Airbag Dilemma.

                                   

Airbags are there for your safety; right?

A few evenings ago we had some Australian friends around, who might question this presumption.

There they were, a few hundred metres from home, driving along in their Fiat Multipla, when the passenger side airbag suddenly burst into life for no apparent reason. It knocked C sideways, and the bruising on her arm was spectacular (I didn't get to see the worst of her bruises for reasons of decency).

OK, they were simply driving through their village very slowly, and P managed to pull-up without incident, but imagine had the same thing happened on a motorway, or in heavy traffic. The consequences could have been disastrous.

My first thought was for 'compensation'; take bloody Fiat to the cleaners! The bag was obviously faulty, and the fault lies with Fiat. The car was fully certificated 'road worthy', and no collision was responsible for the bag's inflation. It was Fiat's fault; full stop!

Our current Compact Royce is the first car I've owned that has airbags, and I'm now wondering if they'll one day explode for no discernible reason, leaving me with an arm that similarly resembles a 'Cherry and Prune Spotted Dick'.

I've never been a 'run to the lawyers for compensation' type of person, but in this particular case C definitely deserves a financial apology.

If you have experience of such things, or just an opinion, I'd be very happy to hear them.

The Boys Go Walkabout.

So, what did my little Aussie grandsons get up to when they were over in the UK!
                               

GHG: Excuse me Mr Plod; but we're lost!

PC Plod: And what do you expect ME to do about it, Sunshine?

GHG: Take us home?

PC Plod: Which is where?

Finn: OR-STRY-LIA.

PC Plod: What, you want me to take you all the way back to Australia?

GHG: No, Silly; to our home here!

PC Plod: What's that 'PEYROT' written on your T shirts? Is that a hotel or something?

GHG: No, it's where our Grumpy lives.

PC Plod:  (studying his Brighton map) I can't find any 'PEYROT' around here.

GHG: No, Silly: it's in France.

PC Plod: What, you want me to take you all the way back to France then?

Finn: Look, can you just take us home.

PC Plod: If I knew where your home was; frankly, I'd be only too pleased to.

GHG: You stupid Pommy bastard; it's just round the corner, where all those women are shrieking, bawling, and tearing their hair out!

(The naughty boys got their ride in a Police Car, were returned, and are now spending a week or so in Langkawi, Malasia; on their way back to Oz; sigh!)

What's Cro up to now?

Up at the barn, there's one particular beam that is being slowly (actually, quite quickly) eaten away by insects. It's right up under the roof, so not easy, for the moment, to reach. 

The simple solution seemed to be these insecticide smoke bomb things. Light blue touch paper and retire!

Underneath the ring-pull lid was a wick and lots of surrounding loose white powder. I followed the instructions, and lit up.

The can instantly bellowed smoke; there was only just enough time for me to descend the ladder, take a professional photo, and run hot-foot for the door.

Will it work; I have no idea. I lit the beast directly below the infested beam, and seeing that smoke gets into every tiny crevice, I'm hoping for great things. The proof will be (in a few days time) if there's any more fine 'sawdust' on the ground beneath the offending beam; I'm crossing my fingers that there won't be. If the little buggers were all holding their breaths, I shan't be pleased.

The tin advises that I don't venture back before 6 hours have passed..... I think I might give it a bit more!

Pukka Toms, at last!

Our Tomatoes are now producing. The back of the tag (below) says 'Enormous fruits over 500 gms, excellent flavour, variety resistant and vigorous'. They got it right!

The variety is rather poorly named 'Supersteak', but I'll forgive the lack of imagination because the description is correct. This is one of those solid, no watery interior, type of fruits. 

I like them best just sliced, with a dressing of crushed garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and basil. Below was supposed to be how the above tomato finished-up last night (on a pizza), but I forgot to take the photo. Instead here is Lady Magnon's (extremely wine blurred) mixed fruit salad.....

Happy Cro; Wood delivery 2013.

It's warm, it's dry, and it's almost Autumn. What better time to deliver our wood. We already have about 12 cubic metres in stock.

This load is 3 year old Chestnut. Good chunky sized 2 metre logs that should see us through to 2014/15, if not beyond.

My neighbour Claude will deliver another load, roughly the same as the above. There are about 8 cubic metres in all; I do like to have a good stock. He says he'll deliver our 8 cubic metres of Oak later on towards Winter.

All this wood definitely deserves a new blade for the chain saw; what LUXURY!

And here is the finished pile; there's some pretty hefty stuff in there. For the moment I'll just cover it with a tarpaulin, and cut it up next year (unless we need it sooner).

Grass (not THAT sort).

Just two months ago we were sitting outside, in the early evening, commenting on how beautiful our lawn was.

We have never sown grass here, it's just meadow grass that has been mowed and mowed until it resembled something akin to a lawn.

This year it excelled; it was thick, lush, and dark green, with no bare patches or obvious areas of weeds. It was a pukka 'lawn'.

But just look at it now; what a bloody mess. No rain for weeks, leaves beginning to fall, and bare patches appearing all over.

No rain on the horizon, and still about 27C every day; I bloody despair.

Beware, Cat at Work.

Cats aren't there just to look pretty, they have a serious job to do.

So here is Freddie hard at work. He's been on night patrol when everything's as quiet as a mouse; well, as quiet as this one anyway (actually it looks like a Vole).

It's still dark outside, and I nearly trod on the wretched thing. Thank you Fred! 

Addendum: Someone has just published a list of the UK's favourite jokes; this was amongst them...

'I was in the park when I came across a front row ticket to a Justin Bieber concert nailed to a tree. I took it down and kept it; you never know when a nail will come in handy'.