The New World Order

I found this article a very fascinating read! I hope you find it as interesting as I did :)

Rotten Luck?

I have never had such a run bad luck, in the last few weeks I have had nothing but bad news! I have had a nightmare with my job, I am now un-employed and £2300 out of pocket and taking them to court. The dog -my livelihood- has been sick, my pet hedgehog died and I've had a string of minor dramas and injuries. One example is when I got caught in the rain, broke the heel of my shoe, emptying the contents of my handbag and losing my phone. I've also had concussion from a blow to my head and a sprained wrist not to mention the IBS from the stress. All of this whilst DH is away on operations, he is just as un-happy as me and I have to play sunshine to cheer him up whilst I'm pulling my hair out struggling to cope at home on my own.

This has led me to think about luck and how we perceive it. There are many philosophers that have opinions on it but I dont count myself amoung them. It takes one thing to put you down, the more things you let knock you down the lower you get and the worse things become. You may end up in the gutter but it only takes one little thing to start you back into the good graces of lady luck and it seems as if by magic your fortunes have changed. Maybe that one little thing I need to boost me back up can be me? by not letting rotten things bother me? Only focus on the positives they say, and there is always a silver lining.

It isn't really rotten luck when all those things happened, one thing leads to another. I was dis-organised and late to a solicitors appointment, it was raining and I didn't have a brolly so I ran over the wet cobble stones to stop my silk blouse from getting ruined . . . the result was something from a rom-com movie. It was a rubbish movie, I want my money back.

Hamper Time

I am looking forward to putting together half a dozen Christmas hampers as gifts this year and although its a bit early to get into the spirit that is exactly what I'm doing :)

I'll get baskets and a holly fabric to line them with, filled with lots of treats like local honey, home made Christmas pud and a selection of home grown preserves. I am looking forward to trying my own mint sauce and onion chutney ^_^

I have a selection of these already maturing in the cupboard but I'll need to split them up into smaller jars to make sure everyone get something and I am saving the smallest jars I can find for the jams. I need plenty of pickle or small (baby food) jars if you want some free samples! Unfortunately I recently lost my job but on a positive note it means I have a few weeks free to get most of this done : D

Also if 2 of our hens dont start laying again soon there will be a free range chicken in there for our parents as well! EEeeekk!

King Maker

I love RPGs and also action adventure games so when I first played Fable I loved it. Its a beautifully rendered game with exciting features and unique moral consequences. A few years later and I am still thoroughly enjoying the franchise and eagerly anticipate the new game later this year.

With Fabel III's realise date set for 29th October there is a pre-order treat for us on the lion-head website, pre-order with them and you get to design a villager that will be used in game : ) You decided the area they were born and live in, the way they speak, what they wear and thanks to a little quiz you can also define their "personality".

Along with the villager feature there is also a mobile game called King Maker. Its essentially a capture the flag game were you use a system similar to geo-caching to "log in" at locations to earn in game money, much like the a simular feature in the previous games :)

Veg growing . . .

. . . has not been so good this year. I had staggered crops of vegtables planted in the back garden for us to enjoy eating throughout the summer but because of the damp heat (28-32) a lot of the veg has failed. The peas barely garmented, struggled to produce flowers and only gave half a dozen pods and the beans also struggled to keep up with the weather. Strawberries also failed to produce a good amount of fruit, and even those few were small and odd shaped. Raspberries did a little better but still not ideal.

The other plants are doing well, I suspect another bumper crop of chillis, with the exception of some strange moth eaten leaves - quite possibly actually being eaten by moths!


The onions are doing brilliantly and the carrots are looking good too but both are slow growers, although I think the first set of onions will need much longer before they are ready. I am disappointed by the quick crop failure, and I'm still buying fresh produce from the supermarket :(

Pirate treasure under New York?

Whilst working at the ground zero site of the twin towers in New York diggers found something interesting last tuesday — the 10-meter hull of an old ship!

The New York Times reports:

"The vessel was probably used along with other debris to fill in land to extend lower Manhattan into the Hudson river, archaeologists have said. It was hoped the artefact could be retrieved by the end of today, said archaeologist Molly McDonald. A boat specialist was going to the Ground Zero site to examine the find. McDonald said she wanted to at least salvage some timbers; it was unclear if any large portions could be lifted intact. "We're mostly clearing it by hand because it's fragile," she said. A 45kg (100lb) metre long anchor was found a few yards from the hull on Wednesday but the experts are not sure if it belongs to the ship. The archaeologists are racing to record and analyse the vessel before exposure to air makes the delicate wood deteriorate."

More from the NYT, including photos.