02/01/2021

Happy New Year, this one can only be better than the last, though I suspect not by much as Covid is still with us and vaccines will take months to get to everyone.  Still, reasons to be optimistic though.

Managed to convince the Missus that we can replace the Diesel SUV with a plug in hybrid.  It may not have the new car smell and looks but the other benefits of cheaper fuel, easier to drive and quieter I’m sure will bring her round.  

It was good to see Hamilton (now Sir Lewis) got a well deserved Knighthood in the New Years Honours list, watching him race last year helped lift my spirits during lockdown and back pain recovery.  With Trump nearly out of the way too there is real hope for the Planet as Biden has committed to $2trillion and Boris is pushing a more green agenda.  For capitalists like me, this makes sense as what’s the point of being rich if the planet is broken?  Can’t go to the Maldives if they are under water, right?  Lets go for better equality while we are about it.  You’d get more out of the extra ideas from the diversity of people in your Organisations – inclusivity will benefit us all!  That’s my 2p worth anyway.

14/02/2021

With the lockdown still underway but vaccinations carving there way though the populous, there is the very beginning of some optimism that some sort of normality is on the horizon though whether it turns up before summer of not remains to be seen.   Funny though that while Boris and President Biden are now announcing how the future is a better brighter, more sustainable building on an opportunity to makes changes for the better, a Council in Cumbria has decided that their future belongs in coal and have green lit plans to open a coal mine there on the basis ‘it will provide 500 jobs’.  I can understand that part but what future are they looking at?  This is old school Trump thinking.  Maybe they will go the whole hog and build a ‘new, fangled car plant’ building ‘state of the art steam powered cars’.  One can only imagine that given their thinking, the average age of the council must be 75 and given to wearing stovepipe hats. 

 We are now doing our bit with the new Outlander to get round the estate in and though while I’m a fan boy, the lady of the Manor is yet to find favour with it.  Despite its luxury cabin, its a bit ‘functional’ for her liking.  Given nearly all our motoring is local it makes sense for us.  One of the issues is a lack of gear stick but for me, I’m now of an age that I can’t be bothered with all that, especially in traffic.  With the regen settings to the max, I can drive with one peddle making heavy traffic a breeze.  Not to mention silent.  Nice.

20/02/2021

My copy of Bill Gates new book on ‘How to Avoid Climate Change’ arrived this week, saw a link on LinkedIn for it and clicked ‘like’ and left a short message saying I’d got it.  Then I happened to see all the comments, wow, it was more or less a sea of vitriolic climate deniers.  In the news too was the Gov’nor of Texas saying that the current cold weather had broken all the wind farms and that was to blame for the electricity outages.  He conveniently left out the fact that most of the their power comes from gas and those power stations had frozen too.

So I’m thinking that if its still trendy to bash people who want to change things for the better, including our leaders, what hope is there to actually make things better?  Given the leaders of the richest companies on the planet (oil ones aside) are moving as quickly as possible to be carbon free (Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, etc) then surely its time for them to start playing the influence-the-politician games in the same way as the fossil fuels lobyists have for many decades?  If the richest people on Earth think its a good idea then there must be something in that?  The message that green is actually progress rather than the ‘hair shirt and tofu sandals’ image we currently have needs to get out there.   Green tech is smart phones while fossil fuels are landlines.  Whilst not perfect yet (our house does still have a landline), electric cars are faster than ICE cars and who likes getting a smelly hand at a petrol station? Best thing we did this year was getting rid of our Mini Cooper S this year, sure it had soul and bags of personality with looks to match, but to drive?  It was so uncomfortable it crippled my back and changing gear was like moving the levers from a Victorian signal box.  Now I ‘one foot’ drive a (semi) eleccy car and can appreciate the top of the range speakers as they aren’t drowned out by the clatter of explosions up front.  We are in a hybrid era of transition and people don’t like too much change at once.  However the post covid World has already changed much of the working landscape in this direction.  Besides where do you want your kids to work when they grow up?  On a wind farm in the fresh air or down a Cumbrian coal mine in the dark, catching emphysema? I know where my money is bet on.

15/05/2021

With work being so busy, time has flown by since I last left a blog here.  I recently had the pleasure of helping number 1 with his inept ability to cut his toe nails post bath.  Given his age we had entrustd him to this chore, as he is well old enough to handle the nail scissors, without removing any extraneous digits along the way.  However it turns out he has a sort of foot phobia, so each week we asked him if he had done his nails, and he would lie through his teeth to say he’d done it.  Anyway I caught up with him last Sunday night as he left the bathroom to carry out a routine inspection of his (lack of) handywork.  

What a shock that was.  No wonder the Chinese are going round murdering pangolins for their scales!  Little man had used up the Worlds keratin to grow a set of ‘tusks’ at the end of each of his toes.  As I set about attempting to hack my way through his scaly plates, I couldn’t help wonder if perhaps I should begin the process with a kango, or maybe take a few photos to send off to the Guiness Book of Records.  In the event I managed to hack away, completing the task without blunting the scissors too much.  Thank God for Swiss Army knives.

08/06/2021

Noticed a weird phenomena on the semi-leccy car the other day – extra range.  Now the cold weather has finally decided to go away and let Spring do its thing, the mercury has risen and now a tank of electrons is delivering around 4 miles extra.  Given that at its coldest we got about 17 miles from the 2-ton Sherman Outlander its nice that we can see up to 24 miles now. 

Speaking of the environment, the council did a good job with their ‘no mowing for May’ to help the insects.  With declines of 75% we need to help the little critters in their amorous gatherings so they get back to normal levels.  With the rise in dog ownership, maybe this help could be enhanced with a ‘no plastic bag for June’ to allow the flies to gather on their favourite pile?  By July it could be like the 1970’s with little white logs dotted near lamp posts.    

15/06/2021

I’m still suffering from a bad back and its no fun.   Missing out on family activities is bad enough but everytime I turn on the telly I seem to be watching a load of people doing sporty things or climbing mountains.  All of which is a stark reminder of my limited horizons; a short walk round the block at a super quick 0.01MPH can be enough to tweak some muscle or worse.  Whilst other people may think of dangerous activities as things like parachuting, diving off a cliff or jumping some geological feature on a motorbike –  for me, its sneezing.   This one activity has the ability to wipe out 4 months of physio is a fraction of a second.  Even blowing your nose uses around 85 muscles in your back I’ve discovered.  

If medical science offered me a new spine I’d be asking where do I sign. In fact if they offered me a voodoo soap doll-spine and said try this latest medical break through, I’d be straight onto Amazon for next day delivery.  

Anyway, that’s enough about my miserable existence, come on England in the Euros!!!  Just need Hamilton to get back on top in the F1 too and anyway the sun is warm and shining! Maybe I’ll crack my face after all despite everything. 

10/07/2021

Its the day before the Euro 2020 final and its England vs Italy!  Statistically this day had to come where we did get past the semi’s at least but this time it has really been done scientifically to actually get the grass roots in place from facilities to coaching staff.  Not that I know much about football (I DO know the offside rule before anyone asks).  I knew in my gut that we would get past Denmark though i also knew it would be tough – being a lifelong England supporter you know its never going to be easy…..

Just hope the boys can do it tomorrow night.  How amazing would that be?  Come on England!!

13/07/2021

I can only now compose myself to write this, I really had begun to dream that we would win the Euro’s but sadly it wasn’t to be.  For sure, we got to the final which was a massive achievement in itself and the tournament had lots of other firsts too, like beating Germany.  The team were excellent and there is a feeling that we can go on to do great things at next years World Cup.  Maybe we will get another star on the shirt in my lifetime after all?  The horrible backlash against some of our finest for no other reason than skin colour shows that we have someway to go with educating the masses of this Country, but honestly, where would we have got to in the tournament without Sterling for starters?  That guy was immense throughout and gave Kane time to find his stride.  

We laughed, we cheered, we roared at our TVs and never got sick of hearing ‘3 Lions’ played endlessly.  Ultimately though, you can never live your life by the ‘coulda, should have and the nearly’s’, what happened happened.  Football, its coming home alright. Just taking yet another detour, this time via Italy right now.  With the weather we have been having, who can blame it?

18/08/2021

My son and heir has recently disappeared into the pupae stage of development, or in human terms, becoming a teenager.  Suddenly he has become nocturnal, prickly to the touch and there are now some weird smells coming from his bedroom.  So much so that we are afraid to go in there without first letting the Coastguard know our plans.  Somehow it still seems to be dark and dank in there, even at midday in the Summer time, which is when we generally have to go in to wake him up.  This activity usually entails one of us donning a tethered hazmat suit whilst on the landing before we enter…  I would say bedroom, but it could easily be the set of Jumanji.

On the Worldwide front, I thought I’d take a look at solar panels to see if my house was suitable and could save the planet while they saved me money.  It turns out that a north-east facing roof, next to an enormous tree, is the very definition of ‘unsuitable’.  I’ll just have to sit tight for a few years until technology catches up.  What I was most amazed at though, was that as part of the screening process, I was asked if I was aged between 18 and 65!?!?  So if I have this right, only foetuses and dead people aren’t able to qualify for solar panels?  Anyway in my quest to go green, I will have to look elsewhere for the time being.

08/09/2021

The time has come for my major operation, I am heading into hospital on Friday to have injections into my back to make me better.  It always strikes me as a bit odd that the surgeon visits you first to explain the procedure then asks you if understand?  No Doc, I have an inkling at best due to not attending medical school for 6 years.  A quick 5 minute chat isn’t going to be filling in those blanks anytime soon.  Then they ask if you are OK with going ahead…..  Again, not really, I am actually dropping faeces into my under garments as we speak.  In fact, I think I’m unlikely to survive and am wondering if my wife knows where the will is kept.  Its usually best if you turn up to hospital, they get someone to creep up behind you and knock you out.  Then some time later you come round and its all over.  I just need to know if it went well or not, the details I can be spared.

10/11/2021

Overnight our darling cats decided to pop out in the garden and hunt down the largest mouse they could find, with one of them succeeding with one of the largest rodents I’ve seen in a while.  When I say mouse, this was possibly a rat, or maybe a horse even.  God knows how they got it through the cat flap.  This morning it was lurking feet up in the bathroom doorway, with rigor mortis well under way.  Unfortunately, the first person to sound the alarm was my daughter as she made her way to carry out her morning ablutions, bringing me out of my slumber rather rudely with her distress calls.  For some strange reason, she was under the misplaced allusion that I would leap out of bed (something that has never happened in 50 years and getting less likely as the time goes by) and don my Sir Gallahad uniform on to ride to the rescue armed with my trusty dust pan and brush (fat chance). 

To understand what happened next, you have to get into the psychy of the modern teenage brain, I know, not a pleasant place to be, if I’m honest.  The modern teenager requires instant gratification thanks to TikTok and Instagram and believes the real World will be like this as well.  Having issued orders, reinforced by use of more decibels, image in her angst and instant rage that 5 minutes later it was still in the same position with its feet aimed determinedly at the ceiling!  This second discovery was unfortunately made via her right slipper and was made clear to all via a scream and some crying.  This was of course drowned out by my laughing.  To be fair, I could be smug as I have told them some thousands of times to always look where they are going.  Maybe this will be the lesson to come out of it.

Yesterday I forced myself to attend a beginners Pilates class as part of my re-habilitation back to normality.  Well, in the hours before the allotted time, I was feeling a bit sore and to be honest was a bit nervous.  I’m used to daily exercises but nothing under the watchful gaze of an instructor surrounded by seasoned veterans, getting themselves into the human origami positions I can only dream about.  As it turned out, my colostomy bag fears were unfounded as it was all calm and slow, so perfect for me.  There was only a couple of moves I couldn’t do and in general I think I gave a good account of myself in the end.  I will be able to look my physio in the eye now when she puts me through my paces next week.

06/12/2021

As part of my ‘getting better’ I’m also eating healthily.  As all nutristionists will tell you, you should try and eat the rainbow each day and that way you’ll get all the veg, minerals and vitamins into you.  I’ve taken this a step further, and on a trip to Majestic with the Lady of the house to get the Christmas booze in, we have decided to also drink the rainbow.  As well as red and white, we also got Rose plus yellow courtesy of some cider.  They say that if you get round all the colours you get a happy glow and an energy boost.  Well I’m in a position to tell you the same is true for the liquids, anyway merry Christmas everyone!