Best foot forward …

Well another action-packed week this week so it’s all a bit random. Hold onto your hats and off we go.

First of all the Noisy Cricket is back from the mechanic’s and I am considerably lighter financially. On the up side, the entire job – and there was a lot of labour involved – cost the same amount as the part on pretty much all the other Lotuses. Ouch. There have been a few big bills in the last year which suggest, as I mentioned last week, that I should probably start thinking about a new car. But we’re sort of in flux between internal combustion and electrical and possibly between electrical and whatever comes next.

However, the whole electric car thing … hmm. OK so on the one hand it’s clean on the other, I’m not 100% convinced that if I buy an electric car it will be more ecologically friendly than my current internal combustion-driven motor. On the one hand, air pollution, noise pollution, global warming etc. On the other air pollution and global warming from a different source and safe and ecologically friendly disposal of batteries. The only difference really appears to be noise pollution – lots less in an electric car. Between you, me and the gate post, I think the thing that will win out is … not what am I even thinking about. The type of car we’ll all end up driving will be about whatever science it is that the most powerful multi-millionaire has the biggest vested interest in. Let’s hope it’s something sensible. At least I feel I can trust Elon Musk to look for ways to improve batteries and power cells. Maybe we’ll be filling up future Teslas with wee.

And of course, if there’s less of a demand for bio diesel, there’ll be less of a demand for palm oil in theory. But it’s a bit like those things where people go vegetarian for ecological reasons … is it just the same ecological load distributed in a different way?

Nature: red in tooth and claw

This morning, after doing lots of metal detecting yesterday (more on that story … later) I was feeling a bit stiff. A bit stiff doesn’t quite cover that, it was more a case of feeling as if I was made out of various bricks held together with string. That lovely feeling that the composite parts of each joint are grating against one another. It’s better now, I’ve been for a gentle walk. McOther is a lark and I’m an owl so he was already up when I woke and kindly brought me a coffee in bed before he popped out. He let out the cat and sorted out a few other bits and bobs downstairs and then headed off.

A few minutes after McOther’s departure I had a phone call from him. He explained that McCat had caught something because there was blood all over the door but that it seemed he hadn’t been able to get it through the cat flap and had gone off with it. McOther was unsure as to where McCat had gone but advised me that he had locked the cat flap.

Was McCat in the house I asked McOther? And if there was a body, was that in the house?

McOther couldn’t 100% guarantee his answer for sure about either, but he reckoned that no, McCat was not in the house. He also deduced that the body was not in the house since it wasn’t on the landing outside the spare room, which is where McCat has a tendency to take his prizes, on the few occasions he does catch something. I thanked McOther for the warning and off he went. He was going to an auction to bid on some stuff so he couldn’t really stay and help.

Unwillingly, I climbed out of bed and got dressed. It was time to find the body and clean up the mess. I’m not sure what McCat’s kill technique is but it appears to involve severing some major artery. There were spatters of bright red blood all over the door and doorstep as McOther had warned me as well as drips going along the path. Clearly the best way to find the body – and probably McCat – was to follow the trail. About half way along with a burrp of greeting, McCat appeared. He had a feather stuck on his lip which was flapping up and down as he meowed.

Culprit identified? Check.

More meowing ensued, I think the basic gist of the conversation was something along the lines of, ‘Look at me, I’m fucking clever, oh and can you get this annoying thing off my chin? Thanks.’ I congratulated him on being clever but explained that I’d really rather he didn’t kill people, and I removed the feather from his chin, because he kept sneezing and shaking his head. Since I had now performed my required function he sauntered off – I presumed it was to lie in the undergrowth somewhere until I saw him squeezing himself into a tiny hole at the bottom of the zipper in McMini’s tent. Lords I hoped the body wasn’t in there.

Interruption over, I continued to follow the trail, at the end of which was a pile of feathers. No, on further investigation, that was where the poor unfortunate bird had met its end. I followed the blood trail back to the back door and then turned round and started up the path, looking for drips where McBeast might have deviated in one direction or the other.

Bear in mind, I’m not much good at this kind of thing. If I was Tonto, I’d put my ear to the train track for a minute or two, straighten up and say, ‘Hmm, steel horse not come any time soon,’ at which precise moment the San Francisco to Ferndale Express would clart me in the back at high speed.

At last after a fair bit of hapless searching, I finally found McCat’s departure point from the path. Spots of blood on the leaves of the plants in the beds to one side and yes there were more spatters, leading away under the apple tree and then … ah yes; under the hedge. I went and got a shovel gently put the pigeon onto it. Then I took it round the back where, with an apologetic prayer and a direct apology, to the pigeon itself, I put it in the bin. Next I ‘pressure washed’ the path … and the back door. Since we don’t actually own a pressure washer, this involved improvisation in the form of putting the hose nozzle thing to maximum squirt and putting it very close to the surface to be cleaned. Unfortunately, that meant splash back in copious quantities. It also involved soaking my shoes and the bottom of my trousers. While assessing the amount of mud included in the spatterage, I also discovered that despite my reverence handling the body and his very, very, ex-ness of being, the pigeon had still managed to bleed on my socks and trousers.

Oh bloody marvellous. ‘Bloody’ being the operative word here.

Never mind everything was cleared up, at which point I went indoors, bunged the bloodied trousers and socks in the wash, noticed I’d got it on my shirt as well and bunged that in before re-dressing in new, clean clothes.

Wrong footed

That bit back there, where I mentioned detector finds. It’s later so here’s the rest of that story. Four of us went out to some land where we regularly detect. It’s a really interesting area with an ancient farm house and some pasture. We have never found any Roman artefacts there but the partifact bit of Saxon brooch I found a while back came from there and every now and again someone digs up something really lovely. Last time out, I had a bumper day; two big old silver milled coins from the early and middle 1800s and a couple of hammered coins, one I’m not sure about but I thought the other might be from the reign of King John.

After a bumper day like that, I wasn’t expecting much this time and sure enough, to start with, I didn’t get much. There was a tonne of lead in the field we picked, tiny molten blobs that my pinpointer couldn’t find but my detector could. However, I had an alternative new ritzy spade which was a bit less heavy, but I could still extend the shaft to give long leverage. Some of the others found nice stuff though, a buckle with a little bit of gilt on it, some old pennies, a lead farm token and a lovely great chunky Roman coin. That was a belter as we hadn’t found anything Roman there, ever.

After lunch we went to what they were jokingly calling ‘my field’ the one where I found four silver coins last time out. After detecting for a while with not much to show – lots of lead there, too – I found what I think is a florin from 1819. It’s really worn but I was still chuffed. Then at half three, the others said they were going to head home but the person whose permission it is said the farmer was fine if I stayed until later. I stayed until half four and went carefully and methodically up and down in the area where I’d found the hammered coins last time. I’d found a seventeenth century silver thimble in the field just next door so I reckoned that maybe there’d been a stile between two fields in that area, or perhaps a big tree where people sat and had their lunch.

After finding a whole bunch of shotgun cartridges, and yet more infinitesimally tiny pieces of lead I got a fairly loud bing and dug up … a green thing. As you know, when I talk about my detecting experiences, there are few things I love more than a WTF is this find. At first sight, I thought was that it was a Roman brooch because it was long and thin and it was the Official Green Patina of all things Roman – or at least anything Roman with a green patina is pretty much the same colour and this green is it; other colours of Roman relic are available.

In order to have a better look I took off my specs. I’ve almost, but not quite, reached the bifocal stage. Up close examination revealed that it was a leg with a left foot on it. My spirits sank a little. There was me thinking it was Roman and now I realised that it was just the leg off a toy; one of those things with flappy arms and legs and a string sticking out of its arse which you pull to make the legs and arms flip upwards.

Thinking about it, I don’t know why I didn’t put two and two together at the time, I guess the fact it was a leg, and very definitely a left leg, wrong footed me …

[That was in aid of Crap Jokes R-Us Week. This is just a little pause to let the tumbleweed blow through. Right, that’s enough, I think it’s gone now. On we go then.]

When I got home I shared the best of my finds with the others. A tiny piece of medieval harness pendant, complete with green and yellow enamel, the 1819 Florin, a bit of a medieval strap end/mount/thingy – although I guess that could have been the end of a different type of key called a latchlifter (wrong patina though this was more medieval in colour and the guy who identified them for me on-line is very, very seldom wrong).

Everyone, including the bloke who always gets it right, was convinced that my leg was Roman and was a key. I have always wanted to find a Roman key because they hadn’t quite got the gist of locks so they are made to look complicated and important but basically … aren’t. I suppose keys were relatively new back then so they were mostly uncomplicated affairs and meant to look the part. Same kind of thing as those massive medieval strong boxes that look impregnable but have locks that even I could could pick in three minutes. It’s mostly about image and effect rather than actual pregnability or impregnability.

People wore keys as rings to keep them safe. These were for the smaller boxes where they kept the precious stuff. The foot thing, well, the Romans did like a something that looked like something else. I suspect it was that shape by necessity and they made it look like a leg and foot for the fun of it. I guess it’s unlikely burglars breaking in would think, ‘nah this is the leg of an old toy,’ the way I did. Then again, I suppose it’s not beyond the realms … No, it is beyond the realms. Nobody is that thick. Mwahahahrgh! Except me on an off day. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all.

Never mind eh? Let’s forget about that and try this.

I have no books officially reduced at the moment but if you want to dip your toe into the world of The Pan of Hamgee before the K’Barthan Series takes place there is a whole series of books and the first one is free. Woot. So if you have any friends you think might enjoy the world of K’Barth, feel free to point them at:

Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Extras, Hamgeean Misfit: Part 1

The world needs a hero but they’re all busy … 

When your very existence is treason, employment opportunities are thin on the ground. But when one of the biggest crime lords in the city makes The Pan of Hamgee a job offer he can’t refuse, it’s hard to tell what the dumbest move is; accepting the offer or saying, no to Big Merv. Neither will do much for The Pan’s life expectancy.

If you like the sound of that, there are information pages with links to download the book in audio and in ebook format. You can find those here:

Audiobook they should use my shop and enter the catchy code at checkout: FREE81E remember to cut and paste this exactly or it may not work.
Ebook this should be free everywhere but if your Amazon has it as a paid book then you, too, can find the ebook in my shop, enter the same code and it’s free from there too.

If you’ve read it, or it’s not your bag, feel free to pass this information along to any friends who you think might enjoy it.