summer holidays

I have never understood this obsession people seem to have with going abroad in the summer. It is true that the English weather is variable and can be appalling but as I bask in the current heatwave I can't help thinking how stupid you would feel if you if you where sweating in some awful airport, being treated only one up from farm animals on the way to the slaughter, in order to go abroad and sit on a beach in the sun.  No - the time to go abroad is in Febuary or March when the long winter seems never ending and I strongly suspect the suicide rate is at its peak, while if you want to see the Mediterranean at its best then April or May or early June is the time to go when the hills are still green, the wild flowers are spectacular, and the temperature is about that of a hot English summer day.   But fortunately for the travel companies I appear to be in a very small minority. The main reason of course why people all rush off in August and July is that that is when the school holidays are.  If you wonder why there is this long summer break from education I will tell you.  It is because when compulsory education was mandated towards the end of the 19th century it was realised that farmers would never send their children to school during the summer as they were needed to help with the harvest so someone had the bright idea of making the whole of August and July into a school holiday in order to win the farmers support for more education.    

economy

I admired a new pair of shoes a friend was wearing today. " Oh yes"  he said " Are'nt they smart - very cheap too a Daily Telegraph special offer -unlike yours" He said rudely pointing down to my immaculate black brogues - "I can't afford handmade shoes from  Germain Street"   But he was wrong. For a moment I was tempted to allow him to continue to think that I was the sort of person who could afford to spend two or three hundred pounds or more on a pair of shoes - but only for a moment.  In my world presitge is won not by paying silly money for clothes, shoes, wine, or cars but by paying as little as possible. So I said; "You are so very wrong - my shoes may look like they cost a fortune but actually they were only £17.50 +VAT  in Makkro a couple of years ago!!"   Victory was mine and how sweet it tastes   

london visit &cars

What strikes me at once every time I go up to London is how clean the cars are. Everyones car is immaculate, not only clean of course but also dent free and not that old either. Contrast this to my fleet.  My Toyota Land Cruiser is all of a dozen years old and like a venerrable battleship has been through the wars and shows its scars of many an argument, some lost and some won, with hedges and gate posts. The second car in my courtyard is a Renault Megane which is a mere stripling at four years old and was broughtsecond hand in immaculate condition only just over a year ago. Alas for good intentions.  Already the once pristine bodywork has on the left hand side been badly dented by my son who had an argument with a gate post when parking the car for a party.  In London though no one seems ever to dent their cars and I do wonder whether many of them are ever driven or,  rather like those gleaming yachts in Marinas, actually never ever leave the safety of the harbour - a yacht insurance underwriter once told me that the average such yacht only goes to sea for around four hours a year!  Is it the same perhaps for the Bentleys and Masera\ttis which litter the streets of Knightsbridge and Mayfair. Do the owners just, now and again, go and sit in them and entertain their friends to a cocktail? it seems the only likely explanation as moving around in a car in London must be a nightmare and taxis are so plentiful and comfortable.



 

the elction

I wish I could get excited by this election. I loathe Gordon Brown and his government but the trouble is I find it very difficult to summon up any enthusiasm for 'Our Dave' or, for that matter 'Our Sam.'  so many adjectives spring to mind when thinking of Dave and -sadly - none of them are complimentary - smug - pleased with himself - arrogant - autocratic - and - worst of all - he comes across as a phoney - all that tie less- man of the people rubbish. Actually of course if he had ever had any real contact with 'real' people -although what people are not real? - he would know that most people don't want someone like them leading them they want some one different - a leader. So - I have to admit that if the conservatives lost and our Dave took a caning I could honestly say I told you so and voted for David Davies in the leadership elections. Having said all that the prospect of four more years of a being ruled by a Presbeteryan lowland Scot is more than I can bear so Yes - come the day -I will trot out and vote Conservative - though actually all my sympathies are with UKIP        

dogs

I got back home about six in the evening three days ago to be greeted by my wife with the news that 'I've lost Timmy.'   Timmy is not a person, although I am not sure he would agree on that, but is a black labrador dog.  Now normally Timmy does not 'go off' but he does have a tendency to do so if I am away and that is what he had done.  Normally again he comes back within a few hours. So I left the friont door opened and hoped for his reapperarance.  He still wasn't back by the time we went to bed, but again this has happened before so I wasn't overly concerend.  When I woke up though and looked down at the bean bag by my bed and saw no Timmy my heart sank.  This was unprecedented.  I had to leave for a meeting after breakfast and all day I suffered from that empty feeling in the pit of your stomach, a gut wrench of worry.  I got home in the evening to the bad news - still no sign of Timmy. there is - I think -nothing worse than a missing dog. It is the 'missing' bit which is so awful and which allows your immagination to run riot.  His absence was like a damp blanket over our whole household - my children adore our dogs - hell the dogs sleep on their beds and, when 'mummy' is not watching share their plates for that matter. Again we left the door open all night - again Timmy failed to show and again I had to go off to a meeting. I had now prepared myself, mentally, for the fact that we might never see Timmy again wen mid day the wife rang with great news -'we've got Timmy' hurray a hapy ending - a great friend of mine who always has Jack Russels is not so lucky and said to me once - 'You know I've never buried one of my dogs.' Awful but that is too often the cost of owning a Jack Russel -they can't resist a hole the ground. For now though we are once again a happy family - till the next time - but just at the moment Timmy is under close arrest       

Trees

I took delivery of some trees today. Now is the time of the year to be planting them and I am always amazed at my stupidity in not planting more trees when I was younger. Not that I didn't plant any in my youth, I did, inspired by my mother who was something of a fanatic in the tree planting department. But there are gaps in my park and gaps in my woodland garden and these gaps must be filled in now as, of course, I am getting older.  One of the odd things in life is the only thing I have ever found which actually makes you look forward to being twenty years older is the prospect of seeing a tree or shrub you have planted partly grown up. Of course reviewing my past efforts - and those of both my mother and my father - it is heart breaking how often I have had to take a chain saw out as the tree is in the wrong place or is to close to another tree. We simply all underestimated the area of land a mature tree can take up. Looking across my lake I see a superb 200 year old Cedar of Lebanon and it's branches now covers at least a third of an acre and yet people plant these trees in little gardens! Of course one day they will look up and realise they are getting no light in as the tree is blocking everything out and they will call the tree surgeon - very expensive. Trees are my passion partly because they can give you a form of immortality or at least life extension. The trees I plant today should mostly be around in 200 years time and some of them, like the long lived Oriental Plane might well live 800 years or more. There is an ancient oak in my wood which I suspect may well be that age and it makes me think as I walk past it that when it was young my ancestors wore suits of armour to go and do battle with the Scots and the French and now we are all meant to be brothers at peace with each other - personally I wouldn't bet on it lasting.

Banks

It is a sad fact of life as a landowner that you spend an inordinate amount of time and effort planning your death. This is necessary so that your heir can inherit and pay the minimum amount in taxes and Death Duties, or what is now known as Inheritance Tax. One of the tricks of the trade is to ensure that any bank borrowing you may have - too many in my case sadly - are secured against property that is not eligible for any of the numerous 'reliefs' to Inheritance tax. So with co-operation of my bank - HSBC - I am now making sure that my overdraft and loans are secured against a group of cottages. Imagine my surprise when HSBC stated that they did not just desire a £500 management fee for doing this, but thought they were entitled to £250 for 'out of pocket expenses!!! Obviously I supposed that this was the amount they were planning to spend on lunching me and my agent at Exeter's most expensive restaurant. But no, it appears this sum is one they think is their due - unbelievable behaviour. Well negotiations are, as they say, ongoing - but they ain't getting that £250 out of me.