It’s Bank Holiday Monday as I write this, and I’m a little bit later than usual sitting down to think about what’s happened in the last week. Essentially a short working week for most with the long weekend around Easter and quiet for me as I am waiting for my client to respond regarding a report. He has responded and is taking a wider view across his organisation before giving formal comments.
It’s been getting progressively warmer all week with the weekend turning into quite a scorcher and I’ve been doing quite a bit allotment and garden wise, while I’ve had the time. I’ve sown some lettuce seed as individual plugs – some for my Mum’s garden and the remainder as back-ups for the allotment. I’ve potted on some tomatoes and have got some more seed to sow a few more plants.
I’ve also started off my runner beans. Garden lore says that you should sow your runner bean seeds on the first Bank Holiday in May and plant them out on the second one, so these are a little early but that might not be a bad thing as they were covered in a little mould which I washed off and they seem to be okay – not soft or any obvious other damage other than the mould – so if they don’t grow I’ll have time to get some more.
My car was MOT’d and serviced at the beginning of the week. It passed and so there’s nothing further to do until next year or unless there’s a problem.
Wilson was also back at the vets for his next round of tests – we’re awaiting the results.
I’ve been reading “The Way Home – Tales from a Life Without Technology” by Mark Boyle, essentially the stories of the author when he completely gave up technology, including electricity and other mains utilities, living on an island near Ireland. I’m not that far in, but I’m enjoying it so far.
Slightly ironically I’m reading it on my Kindle.
I’ve also got the (re)review of “Under The Rock” coming up next weekend with the chance to receive a copy of the paperback.
Been watching the new season of Bosch on Amazon over the weekend, it’s another great season of the show, and it’s great that such high quality tv can be be made to this standard – thoroughly recommended! If you’ve read Michael Connelly’s “Two Kinds of Truth”, it’s mostly based on that.
It’s been a cold week and we’ve seen a little bit of snow, although we seem to have escaped the worst of it there have been some quite significant falls just a few miles up the road, so very localised. Fortunately I’ve not really had to go anywhere too far or when I have it was before the snow fall.
We took our dog Wilson to the vet this week, nothing serious we think but it did necessitate gathering a wee sample the next morning. As with human samples this had to be collected from the first “wee of the day” mid stream. When I’ve had to do this in the past I’ve just improvised but the vet provided a collection kit this time. It was nothing glamorous, effectively a sample tube with a scoop attached to it. The only downfall with it, is the ability to see whether the sample tube is full. The warm and damp sensation on the back of your hand is a good indicator though.
I found this interesting infographic on the daily routines of creative people.
In this series of online articles the author has been cutting out one of the big 5 tech companies (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple) from her life each week, with some fairly scary results (particularly with Google), she’s yet to do the final week when she cuts out all of them at the same time but they all make interesting reading.
I was given a copy of Maigret at Christmas for a Christmas present, and thoroughly enjoyed it having not really read any Maigret novels and only really coming across him through TV adaptations (Michael Gambon and more recently Rowan Atkinson). I thought I’d get another one and I’ve been reading that this week.
It was another good read and Georges Simenon has a really smooth and economic writing style.
I also watched a couple of episodes of the series “The Last Resort”. It’s a simple premise – nuclear submarine is order to launch a warhead via a recognised back-up system, but questions order as it appears there is no war / conflict going on. It is then attacked by it’s own side and goes on the run.
There’s some interesting parallels to it and what else is happening in the world (even though it appears to have been made over five years ago). I’m not sure how well it will stand up as a series, but I’m likely to watch a couple more just to see.
It seems that the US government shut down was good for the elephant seals.
We had a little rain overnight on Friday, and a little more on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday we had rain pretty much the entire day. As I sit at my desk writing this it looks like we might get a little more. We needed that Sunday rain more than either of the two previous showers, which hardly made the soil damp, but even so the ground isn’t wet, and our garden pond is still a long way off of being full again.
We’d been having problems with flies over the last few days. There were way more getting into the house than is normal, and even with the hot weather it was abnormal.
I was pretty sure that this meant something had died somewhere and the life cycle of death was taking place. If you look this up on the internet you find that there is a sequence that takes a few days and manifests first as blowflies (you’ll probably think of them as “Greenbottles”), and then the aptly named flesh flies.
I reached the point yesterday where I’d had enough. The majority of flies seemed to be in the lounge and so I shut myself in there and spent 20 mins trying to kill every fly in the room. I was pretty sure that I’d gotten them all so I sat for another half-an-hour looking at the window, where the flies had seemed to be gathering. I was thinking that perhaps they were in the wall cavity, and had found a gap somewhere that they could squeeze through.
And I sat.
And then a fly flew over my head, from behind me. I thought it was one that I’d missed from the early genocide, so I dispatched him to join the others.
And I sat.
And then another fly flew over my head, from behind me. Even I’m not that inefficient.
And then it dawned on me. The chimney.
There’s no longer a fireplace there, but the chimney is still there and open to the elements. We’ve had a sparrow fall down before and get caught behind the board that’s in front of the opening to prevent draughts, and we assisted him out. So it made sense that perhaps there was something else that had fallen down and was now decaying behind the board.
I cleared everything out of the way and moved the board, and several flies buzzed around my head, but I couldn’t see anything else untoward, until I shone my torch up the flue pipe and there, was a dead wood pigeon, jammed in the flue.
I donned some protective gear (I couldn’t find my dust mask, so had to go a bit wild west), and with a bin liner in one hand , carefully positioned beneath the flue, I reached up with the other hand and dislodged the pigeon.
In the end it wasn’t a difficult job, and there wasn’t too much mess to clear up, even though the pigeon had done a pretty good job of sweeping the chimney on his way down.
It’s also cleared up the fly problem almost instantaneously.
RIP Percy Pigeon, I’m not sure how you came to fall down the chimney in the first place, and I’m not sorry to see you removed from your temporary resting place, but I am grateful you’ve taken all your winged companions with you.
As you might have gathered from the title of this post and the photo above, the snow is back. It’s Sunday morning as I write this and when I went to bed last night there was very little snow and hardly any had settled. When I got up this morning, I’d guess we’ve had between one and two inches overnight, definitely more than a couple of weeks ago, however it is not as cold this time. Have to wait and see what happens I guess, there’s a little more forecast during the day and overnight tonight and then it looks like it’s set to get a bit warmer.
I’ve finished the decorating in the lounge this week, there’s still a little more sorting to do as we put things back in place. We’ve also ordered a new 3-piece suite, which should be here just after Easter. We tried to donate our old one to a charity, but sadly it’s too old and worn for them to be able to do anything with, so the Council will be coming to collect it a week Monday.
I’ve also been sorting through a lot of my old books and dvds and donating some to charity, and also selling a few via Amazon marketplace. I sold two within 12 hours of listing them.
It would have been my Dad’s 81st birthday this week, I took Mum out for breakfast on the day as a mark of remembrance.
I’ve been trying to get a decent picture of a heron that’s been eating the frogs in the damp patch of my local recreation ground for a while now. I finally managed to get something half-decent earlier this week. I suspect both the heron and the frogs have been snowed off for the time being!
Customer Loyalty – Had an interesting conversation this week when I tried to cancel a magazine subscription. I had the renewal notice and the price and gone up nearly 22%, whilst I like the magazine and I know that production costs do rise, I don’t like it that much and decided to cancel it. When I rang up, as I expected they tried to talk me out of cancelling, claiming that they could offer me a “customer loyalty discount”, meaning that the price would actually hardly rise. Tempting. However why wasn’t I offered this on the renewal? I didn’t feel like I was being treated like a loyal customer at all. End result, subscription cancelled. Charge customers whatever you like, but if you’re not offering your best price to your loyal customers first time, don’t expect their loyalty to last long.
Work – In between decorating and other things, I’ve been catching up on a few conversations that were postponed because of the last snow fall. Will be working on a couple of things this week ahead of meetings the following week.
Allotment – Sadly snowed off again. Had some broccoli plants, which I ordered last year arrive on Saturday. There’s no way they can go in the ground yet, so I’ve potted them up for now, and will plant them out when the weather is a little more cooperative. It looks as though things will be a bit later this year.
Currently Reading – Still not really settled into a new book yet, but I did have a belated birthday present arrive (see pic below). These puzzle books are a lot of fun so far, although I think they start out easy and get harder as you progress through the book. They both also contain a little bit of interesting background information to the history of Bletchley Park and GCHQ
Dr Stephen Hawking (1942 – 2018) –
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”
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Cambridge Analytica – I expect that there’ll be a lot of coverage of this over the coming days [LINK], but it’s pretty scary just what can be done with all that data that we seem all to willing to give companies with no moral or ethical compass. I might well be deleting my Facebook account (again).
If you don’t already subscribe to @documentally’s newsletter then you should [LINK]
I’ll be hunkering down for the rest of the day, trying to keep warm and hoping that this latest batch of snow if short lived. Wherever you are in the world I hope your weather is a little more clement, but if not stay safe. Catch you next week.
Busy, busy, busy this week. I’ve been doing more decorating and moving bookcases in the lounge to allow me to hopefully finish the decorating in the lounge in the coming week. This has mostly been in between other things: work, appointments with my Mum and my birthday on Friday. Today is also Mothering Sunday in the UK, so we’re having a lunch with my Mum later on.
Work – Mostly this has been rearranging things that were postponed due to the snow, and catching up with a couple of meetings that were in the diary already for this week. I’ve got a few development things to do in the next week as well as preparing for a pitch meeting in a couple of weeks time.
Allotment – The plot seems to have borne the weather pretty well, and wasn’t as badly effected as I had feared, the broad beans certainly seem to have held up well. The weather this week though (mostly rain) has meant that the ground is very wet again, so not much happening. There are a couple of photos below taken last week in the snow, and a comparable image now that the snow has gone to see the contrast.
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Currently Reading – I haven’t had much reading time this week, but did get a couple of new ones for my birthday, so expect to get in to one of those in the week ahead.
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Luckily I’ve been able to completely avoid going anywhere other than to walk the dogs, and instead busied myself wall papering in the lounge and progressing the decorating there.
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Although I don’ think we got the worst of the “Beast From The East” by any means we did get some snow this week, although not until quite late in week. We had a light dusting overnight on Wednesday / Thursday and then a bit more overnight Thursday / Friday (see above). Overall I don’t think we’re had much more than a couple of centimetres. It’s the first snow that Ruby has seen in her nearly four years, and she was quite intrigued. Our other dog was not really bothered as he’s a bit of an old hand at the snow thing. By Saturday lunchtime it was pretty much all gone, and by the time of writing this on Sunday morning you wouldn’t know it had been there at all.
Elsewhere in the UK it’s been a bit more full on and as is the norm for this country we’ve failed to cope very well. One lady from Canada who spent the night on a train when it broke down was quoted in the Evening Standard as saying:
“I’m kind of shocked that for a country as populus and built up as England that a tiny, tiny little bit of snow is able to bring an entire country to a standstill.
“I’m Canadian so I’m used to very intense winters but sitting on a broken down train and looking out the window and realising I could still see the grass through the snow… I don’t understand how in 2018 a major, major train company is not set up to deal with a tiny bit of snow. It’s utterly mind-blowing to me.
“There were moments where I was reduced to tears,” she added. “There were definitely some pretty scary moments.
“For the first few hours I was very annoyed and then about four hours in, I was really, really angry, and then after that I just didn’t have it in me to be angry anymore. I was just exhausted and upset and wanted to be at home.”
I think that pretty much sums up how we deal with snow in the Country and because in most places we get it so rarely nobody knows what to do.
Luckily I’ve been able to completely avoid going anywhere other than to walk the dogs, and instead busied myself wall papering in the lounge and progressing the decorating there. There’s still a bit of painting on the other walls to do, but a trip to the DIY store is needed for more paint.
Work – Fortunately no meetings this week, and although I had a few phone calls booked, I managed to fit those in around my decorating. A quieter week than I was expecting but probably a reflection of the impact of the weather across the Country.
Allotment – Other than a visit to check how the plot dealt with the snow I’ve not been down there this week. Physically things look okay, and there doesn’t appear to be any lasting damage, however it does look as though my broad beans have had a nasty case of frost / snow damage. Normally they would survive pretty well, and had the snow been a bit deeper they probably would have been fine. However they’re looking like they might not recover. We’ll have to see.
Currently Reading – I read “The Galapagos” by Henry Nicholls [GoodReads] this week. It was a very readable book, and for me a bit like going back in time to when I studied biology, as this is one of the most quoted Charles Darwin studies for evolution.
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If The Snow Didn’t Get You Then Bacon Will – [LINK]
I’m outta here for now. The coming week is looking fairly busy, mostly with family related stuff. If you’re still somewhere that’s snowed in, I hope you thaw out soon too. Take care.
This week has absolutely flown by. I’ve been looking at a lot of wallpaper (in DIY stores – we’re planning the next stage of decorating our lounge), and a lot of PowerPoint (see work below). I’ve been repairing an arbor at my Mum’s house, and reconnecting with my basic carpentry skills.
The weather forecast for the week ahead includes snow warnings for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, when “The Beast From The East” is due to arrive. We’ve had these warnings a couple of times during the winter but never actually had any snow – so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens this time. I have to admit to thinking whoever comes up with the nicknames for these things needs their bumps felt, as really all it makes me want to do is shrug my shoulders and sigh, rather than potentially taking it more seriously. I’m pretty sure professional journalism is all-but dead in this country. It will probably be the end for those few flowers that had started to appear thinking Spring had arrived too, which I feel more sad about than the headlines.
I’ve been thinking a bit about my routine this week. It’s going to be three years this year since I left my permanent job and went freelance, taking voluntary redundancy. Interestingly though I still seem to wake at the same time each morning, as I did when I used to have to leave the house to catch a train. I guess all those years doing that have left their mark even if now there’s no train and different things to do.
I’m hoping to restart on the decorating this coming week. In fact that is why this post is a little bit later than usual, as I’ve been clearing the decks to give me the space to get started. We’ve settled on the paper above – and before anyone comments, yes we will be pasting it to the walls and not hanging it from bulldog clips. It’s taken a couple of months to reach a decision, but hopefully it will look good when it’s finished. If the aforementioned beast from the east arrives I hope he’ll pick up a wallpaper brush and lend me a hand.
Work – As mentioned above PowerPoint has been a big chunk of work this week. I co-hosted a presentation on Thursday evening to a group from the local chamber of commerce, and the preparation for that has taken up a lot of time. We had a dry run of Tuesday, and that helped as my skills were a little rusty. I enjoyed doing it and am hoping something more might come from it, but only time will tell.
Allotment – Finally managed to get onto the plot and do some work this last week. I took down the netting and supports over the late brassicas, and dug the spot they were on. This is going to be the area where the potatoes will go this year. I’ve also recorded a short update video, first one in a while.
Currently Reading – I read Stephen King’s “Finders Keepers” [GoodReads] this week. It’s the middle book in the Bill Hodges trilogy (“Mr Mercedes” is the first, and “End of Watch”, the last). I was a little disappointed with it, in that the tale spent a long time building up to what was ultimately a fairly short ending. It’s one of those books that is slightly better than the 3 stars I’ve given on GoodReads, but the site doesn’t allow for half-stars, as it is worthy of a higher rating but not quite the 4 stars which would be the other option.
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Troy – I mentioned this last week. It’s a while since I’ve been comprehensively disappointed in a TV show, but I really didn’t enjoy this. Shame. Not even going to bother watching the second episode.
Stephen Fry’s Announcement –
So that’s it for this week. Hopefully I’ll be a little bit more timely next week (although possibly I might be under a pile of wallpaper or snow, we’ll see. Take care and stay away from The Beast From The East, I hear he’s a bit of a cold chap.
It’s been a fairly busy week. I’ve had a couple of appointments to attend with my Mum, and a couple of others for myself. Around that I’ve managed to fit in a haircut, pancakes and of course Valentines Day.
It’s interesting that Shrove Tuesday has become more of a culinary event than the start of Lent, and I’m not sure whether the fact that it is still observed in at least that way is good or not. An acquaintance of mine has decided to observe the period as plastic free, and is recording her adventures here. I admire her, but don’t envy the task. In my own way I’ve been trying to cut down on single use plastics in the home, and it’s not easy. Just too much comes ready packaged in plastic or you are encouraged to use a plastic bag or container of some kind.
We don’t go too mad for Valentines, exchanging just small gifts. For mine this year I received a book (see more below) and a glass hummingbird ornament. I’ve left the latter wrapped up for the time being as I don’t want to break it, and as yet I’m not sure where I can safely put it.
A couple of times this week I nearly wrote an extra post or two, but in the end didn’t and those thoughts ended up getting lost, so I think I might pick up the frequency again, if the mood takes me.
Work – I’ve been finalising next weeks presentation, it sounds good in my head, and I hope it will turn out the same when I come to do it in real life!
Allotment – Sorry to sound like a stuck record here but the ground down there is still too wet to do very much.
Currently Reading – I’ve finished a couple of books this week that I started some time ago and put to one side for various reasons. Not quite sure why I did at the time because both were pretty good and one I really enjoyed. The first is “Spirits of Place” which is an anthology [GoodReads], and the second “Deep Country” by Neil Ansell [GoodReads].
The latter is the authors story of five years in an isolated off-grid cabin in the Welsh hills, and it is this book that really got under my skin. I’m not quite sure why it didn’t when i first started it, although I do remember it was when my Mum was having her knee replaced and I was reading it on the bus going to and from the hospital. I guess I just got too busy after that. However I did finish it this time, and found it rather magical, although the author didn’t hold back about how some of his time in the cabin was quite hard where he was effectively isolated from the rest of the world for long periods. The descriptions of the wildlife and the landscape were particularly captivating, and I was both happy to have finally finished it, although also a little sad.
I also received a copy of “Icebreaker” by Horatio Clare [GoodReads] as a Valentines gift, which I devoured in a couple of evenings (it’s only a short book, but very good). Again another magical book. I didn’t really appreciate the role of the icebreaking ships, but I certainly do now, and the author managed to capture his time on one icebreaker, and weave in stories of the crew and Finland throughout.
Furby Organ – We’ve got a few of these things around the house. I’m not tempted to make my own, but this guys done the job so we don’t have too. I would have liked it more if they had sung in unison and what have you, but it’s still an amazing bit of kit.
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Ant Man & The Wasp – I really enjoyed the first Ant Man movie, so I’m looking forward to watching the sequel too.
Troy: Fall of a City – I heard an interview with the writer of this when I was in the car the other day. I’m not sure how this will translate to screen but the writers knowledge of his subject alone really demand that this be brilliant. Fingers-crossed!
So that’s me out for this week – although if the mood takes me there might be something before next Sunday, who knows. Have a good week everyone.
I finally went to see Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi on Monday. I’d been waiting until the schools went back after Christmas to go to a showing that I could be pretty sure would be quiet – there were only about a dozen of us in the screening. I’ve also managed to avoid all spoilers.
I really enjoyed it, there were a couple of things that felt a little weak, but overall a good film. It made me miss my Dad a lot, as were he still alive and healthy we would probably have gone to see the film together. I guess those days are gone for good.
I spent some time doing some odd jobs for my Mum, as so often happens these things turn out to be more involved than when you start, so weather permitting I’ll be going back this coming week to finish off as I had to get a couple of things in order to complete one of the jobs.
We seem to have a lot of houses up for sale in our road at the moment. There are three currently (including one of our immediate neighbours) and two others have also recently sold. These things seem to happen like that, but whatever happens it seems likely we’ll be getting new neighbours soon.
My plan of cutting back non-essential spending seems to be going well, early days though. The plan is to go at least until March.
Work – Most people seem to be back at work now, and things have been a little bit busier. I’ve been mostly bouncing emails backwards and forwards discussing a couple of projects
Allotment – Potato season starts again. I picked up my seed potatoes from the allotment shop on the weekend, and I’ve set them to chit (grow shoots). I’ll probably be planting them in a couple of months time, depending on the weather.
The weather has been a bit drier this week so I’ve also been weeding the fruit bed. The main problem as ever, is the creeping buttercup, but at least for the time being, I’ve gotten it all out, and now the area is ready for some mulch – I’ll probably be using some straw for that.
Currently Reading – I’ve finished reading “Tamed: Ten Species that Changed our World” by Alice Roberts [GoodReads]. A really good read and I’d recommend it. Since finishing it however I haven’t really been able to settle into something else yet.
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Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan – This plan has been promised for such a long time I’ve lost track of how long it has been awaited. Ultimately it wasn’t worth the wait, yet another opportunity by government missed. As and when a plan of this duration is published it is always going to be difficult to get things right, but this plan needs more short term action and mechanisms to deliver (including legislation). Sadly the plan just doesn’t go far enough or look at some of the other areas where action is needed and not just those that are currently in the headlines. [Guardian Article]
Carillion Crisis – How this has been allowed to happen is one thing, but whether or not the government should bail out the company is quite another. In my view there shouldn’t been a simple bail out. It needs something more sophisticated. Companies fail everyday, and I don’t see the government stepping in to bail them out, so I don’t think this should be the exception. The problem is of course just how big, and how many important contracts the company has (which again raises the question as to how this has been allowed to happen). Some, dare I say HS2, could be retendered, others need some immediate action to allow them to continue e.g. health service catering and facilities contracts. Not an easy problem to fix, but something needs to happen quickly.
Was this whale trying to save a life? – Fascinating footage of a whale seemingly trying to keep a diver away from a Tiger Shark.
Not sure what the coming week holds, as I have a few things that I want to do but they’ll be a little bit dependent on the weather. Have to wait and see I guess.
It’s Bank Holiday Monday as I write this, and I’m a little bit later than usual sitting down to think about what’s happened in the last week. Essentially a short working week for most with the long weekend around Easter and quiet for me as I am waiting for my client to respond regarding a report. He has responded and is taking a wider view across his organisation before giving formal comments.
I’ve been reading “The Way Home – Tales from a Life Without Technology” by Mark Boyle, essentially the stories of the author when he completely gave up technology, including electricity and other mains utilities, living on an island near Ireland. I’m not that far in, but I’m enjoying it so far.
I’ve also got the (re)review of “Under The Rock” coming up next weekend with the chance to receive a copy of the paperback.
Electronic Scrapbook 