where art collides philosoperontap

Arrived a bit early for my afternoon swim so I nipped to the Coop for some greens for tonight’s tea. Couldn’t immediately see any green beans so I asked the member of staff who was busy restocking the tender stem broccoli. “No we don’t do green beans”. Then I spotted a packet of ‘Fine Beans’ right next to the broccoli. “Ah yes” he said. He’d been on holiday, although I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of soap.

Back in the carpark it was school pickup time. Amazing how many parents sit there in the car park with their engines running. Problem is you would just open yourself up to abuse if you mentioned it.

Was first in the pool. Luxury swimming. Didn’t take long for others to turn up. A bloke with a bigger belly than mine trundled poolside. I thought it would be just typical if he got into my lane, the slow lane, when there were two totally empty lanes. He got into the medium speed lane. Fair enough. 

Then a ginger geezer did get into the slow lane but he was no trouble. Although I am usually one of the slowest swimmers in the pool I caught up with him a few times but when I did I just turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

After him a woman of a certain age got in. I could see her slowly approaching the ladder as I swam up to it. Now some people have no clue and get in just as you are reaching the end to turn. The nightmare sitch is that they start swimming just as you make your turn and thus totally get in your way. She climbed in but tucked herself out of my way, clinging to the lane marker. Fair play I thought. Then she started swimming next to me, the wrong way around. Wot! I soon outpaced her and when ginge came up in the opposite direction she had to tuck in behind me.

Next up was a very large person who swam in the middle of the lane so nobody could overtake anyway and who only pulled in as you approached. I dunno. I did manage to overtake at one point, quite comfortably. Something I only do if there is a lot of clear water ahead. At the turn I found she had already turned and was headed in the other direction. Nowt so queer as folk.

Both she and ginger got out before me and when after thirty five minutes I hoisted myself up the ladder there was only the woman of a certain age left in the lane. Good swim. It’s very rare for me to be the fastest in the slow lane (cue music).

A great weekend in Lincoln with ⅚ of the family present. ¾ if you count partners. Departures commenced at seven am this morning and by tonight we will have the house back in our sole possession. Pretty triumphant Lincoln 10k from the family perspective and a great steak pie and chips supper to finish off. 

I do have to question the amount of time I seem to put into these meals though. It started on Wednesday when I bought the meat and bones for the stock. Made the stock on Thursday and the pie filling on Friday. The triple cooked chips took much of the afternoon on Sunday. Still have some pies in the freezer plus loads of leftover stock and gravy. Was ordered to bed by 9pm as my snoring was disturbing the serenity of the snooker, apparently.

Today is the second day of the shorts wearing season which is now set until October. In the garden my regiment of onions is springing up in orderly ranks. I will need to plant our new plum tree. 

I am currently enjoying the peace of the shed although I was under the impression that I would be sharing this space today. Don’t mind the occasional hot desker. Minutes after writing this the hot desker has now arrived.

It’s quite handy having a spare desk in the shed. It is supposed to be my projects desk but the only projects I seem to have involve doing stuff on screens which are on my main desk. I need to restart my family tree research at some point and I still haven’t written the hit West End stage musical.

Golf this afternoon. Probs just nine holes. Should be sunny. Need to be back to do some ferrying to the station. My game will not be good but the season has to start sometime.

Big weekend. Guest bedrooms one and two are occupied as is the haberdashery overflow room. 10k runners all, arrived on the 21.01 from Kings Cross last night. Good to see them. 

Our fourth offspring remains in London as he has a gig tonight. Dosh to be earned. Why would you work in an office when you can play the sax?

We stayed up late finishing a bottle of wine. Some discussion centred around the naming of guest bedroom two and how it was really called xxx’s room. That show will run and run 🙂

There is something very poetic about staying up late to finish a bottle of wine. Experience suggests that more than one bottle is involved but yesterday had been a long day for many. Guest bedrooms and haberdashery overflows were sought when at another time more corks would have been popped.

The cork that popped. Sounds better than ‘the screw top that twisted open’. My preference is for screw tops mind you. More reliable. Would be a good name for a wine bar, ‘The Cork That Popped’.  I shouldn’t tell you this but the domain name is available. 

I’m unlikely to ever own a wine bar. My dad advised against it. Don’t buy a wine bar Tref he would say. Knew his stuff, my dad. Take note kids. Dads know their stuff.

Wine is a bit of a treat nowadays. Carbs. Today I am allowed carbs and will tonight probs be the only person on the plonk as the others will be getting in the 10k survival zone. Probably On The Plonk. Another good name for a wine bar. 

Plonk to me is not just another name for cheap wine. I call all wines plonk. Because we don’t have it particularly regularly I tend to push the boat out on wine, without being stupid about it.

The big news of the day is really that the World Snooker Championships have just started. That’s the Head Gardener’s next two weeks sorted. Snooker and soccer are her sports. This one is the highlight of the snooker calendar.

Gotta go. Mid-session interval. Jobs to be done. Probs.

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The shed is full of football watchers.   Aston Villah versus Nukearstle. The home side is winning. The game is on a knife edge. At least that’s what the commentator just said. I’m not actually watching the on-pitch action. I’m sat behind a screen doing stuff.

Today I will mostly be engaging in domestic tasks. I can’t call them chores. I will be buying balloons, taking campervan Jade back to the depot and making steak pie filling to go in the refrigerator. I also need to purchase some antipasti and a quantity of pecorino which is an essential component of tomorrow night’s spaghetti carbonara.

Tomorrow I am planning on bringing out all my olive oils and vinegars. Over the past twelve months I have somewhat over splurged on these condiments so we might as well get the benefit. The bread will be purchased tomorrow morning. I also have significant quantities of Primitivo in the utility room but I can’t see us making many inroads into the stock as all the other diners are running in the Lincoln 10k the following morning. I’ll do my best.

Back on the carbs this weekend for two nights only. Sunday is steak pie and chips. I’m not making chips just to watch the others eat them all.

@Steve Rowland will likely be down at Sincil Bank for the home game tomorrow so will look out for you. If they sell wagon wheels I will buy one.

In shorts this morning as I am off to a ten thirty stretch and flex class. It isn’t quite shorts weather yet but hey. All is quiet. Birds are busy and the blackbirds in particular have been quite energetic worm hunting on the lawn. They must have a brood as they have been observed pulling up worms but not eating them.

Things are quite quiet in the world of business. Folk still off on their Easter break. I like this. I seem to go on holiday when it starts to get busy 🙂

May and June will be busy months for the Davieses and then it quietens down until September at which point life gets frenzied as we follow the Rugby World Cup. I am heading to the Eisteddfod for a short break in August. First time in maybe forty years! That too I expect will be a frenzy, of cultures. Read into that what you will.

I have a team sussing out my accommodation options for the Eisteddfod. Most people end up in a field and I can either take a campervan or the landrover and a tent. The former has the advantage of everything already set up for camping and a huge cool factor. The latter will be a lot more comfortable to drive the 250 miles or so to Pen Llyn. Ideally I’d have a room above a pub but that is living in the realms of pure fantasy.

I do like camping. The issue is the comparison between a small tent with admittedly a comfortable airbed and sleeping bag with the posh hotels I’ve been used to staying in! I invested in a new tent last September for the annual scout group camp but won’t be around for it this year, as you know.

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Big batch of beef stock on the go this pm. Picked up some bones from Fosters as part of the meat shop for le weekend. I am confident this is going to be a top quality beef stock. Sometimes they stick in your mind as being outstanding. The secret with stock is to not stint on the ingredients. Good quality in = good quality out as Mrs Beeton used to say (probs/maybs). The stock will gently bubble away for five or six hours.

Tomorrow I will make the pie filling. That will take a few hours in itself and it will then reside in the fridge until Sunday at which time it will form the centrepiece of a steak pie and chips supper. With lots of gravy.

Quite tired this evening having swum for over forty minutes this afternoon. There were only three of us in the lane. I was a little concerned that the other two were a couple of gossiping ladies and would get in the way. However they were faster than me despite their chattering and overtook me at least three times. In fairness to them their overtaking took the form of turning around after catching me up so I was left to steadily plough the lane in my usual rhythmic manner. Actually not sure about the rhythmic bit 🙂

I have been banished to the shed to watch football. The Head Gardener is watching some interior design prog followed by Marseterchef. She doesn’t like me being there when that programme is on as I make derogatory comments about Greg Wallace and laugh at things that aren’t supposed to be funny. Usually when Greg says something. Ah well. This not fair really as lots of people really like Marseterchef.

I am for the moment stranded due to a heavy April shower. Seasonal innit. There is an umbrella to hand but prefer the notion of being unable to escape as long there is an adequate supply of cold drinks in the fridge. You could almost imagine the rain being so bad that the back garden floods and the shed becomes an island. I definitely don’t have enough supplies for that eventuality. 

There would always be Deliveroo or simlar I guess. I think I did use them once during one of the lockdowns but can’t remember what I ordered and it certainly would not have been to the shed. It hasn’t come to that anyway.

The team colours in this game are red and pale blue. Almost the classic combination as represented by my Subbuteo set when I were a lad although the blue could be a little darker. The football is livening up. The home team has scored. Chucking it down at the ground as well. Perhaps they should move inside and challenge themselves to table football.

It’s half time. Some of the ads are v irritating, especially the EE/BT broadband one which seem to suggest that other ISPs provide crappy service and you should move to them. I moved from BT because my notionally 80Mbs FTTC only gave me 15Mbps. Virgin provided a by and large steady 200 Mbps instead and now AAISP do me a gig symmetrical. 

I’ve just realised the reason I normally mute the ads is because they are irritating and repetitive. Sorted. I’ve also muted the half time commentary because that too is boring. Boooring I meant to say 🙂 Yawn. Told you I was tired.

The teams have swapped sides and are starting the second half. I’m not a believer in letting them leave the pitch at half time. They should stand outside with their orange segments and then quickly get on with the game. I realise that isn’t how it works but that’s what I think. Wouldn’t have time for the ads then. 

Ok neither would I have time to queue up for a cup of tea and a wagon wheel but I’d accept that. Not even sure they still do Wagon Wheels. Do they? Certainly don’t have any in the shed and I’m tea’d out for the day.

I think I’ll find a book…

Bright sunny morning. The temperatures are set to rise next week which will probs see shorts reestablished as standard wear and the end of the use of heating for the season. Good.

Enough of this constantly changing weather trivia. It is oh eight fifty one and I have a meeting at ten thirty. I don’t have any preparation to do. 

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One of the ‘innovations’ I ‘might’ introduce if I had unlimited cash would be a trefor.net tea lady. OK it doesn’t have to be female but someone who would come when I pushed the intercom wielding a trolley with an already nicely brewed pot of tea with a variety of biscuits.

As I’d want near instantaneous results there would have to be a fresh pot of tea constantly on the go. Don’t want to wait five minutes for it to brew or longer if the kettle has to boil.

Now I realise some might consider this to be a wasteful extravagance but I don’t care, I could afford it. Neither is it environmentally friendly, potentially, to keep boiling water to make a fresh pot of tea.

The answer would be to have a cafe at the front of our house. That way any tea undrunk by me could be sold to passers by or given to homeless people coming inside for a bit of warmth and shelter from the elements.

The biscuit bit is a little harder. Doesn’t matter how wealthy you are if you went into biscuit overdrive you wouldn’t be rich for long you would be obese/dead. My fave choices of bisc would be milk chocolate hobnobs, digestives and bourbon creams. You may have your own faves that are different. That’s ok. Diversity makes the world a more interesting place.

During the first lockdown in order to help the family survive the unknown future I would throw in a twin pack of milk chocolate hobnobs into the shopping trolley. Once opened one of these packs would reside in the biscuit tin in the kitchen and I would on an ad hoc basis when nobody was looking dip my hand in to retrieve a biscuit or two (or three). Every time I opened the tin the level had gone down. Everyone was at it 🙂We went through a lot of hobnobs.

It is still the weekend. I think all weekends should be 4 days. In fact I decree it. Whether anyone else will take any notice is another issue despite the fact that it would be a really popular decree amongst us masses.

Years ago the Prime Minister of Ontario apparently ran on an election manifesto of getting rid of all speed cameras. I’m told he won a landslide victory. Mind you we know from recent experience near to home that politicians will say anything to get elected and then don’t necessarily deliver on their promises. 

Anyway enuff of this. We shouldn’t discuss religion of politics here. Rain is a safe enough subject, as long as we don’t stray onto climate change. I won’t need to water the onions or the grass seed today. We do need more grass seed but the Head Gardener only visits her supplier on a Saturday morning after the park run so that will have to wait.

I quite like her new title of Head Gardner. It accurately reflects a standing in the household that can be (is) extended to other areas of our relationship. I am content with this in keeping, I’m sure, with much of the populace.

Decoration for example. Our house has its original dark wood bannisters. After much resistance on my part the bannisters are now some shade of pale white. It is a big improvement. I, as a humble occasional mower of lawns and trimmer of rogue ivy could not see the improvement in advance that the Head Gardener could see.

Clearly to be a Head Gardener requires a high degree of vision as well as creativity and application, or hard work as some may call it. It also requires decision making ability and self confidence when all around are saying nay, ie me.

The Head Gardener and I are off to a garden centre this afternoon. It is rare for the two of us to go shopping together as our shopping styles are quite different, incompatible even. The culture of garden centre visiting, typically on a Sunday afternoon, is something inherited from my father inlaw who was also a keen gardener, maintained two allotments and was for many years secretary of his allotment society.

Visits to the Wirral often involved the consumption of freshly grown seasonal vegetables. In Lincoln our production capacity is much lower but we do enjoy fresh produce over the course of the season. We did at one time have an allotment but at 60m x 10m it was huge and involved far too much effort at a time when we were also raising four children. After a season or two with the allotment the convenience of buying our vegetables in Tesco only 250 metres down the road seemed compelling. We still have a gate to the allotments in our back fence.

Today does feel like a Sunday. This is probably partly due to the wet weather. Dylan Thomas always seemed to remember it snowing when he was a child. I remember it raining. Living in Wales it rained a lot, especially on Sundays. 

The Head Gardener also comes from the western side of the country and would therefore have ‘enjoyed’ the same weather. This could well have explained their frequent visits to garden centres where there is always an indoor section and a coffee shop.

Today’s destination, Scothern Nurseries also has a coffee shop to which we will repair if only to raise a cup of coffee to gardeners long passed. Americano please.

Talking about coffee shops, it has just occurred to me that I have not yet had a hot cross bun this Easter. Wtf?!  This is because I am on a keto diet. Ordinarily I am happy with the keto diet. I don’t miss beer and can survive without bred, rice and potatoes (with the occasional day off) but when it comes to not having hot cross buns then it is starting to get serious 🙂

The not drinking beer bit is easy really because I quickly see the results in being able to tighten my belt by a notch or two. Beer gets replaced with an occasional gin and slimline tonic. The diet is however a total disincentive to go to the pub. There is no point in drinking gin and tonic in a pub. You just don’t get enough gin in your glass, unless you want to push the boat out. 

I suppose I could drink sparkling water or similar but I did Sober October a few years ago and said to myself never again. My problem wasn’t really about not consuming alcohol. It was the fact that during that month of October I spent two weeks away on business at conferences and events where the order of the day was long days at the coal face but hit the bar afterwards. 

I had the long days but serial glasses of mineral water in the bar afterwards didn’t seem quite right. V boring. This was particularly the case at the RIPE conference in Copenhagen (or Amsterdam or similar). You may or may not know that the internet runs on alcohol.

In other news many trees are now coming into leaf and much blossom is to be seen around town. Spring is well under way.

Bit of an incident on the bypass this afternoon. Was on the way to drop the scarifier back at Lee’s but a cop car had closed it off. There was also a fire engine there with an extendable ladder. Plan B was through the Ermine to Burton Road and down through Burton village but that too was closed. Burton Road has a bridge over the bypass which is unfortunately sometimes the scene of tragedy and one assumes that this is the case this pm. Very sad. 

Plan C was to go through town but that was gridlocked with the knock on effect of the closure of the bypass. I gave up and went to Wickes to buy some compost. En route home from Wickes a couple of panda cars were hot footing it in the direction of the hospital. I made sure I was sticking to the speed limit!

Yesterday we officially declared our victoria plum tree dead. Killed off by last summer’s drought. It will be replaced by two trees in a slightly different position. These we will potentially purchayse this afternoon after a second attempt to return Lee’s scarifier. Always assuming anywhere will be open. Pennells Garden Centre would have been the obvious choice but they are a deeply religious lot there and are shut for the day.

The death certificate was issued after cutting a small branch to examine it for signs of life. There was no greenwood to be seen. We do have another, smaller, plumb which has flowered and therefore warned us that the health of the older tree was not as it should be. 

The smaller plum was purchased as an unlabelled stick for a pound from some shop with no idea as to what would eventually grow from it. It is a small miracle that said stick even took root and sprang into life. Plants can be very resilient.

Twill be a few years before the stick will yield usable quantities of fruit and the planting of new trees must be seen as a medium term investment.

Today is Easter Sunday, the Feast of the Passover or Spring Break, depending on your nationality and orientation. It would be a real shame if the use of the term Spring Break ever became the norm in the UK. Nowt wrong with Easter, especially as we get two bank holidays yay.

I am minded to make the day totally job free. Our family does have form in this space. My great great great great grandfather the Reverend Daniel Davies of Llandysul was excommunicated from the local Baptist chapel after it was discovered that he had let his farm hand work on a Sunday. They relented a few years later and let him back in to great relief all round. It must have created quite a stir at the time.

I visited his grave around ten years ago when I was researching my family tree. It was one of the oldest  in the cemetery and the gravestone was starting to deteriorate. At least I have it photographed.

Not got back any further than Daniel who was born in the middle of the eighteenth century.. Church records from before that time are somewhat incomplete and we Welsh unhelpfully did not have surnames in those days so it is difficult to spot a relative even if the record is there. I will revisit this some day.

I do mean to write a family history some day as it mirrors a lot of what was going on in the world in Wales over a couple of hundred years. The move from farming during the industrial revolution to owning woollen mills and then coal mining with participation in the religious revival movement thrown in for good measure. It was only because of the religious nature of my ancestors that I was able to trace them in the census. In Wales there are Davieses everywhere but only a few of them were labelled as ‘minister of religion’. One of my cousins, William Davies was the first Welsh Baptist missionary to die in Africa.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Leisure time beckons.

Totes beeootiful sunny day in the shire. Taking my cup of tea this morning in the conservatoire for the first time this season. Good Friday in prospect 🙂

Bit of campervan rental, bit of scarification, bit of culinary activity. I don’t know why it’s just dawned on me but a curry is a very keto diet compatible food item, as long as you stay away from the bread and rice. So I’m cooking a curry today in preparation for tomorrow night’s meal. It’s always better the next day.

Got to walk down to the garage to pick up campervan Jade. Jade is going out on hire this afternoon but it being a particularly Great Friday the garage is shut so doing it from our house which is fine. Jade is our fave van and the one we would take when heading off for a jaunt.

Lots of tomato seedlings in the tray on the floor next to me. They will need potting on shortly I dare say. We usually have more than we need once they have all been planted out. I’ll let you know availability nearer the time.

It must be a westerly wind because I’ve just heard the cathedral bells strike the half hour. This is good. Warmer. Were there any clothes on the line they would dry more quickly than would otherwise be the case, unless it was a southerly 🙂

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The garage is almost back to pre electrician visit condition which means it is still in dire need of a good sort out. This will happen over the weekend. Probs. It is nice to have an officially long weekend although the good folk in Belgium with who I work are still at the coal face and sending me emails

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Jade ready to go. Lawn scarified. Will do the aeration once the hirers have picked up the van. Cleared out the garage. Moved the large bookcase in the conservatory back into place. I know I hadn’t mentioned that before but now you know.

Halloumi kebabs for lunch.

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Today is the first seriously spring-like day we have had. I’ve been out in the jardin de Tref & Anne scarifying and aerating the lawn. We used to have Green Thumb do this but almost half the lawn needs reseeding post chafer bugs so I figured I’d do it all meself. GT don’t do chafer bug treatment.

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So made it into the pool, heventually. It was the start of the last session and quickly filled up. My lane must have had 9 or 10 punters in it. I prefer the last session before closing where it is not untypical to only have two or three of us in a lane and sometimes only me.

When it is that full it it doesn’t necessarily make for a good swim although today didn’t seem too bad. There are stories to be told.

First of all two girls got in, did two lengths, hung around the end of the lane for a while chatting and preventing anyone from making it to the side so we had to turn early. They left after less than ten minutes. Good oh.

The some bald geezer kept doing one length and then stopping for a break. After a suitable rest he would launch himself underwater for six or seven metres before coming up to a slow breast stroke.

A husband and wife combo then got in and swim in tandem. I can’t do this with Anne as she is much faster than me and goes in a different lane. Anyway they didn’t stay the pace either.

Three yooves hung around the edge of the pool before eventually getting into the middle lane. They splashed vigorously whilst doing the front crawl with their heads high out of the water. I think they only lasted ten minutes as well.

In all around fifteen people occupied the lane in the thirty minutes I was in and when I got out there were only four left. Felt good having done my half an hour. Would have done more were it quieter.

…

I have a curry cooking slowly on the stove top. It is very loosely a lamb Rogan Josh but won’t taste anything like a RJ in practice. It is for tomorrow night.

Thursday is the new Friday, especially when tomorrow is Good Friday. Good name Good Friday. Whoever came up with it did a good job. An enduring brand.

Thursday is also the new Friday if your weekend starts on a Thursday. Always assuming that people celebrate Fridays as the end of their working week. Never done that myself, at least not for years.

Good Friday is not a good day to travel. Nor is the Thursday before Good Friday. Unless you consider long traffic jams and queues at airports to be a good thing which I don’t. 

A few years ago I had the idea of consolidating a year’s worth of BBC radio travel alerts to text so that all roads mentioned in the year were covered. It would show a gridlocked nation. Would have been a great piece for philosopherontap.

Didn’t happen because I couldn’t be bothered to listen to and transcribe every bulletin and didn’t come up with an automated process to do the job. I would also have had to listen to Radio 2 every afternoon which wouldn’t have worked. The project is not dead, just delayed, in keeping with the folk sat in traffic jams.

We are staying put for Easter although we might head to the coast or somewhere on Sunday. Take a nice picnic. The picnic will inevitably be eaten in the car, washed down with a flask of tea as many places will still be shut and the weather will be inclement, as the Brits like to put it.

Sitting eating a picnic in the car with food items spread out on the dashboard is a very traditional thing to do. Ideally with the rain lashing down on the windscreen or a freezing wind blasting in from the North Sea. This is after a brief five minute walk on the beach spent mostly bent over holding the hood of your coat down over your face and quickly coming to a mutual decision to return to the car.

Will have to give some consideration to our destination this Sunday. Haven’t been to the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Museum for years. That could work, although Grimsby is a bit grim, knowworramean.

Any ideas/suggestions for a day out (afternoon more likely) within striking distance of Lincoln on Sunday will be considered. In the meantime I’m off to make the tea.

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The sun has emerged from behind a cloud that had held much water which this morning was emptied on the good burghers of Lincoln. There is now optimism in the air that the lawn may this afternoon be the subject of scarification and aeration. If the lawn isn’t dry enough then it will get done over the weekend, definitely 😉 You already know that we are at home for the Passover feast, mostly.

The burghers themselves will also have emerged, from their refuges where they will have rushed to take shelter at the time of the deluge. Those caught out in the open will themselves now be drying off in the sun in the manner, no doubt, of spread-wing cormorants at the seashore. Soak up that sunshine!

Silence now reigns in the shed.

The light has gone. Having a new consumer unit put in so the power has just gone off to the house. I can tell because the screens in front of me have just died and I am now on a fully charged macbook pro hooked up to a fully charged phone.

Outside is a beautiful spring day that started with a frost. Ne’er cast a clout until May is out and it is only at the start of April. I am wearing a thick woolly jumper particularly as the heating is now off in the shed. In theory I was going to scarify the lawn and plant onion sets today but the combination of no electricity and the cold may delay that.

The concept of not having two 27” 4k screens in front of me is a little strange. Nowadays I don’t feel as if I am sat anywhere productive without the real estate to play with. Even the two screens have to be supplemented with windows that need to be swiped into view to be seen.

Sometimes when using the laptop in the house I have to move to the shed for productivity reasons. It is also quieter there and I am less prone to being disturbed. A good separation between home and work life.

In one sense the switching off of power to the shed is like the beginning of armageddon. How it all started. If the shed represented life, humanity, it would now be all about what happens next. I would have to adapt. Move away from my cosseted twenty first century  existence. Obvs I know the power is coming back sometime later today but if I didn’t know that it would affect my behaviour.

We do have some candles in the house. Some are there for decorative purposes and I believe there is a box somewhere with a mixed bunch of wax sticks. One year, aeons ago, there was a short power cut during our Christmas Party, the one where we sing carols. Out came the candles and we had the most atmospheric sing song that we had ever had, the glow from the log fire keeping us nice and warm.

That is in the past. In the present the washing is being hung out to dry. Must have just beaten the switch off.

I am looking forwards to an April largely spent at home. I have already resisted the urge to go to UKNOF in Manchester this week and to a VON Evolution conference in New York City later in the month. Mostly due to diary clashes but the attraction of giving the body a rest from travel did play a part. I do need to arrange a trip to Antwerp at some stage and have a pleasant lunch arranged in London in the last week of the month. 

I like leisurely London lunches. Wotslifeallabout? If anyone would like to book me for a leisurely London lunch during the summer feel free to get in touch.