A Jumble of Gibberish

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We have had Goldfinches and Greenfinches in the garden a little more regularly over the last few weeks and the behaviour of the Great Tits is changing. I suspect they are looking for a nest site.

We also have a lovely patch of violets in the middle of the lawn.  We didn’t, after much upheaval, get much done in the garden last year, and I doubt we will get much done this year either. it always seems we have something else to.

I took this whilst waiting for Julia in Matlock. I think it was Matlock . . . my memory is not what it was

Julia is out wood turning and I am doing various things, though mainly rattling off nonsense on the computer. I’ve just done a couple of political blog posts and deleted them, and replied to an editor who has accepted a haibun. And looked up DARVO, which cropped up in a comment relating to yesterday’s post.

I expect Julia will be home shortly, and that will mark the halfway point of my day. It also, as I write that, marks the halfway point of the post. It can be a long old slog when you have imposed a limitation on discussing politics.

I’ve been letting my personal grooming slip recently and my hair, after a couple of weeks of neglect, was getting quite long. I say “quite long” – possibly a quarter of an inch or a little longer. That, I feel, is quite impressive for a couple of weeks. It’s winter and I’m old so it should grow slower than average.  It just goes to show that though I no longer have much hair, what remains is still quite active.

Brick from Watnall Pit Bickyard – I mantione dthese somewhere recently but can’t remember if it was in the blog.

I did wonder, as I started cutting, whether the shaver would cope. let’s just say it was marginal. I did manage to cut my hair back to the scalp but the cutters protested and I had to clean quite a lot out as i went, as they kept stalling.

The lesson I gained from that, Is that I need to stick to a regular regime of hair cutting, regardless of whether I feel under the weather or my head feels cold. I also have an idea for a haibun as a result of my hair cutting experiences.

So with several learning experiences and inspiration for a poem, I have to say that it’s been a good day so far.

Fish Pie – a healthy alternative

When Julia returns with two pensioner special fish and chip portions it will be an even better day, though slightly bitter-sweet. After much heart-searching I have decided it is time for a major review of my eating habits, and the first casualties are likely to be fried food and carbohydrates. I will have fish and chips again, but it could be some time in the future.

 

 

 

 

Modern Manners

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250 words. Not much time. A head full of gibberish.

Somehow the sight of an empty page scares all my words and good intentions away . . .

At the doctor this morning I looked out of the window (the waiting room looks into an internal quadrangle of raised beds and weeds) and watched a single strand of spider silk thrumming in the wind. By the time I go home I had forgotten all about it. However, it has just returned.

Just before going to the doctor the door bell rang. It was a representative from a local builder, energised by sunshine and the desire to fill his wallet at my expense.

Julia listened to him, because she does. He has a job to do, so it’s only fair to listen. However, he kept going and she had to step in and ask him to stop as we were about to go out. She asked him three more times and he kept going on. She even gave him her phone number because she is too nice to cold callers. He kept going and trying to organise a call, either in five minutes, or later in the day.

To be fair, you have to be persistent when you are selling, and I couldn’t fault him from that point of view. However, I didn’t want to be late for the appointment at the doctor.

I went to the door. He started to tell me he would like to clear the moss off our roof.

“Why?” I asked.

He said that some people didn’t like the look of it.

“Well I don’t mind it and my wife has already told you we need to go out so please stop and go away.”

It is important here to repeat that I said “go away”. I did not use a very tempting alternative, I was calm and restrained.

“Well,” he said, in the manner of a Victorian matron, pouting and gathering his skirts around him, “there’s no need to be rude.”

I pointed out that I wasn’t being rude, just telling him to go away because we had to get ready to go out and he’d ignored Julia’s previous attempts to ask him to leave.

I find there’s a lot of this about these days – people seem to think that you should listen to them and do what they want just because they keep on talking. It seems to be a common doorstep technique these days. It’s the technique used by a conman – keep talking and hope that people will be too polite to say no.

Sometimes you have to stop them. Sometimes you have to say no. I have also been known to ask people “What’s it got to do with you?” when they ask personal questions.

Yes, it’s “conversation” to some people, but some just ask too much. I lack the linguistic skills to fend them off, and if a couple of attempted evasions don’t work, I just ask. They soon get the idea.

However, I don’t see it as being rude. If it’s acceptable for a man to knock on my door without being invited, or for someone I don’t know to ask personal questions, surely it’s acceptable for me, after several ineffectual attempts to put a stop to it, to be blunt.

Everybody then knows where the line has been drawn.

I didn’t swear, I didn’t make any personal remarks, I just asked him to stop and told him to go away.

I’m not going to ask whether you think I’m right or wrong, but I am going to ask if anyone has a better way of dealing with it.

It’s a kestrel on his shoulder.

 

Dr Strangelove Comes to Life

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Angel Musician

I’ve just been reading an article on the best nine foods to stockpile if we want to survive WW3.

I’m not exactly sure that this is helpful as, with computers, AI, hybrid warfare and all the other modern horrors, we are probably going to have to faceup to  life without water and electricity. Burning the furniture and using the contents of the water butt are short term fixes but after that I’m not sure where we go.

Rice, it seems, will last a long time, but without water and fuel it’s going to be a bit crunchy. Powdered milk will also be pretty useless without water. I note that tea does not make the list. I’m not sure they have thought this through. Why do you need powdered milk when you have no tea to put it in?

Rufford Abbey, I believe

Honey is recommended too. Not for its nutritional qualities, just for its ability to last a long time. That is, I suspect, of more interest to archaeologists than nutritionists. But never fear, peanut butter is also on the list. It never goes off, according to the list, although after a few years the flavour may suffer. If you eat peanut butter for years I suspect your heart will give out long before the flavour becomes an issue.

I can’t remember most of the rest, though tinned food did feature heavily. Yes, “tinned food” seems to be a food item. I wonder if this journalist is known for their work on details. At least it means we can eat cold baked beans as we see the sun setting on civilisation.

Oliver Cromwell’s House

We laughed, once, at a friend who stocked up on pulses and turned their cellar into a nuclear bunker, we criticised the government for Protect and Survive, and we all secretly thought that Dr Strangelove was over the top, but who’s laughing now?

The good news is that the price of gold is rising again, as it always does in times of global fear, so the billionaires who run the world are unlikely to be feeling the pinch. In fact, with their bunkers and cupboards full of peanut butter, they may actually be doing quite well.

Russian Cannon – taken as a trophy in he Crimean War, now at Ely Cathedral

This, of course, brings me to my next suggestion, that Trump, Putin and all the rest should form teams of three and be set loose in some sort of reality TV programme in the jungle. They can fight it out without risking nuclear war or putting up the price of groceries.

Each nation is allowed to field its President/Prime Minister and two prominent politicians. My money is on the Ukraine team – Zelensky and the Klitschko brothers.

Random photos move on to March in various years.

Goose poem – Anderby Creek

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barely Restrained Fury

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Drowned tree at Clumber Park

I just had an email from WP telling me how to activate AI on my blog. To be honest, I come here to practise writing, not to have my writing rendered into something resembling the verbal equivalent of pureed veg to be spooned into an elderly dotard. I want something with lumps in it.

They tell me that it will “Refine and tighten copy without losing your voice.” if it does that it will be a first for AI as every other example I’ve seen makes the writer seem like a simpleton or a zombie. 

Clumber woods

I’d rather they spent their money on making it easier for humans to write better, including restoring the old spellchecker I used to have that didn’t try to turn my spellings into American versions. I’d also love a reduction in annual fees rather than have money poured into technology I don’t want. I’ll write with a quill before I use AI to “improve” my writing.

However, I’m not going to become overwrought about it as I have promised Julia and the doctor that I will start to think about my health. Having a stroke whilst ranting about WordPress and AI would be bad for me, and would allow AI and WP to assume a greater importance than they should really have in my life.

Robin

I was very pleased to see the Greens win the by-election in Gorton. I have been voting green for quite a few years now, though I am far from agreeing with all their policies. I do, however, like the one about trying to save the planet by treating it better. A few months ago I almost joined them, but I’ve got this far in life without joining a political party so I decided not to.

Even if I didn’t support the Greens in any policies, it would be fun to see the reaction of the Reform Party, who are taking a trick out of the Trump play book and whining about voting irregularities. I know it’s cruel, but there are certain things I never get tired of, and watching spoilt brat politicians whine about being unfairly treated after being defeated is one of those things.

Fenland skies

There were undoubtedly voting irregularities, which have been growing over the years as we have been trying to ensure no voter gets left out, but there weren’t 4,402 voting irregularities, which was the size of the majority.

Meanwhile, I am going to redouble my efforts to avoid learning about current affairs and politics. As soon as I started to read about the election vote I found myself assailed by dozens of stories with varying degrees of hatred and accuracy and I can do without it.

Fenland skies

 

 

 

Another Blogger Returns

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Duck – Arnot Hill Park

It must be he season for it. After all the recent returnees arlingwoman turned up out of the blue and the word “lagomorph” re-entered my vocabulary.

It’s a bit like Highlander – all the old bloggers are gathering, though we will be carrying pens rather than swords and the Queen soundtrack is likely to be drowned out by clicking joints, though that might just be me. I also doubt that anyone will get their head cut off. In fact, now i come to think of it, it’s not a great analogy. However, it was interesting reading about it and looking at the alternative casting possibilities and reviews. As a piece of prose that last paragraph is, I admit, lacklustre, but as procrastination it offered many fine lagomorph burrows.

It has suddenly turned warmer and the winter weight duvet seemed a bit much last night. However, according to the forecast it will be colder by the end of he day so there is no point risking a change of bedding.

Fox – Arnot Hill

So,  a blogger returns, an old word reappears, I muse on a cult film and I mention the weather. I was excited to see an old friend and look at lagomorphs but after that it was all down hill. Is there any wonder that I find myself questioning the meaning of life?

Looking forward, what does the day hold? Breakfast. It’s going to be cereal again. Possibly some writing, because I’m feeling brighter and more active. Julia and my sister are going to see an exhibition in the Cathedral this afternoon and are dropping me off to have an X-Ray on the way. I’m having a foot looked at.

Not sure why, but I expect all will be revealed. It’s the sort of thing I try to avoid as it will take hours, involve waiting in a room full of sick people and will most likely produce no useful result. And I’m going to end up getting a taxi home. I don’t like being ill, but I really hate spending money.

Sculptures at Arnot Hill

It’s a bit like several other things I have avoided over the years. The NHS has more equipment than it knows what to do with and they keep trying to use it on me because they think I have nothing better to do than arrange my life around an endless carousel of scans and tests and X-Rays. And when you get the results they usually come in a letter telling you that this result applies only to the instant of the test and you may already be terminally ill with something really nasty but it isn’t their fault.

I made the mistake of using one of the NHS services last night. It pinged me with an appointment time and asked if I wanted to download the letter. I don’t usually work this sort of thing from my phone but I decided to give it a try. I pressed “yes” and it was ten minutes and 360 downloads before it stopped downloading things dredged out of my computer. It had never occurred to me that the two things had linked up, or that one would empty itself into the other. I’m actually quite perturbed that pressing a button on an NHS app can result in a massive transfer of files I’ve never agreed to. It’s probably the Chinese or the CIA, so somewhere at the end of the world (geographically speaking rather than Armageddon) there’s an intelligence analyst trying to make sense out of 300 pictures of medallions and 60 articles on writing poetry.

Female Marsh Harrier – Blacktoft Sands

This is too much to cope with. I am going straight back to the nineteenth century as soon as I have had breakfast.

Todays pictures will be plucked from random February shots.

It was so warm yesterday Julia saw a Brimstone flying.

Little Grebe (Dabchick)

 

 

 

6.44 & All That

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I had to do some writing late last night as I had to get up early. Counter intuitive? Yes, I agree.

In the old days I would just have wound up my alarm clock and gone to bed. Later, I would have set my electric clock and my alarm clock – living in the country there were often disruptions to the supply I learned you couldn’t trust the electric one. I then went back to traditional alarms and then to a small battery operated alarm clock that allowed me to “snooze”. This was a Bad Thing, as Sellar & Yeatman would say.

These days, of course, I use my phone. I am a modern man and can set an alarm on a telephone. I’m not that modern that it feels natural, but I manage. Anyway, I wrote a bit. The reason I did that was because my telephone battery had run down and I needed to charge it enough to make sure I had confidence it would last.

I selected 7.00 as the time to get up, took pain killers and went to sleep. At 6.44 I woke, annoyingly early, and was able, because of the aforementioned pills, to get a decent start.

I had to be at the surgery for 8.00 as I am once again in the hands of the medical profession. I will give no details as they do not show me in a good light. Basically, I have been self-medicating for the last two months and have finally had to admit I am not improving. Enter the Practice Nurse. That is the nurse who works at the GP Practice, not one that is trying to improve.

I thought I’d better point that out in case Donald Trump decided to send a medical ship to help.

Anyway, it all went well and it looks like I may be cured of my physical ailments in the next couple of months. The stupidity which led to me avoiding the doctor may take longer to cure, according to Julia, who is not very happy with me.

Wild flowers

Anyway, back to the point. To avoid disturbing Julia I used the torch on my phone to sneak into bed. While I was doing that I became fascinated by the torch. I mean, how great is it to have a torch that bright attached to your phone? It’s a tiny bulb too. I was so fascinated by it that I looked directly at it, dazzled myself, tripped and fell on the bed. This woke Julia up, which was both good and bad. Bad because she was a little irritated by being woken suddenly,  but good as it allowed me to tell her about how great my torch was. And because I didn’t fall on the floor.

With hindsight I may have been better just apologising and staying quiet.

The pictures are a bud vase Julia made from Zebra wood, with silk flowers in it, and the same bud vase without silk flowers in it. Also a random photo of summer flowers.

Neither the self-medication nor the waking a Julia were the worse things I did yesterday, I also sent of a set of poems to an editor by mistake, having already sent them to someone else. Editors hate that. I have written to withdraw them and apologise but so far have not heard back.

I also had a poem accepted this morning, but that’s a small bright spot in all the doom and displeasure I am accumulating around me.

 

 

The Week Moves On

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I am, as I have said before, on drugs to suppress my immune system. This controls my arthritis and allows me to get around, type and do a bit of baking. Without he drugs, even typing would be tricky, with bent fingers and painful knuckles.

However, I do tend to pick up a lot of low-level infections in winter, and this year I have, so far, had three. They don’t really amount to much, but they do make me tired, hence the amount of time I spend writing about the time I slept instead of blogging. Whilst recovering, I also sleep a fair bit.

I can tell when I have recovered, because my brain seems to move up a notch and I start to write again and answer TV quiz questions faster. I actually beat a contestant on Mastermind last night. I was three behind on the specialist subject (Waterfowl of the British Isles) but pulled it back on the general knowledge. Sitting at home, relaxed, I would still only have come second, because the winner answered all his specialist question and then beat me on general knowledge.

So, self-congratulations done, I’m still a long way off the pace required to do well on Mastermind. I got a few on University Challenge, including a few that the students didn’t get, so I was happy by the end of the evening. Winter Olympics are OK, but it’s nice to have the quizzes back.

 

Julia made a nice curry last night, using the leftover pea soup as a base for the sauce. She also put meat in it, which was nice for a change, as i tend to make my curry vegetarian these days.

I noticed earlier today, that I have done 3,802 blog posts. It made me wonder how many individual titles I have come up with and how many I have duplicated.

I just did a quick search, but after reading about 30 titles became aware that my ability to procrastinate had taken over again . . .

 

The pictures are from February 2015 – I only have 9 photos that month – my early days as a blogger.

 

 

 

And Suddenly . . .

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. . . the Day was Gone.

Black-tailed Godwit and Dunlin

Like some sort of magic trick, my day disappeared.

Julia returned around 4pm, I made her coffee and a bacon sandwich. I had cheese on toast. Sunday is a funny day – we tend to have a late breakfast then nothing until she returns from the cafe, as she often has leftovers. There were none today, because they had been busy with a lot of people making use of the improved weather to get out. 

The danger of left overs is hat if you don’t make plans around them, they can end up as an extra meal. I don’t need to eat an extra meal. But if you plan to have them and they don’t arrive, things can be tricky.

Brent Geese at FRampton Marsh

Sometimes we get nothing. Sometimes it’s a slice of cake between us. Occasionally it is a sausage roll or even a pasty. I always feel a bit guilty, but if we didn’t eat the leftovers they would only be thrown away. We could, as we have discussed, make a donation, but what’s an appropriate donation for a piece of slightly dry cake or a pasty that has been held in a heating cabinet for most of the day?

Anyway, there I was with cheese on toast. The Winter Olympics were on and we were discussing the performance of the British team. It’s disappointing according to the press. Considering we are generally not good at sport I think it’s miraculous.

Anyway, the day dissolved into TV and the grocery delivery and tea and before I knew it the Pottery programme was on and then Mock the Week and Julia was waking me up telling me it was time for bed.

Little Egret – Blacktoft Sands

I could do a couple of hundred words on the judges’ comments on the Pottery show, which didn’t always align with what I was seeing on the TV (i.e. made me wonder if the judges have favourites on these shows. We often play Guess the Winner in the first few episodes based on the way the judges relate to contestants. We are often right.).

Then I could go on to discuss Mock the Week. It was better this week with a more balanced team but I’m not sure if I enjoy it as much as I used to do.

Perhaps I’m growing up.

Anyway, that’s why the post I planned as Sunday’s 3rd ended up as Monday’s first. It may, of course, be Monday’s only one at this rate.

Talking about growing up . . .

Photos are from February 2017.

 

54 Posts 53 Days

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Coffee and blueberry muffin in the garden

I suppose the title gives it away, but if my counting is correct, I have published 53 posts in the 53 days of this year. This one is the 54th and puts me one ahead of the count.

I’ve done a bit, but should have done more. It’s a familiar feeling. That’s why I’ve just been looking at my emails and am now baclk blogging six hours early.

TESCO has everything for me apart from buttermilk, so they are sending ordinary milk. It’s not really an acceptable substitution and as I have plenty of milk, I don’t need more. They obviously don’t realise that buttermilk nd milk don’t do the same thing, just as they tried to substitute oven bottom muffins with English muffins once – again, two different types of bread. Yes, Americans, bread. What you call a muffin is just a big iced bun or a fairy cake. I can understand why many of our linguistic differences occur but I’ve never understood this one.

So I looked it up.

It seems, according to the hugely reliable and incomparably knowledgeable internet that the “English” Muffin, like so many things, is an American invention. It was invented in the mid=19th Century by a man called Samuel Bath Thomas. He was a baker who wanted a flagship product and decided to call this product the “English” muffin.

Flatbreads ready to go

Where did he get that idea? I hear you ask. Well, it seems he got the idea from a recipe his mother had always used for muffins. She was from England, and by coincidence, so was he. So all he did was move to America and start making muffins. That’s not quite the same as inventing them.

In England the muffin can trace its history back to the tenth century. Other bread products, of course, can be traced back even further.  Tenth century? That’s about the same time that the Vikings arrived, having hopped over via Greenland. That, I think, was the last time anyone actually invaded America via Greenland, despite recent fears over security.  Or, if you are more comfortable with dating by Disney, it was about 500 years before Pocahontas.

At that time, although there was no wheat flour available in the Americas there were other grains (maize, amaranth and quinoa) and a variety of other products which could all be made into bread-like products.

So, to summarise. English muffins were invented somewhere and were widely known in England, where they were known simply as “muffins” for centuries. The recipe was taken to the USA, the name was changed and nobody seems to be able to say why a muffin changed from a small bread product to became a cake covered in calories.

They exist today in bakeries, but mainly in McDonalds at breakfast time. Sweet muffins have, meanwhile, invaded the nation and are available everywhere.

Anybody in the USA or Canada know? Or anywhere else in the world.

That will do for now. I’ve wasted enough time and need to get back to going through my list of jobs.

Remember to look at the first blog post of the day, and check to see if there is a third.

McDonald’s Breakfast

 

Progress . . .

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My Orange Parker Pen

An hour ago I sat down to write a short blog post. It started by saying that I made good progress yesterday and had high hopes of solving many of my writing problems by he end of today.

Then it became introspective, which is not good. I was unable o break out of the cycle of introspection and successive rewrites put me in mind of something circling round a plughole.

And that is why it has taken me the best part of an hour and around a thousand words to come up with the ninety words I have here. Dull, I admit. Unproductive too. But at least, by cutting them severely I have avoided introspection, self-indulgence and whiney.

That’s all OK as far as it goes, but it leaves me with half a blog to write and needing something interesting to say. That’s only 125 words so that’s not a problem. I can fill that with a few sentences about the ease with which I can fill the space – look, the word count is already up to 176 and I’ve managed to keep you reading without actually saying anything.

Today I intend writing a second post in the evening to detail what I have actually done. Yesterday was quite productive but didn’t come up with many results. By the end of today I want to have made at least three submissions, maybe more.

I have a list of finished items, and a list of almost finished items. I have a list of submissions I want to make. All I need to do is match them up, but at hat point I sar to worry about whether I* am sending the right things to the right people. I got hat wrong lat month and ended up with a rejection that should not have happened.

Writing poetry is only part of the art of getting published.

 

I thought I’d go for pen photos again, as the subject is writing. I’m surprised how few I seem to have.

As part of my ongoing commitment to procrastination I have already added another post when I should have been finishing off submissions.