http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs Selfsuffiiciency, surrealism and something you should read. Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:51:30 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Being new parents Ellie and myself have been trying to decide what we are going to do about childcare and work.  She studied at Oxford, she’s got one term of a PGCE to finish, she’s a trained gardener, she’s fluent in 3 languages, and she’s an artist and an accomplished ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2012/01/its-a-mans-world/ A couple of day's ago Emma Cooper posted this blog asking for pieces of new writing, fiction or non-fiction inspired by fire. Well, it had been a long time since I have written a short story but I felt like stepping up to the challenge. So here is my story, ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2012/01/the-last-fire/ 364 days ago, or to put a date on it, the day after Boxing Day last year, I was traveling back from a Christmas in Somerset when I received a phone call from my landlady.  She let me know that a plumber had been called to the house on Boxing ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2011/12/annus-horribilis/ Well, he’s here! It was a long old process, as births often are, but our first child finally arrived at 8pm on 15th November 2011. We’re going to call him Douglas Tom Arthur Hamilton. I know what some of you may be thinking about his name, I thought it myself ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2011/11/douglas-is-here/ We both managed to sleep last night despite Ellie’s contractions. I feel slightly on a knife edge today, he is definitely  closer to showing up since yesterday, bar waters breaking Ellie is showing all the signs, including frantic nesting (she’s hovering next door as I type). Today has been very strange; ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2011/11/on-his-way-still/ Ellie woke me up at six am today to say she’d been having contractions. It’s now 11.05 and I’ve just been mopping the floor of the room she wants to give birth in and generally getting things ready. I’m just taking five minutes out to speed type and record it ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2011/11/on-his-way/ Ever since I met my partner there has been a real problem around this time of year. It’s not as some might imagine, any of the usual problems couples face in the autumn. It is not the start of the football season that drives a wedge between us, nor is ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2011/09/too-good-to-eat/ I grew up in a place that not only have many people have never been to but a place that, given the chance, most wouldn’t even contemplate going to. Some say they’ve passed through it, some may have watched a rugby or cricket match there but most find it is ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2011/09/perenially-on-the-move/ A few months back I posted an account of my kidney problems, I had developed a rare condition called Minimal Change Disease. The name of the disease is a bit misleading; it refers to a minimal change under an electron microscope rather than a minimal change in the kidney. It is ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2011/08/it%e2%80%99s-not-from-foraging/ Sometimes things work in synergy with each other and become greater than the sum of their parts, at other times quite the opposite happens. I found this today when working out in the garden. The garden in question is shared with our landlord who lives in the adjoining house. It is ... http://dave.selfsufficientish.com/blogs/2011/08/clash-of-the-gardens/