Alternative Technology

Its dull - raining mostly and there's no wind.

At 6.45 am I was making sandwiches, packing drinks, (shouting at 16 year-old to get up)looking for: waterproofs, necker,(shouting at 16 year old....) cash,( shouting at.....)walking socks and boots (shouting...). I finally gave up and had cup of tea. At 7.30 am I was standing at the front door apologising to Cub Leader for absence of 16 year old (supposedly the long-suffering lady's Junior Leader) and shouting at 16 year old to grab his ruck-sack and put his boots on. He appeared - much relief. Feet, clad in sports socks, hovered above boots, he muttered something unintelligible which we eventually de-coded as 'wrong socks', and pounded back up stairs. His sister started complaining about '... all this noise '.

Meanwhile, afore-mentioned Cub Leader was texting furiously. She doesn't get a signal at home, husband is in Cardiff for rugby, TV is mysteriously set to S4C, she doesn't speak much Welsh, husband is suspected of sabotage and, due to absence of signal, this is her first chance to tell him what she thinks of the situation. Son (and cub leader) eventually left, with walking socks and boots. By 8 am I felt exhausted.

I had another cup of tea (at the point of reading this 13 year old will start singing 'Right said Fred'. She has become addicted to humorous Bernard Cribbins songs - Hole in the Road etc. Something to do with: appearance on Doctor Who, Face Book and Google)( Look up the lyrics if you wonder what I'm on about!). I then tried to fix clickable photo-load into blog. Failed - will try to do better next week!

Alternative Technology? Not a reference to struggles with absent mobile signals, sabotaged, Welsh-only digi-boxes, Wallace and Gromit type devices for waking sixteen year olds or, sadly, a solution to my photo problems. The destination for local Cub packs, and my sixteen year old, is The Centre for Alternative Technology, at Machynlleth in mid-Wales. We have visited, as a family, on a few occasions - although not for several years now. It is invariably dull, even in the summer holidays, often wet and never windy. Recycling demos will work, as will water-purification-type displays etc. - but as for the wind and solar power installations...

My attempt at humour is mis-placed. The center is well-worth a visit, and having done its best to promote a rather un-fashionable theme for many, many years, now finds itself to be 'in' with those of us committed to a more ecologically sound existence. Thankfully we're growing in number!

For those of you more successful with technolgy than my immediate circle, and who actually have mobile phones that work, how about looking at the gadget cosies in my Folksy shop. I've chosen to show you this one, although it may appear again on Monday, in reference to all things Welsh. ( Image sadly not 'clickable' - see above. I'm afraid you'll have to enter my shop by the long route and click the Folksy button - or click on the slide show).