Well it’s the weekend but if the truth be known it might as well be Wednesday as the only difference is I don’t have any conference calls. Every day is starting the meld into the other. We are expecting a lot of rain and possibly some snow today. I will try to get to the allotments to do a bit more prep work this afternoon. I was expecting my seed propogater to arrive by now but its been delayed to the end of the month. Fingers crossed it doesn’t extend past that or I’ll never get anything planted.

It’s my second drink and smoke free month. Head feels like a truck drove through it. Is this withdrawal symptoms or just brain damage? Really hoping that by the end of the month I can return to some form of normality.

What drives dreams? If the ministry of imagination is responsible for the production of dreams the staff in my ministry have been smoking pot. Just woke up after dreaming I was on a ferry to gawd knows where. I discovered I’d had a second dog for years who secretivley followed me everywhere. The ferry company stored pea based rice cake type snacks in the bathroom so I pinched some and headed out to the car desk only to discover I’d lost the car. I’m assuming it’s time to get up and take a pee.

Let’s face it – No matter how many people get vaccinated in the UK we will all be locked out of travelling anywhere as the rest of the world sorts out their own internal issues. So like it or not we’re all going to have to come up with our own solutions. So today I took a leap of faith and booked three weekends at various campsites around the South of England and Wales.

It’s going to be a one man and his dog thing… Oh and probably a six pack of beer and some burgers.

Can’t figure out if I should get a new tent or drag the old massive one out of storage. I’m thinking smaller one might be a good idea.

This morning I decided to take Benson for his walk down by the Thames. I was surprised when I got there to see the river had burst its banks. Anyway the walk by the river plan was quickly cancelled. Even the swans knew that.

The spoiler is my realisation as I drive to the next driest spot that life is returning to pre pandemic modes. The traffic was pretty hectic with some long queues. I suspect before we know it well be back to plugging ourselves into the Matrix. By then it will be too late to look back to these quieter times with fondness.

Such sad news to hear that Captain Sir Tom has succumbed to corona virus. He was an inspiration for many during the early stages of the pandemic. He was a hero.

First of all you had the anti-EU brigade voting for brexit and to bring back the lb, shilling, and ounce. Now it’s the anti vaccination crew. Honestly I do wonder what’s happened to common sense. There is just far too much mis-information out there and people are falling for it. Quite literally falling, dead on their feet. I find it astonishing that someone would prefer to believe a story someone heard from a neighbours friend who was chatting to someone on a bus from Manchester to Milton-Keynes than full scientific based fact. People actually believe that governments, scientists and reputable news outlets are ALL conspiring together to dupe them into taking a vaccine. Not to cure them, but to control them!! Seriously, just take a minute to let that sink in.

I have friends, and some family members who fall into this category. It saddens me to see intelligent people sucked into the well of conspiracy theories. Will it diminish my love for them? Absolutely not. If you can’t have people in your circle of friends with opposing opinions you might as well pop on a furry hat and say hello comrade to everyone. But I do fell sorry for the damage they may do to themselves and future generations.

The new personal business card arrived from vista print over the weekend. I’m pretty chuffed with the design. It’s got raised text on the initial side and just the Web url on the other. Very lightweight on text which is sooooo my aesthetic darling. As per my previous post I will be getting an ink stamp so I can customise some of them to include my home address and telephone number.

I get it that the world’s gone digital and all but my home office printer has developed a feeder fault and it’s a right old pain in the backside. I’m a fan of printing stuff off for various reasons.

• Boarding passes for the IT challenged (not naming any names)
• Lists (who doesn’t love a list?)
• Questions for zoom quizzes (so 2020 darling)
• Proof reads
• Prompt cards for presentstions

The list is quite literally endless. I had some personal cards designed for spookydaffodils and want to buy an ink stamp so I can put my house address and telephone number on some of them. Need to print the test sheet for scaling…. Damn it, you do only miss them printers when they’re gone.

I considered a newer hp laserjet to replace the old workhorse I’ve used for the past decade but there is one major issue. They have technology in them now to detect generic (low price) ink cartridges. If it’s not hp branded the printer will not work. HP claims it’s because the low quality ink can damage the printer which is absolute tripe. I’ve been using generic cartridges for years without a single issue. For that reason I’ll probably go for the HP3525 again as it’s modern enough to do the job and old enough to not have the hp cash cow technology installed.

As the effort to vaccinate large swathes of the population continues at pace we are starting to see glimmers of hope emerge on the news front. I read an article on the news yesterday about life in the UK being back to pre-pandemic normal by the summer. It actually was uplifting to think about sitting in a pub with friends drinking and laughing which is quite strange seeing as that was not my go to place before the sky fell in. A pipe dream perhaps but being able to jump onto the ferry and get back to see my friends in Ireland will be much appreciated. Gawd only knows what the new normal work place will look like. Either way I hope we all come out of this experience with a lot more humanity and compassion than we entered it.