Scumbags!

What an utterly crap world we live in - four members of the DW family were victims of crime this week, all in the space of 24 hours.

The two DW girls are on holiday in Thailand and on the same evening, the elder had her bag slashed and cash and cards stolen from it and the younger one - on her first proper holiday without us there - had her drink spiked. The friend they're travelling with also had her drink spiked.

Luckily, whatever the lowlife scum put in their drinks just made them throw up and it doesn't seem to have had any major effect. But who'd do such a thing? Words can't describe what I think about someone so twisted,

And despite losing her cash, cards and driving licence, the older DW also had some luck in that her passport was in the hotel safe.

We now just want them to get home safely.

Mrs DW's pensioner parents returned home after a two-hour shopping trip to find they'd been burgled (for the third time). Presumbably it was someone just looking for easy drug money - apart from creating a horrible mess, they took just jewellery and cash.

And, of course, it's no surprise that they're still waiting for the local plods to turn up - despite the DW oldies being nearly 80, feeling a bit fearful and not sure whether they can start tidying up and repairing the damage.

Finally, one of the DW boys has been on a school camp this week and he had money stolen from his tent - a pretty minor crime in the scheme of things, but probably most worrying because it's rather horrible that 12-year-old boys think it's okay to steal from someone they know. In this case, however, someone had a consience and dobbed in the little gits. I suppose when they're old enough they can set out for a new life in Thailand.

What sort of world have we created for our kids?

A welcome visitor

Hopefully this little chap is eating lots of slugs, though I still find lots (to the delight of the chickens!)

He has lovely eyes . . .

On closer inspection

I never really think my garden looks that great. It's made up by too many plants that flower or look their best at different times of the year - there's never a spectacular moment when everything peaks.

But having said that, there's lots of plants and flowers that are beautiful in their own right, so it's nice going round the garden and taking pictures of the individuals - never mind that the overall effect is (to me) disappointing.

A dead end . . .

I love councils - the elected members are, by and large, individuals who want to do the best they can for the people who elect them, the officers are (probably) intelligent and highly qualified, but the result of their combined efforts are often just plain stupid.

I came upon the sign above on one of my slightly longer Sunday walks with the hound. On the face of it, it's quite sensible - warning motorists of possible delays while council staff or contractors spend eight days working on a stretch of road.

That's fine, but this particular road (a farm track really) is a dead end. It serves one property. In the five years that I've walked this route (admittedly, usually on Sunday mornings), I've seen three cars and two bicycles using it - one of those was someone who'd turfed their dog out at one end and drove along with the animal trotting behind.

Who decided it was a good idea to spend eight days working on this road? A good use of resources?

I don't mind paying my Council Tax. I figure it's part of living in a civilised society that we all contribute. But I do sometimes wonder if councillors and officers on local authorities realise they are spending other people's hard-earned money and that we deserve at least a little common sense applied to their decisions.

Eight days of work on a dead end road serving one property, common sense, I think not!

By the way, in case you can't read the sign, the prats in this particular case are Cambridgeshire County Council.

Rant over. The reason I took the picture was that I thought it was funny that they should warn of delays on a road used by the inhabitants of one small bungalow.

Birds of a feather . . .

The mother-in-law's parrot - a vicious old bird . . . and the parrot's not much better!

arc-adia

I know it's not universally liked, but I think the Debenham's store on the arc in Bury St Edmunds is a great building - its curves juxtaposed against the angularity of the other buildings is fantastic.

I'm not sure about the development as a whole, though - it all seems a bit crammed on.

Jolly boating weather . . .

Last weekend, when the weather was warm and sunny, we went to Flatford Mill and Dedham - Constable country.

We weren't sure what to expect - Mrs DW used to go there a lot as a child, but not recently, and I'd been there once abour 25 years ago. We rather expected it to be awash with American and Japanese tourists. However, we arrived quite early and it was surprisingly quiet and peaceful.

Since there was no queue, we decided to go for a boat ride on the River Stour. A little electric boat took us up the river from Flatford towards Dedham for 15 minutes, turned around and brought us back.

It was a bit 'twee', but the boys enjoyed it and the two 'crew' were quite amusing (inadvertantly). Mrs DW was slightly miffed to be asked to change seats for 'weight distribution' but said this was due to the large couple who followed us on, rather than her.

Boat trip on the Stour

Pirates ahoy

Egyptian goose (apparently)

Canada geese and goslings

After the boat ride, we sat by the river and consumed the coffee ad cake we'd brought with us. DW was a bit greedy, but no point carrying a few odd cakes with us for the rest of the day!

Then, along the riverbank to Dedham, which was very pleasant and enlivend by a herd of young catte which came bounding (do cows bound?) towards us. This wouldn't have been a problem, but the people on the boat trip had said that the weekend before, there had been a huge stampede when a woman let her Rottweiller dog off the lead.

Dedham's a beautiful, picture postcard village, only spoiled by the traffic and the rather large number of chavs gathered along the riverbank there (mostly from Essex, I'd guess) - one family every 10 metres.

Swan at Flatford Mill

Having said that, we were then a bit chavvy ourselves - stopping at the very nice Little Chef near Stowmarket for a 'chippy' tea. That's once we'd found it! We felt a bit sorry for the place - it used to be right on the A14 but now the new section of road has been built it's a bit off the beaten track.