A revelation - so glad I got it

Just tracked one down - they are like hens teeth - a Swiss Ranger Volcano Stove for backpacking.

I was tempted by the Kelly Kettle but at the high price PLUS accessories it can run out to £60-£70.

I have bought the Swiss stove for £11.50 new and in its original packing,

Result..

It takes twigs, pine cones almost anything. Plus a gel burner, hexamine blocks or trangia spirit burner. Very versatile and light.

Now I just need to get out and use it. May spend a night at the Dodford Inn for a "not so dry" run. Camping, booze and entertainment.

Have already got a Trangia which is just superb but relies upon meths which leaves you with the problem of running out - meths is not as easy to get hold of as it used to be. H&S mania no doubt.

Prepping - my thoughts since my last post

As I said before, I thought US Preppers was something to laugh at. Just paranoid people.

But the UK riots, terrorism, environmental issues and particularly the threatened Syria war (and its ramifications~) have made me think afresh.

Firstly I should say that I have always been a prepper - I just didn't know it!

But lets consider what it is.

It's simply insurance and who doesn't take that out?

Example:- You insure your home. That covers such things as floods, earthquake, fire, theft etc etc.

But what if there was a serious flood - we have had a few over the last few years. Yes, you can get the damage repaired, eventually, by the insurance company. But before then you could be stranded with no electricity, clean water or ability to get food and cook it. That is a very real possibility. Think of all the floods in the UK, Australia and New Orleans.

It is sensible insurance to have a supply of food, water, fuel and a means to keep warm etc.

Thats prepping!

Now for me.

Ever since childhood I have loved the outdoors and wandered miles through the woods and farmland. I became a very competent fisherman - winning good money in competitions from the age of 12.

I was always "Army Barmy". Loved my guns and knives from age 5.

I joined the Territorial Army, kept fit, learnt hill climbing, camping, orienteering and survival/evasion skills.

I am a pretty sharp sporting shot at both moving and static targets and have accumulated shotguns, rifle, air rifles etc.

I am an accomplished, if reluctant, DIYer.

I always carried a small GOOD* bag, just never thought of it that way - it was just a bag of "essentials".

I have studied self sufficiency and have a farm in France that could easily become a smallholding should I need to go down that road.

I can cook, prepare/preserve food, understand nutrition.

So, I only need to have a focus for those skills and BINGO I'm a prepper! I even have all the gear...

I just woke up and realised that over the years I have unconsciously acquired all the skills and kit required.

AND WHAT'S MORE - IT'S FUN

~ Ramifications = Distrust in our politicians, potential for war, home grown terror and consequent civil unrest

* GOOD = Get Out Of Dodge

Is this real? Could we be on the brink of war?

This is not going to be an in depth, considered, piece - its just my fun blog - but we seem to be going full on for an intervention in Syria.

The British, American and European people don't want it, the Syrians don't want it - hey, even Israel is getting the shits over the consequences of Obama launching a "surgical strike".

Who does want it? Our Governments, the Sunnis, Al Qaeda, Turkey..

Russia seems to be the most principled actor in this whole thing.

Whoda thought that?

Financial collapse, mass unemployment, mass migration, failing services, Islamic terrorism ON OUR STREETS, rape gangs known about for decades and silence from the Establishment, police state behaviour from our own police, criminalisation of freedom of speech or even belief, corrupt politicians... I could go on.

I don't think I have ever seen such a toxic mix in my lifetime.

And now, after years of a failed multiculturalist project - as if the British people were just Lab Rats - we will face an emergency not with the stoicism and social cohesion of our forbears but by turning upon each other by race, religion, culture and loss of community spirit.

Just think of the riots of two years ago and multiply it by 100. Or a 1000..

Crikey - as I write this down it gets worse:-

We have a population of undereducated people
Many cannot stand deprivation - do not know what it is
They have no self discipline
They are selfish
People who cannot cook or fend for themselves
Have no practical skills
No means of self defence

A nation infantilised and disarmed...

A Government that will be killing YOU in order to protect ITSELF

I used to laugh at American Preppers. Now I think a British variety is called for. As, I now find, do others

Think 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks later

No food, no clean water, no security.

We will be eating each other !
  

Mercians parade with veterans at the unveiling of new memorial

After many years of planning and fund rasing Bromsgrove got its own memorial on June 29th.

Mercian soldiers attended as well as veterans and representatives of the Legion and other groups.

Mercian Volunteers

Its steaming out there.

We wait for the rain to stop (since last October !) and now when it does it's steaming hot.

It can best be illustrated this way :-

Chaddesley Corbett Races on Sunday...........

Point to point on Sunday. Was going to go further afield but why not just stay close to home and spend my money on beer, bangers and a bet rather than diesel.

Let us pray the weather is kind to us. Then down to the village for some Bathams therapy with Talbot on the look out for some scratchings or Black Country spicy biltong.

The making of a gun

This video is just wonderful (I think..),

It displays the skills involved in bespoke gun making by the people at Verney Carron in France.

What a pity that such skills, once widespread in the Birmingham Gun Trade, are disappearing from the UK.

Enjoy.

A well chosen reading.

I just had to upload the reading at Margaret Thatchers funeral as it summed up what she had to do to save our country from evil powers that sought to crush us under the totalitarian oppression of the Left.

Bearing in mind how long ago this was written it only goes to show that the fight is an eternal one.

Well done Amanda Thatcher.

"...for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against Principalities, against Powers, against the Rulers of the Darkness of this World, against spiritual wickedness in high places...." Ephesians.

Maggie certainly did that. She brought down the Iron Curtain, ended union thuggery and its Soviet lackies like Jack Jones.

As a note to this day. My mother died on the same day as Maggie, a year ago, and her funeral was, again, on the same date as Maggies. They were also a year apart in age.

No coincidence.

They were both hard working, decent people who strove for their family and friends.

My mother was no politician, just a loving wife and mother, someone who kept our home together through difficult times, handicapped by deafness and a resultant poor education until the age of 14 when the factory beckoned and the War against National Socialism began.

She worked hard, as did my father, to keep a roof over our heads during my fathers years of illness and the interminable strikes at "The Austin" that made so many of our community suffer rent/mortgage arrears, no money for food and only union thugs to deal with if you tried to stand up for yourself and your neighbours.

Those memories are indelibly etched in my memory. and why the line from Ephesians above strikes such a chord.

So, these dates will be doubly important and memorable to me.

Rest in peace

As well as to celebrate her life and achievements I thought a nice picture of our Maggie would act as Kryptonite to any Lefties who stray onto my blog.

I won't write what many people have said more eloquently about her and the massive changes she wrought in our country - just to say "I WAS THERE".

I remember the power cuts, dead piling up, endless strikes and bullying trade union thugs, the traitors in "The Establishment", Jack Jones on the Soviet payroll, the IMF and so on.

The economy completely hit the buffers about 2 months after Maggie was elected - something that seems to be a habit of Labour, handing over a basket case to whoever follows.

She gave us back our freedom and dignity as a people. She was our only true English Prime Minister.

It's just sad that all parties now seem intent upon trashing her legacy and are so infected by malcontent's and foreigners that we need to pray her spirit will rise in another to come to her countries aid at this moment of need.

Paleo diet

Just starting on my Paleo diet - very similar to Atkins - having tired of my Mr Blobby period and wanting to get back to where I was 4 years ago.

It addresses our inner Neanderthal - our hunter gatherer ancestry that evolved to survive in North Western Europe without grain based diets which are alien to our digestive systems and lead to weight gain, sloth, diabetes, blood pressure etc etc.

Gym membership started and, thank God for muscle memory, firming up after the 3rd visit - even if I feel like I've sprained my whole body !!! No pain though.....no gain.

So much of my diet and digestion problems stem from BREAD. Bloating, indigestion, reflux and constipation.

The Atkins diet cured it all and so will the Paleo diet.

The big "gain" on both those diets is weight loss....

Looking forward to getting into all those jeans I have stored away....

Ghosts...........

Just been sorting some old photos out and reminisced about my time living in Somerset.

It was the 80's and I can remember flying around in my X19 to the sounds of Japan.

Saturday shopping trips to Bath were a regular treat - essentials then a West Country Pasty and a pint or two of real ale before shooting back home and taking a rest after a weeks work.

And here is one on the Nurburgring - notice how it catches up with the much more powerful Porsche 924 on the corners..

On the subject of Japan and the singer, David Sylvian, I have just discovered his albums since he went solo and ordered a couple.

The sound is incredible - a loss to wider listening society but a treasure to those who know of his existence.

Nostaligia - ain't what it was..

Its a Wonderful Life....

......by Black.

This is one of my favourite songs - always has been since the 80's.

Even more so now I'm older, wiser and a little frayed around the edges. It simply says to me that whatever shit life and people throw at you you can look past it and still appreciate being alive.

It takes me back to a time when life was simpler, the world seemed "cleaner" and the future was all ahead of me.

Carpe Diem. 

Seize the day, and don't let the bastard grind ya down...!

I guess that if you take the essence of what makes you happy, write out/off those things that make you sad and build a life from what you value - rather than make the best of what is presented to you - it is possible to achieve a greater level of happiness than perhaps you think possible...

I think I will give it a go.

Easter Sunday - Cider Festival

Looking forward to the annual Cider Festival down at the local today.

All the local talent will be on show and a good time will be had by all.

Can't wait. It will be a massive respite after 3 months of complete crap to deal with and clear my head following a morning of mourning.

Never forget - It's a Wonderful Life.

....and on the Brailes subject

What a lovely notice in the church car park.

Catholic Brailes

Brailes is a lovely village in Oxfordshire - out of the way and a little off the beaten track.

Not a bad thing!

I admit that a year or so ago I had never heard of it but then my cousins wife, Linda, did some family history research for me and I found that my fathers paternal line sprang from Brailes.

Their lives were middling - gamekeeprs, saddle & harness makers, coal merchants but what stuck out and answered a question that had hung over me for a lifetime was that they were Catholic.

English Catholic.

I always wondered how I was Catholic and yet all the kids at my Grammar School were of either Irish or Polish decent. Now I know.

And what a history Brailes has.

I will be returning here time and again.

Standing stones

I took some time out from my responsibilities to visit a site not far away that has some marvellous standing stones.

Monteneuf

Brittany is littered with these Megaliths, as is Cornwall, Southern and Western England right through to Scotland, Shetland, Orkney and Ireland.

In fact the western seaboard of Europe has an interesting history of shared culture from Galicia through to Scandinavia. Perhaps due to the common racial heritage of those first hunter gatherers who colonised the empty lands as the ice sheet retreated.

Beautiful place, sunny day.

Spring is coming..............

Break in the weather

The depressing few MONTHS! of rain seem to have passed for the moment.

Despite being cold it is now DRY.....

Last weekend was actually warm and a visit to the seaside at St Philibert, Morbihan washed away the blues.

The French were out in force and it felt like a summers day. Lets hope things can only get better.

Rain rain go away............

Will it ever stop raining?

It has been going virtually non stop here in Brittany for around 2 months now.

The garden is so wet, and we are on a valley side, that its impossible to do anything. Yet the grass is still growing. Bum.

Stuck in the house with everything closed.

BUT, going back to Blighty next week to sort "something" out. Be glad when it's all done and dusted.

Meanwhile, the cat is looking cute.

Love this but daren't put it in the window.

Thanks to Old_Holborn .

I often wonder if crime would go down if people were armed. From what I see in France  where guns are commonplace amongst the law abiding, it certainly would.

If you stripped out the muslim/immigrant areas from the crime stats then France would be virtually crime free.

But, then again, England would be heading in that direction too if not for the same demographic....

Come to think about it I was arrested in Shaftsbury Avenue in 1972 for "picking daffodils whilst under the influence" following ducking out of a Spurs match and getting pissed on rum in a pub instead..

Oh for the good old days....