Chapter 12 and serious drive troubles

Hello again, if there's anybody there!

I've been meaning to write something else for ages, but simply haven't had the time. We've

had health and family problems (we are now caring for two 89 year old parents) and

maintenance problems around the farm.

We had a freak storm a month ago that completely washed out £60 worth of tarmac that

we'd just spent a whole morning tamping into the worst of the pits and potholes on our

drive. The force of water was so great that a mass of stones, up to 4" across, was swept

right down to the bottom of the yard, and left there in shoals. It looked like Brighton

beach in places. All this scouring meant that the holes in the drive were now even more

cavernous than they had been before. How could we fix them? There was no point in

spending hundreds of pounds on more tarmac, as another storm would just wash it all

away again. It needed more profound attention.

The problem is that the drive is in the wrong place and can not now be moved somewhere

else. Back in the Good Old Days, someone decided that it would be a good idea to divert

a natural drainage runnel into a concrete pipe or two, and turn the age-old water-cut

groove in the landscape into a useful tarmacked track. Perhaps it used to work back in the

Good Old Days, but since we've been here (some 27 years) we're spent more time on the

drive than on any other part of the establishment. Mainly, putting in bigger pipes to carry

the run-off from the field on the right (which is not our field) under the drive and into a

big ditch; and in filling and patching potholes further up the drive, also caused by runoff

from the field on the right... but also, occasionally when the drain at the top of the drive,

at the junction with the council lane, gets blocked, and, well... you can guess where all

the storm water off a hundred yards of road goes, can't you?

Our efforts have all helped the problem, but it'll never go away. My fear is that one day

we'll have another super-storm which will wash the drive out so badly that we won't be

able to get the car out or a van in. It could happen. And even quick fixes will not be

quick, and will cost a lot of money, and will by no means be permanent, and might need

expensively repeating a fortnight later. A 'permanent' solution would need a hydraulic

engineer (I'm not kidding...) and would cost a fortune. It's a bind....

But Kevin-up-the-road has been a terrific help. He borrowed a JCB and spent an entire

morning hacking out the reeds and shrubs (trunks up to 4" thick) from out of the ditch by

the wet field on the right. That should allow the most urgent runoff to reach the Big Pipe

inder the drive, and let it rush away to the river, about 200 yards away, steeply downhill.
Another small step forward... we're hoping....
And Kevin wouldn't accept a penny for his labours, skill, time, or diesel. Ain't living in the

country wonderful!

***

The other reason I've not been a-blogging recently is that I've become engrossed in writing

The Book.
I think I was just starting Chapter 3 when I last blogged. Now I'm up to Chapter 12. It's

hard work in many ways, but also enjoyable, seeing the ideas slowly trot out onto the

screen, and checking them over for cohesion and reason.

So far, no snags. I still can't find anything that calls my main thesis into question. If

anything, more and more things are tumbling into place, which always seems to me to be

an indication of being on the right track ('Only connect'.... as EM Forster said).

Chapter 12 is proving to be a bit of a challenge in that so far I've needed to read the

Koran, the Torah, and the Four Gospels. What extraordinary documents they are. If

you've never read them, I do recommend trying them. The first five books of the Old

Testament are sometimes called 'the Pentateuch', and are the basic Jewish holy book: the

Torah. The four gospels are the original writings of the New Testament.

My special interest at the moment is in the paranormal elements contained in these three

whoppers. Here's a couple of samples:

•The Koran mentions various angels, including personal guardians for every soul; djinn

(spirits created from 'subtle fire'); the creation of humanity from clay, 'moist germs', and

breastbones; 'those who conduct the universe'; possession; Houris (ever-virginal

non-carnal maidens); the fact that God is the Lord of Sirius; the notion of multiple Satans;

a competition between magicians;

• The Old Testament is packed full of paranormalities. Here are just a few, pretty

much at random, from the Torah: God planted a garden and walked round it, talking;

there were giants in those days; the Sons of God bred with humans; Jacob wrestles with

someone he thinks is God; a rod turning into a serpent and back again; a hand that turned

'leprous as snow' and back again; magicians producing hordes of frogs;

• The New Testament: just a few examples from the four gospels, again, pretty

much at random: baptism with fire; disease cured at a touch or at a word; remote healing;

possession (quite a lot of possession and dispossession); becalming a sea storm with

words; 'devils' trying to bargain with Jesus; multiple possession discharged into pigs;

raising the definitely dead, amidst laughter from the crowd;

That's enough to be going on with. There are many more. What I find incredible is that

nobody seems to have picked up on these phenomena as a launchpad for further

investigation into the paranormal at large.
Perhaps it's simply that our current intellectual masters, the Materialist scientists say 'It's

all rubbish' and that shuts everybody else up.
I do wonder why the various Churches don't investigate though. After all, even the staid

old Church of England has a couple of exorcists in every diocese. They don't do that for a

purpose that doesn't exist.

Next on the list is the Hindu 'Bhagavad Gita'; then something substantial from the

Buddhist canon. Don't know what yet.

When I've done all that, the fun will begin of finding the common threads between these

five great religous doctrines (and there are far more than most people think, it seems to

me) and in seeing if I'm any nearer to understanding what ghosts etc are.

Incidentally, I wonder why the Lord Yahweh forbade his chosen people the relish of a

mole or lapwing sandwich? Or a nice owl stew? And why was he so insistent on

specifying every tiny detail for the construction of the Ark of the Covenant and the

tabernacle that surrounded it, even down to the shape of the handles and the colour of the

curtains?

It's a wonderful world!

Have a wonderful day Chas