I dream of holidays by the sea. Of strolls along the prom stopping off at Davison’s ice cream parlour for a double scoop vanilla and honeycomb. Tea and tea cake at the Harbour Lights. Cold beer sat outside The Creek looking out at the yachts in the marina. Pint of ale in the snug at the Whitehouse. Early morning walks around Fenella Beach and Peel Castle. Catching the sun over the fishing boats just after dawn. Piles of crab and lobster pots. A stroll along the top of the breakwater looking out for basking sharks and messing about in the rockpools. Fishing from underneath the lighthouse and not catching anything. Watching the lifeboat come in. Waiting for the swing bridge across to the prom to close again. Buying large packs of locally caught scallops from Devereaux the fishmonger near the old train station. A walk up Peel Hill and stopping at the top for a 360 degrees rest. Browsing the shelves of the second hand bookshop. Takeaway curry from the Royal India. Boozy lunch at the Boatyard. Bus into Douglas for a few beers and back.
I dream of holidays by the sea. Can you blame me?
Back in the shed I’ve upped the thermostat to 23℃. 21 was ok but felt it needed just a little more. Outside it is sub zero with a thick layer of ice on the bird bath. The birds have been nibbling away at the fat balls though which is good. Back to a normal day today as the weekend and Monday were filled with submitting an application for an Arts Council grant. All done now. Fingers crossed eh?
In a departure from my normal custom I’m going to tell you a bit about today’s work activity. Today is going to be mostly spent writing a newsletter. It’s all good stuff. Filled with interesting tidbits about Session Routing Engines and number porting in South Africa and Saudi Arabia amongst other exotica. They do number porting a lot better in other countries.
We have been cleaning our mailing list in preparation for the sending of said news. This process threw up what might be considered an interesting linguistic factoid. The French speaking person managing the process created a number of tabs one of which was labelled “cleaned list”. In her mind this tab comprised of email addresses we did not want to send to. In my mind a cleaned list constitutes addresses that we do want to send to. We’ll have it my way. Thassit on work.
There is no end in sight on the lockdown front. The rate of covid infections appears to have peaked as potentially have the number of hospital admissions. Death though still has its dominion and needs to turn the corner but a small candle has been lit.
Life at home has settled nicely into a lockdown routine. We are lucky. Today Anne is off out looking for food again as there is nothing left in the fridge but a few pickled onions and a couple of mushrooms. I had the last two sausages for breakfast. Hopefully the delivery lorry will have made it through customs overnight and she will be able to queue up with her ration book. It feels as if we should be listening to the wireless for reports of convoys having made it through into port, our own minefields being a danger unforseen when they were being laid.
I have specifically requested Wild Pacific Sockeye smoked salmon and bacon medallions. These are breakfast items but not for consuming together. I rather fancy an omelette tomorrow with smurked saumon on the side. Rick Stein gave me the idea last night when he was in Cornwall. His omelete was not accompanied by salmon but it is the concept that was of interest and not the specific ingredients.
…
Flood of enquiries for Anne’s Vans this afternoon following our appearance on Look North which in turn follows the coverage we got on the BBC News website. I won’t include a link for Look North as iPlayer times them out but the news site is here
…
Night time in the shed. Anne and I have been watching the Imps beat Portsmouth and now I have a bit of time before hay hitting. Sbeen another busy day. There are just three lights on including my cold beer sign. The shed has a very relaxed nighttime ambience. This isn’t to say more mood lighting would not be appropriate but all in good time. When I come across it.
We have been watching a lot more sport during lockdown. Willing to spend the money. It’s something the two of us can do together although Anne has never got her brain around rugby. The shed is the perfect place for watching rugby with the boys but unfortunately it ain’t appnin right now. The 6 nations starts in two weekends time but it will be a lonely vigil. No squeezing into the pub trying to find a good spot.
It’s been a great day on the Anne’s Vans front. Lots of enquiries on the back of the BBC Look North exposure. Makes me think about what we might do ourselves for a bit of a break. Last summer we hit North Wales. Not everywhere was open post lockdown but we had an enjoyable enough time. Not sure where we might want to go this spring, rules permitting. Might even take a van somewhere, assuming we have availability obvs 🙂