Never have Boris et al been so pleased to have a distraction from last night’s deadly revelation that over 26,000 have died from COVID-19 in the UK.
BBC Breakfast outdid themselves this morning in not mentioning much other than 100 year old Tom’s great feat in raising more for the NHS than all the celebrities and BBC put together.
Various banners and subtitles on the programme managed to mis-spell Marston Moretaine, the village of Tom’s residence today; I know, because I nearly bought a house there in August 1989 (it was a new house, on a new estate, of the genre I deplore now, under a pylon, which I equally much deplore now as it’s manifestly not safe, and I imagine those houses are looking fairly shabby today, given the way they were throwing them up then), but was saved from the pylon at the 11th hour by successfully getting another job (in Dorset) so I had to phone up to explain why I wouldn’t be starting a job working for Bedfordshire LEA the next week.
“I’m afraid we can’t accept your resignation for at least a term,” said my now non-prospective new boss, triumphantly, “you’ve signed the contract!” “I haven’t,” I said, “I can’t have done, as I haven’t even been issued with one yet… in fact, I’ve chased Personnel every day for the last 2 weeks about it, and I’ve left three messages for you, asking if you’d chase from your end, and you haven’t returned any of my calls.” Never has there been a more nuanced silence on the other end of a phone. “Hello…?” I said after 30 seconds or so. “Or perhaps good-bye would be better?”
I hadn’t actually wanted to go to work in Bedfordshire (far too far from the coast for my liking), but, it was that or working in the Wirrall, which was the other place where I’d been offered a job on completing my professional training. I still thank the Senior on the interviewing panel there, who came out to call me back in to tell me I’d been successful. “We’re going to offer you the job,” he whispered as he led me slowly back to the interview room, “but, please don’t accept it, this really isn’t the place for a bright young thing like you, at the start of their career.” I met him again at a Conference a few years later, and thanked him for his wise counsel. He looked relieved, and bought me a drink. I still think it would have been his difficulty and not mine, had I said yes.
The ‘Death by Coronarius’ official website didn’t update yesterday from Monday’s figures, and still hadn’t until nealry 2pm today. Why?
Oh Colonel Captain, the government thanks you for distracting the nation from the true facts of their utter and ongoing incompetence.
Thank goodness we still have some un-common wo/men around.
Month: April 2020
… to replace the phrase “social distancing” with the phrase “safe distancing”.
It is clearer, and, in the future, once lockdown is relaxed, it better communicates the message of how ‘the new normal’ will have to be.
Day 36 of not going beyond our property boundary here.
And finally, an hour ago, we had 7 minutes of light rain! The first for 7 weeks. I doubt it even managed to trickle down the roof into the water butts.
The delivery drivers and postie have been telling us they have never seen anything like it in the spring – they say that all the farm tracks are dusty and great clouds of dust are swirling around farm buildings every time the wind blows (which is several times a day, at least, most days).
There are now a total of 26,097 dead of coronovirus in the UK (hospitals + care homes + other settings, but it only includes those who have tested positive), and more Americans have died of it (58,365) than died in combat in Vietnam (58,220). The US now has a third of the global cases and a quarter of total deaths.
We are now only slightly behind Italy, which is second only to the US.
It seems likely that we will end up with the worst death rate in Europe.
I’ve asked this before, and I’ll say it again, no doubt, how can that be?
We have a free at the point of delivery National Health Service. Is the treatment being used here correct/the best treatment there is? There must be some reason that our death toll is so high, and we have the third worst death rate in the world.
A year ago today, we were celebrating our Silver Wedding Anniversary at a watermill in Suffolk.
After an abortive attempt to move north two years previoulsy, we’d all but given up on escaping the increasing urbanisation of our once-rural quiet idyll backwater that had become increasingly noisy, polluted, and full of urban refugees with no idea of the countryside or its lores and charms; and seemingly no understanding of anything other than money and what it could buy, or who it could buy off.
Who would have thought that a year on we’d have unexpectedly found another version of paradise and be locked down in a rural idyll with no-one but sheep and pheasants for neighbours.
The revolution starts now, in your own backyard, in your own home town…
More true now than ever.
Write your own future.
Hope everyone is keeping well and enjoying the new version of their life?
Are vegetable and flower seeds like flour for baking?
That is, people who were never going to use them (for gardening or baking, because they’ve never previously done either, although they’ve probably watched a few gardening and cookery programmes in their time) panic-bought them, making them unavailable to those who would have used them, and the unsown packets will languish in cupboards until they eventually get thrown out.
But, I will be delighted if people do try to grow or bake their own food during these strange times and then continue afterwards.
I have always been convinced that much food waste happens because people do not value the work, time, or skill that has gone into producing it. If they learn about this first hand, then hopefully they will be more mindful of not wasting food in the future.
I’m really impressed by how both Gardeners’ World on TV and Gardeners’ Question Time on Radio 4 are adapting to cater for both their old faithful audiences, and the new enthusiastic viewers and listeners they are attracting during lockdown, without making either group feel that the programme is not relevant to them.
However, I am appalled at those companies who are currently trying to take advantage of the newbie gardeners.
Top of my list of con-companies is Thompson and Morgan, who sent me an email last week offering “Grow Your Own Veg – limited stocks available!”:
One bean plant for £6.99. In other times found in trays of 6 at the DIY sheds for £3 tops, so 50p each.
And then we have 12 jumbo lettuce plants for £9.99. 83.25p each for a lettuce?!!!
And I’ve had some of T&M’s ‘jumbo plugs’ in the past too. They weren’t what I would call a jumbo plug. It would take weeks to grow these into something sensibly edible.
Then there are the jumbo plug carrots at the same price, 83.25pence each. One tiny carrot, that you have to grow on yourself, for probably 3 months, will cost you nearly a pound. For one carrot! And that’s if you don’t get carrot root fly, or forget to water it.
Lastly, one tomato plant in a 3″ pot for ten quid, or one tomato plant in a 3″ pot for £8. What a bargain.
They might be ‘grafted’, but, really, that’s not necessary. If humankind hadn’t been messing about with nature, perhaps the world wouldn’t be in the at-the-mercy-of-a-nasty-virus mess we are in now.
All those prices are plus a £4.95 delivery charge. Outrageous.
Anyone else noticed any companies profiteering?
These are our indoor veg plants, grown from seed:
Tomatoes, peppers, chillis, courgettes, pumpkins, and a few other things I’ve forgotten.
Some have been started since we got here, and some came north as tiny plants and have grown and been potted on.
Here is a tray of ghost pumpkin plantlets (those are the big white pumpkins) that are 9 days old in the picture.
I took the seeds out of one of our remaining last year’s huge pumpkins that has been sustaining us in the absence of a supermarket delivery slot (aside: yes it did all arrive last night, and we do now have fresh food, and tonic and lemonade to go with the bottle of gin and two bottles of Pimms that have been tantalisingly lacking mixers for the past 34 days).
We’ve never had a conservatory before, and it does make an excellent temporary greenhouse, as we currently lack a greenhouse or a polytunnel. We have many more plantlets outside (herbs, beans, peas, brassicas, annual flowers etc etc), either hardening off under fleece, or planted out.
At T&M prices for veg plants we’ve probably about two, if not three, grand’s worth…
The Black Familiar has found where we are sleeping (in the lounge) and is now competing with the birds to act as an alarm clock, from the wall outside the window, sometime soon after dawn:
On Friday evening Mr BW was flicking around the TV channels, for a reason known only to Mr BW as he has a perfectly good copy of the Radio Times – actually, he has two copies, as they have cocked up the change of address and are sending us old region and new region, both to Coven Nord – when he stumbled on the end of a repeated episode of George Clarke’s “Old house new home“. It was the Peak District and [somewhere else that I can’t now recall] episode, but I don’t seem to be able to find it on their website. [edit: it was Leamington Spa, and I’ve now found it]
We gave up watching this sort of programme after our 2006 Studio extension at Coven Sud builders told us we should go on Grand Designs (the programme was in its early days then, before it got pretentious, and they didn’t seem to get that one had to apply in advance).
Anyway, I made Mr BW find it on +1 so we watched it again from the start. There were two old houses, both of which had a lot in common with this house.
I was traumatised by noting that one of the properties had a kitchen exactly like that here.
Exactly. Even the layout was the same.
Although ours trumps theirs as it has black worktops. Great for losing every camera, phone and black gadget and black charger cable you have, for days on end sometimes. The two kitchens must have come straight from a turn of the millennium brochure/salesman’s design plan.
I was even more traumatised to note that one house was being painted all white. Oh no, I seem to be accidentally inadvertently trendy again.
In the 45 days we have been here, we seem to have got to know more locals than the last occupants did in the entirety of their 20.5 years here. One of the dog walkers we’ve befriended with a friendly wave and an ‘at ten feet conversation’ was able to put us in (telephone) touch with the last-but-one owners, who turned it from a derelict small cottage and two linearly attached barns, into today’s form, in the early 70s. The lady couldn’t remember paiting the upstairs landing walls yellow, although she did say, “Oh probably, I did have a thing about yellow at one time… and you’ve made me bring back some very happy memories with your questions this afternoon. It’s a very happy house.”
We have the promise of a proper meeting, and some old photos (including of her great-grandparents who also, unbeknown to her and her husband when they bought it from the local Estate, lived here around the turn of the century) at some post-COVID point.
Being a great lover of social history, and old house history, this make me very happy.
We’ve had to install a movement sensor on the right hand gatepost (which I don’t think you can actually see on the photo, which was taken from an upstairs front window – but it’s on the left hand top of the wooden fence on the RHS, ) as people keep managing to creep in unheard. The plasterer managed to get round the back, in the back door, and into the hall, before I noticed!
It makes a very loud ‘bing bong’ noise, which is just as well as we have a Morrisons delivery scheduled for tonight between 9pm and 10pm (the only slot there was 3 weeks ago when I grabbed it). Our first food purchase/delivery since 20th March (give or take 6 fresh items a kindly older neighbour got for us two weeks ago) . Let’s hope not too much is out of stock. And that they can find our isolated location in the dark.
All that is left in the fridge is alcohol and eggs.
Renovations – on Sunday afternoons, wallpaper stripping on the upstairs landing, fuelled by Johnnie Walker, his Sounds of the 70s on Radio 2, and Aldi’s Cream Sherry, followed by a roast dinner.
What are we like?
It’s been 21°C here and very clear and sunny today. No wind at all. Sensational. The best weather day so far. But still not a drop of rain.
Mr BW has been replacing plug sockets (I now have 9 holes for plugs), light switches and ceiling bulb holders in The Bouncy Room (what he now calls what was initially ‘The Soft Materials Room’ (ie textiles – sewing, spinning, knitting, crochet etc etc), as apparently that is too much of a mouthful). Now all white, with new skirting boards, all it needs is a new carpet (which seemingly won’t be happening any time soon) and a new blind. The window is too odd a shape for curtains – all they will do is block the light.
Anyone have any recommendations for vertical blind manufacturers? I can’t remember who I used when last I bought one. It was somewhere online, and it was good, but more than that I have no idea, and the email records currently accessible to me don’t go back that far.
Mr BW spoke to a local supplier this morning to see how things were looking for installation: he said that the A1 around Gateshead and the Metro Centre was as busy as ever today. I can see the continual glinting of many car windscreens in the mid-distance (perhaps 10 miles away) on the road that runs along Hadrian’s Wall.
Clearly people are getting bored at home. More than 20,000 already dead in the UK alone: only another 20,000 to go, if some predictions are to be believed. Which bit of, “It’s not worth dying for a tomato [insert other desired item of choice]!” are people still not understanding?
Cleaner BW told me yesterday that construction sites in the south and east are re-opening, and the ‘casualty admission rate’ seen (at least in the nearest hospital to Coven Sud, where she also works) is half of what was being expected/planned for.
I spent the day attempting to sort out matters financial, and dealing with the paperwork for running two houses. I can now give a rank order of how banks and building societies are coping with people who have maturing products but aren’t at home with access to all their account details and passwords, so can’t transact online. Best: Shawbrook (by far), followed by Coventry BS. Worst: Nationwide and Virgin. Interestingly, in chatting to the members of staff taking the calls, the former two made positive comments about their employers treating them well, and being flexible about working places, expectations and patterns, whereas the others were clearly still fighting ‘management’ and poorly thought through contingency planning, to attempt to help the customer on the line.
Right, I’m now off to inhale some Dettol, and drink some Cillit Bang, as recommended by President Orange Trump.
…to everyone in England.
And to everyone in Canada, Croatia, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republic of Macedonia too.
Perhaps we will get England back to being a great nation again, a manufacturing nation, a nation that has all its own call centres within its own country, a nation where our scientists and engineers are taken seriously, once this current mess has been sorted?
I was half-listening to an older lady scientist on R4 at lunchtime talking about how, last year, she was involved in preparing the UK’s action plan for tackling coronavirus. It was then shared with (sold to?) Singapore. As the interviewer said, “So Singapore adopted it, and it has worked, and we didn’t?” “Yes,” came the reply, drily.
Why politicians constantly commission advice, often at great expense, and then disregard it, thinking they know better, is beyond my understanding.
Can anyone tell me if this is friend or foe please?
There are lots of them, both buried in the garden soil an inch or so down, and I’ve also found a few inside (there are currently plenty of holes in the pointing of the stonework for them to get through).
They curl up into a perfect, very tight flat spiral if you disturb them, and otherwise travel very straight and fast. Lots of tiny legs and 2 prominent antennae.
I’m thinking millipede? But they are much darker (some are even black) and longer than any I have ever seen before. We didn’t have these down south! Or, indeed, anywhere else I’ve ever lived.
I bought two new large general seed feeders (expensive, good quality) that seem to be useless as they empty in 12 hours – two thirds on the floor and one third in the birds.
Some of it is the fussy tits who select out the wheat and toss it out (my new bag of seed feed is now the sort without wheat), but it seems to auto-dispense too fast for the birds to eat. Anyone know any better kinds of seed feeder?
The goldfinches keep spilling all their niger seed too, so they are on short rations. In fact, they’ve decided they do now eat peanuts, something I’ve not seen before (but maybe that is because they prefer niger seeds, and there are usually niger seeds).
There are four words that I always mis-type.
You may have noticed them creep in occasionally.
Now that I have largely got rid of my RSI, I touch-typed (the best skill I ever learnt, as a teenager, at evening classes, on a manual typewriter) and once a pattern has been accidentally incorrectly programmed, it is near-impossible to relearn it.
1. alwyas (always)
2. form (from)
3. particulalry (particularly)
4. acocunt (account)
I often notice that I have mis-typed the last of these shortly after I have pressed ‘send’ on an email of complaint to a bank.
I did it twice today. I’m not sure if it’s a Freudian slip or something else entirely.
Why are banks making it so hard for customers to complete simple transactions online, in the current situation, when they are begging people to use online channels?
Yes, I know we’re not on the electoral roll here yet. We have an official letter from the county council telling us that, due to current admin staff shortages owing to COVID-19, we can’t be added until 1st May, but that really shouldn’t stop banks changing our account addresses now: except that they say they can’t as there is a Royal Mail redirection on our old address and we’re not listed on the electoral roll of the new address. And they can’t accept that in a secure message, we have to ring up, individually, and each wait two hours in a queue to speak to a person to tell them that orally. And we can’t close or open accounts either, as there is a Royal Mail redirection on the address that the accounts are currently registered to. Really?
Who knew that banks check for the existence of Royal Mail redirections these days, when you try to open or close both cheque and savings accounts?
In other news:
Mr BW has discovered that he didn’t like the airless paint sprayer any more than he said he was going to when I bought it telling him that it would save him hours of time, and his neck, back and shoulders.
But, as expected, completely white rooms look amazing. Huge, light and blank canvas-y. The walls almost disappear into the natural light.
Tomorrow the excess of paint that emanated from the sprayer may have dried enough to remove the masking, the now white cardboard, and the now white tarpaulins off the floor. Perhaps.
Said machine is currently sitting in disgrace by the front door awaiting tomorrow’s courier to arrive to return it for a refund. It took me two hours to clean the utilised buckets, ear defenders, safety goggles, shoes and clothes. It may take rather longer for the paint to wear off Mr BW’s face, arms, and hair.
1. Is anyone planning for the huge numbers of people there will be who will have post-viral syndromes, PTSD, and associated issues, after having COVID-19?
2. How did the last major SARS/COVID 2 outbreak in 2003 not spread worldwide?
3. Where would we be now if the doctor in China (now dead, or disappeared) hadn’t spoken out back in December? Why did the Chinese attempt to keep the problem from the rest of the world?
4. Is the current rudderless political situation and gross incompetence of our elected ‘leaders’ turning into ‘Brexit Mark II’ (or maybe ‘Brexit Plus’)?
5. How can we in the UK, with a National Health Service, and free healthcare for all, have such an appalling prognosis to this crisis? 24,000 more to die apparently…
6. Why are the lives of the people who die outside of hospitals not included in the official daily death statistics? Are their lives not considered important enough for them to count?
7. Why do employed people, furloughed on 80% of their wages keep moaning about their lot? Take off travel to work, work events, work clothes, work collections, work food, tax, NI, pension, and they’re actually probably mostly better off anyway – and they’re not having to do anything for their money. Plus the rest of us will be picking up the tab!
8. How many self-employed people and small businesses (particularly those that weren’t very profitable, or were in debt, before) will bother/be able to get their services, shops, pubs, restaurants and companies up and running again? How will things run in future with only large companies providing essential services?
9. Why are so many groups of workers being overlooked in the Praise and Glory coming from all quarters? Many, including teachers, and education support staff (many of whom have been working relentlessly, without normal holidays, to fulfil government expectations) have not received even a mention. Why is it only NHS staff who get ‘golden hours’ for shopping and all sorts of freebies and recognition from many sources? If it weren’t for teachers’ contribution, many of the NHS workers wouldn’t be able to go to work. Many teachers are currently providing a huge amount of online learning resource to their students, which is taking many many hours to make and put online, well beyond even their normal working commitment. Many teachers are having to support their vulnerable pupils/families where social services and welfare services are not available. There is occasional mention of delivery drivers and retail workers, but I haven’t heard a single word of praise for education staff. Undervalued as normal then.
10. What will happen to house prices in future? A return to the negative equity of the 1990s?
11. Will there be lots of people looking to move out of urban areas when this crisis is ‘over’ (the next health crisis is just around the corner – you cannot mess with the world/natural order the way humankind has and not reap the consequences)?
12. If the mail for this area is (as the postie claims) all being held up in N’castle, because there aren’t any drivers to bring it up to the local depot, why doesn’t one of the posties from this area go and get it? And will the postie ever remember it’s now letters through the new letter box in the door?
13. Why would you simply fill leaks in guttering with a lump of squeezy silicone rather than pulling out the previous fixative from the leaking joint, cleaning back and fixing the problem properly?
14. If a local plumbing company carries out a complete boiler service, oil tank inspection, and overhauls the radiator system, charging the previous occupants nearly £600, should the oil filter going to the boiler not also be cleaned?
15. Does everyone who lives in a non-hard water area have leaking radiators and joints? Does the calcium carbonate in hard water areas actually stop the tiny leaks?
16. Why would you put non-porous wallpaper over old plaster, and then paint over it, in a 400 year old house? And why would you re-point on the outside with concrete mortar rather than lime? Old stone needs to breathe.
17. Why would you not open the windows (and indeed clean around the edges of the UPVC windows and the inside of the frames, and oil/adjust the hinges) every now and then, so ensuring that condensation does its worst?
18. Why would you pay a cleaner £90 for 4 hours every week (yeah, £22.50 per hour) and still have a filthy house? The further we look, the worse it is.
19. Does anyone actually manage to cook using all electricity? So far – 3 burnt pans and I am really not enjoying cooking at all any more. Aga survey done just before lockdown, deposit paid – but who knows when/if it will ever get fitted. I may resort to using the 2-ring gas stove out of Bri@n soon, as it would be less annoying.
20. Not having been out since 24th March (Day 28 now) what percentage of my Morrisons order (slot gained as the first available, over 2 weeks ago, and there haven’t been any more slots available since) will we actually get between 9pm and 10pm on Sunday night? We’re almost out of fresh veg and as for fruit – we have just 8 white grapes left – but we have had our first harvest from the new garden: lettuce seedlings Mr BW dug up from the polytunnel as we fled north last month. They’ve done surprisingly well under a fleece coat.
21. Why are there so many wild bees and bumble bees here?
22. Why are there so many queen wasps here and will I be able to decease more than the six I have currently?
23. Why do some people have such awful taste in ‘water features’ (made of fibreglass):
At least another part of it (together with a left-behind filthy plant saucer that I cleaned up and some lumps of stone from the field) has come in useful for making a bee and bird watering station:
And why when I hate this tree are there two of them in this garden (I thought they were Kilmarnock willows, but, having just looked them up, there are no catkins)?
24. Is this (one of a pair) a white wagtail? It seems much lighter than the normal pied wagtails we occasionally get down south. They are either on the ground, picking up seeds the tits and finches have spilt, or on the roof.
25. Why has it not rained a single drop since 24th March? Mr BW has installed 6 water butts, and, being on a private water supply (at rates above the local water company’s), we need to harvest lots of free water for the garden.
Any answers?
West facing:
I’m delighted that we haven’t lost our amazing sunsets (but, oh my, it’s going to be cold again tonight!):
There are two or sometimes three geese that often fly in around dusk.
I’m not sure what variety they are?
This is also a not-often-spotted-at-a-residential-property species in the current climate:
Most people won’t be seeing them before June 30th now (last time we heard – sometime last week – it was 1st June – clearly, in the interim, they have been told something about the length of likely lockdown that the rest of us haven’t). Make enough fuss, and pull enough trump cards from the deck (hundreds of hours of unpaid community service by Mr BW over the past 6 years now pays dividends), and they will come. And spend half a day with you. Albeit at 6 feet and mostly through an open window. No coffees allowed or sought either (although we did give him half a dozen eggs – the latest in high currency goods we understand – for going above and beyond).
Broadband now slightly more understood in this locale. Nice Engineer traced the routing of our cable, confirmed that we veer off before the cabinet (3 miles away), so nothing between us and the ‘exchange’ (“a hidden shack, between two garages on a council estate, you’d never know unless someone told you, near where the chip van stops every week”) more than 4 miles away. Connection now more stable (0.4MB doesn’t work for anyone, but nearer 3MB might, just, and that was better than we got at Coven Sud, despite being a mile from a FTTC point, before December 2019).
But, from which era is the wallpaper (4 or 5 layers, this is the top one) behind where the replaced box and ancient junction box were?
I didn’t have time to sort out Mr BW’s spring chocolate fix, amidst all the mad dashing around a month ago, after 18 weeks of inaction by those selling and their legal representatives.
I apologised to him for this. “Oh, don’t worry,” he smiled, “I have 6 Terry’s chocolate oranges in my secret supply!”
All’s well that ends well then.
Except that we finished all the buns over 2 weeks ago. No time to mess around making hot non-cross buns either: there are seeds to sow, plantlets to nurture, borders to weed and redefine, new veg areas to carve out of the grass, walls to strip, skirting boards to prise off, electrical fittings to renew (anyone for filthy 1970s switches and sockets?), surfaces to wash. We’re being held up by supplies despatched ages ago but stuck in transit and not being delivered now, which is frustrating. Understandable, of course, but still frustrating.
Still, plenty of sheep antics to watch. And hares, lots of hares. Not managed a good photo yet as they move too fast.
Source of 3% figure (early figures suggested mortality rate is 15% for those admitted to hospital).
UK figures not looking good.
(and yes, there are differences between countries in how data is being collected and collated, and in how many people are being tested, but even so, and particularly considering that we have free healthcare and a national health service, that is available to all, it is now very clear that our government made very poor decisions early on and didn’t do enough advance planning and advanced provisioning. Their game seems to be ‘blame the people’ or ‘blame NHS staff for using too much PPE’, rather than blame their complete lack of understanding and co-ordination, and wasting the 3 month lead-in period they had).
Source
Glorious weather here today: we’ve been in the garden all day.
Part of the second lawn is now a potato patch (we grabbed the seed potatoes that were chitting as we made our mad return dash to Coven Sud on 23rd), and the strip border along the front of that lawn is now a fruit garden. Plus all the left-behind garden pots etc are now all emptied, washed, and sterilised.
We also have 6 water butts and 2 compost bins, thanks to the Numberland council purchasing scheme, which is considerably better/cheaper than that of Coven Sud county. One of the compost bins is nearly full already. Use of compost daleks is only temporary, as down south we have 3 huge compost bins of about 2 cubic metres each. How anyone can have a large garden without either water butts, or compost bins, is beyond me.
Now we have Ed Miliband in the shadow cabinet and also as the Chancellor. Well, the Chancellor sounds remarkably like him anyway (I noticed it first, and more, on radio).
For anyone who likes crafts, arts, cooking, and many other things, Bluprint (were Craftsy) are offering unlimited free classes – until 16th April currently, but it’s been extended once already, so may be again. I think you have to sign up, but no payment method is required, and you can always unsubscribe from their emails once the free classes finish. Some of their classes (particularly the older ones – especially the quilting, sewing, and spinning ones, and some of the drawing and painting ones – produced before Craftsy sold out) are excellent. Mr BW watched a couple of the wood working ones when they were last free, and found them informative. There are also classes for children, if you have some to keep entertained.
Yesterday five plastic redirection of mail packages arrived, along with 4 or 5 single readdressed items. At last. It took me most of the day to deal with the contents. Good job we had low cloud and 10 degrees here, rather than the 20 or so degrees down south (watching the solar panel generation portal tells me exactly what the weather is at the other Coven). Aldi wine is the only company getting orders here in a timely manner now (and really, if one has wine, what else is important?). Amazon Prime is taking up to a week now (is it the same in other places?), so there is no point continuing after the 30 day trial ends on Tuesday.
I thought that the only supermarket that delivered here was Waitrose, and there are no slots as far ahead as their system goes (currently 4th July), for either delivery or collection (which is quite ridiculous). But, on a whim, earlier I tried Morrisons, found they do deliver here, and got a slot between 9pm and 10pm on Sunday 26th April. So, in 16 days we will have groceries again. The nearest neighbour got a few bits (milk, potatoes, grapes, tomatoes, bananas) for us last Monday, as she was going into the nearest town, and we still have plenty of other things in stock, so we’ll be OK until 26th.
Mr BW is part of the Parish Emergency Planning Team down south (and is often online or on a conference call doing things for it – they’ve not yet twigged that he is 300 miles away), and I am finding the differences between down there and up here very odd.
Everyone and every need is catered for there, and here… nothing at all. I registered online for Council Tax and to go on the Electoral Register a couple of weeks ago, after the stay-at-home edict. Both departments replied by post immediately, but there was no enclosed note telling us of emergency arrangements or contacts. In fact, if we hadn’t made contact with our nearest neighbour when we were up here last November, we would have seen no-one and nobody, other than Farmer Bernard (who has been lambing 300 ewes, so currently has the better part of 1,000 sheep, and is undergoing cancer treatment, so not in a position to help anyone). There is nothing on any of the local Parish Council websites, and the only group I can find offering help is county-wide, and based around the more populated areas.
We don’t (currently, and I’m touching wood here) need help, but I am staggered that there is apparently nothing around, if one did need it. I can’t help but wonder how many people there must be who need help who don’t have access to any, or know where to find any.
We haven’t been out since 24th March: 17 days without venturing out. And no intention of going out at all: one encounter with a life-changing virus in 1991 has forever put me off meeting any others when they can be avoided.
It’s been rather busy at the end of the drive in the past couple of days.
The sheep have learnt to escape from their field.
Numbers 14, 17 and 42 are the worst mothers, from Farmer Bernard’s point of view, but the best mothers from mine. I haven’t yet told him that we’re not going to be wanting their flesh.
The boldest ones even came in, and were bleating at the front door:
While we’re at that location, here is our nice electricity/telephone pole, and my nice glass insulators. It’s all ours, as we are absolutely the end of that line:
4 beautiful old glass insulators:
I shall put a note on the pole saying, “If you have arrived here to change the glass insulators, please knock on the house door first.” That should guarantee I get to keep them, because they do change them sometimes, and have done so along many stretches over to the west from here.
Talking of notes on things, the post box now has the following message:
Unfortunately, it has only been heeded once as there was no post on Monday and none today, and no deliveries at all since Sunday (when the DPD man arrived in a small removal van).
The delivery system is clearly grinding to a halt, as we know there are lots of each expected, and we haven’t had anything in the redirection since last Friday.
Does anyone know how often Royal Mail forward letters subject to redirection, in normal times? We have on average probably 8 to 10 pieces of mail a day, and so far we have had just 3 plastic wrappers of redirection in 3 weeks. I know that it isn’t being delivered at Coven Sud, so it is obviously hiding somewhere.
We have never had so many birds, of so many different sorts, anywhere either of us have lived. A bullfinch was eating the buds off one of the old plum trees. Naughty bullfinch. This shot taken in haste, through a window:
The only bird missing is a robin. Which is quite an omission, so I’m keeping the bird feeders filled (2 whole large feeders of mixed seed are being consumed every day, plus peanuts, niger seeds and fat balls), and hoping one or two may chance along.
Today has been gloriously hot and sunny, which makes up for Sunday, when the rest of the UK seems to have had sun – while it was sunny first thing, we then had strong winds.
Today Mr BW cleared some rather nasty plants out of a strip of soil along what will be the vegetable garden, and we’ve temporarily heeled in the 50 raspberry canes that arrived 2 weeks earlier than I expected, from notes on the suppliers website.
I’ve been sorting out the area where Bodgit and Coverit (the previous owners) once had a stone built-in BBQ area. An awful lot of old rubbish, but also some good pots (clay and plastic), and piles of crock, sacks of old charcoal, a large tub of bonemeal (wet, but tip off the water and the rest should do for nourishing something), and various other useful metal shelving and grid-work. Amongst everything, a preserved peacock butterfly wing, which perfectly matches the house’s stonework, with a bit of bright BW blue thrown in:
It’s a sign, I tell you, a sign. Of what, I’ve no idea, but it’s definitely a sign.
Wasn’t the super moon last night wonderful?
This taken through the conservatory glass, at around 5am. It was almost as light as a dull day.
We have realised that The Black Feline Familiar, fearless in the face of squirrels, mice, and foot-long rats, is scared of sheep, and lambs. Given the 390 fluffy neighbours, she’d love to be kept in. But, as a life-long outdoor cat, now in the most rural area imaginable, it’s just not going to happen.
In between other tasks (mostly me needing assistance with things I‘m doing), being unable to work on the bedroom where the wall ended up on the floor, Mr BW has been working on what the estate agent described as ‘Bedroom 2’ but I describe as ‘Soft Textiles Room’.
Mr BW probably calls this endeavour, ‘getting this room done so BW’s 2 cubic metres of prepared fleece can get out of the room next to the garage/workshop so BW stops going on about it taking on the smell of old dog (which persists even after 4 shampoos with special pet odour removal shampoo), despite it being wrapped in polythene storage bags‘. And yes, it really is 2 cubic metres of sheep fur, as the plastic bags are sitting inside two of those builders’ bags that are made to hold a cubic metre of sand or aggregate.
This room is currently painted a colour known as ‘Elephant’s Breath’. Much as we like elephants, we don’t like that colour. At all. And it makes the room look dark, and grubby.
The skirting boards were also nasty and thin, and covered in drips of Elephant’s Breath emulsion by the previous owners, Bodgit and Coverit (who, for once, unfortunately appear to have done – tried to do – the job themselves, rather than pay someone else to).
So the skirting boards came off. Along with a couple of inches of carpet all the way round (the nasty brown carpet will be replaced once one can buy carpet again, and will then become weed suppressant in the garden, but for now has to stay for insulatory and dust-prevention purposes), and the carpet gripper. The floorboards underneath aren’t even, and why would anyone lay a good quality carpet on good quality underlay, without first boarding the floor, to make it even? Given that they definitely weren’t on a budget, Bodgit and Coverit Logic is beyond me.
The room that had the wall on the floor now doesn’t (my Dyson was saved by some quick online searching for a ‘workshop vacuum cleaner’, which was not only cheap, and arrived the next day, but Mr BW says is excellent), and Mr BW is using it to paint the lengths of skirting board before attaching them to the wall.
Luckily we used Luton Van Trip North 1 (about the 12th of March I think, so well before ‘lockdown’, but, having been closely watching docujournalism of the lockdown in China, I had a Witchy Feeling where things were going) to visit a DIY shed and pick up lots of long and bulky necessary things.
And here is a piece of the new skirting board, more in keeping with the age of this house, in situ.
Things have advanced more since these pictures – including single electric sockets being doubled, and phone points being moved to get rid of miles of nasty old wiring – but I don’t have any more up-to-date photos, and I’m posting from ‘Bed in the Lounge’ (as I’m absolutely knackered), so they will have to wait.
Oh, and the radiator will eventually be changing too as this is an original 1974 one which is beyond salvation.
I keep hearing on the news about people being bored and at a loss for things to do. I wish I was those people…
We’re loving the news coverage right now.
At last, we have some real people, who are experts in their field, and not the usual media monkeys (def: those who have undergone extensive media training and have learnt how to convincingly not answer a straight question, and to say exactly what they came on to say, irrespective of the questions asked by the interviewer). And also, lots of inspirational good news stories, that one rarely sees. Very refeshing.
It’s also interesting to see what the various correspondents and journalists are choosing as their ‘backgounds’ when they are broadcasting from their own homes. Bookcases seem to be the choice of many, and we’re enjoyiing playing ‘Spot the Billy!” Our TV definition isn’t good enough to see what the actual books are, but if it was we’d be playing bingo with various titles.
I’m sure that in future, journalists and others will deliberately ‘style’ an area of their homes to broadcast from, to future-proof. It is difficult if you haven’t planned: a couple of years ago, Mr BW was asked to do a piece on a local issue, from home, but we couldn’t find anywhere ‘suitable’ (there are lots of no-nos, not near windows being one, and both Covens have lots of those as I require large windows and lots of light at all times) so in the end he took the journalist/cameraman to the Council Offices. He’d done a previous article for them on the same subject from outside, where there are plenty of suitable backdrops (in this case, the runner bean forest, as I recall), but to find a suitable area inside was much more challenging.
Glimpsing inside lots of homes at the same time as we watch the news is giving us lots of good ideas as we try to work out how we’re developing this old house. Interestingly, given that most Councils are severely restricting services, the Planning Departments of the Councils I’ve checked are still operating. I think that probably tells people all they need to know about where the world is heading.
Also, the Sunday moring A to Z of TV Cooking (available on iPlayer here, if you are in the UK) is great for kitchen design ideas. One just has to see past John Torode… although, in this case, at least he’s only doing the links.
Anyone else finding anything good in the present ‘interesting’ situation?
While Mr BW was putting in the letter box a couple of days ago, I saved a Queen Bumbler who was seemingly dead on her back on the conservatory floor.
At this time of year, it is very easy for bees to get chilled when they fly. Bumblers will fly at much lower temperature than honeybees (who rarely fly below 13°C), so are much more vulnerable if the temperature suddenly drops, or they get trapped somewhere and can’t fly back to their nests.
A tiny bit of honey, diluted 1 to 4 with warm water, and fed off a shiny spoon (for warmth and because bees like seeing other bees, even if the other bee is themself):
And then 20 minutes of hand warmth, followed by a bit more diluted honey:
After half an hour, I put her outside on a warm rock, and she soon flew away. I hope I’ll see her offspring all summer.
If you ever wondered what is inside a UPVC door, here you are:
Cuts like butter, with the right power tool.
Why anyone would have a front door without a letter box beats me. There was (is) a black cast mail box to the RHS of the door, with a key always in it so that the postie could leave larger items. Not very secure!
Now, all we need to do is train the postie to put stuff through the letter box. Today is Day 4 of the door having a letterbox, and he still hasn’t noticed! Habits of a lifetime…
…says an article from yesterday’s Guardian newspaper.
“…security researchers have called Zoom “a privacy disaster” and “fundamentally corrupt” as allegations of the company mishandling user data snowball.
On Monday, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, sent a letter to the company asking it to outline the measures it had taken to address security concerns and accommodate the rise in users.
In the letter, James said Zoom had been slow to address security vulnerabilities “that could enable malicious third parties to, among other things, gain surreptitious access to consumer webcams”.”
and,
“A number of security flaws affecting Zoom have been reported in the past and as recently as this week. In 2019, it was revealed Zoom had quietly installed a hidden web server on user devices that could allow the user to be added to a call without their permission. And a bug discovered this week would enable hackers to take over a Zoom user’s Mac, including tapping into the webcam and hacking the microphone.”
The basic problem seems to be that there is no end-to-end encryption (and Zoom lied about this, when promoting its product).
BBC News’ version of the story.
More disturbing info on where your meetings could end up.
Don’t forget the piece of tape over your device’s webcam, when you’re not using it…
Has anyone thought about how soon we are going to run out of non-food essentials in this country?
We’ve been ordering a lot of stuff online the last 20 days.
A lot.
Mr BW is doing a lot of projects, and I am forward planning and resourcing. I’m predicting that this lockdown will be at least 12 weeks.
We have had more than 60 deliveries. The local delivery men are loving us. We are keeping them in work.
But, over the past couple of days, the delivery times, and the range of product available online have hugely increased/deceased. Some stores now have ‘virtual queues’ whereby you have to wait up to half an hour to actually get to the front of the queue to even be allowed onto their website.
Much of our ‘stuff’ in the UK is currently made in China. China has been on lockdown for many weeks, so goods have not been made. The goods are shipped here, in containers, on cargo boats, and much freight has stopped, for lack of crew, or for other reasons.
Many of the ‘spare parts’ we use in the UK come through Europe, and most flights have now stopped (and a significant amount of freight comes into the UK on passenger flights).
It won’t be long before not only can you not get a tradesman/technician, but, even if you can, they won’t be able to get the parts needed to mend basic appliances such as boilers, cookers, washing machines and similar.
Now, remind me, why was it that all those British manufacturers and engineers went out of business?
