Odd Bob Goes Camping...

Yes last weekend Odd Bob and Lil Miss Millie braved the freezing cold and random showers of rain to go camping! Lil Miss Millie, her cousin and ‘the guys’ turned up on Friday night when unfortunately I could not help with putting up the tent in a minor gale because I obviously had to work. Very unfortunate.


But somehow they managed it. Although I was warned, on arriving the next morning, that the tent might be ‘a little squiffy’! I don’t think the tent was all that bad, although the guy ropes were designed as an assault course of trip wires!


I was also warned that it would be freezing at night! The guys had wimped out and decided to sleep in the car and the cousin had been up at 5am, shivering too much to sleep, and gone for a hot shower to warm up! At least there wasn’t a queue at that time.


Then it rained! Luckily we had a nice little marquee to hide under with our Pimms and BBQ! Got mildly smoked out but other than that it was perfect. And not as cold that night as I’d been expecting. In fact I think everyone slept better (although for Lil Miss Millie this may have been down to the multiple layers, hat, gloves, 2 sleeping bags, and a double duvet!) I would have slept perfectly were it not for the poor lost drunk in the barbed wire fence!


Was just about to nod off when this tiny, pathetic voice starts up: ‘help…help!’ So I reluctantly go to see what’s happened and find a poor lost drunk tangled in the barb wire fence! His face was like a horror movie; half covered in blood! Naturally everyone else was snuggled up in their tents and either failed to hear me calling for help or just ignored me. (I’m told that Lil Miss’ bro and girlfriend did hear and were about to come to my rescue…just as I finally sorted the drunk out and sent him on his way!)


The joys of camping…

Odd days...

Was a brilliantly odd day yesterday. I faffed around all morning and completely failed to do anything useful other than feeding my bees, did surreptitiously watch strictly come dancing though, and the new guys did a paso just for me:) Then there was the seminar about the guy who threw random critters out of trees (‘ants, lizards, colleagues…’) the serious science was looking at the evolution of flight by studying the gliding behaviour of arboreal species…mostly just sounded like they spent an inordinate amount of time throwing random animals out of trees though.

Then the really exciting part of the day, skip the afternoon faff to head into Nodnol (London for those who haven’t seen Red Dwarf) and meet up with Lil Miss Millie and Mr Ro! Now Millie I know in the real world but Ro I had never met. To me he was just a load of words (admittedly interesting and rather witty words, but words none the less) on a screen. Now it’s like he’s a real person (not that he wasn’t real before, at least I hope he was real before…)

We also saw Emilia Fox (not quite as exciting I know) but she looked so normal, and pregnant, and kinda tired, and very pregnant, and did I mention pregnant? Was rather sureal given we'd just seen her looking not so pregnant in Merlin...


Anyhoo we decided not to go bug her for an autograph or anything annoying like that.

But that was yesterday, today I completely failed to get into work as early as planned, my experimental bees (who were fine when I fed them at 8am) have now decided to keel over and die for no apparent reason, and my snails have eaten through their temporary lid! (They haven’t escaped though, apparently they liked their cosy home and free food more than a life on the run!)

Oh well, could be worse…not quite sure I want to find out how though…

The Odd God debate...

So Hawkings may have made a few enemies with his new book basically stating that ‘There is no God’ which immediately sparked off a mildly drunken debate last night about God, the Universe and everything (42)...whilst dressed as cowboys and Indians...with a live band playing just over there...It was an interesting night.

The conclusion we came to was: ‘Um...let’s get back to this when we’re a bit more sober...and when people’s other halfs aren’t desperately trying to drag them home...and when bar staff aren’t stood tapping their feet waiting oh so patiently to tidy up.’

Not the best answer, but then I think the three of us each had our own conclusions and failed completely to sway the other two.

1. People need a God to believe in; society needs religion as a moral compass.
2. Religion has caused so much pain and war and discrimination; isn’t it better to look at things rationally and come to our own conclusions rather than taking the word of some guy who says that ‘God’ told him so...possibly several thousand years ago.
3. I am perfectly happy to let you believe whatever you want to believe so long as you don’t try to make me do the same...or kill me for not doing so...oh and I don’t need religion to tell me what’s right or wrong thank you very much.

Being one of the ‘There is no God’ crowd I should probably feel a little hypocritical for stumbling into a church this afternoon mildly hung over and in search of free tea and biscuits and an art exhibition. Then again I was there for the art rather than the religion.

Stumbling back home from a fruitless shopping trip in which I bought only 1 of the 3 things I really needed (but did find cheap cuttlefish bones for my snails, so could be worse) I was suddenly stopped by a strange (but very friendly) old man who told me I should draw on a random piece of board. Why? Um...why not seemed to be the answer. I think the idea was that this large piece of board could be doodled on by random passersby in the hopes of creating something resembling art. This was the bait to drag people into the church proper where the arts and crafts exhibition was taking place with some of the artists around to demonstrate and chat with.

Despite being half asleep, mildly hung over and really ready to just get home I actually quite enjoyed myself chatting with a cross-stitcher and nibbling on cake. I am now fully motivated to finish knitting the next sock...once I’ve had a nap...
Then back to the God debate...is there, isn’t there & does it even matter?