Author: thesheeprug

This may seem like an out of character comment from a (lapsed) Baptist like myself, but I think the old boy has recently played a blinder! 

Basically he’s stood up to a recent internal European Commission document called the “European Commission Guidelines for Inclusive Communication,” which, amongst other things, advised officials to use inclusive language when referring to Christmas events, and to use non-specific gender terms wherever possible.  Apparently, it’s the brainchild of the Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, who it seems is quite proud of it, but accepts it needs some ‘more work’.

Thus EU documents should henceforth refer to, for example, the “holiday season” rather than “Christmas”, and “fore-name”, rather then, “Christian-name”, so as to avoid offending non-Christians.  They’re also to avoid terms such as “man-made”, in favour of “human derived”, not use “Ladies and Gentlemen”, and to use ‘Chair’ in place of “Chairman”. 

So in many ways it really a re-hash of the politically correct nonsense we all made jokes about years ago.  E.G. ‘Person-hole’ covers’.

This is from a ‘Catholic News Agency’, publication:

“Pope Francis said on Monday that a withdrawn document discouraging European Commission staff from using the word “Christmas” was an “anachronism.”
“He noted that a series of ideologies had attempted to pull up Europe’s Christian roots.  “You refer to the European Union document on Christmas… this is an anachronism,” he said.  “In history many, many dictatorships have tried to do it. Think of Napoleon: from there. Think of the Nazi dictatorship, the communist one… it is a fashion of a watered-down secularism, distilled water.  But this is something that throughout hasn’t worked.”
Speaking to journalists on Monday, the pope stressed that the EU should uphold the ideals of its founding fathers, who included committed Catholics such as Robert Schuman and Alcide De Gasperi, who the pope quoted during a major speech on democracy in Athens on Dec. 4.
“The European Union must take in hand the ideals of the founding fathers, which were ideals of unity, of greatness, and be careful not to take the path of ideological colonization,” the pope told reporters at the end of his five-day visit to Cyprus and Greece.
“This could end up dividing the countries and [causing] the European Union to fail. The European Union must respect each country as it is structured within, the variety of countries, and not want to make them uniform.”

So do you think it’s possible for use to drop terms such as, “Seasons Greetings”, and “Festive Season”.  They’re usually employed by officials who claim they’re trying to avoid offending non-Christians, but I suspect the real motives is an atheistic (and in some cases Marxist) desire to eliminate all religions.  

I like cooking. It’s a bit like engineering with food – science in the kitchen, chemistry at the cooker. It’s also a rather peaceful, contemplative pastime. Even cooking something simple like a ragu sauce can provide a period of peace away from other worries. It needs most of your attention of course, but is not particularly difficult. Gently frying onion, garlic, diced carrots and celery in butter/oil, adding in turn the mince, tomatoes, Worcester sauce and tomato. Deciding which particular twist to add this time – a few porcini mushrooms, some sweet pepper, maybe a rasher of bacon. It’s all enjoyably creative, but safe, because it usually ends up tasting ok. Sometimes better than others, but rarely inedible.

But the problem is that, if I’m honest, I’m usually disappointed with the results. They are are mostly ‘OK’, but nothing more. I’d like to improve, but am not really sure how to.

This probably explains why I’m always watching cooking programmes – all of them. Jamie Oliver, River Cottage, Hairy Bikers, Masterchef, Bake-Off, Diners Drive-ins and Dives: you name it, and I’ll be watching. I’ll also be on YouTube in between, watching, “Cooking With the Blues” (RIP Jack), Latifs Inspired, etc. I’m desperately searching for whatever it takes to bring it all together.

My latest discovery, which is what prompted this post, is “Simply Raymond Blanc”, available on Netflix. You can’t fail to love Raymond, with his simple joie-de-vivre, zest for life, and happiness as he takes you through his vegetable garden. (Viola, tres bien!) His restaurant has had 2 Michelin stars for 2 decades, but he’s happily showing a load of simple inspiring recipes, using home grown ingredients. Love it, highly recommended. Well worth several hours of your time ifyou’ve nothing else on.

As I type, Dr. Who is on the telly. In the old days it was basically about scaring the bejesus out of pre-teen kids. IE, me back in the 1960s. I used to regularly hide behind the sofa when the Cybermen came on. In fact i think I can recall one of the very early episodes with William Hartnell as the Doctor, where the cast had been shrunk and were climbing out of matchboxes. His female side-kick was his grandaughter. It was brilliant!

Now the Doctor is female (OK, I get it, equality and all that, but it is quite a long way from the original idea). But there’s no clear goodies and baddies, loads of special effects, CGI graphics etc. and I’ve really got no idea what is going on.

Is it me, or do I just need to watch it again on iPlayer so I can follow the story? And is it worth it anyway?

Do let me know.

Year 12 and year 10 pupils have been particularly hard hit by the current lockdown. They’re in the middle of the GCSE or A-level studies and have basically recieved no proper teaching since March. Sure, the schools are making a half-hearted attempt to teach via e-mails and setting projects for the students, but without proper interactive lessons it’s very difficult to maintain motivation and focus. So I wrote the following letter to the Headteacher and Head of 6th Form at my son’s school, Farlingaye in Woodbridge.

Dear Dr. Sievewright, Mr. Lampard,

Before I retired from over 40 years working in the telecommunications industry, I spent several years in a team researching how to improve teleconferencing and audio conferencing products.  We looked at how key parameters such as delay, audio quality, audio spatialisation, video presentation and other parameters impact on how well people interact and communicate, what works and what doesn’t and a load of other issues.  It’s an interesting blend of technology and psychology.   Sadly, it all appears to have been a waste of time.

Now when lockdown was implemented back in March this year I thought, this where this technology can really make an impact.  Meeting face-to-face is a bad idea, so let’s do it via the internet.    No problem, there’s a host of systems out there that may not be perfect, but are pretty good. There’s Skype, Zoom, Google Groups, Microsoft Teams – mostly available at little cost.  All students need is a simple smartphone, tablet or laptop plus a cheap headset,  and remote lessons are sorted.   It’s almost trivial.   

Except, somehow it’s taken you over 3 months to arrange any online teaching.   I’m amazed.  I appreciate these are difficult times, and I know some work has been done via e-mails.  There’s been project work and you recently started doing one day a week for year 12 students.    But without some interactive lessons with their teacher, how are the students to keep motivated?     

If I was a teacher and traditional lessons are not possible, my thought would be ‘how can we teach remotely?’  Especially if I worked at a technology academy. The key is in the title, ‘teacher’ –   I’d find a way!  Even if it meant filming myself and putting it on Youtube.    I note that many private schools have been doing on-line lessons for many weeks now, as have some state schools, but Farlingaye – nothing.

So can you please explain to me why year 12 students at Farlingaye are being treated so badly.

Best regards,

Peter Hughes. 

This was the response I very quickly recieved – so quickly it must have been a question several other have asked already!

Dear Mr Hughes,

Thank you for your message to Mr Lampard and me, which I received today. I would like to address your question about why the school has not moved to a universal offer of lessons on an online interactive platform during lockdown. The fact that we have not provided such lessons routinely is not because we have been unaware of the potential of the technology available. Rather, it has been as a result of a decision-making process involving extensive discussions within the Leadership Team, evaluations of the risks and opportunities such lessons could offer, and research into the decisions being made within other secondary schools and the reasons for them. At the beginning of lockdown, the Leadership Team unanimously decided not to offer video lessons for the following reasons:

1. We have, from the first day of the lockdown, been open to the children of key workers and students in other specified groups. Staffing this provision has involved up to 60 different teaching staff coming into school on a rota basis. Many of these staff, as well as many others, have also been heavily involved in the more recent face-to-face delivery of sessions for Y10 and Y12 students. If staff had been asked to focus their attention on delivering interactive lessons, and providing marking and feedback to students based on the work being submitted through them, they would not have been able to support this vital in-school provision.

2. At the start of lockdown, the NEU and other UK teaching unions advised against the use of live video lessons, and indeed the NEU – the union representing the great majority of staff at Farlingaye – advised its members not to provide them. This was primarily as a result of safeguarding concerns linked to the interaction of teachers and students online, and to the potential for harmful use of ‘captured’ images of staff or students. As we have investigated and trialled the use of interactive teaching on Microsoft Teams during this term, we have been able to build in safeguards that we believe will remove most of these safeguarding concerns, and the many trial online sessions we have run over the past few weeks have not brought up any major issues. This experience will help us in the future to deliver interactive sessions safely.

3. The safeguarding professionals with which the school works regularly endorsed the NEU position, as they believed that using video lessons could lead to problematic situations for students, families and staff. We have continued to take this advice on board as we have developed our use of technology.

4. There was – and still is – significant inequality of access to online resources of our students and their households: some of our students live in houses where there are no suitable devices for engaging with interactive lessons, or where the only device that would be suitable is being used on a rota by several different family members throughout the day. (Improvements to this situation have been made during the lockdown, partly because the school has loaned out more than 50 laptops to students who had no or limited access to one at home. As a result, we have been able to start to move towards a more universal offer of interactive online teaching that does not involved live video.)

5. Our teachers are in a very wide range of domestic circumstances and many have been looking after young children or other dependents at home during lockdown. The demands on staff with dependents at home has made committing to extended interactive teaching highly problematic. For those with young children, their access to childcare provision as key workers in the early days of lockdown was varied and uncertain, and many of them were extremely uncomfortable about sending their very young children into places without PPE plans or published risk assessments, and without any clear assurance that maintaining social distancing was possible. As you will be aware, the guidance from the government for a significant period of lockdown was ‘stay at home if you can’ in order to protect yourself, your family and the NHS. Our offer of flexibility to staff has been linked strongly to this guidance and to the concerns of staff, and we felt it has been vital for ongoing staff wellbeing.

6. At the beginning of lockdown, staff would generally not have had the training or – in some cases at least – access to the technical set-up required to deliver interactive lessons effectively and safely from home. Again, the situation has improved as we have been able to provide progressively more advice and guidance for staff on how to use technology appropriately for teaching (though, of course, this has been made more difficult by the restrictions relating to large-scale training programmes placed on us by the COVID-19 crisis).

I cannot comment on why some private schools (though not all) have been delivering video lessons during lockdown. I can only assume that they felt the issues described above did not apply to them, or were not sufficiently significant to guide their decision making. I think it is worth noting that the vast majority of state secondary schools made the same decision as we did regarding video lessons, and I know that – in many cases certainly – their decisions would have been based on reasons similar to those above.

As we have been able to implement and trial restrictions on students’ access to features of Microsoft Teams, and equip students and staff with the necessary technology and understanding of how to use it, we have been able to broaden the scope of its use in delivering interactive sessions. Many students across the school have already benefitted from this trial use, and the information we have gained from the trials will – in the event of a lockdown being re-implemented next academic year – allow us to use interactive sessions much more fully and consistently, and in a manner that is safe for all. It has also moved us forward in how we can and will use Teams in our teaching, even in situations where we have full face-to-face access to students.

I hope that this email will provide an explanation that is clear and useful to you. However, if you would like any further information relating to this matter, please do contact me again at Farlingaye.

Kind regards,

Andy Sievewright
Headteacher
Farlingaye High School.

OK, so these are unprecidented times and everybody’s got problems. But really, it’s a bit lame isn’t it. For starters, just how much safeguarding do Year 12 students really need?  At 16 years old they can get a job, join the army, sleep with whoever they like, decide what sex they are, get married and leave home. Those over 17 can also drive a car or a helicopter.
Conferencing products hard to use? Oh Please! They’re designed to be easy to use by techno-phobic people like senior company managers, so a typical teacher should have no trouble.   Youtube and the rest of the interweb is stuffed with ‘how to do it’ videos.
Shortage of kit: easy – all you need is a laptop, or a smartphone at a pinch, and if all fails we could have had a whip-round.
The unions giving problems is a little more difficult, but really it comes down to the teachers willingness to teach.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Yes, there a few problems to overcome, but really, this was a chance for Farlingaye to rise above the pack, to show what it’s made of, to shine, to innovate, to make something happen. But no, just use some lame excuses and take part in a race to the bottom.

I’ll leave you with this Alex Cartoon.

It seems ages since I’ve written anything that was not about various historical things, but I think it’s time to raise my eyes again, and mention one of my other favourite things: eating. I like cooking – it’s a bit like engineering with food. I particularly enjoy a good curry, and it’s an ongoing challenge is to actually make one.
I have a collection of various curry spices : cumin, cloves, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, etc, and every so often the family indulges me and lets me have a go. So I dry fry the spices, put them in my old coffee grinder and blitz them as per the recipe book. I then gently fry some onions, ginger and garlic and some chilli in oil, add the meat and veg, fry some more, add a tin of tomatoes and some of the spice mix, stock, and possibly some coconut milk and gently cook until it looks good. It generally sort of works, but is usually disappointing. Basically, I’m not really very good at it.

Now the other day I took a simple and rather nice stew made in the pressure cooker the previous day, and thought I’d convert it into a curry. I know that most Indians are Hindus and wouldn’t dream of making a curry with beef, but since I’m basically a lapsed Baptist, I thought I’d probably get away with it. I also got a bit lazy and thought I’d try a commercial curry powder – in this case, ‘Schwartz Medium Curry Powder’. I added a teaspoon, let it bubble for a few minutes and tried it. God, it was AWFUL!! A really unpleasant harsh flavour. I can’t describe it, or associate it with a particular spice, but it was really, really unpleasant. Nobody liked it at all – even me. most of it ended up in the bin.

So what’s the lesson here? Obviously avoid Schwartz curry powder, but more importantly, learn to understand what each spice actually does and keep on trying. Don’t flounder around anymore, get some proper lessons, and learn do it right.

Or more sensibly, let Mauli, Top Chef at the Turks Head, take the strain and do it for you. They’re re-opening soon…… 🙂

I stumbled across this archaic law yesterday. At first I thought it must a misprint, but no, ‘scold’ is also a noun, describing a person a person who is habitually starting rows or quarrels with the neighbours, a frequent nuisance to the community or nags or grumbles constantly. The crime of being a ‘common scold’ came into existance sometime during the middle ages, possibly when the peasantry began to find their voice. It’s is not a gender specific term, but the majority of, if not all, cases I’ve found seem to be against women. Obviously it’s also a good way for the community to attack someone they don’t like, with strong overtone of misogyny thrown in, not to mention a connection to witchcraft. Nasty – somtimes being a bloke is a little embarrasing. As a law it was only repealed during the mid 1960s, though the last prosecution in the UK was in 1817.

Early on, ducking was a common penalty, with fines becoming more common in later years. Wikipedia has a page on the subject which makes interesting reading.

Searching through the old newspapers there are numerous reports of trials with varying outcomes and punishments. It’s nice to see the defendant was often acquitted. I’ve kept the origial spelling in the older accounts where ‘f’ is commonly used in place of ‘s’.

At the general Seffion of the Peace held for the County of Middefex by adjournment on Thurfday the 1ft Day of September. Inft. one Rofamond Cole of the Parifh of St James’s Clerkenwell, was convicted by full Evidence upon an Indictment againft her for being a common Scold and a common Diflurber of her Neighbours, &c. Whereupon fhe was fined one Mark and committed to the Houfe of Correction at Clerkenwell, there to be kept to hard Labour for two Months.

Ipswich Journal – Saturday 03 September 1726

‘Yefterday a Woman, commonly call’d the Tyger of Weftminfter, was try’d at the Quarter at Weftminfter, for being a common Scold : This being a Canfe of great Expectation, feveral good Women appeared in Court upon this Occafion : The Counfel for the Defendant took feveral Exceptions to the form of the Indictment, and it was learnedly argued by counfil on both Sides, and feveral witneffes were examin’d to prove, that the Neighbourhood had been difturb’d even after Midnight by the Noife and Clamour made the Defendant : Sir John Gonfon, the Chairman of the Seffions fumm’d up the Evidence to the Jury, but directed them to acquit the defendent , by Reafon of the feveral Defects in the indictment and efpcially the word ‘Rexitix’ was omited therein ; and brought her in not guilty accordingly. To the great satisfaction of many the beft Housewifes of the parifh, who apprehended, that if profecutions of this Nature were too much encouraged, it might infringe their Liberty.

Stamford Mercury – Thursday 06 July 1732

Yefterday Mary, the Wife of Anthony Bowling, was indicted at Hicks’s-Hall for being a common Scold; but it appearing that her Tongue had lain ftill two Hours in one Day, fhe was acquitted being a Nuifance to the Neighbourhood.

Northampton Mercury – Saturday 06 June 1789

Last week a woman notorious tor her vociferation, was indicted for a common scold, at Kingston; and the facts being fully proved, she was sentenced to receive the old punishment of being ducked, which was accordingly executed upon her at the Thames by the proper officers, in a chair preserved in the town for that purpose. If to prove the justice of the Court’s sentence, on her return from the water’s side, she fell upon one of her acquaintance, without provocation, with tongue, tooth and nail, and would, if the officers had not interposed, have deserved second punishment, even before she was dry from the first.

The Ipswich Journal – Saturday 11 April 1801

COMMON SCOLD: HANNAH Munroe, a decent-looking young woman, was indicted for a Misdemcanour, in being a common scold and disturber of the public peace. She pleaded NOT GUILTY, and Mr. Gurney, who was Counsel for the Prosecution, observed that the Lady looked so quiet now that the Prosecutor hopel she would no more give cause of complaint, and therefore he was instructed to call no witnesses. She was of course acquitted.

Morning Chronicle – Tuesday 27 October 1812

Today is Ret 12.

I think it was Stephen Fry who made the interesting assertion that, “the older I get, the more noise I make”.  (I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to conform this via the interweb).  His point was not that he needed to turn the radio up so he could hear it, but that aging brings more physical issues that result in exclamations of, ‘ooh’, ‘ahh’, ‘ouch’ etc. as you perform tasks that  used to be easy.    It’s a valid point.  It becomes increasingly common that a body part which has been performing it’s simple job with little fuss for a lifetime, suddenly becomes excruciating painful when used – for no apparent reason.  Typically it’s part of a leg, but not always.   For example the other week whilst performing the simple task of walking to the elevator at work, my foot refused to take any weight all without feeling as if somebody has stuck a knife into it.  It was really, seriously painful.    But here’s the thing: after I’d collected myself and taken a few more steps it felt a little better, and after I’d taken a few more it got better still, and finally it was all back to normal in after I’d hobbled about 20 yards. Now what the hell was all that about?

Unfortunately it’s not always so short lived.  My left knee, for example, is starting to get really annoying.  It started about 10 years ago when I got up from my desk one afternoon and I thought, ‘that’s weird, why does my knee hurt?’. Later staggered around Tesco and collapsed in a chair when I got home.  Later that evening my No.1 Lady took me to casualty where a large doctor stuck a sodding great needle into it and tried to draw some fluid off.  I don’t think he succeeded, but the gas and air I was sucking on didn’t really work either and No.1 Lady complained I’d gripped her hand so hard I bent her wedding ring. Eventually their best was guess was that it was gout.  Oh well I thought, i might not have the assets of the landed gentry, but at least I can get their medical complaints.  Apparently ‘healthy’ foods like oily fish and port are ‘bad’, but cherries are ‘good’.  Go figure, but it was fine for the next 8 years without me changing my port consumption.

Then about 18 months ago it got sore again, though I couldn’t recall if it felt the same as before.  This turned out to be due to wearing a nice pair of stylish shoes my No.1 Lady persuaded me to buy. The heel was to low and this led (or so the podiatrist said) to increased stretching of my calf muscle, which in turn led to me adopting a twisting type of walk which made my knee hurt.  OK,  I guess that makes sense.  Certainly going back to my ubiquitous walking shoes/trainers, which have a higher heel fixed the problem.

Or did it?  Yesterday when I got up I could barely put any weight on it unless it was straight. I really have no idea why, perhaps falling asleep with my feet on the desk didn’t help.  But after you’ve entertained grandchildren etc for most of the day with one leg straight all the time, EVERYTHING hurts.

Which is all a rather roundabout way of accounting for why today I am having a very slow, Brufen assisted day in the hope that I might just about do dancing with No.1 Lady tonight.  (We’re still working on the Rumba).

Today is actually No.1 Son’s 15th birthday.

After he’d gone to school we started on the first (1 litre) bottle of gin – about 9:00 AM.  No breakfast. This took about 15 minutes, and we started on 2nd and 3rd bottles at roughly 15 minute intervals.   (Later on we drove to Aldi and got another bottle). Fortunately we had no early visitors, so the potentially embarrassing scene of a kitchen table full of gin bottles before 10:00AM was not witnessed by anybody.

The recipe was basically a 1:2 ratio of sloes to gin.  This allows about 600ml of sloe gin to made per litre bottle.   Thus we end up with 4 litres of sloe gin in production under the stairs.  This can be bottled up and appropriately sweetened just before Xmas so various friends and family members who appreciate such things get a relatively inexpensive present and we score lots of points.

No big bash planned for the birthday boy today, but we splashed out on pizzas from Domino’s.    Also made the mistake of watching the England game.   What a load of rubbish!    I felt sorely tempted to sample the embryonic sloe gin to console myself for wasting 2 hours I’ll never get back.

Units: 0 – very good.   (OK, maybe I inhaled some gin fumes).

So I think I officially left **’s clutches on September 30th 2017.  That was a Saturday, so my old work e-mail address at **.com finally stopped working sometime on the following day.  Not that I was using it at all by then, but I had been using it as my main e-mail, private and work) for many years, so I’d wanted to make sure I’d extracted everything I needed and has deleted all my histories.  I’m sure there’s still something I’ve forgotten, but important stuff like ****** *** **** **,   **** **** and ******** ** are all sorted.

My ‘final’ day was, however, Tuesday September 26th – a day later than planned.  On Monday 25th we had my leaving ‘do’ in the B**** T***s pub.  I’ve always like the place, despite it being seriously tarted-up about 30 years ago.   The beer is good and that’s the important thing.   My rather excellent and long-suffering ‘boss’ made the appropriate speech and I endeavored to respond appropriately (I failed).  I ended up with 4 Candles, some ‘Os’ and a wheelbarrow, which was rather unexpected and would certainly have been original if Ronnie Barker hadn’t got there first.   It was wonderful to see nearly everybody there.  (Sadly Les,  a long time colleague and lunch partner was away up north owing to the sad death of his mother.) Even old retired friends like Paul ***** and Kevin ********** turned up.   After this my No.1 Lady and I went to our dancing class (more about that later). To my surprise the bar bill was about £98.  Pathetic.  They MUST do better next time.

Next day I ambled in to sort out the final paperwork which, as expected, took longer than expected, and I dashed off to collect Son No. 1 and take him to the dentist to get his brace adjusted.    That evening I was playing at the French Dance club,  so it was a busy day.

So finally, Wednesday 27th was freedom!   Following the example of Mark Watney  I’m going to call it ‘Ret 1’.

So here is the account of ‘Ret 1’ to ‘Ret 8’.  (I’m actually writing on Ret 8).  Subsequent ‘Rets’ will receive more attention!

Ret 1. Having spent the previous days making sure I’d sorted all sorts of stuff for **’s benefit, it was time to sort out some things for myself.  Thus I emailed all the various people outside ** who I’d worked with over the years, saying how much I’d enjoyed working with them over the years and ‘here are my contact details if you need to get in touch’.   Of course, in some cases that’s a fairly obvious euphemism for ‘gis a job’, but in all cases though, it was genuine.  I had met and enjoyed working with many excellent people and I will miss them.

Ret 2. Time  to start sorting out all the work stuff I’d brought home, and to make a start on sorting out a number of domestic thing that had been bugging me.  So

1. the box of things holiday that hadn’t been put away – sorted.

2. kitchen ‘ in-box’  – sorted.

3. Pile of stuff from work I’d brought home: unwanted textbooks (take to dump), old payslips (burn), tools (into the shed) and other sentimental stuff (keep for now).

Ret 3. No 1 son not well and off school.  He’s been struggling for a few days with a virus and will only miss a sponsored walk today.  No real problems. I hold fort, do some shopping, go to Aldi to get gin.  Also start sorting out old domestic files, chucking out all sort of ancient rubbish.   Make curry for tea, overdo the garam masala and everyone complains.

Ret 4. No. 1 Lady is working today. No.1 Son a little better and has drum lesson today.  I have gig in evening, so make it a slo’ day so the energy lasts.   Surprisingly good gig in ‘Corton and Weston’.   Tiny place in the middle of nowhere (thank God for Satnav), nice crowd.

Ret 5. Slow day, Picked 2KG sloes with No.1 Lady. Roasted 2 chickens.  Poor little buggers.

Ret 6.  No.1 Lady working.  Spend day tidying up garden – it was a mess.  Deliver some crap to dump. Putty on bedroom window is now hard enough to paint, so climb ladder and make with the primer.  God I hate painting. Its a Georgian window with 30 individual panes.  I also hate paying £000s on new windows, so probably time well spent.

Ret 7.  No.1 Lady visiting No. 1 Step-daughter and No. 1,2 & 3 Granddaughters. I go to Yacht club winter working party planning meeting.  A nice bunch of retired gentlemen, all looking VERY relaxed. I’ll work out my role as I go.   Undercoat the  window in the afternoon.

Ret 8. Go shopping with No.1 Lady.   Gloss window twice.  I weaken badly in the evening and polish off a bottle of rather cheep and nasty red wine.  VERY BAD!!!! Had a little more later while I watched Memphis Belle on the Telly.  EVEN MORE BAD!!   I’m supposed to be cutting down – which I am mostly – but I’m still fundamentally a very weak  man.  (Units: I don’t want to think about it!)

So it’s not really an idle life at all so far.   Next blogs will continue the idleness to include sorting out the allotment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why start another blog? Blogs are not something the world is short of right now and why would anybody be interested in mine?

Well, I’ve always enjoyed the writing stuff, and to focus the mind properly one usually has to have a potential audience. In the past my writing has been aimed rather dreary technical documents, or invention reports, or internal company ‘deliverables’ which typically are only read by half a dozen people and then usually ignored anyway. Occasionally it was software, sometimes mathematical equations, and on rare occasions a section of a book.   I even wrote an international telecommunications standard once.  (I wonder if anybody has ever found ITU-T Recommendation P.1305 useful.  Do let me know if you have).

But in all these cases it’s been writing to order; I was paid to do it.  Now i’m not working anymore I can write about anything I want. The subject matter will be basically things that interest me, and might just be of interest to somebody else out there. This includes local history, home brewing and winemaking, photography and various woodcrafts.