The red dot marks where our house is; the study window next to my computer screen looks due north. Some fifteen minutes ago, an ambulance and a fire engine drove past on the north-south road leading into the housing area just north and east of here. Five minutes later, two more fire engines followed. All had their sirens on. Something bad has happened, I fear — but nothing in the local rag about it yet. . . No smell of smoke when I open the windows, though. I wonder if maybe a tree has fallen down on a house.

[edited to add: No - it was a fire. A big one, and I think the house was severely damaged, but at least nobody got hurt in it.]

Labels: house or garden, personal

 
We have a piano! Yay! The cats are surprised but not disapproving, and Johan plays really well (at least in comparison to how useless he's always claimed to be at it...) Now I have another project: to learn to play the piano, at least a little bit. The French-learning project moves forward very slowly, but I know considerably more than I did 3 weeks ago which is something.

Johan got a video from Dave Lally in the mail today (but my tickets to France didn't arrive, hmph); it contains 3 episodes of a British comedy show called "Give my head peace" -- I'd never heard of it before but we intend to watch it tonight so I'll be in a position to review it anon.

Labels: house or garden, personal

 
We got rid of the birch that was standing too close to the house; its roots probably went into the drainage from our house which is a Bad Thing. Dad was over with the power saw and had it down in a jiffy; we'll have plenty of firewood from that tree once we cut it up and cleave the logs! The fumes from the power saw invoked my childhood -- so many good memories of working in the forest returning! Feeling like professional house owners now. After all we've lived here for almost seven months.

We keep making new discoveries in the garden, too. The red mushrooms coming up in the strawberry patch are rhubarblings! Not quite as cool as if they had been The Shooting Star (Tin-Tin) type fungi but much nicer on the whole.

Labels: house or garden, personal