Jim Webster's Blog, page 50
February 26, 2015
Beware the machinations of tyrants.
Apparently the organisers of the first European games in Baku have pretty well paid for the British team to attend. I know it���s hardly blood diamonds, but people are still asking questions about it. But I know a chap who was in with a damned good chance of representing us at the Moscow Olympics back …
February 25, 2015
Chuffed to bits I was.
Every so often good things happen at random So there I was. Every couple of hours, if nobody competent is about, I have to walk through the three lambing sheds to check nothing is happening. Actually they���re pretty slow at the moment, so at some point everything is going to happen at once and we���ll …
February 20, 2015
��Sheep, a socket set and a dog that howls back at police cars.
For simple country folk we lead complicated lives. It started when I let the dog out. Or perhaps it really started when the wheel bearing went on the quad trailer? But anyway, it was obvious the bearing was going so there was a replacement bearing sitting, pristine and jewel like in its wrapping. Before I …
February 9, 2015
Oh and another thing
I remember a story told me by mate who was some years older than me, old enough to have done National Service out in Malaya. One of the lads in his platoon had been engaged to be married. Now he���d heard rumours at home about his fianc��e���s behaviour. So it wasn���t a complete shock when …
February 7, 2015
A Great Leap Sideways
Apparently it was Al Boliska who said, ���Do you realize if it weren’t for Edison we’d be watching TV by candlelight?��� Well as you know I���ve got this interesting relationship with technology. Not so much ���love-hate��� as ���apathetic��� The fact that mobile phones have largely passed me by is well known. I carry a cheap …
January 30, 2015
The Irishness of the Long Distance Runner
It���s like the Irishman said when asked for directions, ���Well to get there I wouldn���t start from here.��� I know just what he means. We live down a series of narrow (ish) lanes and they tend to be so quiet that when I go into a field to feed sheep I can leave the gate …
January 26, 2015
Horsing around
A man in a cinema notices what looks like a horse sitting next to him. “Are you a horse?” asked the man, surprised. “Yes.” “What are you doing watching a film?” The horse replied, “Well, I liked the book.” I���ve always loved the work of the cartoonist Thelwell. But once, just once, I felt I …
January 23, 2015
Coffee, sheep, tractors, fine literature and bad rock���n���roll
Coffee, sheep, tractors, fine literature and bad rock���n���roll My lady wife and I were following a tractor and hedge-cutter down a lane. She commented that it didn���t look like a desperately exciting job. My reply was along the lines that tractor driving wasn���t at all exciting. Obviously when things go wrong it can get far …
January 19, 2015
Ya bluidy auld witch
It���s a phrase I���d never come across until I started working with sheep. It���s normally directed at the misbegotten mule ewe who wiggles, burrows and climbs through or under netting, snapping off posts and generally creating a gap which the rest come pouring through. From experience the Mule (normally round here a cross between Blue …
January 16, 2015
Egg boxes, Border Collies and First Class Travel!
Travel, they say, broadens the mind. Anyway I had to go south and the problem with going to London from here is that if you���ve got stuff to do on Tuesday and Thursday, it���s not worth coming home because you���ll barely make it before you���ve got to go back again. So anyway I was in …
