where art collides philosoperontap

Up early. Not quite light out. Summer is drawing to a close. I can hear the clock ticking – never noticed it before. Strange that.

It’s 5:20 am and I’m already up having been awake since maybe 5. Didn’t see the point in staying in bed trying to sleep. I’ve had enough kip although it wouldn’t have done me any harm to have another hour or hour and a half or so. Also took me a while to get to sleep. The previous night I was out like a light having been partying for two days in London for the Checkatrade Trophy final.

At one point, lying there awake, I put my specs on. It’s strange putting your specs on in the dark. Seems to bring the darkness into focus. At least the glow from the alarm clock on my side of the bed.

I’m currently reading the Traveller – Marco Polo. Only just started it so still only at the introduction. I realise that times were different in his time but for someone to disappear for 25 years without writing home seems a bit odd. Ok I know they didn’t have mail in those days. No service from China anyway.

Birds have started. 05:32. Historical data this. In 2118 when climate change is wreaking its havoc on our environment the dawn chorus will follow a completely different timetable. Although I might be wrong there – it’s likely more to do with the orbit of the earth around the sun. Good concept anyway.

I see a pair of green trainers on the floor in the same place I left them last night. Discarded whilst sat on the sofa upon my return from the gym with Anne. We were watching University Challenge. Didn’t get too many answers this time although I was only half listening to the questions. The team from Oxford (or was it Cambridge) were superhuman answering the most obscure questions. It’s amazing that the program is popular – I’d like to bet most people wouldn’t get many questions right.

Just to do something I started going through my email marking all as “read’ when I noticed one from the scouting association telling me (a local scout group committee member) what to do about GPDR (google it):

Step 1 – How to assess your data

a – Read ‘What is the GDPR’ (15 minutes)  

b – Watch video guides (30 minutes)

c – Complete the GDPR framework (2 hours)

Step 2 – How to manage your data risks

a – Read best practice guide (30 minutes)

b – Contact third party processors (1.5 hours)

c – Distribute local response plan (45 minutes)

Seriously?! What has society come to?

More cars driving by outside. More birdsong.

I’m off to Ireland on Sunday. After Buxton on Friday and Liverpeul on Saturday. Euro-IX meeting. Usually great get togethers of the IXP community. It is increasingly expanding outside of Europe. I notice a Saudi IXP just joined. Galway. Anne has started coming to these meetings but isn’t this time. John is now on the home straight for his A Level exams so the support team needs to be around.

Time to make the tea. Ciao amigos…

Sitting on the sofa in the TV room waiting for the taxi. It isn’t due for another 25 minutes. There is probably a lot I could achieve in that 25 minutes but I’ve chosen to sit down and write this.

We are packed and ready.

Ian is coming round to share the taxi with us. Everyone is headed the same way. Tomorrow there will be 28,000 fewer people in Lincoln and the same amount more in London as half the City descends on Wembley for the Checkatrade Trophy Final. Checkatrade, a brand name that will be etched indelibly in our memories.

I had never heard of Checkatrade before this football season. I’ve not even looked them up to see what they do. I imagine the name tells us something. Not interested enough to find out tbh.

I’m not going to write any more. It’s just waffle anyway…

Waiting for someone from HMRC to answer the phone. The music on hold was ok to start with but now it’s getting irritating. I’m six minutes into the call. No idea how long i’m going to have to wait. Would be quite handy if a message occasionally came up saying where I was in the queue and how long I was likely to have to wait. I’d be able to go off and make a cup of tea, or dig over the vegetable plot or something.

I’m not even sure whether I’m calling the right department. I was put through after being asked to state what I was calling about and the machine at the other end decided for me. There was reference to VAT but this has nothing to do with VAT. The problem is that despite the wait it is a lot easier to talk to someone who knows what they are talking about instead of trying to understand any online “help”.

As it happens whilst waiting (currently  14 mins+) I’ve looked at the online help stuff. It doesn’t help. Doesn’t answer the right questions. Same music on hold urgh.

What could I have done in 15 minutes. Certainly boiled the kettle and made that cuppa. If I was a tax advisor ringing HMRC on someone’s behalf that would have cost that someone over sixty quid plus VAT.

Easter holidays are upon us. I suppose half the HMRC staff are on leave with the other half going next week. Don’t blame em. 17 mins. Doesn’t help me though. I’m just hoping that they will be able to answer my question when they finally answer the phone. Don’t want to get xferred to another department to have to go through the whole thing again.

18 mins in  someone answered. “commercial department” – not relevant

Transferred to different dept. Answered straight away fair play. However wrong department again.

21  mins – being passed to someone else – a “technical expert”

The person xferring me is breathing heavily – obvs has the phone under his chin

23 mins – still waiting to be xferred

26 minutes get cut off

Soul destroying

In theory I’m supposed to work on this train. In practice it is very full, not a smooth journey and has slow wifi internet access so all in all not conducive to doing anything constructive. That isn’t to say writing this is not constructive but I don’t have to use my brain and internet access speed isn’t a factor.

The train is full because another one was cancelled. I had a seat reservation so I am comfortable enough. These tables of four seats in first class are really only meant to be for two though so that you can stretch your legs out in front of you.

There are two blokes sat in the window seats. Casually dressed work colleagues. I know not the nature of their employment. Opposite me is sat a woman in perhaps her late thirties. She has a pleasant enough disposition but a sad looking face. She is travelling with her aged parents who are elsewhere in the carriage. She did avail herself of the full breakfast which ain’t too bad on these Virgin East Coast Trains.

We are just leaving Stevenage. Twenty minutes or so out of Kings Cross. I am travelling light. Just my laptop bag. Jeans and fleece.  Comfortable. My first appointment in London is lunch with Dave Cargill. Thence to an ITSPA council meeting and finally a few beers with Kevin Baynes. An easy enough day.

The woman across the aisle is sorting out her makeup. Gotta be done. Presumably or she wouldn’t be doing it. I too considered my appearance this morning and had a shave. Later, downstairs, I noticed I’d missed a bit under the chin so went back and finished the job off properly. I normally shave in the shower so do it “blind” relying on feel. Doesn’t always work out.

There is quite a murmur of conversation in coach L this morning. Ladies chatting, bloke on his phone, keyboards tapping, a cough. Normally it is fairly quiet. I changed the word quite to fairly. Quite quiet for some reason was disquieting:) Sorted now 🙂

The train continues its race South. A large greenhouse races by on the right. Galloping across an open field! The trees are not yet in leaf. We look forward to foliage this year. A golf course appears on the left. No golfers. Don’t really blame them.

Lunch today is at Ozone Coffee Roasters near Old Street tube. Google tell me it will be faster to go on the tube than in an Uber and that is the plan. Sometimes it is more convenient to be driven. You can use your phone. On this occasion we are talking 10 mins on the tube versus 20+ mins in a car.

The now fully made up woman speaks to the phone with a Liverpudlian lilt and the common set of phrases of phone using train travellers: I’m on the train, oh I’m in a tunnel, are you still there?

We whizz by suburban London. John Betjeman would have had a field day. A lot of flat roofs I notice. Feels as if rooves would be appropriate but it isn’t. The spell checker also tells me so.

The birds have just woken up. It’s 5.49am. I’ve just noticed. Reassuring really. Where would we be without birds? Overrun by worms?! Their body clocks are clearly different to mine, even though I too am awake. This is not normal although more likely in the Summer months than in Winter. March is not a Summer month in the UK.

I note a rumbling in my stomach. It is too early to consider breakfast. Perhaps it wasn’t a hunger pang. Just a grumble of some sort or another. It has passed.

Snow is forecast for the weekend. Again. We thought we had got rid of it. I really like snow but once it’s been here a day or two it gets tedious. At least in the UK. We don’t know how to cope with it. Tomorrow we are driving to Cardiff so don’t want the snow to be too much of a nuisance. Let it wait until we have arrived and then melt overnight on Saturday. I command that it be so.

I am waiting for it to be time to make the tea. It isn’t my turn but that’s ok. I like treating Anne when it is her turn really. This isn’t a hard and fast rule of whose turn it is. Neither of us makes the tea when the other is not around. Clearly the tea making is a social thing. Part of what we do for each other as a married couple. White no sugar.

We have new curtains in the TV room. Quite warm to look at fair play. Anne has done a good job. It’s a cosy room and warmer than the living room. The living room comes into its own in Summer where it can be the coolest place to sit. The best room in Springtime is the conservatory where I can open the doors into the garden and absorb the outdoor freshness.

We are in for another cold spell. I’ve brought the propagators in from the greenhouse. The tomatoes aren’t  going to do anything in this weather and I’m keen to get them germinating. I will for next year need to look at some kind of heating for the greenhouse. Eco friendly obvs. Not this year though. The only main project for the greenhouse this year, other than growing stuff, is the irrigation system. The water butt system is in place. 310 litres of storage which should be enough, combined with solar powered water pump, timer and hose, to keep the little darling plants happy whenever we are not around.