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Except I wasn’t lost at all, but having joked that a walk around these here parts seems like something out of a Jane Austen novel, today, on a bit of a sightseeing trip, I found myself retracing Austen’s real life footsteps.

Well, in reverse and I was not at all seasick either. More later.

"… the net is made of about 90% spam, 9% porn, and quite a lot of whining blogs" – Luke McKinney

Via: Microsiervos

Result of silly quiz at Facebook:

"You are emo, like the bands, most likely shy, maybe not many friends, maybe depressed, but unique and yourself, don’t listen to the other kids, be yourself."

Some people will be rolling on the floor laughing after they already told me that.

But I still don’t like the music.

You’re so quirky, it’s hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal. No doubt about it, there’s little about you that’s “normal” or “average.”

How’d I get such a low score?

How Quirky Are You?

1. Autumn Cat, 2. Amber (cat) in Autumn Sun, 3. Autumn cat, 4. Cat in Autumn, 5. cat in autumn, 6. A cat and some autumn leaves, 7. autumn cat, 8. autumn cat, 9. Autumn cat

Regular readers may remember that when I first got here in June and did a quick survey of the exciting attractions in New Milton, I virtually drew a blank, save for one calming oasis in this lifeless desert: Dorcas Coffee Shop.

In actual fact, as you can see from the wording on the facade, it’s a community furniture project and coffee shop, providing furniture to people on benefits, etc., for very low rates. The coffee shop sells local, fair trade and organic products and, mainly draws in a "better class" (IMHO) of like-minded folk.

The official blurb at the New Milton town hall website says:

"Dorcas New Forest based in New Milton is a furniture re-use charity seeking to provide furniture, household and electrical items to those who would not otherwise be able to afford to purchase their own and is open to anyone within the New Forest area on means tested benefits or with a low income.

Another of Dorcas’ primary aims is to promote re-use and recycling of furniture, electrical and household goods within our local community by providing a collection service (£5 collection fee applies).  This has dual benefits by providing a source of items for disadvantaged families and individuals, and by reducing the number of items going to landfill sites."

Their own website doesn’t appear to work (yet, I just volunteered), but the local town hall in New Milton appears to support them here and here.

Dorcas have a warehouse too, but put furniture for sale on display in the coffee shop. This is a wonderful system, because every time you go in there’s a different sofa to lounge on, or dining table to sit round, where you can read the paper (provided by the shop) … and the furniture and price tags are a talking point, getting complete strangers chatting to one another.

The coffee shop format is good for Dorcas, attracting more interest and donations than a mere showroom and warehouse could and, this benefits the "disadvantaged" greatly too, by making more available and giving them a place where they can call in that is supportive and non-judgemental.

The coffee shop also provides paid employment for one (partially disabled) employee: all of the rest of the super-friendly staff are volunteers.

For all of those reasons, along with their excellent quality, comparatively low prices and a loyalty card system that gives me every 11th coffee free, Dorcas has now become an obligatory stop every time I walk into town. 

But … There’s always one, isn’t there?

Someone, whose opinion appears to be fairly representative of the narrow-minded rightwingnuts here, already told me that some locals don’t like this coffee shop, because they feared it would draw "undesirables" - maybe it does, if you count people like me, aging hippies, the disabled and the like.

Their objection alone was enough to make me a loyal Dorcas customer, partly in defiance, but mostly because that tells me it would attract nicer people I’d get on with and would be a place where I could escape the chavs and the many with stiflingly overbearing conservative attitudes and it is.

However, there is the fact, which I mentioned before, that Dorcas is one of many (too many) cafes in New Milton’s high street. Most of the others are just "average": probably once of the "Greasy Spoon" ilk, mostly trying to look like tourist tea rooms these days and, in my opinion, failing miserably at it.

They maybe wouldn’t be too far out of place in Playa de las Américas, but here in New Milton they are laughably out of date and out of step with demand.

To compete, they should pull their socks up and modernize. But do they?

No, it appears not, because the council have received a number of objections against Dorcas’ planning application to retain the use of the premises as a coffee shop and, I’m given to understand that those mostly came from other cafes. So they favour abusive practices, not healthy competition, do they?

And, they seem to be oblivious to the fact that they cater to totally different markets, which is another sign that they have their heads up their bums.

If you’re from this area and care about this, or can see your way to adding your support for any other reason, I would urge you to do so. According to the details online, this case has not yet been decided, but the planning committee meeting date for it is on October 8th, which is Wednesday week.

There’s a petition one can sign (I have already), if you call into Dorcas, otherwise, us members of the public can leave comments on the New Forest District Council’s website. Planning Application - 08/92794, 48 STATION ROAD, NEW MILTON BH25 6JX, refers (which you can find here.)

On that page, you’ll see Public Representations, including Neighbours near the bottom, where you can click a link to be able to make your comments.

So far there seem to be 5 against and 19 in support of the coffee shop (plus mine, which makes it 20, or 4:1 in favour), which superficially, looks like really good news, but I’d love to see them get really overwhelming support.

Apparently, sorting your recyclables is as hard as completing a Sudoku puzzle. (Via: The Good Life) And, I can well believe it too, but refuse to get my head round either of them. It’s also said that, "The average UK family spends the equivalent of one working week a year sorting rubbish into plastic, glass, paper, cardboard and compost."

And you have to ask yourself, why seemingly sane people readily accept this sort of mindless torture. And most do accept it, unquestioningly, because everything is being marketed and packaged as "necessary" as if there’s a war on.

Well, because there’s a war - several wars - on; against waste, against climate change, against terrorists and, it seems to me, against anything and anyone else who’s deemed shifty-eyed and anti-profit here!

At least we haven’t (yet) been issued with wheelie bins in this area, nor are we (yet) being threatened with fines if we throw too much stuff away, but last week, the New Forest District Council (who charge each "average" household around £1,400 a year), sent a letter to all households, vaguely inferring future bad shit upon us - note the irony: a letter, printed on dead trees - because some people had put trash out before the proper time and day.

Despite the "if you didn’t do it, we apologise", mantra that was in the letter, this is still the same as punishing the whole class just because one child is naughty. That was always wrong and an injustice, because not all of the people are, or can be, responsible for the actions of one.

Next they’ll be asking us to rat on each other about refuse "offences" (like they want council workers to stop people for minor offences and members of the public to bitch at smokers, as they already do at dog owners) and such measures can do no good at all in communities that once, were mutually supportive. People have become nastier and less tolerant in Britain since I last lived here and, I fear that this is one more example of social engineering.

Remember, "United we stand, divided we fall". United communities are strong and stand together against bad administrations. They’d rather keep us going for each other’s throats so that they can make us believe we need more rules, more laws, more policing, more CCTV cameras, etc. Accidental? I think not.

The council also say that "Most of the waste goes to the Energy Recovery Facility at Marchwood where it is burnt to generate electricity."

It does what? And WTF kind of marketing bullshit name is an "Energy Recovery Facility" anyway? If they mean a choking chimney, an insidious incinerator, then they aught to have the decency to tell it like it is. Of course, most people actually fall for this crap, which says a lot for the collective intelligence.

Maybe it’s just what I’m reading into it, but they seem to be proud of this use of antiquated methods. Out-of-date ideas are certainly normal around here, but this means we have a council who is either totally ignorant of advances in thinking, or actively does not give a shit and, worse, is happy to let the generally oblivious public believe that this is somehow a good thing.

Recently, a similar incineration system was proposed in another area of the south of England and ecologists there are campaigning to have it stopped.

My Tenerife readers know all about the major objections to incineration.

Apart from not mentioning if the energy generated makes the whole process worthwhile (I’m sure this is not an accidental omission), not just in terms of cost, but of C02 and other emissions of burning compared to landfill:

"As a recent European study shows, when the full extent of carbon emissions coming out of the stack of incinerators are considered, incinerators emit significantly more greenhouse gas emissions for each kWh of electricity generated than coal-fired power plants." (Source, Incinerators vs Zero Waste: Energy and the Climate (PDF)

… moreover, if the local council, by their own admission is burning most of the waste, then why, oh why, do households need to separate the trash into 1001 (give or take) different categories before they take it anyway?

As The Telegraph also ask, Will recycling your rubbish save the planet? 

Wanna know what I think? Not a flamin’ hope, because it’s all a sham.

The Guardian backs me up too (Via: Anorak), for even more reasons:

According to the researchers, people who regularly recycle rubbish and save energy at home are also the most likely to take frequent long-haul flights abroad. The carbon emissions from such flights can swamp the green savings made at home, the researchers claim.

This [unnecessary] demand on the part of the council also creates the utterly ridiculous situation that people have cupboards full different types of trash and different coloured rubbish sacks that would make even the most "balanced" among us appear to have an obsessive compulsive hoarding disorder and, then spend half of their waking hours "processing" garbage.

I’m not even going to begin to explain the weekly "ritual", but among the old, who make up most of the population in this area and, who may have the tendency and, are easily spooked into such sheeplike behaviour, it’s creating a very real problem, because, combined with a lot of time on their hands, this has become a major concern. They really, really fret over it actually.

They also perceive that they don’t have space left in their rabbit-hutch sized homes for useful things, like food and household supplies. So they won’t buy economical sizes, which means they spend more money unnecessarily (ironically, smaller sizes also means more packaging waste) and then they become really quite frighteningly mean and cut back on essentials. 

Even if it’s only a side effect, having people spend such a disproportionate amount of their focus on such mundane matters, does distract people from what’s really going on and I don’t think the authorities mind that at all.

It pisses me off even more that every Thursday, not one, but TWO different refuse trucks come round (yes, double the petrol too) to pick up the different coloured rubbish sacks. Once again, the brainwashed idiots unquestioningly accept and even defend what they’re being told about that need.

Alright, maybe it does need two trucks for the quantity, but how about making that actually useful to the customer, say by having two collections on two different days of the week instead of us having to live knee-deep in shit. But no, we get threatened if we do not conform and they keep threatening to stretch it out to one collection every two weeks. And we pay for this?

The refuse is collected and processed, of course, by different profit-making sub-contractors, not the actual public administration, so the real purpose of separating the refuse (if there is a purpose), starts to emerge.

Then, if you pay an additional annual fee, another one will come round, in a different truck (more gas), on a Monday, to pick up garden refuse.

Does anyone see any environmental benefits here, because I don’t.

Once upon a time, Mr Fluffy (the pussycat, a.k.a Balu), his sister Ms Kitty and myself all set out for a leisurely stroll around the garden. We try to do so most mornings, so there’s nothing terribly strange about it. Well, you may think differently of two cats on leads, but it works fine, as long as they both want to go in the same direction.

Alright, just once or twice they have walked along neatly together, like obedient little dogs and thanks to the "magic" of reflective glass doors, I too was able to see how bloody ridiculous we looked collectively!

Usually, it’s a turmoil of tangled leads and half-escaping cats - because, unlike dogs, you can’t pull the lead to make them fall into step - and the simplest way to cope with it, involves picking up and shoving one under my arm. Not taking cats out on leads at all would be better for my "street cred", but if one must do it, let me tell you that taking cats out one at a time is much easier.

Balu always finishes eating his breakfast first every morning. He then goes and waits by the door, so I used to take him out while Kitty was still eating … Then it began to disturb Kitty so much that she would follow us, yowling through various windows, or sitting by the back door crying loudly.

At first I thought it was because Kitty didn’t want to be separated from her dahling brother and was crying for him. She would start licking him as soon as he came back in through the door … Until a couple of times when I took her out first and Balu afterwards, which did not seem to perturb her at all.

As long as Ms Kitty is put first, she’s a happy bunny, I mean Kitteh.

So she’s just a jealous little self-centred prima donna in a fur coat then.

Manipulative little minx was supposed to be my mother’s cat too!

Now Kitty has it sussed and rushes to the door, eager not to be left out as soon as I get Balu’s harness, so to keep the peace, I take them both. 

But Balu, who is certainly "mummy’s boy", I cannot deny, would make Garfield look hyperactive by comparison. Recently, he’s gone back to that stage of cat walking, where said animal does a fair, if completely useless, impression of a "legless" floor mop. Previously, he was strutting his stuff all round the neighbourhood, now he often just lies down and doesn’t budge.

Not even with a strategically placed foot (gently, but firmly) up his tail end.

So, maybe it was fortunate that I was carrying Balu (who also does a good impression of a sack of potatoes with fur on when you pick him up), that day when we got round the other side of the garden, just in time to watch a grey squirrel dancing around at the back of the yellowy, fuzzy bush.

Kitty spotted the tantalizing display though, as the squirrel exited, stage right, making off quickly in the direction of the garden wall, which it was up and over in a trice …

… and Kitty forgot she was on a lead, as she tried to take off in pursuit of it.

So much for all the nocturnal squirrel watching from windowsills, because lazy Balu made no move to get out of my arms as we ran after it. I mean, as I ran behind Kitty, comically. Because, had I not done so, the strain on the lead might have been enough for her to escape out of that.

Cats don’t forget though. The next times I took Kitty out (sometimes I take her out on her own while Balu is under the covers, snoring), she was straight up the particular bit of the wall where Squirrel Nutkin had gone.

Both kitty cats keep sniffing up the back of that bush. I’ve looked, but can’t find any squirrelly Home-Sweet-Home signs inside.

Yesterday, when I was out with Kitty and she was poking her nose up under the holly bank, there was a sudden noise of scuttling as something inside was disturbed by our presence.

Clearly, the squirrels live very close as they dart back and forth inches from the house, every day. Do they know what danger they could be in?

Nevertheless, the squirrel population is safe for the foreseeable, because the signs of normality (well, we don’t really do "normal") and confidence are still not frequent enough to trust either of the cats to go out on their own.

Balu’s regression to timidness seems to be because visiting neighbourhood cats (including one from next door), sit on our back step looking in through the glass door and the poor little wimp cries his eyes out and trembles!

His howling isn’t particularly funny at 2 a.m. either, but it’s been since these visits have become more frequent that Balu has started to become reluctant to go out for walks. Not just his refusal to move his arse once he’s outside, but sometimes he quivers or runs away and hides when he sees the harness.

Even when they appear perfectly happy to go out, both cats are still very jumpy and easily spooked by any strange movements or noises and indoors, both still spend most of their days hiding under the bedcovers.

Actually, this hardly seems like we’ve made any progress at all. 

Mr Fluffy the squirrel photo by haloocyn

This really has nothing at all to do with blind furry animals, but trust me, you really don’t want me to post an accurate photo to go with this post.

You expected that the process of mole removal was maybe not quite carnage, but was never going to be quite as simple as "advertised", didn’t you?

Naively, I thought it couldn’t be that bad either, but even I hadn’t fully taken my ability to suffer side effects and react badly to things into account.

Actually, the whole thing was quite disturbing in a way, because I turned up for my appointment with the nurse, who merely asked me if I’d seen the doctor about the moles. I told her that I had (because I had), explained that he had looked at them with his special tool and declared them harmless, but  suggested I make this appointment for their removal, so here I was.

And with that, she just started zapping them with the freeze gun.

This is all very well, since I am honest, but I made the appointment myself, via reception, merely saying that I had discussed this with the doctor and the nurse did the treatment, merely on my say so. Incredible, huh?

Anyway, the nurse did warn me that they would be sore, but it’s been well beyond that. For the first couple of days I felt like I had first degree burns and the pain made me hot and sick. I went back to the doctors’ surgery and spoke to another nurse in the treatment centre, because the pain wasn’t dying down at all, but all she could suggest was that I take paracetamol, which would have been about as useful as a chocolate teapot, given the severity.

The pharmacist suggested I take Ibuprofen at the same time and I’ve had to, popping pills like Smarties over the last few days and, while this has still had scant effect on the soreness, has rendered me frequently comatose.

Meanwhile, the moles are darker than they used to be, one or two have red rings, but otherwise, for all the nasty burning, don’t actually seem to be doing anything yet. They’re certainly showing no signs of wanting to drop off as they apparently should and, now I’m wondering how long this is going to take.

The worst of it is because most of them are around my middle, so that until the soreness goes, I can’t even wear clothes - slouching around in pyjamas at well below half-mast is one thing at home - certainly not if I have to walk miles with them rubbing and chafing and, it’s a 1.1 mile walk each way just to get to the chemist or the doctor, so this is decidedly more than inconvenient.

Photo: wendylee03

No, that’s not a swear word, thought it probably should be, because fruxaffigology has been suggested as a generic name for fruit and veg label collecting.

Why anyone would want to collect fruit and veg labels, I don’t know. There are stranger hobbies, I suppose, but I reckon it’s right up there with train-spotting and nose-picking on the cool and trendiness index and, truth is, I’m sick and tired of having to pry stickers off every fruit before I can use it.

It’s bad enough when it’s apples or something you might expect to consume one at a time, but the other day, I removed no less than 14 labels off 16 plums (and, before you point it out, yes I do think there’s something ironically peculiar about someone who stands and counts the things, let alone collects them.) On plums, where you’d be sure to eat or cook several at once, this is a complete waste of time and energy (theirs and mine) and resources.

All this useless labelling and packaging is for what? So we can throw it away to create more refuse (PDF) that has to be separated, go in landfill, get burnt and either way, gives off more gasses than politicians generate hot air?

For another thing, I do not want to eat sticky label glue residue, thank you.

But doesn’t anyone see the contradiction here? We’re being terrorized over waste in the UK and yet we seemingly cannot avoid this epidemic of etiquetas (labels to you: the plums were Spanish, Villacruz) and plague of packaging.  

And it’s not just some things that are packaged, it is nearly everything: there’s noticeably much more packaging here than there was in the stores in Tenerife. In some stores, the only thing you see is rows and rows of conveniently pre-packaged goods. Even the "fresh" produce comes bagged, though the only thing it is conveniently pre-packaged for is supermarket profits, IMHO.

To allow the supermarkets to continue with these abusive practices is to condone waste; waste of food, waste of money, waste of resources.

It’s no wonder British consumers can’t tell the difference between healthy food and junk either, because packaged, from the outside, it all looks the same;  very little of it tastes fresh and wholesome, just bland and manufactured.

Recently, I wanted some large potatoes for baking. Just a couple would have been fine, but do you think I could find any loose? Nah, the least was a pre-packaged bag of four uniform medium-large potatoes, ready washed.

Things sweat in those bags, which, even if they’re unpacked and dried when you get them home, often go manky before you can use them, yet in Tenerife, I was used to buying - or being given - sack loads of loose, local muddy things and they would last ages in perfect condition, even in the warm climate.

What is going on with produce in the UK?

Pondering the possible reasons has turned up very little that makes sense, but here carrots go limpid and spuds go spongy in a couple of days. Packaged or not, "fresh" produce in the supermarkets seems to be wet, as though it’s been refrigerated and that also seems to speed up it’s deterioration, which again seems to me like a deliberate ploy to sell more, more often.

Of course, a wet summer where it almost never stopped raining, where there was a heavy "Autumnal" dew on the grass every morning, right through June, July, August and September and, where, on a relatively warm and sunny and certainly rain-free day, humidity was still at 94%, probably doesn’t help!

A worldwide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was:

"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure because …

In Africa they didn’t know what "food" meant.
In Eastern Europe they didn’t know what "honest" meant.
In Western Europe they didn’t know what "shortage" meant.
In China they didn’t know what "opinion" meant.
In the Middle East they didn’t know what "solution" meant.
In South America they didn’t know what "please" meant.
And in the USA they didn’t know what "the rest of the world" meant.

Supposed to be a joke. Should be just over-generalized steriotypes. I reckon Western Europe is heading fast towards finding out what shortage means, but what hope is there that the US will ever nod to "the rest of the world"?

Stolen from the humor archives and 1001 other locations online.

OneWebDay is an Earth Day for the internet.

The idea behind OneWebDay is to focus attention on a key internet value (this year, online participation in democracy), focus attention on local internet concerns (connectivity, censorship, individual skills), and create a global constituency that cares about protecting and defending the internet. 

So, think of OneWebDay as an environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem. It’s a platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet’s future.

OneWebDay is a day when users of the World Wide Web are encouraged to show how the Internet affects their lives. It is held on September 22.

Find out more: OneWebDay | Official website | Via: Mashable

The International Day of Peace ("Peace Day") provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations to create practical acts of peace on a shared date. It was established by a United Nations resolution in 1981 to coincide with the opening of the General Assembly. The first Peace Day was celebrated in September 1982.

The International Day of Peace is on September 21st of each year and calls for a full day of peace and ceasefire throughout the world.

International Day of Peace | International Day of Peace website

"You are a fairly interesting person. Many people find you to be intriguing. You have a dynamic, adventurous life … a life that others envy. You are genuinely interested in and open to the world. You love making new friends, and you’re always up for an unusual experience. Like everyone else, you can get a bit boring from time to time. That’s normal. But unlike everyone else, you can pull yourself out of a rut."

(Believe me, that last one is getting harder to pull off!)

Are You Boring or Interesting?

Interesting that bit about "… a life that others envy." Of course, I’d counter that if anyone actually tried living my life, they’d soon have a very different idea of it and wouldn’t envy me at all, but it seems very relevant.

more animals

I love goats, which tended to be a good idea when I was living in a valley filled with hundreds of them, had friends who kept goats (and made terrific cheese), but long before that I’d joked that a goat would come in handy to keep the weeds down in the garden. Those who laughed at the idea, see dis.

Every day in the late afternoon in Tenerife, you come across herds of goats, but it took lots of walks to meet the goats in a local pen before my daft dog would no longer bark at them (she was no better with horses and a lot worse with other dogs, but that’s a whole other story.) Whenever I took her to see the goats, an entourage of cats (her adopted kids) would follow us too.

Betty climbed the 3 meter wire fence and wasn’t so certain about meeting goats in person once one chased her around the perimeter of the field.

But my favourite memory is from the first time Cleo (my little shadow and then queen of the feline troop) came with us. She was not exactly that sociable with other critters normally, so it was the more surprising and touching to see her standing up on hind legs at the fence, nose to nose with a goat kid.

My good friend Natalia, who kept goats, made cheese and was usually followed around the valley by her own entourage of cats, died, at the far too young age of only 47, at 7 p.m. on May 3rd, 2001. How I can still remember so clearly, is because I remember exactly where I was at that very moment: with Holly, rescuing three kittens, two of whom are with me in the UK. Cleo had kidney and liver problems, so I had to end her suffering in 2004. This year, in June, I had to leave Betty (and Mico) behind in Tenerife and had say goodbye to Holly, my beautiful dog and best friend. Too soon and not by choice.

As a result, all of these memories have turned bitter-sweet. I miss so many friends, the other cats, my dog, the goats. I miss the walks, wild fruit, nature, mountains and fresh air. I miss them all so much it hurts. And in their place is just emptiness that makes my heart ache beyond anything I can bear.