Saturday 8 February 2014

Without doubt

I can say, hand on heart, that today I experienced the heaviest, wettest, coldest rainfall of my 49 and three quarters life. The rubbish photo shows, almost, the puddles gathering in the fields, the lane is nearly washed away (areas that I didn't repair) water almost knee deep by the gateway to the world (hence me in wellies at a funeral this afternoon) (actually I had shoes but left them at the cottage) and a huge tree has fallen over, a combination of high winds and water logged soil, its fell on where we buried Aunt Montana.
Fitting weather for a funeral, actually a memorial service for a friend who died just over a week ago. A sad loss, especially as he was only 53 and having led a fit active blameless life was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer 5 months ago. He was one of the 97% who did not make it past 6 months from diagnosis. This summer I am focusing my fund raising back on raising money for cancer research, prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer. I have several events lined up for which I will be bothering people for sponsorship. These include  a non stop (except toilet stops and bacon sarnies) 180 mile bike ride 28 April, the BBMC 2014  May 17th, and the big one, the 3 peaks challenge with 450 mile bike ride in between all completed in 72 hours or less. That dates to be confirmed. Lets hope the weather improves so I can train.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tony.

You perhaps recall my ancient Jotul stove, black and ugly but in my eyes beautiful. I bit the bullet late last year and had the chimney lined as opposed to a bit of pipe stuffed through a hastily cut sheet of galvanised. And I also had a butterfly damper fitted.
Transformation! Hardly burns any wood and the heat output I reckon has doubled. The kettle boils very 20 mins!

JJ

Anonymous said...

Ugh. Soggy.

I think we are about to get your weather this weekend: of course, just as I was finishing the bed and looking forward to garden projects...