Aerials and the British Museum

It has been quite an eventful week again. The 'red thread' has been the installation of the aerial(s). Let me explain: we stay in a house which is old, 125 years old to be exact. It is actually (late) Victorian. Why is that important? Well, the TV reception has been quite poor: in the kitchen there was a very old TV with a local 'sprit type' aerial and in the 'front room' a nice flatscreen but with a small indoor aerial which cuased the (digital) picture to freeze regularly. So it was Gwilym's plan to move the (smallish) flatscreen to the kitchen and get a (bigger) new flatscreen for the front room. But to do justice to all of this, we needed a good aerial in both rooms. After some telephonic consultation, the correct aerial was ordered from Sheffield and, as promised, within 24 hours a box appeared on the doorstep containing aerial, cable and several other bits we needed (it still amazes me that you can place an order over the phone with a company several 100 miles away and the goods arrive within 24 hours!). Now the aerial just needed to be installed and the cables drawn, right? Back to the top of this post: It is a Victorian house. It is 125 years old. There are 3 levels and a loft in the front and 2 levels and a loft in the back. The levels are offset as the land is on a very slight slope. When the house was built, these was no electricity, the rooms were lit with gas! So one can understand that routing the cables was a challenge (big understatement!). First, the aerial was installed in the loft:

no problem here!

And the cables run through roof spaces,

through wardrobes, under the floorboards, under the bath and as an 'opus magnus' through a disused chimney flue. The latter was quite an achievment as we had to find the flue inside the brickwork and also on the other side of the ceiling. Suffice it to say that we found it after also having tried to get the cable down the neighbour's flue (which runs in the same brickwork).

OK, 2 holes in the ceiling. But look at that picture!

Anyway, after almost a week, the job is done (apart from fixing the holes in the ceiling) and we have great TV reception in both locations!


By way of a break from all of the above, we went to the Britsh Museum on Saturday. What a fantastic collection of objects from all over the world, ranging all the way back to 6000BC! And it is all 'the real thing', not copies, models or fakes! It is wonderful that all of this is so easily accessible to anyone who wants to see it. As is the case with many museums in Lndon, there is no admission charge (although they do appreciate a donation). Here are some examples of what one can see there there. Click on the links for more information!

A mummy of Cleopatra of Thebes (no, not 'the' Cleopatra)

Model of a chariot. The picture is out of focus, but it was such a beatifully crafted object that we wanted to show it anyway. From the 'Oxus treasure', 4th and 5th century BC.

From the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos. This was one of the seven wonders of the Ancient world. The figure on the right is Mausollos, the word 'Mausoleum' is derived from his name.

After many months of work, Lyn has finished the programme for children with learing difficulties. All in all, there are about 1000 pages of manuals and workbooks. This is the culmination of thought processes over the past few years and the time 'off' from the Psychology practise has made it possible to concentrate and pull it all together. A pilot programme will be run in 2012 at 'Amathemba', a school set up for children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Cape Town. When we are in Cape Town for the 'Christmas break', Lyn will be training the Amathemba staff in the 'use' of the programme.
A secondary effect of the work on the programme being finished is that Lyn has found some time for cooking. Here she is in the kitchen yesterday!

Finally, some news from Sean. He is now permanently employed at Pallinghurst. With that come all the corporate trappings like Blackberry, Life insurance, Company credit card and the likes. More importantly it means that he can now start to look for permanent accomodation and start 'living his own life' as he said the other day.