Grandchildren

This weekend we have our younger son from Kent and his family staying. The grandchildren are still very little and quite a handful! Later next week we have our "London" grandchildren staying. Quite a week.

FTSE 100 well down today

The FTSE 100 is down to close to its lowest point for a year. Maybe, just maybe, things will recover a bit next week, but this looks serious. Personally, I think it will fall well below 6000 before we see any recovery.

The markets now have a new worry on top of all the other worries - a snap election in Greece. What with the slow down in China, the risk we in the UK will leave the EU, falling oil prices, there is a lot of uncertainty around. This spooks the stock market.

As someone famous once said," you ain't seen anything yet".

Starlings

We live right next to a restored windmill which is almost 200 years old. As I write this the starlings are gathering on the windmill sails. I think they congregate on the windmill before heading off to a roost. At the moment there are about 40 birds, but sometimes I can see more than 100. At one time starlings were quite rare, but we see a fair few!

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_starling .

Sepura shares up today

Despite the falling FTSE 100 share index, I see that shares in my old Company, Sepura, are well up today.

Sepura makes and sells TETRA digital radios which are sold worldwide mainly to public safety organisations. They also sell DMR radios.  Since I left, many years ago now, the shares have done well and have risen a lot.

Maybe it was me going?

FTSE 100 - further falls

It has fallen even further and I am sure it will go even lower before we see any recovery. When I last looked it was down 0.51% on the day and well below its peak of 7103 earlier this year. Stock markets are OK in the longer term.

UK weekend weather - take your pick

Yet again the Met Office here in the UK really has no idea of the weather this weekend. OK I know our weather patterns are "hard", but the best forecast seems to be to look at the forecast and assume the exact opposite! With all the super-computers and remote weather stations I expect better.

Alibris vouchers

In the past I have bought several second hand books via this company, but I wonder if they are in trouble? Just about every day I get an email offering money off. I have never used these knowing that tomorrow there will be yet another offer.

UPDATE 20th Aug 2015:   Yes, you guessed, yet another discount offer in the email today. Nearly every day I get these offers. This company seems to be best choice for second hand books with lots of suppliers to choose from on their books. I hope they do not go out of business. The book business is tough at the moment, but I am surprised if Alibris is in trouble too.