); Yes Equality, Brexit, 'Repeal the 8th' and the like. When Liz is on her deathbed and some young relative asks, "Any Regrets, Auntie Lizzie?" I suspect that up there will be that when the results of the Blair/Labour Landslide were rolling in on that famous night, she went to bed in the early hours and missed the fall of Portillo.

Incidentally, the pics in this post bear no relation to anything written as, obviously, I do not get a lot of pics of political 'slebs' out here in Roscommon. But, where was I? Ah yes. If UK politics leave me cold and Irish Politics just confuse me (more on that later), the American politics have, up to now, left me frozen in a hypothermic torpor. Then the Trump/Clinton thing happened. Suddenly I am amused, amazed, appalled and wide awake, watching in horror as a country I always assumed would do the steady, sensible thing and occasionally get brave enough to make a Lady (gasp!) or a Black Guy (gasp!) President seems to have gone steaming happily off the rails. I am no expert and I have only recently been paying attention but it seems to me that our Mr Trump has got to be the Republican nominee despite no-one really wanting him there, despite them fearing that he is a loose cannon who might say the wrong things, watching him like rabbits caught in the headlights as he does just that, and now no-one knows how to undo the nomination. We seem to just have to go with this and hope that the election undoes him for us. There is wry comment about "a man like that getting within reach of the US Nuclear Codes"

Nugget enjoying her freedom

My recent interest has been helped by that relatively new thing in US Politics, the subscriber (cable) channel, political comment "pod cast". Liz has latched onto 3 main feeds in this - namely "Keepin' it 1600", "538" and "NPR Politics" (links at the bottom of this post). They have funky, modern, website-y names (the 1600 refers to the fact that the White House's address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there are 538 'college' votes in the state-by-state elections and NPR is National Public Radio) and comprise a small group of well informed, lively, experts (plus, sometimes guest panellists) just discussing the latest events, gaffes, TV debates or electioneering moves as if they were sitting in a pub relaxing and chatting.

Annual Pig Census arrived 2 days late for our two.

These are subscriber channels, so they feel no need to stick to BBC-style political correctness or balance and the language can wander into "fruity" if they are more excited or appalled than normal. Many of those taking part have 'done it for real' previously, for example running Barack Obama's campaign(s). I particularly like the 'Keepin' it 1600' one and, despite my professed dislike of such stuff, find myself asking Liz regularly, "Anything new from the 1600 lads?" If there is, we sit down and listen to it together and I then harass Liz with all manner of 'how does THAT work?' questions and we check out the latest graphs and graphics.

A morning moon.

It will all come out in the wash, I guess, on November 8th. Then I can put it all back in its box. "PussyGate" defeated by "Human Decency"? I have got to thinking though, how good it would be if we could get some of these political pod-casts going in Ireland. I said earlier that Irish politics confuses me. I come from a world where you knew (for a while!) what you were voting for - the Tories were the 'management', Labour was for the working class families and Union types and the Liberals were somewhere in the middle or were the only ones interested in stuff like organic farming, green issues and so on.

In Ireland we have the two big parties (Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael - FF and FG for short) with no obvious policy (or recent record) differences between them. Even local political activists can not give you a clear answer if asked why I should vote FG or FF. A commonly held view is that these 2 became the main parties during the Civil War (in the 20's), with one voting for partition of the country into Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State (as being the best solution they thought they could realistically get), while the other party wanted to hold out for independence for the whole land mass as one entity. This conflict divided communities and villages, pitted brother against brother and father against son and for many it still rankles. They vote FG or FF now because in the 20's blah blah blah. They are still fighting the Civil War through the ballot box.

My frustration at not being able to get answers which matter to me (you know - pensions, Brexit, rural broad band, water supply, support for village life and , yes, even small holders) had me thinking how good it would be to get a few of these podcast discussions up and running, to hear what intelligent, informed, politically savvy people (Nate Silver with his statistics, Adrian Kavanagh - Irish University lecturer "whose main research interests focus on the geography of elections, with particular reference to the Republic of Ireland") are saying is good, bad, sound or unsound politics. Then I'd be able to go to vote having half an idea what I was voting for, rather than the 'attrition' method I use currently. (Not him or her because they support X, nor her because she won't say whether she supports Y or not.... ah well, that just leaves these ones then.... now what is '1st preference'?)

And now, just in case you are still awake, three links generously provided by Liz to those podcasts. Good Hunting.

https://theringer.com/keepin-it-1600-podcast-politics-election-jon-favreau-dan-pfeiffer-220924af4c94#.u1kxp2g1k

http://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/elections-podcast/

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510310/npr-politics-podcast