It’s tiresome driving anywhere in the UK these days. Planning a journey can be a combination of trying to avoid interminable queued traffic, bone-jarring potholes and suspension-stressing speed humps. Whilst satellite navigation systems can be set to “avoid motorways” and are beginning to have some rudimentary knowledge of traffic jams, albeit generally too late, they wont be particularly useful until they can avoid these other tiresome features, too.

Yesterday we took a morning spin down to Canon’s service centre in Borehamwood. Having dropped off my lens for repair, on the way back we decided to call in at Whipsnade zoo for the first time in ages to get a bite of lunch and to see how some of our friends were doing; there were a few new “zoo babies” that we wanted to check out. Not having my security stool with me, it was also serve as an experimental wander to see how my leaking might be getting on.

Whipsnade has managed to breed its Greater One-horned Rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis, or Greater One-horned Tanks, as we like to refer to them). These characters are absolutely huge and their skin really does look like armour-plating. On the left is a fully grown specimen – the male, I think – wandering about in its very muddy paddock. The Patagonian Mara sitting behind it is a bit of a giveaway that this is not shot in its natural habitat. The Mara seems unconcerned but I certainly wouldn’t want to get in the way of this fella. On the right are a mother and youngster, cute in a knock-you-down-and-trample-you-to-death kind of way, soaking up a little of the welcome February sunshine.

Another point of interest, and definitely scoring higher on the cute-ometer, was a family of Cheetahs. The proud mother is on the left lying atop her manufactured den containing, in blissful repose, four of her five fluffy cubs. Irresistible! The fifth cub was actually up on top of the den with mum.

Whipsnade has a “drive through Asia” section where pedestrian traffic is not allowed. During the worst of the winter, Whipsnade’s car park is closed and visitors may take their car into the zoo free of charge. Since we are usually on foot for our visits, this time of year is about the only time we have our car to hand enabling us to actually do the drive through Asia. Yesterday was no exception. We were making good progress passing the herds of Asian deer in the main section but ground to a halt towards the exit when our progress was interrupted for several minutes by Whipsnade’s newest traffic calming measure – a set of speed humps towards the exit.

"Speed humps in a zoo?”, I hear you ask in a surprised voice. Yes, here they are on the left together with a similarly impeded fellow visitor. In addition to the herds of Asian deer, this section is home to Yaks and Bactrian (two-humped) camels, some of which had decided that the road way by the exit was exactly the right place for them to stand and/or lie down soaking up some of that all-too-rare February sunshine. Our fellow visitor in the lead vehicle tried revving the balls off his engine in an attempt to persuade the hirsute roadblocks to move on but all to no avail; the camels remained unconcernedly in place. Eventually a man driving a dumper truck turned up and got the camels moving whereupon they moved rather closer to the cars than was conducive to complete comfort.

Whilst I hadn’t felt particularly “secure” leakage-wise, on occasion, it wasn’t too bad so it may help me redouble my efforts at pelvic floor exercises.

I confess I am writing this largely to try out my new Linux (Ubuntu flavour) blogging client, Blogilo. Weird name. It supposedly means “blog tool” in Esperanto. Terrific! Not so terrific was the fact that, after downloading for ages and having installed, upon first running it I was greeted by the less-than-amusing message, “cannot connect to database – OK”. No, not OK! An Internet search found me a solution, in Spanish, saying I needed an “sqlite package”. Well why didn’t it do that as part of the install, then? It took long enough. So, I followed my new Spanish friend’s advice, installed an sqllite package and my Esperanto application is now working, it seems. Anyway …

Good ol’ Tesco is at it again.

A couple of weeks ago we couldn’t help but notice that Tesco’s fuel prices crept up a little, first by a penny a litre and then by a second penny a litre. At first I thought this was just the general inexorable rise to rip off the British travelling public. Not so, it seems. Comparing fuel prices at other suppliers in town, many were now a little cheaper.

All became clear when recently Tesco started one of its promotions giving vouchers for 5p off per litre of fuel when you spend £50 or more “in store”. [Darwin, how I detest that phrase!] I’ve suspected this tactic before but now I’ve seen ti put into action. They’re really ujst giving you 3p off per litre. “Still not to be sneezed at”, I hear you say. True enough, but 10 miles up the road is a huge ASDA store with fuel that, given and ASDA credit card, is 5p per litre cheaper than Tesco anyway. Cunning stuff.

There’s a second Tesco gotcha at the moment. A little bird told us they were selling litres of Gordon’s gin at £16.00, supposedly a £3.xx reduction. Since we were nearby one of their larger stores and I’d been remiss enough to have drunk most of our current supplies of gin, we called in to restock. Unsurprisingly, all the litre bottles had gone – the shelf was bare. Darn, the promotion is clearly too successful.

On the shelf immediately beside the absent 1 litre bottles were the regular 70cl bottles of Gordon’s at, wait for it … £11.00. That’s equivalent to £15.70 a litre. Curious!

Carol is much better at scouring a magazine than am I. That, I suspect, is largely because she’s a faster reader than I. It’s also because I often can’t be arsed (a.k.a. bothered). Let’s face it, most magazines are filled with little more than utter balderdash and adverts.

Since I don’t read them, we don’t actually get many magazines but, being members of The Caravan Club to get Billy Bailey the associated benefits (travel services, sites, insurances), we do automatically get the Caravan Club monthly magazine. In common with most magazines, it’s largely filled with uninteresting articles and advertisements for stuff you don’t want to buy. Every now and then, though, the sharp-eyed may actually spot something that might actually be important or of practical use.

Here’s an example that Carol spotted in a sidebar on a page headed “News/Travel Service”:

A new highway code law, which takes immediate effect, gives pedestrians and cyclists in France priority over cars when crossing a road. if a pedestrian or cyclist “shows a clear intention to cross” (described as “an ostensible step forward or a hand gesture”) drivers will be required to stop for them. The only exception is where there is a designated pedestrian crossing less than 50m away. drivers who ignore the rule can receive a fine of up to €135.

The rule also allows cyclists to skip red lights if they are turning right but only at crossroads where there is a sign to that effect.

This comes as something of a shock to those of us who, having been driving in France for many years, have never seen a French driver stop for a pedestrian even attempting to use a zebra crossing. It’s been clear that the French pedestrians didn’t expect any priority treatment, either. Being English, I do stop for them whereupon they eye me with uncertainty, even with suspicion, apparently thinking that I’ve set a fiendish trap and will accelerate the moment they set foot in the road.

If you drive in France, take note.

It will be interesting to see any differences in native behaviour this year, assuming we get there ourselves as hoped.

My dear ol’ dad was in the building trade. Having served his apprenticeship as a carpenter, he became a roofer before the days of ready-made roof trusses. Here’s another one of my unforgettable revelations from childhood: my relatively newly qualified father was atop a house measuring up for the rafters after which he descended and cut all the wood for the rafters – 9 inches too short. He learned the hard way and, since he relayed his story to me, I have never forgotten the old adage, “measure twice, cut once”. He subsequently graduated to the heights of being a joiner.

He told me something else that I never forgot, either: “cavities are in walls for a reason and should not be filled with insulation; it’ll bridge the air gap and cause damp.” Under his tutelage I was naturally something of a chip off the old joiner’s workbench and became a staunch traditionalist. Cavity insulation was a no-no.

Maybe “was” was the operative word. Technologies change, sometimes, even, for the better. Both our neighbours had their houses cavity-insulated, one very recently. They seemed very pleased and were singing its praises. Having increased our loft insulation myself last year, Carol had been interested in the cavity insulation for a while and, in the light of positive reports, I re-evaluated my position. Good grief, is nothing sacred? I had visions of my dear old dad turning in his grave but, nonetheless, we decided to go for it while government subsidies still exist to help with the cost.

Yesterday was Insulation Day. Two youngish chaps turned up with a van containing a fiendish piece of equipment. One of them proceeded to shin up and down a ladder peppering our poor house with 1 inch holes at about 4 foot intervals whilst his accomplice shinned up and down in his wake using the fiendish piece of equipment to blow insulation, at 200 p.s.i. (allegedly), through the holes and into our cavities. They moved like dervishes. Having not arrived until 1:00 PM, they were all done by about 4:30 PM.

I say done meaning that our house’s cavities were now filled with insulation. Cleaning up was rudimentary. The house having had about 100 decent-sized holes drilled through its outer layer of brickwork, the ground surrounding it is now covered in red brick dust. The holes have been plugged, after a fashion, with mortar but the filling isn’t flush so I’ll have to do it properly. The upper storey of the house is rendered and painted good ol’ magnolia but it is now covered in holes almost filled with dark mortar; it looks like a bad case of measles. I did, however, expect something like this so, when a little fitter in better weather, I’ll make it look pretty again.

Now, here’s my real point. Our house has an open fire which, containing only a dog-grate for burning logs, is much more for decorative effect that any serious heating. We light it about half a dozen times each winter, just for fun. Because we have an open fire, our wonderful building regulations now dictated that we had to have a vent installed along with the cavity insulation. Without the vent, our whirling dervishes would be unable to proceed and insulate the cavities. No vent, no insulation. The same rule apparently applies to rooms with gas fires above 7kW but, if below 7kW, no vent is required. Bizarre!

Our house has operated perfectly well, i.e. safely, for 35 years with no vent. Does filling the cavities with insulation change the way the fire/lounge operate? No, I’d certainly hope not.

Regulations is regulations and we now have a vent. The vent is a lined hole about 5 inches in diameter through both skins of our cavity wall. Just imagine that for a moment – 5ins/12cms. It’s like having a complete brick missing from the wall. The wind absolutely blasts through any hole that size. I suspect that our precious warmed air is rising up the chimney and sucking in the cold north wind through the silly vent. Our government is prepared to subsidise the insulating of cavities “to save energy” heating houses but it insists on creating an opposing cold draught. The draught is of such magnitude that, if left unchecked, we would certainly be a damn site less comfortable than we had been to start with. Bloody brilliant!

“If left unchecked” is important, here. We were not alone; no one can put up with such a draught so senselessly created. Fortunately the vent has a grating which is easily removed. The first thing poor, vented unfortunates do is remove the grating, stuff the stupid hole with rags or towels or some such, and replace the grating. Problem solved, the insulation can now do its job and help us stop heating the rest of the town.

Isn’t bureaucracy a wonderful thing?