I'm a big rugby (UNION!!!) fan.
I don' t know why. Football is a great game; incredibly skillful, beautiful to watch, exciting, entertaining. But I just think that football players are rude and obnoxious in comparison, there's the minority of violent fans, and these external factors often ruin my enjoyment of the game.
Rugby is a game for thugs, but, even in the professional version, they remain polite and respectful throughout and the players are humble and intelligent. Plus, it's MORE beautiful to watch when played well, MORE exciting and MORE entertaining.
Only my opinions of course.
So...without a club to watch (Swindon Supermarine anybody?) I get very excited when the 6 Nations comes around each year and this year has been no exception, especially as England seem to be pulling themselves up a bit after their dismal first half of the World Cup last year.
I've been thinking recently about the big famous guy - Jonny Wilkinson. A while back, after winning the World Cup in 2003, he was injured a LOT and whenever he tried to come back to the game he got injured again. I was really thinking that his career was over.
And here he is, kicking the points that win games for England again, breaking points records, charging into wince-inducing tackles, and chucking the ball around like gravity doesn't exist. How did he get from there to here?
I've had a lot of injuries and illness lately and I'm recovering from that myself. And, I can tell you, it feels great. But at the time it was really hard on me and a lot of that was psychological.
I believe that a big part of Wilkinson's recovery is psychological. When he speaks about it, Wilkinson says that his kicking is all about his mental focus and I believe that he applied that to his recovery. In the same way he pictures the ball going between the posts from 50 metres, he pictures himself being well, recovering and playing again. And it's not just me - even the 6 Nations commentators have been talking a lot about his incredible "self belief".
I'm quite inspired by this. I know that a lot of my recovery was actually thinking I was better. Yes, I believe that God helped with my psychological process (there's a LOT of encouraging words to boost your self-esteem in the Bible), and I hope that I'm mentally a bit tougher for having gone through it. But I also see how important it is that we think positively, even when we're in pain or distress.
Having said all of that, tomorrow is the final day of this year's six nations, and I don't think any about of positive thinking on behalf of myself or Jonny Wilkinson will reduce the number of points that Wales and France have. We've no way to win.
Perhaps if I start thinking about 6 Nations 2009 now...
Friday, March 14, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Simple things
Some of this DIY stuff is so much more complicated than it looks.
After a hint from a friend of ours who came for dinner a while back, we decided to finally put proper locks on our bathroom doors. Well, not locks, but little sliding latches.
"Easy", I thought. Jusy buy 'em, from B&Q, fix one bit to the door and another bit to the frame and Bob's your uncle!
Not so! Did you know that there are two types of simple sliding latch? I didn't!
The first one went on fine. More fluke than anything.
I got the first bit of the second one on and then suddenly realised that it was not going to work. I had to go and buy another latch of a slightly different type!
A quick explanation. It all depends on which side of the door you're on. From one side a door closes agains the frame. I'll call this the "outside" of the door. When the door is closed it sits behind a chunk of wood. In this case you can use a latch which slides into a hole in the frame. Like this...
If you're on the "inside" of the door, the door is flush with the frame - so you don't have the chunk of wood to drill a big hole into. So you have to have a raised "hole" for the latch to fit into. Like this...
It WELL confused me for a while. It all makes perfect sense now but why didn't we think of it before? How am I supposed to know that there's two different sorts of latch.
I believe this is what people call "trial and error". I sense there may be more of this ahead!
After a hint from a friend of ours who came for dinner a while back, we decided to finally put proper locks on our bathroom doors. Well, not locks, but little sliding latches.
"Easy", I thought. Jusy buy 'em, from B&Q, fix one bit to the door and another bit to the frame and Bob's your uncle!
Not so! Did you know that there are two types of simple sliding latch? I didn't!
The first one went on fine. More fluke than anything.
I got the first bit of the second one on and then suddenly realised that it was not going to work. I had to go and buy another latch of a slightly different type!
A quick explanation. It all depends on which side of the door you're on. From one side a door closes agains the frame. I'll call this the "outside" of the door. When the door is closed it sits behind a chunk of wood. In this case you can use a latch which slides into a hole in the frame. Like this...
If you're on the "inside" of the door, the door is flush with the frame - so you don't have the chunk of wood to drill a big hole into. So you have to have a raised "hole" for the latch to fit into. Like this...
It WELL confused me for a while. It all makes perfect sense now but why didn't we think of it before? How am I supposed to know that there's two different sorts of latch.
I believe this is what people call "trial and error". I sense there may be more of this ahead!
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Song 7: Mr Jones
I have a bit of a thing about songs with complicated words. I enjoy the challenge of learning them, and I'm a bit of a show off at heart (have you noticed?) so I'd rather learn something that makes people go "You know ALL the words to that?".
There's a couple of these on my list - Nothing Ever Happens turned out to be one! And here's another - Counting Crows' "Mr Jones".
I discovered Counting Crows a bit later than my contemporaries. Their debut was, I believe, released in the 90's but I only found them through Sally's record collection a couple of years back. And they're awesome!
A friend of mine who is a very good musician, and who's musical opinion I very much respect, has Counting Crows' "August and Everything After" album on his list of top albums of the 90's, and I really do agree - it's an album I've listened to again and again and again and never grown bored of. In fact, I keep finding more and more intricacies to keep me interested. For example, the song "Anna Begins" was usually skipped over at first, but it's a true gem that I choose to listen to now.
Anyway - Mr Jones is a great song. A poem set to music. It's rousing, thoughtful, interesting, and dynamic. But it's a complicated one. I HAVE already learned all the words. I will probably not be able to get them in the right order. I know that the music contains d-minor's - my least favourite chord. But it shouldn't be too hard to learn.
I'm falling a bit behind again. This is week 10, so I've skipped 3 songs. But never mind. So I really only have until Tuesday to learn this! Eeek!
There's a couple of these on my list - Nothing Ever Happens turned out to be one! And here's another - Counting Crows' "Mr Jones".
I discovered Counting Crows a bit later than my contemporaries. Their debut was, I believe, released in the 90's but I only found them through Sally's record collection a couple of years back. And they're awesome!
A friend of mine who is a very good musician, and who's musical opinion I very much respect, has Counting Crows' "August and Everything After" album on his list of top albums of the 90's, and I really do agree - it's an album I've listened to again and again and again and never grown bored of. In fact, I keep finding more and more intricacies to keep me interested. For example, the song "Anna Begins" was usually skipped over at first, but it's a true gem that I choose to listen to now.
Anyway - Mr Jones is a great song. A poem set to music. It's rousing, thoughtful, interesting, and dynamic. But it's a complicated one. I HAVE already learned all the words. I will probably not be able to get them in the right order. I know that the music contains d-minor's - my least favourite chord. But it shouldn't be too hard to learn.
I'm falling a bit behind again. This is week 10, so I've skipped 3 songs. But never mind. So I really only have until Tuesday to learn this! Eeek!
Song 6: Breakfast at Tiffany's
If I was embarrassed about song 5 because it's such a bog-standard anthemic piece of indie pop. Song 6 (last week's song) fills me with even more dread!
I can't even remember why Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" became popular. It has very little going for it. It contains no more than three guitar chords. The words are...well, they make sense but why you'd write it I don't know. And it's just cheesy jangly guitar pop.
Yet, I'm sure many many people know it, so it's on my list. Its also ridiculously easy to play, I already know the words, and it's another one that I've tried to learn before, so it's just a case of cementing the chords in my head. Should be an easy one to fit into a busy week.
I can't even remember why Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" became popular. It has very little going for it. It contains no more than three guitar chords. The words are...well, they make sense but why you'd write it I don't know. And it's just cheesy jangly guitar pop.
Yet, I'm sure many many people know it, so it's on my list. Its also ridiculously easy to play, I already know the words, and it's another one that I've tried to learn before, so it's just a case of cementing the chords in my head. Should be an easy one to fit into a busy week.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Digging it.
Mud
Glorious mud.
That's what's at the end of our fairly large garden!
Oh, and weeds. Creeping buttercup apparently. The queen of weeds in the Wintle garden.
Our Garden
One big reason for buying the house that we bought was the c. 100ft garden. For a nearly-town house this is HUGE! And it's nicely split with some lawn, some patio and a vegetable patch.
There are numerous reasons why we think a veg patch is great:
Preparing the Soil
Now, we bought the house in October and it took us a while to move and unpack and settle, so we've only really just seriously started thinking about the garden and from what we gather, all the weed killing processes (mulching, rotavating, poisoning and so on) start in the autumn and progress over the winter.
Failed Cardboard Mulching and so on...
We DID originally try laying lots of cardboard over the patch. This would remove the light and air and kill the plants and they would then rot into the ground! But this has only been a little bit successful. We didn't really have enough cardboard and it kept blowing away - you need LOTS of BIG boxes and heavy things to hold them down - fabric pegs are not strong enough. This probably works if you have lots of old carpet or something but just cardboard boxes really didn't do it.
The idea with rotavating is very similar - you chop everything up and over the winter it rots into the ground. We didn't do this. It would probably have worked better.
We didn't try herbicides as we're TRYING to be organic and not cover our nice veggies with nasty chemicals.
Digging
And so we find ourselves in the spring with a garden full of weeds. The only route...manual eradication! Yes, down on our hands and knees pulling up us much as we can, roots and all.
It's slow, back breaking work. But it's working. We're adding in some compost to our very-clay'y (?) soil and it's actually looking like something might grow in it! In fact, I'm quite encouraged by how much the weeds like the soil!
And our veggies will taste all the better for it!
Glorious mud.
That's what's at the end of our fairly large garden!
Oh, and weeds. Creeping buttercup apparently. The queen of weeds in the Wintle garden.
Our Garden
One big reason for buying the house that we bought was the c. 100ft garden. For a nearly-town house this is HUGE! And it's nicely split with some lawn, some patio and a vegetable patch.
There are numerous reasons why we think a veg patch is great:
- It's OH SO ENGLISH!
- We believe in buying locally
- We're trying to be sustainable (might not achieve that this year but hope to in future years!)
- We hate supermarket food packaging
- Gardening is fun, and a good team-building opportunity
- It will help us keep fit
- Food will taste better
- Eating vegetables will be SO much more satisfying knowing that we've grown them ourselves.
Preparing the Soil
Now, we bought the house in October and it took us a while to move and unpack and settle, so we've only really just seriously started thinking about the garden and from what we gather, all the weed killing processes (mulching, rotavating, poisoning and so on) start in the autumn and progress over the winter.
Failed Cardboard Mulching and so on...
We DID originally try laying lots of cardboard over the patch. This would remove the light and air and kill the plants and they would then rot into the ground! But this has only been a little bit successful. We didn't really have enough cardboard and it kept blowing away - you need LOTS of BIG boxes and heavy things to hold them down - fabric pegs are not strong enough. This probably works if you have lots of old carpet or something but just cardboard boxes really didn't do it.
The idea with rotavating is very similar - you chop everything up and over the winter it rots into the ground. We didn't do this. It would probably have worked better.
We didn't try herbicides as we're TRYING to be organic and not cover our nice veggies with nasty chemicals.
Digging
And so we find ourselves in the spring with a garden full of weeds. The only route...manual eradication! Yes, down on our hands and knees pulling up us much as we can, roots and all.
It's slow, back breaking work. But it's working. We're adding in some compost to our very-clay'y (?) soil and it's actually looking like something might grow in it! In fact, I'm quite encouraged by how much the weeds like the soil!
And our veggies will taste all the better for it!
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