House dreaming

One of the things Wife and I crossed a third of the world to do, apart from bring Wife back to her homeland, was to build a family home for the generations to come. Not just any home mark you, but a mostly self sufficient house with non-dependent heating systems, water, electrical power etc to keep me and mine safe and snug, even if the rest of the world went to hell in a handbasket.

There are others who have tried this approach with their 'back to nature' model with such measures as earth closets. I like my plumbing a little more sophisticated, and while crossing Canada was reminded of the noisome horror of such toilets in the height of summer. Besides, I want it to be a place I am happy to admit guests to, and don't want them going home with stories about 'roughing it'. I've done my share of sleeping under hedgerows, in sheds, and smoky, poky little rooms, and quite frankly that's for masochists. My thoughts circulate around a well constructed and insulated shell with an open plan feel about it. That and a comfortable bed to sleep in at night.

To this end, Wife and I have spent months poring over house designs, studying issues like 'passive solar heating', air circulation, power generation and heating. All of the aforementioned appear at the moment of writing to be little more than partial solutions. Especially just above the 49th parallel. More research is needed.

Busy day ahead

Dog was fretting all last night. I think we had bloody raccoons on the roof by the sound of the chittering I heard around four am this morning.

Any old how, lot to do today. Bills to pay, money to bank. If I can squeeze in a haircut this morning I'll be lucky.

Must get some extra candy in for Halloween. Just in case. The health fascists are saying 'no candy' and give out balloons etc instead. I think we'd be better off getting rid of these pundits rather than the trick or treat.

The tap still leaks by the way.

Not forgetting to write

While Wife is in England I have been hitting the keyboard with a vengeance and have resurrected a project I thought had stalled for good. It was half way through and the narrative had a mildly compelling feel, just that the characters felt a bit cardboardy. After a re-read and a bit of adjustment, they feel fresh and more real, as does the backstory. Did over 1500 words yesterday.

It's the wrong project of course, but the 'funny' I'm supposed to be working on just isn't amusing right now. I need Wife to look at it and hear her laughing to be sure I'm wired in to the humorous thread, otherwise I tend to lose track.

To cap it all that blasted faucet is still dripping. Stuff it, I'm off out to pay some bills and get my hair cut. I can't hang around for others all day.

Front window

There are times I love the view from our front window and this is one of many I've seen today. Apart from sitting up from six every morning to watch the sun rise over the Strait of Georgia, apart from the Quail, apart from the Roebuck and every patch of blue sky that makes me smile.

A double rainbow of such vivid quality it could have been painted on the clouds. Pity my camera doesn't have the widescreen option and then I could have gotten the whole lot in a picture. Regrettably it was only a fleeting phenomenon, and I was so busy going 'wow' that I missed the best part of it.

Neighbours came over to help deal with our leaky faucet, but to no avail. The valve is on the way out and it needs a replacement. With the roto-rooter mans current performance it'll be past Christmas before it's fixed.

Water torture

Ever since we moved in here three weeks ago we've been plagued by a leaky faucet. Now we aren't talking about drips every thirty seconds, more like a continuous dribble that can fill a one pound margerine tub inside two minutes. Plumber (Rota-Rooter man) came out last week and left saying he needed to get some 'parts' which would take a week to arrive. Landlady is annoyed, we're annoyed that something like a dripping tap takes over three weeks to fix. To be honest I think the whole fitting needs replacement.

At the moment it's unseasonably warm. 14 to 16 Celsius. In Canada? In late October?

Minor problem with Internet connection. Shaw cable (Whose customer service is quite good over here) are coming out to check the signal strength. They are billing me for a 5meg connection, and are quite keen that I should stay their cusotmer. I'm good with that.

House price in UK has been cut by another 10K to see if it will sell at that price. Wife is currently up in Leeds with stepdaughters. I'm missing her and counting the days. Roll on a week on Sunday.

Have updated the blog to include a few newsfeeds from the UK broadsheet dailies and some interesting wildlife movies off YouTube. It will stop me getting bored while things are slowly rolling into place.