In honour of St Patrick’s Day, there are Seventeen Green Things:
GrassI’m very aware that there has been a slight hiatus around here. So as a catch-up here’s a bit of what’s been happening.
A number of things have contributed to the hiatus. Prominent amongst them is that the house is even more upside-down than usual because we’ve had our friend Tom decorating the hall/stairs/landing, and it hasn’t gone as smoothly as we all wanted. We urgently needed to replace the carpet, which was literally falling to pieces – hardly surprising after 30+ years of wear – and it seemed sensible while we were ripping out the old carpet to apply a coat of paint.
The painting etc. which should have taken a few days to do has now dragged on for 6 weeks or more, for at least three reasons: Tom does things well and doesn’t just slap on a coat of paint, but applies two or three coats if required; in an area like this there is a lot more to paint than one expects – not just wallage but all the wood of dado rails, bannisters, and so on – thirdly, and most significantly, Tom has been ill (with the current flu) which has meant he’s had something like three weeks of enforced idleness. Oh and along the way we’ve also had Tom put some paint on the ceilings and small amount of wood in the kitchen and bathroom, so they’ve had a quick refresh.
(Someone is going to ask what colours we chose. The wall below the dado rail has existing, and quite old, Anaglypta-style paper, which is white, as are the ceilings and the woodwork. The wall about the dado has been painted a lovely sunny pale yellow – as chosen by Noreen. It does look rather good.)
But we’re getting down to the end now. There is just a small amount of painting (like a couple of doors) left to do; refettling the door furniture etc. and snagging.
So Thursday of last week we went off looking at carpet. We decided what we wanted, brought some samples home and then changed our minds. The guy came yesterday to take the detailed measurements, which took about 15 minutes. And in the middle of writing this I’ve accepted the estimate and paid the deposit. Will we get the carpet laid before Easter? It’s going to be touch and go.
(The carpet will be a mid-grey with some flecks of colour; hopefully dark enough that it won’t show too many muddy paw-marks – feline or human – but not so dark as to be oppressive. It is also a fairly tight loop-pile as in our experience this is fairly cat-scratch resistant: it had better be, it’s costing enough!)
Meanwhile, I’ve had the flu for the last week. I started to feel rough as we left the carpet shop Thursday a week ago. On Monday my GP insisted I went to see her, despite spreading my germs and not feeling at all OK on my feet, as she rightly assessed that I needed antibiotics to clear my chest. They do seem to be working and I am beginning to recover, although I’m still lacking energy and have a cough and a head full of gunge. It’s been quite a few years since I had flu, and I’d forgotten just how debilitating it is, although luckily it doesn’t seem to have left me with overwhelming depression as it sometimes does. I’m hoping I might be back to what passes for normal by Monday.
And I could do with getting back to “work” as I have an ever increasing pile of stuff to do – every day seems to bring a new demand that I attend to something important.
If he were still alive, my father would have been 98 a few days ago; he died almost 12 years ago at the age of 86. So this month’s Ten Things brings you …
Ten Things I Remember about My Father
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Again there is a lot in this month’s edition of “Monthly Links”, so straight in …
Science, Technology & Natural World
If anyone thought that human evolution was straightforward and going to be easy to unravel, they need to think again! Hannah Devlin in the Guardian looks at the tangled web.
Sorry, guys, but the jury is still out whether human pheromones exist.
An interesting account of one journalist’s experience of putting everything in their house on the internet of things, and just how much information ends up in places you maybe wouldn’t want it.
Health & Medicine
A very useful article from Quanta showing how herd immunity from vaccination actually works and why immunisation rates are important (oh, and the – not too hard – maths behind it).
Giardia is a nasty little protozoan parasite which is prevalent in developing countries, but even in the developed world it can affect both us and our pets. Now, at last, scientists are beginning to understand how it works.
Sexuality
Our favourite OB/GYN, Dr Jen Gunther, discusses why some women find sex painful, and what they might do about it.
So here is our regular monthly round-up of quotes …
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned.
[Roger Bacon (1561-1626), essay Of Studies]
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
[Roger Bacon (1561-1626), essay Of Studies]
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not.
[Roger Bacon (1561-1626), essay Of Studies]
We spend most of our adulthoods trying to grasp the meanings of our parents’ lives; and how we shape and answer these questions largely turns us into who we are.
[Phillip Lopate, writer and biographer]
I plan to confuse future archaeologists by being buried in a crouching position in a stone-lined cist [an ancient coffin], with some handmade glass beads and a little coil pot.
[Prof. Alice Roberts]
The reason our sentient, percipient, & thinking ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture can be easily indicated in 7 words: because it is itself that world picture. It is identical with the whole & cannot be contained in it as part of it.
[Irwin Schrodinger]
We should be able to talk about the vagina and vulva in the way we talk about the elbow and the knee. It’s just a body part.
[Dr Jen Gunter at http://coveteur.com/2018/02/05/jen-gunter-obgyn-reproductive-health-internet/]
The streams of the tawny bee, mixed with the clotted river of bleating she-goats, placed upon a flat receptacle of the virgin daughter of Zeus, delighting in ten thousand delicate veils – or shall I simply say cake?
[Athenaeus, The Deipnosophistae quoted at https://quartzy.qz.com/1202864/2018-winter-olympics-the-perfect-recipe-for-ancient-greek-olympic-cheesecake/]
If you talk to a thoughtful Christian, Catholic or Anglican, you often find yourself laughed at for being so ignorant as to suppose that anyone ever took the doctrines of the Church literally. [Man] is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.
[George Orwell]
During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. “Absolutely,” the professor said. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.” I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
[JoAnn C Jones, Guideposts, January 1996]
For Valentine’s Day, yesterday, Scientific American posted an article entitled How to Be a Better Spouse. You can read the detail in the article, but the four headline tips are:
Yes, well, they’re sort of obvious really. But do we do this? Well, not as much as we probably should – I certainly don’t despite 38 years married (eeeekk!!!!), although I must be doing something not too wrong.
But then do these all not amount to the old adage: Communicate, communicate, communicate?
And think on this too … Are these ideas not things we should be doing to everyone, and not just our partners? Do they not all fall under the umbrella of Treat others as you would wish them to treat you? Reductio ad adsurdum.
On the other hand we do have to have these things pointed out to us occasionally so we don’t forget them.
Yes, indeed, you never know what you’ve got until you look.
We have the decorator man in to give the hall/stairs/landing a lick of paint before we have new carpet put down.
On day 1 (yesterday) most of the time was taken removing the old carpet. And on the turn of the stairs we were awestruck at finding treasure …
Nestled in the angle of the tread and riser, between two strips of carpet gripper, underneath the carpet were found two tiny and entire mummified mice.
The poor little things had obviously, years ago, crawled in round the edge of the carpet to escape a feline kidnapper, and been unable to get their way out (or died from injuries).
Treasure trove indeed.