where art collides philosoperontap

Two fifty four ey em. That’s the earliest yet. A superhuman effort I would say. Makes me wonder what time he has to leave the dairy. We have always known that milk “people” are early risers. They have to be if folk are to have milk on their Cornflakes for breakfast. However, to make it to our house before three o’clock in the morning would mean leaving the dairy in Newark at two thirty at the latest and that assumes that we are the first stop. Unlikely.

There is more. Before he sets off he probably has to load up the milk float, I assume they still call them milk floats, making sure he has all the extras covered – bread, OJ, stuff like that and chucking in a few additional pints of the good stuff in case of extra orders requested in notes on the doorstep, presumably. Long sentence, that. Is there no end to the capabilities of this man?

Seems clear to me that to be a milkman you have to be a special sort of person. Anyway the point is he must start work not long after midnight. In the interest of scientific research I googled it.

The first result came from the ‘digital spy forum” in which a snippet from 2009 said “I used to be a Milkman about 10 years ago and would start work about 2AM, It would take about a hour to load and get the float sorted out,” There was more but I didn’t click to go further.

Then second in the search results, McQueens Dairies, say “We aim to deliver milk between 11 pm and 7 am”. So some milkies must start at the same time as some of you are rocking out of your local pub. Wowsers. 7am is cutting it a bit fine for the cornflakes mind you but who am I to say?

It is a long time since I left a pub at closing time. THG tells me our dairy is called East Anglia Dairy, Newark.

Back in Lincoln today and having a hair cut at ten ey em. It desperately needs cutting. Not had it done since before trefbash. Three months ago! I know I know. Not long now.

Haven’t backed up my laptop for 233 days, it says.

“By the way we are not on a girls trip. This is actually work.” Well it doesn’t bloody sound like it. My bose phones are on even before the train has left the station. Headphones are probably the single most important travel accessory.

Missed the Eurostar I was meant to catch due to an aforementioned schoolboy error.  Fortunately there were three whole seats left on the fourteen fifty two! Two of them were together so I have a row of two seats to myself which as you know is very handy when it comes to food time.

The headphones are only partially successful. I can still hear her. Her companions have just all laughed in unison. Corporates. Exacerbated by the fact that two of them are sat across the aisle from the others. She, in a window seat, is projecting her voice so that they can join in the conversation. It gets worse. One of them has a loud American accent!  Bring on the beer.

Feels like the weekend. Thursdays usually do feel like that although I do have one regular conference call on Friday afternoons. Two pee em. At least the Eurostar is generally painless, once you are checked in.

Whilst listening to ma toons and writing this I am also watching “The Flying Scotsman from the Footplate” with subtitles on BBC iPlayer. Magnificent. Magnifico. Magnifique. Great.

What a contrast it is between the Eurostar and the ‘Scotsman.

Pescetarian. The American. She will eat meat at a push but considers full veggie too difficult when trying to keep the family happy at mealtimes. There ya go. I don’t mind a baked potato meself on occasion, and beans on toast. Oh and a chip butty. However I suspect a takeaway beef curry with fried rice will be on the menu tonight. Go down well after a long and tiring trip. It’s not on my list of all time great nosh particularly as it can vary quite a bit from one Chinese restaurant to another but makes it to page two. Same as an Indian curry I suppose.

It is dark therefore we must have stopped in Lille. Would be a bit of a shame if someone got on and sat next to me. I’d have to shift my stuff 🙂.

The problem now is that they have been drinking and the laughter is getting louder and more frequent. I’m not really complaining. It one of those funny facts of the life itinerant and they are perfectly entitled to bring some joy into their otherwise drab and humdrum lives 🙂

Lille is rapidly disappearing to the rear. Countryside opens up before us. Small villages race by, church spires stand sentry, proud guardians of an ancient way of life. Do they have television I wonder? Certainly not internet access, sureleyment.

The two girls on the other side of the aisle have drifted off and are engrossed in their devices. Sucked in. I can almost hear the whooshing sound. Slurrrrp. Sluuurrrrrrrrppppp. One of them is reading her kindle.

I have a paperback with me in my bag if I get bored with ritin stuff. It’s a history of the Isle of Man from a sea power perspective from around the sixth century AD for the next eight hundred years ago. Can’t remember the exact title or the dates but it is interesting obvs. The clash between different Celtic cultures – Brython versus Gael. Gael prevailed in the end I imagine based on where the Manx language fits into the scheme of things but I haven’t got that far yet. Also the Vikings aren’t on the scene at the mo.

The kindle reader has nodded off. That’s what a glass of champagne does for you. The others are powering on through. Total pros. I imagine she, the main “speaker” will get home tonight, flop on the sofa and say nothing. Vocal chords totally exhausted. She might be able to hold her hand out and utter the word DRINK!.

We are now in the chunnel. Must be unless there is a total eclipse going on. Not impossible but I think I’d have heard about it in advance. This knowledge is very powerful. Can you imagine why?

The chunnel is 50.45km long or 50,45km as they say in the continental Europe. I’ll never get used to that comma. Virgule. It’s on the screen above the aisle. Screens. Happy to pass that info on. You never know when it will come up in a pub quiz, or on University Challenge.

This train gets in to St Pancras at 15:57. My train leaves at 16:06. It’s going to be touch and go. Life will be a lot easier if I can catch it but it’s not a cert. Not a racing cert. I ain’t gonna race anyway. You have to shuffle down the moving staircase and around past customs then across to Kings X. We shall see. You will find out in due course.

Right I’m going to carry on watching the Flying Scotsman. Och aye.

more train of thought

Comfortably on eleven oh four Eurostar to Brussels, coach 16 Seat 57. Table to meself at the front of the train. Place to be. Buried in ma tunes. Poxy connectivity as usual. Having a table to yourself means being able to shift the food tray out of the way in between courses. 

The woman sat over the aisle in a single seat is having to put the tray on her lap whilst typing away on a powerpoint. I’m writing my diary. A day in the worralife!

Just emerged from the chunnel. The weather is the same here as in London. Dullness prevails. Looks like it has been raining a lot. Makes life in the trenches very unpleasant. Don’t suppose trench living is pleasant whatever the weather. I only mention trenches because the train traverses world war one territory.

This train continues on to Amsterdam via Rotterdam after dropping me off in Brussels. Shame it doesn’t stop in Antwerp which is where I am off to. Goes through Antwerp. 293kmh. The train. Quite fast eh? The countryside is verily whizzing by, forsooth.

I seem to be jumping back and forth across history here. I mean c’mon. Nobody says forsooth or verily these days. Did they ever other than in Shakespeare plays?

Pretty full on day in London yesterday. These conferences are knackering. No respite. I rarely bother with any of the content.

…

Now on the delayed (15 mins) 14:19 to Anvers Centraal. 2 changes of platform, presumably because of the delay. You have to be alert when catching trains in Belgium. 

Trundling along at a very sedate pace. No wonder it is running late. I suppose the bloke carrying the flag out front is a bit tired. We’ve just pulled in to Brussels North and are now running seventeen minutes late.

Looking at a quiet night tonight. Beans on toast ideally but I guess they probs don’t have that delicacy on menus in Antwerp. Missing a trick. I don’t want moules frites or steak frites Bob.

I wonder what Belgians eat instead of beans on toast. They must have their own comfort foods. Chip butties? Quite like a chip butty. Buttered white bread.

…

All quiet in the exec lounge of the Antwerp Hilton. Quaffing a g&t before heading down to the bar which should be a bit livelier. Not made my mind up whether I want dinner. Nowt special.

In one sense it’s a waste just hanging around the hotel here in Antwerp. I’ll be back again in May though for a longer stay. See how it goze.

It wasn’t ‘thought for the day’ that got me put of bed this morning. It was winners speeches from the Oscars. Worraloadofdrivel. Honestly. We’re It not for THG I don’t think I’d have the radio on in the morning other than for the two minute sports bulletin.

Off to London today. Meeting Rohan for dinner in cafe pacifico tonight although no idea what time now as his flight is delayed. Plane diverted to Sri Lanka due to a medical emergency apaz. Two nights in town then a flying visit, by Eurostar, to Antwerp for a Thursday morning meeting. 

I like Antwerp. I stay in Hilton Old Town which is slap bang in the middle of town next to the cathedral. If anyone is in the area and fancies a lemonade let me know but I don’t think I know any folks around there. 

Yesterday we waved goodbye to THG’s old car. It has been donated to Hannah who will find it very useful and who is the only one of our offspring with somewhere to put it. We are still a one car family. We only need one. 

It isn’t as if we live in the middle of nowhere. There is a bus to town every twenty minutes just down the road from the house. The 5A if I remember right. Not that I have any real desire to go to town and it is walkable. Shops! Wossthatallabout. It is going to be a few years before I qualify for a bus pass anyway and by that time I might enjoy a bus  trip to town, for the bingo. Meet the boys for half a bitter shandy!

On a whim I just looked up the bus timetable to Skegness. Every hour. Four quid from the Ancaster Avenue bus stop. Takes nearly two hours though. That’s four hours on a bus there and back. Half the day already accounted for. You really would have to have nothing better to do with your time.

I do quite like the idea of days out in Skegness, sat in a wind shelter on the front, as you do 🙂 Cup of tea in a caff on the front. Fish and chips. Small pensioner’s portion obvs. I’d expect them to have a deal every Wednesday. Perhaps not. Who knows 🙂

Maybe winters spent on a Caribbean island might work better, or somewhere around the Med. Wales even 🙂

Back to the present and reality the milkman came at twenty past five this morning. Latest he’s been. Usual bloke. Did he want a bit of a lie in? Was it a tiring weekend? We will probably never find out.

…

Am at one of those periods of time where I am going somewhere but not for an hour and a half. In the meantime it is difficult to motivate meself to do anything.

…

Thirty minutes to go. Half an hour before I set off, leave the house, depart on my next adventure. It isn’t particularly an adventure. It is what my imagination wants it to be. I’m sat in the snug with my coat on and cold hands. This is because the heating is not on in the house whereas the shed was toasty. However the shed is locked up and I have no need to return.

Back in seat E5 and the train is rolling out of the station. Choo choo. Pardon me boy. Table of four to myself. Tis the way it should be. My New York Deli sandwich is on the table in front of me awaiting a cup of tea and some sparking water to wash it down. It must be said that this member of staff is not nearly as cheery as the usual ones. Something on her mind maybs. The hidden stories that people bottled up.

I’m sitting here wearing my suede cowboy jacket. The one with all the badges on it. It is warm and most suitable for a jaunt to London. The conference I am off to tomorrow has stipulated a dress code of “business casual” so I figured the jacket would fit the bill. Business casual huh. I will also be wearing my Harris Tweed jacket mind you. Warm. Haven’t decided which tee shirt yet.

There is a private airstrip between Lincoln and Newark and today as we trundled by there was someone moving about. I can’t imagine it is used that often and certainly not at this time of year when the ground is very waterlogged. Checking to see nobody’s nicked the plane I imagine.

Lots of water in the fields around Newark. This was probably bog before the Romans drained the area. Never ask what the Romans did for us. The Trent is running very high.

At Newark a woman boarded the train. She is talking to herself and tried to engage me in conversation. Uhoh. The Bose phones are now on and I’m randomly listening to a bit of Jacques Brell whilst staring at my screen. Ah well. I’m alright 🙂It is observed that she detrains at Stevenage.

It’s raining cats and dogs/men/choose your own idiom. This being the case means it is quite relaxing. I’m sure that those of you currently on a sun lounger around a pool will say that you too are relaxed. However, a) I don’t have a pool and if I did it wouldn’t be warm enough and b) I do have rain.

If I was sat on a sun lounger it would have to be in the shade as I don’t do sitting in the sun. The sun does have its uses, growing peas for example, but sitting out in it is not for me. No sir.

Meanwhile THG is getting the veg ready for today’s Sunday lunch which is being taken at lunch time as opposed to tea time in which case it would be called Sunday dinner. Again I realise this is somewhat contradictory but it really depends where you come from.  

For example members of the Yanomami tribe from the Amazonian rainforest would now be totally bewildered probs. They don’t have the concept of lunch, tea or dinner. In the rainforest you eat whenever you can, usually after killing a porcupine or a monkey, if they can catch one. Interestingly the Yanomamis have their own saying for when it rains. This translates roughly as “it is wet”. 

Today’s rain, heavy as it is, is not the horizontal driving rain often to be found on exposed moors and hillsides where it can often be quite windy. North Wales, for example, or Scotland. I daresay there I could mention other windy and exposed places but I won’t as it would get boring v quickly and mean I might spill over to another page. Don’t want to waste paper innit. 

In case you were wondering, there really is a Yanomami tribe. I googled it. There are also the pygmy and the Huli tribes and potentially others as yet undiscovered but I won’t be naming them, obvs. By all means let me know if i’ve missed any 🙂.

The average rainfall in Lincoln in March is 49.64mm or 1.95 inches if you were born before 1971. I should really invest in a weather station to record this sort of information. It would fit nicely with milkman arrival times. I did use to record the greenhouse temperature but the website i was using, trefsgreenhouse fell into disrepair. The Raspberry Pi and the sensors are still in place so one day I might get it going again. Also the live video stream.

The live stream of tomatoes growing was a particular hit. At any given time there might be as many as one viewer (ok that might have been me but I didn’t record visitor numbers). It was one of my works of slow art. I’ve posted the hugely speeded up timelapse vid of the whole growing season here so that you don’t have to search for it.

Tharrldofornow.

I don’t record visitor number for philosopherontap either. Neither do I do any SEO related tweaks.

The itch. I scratched it. Then I scratched somewhere else, and after that the top of my head. No apparent reason. Why does somewhere randomly itch?

Cold water on your face. Invigorating. Wakes you up nicely. Refreshing.

As ‘thought for the day’ began the radio switched itself off. Serendipitous. All knowing.

Outside the rain falls steadily, drumming a gentle beat on the conservatory roof. The trees, still devoid of foliage, stand motionless and have nothing to say. They stand there patiently as if resigned to a day’s inactivity ahead.

The kitchen is calm. Avocado toast with a side of streaky bacon adorns the table. A few chopped walnuts, lime and a drizzle of good balsamic vinegar. I need to replenish the supplies of good balsamic. Belazu just about cuts it.

A fair bit achieved yesterday and I expect Tuesday to continue in the same productive vein. I struck whilst the iron was hot, dammit. Whilst the sun shone. THG is pleased with her candlesticks which is good. A happy wife means a happy Tref 🙂

Interesting, the concept of finding a productive vein. It’s like striking a seam of coal, or better still gold. Let’s clear that lot out shall we? Oh yes. Gold would defo be preferable to coal for obvious reasons. Diamonds even better although let’s not get carried away.

Back on Zog there are signs of life. Movement on the upstairs landing. The day is starting in the house of Tref. I must away…

The radio stopped at around a quarter to eight. It was on a timer. Time to get up said Zebedee. Well he didn’t say that but would have done so had he been around, natch. Many of you will have no idea who Zebedee is but you’ll have to look it up. I’m not going to help. He was magic.

Early to the shed and I thought I’d drop in on the weekly Monday morning sales meeting. Even made a small contribution as I had visited a customer whilst out in South Africa. 

It is misty out. The sun is trying to poke its nose through the gloom. The met office has promised me personally that it will be a sunny morning. I trust the good people who work there. Times have changed since the unforecast great storm of 1987 or whenever it was. Around about that time.

The news this morning is that I need to do a php upgrade on philosopherontap. Snorrabiggie really, obvs. Just popped up in an email from the host. Philosopherontap is on a shared server. Doubt it gets many visitors. There are a few other sites on there – mostly the kids own stuff but I don’t think they play much with it. Just backing it up now. Can go on my NAS box as Google drive is starting to fill up. 

5.8GB compressed so not too bad I guess.It’s a two minute download job over my 1Gbps fttp. That’s probs a lot of pics in older philosopherontap posts. I tend not to bother uploading images these days. 

Moving from 2TB to 5TB takes the monthly cost from £7.99 to £19.99. Not huge in the great scheme of things. Just one of the costs of modern day life. One of these days I’ll take a look at all the domain related costs I see coming in and perhaps rationalise them. I see cash going out in dribs and drabs but never really look at what it is.

As previously stated today is a Monday. I wonder what will be achieved this week? Seems reasonable to want to achieve something. Not work related. That stuff sorts itself out. I do have a job to do for THG to which I should turn my attention. This relates to the affixing of bases to her candlestick projects. We bought the wood and I need to cut it to size, sand down and glue. I will get that done this morning. It’s a get the circular saw out job which needs to be done outside but the sun is now out, the birds are singing away. I might as well get on with it.

Today we pick up Anne’s new car. The milkman came at four nineteen this morning and left two pints. Usual guy.

…

A bit of fixture collision coming up next weekend. Wales v Ireland and Liverpool v Man City. I’ll be able to watch some of one of the games on catchup.

Also it was observed that the Red Arrows had six planes out when they were practising. Last Friday it was only five. I wonder when they will have the full team out?

Yay it’s the weekend. Yay. THG has made the tea and I caught some ‘Farming Today’ on the wireless. What’s not to like. I like listening to farming today. We were all farmers, if you go back far enough so it is in our blood.

I like the idea of having a cow. Someone else would have to look after it but the fresh milk, butter and cheese it would produce would be v nice. Not sure it works like that. Even @chris Conder who has loads of cows gets her cheese and butter from a shop. Fresh milk though.

What are people up to today? After breaking the fast I plan on making a steak pie for tomorrow’s lunch. Slow cook the day before makes for a tasty pie. I make a good pie. Shop bought pastry though. THG is off to the park run.

When I were a farmer, a few hundred years ago, I’d be out mending a fence this morning. Then I’d have to fix the wheel on the cart. Nuisance that it broke. These things happen. At some stage I’d check up on the pigs. Already did the milking. Well, THG probably did that. Or the girl. Never ends. Always a job to do innit.

Handy having pigs. A plentiful supply of bacon which I like. At the moment I get it from Fosters butchers on Monks Road. My grandmother kept a pig in the sty at the bottom of the garden and the deeds of our house in Greetwell Gate said we were allowed to keep a pig. There was a sty in the back yard. It’s not there anymore. I knocked it down. Used the space more effectively. It wasn’t a big back garden.

This afternoon I have a few lads coming around to the shed. We will drink beer and talk bollocks, pardon the French. It’s what blokes do in a shed on a Saturday afternoon. One of the raisons d’etre of a shed. 

I realise that sometimes sheds are also used to store gardening equipment and I do have a pair of secateurs there that I occasionally use to trim the ivy off the fence panels around the side. A token bit of kit but this particular shed is more than just a garden store. We have another shed for that.

My shed is whatever your imagination wants it to be. At times, not that often,  it is an exercise studio. It is a global communications hub, a meeting room, an office, a recording studio and a place where I can entertain important guests and clients in a convivial environment. It might even one day be a workshop although the potting shed is a more suitable place to keep the as yet unbought lathe. I suspect I will never own a lathe. It is too far down the list of things to do with my time.

In the meantime I have breakfast to fix and a pie to make. I’m thinking maybe even rosti potato this morning. See how it goze. Ciao amigos.

…

A time to sit and reflect. Breakfast has been taken, as they might say in the posh country houses of yore, or even of today. I’d say I’ve had breakfast and am now sitting down with a cuppa easing into the day. All is well.

Our reasonably spacious drive is devoid of cars, THG having gone off to do her Saturday morning thing. I have time to plan.

How do you plan time? It’s quite an interesting thought. People have already put much effort into it. It’s why we have clocks. Then folk realised that our earthly time bears no relation to time anywhere else. Imagine a load of interplanetary pilots getting together on the planet Zog. Spaceships are parked up, they’ve had a few drinks and are now all coordinating the next meeting, this time on the outermost ring of the planet Xerxa in the UrsulaAndress galaxy.

What time shall we meet? It is now ten past three. No it isn’t it’s five past twenty seven! See what I mean. Every planet has different times. Someone will have suggested a solution but I don’t know what it is. I’m blowed if I’m going to adopt the Plutonian time standard. Our own earthly one is good enough, apart from the odd inconsistency such as year lengths and leap years. Hey…

In my case my time horizon reaches no further than the Paris Olympics. I have a few jaunts to plan before then – the Isle of Man and my annual trip to Antwerp. I like Antwerp although finding the right train from Brussels Midi can be a bit of a faff. Get on the wrong one and it takes a lot longer.

Thinking of driving this year. Overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam and then a mere hour and ten minutes in the car. I’ll probs book that over the next week or so. The ferry costs roughly the same as the train, ish.

…

Now banging out some tunes in the shed. Pie filling is in the oven on gas mark 2 or thereabouts. Il still very much pleuts. I don’t mind. It’s what Tilley hats are for. You might not notice but I’ve tidied up the shed a bit. Took a load of recycling to the brown bin out front. More to go but Rome wasn’t built in a day. On this basis I have another couple of centuries to get it done, assuming I am not thrown to the lions or a similarly fierce gladiator out to prove himself.

One thing I am on  notice of regarding time is getting THG’s candlesticks sorted. We bought some wood for the bases and they need affixing. Might need some more gorilla glue as I finished the last lot. Twill be done. I’ll pop out tomorrow morning. Manāna. The wood for the bases also needs cutting and the edges rounded. All in hand. Leave it with me.

…

Made a start on the candlesticks. Drilled holes for the candles but the bases still need cutting. Then went and chopped some kindling at the bottom of the garden but it started to rain so took shelter in the shed, natch. In between I did get the chichen curry on the go (it’s a scouse chicken).

…

THG has found some snooker on the box. She can sniff it out from afar. Even if the telly is not tuned in to the right channel she can hear the click of the balls on a different station. Uncanny. Radar O’Reilly has nothing on her.

This is a seniors tourney from Dublin on channel five. Not sure I’ve ever seen channel 5 on the tv before. I tell a lie. All Creatures Great and Small. Not sure about watching the telly in the middle of the afternoon. I guess it isn’t weekday daytime TV. When I were a lad, me dad and I always watched Grandstand on Saturday afternoon.