Monthly Archives: December 2024

Communication, Heartwarming

Heart-warming tale of kindness and cunning.

Most of us elderly folk are suspicious of the internet with its scams and plots to defraud us feckless incompetents.

Z Smagala (@Walls by Squidge) The Yard, Kettering

But that is not always the case!

Last week-end my friend lost his wallet in Llanidloes, in Mid-Wales — his real wallet, not a digital one. We rushed about the town telling everyone but in our panic not leaving any address. He cancelled his bank cards and the following day we drove to his home in Kettering, East Midlands.

On arrival his son from Stevenage phoned to say his wallet had been found in Llanidloes Co-Op.

“But?..” My friend hadn’t told his family. What was going on?

Sophie, the kind and conscientious lady at Llanidloes Co-Op, had received the wallet from an eagle-eyed shopper with a well developed sense of right and wrong, and then set about tracing him, from his driving license, on Social Media, which he doesn’t use. But in true Llani tradition (pop 2000), which was odd in Kettering (pop 70,000), his son’s mother-in-law’s friend spotted the Co-Op lady’s post on a Kettering community website. The rest, as they say, is history.

But it’s not — the following day — yes, the very next day, the postman rang the door bell. He proffered a parcel from the Co-Op, “I very much suspect that this parcel contains your wallet!” said the postie with consummate glee — seems he keeps his eye on the local website too.

“The posties know everything that goes on in this town!” say the Kettering ladies at my aqua-robics class.

Community is not dead — it is now electronically enhanced!

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Armageddon, Climate, Communication, Wales, weather

Storm Darragh — if you missed it!

We had a blowy night and next morning Cwm Cudyn was blocked in 2 places, first with an Oak Tree which put our new electric chainsaw in it’s place — even with Roger helping! It lies right across the carriageway — no carriages will pass this way for quite a while.

Further up where the banks are steep and the soil thin, 5 tall pine trees lost their grip and had a go at skiing, skidding elegantly down the sloping bedrock leaving it glistening in the rain. Continuing the metaphor they all fell over in a tangled heap in the bottom of the cwm.

See how tenuous was their hold.

Still they managed to block the road.

At the bottom, where the lane is high above the river, you can see the lanky oak that normally stands on the edge of the stream with its roots in the water. It had a rough night, resisting the 90 mph gusts, and is now having a lie down. I bet that made the neighbors house shake.

Next day the levels have fallen here.

We worried about the impact of all this water further down stream but there was a news black-out — no power, no internet, no mobile coverage and the land-line was knocked out by the fallen larch on the hill.

We kept warm by cutting and moving the smaller fallen trees that were in the way and by unbunging the culvert by the house to release the Olympic swimming-pool of muddy water that had gathered on the road to stop the cars — not that there were many!

Once power was restored, Assad had fallen in Syria so there was nothing much to hear about trees or floods!

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