2021

March 2021

It’s the end of May but I’ve just realised got to start in December last year because I didn’t enter the March issue of Planetbuilding Blues into WordPress. So here goes.

I’ve also got to start in December because more infectious Covid virus variants were appearing then which helped lead to over 100,000 deaths in this country alone; thanks to our wonderful governments’ handling of the situation by allowing people to meet for Christmas and opening schools for one day in January, before changing their minds and closing them again, which gave everyone just enough time to infect as many as possible.

Then there was the attitude of the public.

I tried to open a new bank account for Euros because the shower in power were indeed about to achieve their cherished dream of taking Britain out of Europe. It involved 3 days of bank protocol, obstacles, 4 mile hikes which were needed to cool down, passwords and details not working and failure. During which I was exposed to the following.

Shopping experience zombies. Alright a fair number of people tried to follow the rules but too many didn’t: ignoring one way systems in shopping complexes, ignoring social distancing, steaming past your shoulder too close for comfort.

Then there was the last journey on foot up to the school where I pick up the kids I work with. I was actually hit by a bike! This was ridden by a boy who thought he could get past me on about a foot of pavement between me and the kerb. He had more manners though than a pair of teenagers in school uniforms who tried to barge past me at a T junction where I had to wait before crossing the road. I had to shout at them above the roar of the traffic to do likewise, humiliating an adolescent of complacent insolence in front of his girlfriend. Passers by took offence, one woman repeatedly wailing “I don’t think you should shout at children” and one driver pulling across me trying to open a conversation about that. I ignored them and managed to get into the housing estate before the school where I thought I was safe: only to fall prey to a runner suddenly here and gone right past my shoulder.

Any one of them could have infected someone such as me with a sporting chance of not surviving beyond the end of January. That was when I really felt that half ‘the great British public’ deserved to become extinct.

January came and went though with no personal mishap despite the weather staying foul, and continuing to work at the school. Diana continued to shop for me. She’d given me Christmas dinner at her place wanting me for company on Christmas day, gambling against infection by leaving windows open and giving me enough rum not to care about being cold.

In January too there was a crisis when pro Trump crowds stormed the US Capitol and 4 people died before the situation was brought under control.

Things were to improve in February. I got my first Covid vaccine injection at the end of the first week of February, walking a few miles there. Just as well I got there early for there was a queue. That began moving just after I arrived and I was soon inside and getting my jab. It all seemed very well organised and after a stroll back I celebrated with rum. It might have been too much; I had shaking fever that night but others have had side effects. I don’t care about that if I can survive it with no lasting effects, instead of rolling the dice with that virus.

I’d worked out the text and photos for my talk – 7 of them are displayed below – at the end of February and we’d had a few recorded dress rehearsals to guard against the computer throwing a wobbly on the night. The dress rehearsals went well so we were insured but the night was even better with something of a zoom party afterwards. A fun event and exactly the sort of thing I should be doing given my knowledge and the situation. There was only one snag: about half the people who put their names down for this actually showed up.

Now we’re into March and the weather on the whole is improving. More people are being vaccinated all the time so are things looking up.

And since it’s the end of May now the June issue will be sent soon describing things between the last paragraph and this one.
Copyright: D Angus 5 21

June 2021

Been a frustrating spring.

My computers have gone wrong in every way possible it seems and there’s nothing like computers going wrong to make me feel a helpless idiot. I lost one completely because I made a mistake and the operating system was old. It took with it some files I would have wanted and an Alpha Centauri game I was winning. A way was found though to digitise slides by a new method outflanking the block a new operating system had imposed on doing it the old and tried and trusted way. Otherwise the loss of the old system would have been a real disaster. I’ve been digitising slides of my adventures and work for over a decade now and some have been admired on Facebook and used in a lecture or two.

I haven’t been as lucky with the other frustrations:-

A ‘new’ system of bureaucracy at work has predictably led to a lot of irritation, particularly with time being wasted. When one builds planets as I do one acquires more of a sense of geological time and how tiny our lifespan is compared to that. To waste it in this way by neither working to a purpose or enjoying oneself feels like a sin; particularly when one is old as I am now and aware that the time lost can never be regained. It militates against the quality of life.

A plant that had grown over-large broke my spade when I tried to shift it.

An itching spot didn’t go away like spots usually do. Skin cancer was against the odds but couldn’t be ignored so I tried to arrange an appointment with the medical centre; which developed into an utter nightmare. The nightmare the medical profession had been through during winter with the pandemic had led to massive restrictions on what had previously been easy. Eventually I won through and at least it doesn’t appear to be cancer.

The long awaited easing up on Covid restrictions has been neatly compromised by the India variant; helped to establish itself here in this country by Boris Bullshit & Co’s failure to control our borders at airports which are leaking like a sieve. Galling when effective border control really matters after all the bollocks about ‘Take Back Control’ and ‘immigration.’

The weather hasn’t helped with sub standard temperatures followed by a return to the rainy weather system that plagued winter. It’s felt more like autumn than spring.

However the weather recently has improved and yesterday I held a social get together on the Teletubby Hills with my friends Diana and Jasper. Lager, snacks and conversation in the sunshine. Very nice. And the oft-used photo below shows where we were. (Bottom left.)

Also one good thing about this spring was disturbing a large hedgehog which took refuge under the shed. It might be a pregnant female and they’re now becoming an endangered species so I did some internet research. Cat food is okay for them it seems but would be stolen as moggies frequently visit my garden. Instead I bought some specialised hedgehog food putting it out at dusk with water. It’s being eaten, maybe by more than one hedgehog for all I know.

So let’s end this entry with some photos I’ve taken of British wildlife.

Or lets end this entry with some natural type photos that my WordPress media library already has; to calm me down if nothing else. It won’t let me download new ones. The computer frustration continues.

Copyright D Angus 6 21