kelseybacon.com

I just imported some old journals off Blogger and tried to off MSN Live Journal because hey, I like WordPress a lot better than those two.  MSN does its own marketing on the blog, and who wants that?  Blogger keeps having formatting issues with the program I do my composing in, which ironically is Windows Live Writer.  It is great to be able to draft locally on a preformatted page and publish.  This method is much better than having to be online when drafting. 

So, I don’t know for sure what all is in my old journals, but it is nice to at last consolidate them.  I have also put in the entries from my photo blogs since I think the pictures will never import properly into the WordPress blog I am currently trying out for this.  It has been crazy to look back and see some of the things that have gone on over the last couple of years. 

Also, I am not yet publishing publicly, but I thought I would try out a theme on hand crafting life.  It is not about hand crafting everything, but making the things that we use at home rather than buying everything.  Some examples are yeast, compost, and things like that.  Also, did you know you can double your laundry detergent for a very low price with Soda Crystals?  I want to have a place to put everything from the homemade rug from recycled materials, to homemade bread and other recipes.  As we set up house anew in America, we are starting from scratch, and we have a chance to chronicle everything we do from the start.   I might as well accumulate all the knowledge somewhere.

The kids did a kicking job at clearing up a pile today between the shed and the fence.  They are getting it down and ready to move out so that the yard is ready to let go for the move.  We will take down the shed this week and deliver it to the guy down the road, and when the rubbish is cleared, there just won’t be much left to clear out from outside.  The house is all that’s left!  I will miss this house like a guy missed his first car.  It was a beast, but it got me through!  But, it is most definitely time for an upgrade! 

My wife received a credit card offer in the post today that I had to scan a part of and put online for all of my American family and friends to see first hand.  This is the type of thing that any of you should come to expect if you want to live in the UK, and mind you, I have seen MUCH higher interest rates on offer through other companies. 

Mind you that my wife works a good job and has great credit!

And they call this an offer?

There are terms for these terms in America, but I would not use those terms among rude company, much less the polite society I am accompanied with. 

There is a company here called Provident, who literally advertises 187% interest rates.  How can terms like this be legal?  By the time you take into account the cost of a product after you have paid taxes on your earnings, sales tax of VAT, and then interest on a credit card purchase, then you understand fully my friends why the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor!  In those terms, NO credit card is worth its “convenience.” 

Today was a nice day.  Contrails crossed the sky as jets finally left the airports they were stuck in while the Icelandic volcano dumped ash all over the dusty continent.  With all the talk of passengers stuck everywhere, I wonder what this has been like for the pilots and air hostesses? 

Home school went well, was relaxing, and the boys were fairly well behaved.  Kiry posed no serious trouble either.  Facebook provided me with a lively debate over gun control because I put a funny Eddie Izzard quote up today.  I also got in touch with three guys I knew from back my school days.  The weather was even very pleasant today!  This has been a *nice* day! 

This evening I pegged laundry on the line out back with my oldest step-son, and we talked about things that mattered to him.  The moon was out, the temperature lovely, and the sky still laced with contrails.  It was also nice.

I just finished a cup of English Tea, and am soon off to bed. 

Tomorrow the boys and Kiry and I are out to let the boys toss around an American Football in the park where there will be plenty of space to run after it.  They will stand out in the park here as I have only once seen it done American style in Worcester before.  I am glad they have not even thought of how they will stand out! 

There are probably better ways to describe the day, and the things in our lives right now. 

Nice seems such a simple description. 

But it is the simplicity that makes it nice.

I have watched wit interest as the unpronounceable volcano has spewed an ash cloud over Europe, and over my home here in England.  It has amazed me the way the air traffic has come to a standstill because of the dangers of volcanic ahs being sucked into the engines of jets, and the silicon in the ash melted and cooled before leaving the engine.  The dangers of four stalled engines over the Atlantic, or even over densely populated Europe are obvious! 

But it is not the first time in my life a volcano has done this where I have lived.  When Mount St. Helens erupted in the 80’s I lived near Denver, Colorado, and I distinctly remember going out to the car and sweeping ash off the windshield with my hand.  That ash, as I remember it, appeared to be mostly composed of burnt wood ash. 

So far, I have not seen the same sort of ash here in the UK.  The ash here appears to be in the form of a dust could hanging in the air like a sometimes thick haze that makes it almost impossible to see the Malvern Hills, 8 miles away. 

The most obvious conclusion is that the Cascades are thickly forested, while Iceland is not. 

Just a minor observation by someone privileged to see tectonic forces at work reshaping our world in two significant events.

The family stayed up all the night long watching The Nanny, which has lately become a favourite show for us.  At 2 AM we all finally toddled off to bed and now I am sat listening to a sound from outside which sounds sort of like a saw or a sanding block.  Should I be worried about it?  It is about one tenth of a mile away, from the sounds of it.  Maybe I should be expecting company..!! 

Of course, it being Britain, the taxi parade has begun.  I can hear the occasional taxi passing; loaded with drunks from the City Centre, on their way home for almost memorable fun to be had with someone they have not met before recently. 

The most confusing day of the year in my neighbourhood?  Father’s Day!

Now it is time for me to see if this is going to publish on my wonky broadband tonight, or after I fight with it in the morning! 

–G’night all..!!

We live in a road that is a loop, and on a hill.  We are at the top of the loop, on the downhill side of the street, with about a four foot drop form the street to the front step of our house.  We are also only maybe ten feet from the front walk to the front door, leaving us a little nervous when people do foolish things in our road. 

As I said, our road is a loop.  There is only one way in and out of it.  No matter which direction you go, you end up at the same place. 

So why, why, why do different people keep making u-turns in front of our house??? 

It is bad enough that teens on their scooters will use it as a race course!  If you are any good with your spatial relationships you can see from the cars parked on the side of the road that the road is narrow as can be.  But to flip one in front of our house when all you have to do is drive around the loop? 

And friend, this activity is performed by people who live in our street as well as by those who don’t.  It is not huge!  The entire road and the houses around it only cover about three acres! 

This is just one more reason your author and his family have little confidence in their fellow man. 

I propose that at the next election, each of the candidates are turned loose with a car on my road, and we all watch.  Anyone seen making a u-turn is automatically disqualified from the election and sent to the Midvale School for the Gifted!

I was going to go to a little town along the River Severn today called Chepstow, but as the rail strikes were called off, so were more than half of the services from Worcester to there, so I opted for the more expensive trip to Shrewsbury instead.  It is the birthplace of Charles Darwin,and the origin of the Origin of the Species.  It was in Shrewsbury that Darwin began collecting and cataloguing insects, this developing the interest and skill to study the Galapagos Island species a he did. 

My travels today will take me through stations stops at Droitwich Spa, Kidderminster, Hagley, Cradley Heath, Rowley Regis, Langley Green, Smethwick Galton Bridge (where I change trains), and continue on to Shrewsbury.

The station at Shrewsbury is beautiful. As seen in this photo here. 

I walked around and about through Shrewsbury only to find that there really is no museum for the Darwin Birthplace as such.  The house remains, but has an assessor in it, and the pottery shed where Darwin performed some of his early experiments is in the back garden of a house down Hermitage Walk and around on Darwin Gardens.  Clearly his father was not hurting financially as the house is huge, even by today’s standards. 

I also shot some photos around Shrewsbury which I include for you here. 

After leaving Shrewsbury, I decided to go on the train bound for Hereford to have a look around there, and with any luck, get there in time to shoot another few shots in the afternoon light. 

Here is a ride that takes me past Ludlow, where Prince Arthur died and changed the history of England forever, as this lead to Henry VIII becoming King and severing ties with the Catholic Church and forming the Church of England. 

But first I pass through wooded hills and sheep dotted vales and past stone cottages, over creeks and streams, and past country pubs, and a water treatment facility so small it could fit in a back garden.  English rural life is attractive in it’s simplicity, and in it’s beauty.  Of course, the region I am travelling in can barely be called England at all, for I am at times barely five miles from the Welsh Border.  I pass over the River Onny and near a pond, behind which there is a castle like fortification that turns out to be a house that it still used today, but obviously predates the Tudor times. 

From the train I can see Ludlow now, its castle looming over the town like a dark master whose ghost still subdues those over whom he recently ruled.  A recording announces in a Welsh Accent that “We are now at Ludlow.  The next stop is Hereford.”  Smoke arises from the trees from among the trees on the south hill giving a feeling of what it must have been like in ancient times as we pass out of Ludlow and into the Welsh Border Region over which the Castle once stood as guard of England. 

Clee Hill is not in sight.  I have been up there once.  From there you can see the back of the Malvern Hills, and from there you can get a feel for what Yorkshire is like.  Clee Hill is on the left of the train, and a giant Radar listening station consisting of a set of towers from which cables are suspended, make up two parts of a Cold War era listening station that is now part of a modern listening station that I believe is used be the Americans. 

Only fifteen minutes left on the train.  From here I can see it is cloudy in Wales. 

Off in the distance at Leominster is a beautiful stone Victorian house, left of the train as it pulls in.  This is not a scheduled stop! 

Finally we go forward.  Whomever did have a scheduled stop or a pass on the rails, must have gone ahead. 

Cadbury has a facility out this way that probably processes milk before sending it over to Bourneville.  Tudor houses, stone cottages, wooden bridges, and a dark tunnel fill the rest of the journey before reaching the five miles point where I have only a little way to go.  Green valleys and wooded hilltops surround the way into Hereford, and a 12th Century church spire pierces the sky. 

These are the memories of England I want to always keep, and the3 parts of England I will always love. 

Hereford was a matter of stopping in and shooting some interior shots of the Cathedral.  I have been many times before, though I admit I have not stopped in to see the Mappa Mundi yet.  I did just what I had hoped to and got those interior shots, and especially the little chapel under the Naive.  Then I walked over to Castle Green and also past a house called the Fosse.  Anyone from Hereford who knows it can see why I like it quite easily, but I think the best part of it for me is the conservatory which is on top of a floor that is over the garage.  The house is obviously well tended for and in very good condition.

After walking back to the tow
n centre, I found my right foot playing up so badly that i was not sure if I would make it back to the train station.  Of course, I did, and look forward to the ride across Hereford and Worcestershire, past Ledbury, Colwall, and Malvern, and a few other places I have enjoyed visiting over the years. 

It is 6:31 PM and I don’t expect the train for another 10 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, Worcester party kids are queuing up to get on, and the trip home may not be as peaceful as I hope for.  Never mind.  they are heading to Wales. 

The ride back to Worcester was fine, but the light was a bit low, not too many pictures. 

Some years back, when we were quite a bit worse off financially, we had to really be creative about decorating and furnishing.  We had a door on the box room upstairs which had a massive gap under it, and it all but closed.  Finally, one day we needed to get the door’s issues worked out once and for all so it would close, so we called in the help of the local council, from whom we rented the house, and they came along and replaced it with a new door.  Being the council, they did not remove the old door, but rather, left it here for us to dispose of.

Meanwhile, we had been searching high and low for a desk that would fit the alcove on the west end of the living room downstairs for some time, and were having no luck as everything we found was either slightly too big, or way too small. 

In the end I cut the bottom two panels off the door and cut them in half.  I also got hold of a massive board, maybe 3×5 inches by several feet long, that I have cut out of our attic as it seemed to serve no purpose other than to get in the way every time we went up there to put something in storage. 

Using the top half of the door for a surface, and the long 3×5 for legs, I made a desk that was anchored directly into the brick at the back of the alcove, and whose outer edge was supported by two legs cut from the 3×5, and placed at an angle so they came to the floor where the floor came to the wall.  This configuration positioned the legs so I could anchor them and they not get kicked loose, and so they were more out of the way for my legs as I sat.  It also made the desk strong enough I could sit on its outer edge with no fear of it coming loose or  breaking.  It was a very strong desk! 

The two panel halves from the bottom were turned into a shelf, and into a tray that slid out from under the desk surface on drawer slides I got out of the old kitchen cabinetry.  This tray was a perfect fit for my computer mouse and keyboard. 

When it was done, my wife looked at it with a scowl and said that it was not very much to look at.  I had sanded all the wood down on the top surfaces, exposing bear cedar, and I loved the smell.  There was no place left to compromise, and I let her tough it out. 

Over the years since, she has suggested a couple of ideas to decorate the desk, from paint to skirting which would hide the large legs.  But I still let her tough it out. 

Finally, as we are preparing to move house from here to America, I almost ceremoniously took down the desk yesterday.  After several years stood strong, and proud, it only took undoing five screws from the wall, and it was off once and for all.  As the pieces came down, and I broke the legs from the desktop, my wife watched in silence.

When I had finished breaking the desk to the point of no return, my wife looked at the heap on the floor and said, “you really did do a good job of that thing.”  Had she been speaking of my breaking it down, I might have been relieved.  But she was speaking of how I had built such a strong desk to serve my needs from only a door and a couple of pieces of wood. 

Kelsey J Bacon

Worcester, England

28 March 2010

I am one who finds Facebook friends to be a big list of friends that are in some cases insincere, and in other cases genuine.  So there is me, today, sending out two more requests.  Well, let’s see what happens.  One is a man who was married to my step-dad’s older sister.  He still is.  It is just that my step-dad is not my step-dad anymore, so I did not know what to do with that side of the family.  Much water under the bridge.  The other was to my aunt, Jeannie.  Trouble there is that her husband, who was my uncle, has died a few years back.  Would she want that sort of connection?  Who knows yet?  I will find out soon, I am sure though. 

Kelsey