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Monday 9th
March 2020
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08:40 GMT
Yesterday was bright and sunny, and it felt
quite mild. I can't remember exactly what time it
started to rain, but it was not long after midday,
and when it started it really meant business ! I
was first aware of a loud clatter from from my
bedroom window that sounded like someone had
thrown a big handful of gravel at it. It wasn't
gravel, or even hail, but big raindrops being
blown against the window by a strong gust of wind.
In some ways it was good because such heavy rain
"drained" the clouds, and instead of the
persistent light rain that was forecast, much of
the afternoon was dry with occasional sunny
spells. The afternoon temperature was a pleasing
12° C.
This morning sees another bright and sunny
start. The latest revision to the weather forecast
says that the sunshine will soon give way to just
sunny intervals, and that these should last until
midday (an hour later than the earlier revision
above). The afternoon will be a fairly mild 11° C,
but it will be dull and overcast. Rain is due to
fall from 6pm onwards (once again, an hour later
than in the early version of the forecast). The
temperature will start to fall after mid
afternoon, and it will fall to it's lowest at 7pm
when it will be 8° C. After that it will rise
again, and reach 11° C by midnight. It will
continue to rise, and tomorrow is predicted to see
the temperature rise to 16° C for a while in the
afternoon. Unfortunately it will probably be a
very grey day with a small chance of rain at
almost any time.
It turned out that I was actually feeling
fairly OK yesterday. I seemed to have more energy,
and only an occasional little twinge from a
muscle, joint or bone. I think, or at least I hope
that I can say that everything was returning to
normal after my recent malady. I doubt it was the
case, but it would be handy if it was a mild
version of Covid-19, the Coronavirus. Many reports
have surfaced of mild infections, and I presume
that I would now have some immunity from it.
One of my first tests of mind and body was
to go to Poundland. I was after one particular
thing above all others. I ended up getting all
others because the thing I really wanted, potting
compost, was in the front of the shop, and I only
spotted it after having been through the checkout.
I didn't fancy getting in the queue again, and so
I took my stuff home, and then went out again.
My second shopping trip was to
Poundstretcher, and the compost was easy to find
in there. It was twice the price (£1.99), but then
again it was close to twice the size. I bought
other stuff at the same time, and it included 4
cans of sugar free Irn-Bru. It is cheaper in
Poundstretcher than it is in Poundland, and
possibly well under half the price in, for
instance, the corner shop.
The combined totals of my shopping, in
respect of what I guess I can call my new hobby -
gardening - enabled me to put into effect another
cunning plan....maybe. I have some old and rather
stained plastic containers that I have been using
for cooking stuff in the microwave. Both tomatoes
and turmeric leave their mark on the plastic, and
it is impossible to clean off. It is "burnt" deep
into the plastic - or so it seems. I bought two
new containers, plus some more seeds in Poundland,
and the compost from Poundstretcher.
These are the packets of seeds I bought.
For yesterday's purposes I only used just over
half of the "Basket & Pots" packet. The rest I
will use later, and the other packet is probably
best sown outside. I took the two old plastic
containers, and drilled a few drain holes in the
bottom, and filled them with compost. I used their
old lids as drip trays.
Like the wooden window boxes I started a
few weeks ago, I am going to keep these seeds
indoors to try and speed up their germination, and
until I see lots of sturdy shoots (I hope). I will
then put them on the windowsill outside the front
room. I have also used a couple of takeaway type
containers to get some other seeds started. I'll
probably do the same with some of the other seeds.
Ultimately I will probably replant them in the
front garden if all the seeds I sowed there weeks
ago don't start to do something !
I think it was just after I cleared up
after sowing those seeds that the skies opened,
and rain came thundering down (although there was
no actual thunder and lightning). It was time for
just indoor pursuits ! One indoor thing was to do
more reading while continuing the endurance test
of the new Lithium Ion battery in my Kenwood Mini
Disc player. It played through 13 discs containing
between 42 minutes and 70 minutes of music. I
never bothered to record the playing time of each
disc, and so I can actually put a time on the
test, but it seemed pretty good to me, and The
battery indicator suggested it might have gone on
for another disc or two, but I decided to put the
battery back on charge after those 13 discs.
I did two other indoor things of note
yesterday. One was a good test to see how my body
was recovering from my recent illness. I did some
laundry by hand. Now admittedly it was not a big,
heavy towel like earlier. It was just a couple of
t-shorts, some underpants, and a pair of lounge
pants. I did it all non stop, and didn't have to
take any painkillers before or after. That is a
great improvement.
The other task was ultimately a bit
inconclusive. I decided that I really ought to try
and get my new internet firewall up and running.
Having cleared all the junk off the desk in the
back room I moved the new firewall onto the desk,
and booted it up for the first time. I found that
the main hard drive had an old, and unused
installation of Xubuntu on it. Being started on
different hardware didn't worry it in the least,
and although a little slow, I soon had a desktop
up. The only thing that seemed to cause problems
was that it had two network cards in it. It seemed
like Firefox always wanted to use the wrong
network card for some reason, but that was no
problem because I will be installing a completely
different operating system on it that will be
expecting two network cards/adapters.
The one thing I wanted to do, that I don't
think I have ever managed before, was to make a
back up of the configuration settings of the old
firewall. It should write them to a floppy disc,
but I tried two different drives, and several
floppy discs, and every time it would fail saying
the discs were set to read only. After much head
scratching I basically gave up, and I am resigned
to having to configure the new firewall by hand
again. It could be a job for today, or maybe not.
It depends how relaxed I feel this afternoon.
There will now be a short break
while I go to Aldi to panic buy some
beer....maybe.
I did my best to have a dinner that was
more in the spirit of being on a diet - which I
have only been paying lip service to for the last
week. It was just runner beans, and mushroom
cooked in a thickened beef gravy. It was, as
designed, to be pleasant to eat, but it left me
wanting. If I had been doing this seriously I
would have put up with it, but of course I had
some snacks later, although they were far more
innocent than the snack I had in the morning !
Yesterday evening was one of those evenings
when there was quite a few watchable programmes on
TV, but few were real attention grabbers. I could
have potentially watched TV until 11pm last night,
but I switched off at about 10pm and went to bed.
I seemed to sleep well, but I seemed to be
dreaming more most of the night. I woke up from a
vivid, or was it just an interesting dream at
around 1am. I decided on the spot that I had to
remember it, and recount the details here, but
like so many dreams, it has all faded away, and
there is nothing to tell.
I can recall some fragments of a dream from
shortly before I woke up this morning. I think it
was set in Argentina, or at least some distant
land, and some of it was in a forest (but not
jungle). One curiosity I remember from the forest
was a clearing with a big hole in the ground. It
was not a deep hole. It was filled with something
like a model village with the all the houses built
from old, cut up, tea chests. Another bit featured
a creature that was the size of a cat, but had a
more lynx like face, and splayed paws. For some
reason I thought it was called something like an
Aye Aye. I must have been thinking of something
else. It's behaviour was quite cat like, and liked
being stroked.
This morning I woke up with my ribs feeling
a bit sore. That has gone, but my neck feels a bit
stiff. I still managed to carry a very heavy load
of shopping back from Aldi without too much
trouble. All the weight came from various liquids
ranging in size from a bottle of Newcastle Brown
Ale (bought for nostalgic reasons, although I
doubt I will like it these days - I'm not sure I
liked it in those days !) Heaviest of all
was two twin packs of 2.25 litre bottles of Diet
Coke. Then there was the industrial sized bottle
of milk. Why can't Aldi stock milk in sensible
sizes. Finally there were 8 cans of lager.
The beers are on the right of the picture
above. My friend, and neighbour Michael has been
going on about this beer for ages, but although I
recognised it when he finally showed me a picture
of the can, I couldn't recall seeing it in Aldi
for ages and ages, but today it was there, in easy
view on the shelves, and in the spirit of the age,
I panic bought 8 cans of it. Also seen in the
picture above are yet more seeds I have bought. At
99p per pack they just had to be bought, but I am
not sure what I am going to do with them yet.
My only plan of any significance today is
to take a walk through the park - maybe long,
maybe short, it depends on how I feel - and then
have a drink with Angela. When I get home the one
thing I will try and refrain from doing is any
more boozing. Tomorrow I have an appointment at
The Beckenham Beacon (the old Beckenham maternity
hospital) for an ultrasound scan to check my Aorta
artery for naughty bulges. It is yet another bit
of screening for the over 65s. I will do some
boozing after that !
My reason for buying the industrial sized
bottle of milk is to try something I have never
tried. At least I don't think I have ever tried
poaching smoked haddock in milk before. I think my
mum used to cook it, but I must admit I can't
really remember it. I am lead to believe it has
the benefit of the milk stopping too much fishy
smell when cooking it, and also give the fish a
more mellow taste. I'll report back on it
tomorrow, but it will be in the afternoon. My
appointment will keep me busy tomorrow morning.
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