Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

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Life In General.

Lots of health related stuff this last week which I’ve already talked about. More stuff with both my Dad’s and Grandma’s estates. I suspect that this is going to be an ongoing theme for many weeks and months.

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Work.

It’s been a busy week. One of the proposals I’d been working on fell through because of some unethical practice on behalf of the potential client. I won’t say anymore on that at this point because I’m not sure that I have the full picture in terms of the background to the decisions (plus I’m a little mad about it).

On the plus side I had a really great meeting with a group of students from Solent University who I’m going to be working with on looking at a new venture on growing vegetables. It’s one of those things that may become something or it might not go anywhere, but I’m really excited about it. I’ll talk about it a little more in due course but I don’t yet know where this is going to go.

I also had a very positive call on another proposal that I need to do some work on, but there’s going to be a meeting first. It sounds exciting and could really go somewhere.

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Currently Reading

I’ve not really been reading much in the last couple of weeks – I always read in bed at night, but frequently fall asleep over my book (not because the book’s boring, but because I’m super-tired) – so things aren’t changing much below

The Fireman by Joe Hill [GoodReads]

An Astronauts Guide To Life On Earth by Chris Hadfield [GoodReads] – really enjoying this (he’s this guy, in case you’ve forgotten).

A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life (Journals Vol. 3) by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King [GoodReads]. The next book in the Dark Tower series,  a book I’m reading for an online group.

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Blog Survey

Another quick plug for the blog survey…

If you haven’t already had time, please consider completing my 2017 blog survey. I’m keen to hear what you think of the blog, and you can potentially win a £10 Amazon voucher. Looking at the responses so far it seems to take people about 3 minutes to complete. I’ve been having a quick look at responses each day, and I think I can already see some trends, plus there are some nice comments generally, thank you if you have left me one of those, it is appreciated and really means a lot.

If you’ve already filled it out, thanks! If you haven’t had a chance yet, then please do (it will be open until the end of February).

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What You Might Want To Do With Your Phone When Entering the US now – or how it’s closer to entering Russia or China than it was before! [LINK]. I can’t say I’ll have much call for going to the USA anytime soon, but you never know and after reading how this NASA scientist was stopped when returning to America [LINK], I might take it quite seriously if I do.

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Neil Gaiman – a short piece in the New York Times on his talk about his latest book on Norse Mythology (fiction) [LINK] I’m hoping that I’ll get a copy of his new book for my birthday next month.

He’s also announced his next book, which will be a sequel to “Neverwhere” [LINK]

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The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures – Love the buffalo picture

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How Emergencies Like The Orville Dam Will Be More Frequent – Climate change means we can expect more similar problems [LINK] and a little bit on what this means for Donald Trump’s infrastructure strategy [LINK]

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Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

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Life In General.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last week doing stuff on my late Dad’s estate, paperwork etc. Very tiring and frustrating, and stirring a lot of memories.

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Work.

No news on any of the proposals I was working on last week, it’s a little early days for some, and I was finalising one early on Friday morning to get it submitted. A little bit like buses, nothing for ages and then several come along at once. Another one landed late on Friday which I have yet to look at properly.

I also had some good news on some development work. I’ve secured some time from local university students to work on a couple of business development items, one for the existing business and another for some new areas looking at growing and cooking. Early days and I’m meeting with them on Wednesday, so more details to follow.

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Currently Reading

The Fireman by Joe Hill [GoodReads]

When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life (Journals Vol. 3) by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King [GoodReads]. The next book in the Dark Tower series,  a book I’m reading for an online group.

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Blog Survey

Another quick plug for the blog survey…

If you haven’t already had time, please consider completing my 2017 blog survey. I’m keen to hear what you think of the blog, and you can potentially win a £10 Amazon voucher. Looking at the responses so far it seems to take people about 3 minutes to complete. I’ve been having a quick look at responses each day, and I think I can already see some trends, plus there are some nice comments generally, thank you if you have left me one of those, it is appreciated and really means a lot.

If you’ve already filled it out, thanks! If you haven’t had a chance yet, then please do (it will be open until the end of February).

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Great Balls of Fire – some science stuff, about asteroids, meteors and the like, and what happens when they hit Planet Earth [LINK]

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No Cellphone Service – also from the Last Word on Nothing Blog [LINK]

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Bluetooth Spy – if you use Google Chrome as the browser on your computer, you might want to read this. [LINK] My laptop has bluetooth, but I keep it turned off unless I actually need to use it (more to preserve battery life).

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The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures

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Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

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Life In General.

It’s mostly been a work focused week, and I’ve been holed-up in my home office working (see below). I’ve had to step out to walk the dogs, and a couple of other chores, but otherwise it’s been a fairly quiet week with not much to report.

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Work.

This last week has been pretty full-on. I’ve been working on a number of different proposals, and waiting to hear on some of those that were submitted the previous week (no news at the time of writing on any of those). Writing proposals (bids) is perhaps one of the most time consuming and often frustrating parts of what I do. Depending on the client you can write an awful lot of proposals before hitting the sweetspot of a paid job. I think of this as a strike-rate, i.e. how many of the total number of proposals written actually turns into paid work, say you write ten proposals and two of them turn into paid work the strike rate is 20%. Of course those two might actually bring in enough income that you quite well off for the rest of the year, thank you. What frustrates me though is clients that continually ask for proposals and then don’t take any of them forward. I have one “client” who is particularly good at that at the moment, and I am working on ways to avoid doing a lot of unpaid work to satisfy their whims. Writing proposals is usually unpaid – it’s pitching for work. I normally only do this if invited to, either directly by a client or via a public call for proposals. Rarely will I submit something unsolicited.

I’ve also been giving some thought to one of the new projects that I’ve been working on as well, although not to the extent that I want to share very much here just yet, but hopefully soon.

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Currently Reading

When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life (Journals Vol. 3) by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King [GoodReads]. The next book in the Dark Tower series,  a book I’m reading for an online group.

---

Blog Survey

If you haven’t already had time, please consider completing my 2017 blog survey. I’m keen to hear what you think of the blog, and you can potentially win a £10 Amazon voucher. Looking at the responses so far it seems to take people about 3 minutes to complete. I’ve been having a quick look at responses each day, and I think I can already see some trends, plus there are some nice comments generally, thank you if you have left me one of those, it is appreciated and really means a lot.

If you’ve already filled it out, thanks! If you haven’t had a chance yet, then please do (it will be open until the end of February).

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UK lagging behind on its renewable energy targets [Link] The headline holds no surprises really, the current government has done little to support renewables. It has drastically reduced financial support to projects in particular Solar PV, skewed planning against onshore wind, and turned down a significant offshore wind project. It has also taken it’s time over whether or not to support tidal projects e.g. the Swansea tidal lagoon. It seems keen to promote nuclear and unconventional gas i.e. fracking. So much more would have been possible without the uncertain policy stances and changes to incentives that have been the hallmark of the current government.

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Bird Flu and the Free Range Egg

Due to the presence and risk of bird flu in the UK at the moment, anyone who keeps chickens has had to keep them indoors. There have been a few reported infections, although I’m not convinced that the government actually has a proper handle on what is going on. It does mean though that the definition of “Free Range” is being tested. This article talks about this more generally, and how broad the definition already is. In short if you genuinely want an ethical egg, there are a limited number of ways you can actually achieve this. Either do it yourself or only buy from someone who you can truly ensure has traceability and is prepared to talk about it (my experience is the latter are few).

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The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures

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Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

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Life In General.

My Grandma’s funeral was last Friday (27th), the service was very nice and another family era ends. The past week has been a mixture of work and making the final arrangements for that service.

After the cold, bright days of the previous week, this week has mostly been damp, foggy and chilly, and thoroughly uninspiring on the weather front. Life has felt a little bit like the weather this past week, I’m expecting sunnier times in this coming week.

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Presidential Inauguration

Although I didn’t include it in last weeks post, I watched bits of the US Presidential inauguration, including President Trump’s speech, and also over the weekend the emerging attacks on the press, for reporting the facts or not the “alternative facts” that have been reported by the White House press staff.

As the week has progressed it seems to have become an ongoing train wreck, as one carriage after another slams into the buffers. More bizarre press conferences, the decisions on the Keystone XL Pipeline & South Dakota Access Pipeline, instructions to the EPA to take down its climate change pages (this was later claimed to be a misunderstanding with the media, and the pages are merely “under review”, at the time of writing the pages are still live, but it is unclear exactly what is going on), unofficial twitter accounts for EPA, NPA (seems to have stopped tweeting), NASA and others to overcome censorship or the alternative facts, mass resignations at the state department, the doomsday clock now at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, the Mexican President cancelling his planned visit because of that wall and the closing of borders to immigrants and refugees and of course saying that torture was okay (because it works).

On Friday our Prime Minister met with Trump. It looks as though the meeting went without any major cock-ups, although it seems that the White House can’t spell her name correctly.

So far it looks as though Trump is living up to his promise of not being like any President before him, but that doesn’t look like a good thing, although trying to keep up with what is going on isn’t easy.

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Work.

My meeting last Friday has turned into something a little more than I was thinking it would. This is a good thing, but I’ll have to wait and see how this works out in the medium term. No guarantee of any paid work yet, but I do find the discussion quite stimulating, and it would be good to work with the individuals concerned again.

I’ve also been working on some of the outcomes from other meetings that week, so although light on meetings this week, there’s been quite a lot of phone calls, emails and other activity.

I was also expecting to hear about some other work, although as I write this, it doesn’t appear to have happened so that might track into next week, or at least I’ll be chasing them after this comes out to see what’s going on.

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Currently Reading

When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life (Journals Vol. 3) by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King [GoodReads]. The next book in the Dark Tower series,  a book I’m reading for an online group.

The January Man by Christopher Somerville [GoodReads] – I finished this towards the middle of last week, but wanted to mention it here as it was such a good read.

Barefoot At The Lake by Bruce Fogle [GoodReads]

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Woodland Ownership

If you go down to the woods today [TheGuardian] – interesting article on what different people have done with the areas of woodland that they have bought. Although it looks like my part of the world is quite an expensive one to own some trees in, it’s not entirely out of the question elsewhere in the country

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Battery Storage

Although I applaud the use of batteries in the home to make better use of energy from solar panels i.e. use it when the sun isn’t shining. I’m still a little bewildered that this is still being described as “trials”. I know that this is exactly what it is, and in normal “on-grid” situations this needs to be explored to understand the impacts on the grid at a larger scale, but seriously is this really 2017, and we’re still only trialling this?

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The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures

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Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

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Life In General.

This last week has been pretty similar to the last with more arrangements around funerals and alike, also quite a heavy work week (see below).

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Work.

I’ve also been spending quite a bit of time on setting business goals and targets for this year. I’m a little late, as normally I do this in December, but my mind was elsewhere at the end of 2016. There are likely to be some changes to the blog or perhaps the creation of another website, I haven’t quite decided yet, and probably more content. My word of the year for work is going to be “visibility“, there are many reasons for this, but after a quiet year last year, I need to raise my business profile a bit, and get out there and hustle. I’m feeling quite positive about things, and I now need to go and find some clients to work with.

I also had an unplanned meeting on Friday that wasn’t in my diary at the start of the week. It was a good meeting, but on reflection I don’t think will happen, but we’ll see.

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This is a case of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Better to be accused of over reacting, than reading headlines about the number of deaths, or listening to people complaining that nobody did anything, and how let down they feel.

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Sharing this again, although i posted it separately last week.

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Currently Reading

It seems that I am reading an awful lot of books at the moment, but in reality the two Thomas Merton’s I’m only picking up now and again, and the Stephen King I’m only reading a chapter a week so that I can participate in the online discussion. I’ve set my target this year for the GoodReads reading challenge to 25 books, I already seem to be 5 books down (although to be fair one of these was started last year).

Yellowstone by David Quammen [GoodReads]

When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life (Journals Vol. 3) by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King [GoodReads]. This is the next book in the Dark Tower series, and a book I’m reading for an online group.

Dead Pig Collector by Warren Ellis [GoodReads]

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 The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures

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Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

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Life In General

Much of the last week has been taken up with dealing with my Grandma’s passing and making arrangements for her funeral and other beauracy surrounding her death. This is all rather too soon since we lost my Dad to be frank. Less than two months between the two, and we still haven’t finished dealing with all of the issues surrounding his passing. This is not the way I wished to start 2017.

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Currently Reading

Yellowstone by David Quammen [GoodReads]

When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life (Journals Vol. 3) by Thomas Merton [GoodReads]

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The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures


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Neonictinoids

The unsung heroes of my allotment are the pollinators. I grow no parthenocarpic crops, so rely on the insects to do the pollination work for me. The debate on the effect of neonictinoid pesticides has been going on for some time. Mostly argued by the companies that produce the chemicals that there is no harm caused to non-target species, but I doubt this very much, as peer reviewed research argues differently. This latest report makes for troubling reading, and I doubt that government (in the U.K.) will act, as so far at least they seem happy to take the view that there is no unintended consequences.

Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

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Life

I’m enjoying doing the Post A Day thing – I hope I can keep it up until the end of the year – haven’t yet decided whether to carry it on past the trial period.

Otherwise I’ve been spending a lot of time doing things on my Dad’s behalf. I’m surprised just how uncooperative some companies can be. Maybe I’m wrong to expect that this is the one time that a company might make sure they do something right, but so many just don’t seem to give a s***, you’re just another number – not a grieving relative.

I’m not going to name and shame here, but I will say that there are a number of companies and a bank who I will never give my custom to in the future because of how they have behaved.

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Currently Reading

Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and a Writer: 2 (The Journals of Thomas Merton) by Thomas Merton [GoodReads].

The Wastelands (Dark Tower III) by Stephen King [GoodReads], ongoing read for an online disucssion group.

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The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures

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I’ve followed author, adventurer, naturalist, and teacher Craig Childs for a number of years now. I’d recommend all of his books, especially the excellent Animal Dialogues (pictured). This post of his on the Last Word On Nothing Blog, reminded me of his house off-grid that he’s just about to sell. It looks like an amazing place, and in another world maybe I’d be living in something similar, but at least at the moment I’m more in the hear and now. If you’re interested in the New York Times piece, you can also read that here.

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