Stuff. Just stuff, everywhere

A period of enforced isolation at home due to coronavirus should provide the perfect opportunity to tidy up around the place and de-clutter. However, the initial premise is based on everyone who resides in the same household having broadly the same understanding of what "tidy" actually means. This is not the case in our house. With two adult children still living at home, and all their detritus from 25 and 23 years on this planet respectively, let alone stuff that my wife and I have accumulated over 27 years of marriage and our own historical baggage, it's somewhat frightening when you stop and realise just how much "stuff" we have in the house.

I don't necessarily want to chuck everything away. But nor do I want to just move it to "sight unseen"  which is my son's preferred mode of operation. He recently tidied up his bedroom (mostly anyway), a long overdue operation that took him most of a weekend. But what he's sneakily done, is move all the stuff he didn't want in his bedroom into the spare room.

Neither is it the case that our house is particularly untidy. I think the phrase is "lived in", which with four adults occupying the place is understandable. The loft (and we have a large one) is always a good bet for stowing stuff, but again, all that's doing is moving the problem. I've frequently threatened to just chuck stuff away and see who'll miss it, and how long it takes for them to do so, but I've never quite had the nerve.

And then of course there's the emotional attachment of things. We've got more soft toys lying around than you can shake a stick at, despite the fact the youngest occupant of the house is almost 23. Children's book's that evoke memories of bedtime stories and might one day be suitable for grandchildren. Old school and university workbooks, that will never ever get looked at again are in boxes in the loft. Personally, as a gadget/tech "enthusiast" I have to own up to being reluctant to discard anything that has a plug of some description on it, or an old phone/camera/laptop as they all might be useful one day *cough*.  I did the other day chuck our all our old VHS-C tapes of various holidays, children's Christmas nativity shows etc, but only once I'd made sure I'd backed everything up to DVD and had a backup of that. Chucking those tapes out is something I've been meaning to do for about five years!

There's also other bits and pieces that we've just accumulated and duplicated over the years. We have at least four thermos flasks for example. As someone who always likes a backup, two would be ok, but four? Let's also not get started on clothes. I'm fairly smug in this area. I believe I probably have the fewest clothes of anyone in the house. Certainly since I've retired I tend to live in jeans, a t shirt and a fleece. I haven't looked at a suit or proper collared shirt for over six months and my footwear tends to consist of walking shoes if I'm out and about, slippers in the house and a pair of old tatty trainers in the garden. Even so, I hang on to shirts that I probably might wear once or twice a year, perhaps on holiday but wouldn't be seen dead in on a day to day basis.

And one further point on decluttering - whilst there's lots I'd like to chuck away, I also don't like the idea of just putting stuff into landfill. Yes there are charity shops, bag collections and e-Bay, but half the time charity shops don't want the stuff you have, and the e-Bay route can be a lot of effort for little reward. Freecycle or Gumtree are viable options though, but not always successful. I've put two or three pairs of decent walking shoes/boots on Gumtree with no response at all.

But sometimes you just have to bit the bullet. I'm not going to get all Marie Kondo about this, I'm not quite that OCD (I think) but that time is now. Right, where's the bin bags.....

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

In plane view

Once Mrs H had returned from her early morning supermarket shop where all was good, despite some slight queuing to get in at 7am, and everything obtained except that essential commodity, cardomon pods (that's another story) we decided to take our daily exercise.

As usual, we headed up through the estate on a little used path, crossed the A4050 Port Road and via short walk through the Cardiff and Glamorgan Memorial Park and Crematorium grounds ventured onto Wenvoe Castle golf course.

With no golf being played, but the groundsmen keeping the place ship-shape, it looked pristine and I can't wait to getting back to hacking my way around a course. Normally we do a circular route around the "back nine" but today we ventured over to the front nine for the first time. It's a spectacular course, with lovely views out across the eastern Vale towards Rhoose. From the 6th tee I took the following photo which showed a row of furloughed British Airways planes sitting on the tarmac going nowhere in this lockdown.

BA planes at Cardiff Wales Airport

Since I retired I started playing golf, and normally play with a friend at the Vale Resort. I thought that was hilly, but it plays into insignificance compared with the front nine at Wenvoe! You'd need to be seriously fit to play this course regularly and/or use a golf buggy. If I played here I might need to invest in an electric trolley - pulling my Dad's old manual trolley ups and down these fairways would give me arms like Popeye!

Wenvoe Castle Golf Club - 8th Fairway - the green is down in the dip

 There were a one or two other couples and a couple of dog walkers on the course, but that part, we had the place to ourselves. It was lovely to find a bench at strategic points and sit and take in the views, sunshine and sound only of birds tweeting.

Wenvoe Castle Golf Club - 10th fairway

There are some fabulous trees on this course, The tall evergreens in the photo above are huge and spectacular , whilst there are a few of the what I think are copper beeches shown in the photo below dotted around the course. This was spectacular in today's sunlight.

Beautiful copper beech

Walking back through the crematorium grounds, we heard a plane, and I spotted this Airbus A400M Atlas that we have quite often seen over this area in the last few months doing some sort of training exercise. It's a big old pain and can carry a 37 tonne payload over 2,000 nautical miles and can accommodate 116 troops. You can even get a Chinook inside it apparently! This was about the extreme range of my zoom, so the quality isn't the best.

Airbus A400M Atlas over Barry

 Rather than take our normal path back, we wandered into Pencoedtre wood, a small wooded area at the top of our estate, bordered on two sides by the aforementioned A4050 Port Road and the A4231 Barry Docks Link Road. We'd never ventured into it before, despite having lived within 5 minutes walk for the last 15 years. As woods go it was fairly ordinary, although some of the bluebells we spotted were almost purple. We also spotted a standard squirrel. With only a vague idea that we needed to keep going down and keep the sun on our right, we followed one of a number of paths before appearing out of the trees opposite Lidl, and just a few minutes from our house.  A pleasant 4 miler or so in the sunshine. Just in time for a cup of tea and some cake.

Arty trees and sky photo

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

A day to remember

I've decided to stop putting the date in the title of my posts - this blog platform (like all others) provides the date of posts anyway. I originally started doing it in the vain hope that by now I could be saying we're getting back to normal but.....

Today is my Mum's birthday. She was born in 1927 the year that Cardiff won the FA Cup beating Arsenal 1-0 and who remain the only club to take the FA Cup out of England). Had she still been alive she would have been 93 today but sadly we lost her to ileo-caecal cancer at the end of 2002. That's almost a third of my life ago, but I still miss her enormously - those times when you just want to pick up the phone and have a chat about nothing in particular or sometimes something very specific, or point something out in the garden (she loved gardens). There's no doubt that time is a healer, but only in some respects. The rawness goes at least, but thankfully the memories remain.

My love of photography and photographs means that I'm often sat in my "study" meandering through some of my 22,000+ photos. I inherited a load of old photos when my Dad passed away at the end of 2016 co-incidentally a couple of days before the date on Mum's death. Whilst he was far from a well man, he was independent, but was taken ill suddenly one day and hung on for a week before passing. We swore he was waiting for the date Mum died.

I had the job of scanning many of the old photos and sharing them with my brothers and sisters (and a couple of my cousins). It's remarkable to look back at these old photos - some I'd never seen before, including some of my Mum when she was a child and both my parents in the 1940's and 1950's. I also came across some of both my sets of grandparents that I can't ever recall seeing before, insulting many of my maternal grandfather during his time in the navy - he served on submarines and survived two torpedoing's I'm told. The Navy played a major part in my parents and grandparents life. As well as my grandfather serving, both my parents were in the Navy - which was where they met. Dad was a Petty Officer and was in Malaya during the Malay Emergency whilst Mum was in the Wrens (Women's Royal Navy Service or WRNS).

So today's photo are a a celebration of the memory of Sylvia "Kit" Hiscocks. One of a kind.

Aged about 16 months (1928)

Aged 5 (1932)

1951

With her best friend Dusty in the WRNS

A Summer Fete

Enjoying France in the 90's

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 30th: Sport. Remember that?

So April peters out in a damp farewell after a period of prolonged sunshine and warmth. In any normal year we'd have had a great April, getting out and about in the nice weather, maybe some trips to the beach, seeing the start of the cricket season whilst moving swiftly towards the denoument of the football season.

Instead, everything remains up in the air. We're still in lockdown (or a variation of it depending on how compliant you're being). It's still open to question whether any cricket will be played this year. The sport's governing body has said no professional cricket will take place until July 1st at the earliest, the launch of the new Hundred competition has been postponed until next year and the recreational cricket suspension remains in place for the foreseeable future. Our league has just today suggested that they think the chances of cricket starting up by 1st July is unlikely (and I agree).  The football powers are still debating options for the completion, or cancellation of the current season (or something else), let alone the implications for the 2020/2021 campaign.

On the brighter side of things, the panic buying at the shops seems to have dissipated with most things bar flour (blame all those lockdown home bakers) readily available and those retailers that are open for business having put sensible and appropriate social distancing measures in place, or have adapted their business models to focus on home deliveries.

The calls continues for the Government to provide at least it's thoughts on an exit strategy form lockdown, although there seems to be a reluctance from on high to do this at this time.  Personally I believe it's too early to ease things (much as I'd like them to). I saw an interesting meme on Facebook this morning for which I can claim no responsibility which summed it up for me:

Reopening the country early, is a bit like stopping your antibiotics early because you're starting to feel better

I checked my car mileage this morning. It's a nerdy thing or perhaps OCD, but I like to know how many miles I've done each month. In the last month I've racked up the grand total of 43.9 miles. For many people it might be zero. I've had two or three trips to the surgery for my blood tests, and one trip to Canton with my wife to check on my mother-in-law one evening when we thought there was problem (there wasn't). That compares with just over 1,000 miles a month before I retired last November, and 560 in February and 400 in March. Apart from the obvious fuel saving that I and every other driver in lockdown has made, the impact on the environment must be huge. We've seen pictures of before/after lockdown improvements in air pollution across the world (although be careful believing everything you read/see - photo editing software is very good these days 😉. This article from Guardian at the end of March, a whole month ago was already showing some striking effects of the improvement due to the reduction in travel - it's probably even more significant now, even though traffic seems to be picking up again.

Although the weather's been a bit showery today, we did manage to get out for an hour. This shot was taken on the local golf course.

Wenvoe Castle Golf Club: 10th fairway

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 29th: Quiet day and disturbing figures

On the personal from it's been a quiet day, painting followed by a 2 mile walk around Cadoxton with Mrs H to get some exercise. Not much else to report really. My photo today is from a path near to our house where hawthorn blossom was falling like snow. A colour photo doesn't do it justice, so I've put a black and white silver tone filter on it, which makes it much more dramatic.

Today's Government briefing on the coronavirus pandemic pointed to a "slightly worrying" upturn in the amount of traffic. Certainly from what I've seen on my (not always) daily walks and from what my wife is reporting from her trip to work, shopping and to care for her mother is most definitely an increase in traffic. It seems that the country is deciding it's time to ease the restrictions not the Government. However, given that the total number of deaths being reported is now in excess of 26,000 now that care home deaths are bing includes, 6,000 higher than the 20,000 that one of the earliest briefings suggested might have once been the "best case scenario", it's clear that we're far from out of the woods.  Stay at home people.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 28th: Exercise - what does it means for you?

Hurrah, it's raining!

There are a couple of pluses to this rain - and who'd have thought anyone would be saying that about rain after the persistent precipitation and devastating floods of a couple of months ago - yes it was less than seven weeks ago when our focus was on flooding not coronavirus!

Firstly, the garden needed rain. I know, only gardeners say that, but my clay heavy soil had pretty much solidified and and starting opening up cracks you could fall into following the recent dry spell. And it means I don't have to water my fledgling fruit and vegetable plants  for a few days at least as nature does the job for me.

Secondly, it might stop some of the idiots who think lockdown is a nice opportunity to get out and about, have a picnic, climb Snowdon or otherwise go beyond the spirit of the guidance about being allowed out once a day for daily exercise. Perhaps it's worth re-iterating the Government's guidance here. You can exercise:

Yes – provided it is alone or with members of your household.People must stay at home as much as possible to reduce the spread of the virus. But you can also still go outside once a day for a walk, run, cycle. When doing this you must minimise the time you are out of your home and stay at least two metres away from anyone else that isn’t from your household.

The key bit here for me is that "...you must minimise the time you are out of your home".   Interestingly in relation to cycling, the website cyclist.co.uk initially said on 24th March shortly after lockdown was announced, that

No guidelines were given as to how long or how far the ride could be although with limited services and restaurants and cafes shut, it would suggest rides are to be kept short and close to home

And on 24th March, Wales updated it's guidance to say that:

Cycling for exercise in Wales has been restricted to rides that are within reasonable walking distance, as the Welsh Government publishes new official guidance that prohibits long bike rides for leisure and exercise.'Cycling should be local, as a rule of thumb limited to travelling no further than a reasonable walking distance from home,' the new guidance states

Returning more generally to individual daily exercise, the challenge is that for one person it might be a 5 minute turn around the block , whilst for others, perhaps more used to bigger bouts of exercise a 10 mile run might be what they deem to be their daily exercise. Whether a 10 mile run or 50 mile cycle is what the government meant by daily exercise is another thing. I know that every time I step out of the door at the moment I feel guilty, even though I'm only going for my turn around the block or at most a 2 mile circular walk.

And so to more mundane matters. I said a couple of days ago that I'd kicked my procrastination in respect of decorating into touch and bitten the bullet. Well, I'm pleased to say that bar a couple of minor snagging issues the living room is complete, and very please with it I am too. It's been far too long since this room was re-decorated. I was looking at some old photos the other day and I can see this was last done probably done....well actually, I'm not going there, it's too embarrassing.

Before (top) and after....next!

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 27th: Who to believe?

Well before anyone had ever heard of coronavirus/Covid-19 we were hearing about "fake news". It's not new either - it's probably been around since humans first started communicating with each other, but as communication channels have evolved, it's certainly become more visible.

Fake news is the sharing of misleading or downright wrong information, hoaxes for various purposes.  At one end of the spectrum it might be for sensationalist headlines to attract news "consumers" (think tabloid headlines, especially of things like weather headlines. On Twitter I follow meteorologist Liam Dutton who regularly lambastes the Daily Express weather "columnists" about their sensationalist, and usually wholly inaccurate weather warnings which he argues are merely "clickbait" designed to get people clicking on the links to drive access to content. At the more amusing end of the scale are things like the football transfer silly season when X footballer is reported to have been seen at Y club. A vaguely personal example is of a relative of mine, Barbara Archer who starred in several films including as Rosie the bargain at the Black Swan Inn  in the 1964 film 633 Squadron and the 1958 classic Dracula with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. She was once reported and photographed on a red top newspaper as driving a flashy American car and living the high life whilst her husband rode a bike and had to have fish and chips for his supper (or something like that), but according to my mum who was Barbara's cousin, she couldn't drive at the time and her husband didn't own a bike! The fish and chips bit might have been real!

Then there are the conspiracy stories. Man didn't actually and on the moon. The earth if flat, we're just being shield from that fact, the Queen's a lizard etc.

But there's a more serious side to this where media channels are manipulating the spread of disinformation for a much darker purpose, and the problem is that it's getting harder and harder to unravel the truth from the lies. The current President of the United States Donald Trump of course is a proponent of everything is fake news unless it come from him, although as we've seen, some of his information is clearly fake. Think bleach as a cure for coronavirus.

Yesterday some social media outlets had posts suggesting the first participant in the coronavirus vaccine trial had died a few days after having been administered the trial vaccine, when in fact she's fit and well.  It appears this story emanated from people who are opposed to vaccines.

There's also much contention about what's being reported regarding the statistics around Covid-19, not just in the UK, but worldwide. It may well be that what's being reported is not wrong per se, but rather it's being manipulated to provide a specific message, or to avoid giving a specific answer to a specific question.

Who are our trustworthy news sources? All my life I've trusted the BBC. But there are clearly people that don't. Some argue the BBC is too supportive of the Government. Conversely some argue it's constantly attacking and undermining the Government. You can't win. 

I'm sure that such a debate could (and probably) will go on for a very long time about fake news, and what can or can't be done to control it, or even whether it should be controlled (free speech and all that), but for the moment, the difficulty I and I suspect many others will have to continue to wrestle with, is, who do we believe?

If I'm not careful I'm going to go round in every decreasing circles with this post, so I'll just leave this here, but urge you - don't believe what you read without checking it.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 26th: Dull day

Well done to everyone who spotted the deliberate mistake in yesterday's post - I had the date as April 26th, which is of course today.

To be perfectly honest, I haven't got a lot to say today. It's been a very lazy day, even in lockdown terms. My wife's been to check on her mum, my son's spent time on a multi-way chat with some of his old university buddies who are now spread around the world. My daughter's been watching Harry Potter films and I've finished a book I was reading and been doing my own pottering in the garden making the most of the sunny weather before it disappears, potting on some of my tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes. To be honest, I've overdone it with my sowing - I've got far too many plants and nowhere to put them. I'll have to see if the neighbours want some (suitably socially distanced of course).

Tomato and courgette plants anyone?

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 25th: Photography

Years ago I had Zenit Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera (a Zenit because it was relatively cheap not because it was good) and enjoyed taking many "snaps" on 35mm film.

With the advent and evolution of the mobile phone, pretty much everyone has a camera on them all the time these days, and the latest cameras on the latest phones can provide staggeringly good results on a par with dedicated cameras under the right conditions. In addition to my iPhone XR, I also have three other cameras, all models a few years old now.

• A Panasonic TZ60 pocket travel zoom, usually reserved for holidays abroad or where I don't want to be carting around too much weight
• A Canon 100D DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) one of the smallest DSLR's available, and what would be deemed an "entry level" DSLR
• A Panasonic FZ330 Bridge Zoom. Only recently purchased but an older model, I bought this for it's long zoom when I need something more than the TZ60.

I swap and change between these depending on where I'm going, what I'm photographing or sometimes just based on whichever one I pick up first.  I take a LOT of photo's. Currently I have getting on for 22,000 photos on my hard drive (and yes, they're backed up in at least three separate locations) including off site in the cloud. The best ones, or those that have the most personal impact, including holiday ones I upload to Flickr, and you can see some of the albums I've made available publicly from this link.

I guess like many people, 99% of my photos are bog standard or worse, but every now and then I take one that really stands out. I find it's a hobby that you are continually learning on. Every time I press the shutter I learn something new. I try these days not to just use the "point and shoot" settings, but adapt whatever settings best suit the circumstances (or at least try to).

With lockdown, a lot of my usual haunts such as Barry Island, Cardiff Bay and other local areas are out of bounds, and being stuck at home you might think there's a limit to what I can photograph. But I've started messing about with taking macro (close up) photographs of flowers in my garden, and some of the shots have come out pretty well.  I've attached a few here.

I've also started to focus more on the post-processing - loading photos into software that allows me to tweak and play with the image, mostly to try and enhance the photo, but sometimes just for a bit of fun. The top tow photos here are the same flower - it's pink not blue.

I find photography immensely satisfying, but equally challenging when you miss that shot. On occasions though you just have to take what you can with whatever camera you have - they say the best camera is the one you have with you. Today we walked up on the golf course again, and disturbed a pair of green woodpeckers (to see one is an event in itself, to see a pair is amazing). They flew out of some trees and into some other trees further ahead. We couldn't see them with the naked eye, so I took the camera I had with me today - the Panasonic TZ60 pocket travel zoom, pointed it at the tree and zoomed all the way in, past the optical zoom and into the digital zoom where the picture starts to degrade rapidly. I thought I'd just taken foliage, but if you look carefully towards the top of the photo, you'll see a partially hidden woodpecker - his red head is the giveaway. On one hand it's a terrible photo. Fuzzy, the bird not really visible and certainly not centred. But the fact I managed to capture even this, made my day.

Spot the green woodpecker

And finally, just so she doesn't feel left out, here's a close up of the cat.

Until tomorrow....
#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 24th: Lockdown and disinfectant

So we're just over a month into Lockdown (Monday 23rd March).  How are you all coping?

We've settled into a pretty regular pattern at Chez Stats. Mrs H who's a nurse works Mondays and Tuesday's, but not directly at the coalface of CV-19 and thankfully things have been relatively calm for her at work. On her days off she continues to support her 94 year old housebound and frail mum who lives in Cardiff, alternating days with her brother, so she gets some down time. She's also i/c the shopping duties. My son who was initially working from home, has now been furloughed, and has another couple of weeks before that's reviewed. In the meantime he's taking the time to do some online learning relevant to his industry. My daughter who works for a big insurer as a customer service rep is working from home, but continues to have struggles with IT systems issues which seem to be affecting quite a lot of people.

I've got the garden looking tip-top, and have after some procrastination commenced some overdue decorating. I'm also taking the time to do some reading and practice my photography skills, although I'm finding it hard to concentrate on doing any one thing for very log, but that's just me I think, not a result of lockdown. I've also turned my hands to a few culinary projects, which thus far haven't ended up poisoning anyone. Apart from some shortish walks, which aren't daily, I've only been out of the house a few times. Twice for a blood test (a regular requirement for the arthritis drugs I'm on), once when we though there was a problem with my mother in law, and one other time to pick up a takeaway.

The general feeling is that the data are suggesting we're past the peak of infections, and whilst we are technically still in a lockdown situation, it seems that we are beginning to see a very gentle easing of restrictions. I've seen that some B&Q stores are opening, and anecdotal reports that locally traffic is up 25%-30% on three weeks ago. There's continuing chatter in the media about strategies for getting our of lockdown, perhaps fuelled by news that some of the European countries are now starting to relax restrictions. Today's news is reporting that Wales could introduce a traffic light type system for easing the restrictions at the end of the current lockdown period in early May.

However, there's also a fairly strong message coming across that restrictions of some form or another, particularly in respect of social distancing are likely to need to remain in place until at least the end of the year. How this will manifest practically is anyone's guess at the moment.

On the sporting front, we now know that professional cricket won't commence until at least the 1st July, and the recreational game remains suspended until further notice. Realistically I don't see any chance of any cricket of substance this year for my local club. As far as football goes, no one's any the wiser as to whether the current season will be cancelled, finished behind closed doors or something else. It's too early to even think about that that means for next season, but on the upside it means I haven't had to fork out money for next season's season ticket yet.

As far as holidays go, our June Corfu trip is still technically on at this moment in time, but I can't see any way that it's going to happen. Similarly, the chances of our late September mediterranean cruise happening are vanishing rapidly, and there are huge questions about future of the whole cruise industry. We do have a couple of "in-country" breaks booked later this year, so finger's crossed one or both of those might yet come off.

And I can't close today without a nod to the good ol' US of A. Their parody of a President incurred disbelief overnight at his suggestions that disinfectants and light might be used to treat coronavirus. He even suggested that light could somehow be injected into the body. I was staggered that he got elected in the first place, but over his tenure his actions and messages have become increasingly "bizarre" (I'm being kind here). It seems no one has got the gumption to stand up to him and tell him he's an idiot. What is even more amazing, is that there are people stupid enough to listen to him, believe him, and vote for him.

Inevitably, this story dangerous as it is, has been widely mocked on Twitter. This is my favourite...so far

Until tomorrow....
#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 23rd: St George and booze

As a born and bred Englishman* today should sit proudly as a day to recognise the patron saint of England, St George.  Which is odd, really given he wasn't English, as far as we know never came to England and didn't slay a dragon. I'm not going to go into any more detail about him, as there's plenty of information out there, so if you're really interested a quick Google should give you what you want. If you can't be bothered, then this Wikipedia page might be of interest, with all the usual caveats about the accuracy of that database.

However, it seems to me that there's nowhere near the same fervour held over dear St George than for the other national saints of the Great Britain and Ireland and the days allotted to them. Indeed, here in Wales, St David's day on 1st March is usually marked in many ways, with kids dressing up in school, St David's themed stuff everywhere and more daffodils than you can shake a stick at. It probably helps that it arrives off the back of the 6 Nations Rugby tournament where country pride has been fanatically displayed, and the red shirts are easily to hand. St Patrick's Day goes far and beyond being celebrated in just that part of the world, and the Scot's too with St Andrew seem to make a real thing of it. I'm not sure why this doesn't happen in England, (perhaps him not being English has something to do with it) or is it just that I don't see it?

St George

* Whilst I was born in England and lived in various places there until I was 20, I've been in living in Wales for over 40 years. I married a Cardiff girl. My kids are both Welsh, born and bred in the area. I feel more Welsh than English, and will be found supporting Wales over England in most things (football included).

The current coronavirus pandemic has affected business massively, and small, local businesses are one of the hardest hit. Some will undoubtedly and sadly go to the wall as a result of the current situation, others are struggling on, or have closed and are waiting for the lockdown to ease in the hope that things will pick up. Others, where they are able, have taken the bull by the horns and changed their business model and seem to be doing ok.

One example of this is the Roath and Penarth "Bottle Shops", independent wine and beer merchants (Twitter @CF64BottleShop and CF24BottleShop). I've been buying beer and the occasional wine from their Penarth shop for a couple of years. Their range of craft beers is amazing, and there's something for everyone, with prices from fairly decent (around £2.50 a can/bottle) to anything up to, and occasionally beyond £20 a can/bottle.  Similarly the wine we've bought from there has always impressed. They certainly aren't and never claim to be the cheapest, but the quality of what they source and stock is highly impressive supported by knowledgeable, friendly staff. I've always found them to be extremely helpful. You can also (though we never have as it's a bit too far away) pop in and drink on site (outside of the current lockdown of course), although it's primarily a shop, not a pub/wine bar. They also run wine tasting events and I'm keen to try one of those when I can.

With the shop closed to customers  during lockdown, like many businesses they've taken a delivery service (email orders only) and seem to be doing very well. My delivery arrived yesterday after I'd sent them my budget and 'brief". They know their stuff, and come highly recommended by me if you're ever in the area. It's good to support your local independent businesses.  Note there's a minimum £50 order at the moment, though delivery is free.

My CF64BottleShop stash

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelivesA

April 22nd: DIY distasters

I couldn't put it off any longer. I've started to decorate. It was meant to be my rainy days project, but we haven't had any precipitation of note, and there's none forecasted in the immediate future so I just have to bite the bullet and start. There's a long old list of rooms to be done.

Some of my procrastination is down to my level of DIY competence. I'm not very good at DIY and do my best to avoid it at all costs. I'm not terrible, but on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being a member of the master guild of builders/decorators/plumbers etc., I'm probably no better than mid-table at best, and possibly as low as a 2 depending on the job at hand. When decorating I've steadfastly shunned wallpaper for years. Just the thought of taking a radiator off a wall to paint behind it brings me out in a cold sweat, and so on. Age has certainly improved my abilities, so you can imagine how bad I once was. For a start, these days I take things more slowly. Back in the day I wanted to finish a job as quickly as possible and tended to go at things like a bull in a china shop. There are two legendary episodes in our household that exemplify why I'm best leaving this stuff alone. 

The first comes from 20th October 1996. The reason I can remember this date so vividly is because I was decorating our then spare room ready to move my almost 2 year old son from his small room and cot into his new room with his first big bed. And whilst I was decorating I was listening to an epic football match on the radio between Newcastle and Manchester United which the Magpies won 5-0.

Anyway, the room had been stripped and carpet lifted to allow me to do the decorating (at least I'd done that - I often paint around things). We'd had a plumber round to service the boiler that afternoon, and I'd taken the opportunity to take out an emergency contract for plumbing emergencies - seemed like a sensible thing to do at the time, although I could've done without the £60 odd cost (times were harder then). 

So boiler serviced, painting ongoing and a temporary halt for dinner after which I returned to the room to carry on my decorating. As the carpet was up, I thought I'd take the opportunity to fix a squeaky floorboard (do you know what's coming yet?). So powered screwdriver in hand (all the gear, no idea) I took a nice big screw and screwed the offending floorboard down. Right through a hot water pipe. I managed to quickly lift the floorboard, but what do you do then when hot water is squirting out through a pipe? Call the wife? No, she said, call the plumber. So I did. You can imaging that he was slightly incredulous both at what I'd done, and that I'd taken him up on his emergency contract so quickly - I reckon it was about two hours from the point he'd left the house after servicing the boiler. I never screw down floorboards now. 

The second occurrence was in the same room. We'd bought a three door flat pack wardrobe from somewhere. I was assembling it (taking my time and following instructions, honest). I'd assembled the outer parts (sides, base, top and the instructions then said, "carefully lift the casing upright". So I did (on my own and that's probably where it all went wrong). It stood upright for a few seconds as I admired my work to date, and then slowly fell to one side ripping out the fixingsas it collapsed into its constituent parts on the floor. In the end I managed to salvage it, although one of the side had to be put on back to front due to the damage. 

I haven't had any real disasters since then, and have even managed to rewire light switches and fixings without electrocuting myself, but normally whenever it's suggested that there's some DIY work of any description required, my wife's first response is "Let's get a man in". Well I would, but we're on lockdown, so it's down to me.....now where's the paintbrush?

Queen of all she surveys

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 20th: Apologies, data and bread

Firstly an apology to those who got excited about yesterday's Starlink post and went out last evening to look for the supposedly excellent pass at around 10am (I know my sister and her family did).

It was a very disappointing. Starlink satellites were visible, but they were much fainter and much more widely spaced than the night before. Those who know about these things better than me say it's very hard to predict exactly how "good" one of these passes as the satellites move towards their final orbit, unlike the International Space Station passes which are very predictable. On the upside, a better pass is predicted at around 9pm this evening. I also understand there's a launch of the next batch (60) of Starlink satellites tomorrow (Wednesday) in the US, so there's a chance we might get to see an even better "string of pearls" pass a day or so later. And remember, we're also in the middle of the Lyrid meteor shower which peaks tonight and into the early hours of tomorrow morning, so if you've got nothing planned, just go out in the garden tonight and look up. You might see a spaceship, and you might see meteors. Assuming the sky is clear, you'll definitely see loads of stars!

How easily do you give up data?

Barely a day goes by when I don't see and get irritated by a Facebook post from someone imploring me to fill in a list along the lines of:

"I'm bored during lockdown. I bet none of my Facebook friends will do this, but just for a bit of fun let's see who does. Then share your answer with all your friends"

Things like:

1. Your favourite colour
2. Name of your first pet
3. Best holiday destination
4. Your favourite meal
5. Colour of your car
6. Month you  got married
7. Your computer passwords

Ok I made the last one up, but had I not, I suspect there might be a few people out there gullible enough to do it! 

Whilst these seem like a bit ion innocent fun, in reality, these sorts of "challenges" aren't your pals idea. They've more than likely been instigated by persons unknown as a co-ordinated way for someone to "scrape" data about you. For example, if you filled in the top five answers in the first example, everyone (including the people that instigated this) knows that you like blue, you had a pet called Bertie, you like going to Ibiza, your car is red (why didn't you buy a blue one if it's your favourite colour?) and you got married in September. Imagine that list being 20 or more items. That's a lot of information about you. Then imagine you sharing that list with everyone of your contacts, and they sharing with every one of theirs and so on. Imagine how many people freely giving up data about their "favourite things" that is (incidentally, that's also a bit like how coronavirus spreads so quickly which is why you should be staying at home!).

And all this can (and most likely is) used at the very least for tailoring marketing advertisements towards you. Worse, it could be used by unscrupulous individuals (yes I know some people think marketeers are unscrupulous, but let's not go there), to start mining accounts for passwords. Too many people use basic passwords based on their favourite things, and also repeat those passwords over multiple accounts, so with enough people filling these in, some people will inadvertently leak their passwords, or at least give people a head start when it comes to cracking them.

That's why I don't fill these things in. It's not because I'm a grumpy old git (although that may be true) and I don't want to engage with my "friends". Honest.

Made soda bread again today. Looks like a better effort than my first one a week or so ago. Only time will tell - tea-time!

Home made bread

And finally, my son had a blender out this afternoon making iced coffee. The following short video on slo-mo on an iPhone shows what happens in a blender when there's water in it. Quite transfixing.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 20th: Part 2 - Needles in vain (see what I did there?)

The second of a double posting today.  I wanted to get my earlier post about Starlink satellites out so that anyone interested had enough time to read and then prepare for tonight's pass should they want to - and it was a very specific post rather than my usual general "some stuff about some stuff" sort of post.

Back in the real world it's Monday (I think). How easy is it to lose track of the days?  Mrs H has gone off to work at the hospital, my daughter's working from the kitchen and my son - well now he's been furloughed he's just chilling.....

Following Friday's abandoned blood letting for my latest blood test because of my arthritis medication I woke this morning and downed almost 4 pints of water to ensure my veins were suitably full for this morning's attempt. Sadly, despite the best efforts of (more than one) clinician, they couldn't find a decent enough vein again this morning, and so I have to go back again on Wednesday. They were wholly apologetic, although I pointed out that it wasn't their fault if there wasn't a decent vein to stab.

On the bigger stage, it's evident that we've moved from a "we're all in this together" mode to tensions, and finger pointing as people start to see the curve flattening and other countries starting to loosen their restrictions on whatever flavour of lockdown they had installed. The critical point though is that we're far from out of this yet, just because the numbers of infections is plateauing. Deaths will undoubtedly continue to rise for a while, the pressure on care and services will remain for the foreseeable future. We might (or might not) see a second, or even third wave. God forbid we might see coronavirus as a permanent fixture, like seasonal flu, or perhaps worse, an altered strain that's even more deadly. I saw a headline today (one source is the New Scientist) saying that the UK’s coronavirus science advice won’t be published until pandemic ends. Well knock me down. I'm not surprised as we're still in the middle of this thing. It appears we (and most of the rest of the world) is still grappling with the pandemic - why publish the science now. It would be like publishing a novel that stops half way through.

I'm all for holding the Government (and anyone else such as scientists, journalists etc.) to account but it's also easy to adopt a holier than thou attitude (how many of you have done non-essential shopping in the last month, or made a trip you didn't need to?). It's easy to blame someone that they did something wrong, listened to flawed advice, took the wrong action or say person X or political party Y would have done better. We just don't know yet. The time will come when we can do that in a planned and focused way. Not now.

Don't forget - if you have clear skies, the Starling satellites will be over about 10pm tonight. Look up!

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 20th: Part 1 - The aliens are coming...

Last night I watched an incredible sight. And (clear skies permitting), you can do the same again tonight at around 9.55pm.

I saw in excess of 40 bright Starlink satellites trailing across the sky in a train one after another - around 20 seconds apart. If you've ever watched the International Space Station fly across the sky, it was a bit like that (not quite as bright, but not far off). They were so bright because the sun was reflecting off them. You certainly couldn't miss them, and they just kept coming. I took a couple of time-lapse shots on my iPhone but they didn't come out that well. The  time-lapse trail photo below is one of a myriad you'll find on Twitter that shows how many of these things there were. The long lines are the time-lapse trails from the satellites, the shorter horizontal lines are star trails due to the length of the exposure - the vertical streak in the bottom left quadrant may be a meteor (we're in the middle of the Lyrid meter shower currently).

Starlink timelapse April 19 2020
Credit @HH_Bert

If you didn't know what these lights were and were watching them, it could have been fairly unsettling. I've certainly never seen anything like it in my life

These satellites form part of what will ultimately be a "constellation" of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX company intended to provide global internet access (plus undoubtedly many other uses). As I understand it, there are currently around 360 of these satellites in LEO, but ultimately it's rumoured that there might be as many as 40,000 (yes you read that right - forty thousand!).

Musk is a controversial character - he's the chap who launched a Tesla Roadster into space with a space mannequin in February 2018. Whilst these Starlink satellites will no doubt perform some useful scientific purpose, they carry major concerns on two fronts.

Firstly, that they just add to the space junk that already exists up there. The US Space Surveillance Network already calculates that there are over 20,000 items of "debris" in orbit, ranging from tiny bits to considerable chunks of used rocket/satellites. If rumours around Starlink are true, this adds a further 40,000. And we don't yet know what other space capable countries like China, Russia or India for example are putting up there. That's a massive amount of clutter, and whilst it may be "out of sight", it proses real issues for the International Space Station for example that has to regularly manoeuvre to avoid space junk.

Secondly, those that observe the night Skys, from professional and commercial researchers to amateurs including astrophotographers are massively concerned that the night skies may eventually become unobservable due to the amount of clutter up there. And they have a real point. Anyone who's  ever taken a night photo will probably have captured the odd satellite of plane in their image. If there are tens of thousands of these satellites up there, it will make astrophotography nigh on impossible.

It's countered that as these eventually make their way to their final orbit they'll be too high to see with the naked eye, and SpaceX is apparently also trialling some with a non-reflective material. Whether either statement is true we'll just have to wait and see.

Whatever your view, there's no doubt that last night's display was an awesome sight, and tonights promises to be even better. I literally stood open mouthed in my garden for nearly twenty minutes watching these things pass over.

If you want to get into observing the night sky follow @VirtualAstro on Twitter - he'll tell you what's around and what's coming over. The pass tonight will be around 9.55pm - get out and have a look. If you're feeling bold, you can also try to photograph these using just your phone.

I use an iPhone app called NightCap from the App Store - I'm note sure what's available for Android, but I'm sure there must be something similar. It has a number of modes including ISS mode, and light trails mode. Set it up pointing at where you think the ISS (or in this case satellites) are going to come from, press record and that's it. Press stop when you're done. Use a tripod if you can, or secure it from moving however you can. You might not get it right first time. It's trial and error.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 19th: Don't start what you can't finish...and virtual quizzes

This isn't quite the way I'd intended to spend my first spring in retirement. I was looking forward to getting out and about, and we've already lost a planned holiday and short break - but on the flip side, it could have been much worse - I'm still healthy (relatively). On the plus side, being both retired and confined to barracks means that many of the things that I'd normally file under "Oh, I'll get round to it sometime" start leering at you from every corner.

I'm already seriously procrastinating over a shedload of decorating that needs doing. But it's the small things that distract you. Yesterday the oven needed cleaning. We have one of those relatively fancy ovens that actually tells you that it needs cleaning, and a setting that's supposed to clean it. But it only cleans the back and sides. The racks and bottom have to be done manually. So I donned my marigolds and got cleaning. In my defence, I did them about a month ago so they weren't too bad but they still needed doing. And then that moment when putting them back in, I noticed the oven light. That was seriously manky. So having touched it once and got my fingers burnt (#idiot) I've now set myself a reminder to look at it once the oven's cold. Oh and there's another combo-oven next to it, so that one will have to be looked at too. And whilst I was down there looking at the oven, I noticed how dusty the bottom of the adjacent cupboards had become. My point here is, if you look long enough, there's always something that needs doing. And that leads to something else, and so on ad infinitum. In a similar vein I bleached the kitchen sink this morning. Having done that and obtained some sparkly results, it reminded me that we have several other sinks.....Oh, and the kettle by the sink needed descaling...you get my drift. The morale of the story is, I think, don't look in the first place.

Lockdown makes you yearn for many 'normal' things. My daughter has been longing for a McDonalds egg McMuffin. Strange, because she doesn't normally eat them. And she's not keen on the egg bit. Anyway, Mrs H's shopping trip yesterday resulted in all the relevant ingredients being bought, and this morning I rustled up said breakfast 'sandwich'. To be fair, it wasn't difficult. Sausage patty, what I used too call "plastic cheese", a nice egg and an English muffin, lightly toasted. The result was a well received thumbs up.

Who needs McDonalds

One of the things we've been doing as a family is the "Virtual Pub Quiz" run by a chap called Jay. I don't know how many people are watching this now, but the most recent one has been streamed almost half a million times! There are many people doing this sort of thing, but we've stuck with this one over the last four weeks and generally sit down to do it on a Saturday evening. So far the victory count is level 2-2 between my and my son 2. The best score any of us has got was this week when my son got 43/50. My wife was second with a highly respectable 35, I got 30 and my daughter 23. This quiz is pretty good - 5 rounds of 10 questions, with a break after 30 when the answers for the first three rounds are revealed. Jay has refined the quiz week on week, but we watch it after it's streamed to cut out all the pre-amble and mid-quiz break. The questions are a decent selection of history, sport and leisure, TV/Film, music and general knowledge. It's the TV/Film and music that normally lets me down.

The Government are getting an increasingly rough ride over their handling of the coronavirus pandemic. They are certainly not without fault. I don't necessarily respect them, but equally I don't envy them. Platitudes and spin don't make up for failings, and you just wish someone would say occasionally say "sorry, yes we got that wrong" or answer the question asked and not go off down another alley. It's the scientists that impress me though, with their measured and calm reflections. Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Office I've mentioned before, and another one who's putting a very calm and measured messages on social media particularly is oncologist Professor Karol Sikora (@ProfKarolSikora on Twitter). Amidst all the accusations, blathering and headlines today, his latest tweet (as I write) sums  it up for me. Maybe the politicians could learn a thing or two from him.

Mistakes have been made - we haven't got testing, PPE, the exit strategy or treating other serious illnesses 100% right.

No country's response has been flawless.

So let's move forward together, learn from it and get it sorted as soon as possible.

The cat chalked up another kill yesterday evening. Same species. I suppose living next to a large tangled hedgerow doesn't help. That's three in two days.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 18th: Bad hair, cats and rats

Mrs H conducted a successful early hours sortie to the shops this morning. Out of the house just after 6.30am and back around 8am fully laden. She said stock looked pretty decent apart from pasta and rice which we have enough of currently. She said it was also quieter than last week.

I normally have my hair cut every four weeks, or five at a push. As a child I had ridiculously unruly, curly hair and the by the time it was something I started to worry about (we're talking early/mid 70's here folks) the fashion was generally to keep it on the long side unless you were a skinhead. Long hair sort of went along with the baggy trousers ("Chelsea bags" I think they used to call them) and the platform shoes. My parents would have never let me get away with something too over the top, but my Mum just about let me get away with a pair similar to those shown below.

Platforms like this were tame by most standards

Anyway, I digress. Over the years I've tended to have my hair cut shorter, and for the last who knows how long I've stuck to a standard number 4 all over with an occasional basic trim just to shake it up a bit. Having a number 4 every few weeks means that I start to get twitchy after about week three and I can't remember the last time I went more than 5 weeks without a cut. By my reckoning I'm now comfortably overdue being shorn, although it's still short by most people's standards. Unless I let one of my family loose on my with my son's beard trimmer it looks like I and most other in lockdown are going to be doubling up on our normal timetable for getting our locks cut. Given that I can't go out and have people laugh at my greying curly hair I think I'll brave it out, just to see what happens. And anyway, I don't trust anyone with a beard trimmer least of all my son!

And you think you're having a bad hair day?
© Chester Wiker

After a week or so of sparse cat news, the feline was back in full on action yesterday evening, bringing not one, but two R.A.T.'s  in within the space of an a couple of hours. Fortunately both had gone to meet their ratty maker, so all that was required was a quick disposal. Clearly it was an hard work catching them though...

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 17th: Rain, pincushions, death and football

Well the weather's turned (hopefully only briefly), and sunshine has given way to rain, the first rainfall in these parts for getting on for four weeks or so (bar one short overnight shower). That means a couple of things.

• Firstly, I'm not doing any more gardening. That can wait until the rain stops, although the garden  and my fledgling crops will be thankful for the precipitation as my clay based soil has set like concrete and opened up big cracks.
• Secondly, I wonder if the inclement weather will see fewer people at the shops - especially as over the last few weeks people have been standing out in the sunshine. If you go today you'll need an umbrella.
• Thirdly, whilst I can, and have frequently walked/hiked in the rain, I think I'll just stay at home today and have a day off the daily walk, or jump on the exercise bike for half an hour (I did the latter).

I did get out today, but it was in the car. I was out early to the surgery for my (currently two weekly) blood test. However, my veins weren't playing today despite me having drunk copies amounts of fluid yesterday and a couple of pints of water before I went to the surgery this morning, but despite three valiant tries, I'll need to go back on Monday for another go.

As the death toll from/with coronavirus continues to rise, I suppose it's inevitable that more people who were well known during my childhood succumb - in some cases just because it was their time, but others have been tragically hastened to an earlier than planned audience with St Peter due to coronavirus.

Today it was reported that Leeds footballing legend and hard man Norman "Bites Yer Legs" Hunter" has died after contracting coronavirus. Now I've now been a die hard Cardiff City fan many years, so whisper it very quietly, but for a brief time between the ages of about 10-12 before I knew better, and when I lived in rural Lincolnshire I, and most of my childhood peers supported Leeds. We never actually went to games - too far away and the nearest club of any substance was Boston United! I can still remember most of the squad of the early 70's off the top of my head including the likes of left back Terry Cooper, Welshman Terry Yorath, captain Billy Bremner, Peter Lorimer (reckoned to have the hardest shot in football at the time), Allan Clarke, Mick Jones (who famously played in a cup final with a broken arm), Jack Charlton and many others. Norman Hunter was a renowned hard tacking centre back who left his stud marks on may an opposition player when the game was still considered a contact sport.

I also recall the Leeds kit of the era had little tags with the players numbers on that went on their socks - something that seems to have been fairly unique and a passing fad. Anyway, my flirtation with Leeds was brief before succumbing to the lure of the then all powerful Liverpool, led by an equally ferocious Tommy Smith and starring the likes of Ray Clemence, Steve Heighway, Emlyn Hughes, Ray Kennedy and of course Kevin Keegan and John Toshack amongst others. In my later teens I lost a bit of interest in football before the family moved to Wales in 1979. I came to Cardiff to study nursing in 1980 and have lived in the area ever since. It wasn't until about the mid 80's when through some friends I started attending a few Cardiff City matches, although wasn't really a regular until the late 90's. In 1999 when my son was 5 years old I started taking him, and the following season we both became season ticket holders and have been ever since, and we were joined by my daughter a few years ago.

Leeds United players with sock tags

My son and I in 2002. Blimey I looked young then...

And a slightly later one, and perhaps one of my favourite photos (and I've got about 25,000 in my library -  not all Cardiff City ones I hasten to add), my son and daughter celebrating a goal against Manchester City on 25th August 2013 in a famous 3-2 win. This picture needs no caption.

Until tomorrow....

#bluebirds
#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives