The Stress of Moving House

I have now moved & yes there may have been the usual worries & some minor irksome situations but we seem to have not had the the nightmare scenarios that some people that we know have had. Are we lucky or just too chilled out? We have not argued, bitched or sniped, yes the djembe that I bought Richrd which was one of the first or if not the first got broken after Richard put his thumb through it, but things get broken & it can either be fixed or replaced. I had mislaid my binoculars & got despondant over them until Rich looked in a box that I could have sworn I hadn't packed them in, but obviuosly had. The cats are probably the ones who were most stressed by the move though as they hid when the removals people came & didn't emerge from behind the sofas in the new place for about 24 hours. Most of the stuff is now moved & the cats are now exploring. All the boxes are unpacked & now all we have to do is get the last couple of things from the previous house & give it a good clean. Not bad for a week's  work & the new place is feeling homely already, though we do need to get used to the quirks of the house. Like the alarm that goes off for no apparent reason on a thankfully rare occurence & the fact that there are power surges & the washing machine needs to be moved so the pipe will fit better & not leak & getting the boiler which is thankfully still under warrantee sorted as it drips. But thankfully nothing too major has happened. There has been some stress as my eczema has made an appearance on my forehead, but generally quite happy with the move as it is closer to family & some of my friends, although I do miss some of my old neighbours already.

Clearing Out the Rubbish

This not a metaphor, it is not until you are moving house do you realise how much rubbish you accrue, having a good sort out just proves this. We have 2 Christmas trees we discovered when clearing out the loft & it appears we have been using the scrattier looking one. I also cleared out the medicine cupboard to find that half of the remedies were out of date. We have had 3 charity shop runs with various items & then when it comes to packing up the stuff you do want it fills way more boxes than you expect. I have been brutal with the cull of random items that we don't need but still we have loads. Why do we accrue so much? I'm drowning in a sea of boxes. I'm keeping this post short due to needing to get cracking with packing & tidying. Take care & I shall post from the new house.

Be Kind to All Life, Become Vegan?

This is not an attack on veganism or vegetarianism just a question which I have wanted to ask for a while & would like to know an answer to. A friend on facebook recently put a post up about the blatant disregard for life within the poultry rearing industry, isn't it time you went vegan? Which also lead me to remember a sign on a vegan march in Birmingham which had a sign saying 'Be Kind To All Life Become Vegan'. Now I'm not arguing that farming practises in this day & age are all fine & dandy & the animals don't suffer at all, in fact the opposite rings true, I think all people should rely a little less on eating animals & then perhaps then with a change in that habit we would be more able to keep animals in a more humane way. My argument falls like this, a blatant disregard to all life surely should encompass that of plants, just because they can't talk does not mean they can't communicate, they have pheromones for that & they do respond to each other, acacia trees let other trees know that there are giraffes nearby so they can produce a chemical that will make their leaves unpalatable for the giraffe if it decides that the acacia that it is feeding on has gone too bitter so will try to wonder to another to continue feasting on. Plants suffer, if you pick a bean, courgette, chilli or tomato off a plant, it will grow another, not because it wants to, but needs to to survive, essentially harvesting fruit is committing abortion in the plant world. Blanching vegetables, is starving them of light, which helps provide some of its food therefore malnourishing the plant, just so chicory, rhubarb, dandelions etc don't taste quite so bitter. Then there is the cut & come again salad crops which suffer from a regular disembowelling by removing their leaves. So is this being kind to all life? Or is this if it doesn't make a sound, it doesn't count as it must be a lesser being?

Death

Samhain is almost upon us so lets talk about death. Halloween isn't just about getting dressed up as scary things like vampires, ghouls & Anne Widdecombe. For the likes of us it is a time to honour those who have gone before us, those who are directly related to us, our friends, those who have fought for our rights & the ancestors from time immemorial. It is this time that it is said that the veil between this world & the spirit world are at its thinnest. This maybe be because at this time it was a time when creatures that could not be fed over winter were culled & stored. That the winter was a time for the weak if they got ill would be less likely to survive. To that we are not entirely sure, but any of the suggestions are kind of plausible. One thing is for certain that very few of the customs of old are still practised today, not many families leave an extra portion of food for a deceased relative, not many pay homage to the dead at all they just like to have a party & dress up, though I don't have too much of a problem with that if they make an effort with their costume. So whatever you are doing this Halloween remember a loved one past. Now we should not be afraid of death we should embrace, it is inevitable, though I'm in great hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil, I will not fear it when it comes.

Finding Unexpected Things

I'm starting to get ready to move house which means getting rid of a whole load of rubbish but whilst doing so I sound some lost 'treasures' including a an old Seal of Solomon of mine, a ring that no longer fits & a Hagstone, so what will I find next & what to do with them next. Freecycle or charity shops next. I'm also finding small change which will go in the new vacuum fund. Old bank statements & payslips are going to be shredded & either recycled or burnt. This is going to be interesting. I see a clothing cull & a book cull too.

Unicorns are not real! well sort of

A 'facebook friend' of mine posted up a very realistic 'photo' of a unicorn, to which someone replied is that real? I almost head butted the computer table in disbelief. I didn't realise that some people could be that gullible, but then why should I be? I once said me hoodie was lined with genuine yeti fur & I got a "really" in response. Unicorns are a misunderstanding of what was being seen, the most likely candidate for the unicorn is the extremely rare Arabian oryx an antelope from the Middle East which is where the first unicorns were reported to have lived, they have 2 horn but if the lose one in a fight it doesn't grow a replacement. The Indian version of such a beast was the karkadan which is mistranslation of what people saw when the encountered an Indian Rhino, which possibly is one explanation of it's scientific name of rhinoceros unicornis. The same way that the centuar is what happened when a none horse riding civilisation saw people riding on horseback & early explorers who met a phoenix fowl came back with the notion of the phoenix. As to what a yeti is I have no idea, perhaps the indigenous race wearing fur, a person playing pranks I have no idea. So go against the juorney song & do stop believing otherwise you will sound foolish

Gay Marriage Rights, Cures & the Tory Support

So this old chestnut again, sorry for revisiting a subject again, but the Tories are in town & along with it so has homophobia. Tories want to not be seen as the nasty party then don't have hate spouting politicians it's a simple equation. There have been conferences against gay marriages & one for gay cures. George Carey former Arch Bishop of Canterbury said allowing gay marriage will lead to a Nazi Germany style state, lets look at this so if gay people get marriage rights, gay people will be asking to be be hated, tortured, held in concentration camps & be gassed, along with Jews, Liberal Politicians, disabled people & Romany Gypsies? Yeah I'm pretty much sure that is not what voting for equal marriage is not going to do that to Britain's society, promoting inequality to keep down the people who aren't flavour of the month does that.

Gay 'cures' are a curious thing, seeing as though being gay is not an illness, it is more like being left handed or being able to roll your tongue. How can your cure something like that, brainwashing someone into being heterosexual when they are not would lead someone into lying about who they really are & last I checked Christianity dishonesty was frowned upon, so why are the radicals pushing it, it is one of the things that is turning people away from the church, not encouraging them, so please stop putting money in chasing phlogiston & put your money to good use like HIV treatments in Africa or anti malarial drugs in the third world & making poverty history. We did not chose to be gay we are just making the best of our lives with what we have got & trying to live our lives as decent honest people.