Just what was the point?

 

So here we are with petrol shortages and long queues. Carol tried 4 places en route home from work on Friday and failed to get any fuel. Knowing we had to head to London yesterday to join Becksy at a long-planned retirement party for 3 of her former carers, and with not enough fuel in the car, I had to search for garages at first light yesterday morning. Fortunately our local garage was open and there was not a huge queue. I filled up. Phew. We later headed off to London and headed back home afterwards getting back around 7pm. There were huge queues at every garage we passed during the day so we didn’t try and get more.

Advertisement

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, fuck off Hancock

Well a challenging title for this posting but one that I’ve been hoping to write for soooo long. Today it was with some delight that I heard that the Secretary of State for Hypocracy sorry Health had resigned after being caught on video camera snogging his aide. This was after the twathead had insisted that I (and millions of others similarly) couldn’t hug my daughters for months on end as part of the protection against the virus. And there he was all the time snorkelling down the throat of a married female employee he’d known from Uni and had recruited at significant public cost to be his close personal aide. Ah it’s good to know that good old Tory sleaze is alive and licking. Of course the Prime Minister said only yesterday that he had accepted the Minister’s apology and that as far as he was concerned the matter was completely over. A bit of infidelity, pah Boris does that for breakfast. Hypocracy? That’s just a Greek word for political expediency. So for the PM it was nothing to see here, carry on snogging Minister.

Back to family values

 

So it’s a super few days for us. First up yesterday was our youngest daughter S’s birthday. We missed it last year because of the pandemic and we were unable to be with her again yesterday, sigh, but we are getting closer to visiting her and the lads in New York, and a lovely FaceTime call almost got us there. To help make up for it our middle daughter E came to visit with her school mate, buddy and BFF Cazza who we haven’t seen in ages. We had a cool lunch and lovely chat. Then today I went to collect eldest daughter R from London for a few days with us. Traffic was abysmal but given that she was stubbornly reluctant to come and visit a few days earlier (as is her want), it was great to see and get her and her 12 bags in the car and share the journey. We treated her to a slap up fish and chip dinner – she just loves it. Oh and it’s her birthday on Tuesday (whisper it quietly but her 45th!!!). We’ll do something special before taking her home later that day.  And tomorrow is another special day as E and son-in-law S arrive hopefully with our two eldest grandsons S and G for our much-delayed Xmas dinner…turkey, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, crispy veg, stuffing, the lot. I just cannot wait to share it with our family – though will badly miss the NYC branch of course.

Family matters so much; happy belated xmas folks

pigsinblankets paulie

Slightly odd

So today is the 17 May, the day after my lovely grandson Georgie’s 14th birthday (can’t believe it). Here in England it is the next significant day out of the covid restrictions with people able to enter restaurants, pubs, cinemas, theatres, sporting venues etc (albeit with some space-guarding limits). Strangely I found it a v low key day here in Stratford – I expected far more hullabaloo given that it’s a major tourist hub. But no. I have no idea if the Shakespeare Theatre is open nor whether the various Bard visitor locations are open. But hey it’ll all become apparent. That said Caz and I were both busy at our adjacent work stations today so we may have missed the Lord Mayor’s show. We are like 70 year old Siamese keyboard twins busying away.

Stratford walks

I have been informed by my Happiness Engineer that WP have retired the Classic Editor just like that. I have though managed to keep it working on my machine via some old back ways. But good news, I’ve managed to sort out my image uploader hurrah! So pics to follow.

Never heard of it!

Picture the scene; one minute I’m fast asleep in bed, the next I’m shocked awake having landed elbow first on the floor with my face smashed into a basket of toiletries. Bang. I hadn’t just rolled out mistakenly; there’s a sixth sense that stops you doing that. I think I’d been dreaming and had leapt out. I have this recurring dream that I’m being attacked by a gang of people armed to the gills with axes, machetes, knives, hammers etc and I have to fight them off night after night. And I always just about do that but often I have to leap out of the way of a slashing blade. I’m sure that’s what was going on when I leapt subconsciously from my bed.  There’s probably some deep psychological issue waiting to be explored but it can wait. Anyway I didn’t die of shock, obviously, but I did give myself quite a start plus a scratch or two to the face and one pretty sore elbow.

Trepidation

So hello again dear readers. It’s been a while since I last posted. I’m not sure why really. I like to write about stuff that interests or amuses me (even if the laugh is on myself) or stuff that really pisses me off and I feel the need to vent about it. I guess I just got fed up writing about the terrible covid situation and this Government’s hapless handling of the pandemic. Well 6 months or so later and, sadly, not a lot has changed has it?  It remains a very difficult scene but I felt the need to hit the keyboard again because I’m not looking forward to what further restrictions the PM may be announcing later this afternoon. You could say I’m writing this with some trepidation.

Message to oneself

There have been lots of tv ads which have capitalised on the covid crisis to position companies as the most caring of brands. You’ve seen them – that Co-op one with Marcus Rashford aimed at driving donations to food redistribution charity FareShare is a classic. It’s not his woodenness that jars so much as the creative thinking behind the need to create empathy with the viewer. The charitable purpose is absolutely fantastic but that over-familiarity bit where the bloke goes ‘You’re on mute Rashy’ makes me squirm. Check it out…