That Was A Good Night

 Out with my school chums - known them all over 50 years.  Drank only 0% Guinness and my friend who had his heart operation too was drinking zero cider.  It's actually quite interesting as I suggested that I'd not been great these past 4 years and they too felt this.  We don't do things as often as we used to.  We stay at home more than go out now and we all sort of agreed that we weren't feeling "quite right" can't put your finger on it but not quite right.

I've planned to limit drinking right down now hence no actual alcohol last night at all.  The newer versions of 0% beer are OK and fill in nicely - you don't actually need to sauce yourself up to enjoy a good time.   

I'll be having a few beers in mid August when we are away but other than that, I am going to essentially go dry and cut out the beers and give my body a rest.  Since lock-down I've been constantly having one or two beers in an evening and frankly it can't be doing me any good.  I haven't had any beers now since last Friday and I only had those as I'd been working on my daughter's house in these high temperatures and came home, bought a six pack, had a shower and sat in the garden, with my neck fan on, enjoying some music and beers.

That's where I'll miss it I guess as that's when I associate one with the other.

I have to say that a long chat about our ailments and our various drinking habits (or not) has made me feel a lot better today, better than I have felt for a while.  That's good, I just need more of the same.  What I certainly don't need is the traffic App saying the road was clear when, in fact, it was totally closed last night Grrr.  I had to drive quite a way out of my way to get there and back!  Oh and pay the bloody ULEZ charge - I was probably only 500 yards into the zone!  

Still in Recovery

 I guess that's possible.  It's traumatic having Cancer no doubt about it.  I think I found the treatment the worst part in it all as that often seemed the harshest bit and the side effects weren't pleasant but I AM STILL HERE. That's important in this thinking.  

There's the physical stuff and the mental stuff, then there's the affect it has on those around you whether they say so or not.

I'm not my old self, not by a long way.  I'm far more emotional and not my good old logical self, although others may tell you otherwise as I still have my INTJ traits and so I'm good at those sorts of business situations that need thought and planning to get out of wherever there are problems.  I still do not suffer fools gladly and I still speak my mind.  I enjoy watching people of modern disposition cringe when they hear my views and they are forthright of course.  I know what I know and I also know what I don't know.  A lot of people are very surprised when I say that I haven't got a view on something.  If I have no interest in it, or I don't know enough about it, I don't comment other than to state that I don't know.  

I am though somewhat out of sorts at the moment.  I don't think the last 18 years or so have been easy for me at all.  My cancer, the loss of a great job, getting involved with a bunch of (I can't say crooks) utter idiots who failed to work out that in order to be millionaires you actually had to do some work for it and not rely on other people. Then the relationship breakdown, the house rental, the divorce, finding someone else and the uncertainty that brings when you've failed in the past how do you work on not screwing up again?  Suddenly you are walking on egg shells and tiptoeing around so as not to end up back where you were?

It's been very strange recently as I have gone back to being a bit of a hermit and not really wanting to go out and do stuff.  Saying that I am venturing out tonight to see some old school chums.  I've found recently that I hate London, I dislike driving, people drive like they are in an F1 Race!  The roads aren't all that nice and of course, like tonight I get £12.50 for driving just into the ULEZ zone - that's probably more than I'll spend on a couple of drinks!

I need to get out more and do more things, I know that but I also have to stop my head doing whatever it is doing at the moment and giving me such a hard time.  I know how to do it and I kind of understand what is going on but it really is hard.  Knowing what is happening is OK because you recognise these changes but dealing with it, well that's another matter entirely.

When does it get better I wonder?  I need to be relaxing and enjoying my retirement which I am not doing right now.   

A Vertigo Morning

 An occasional rough morning.  Quite groggy still (it's early afternoon). It felt like I hadn't eaten for a few days that sort of slight sickness of an empty stomach and then the dizziness hit me.  Yuck, I don't like the feeling at all, I had to entertain the grandson from quite early in the morning until after breakfast and then just went and sat down in my chair and dozed a little to try and work it off.

Sort of OK now, still a little heady and my right ear (for which I've had trouble all my life) is certainly misbehaving.  Probably it's that causing the dizzy spells.

Other than that, I have started to try and settle myself down a bit and to try some relaxing techniques.  I am not sure the CBD oil has actually helped me at all.  I thought I'd give it one more try and the jury's out on its effectiveness with me.

Do let's see how I get on, I'm due out tonight to see some friends.  I think I'll not actually drink anything and in fact I'm erring on the side of keeping away from alcohol for a while.  I like a beer at the end of a day but I think I need to give it a rest for a while and see what happens.

Fighting the pain body still although not as bad as it was last week and the vivid dreams are no longer with me and I'm hoping that these give me a rest too.  It's difficult when you are fighting your own brain FFS.  It's certainly no use looking back at what might have been as nothing can be done about that no matter how much you wish for things to be different.

I've now got to tackle expectations too really as I had plans for a future that haven't materialized and those too, are totally out of my control and whilst you might like to think you are in control, I doubt that any of us truly are.  

Nothing Doing - Tired & Emotional

 Bloody hell!  I'm not my usual self and haven't been for a couple of years possibly 4 years - I'm sure that the lock-down sh1t didn't help my well being at all.  The way so many people just let a bunch of bureaucrats dictate what they could and couldn't do showed me another side of humanity and the collective sheep like reaction of most people.

I said it before that the Top Bloke Whitty had already been at his College explaining all about it and it wasn't dangerous to the vast majority of people.  Once I'd seen the video and digested all the facts he laid out the only people I felt worried for was those who were outlined as vulnerable and that wasn't me or about 95% of the population.

So that's one thing.  Then there's the amazing vaccine - developed for a Coronavirus (a cold) in 10 days and magically a number of companies all came up with it around the same time!  No one questioned it - some people I know are 6 shots down and without irony tell me they've caught Covid again?

What else is getting me down?  General nastiness and this current selfish attitude it goes from everything from how people treat each other whether driving, in the shops, online (it's disgraceful), forcing their views on others, doing things that they wouldn't like done to them and this victim culture is so bad at the moment.  We have people of notoriety saying they have PTSD because they were treated bad on a TV show for which they were paid handsomely and seemed to me to want to be competitive but suddenly, when they didn't get what they want, they are the victim of some one using "hurty words" or perhaps something equally awful.  I mean PTSD.  I know soldiers who have witnessed stuff that we, as civvies, could never understand or imagine.  They actually do have PTSD.  Getting shouted at because you are stupid does not qualify you for that.

I mentioned some years back that I had a sort of PTSD - not knowing quite how to describe surviving Cancer and more so the treatments, perhaps I can claim that it is something  like that.  The shock to your system, the "survivor" syndrome, the impact of Immunotherapy on your body and the worry about whether you will live or die (I had two young girls at the time - now grown up) was also uppermost in my mind.  

So that is just ridiculous and it really shouldn't worry me but I despair for humanity the way they act and behave these days. The lack of empathy for people and the taking sides in conflicts is another thing.  Listen to the arguments made for any conflict in the world and these days no one talks about peace, they take sides and fight proxy wars with our money and other people's lives.

I should like to stop thinking about these things and should do so.  Too many things are occupying my thoughts and I'm not just getting on doing what I'm doing.  

Sunday, a day of rest.

 I appear to be doing a lot of resting - having said that I spent a day at my daughter's helping her husband doing odd jobs on their new house.  Bless them, I remember well having to try and sort out major DIY work whilst working out what to do with the children.  Once I sent them away on holiday whilst I installed the kitchen - I did remarkably well, installing it all, including the tiling and making good, I then set off at 3 am the following Sunday morning and arrived by 9 to grab breakfast with them all.

It was a great drive to Wales - with very little traffic and in the darkness I could go at reasonable speeds through to where we were staying.

I'm still getting these flash back memories of things and I'm not sure why that's happening.  I grabbed some CBD bits but I don't think they help me at all in fact I think they make me worse really. 

You shouldn't regret things I think.  They just happened and that's it.  I found myself thinking, not obsessively, about the lady I met all too briefly 11 years ago and it couldn't have been, I think I knew that.  Circumstances were such that it couldn't have worked out for her.  I'd have given it all up but that's life as they say.  So my mind is playing tricks on me and I never truly forget about her - it may be months between these flash backs and I know it's just my ego / pain body trying to get attention.  I suppose I have to content myself with knowing that in another parallel universe we are together and we are happy.   

When I move on from that, other things occupy my mind and this battle is going on constantly and whilst I understand what's going on, I find it tiresome and a little annoying that I can't get out of the rut I'm in and move on doing something.

Retirement has sort of left a hole in life.  Circumstances too, in a way, do not help.  I've gone in on myself again and the thought of going to London for example fills me with dread.  The city I loved working in is a mess now.  I again recall how amazing it felt.  Late night London, perhaps raining, the lights in the houses observed from my train home. Taking the slow train as it wouldn't be too crowded, wondering what was behind each lit window and house, how they were warm and watching TV or listening to music and I was on the late train after a late evening at work a few beers with the team.  Things felt so different, quite alive back then.  I don't get those alive feelings much these days.  

By that I mean that there are certain times in life (maybe you can recollect them) where you were suddenly at one with your surroundings.  As a young man recently moved from London I recall walking on a summers afternoon towards home past houses on a typical suburban road and noticing the smell of the Privet Hedging, in bloom, the sun just felt right, warming the whole of my body, I could hear the bees and insects buzzing about, the sky was blue, and the air was warm to breathe.  Everything connected.  It happens less these days.  I struggle to find the peace and beauty that are there and then I try too hard to make those moments happen, concentrating on the wrong thing trying to focus too much, you just have to let these things happen.

The last time I truly felt alive was 11 years ago with the lady I mentioned at the beginning of this blog.  Maybe that's what I miss, how she made me feel?  How glorious was that summer?  The feelings were amazing, very real, magical and very special to me.  I wonder if you need love to make you feel that way or whether it is just to reconnect with nature and switch your brain off for a while.

Those who know me probably understand that switching my brain off would be very difficult for me.  Anyway, there you are, it's a lazy ish Sunday but I need to work on unplugging my brain for a while and to  stop regretting things for it shouldn't be a regret, it was wonderful, glorious, amazing and special.  Thinking of it that way cheapens the rest of my life and achievements though. 

A Neck Fan

Honestly, who'd have thought you'd want or need such a strange device?  Well, I saw someone with one and heard them saying how good it was and as luck would have it, on Amazon Prime day, for less than a tenner they delivered these amazing neck fan thingies.

They last about 6 hours on low - you probably don't need it up too high as it's like being out in a gale.  They lightly blow air up across you neck.  The only downside is that the air moving past your ears means you are aware of them sound-wise.  However, in the recent few days heat and humidity they are really rather good.  It's nice to have a small flow of air up your neck and the sides of your face.  They take about 2 hours to charge up off of a USB.

So there you go, another thing you never thought you'd want or indeed need turns out to be really useful especially in my little pokey office which can get a bit on the warm side.  

At Last, British Justice System

Sometimes I despair at the light "sentences" given out to wrong doers.  Some people steal thousands, get to pay back a £1 and get a slapped wrist.  That sort of thing.  It looks as if you can go steal anything you want up to the value of £200 and get a caution if indeed they find you.   

Just Stop Oil protesters have been given sentences of 4 and 5 years for bringing the M25 London Orbital Motorway to a standstill for about 4 days on and off.  The wet liberals protest this saying that they are exercising their right to free speech?????  Huh, free speech is exactly that, your right to say what's on your mind and generally, in these cases, make a bloody fool of yourself when challenged.  However, making people late for funerals, delaying an ambulance and the patient dying, thousands and thousands of wasted car journeys as people were stuck on the motorway, people missed flights home and missed Hospital Appointments, Cancer Treatments and so on.  How is that free speech?

These idiots, for I know no other word to describe them, are the sort of soap dodging scum who feel that it is right to force the rest of us to join their cult.  For a cult it is.  They all look the bloody same and they all spout bollocks freely like "Climate Justice"  "Stop all oil now" as they wear their oil by product clothes live in heated houses and actually, when you look deeper, run around in mummy and daddy's Range Rover SUV.  F*****g hypocritical slime bags.

You see what I did there?  I used my right to free speech to say what I felt :-)  I felt no need to block the road and stoop everybody going about their own business.  

So the other hilarious thing is my right not to hear or read what they say.  They also don't get that I have a right not to listen to them, not to engage, not to give a flying f**k what their point of view is either.  It drives them wild that you might block them on Social Media - watch the outrage and bed wetting melt downs of these insignificant half wits.  It really is fun to watch them explode with rage, they must have so much pent up aggression, poor dears.  I'm sure it will shorten their worthless petty lives too all that pent up stress, poor luvvies.  

Anyway, they can have a long hard think about things in prison and I imagine that when they are asked what their crime might have been there may be a little retribution.  Who knows one of the inmates might have got caught due to the M25 being blocked?    Perhaps one of their relatives was badly affected by their actions?  At least they'll be given soap and water and nice prison clothes (a by product of oil).  I imagine that they'll be a little disappointed at the Vegan options available and they made need Tarquin to smuggle in some Tofu or some such stuff.  I hope that they will have the decency not to have warm food or use central heating provided and that they will only use horse hair blankets and so on.  

Finally, no slapped wrist, five year (they'll only serve half for good behaviour) something that sends a message to stop pissing us off and affecting us with your inane climate bollocks.  You'll have yourselves a captive audience in Prison to tell your cultist theories to.  Good luck with that though, I imagine they'll shove your solar panels up where the sun don't shine!  

We, the general public, don't like these people ruining our lives and finally it looks as if the Courts agree.  About time I say, about bloody time. 

We Have Delivered Your Parcel

 After looking at the Proof of delivery picture that they now take I can say that emphatically you have delivered my parcel, I can see the logo clearly on the box.  The only problem being that it isn't my house at all. It's someone else's house.  My house is the on a road uniquely the only one of its name in the UK!  

Normally I don't have problems getting stuff but this time it's obviously gone wrong and these things happen and they happen rarely but trying to report it is a nightmare.  It (they have an AI Bot) sends you to a set of web pages that you go around and around in until you end up back where you started from.  What's the point in that? I've had to email my supplier to see if they can help to let them know as I'm blowed if I can.

So - another crap application by customer service and their developers.

This hot on heels of signing up for an online retailed offering discounts and free delivery.  So I have to register, no problem there and I go to search for the stuff I want when this FO intrusive pop up arrives asking me what I think about the experience.  Dear reader, I let them have both barrels - what a bunch of idiots.  Why not wait until after I had completed my very first order and interaction with them?  Then I would have known what the experience was like - I think I said that in a more robust and Anglo Saxon sort of way.

And my lovely neck fan has arrived courtesy Amazon Prime Day.  I don't know if you've seen them, they sit around your neck and blow air on to your head, not your face.  It's great, has three speeds, nice, powerful and a setting like a little tornado :-)  I find that I get quite hot in the office and my big chiller / cooler is located upstairs in the bedroom - it's heavy and so not exactly portable - this is lightweight and very good indeed.  It just takes away the overheating feeling I get quite often (more so since my treatment).

God Help Us All

 State opening of Parliament. King's Speech, good God.  Nationalization - again.  Jeez the cost to us the Tax payer.  Not just that, we aren't going to explore for more oil, why should we we can just import it!  Surely they'll give us a good price for it?  Wait until you see the reserves that Argentina have now discovered, we will be a third world country in no time the way we are heading.  

I've yet to hear that they will probably borrow more money to pay off our debts.  Those are in the trillions of £ss now.  Net Zero add £3.2 Trillion at latest estimates. That is approximately £47,760 per person in the UK.....  

Some of the other stuff is as barmy and head in the clouds as this too.  Oh well, we didn't actually proportionally vote this lot in but we get the leaders we deserve.  There will be a lot of people who thought these guys were the real deal who will end up a lot poorer because of their ill advised policies.  Live and Learn, live and learn.  

What's The Point

Yes, What's The Point of advertising in the local social media outlets and then not responding to an inquiry?

I need some work done to my wall and generally around the house - I can do brick laying and repairs but this is a little larger than I am used to doing.

I had someone quote me and I accepted the quote, they never got back despite following up from me.

Latest, another bricklayer looking for local work and I've sent the spec off.  Not a sausage, nill, nada, niet!

The gates which I ended up doing myself were either going to cost a King's ransom (more than a new car) or no one turned up to price them or they turned up and then didn't quote for them.  

Kinder, Nicer

 Espoused by politicians and "celebrities" (persons of notoriety more like) who tell us we should be nicer (hate that word) and kinder.  Well, they're the very opposite of what they say they are.  I've never seen so much hypocrisy as we see these days.

President (or is it ex President - I don't know the protocol) was almost assassinated and there are people wishing it had been successful!!!!  What planet are these people on?  Politicians had already said bad stuff about what should happen to him.  Then there's Pelosi who if I recall had wished actual bodily harm on him.  Now it's not confined to the US, it's everywhere.  Whether or not you like or dislike someone is your own business.  To spout off about hoping that they are injured or die is horrendous.  In recent years we've had two MPs murdered and the general disregard for people's lives is horrific.

So called celebrities are the same.  Sports people, Actors (who make a living pretending to be something they are not), musicians and TV commentators (the funniest experts have to be those who appeared on Love Island or Made in Chelsea or some such).  These people set themselves up as social commentators and they are full of vitriol and hate.  I'm surprised that with all the bile inside their bodies they don't melt away from all the acid in their bodies.  The spit out hatred and normalise behaviour which is unacceptable in modern society.  

I am making a conscious effort to stay away from Social Media and the TV as it really is poisonous stuff.  No one debates anymore, it's all yelling until you yell loud enough to drown out the opposing view and impose yours on them/us.  It's a bit like these pressure groups representing less than a quarter of 1% of the population who block roads, damage art work and disrupt our lives trying to force their ideals on to us.  Just Stop Oil, why don't they go to Saudi and stop the production?  Perhaps go to India or China and complain.  The trouble is they don't actually know what they are asking and they, when questioned are as thick as sh1t about what stopping oil would mean to their own lifestyle let alone trying to impoverish the rest of us.  Go live on an island with no oil for a year and see how you get on.  The other ones were the Vegans - throwing perfectly good food away and wasting it.  Now I know a couple of Vegans and whilst they are always happy to tell you all about it ad nauseam they realise that I do not subscribe and I realise that without me eating meat, there wouldn't be any vegetables to feed the animals I devour!  

There's nothing stopping an individual being just that, individual,  If you want to live in a cave with rough clothing and just wood for fuel as you don't want oil or oil based products, off you go, I won't stop you, it's your life choice but it is not mine, stop trying to force me to do things that you wont do yourself and then prove to me by discussion and example how good it is for me.  I reserve full rights to do exactly what I want with my life.  Same with Veganism, Vegetarianism, Pescetarianism etc that's fine by me, do whatever you want to do.

There are no limits to what you can and cannot do within the law.  Do it but don't drag me along with your fantasies.  Likewise don't foster hatred and division.  You start to normalise that sort of behaviour and you start to get to the breakdown in civilization and the smashing down of social norms.  It isn't OK to go around inciting or delivering violence.  It isn't normal by any means to force your views on others or try and change the natural law to accommodate your cult, religion, misogyny, cruelty, bizarre fetishes, criminal behaviour and so on.  

I like to think I'm pretty tolerant and nowadays I just isolate myself from all of this nonsense as I know that it poisons my mind and I actually feel uncomfortable with "humans" acting and voicing their opinions which do not in anyway reflect how one ought to behave in civilized society.  Of course, that's my opinion and I'm allowed to have it.  I suppose everyone should have their opinion but when it comes to physical violence and threats, forcing change on people who don't want it and coercive control the line has been stepped over.  Celebrating someone's death or wanting it and saying it out loud?  Well should we accept that or not?

No matter what you think of someone there's often two or more sides to an argument.  Shouting and wishing harm on another person is not exactly a good basis for discussing the bigger picture and shows a lack of compassion, a lack of value of human lives and a closed mind unable to accept that other people too have a mind of their own, their opinions and they too need to be heard.

Global Warming My Arse

 It's around 17 Degrees C outside and it's summer!  It's hypothermia weather and I hear people are switching their central heating on.  Our idiot Energy Secretary has just banned future oil exploration and we are now importers of energy not exporters like we used to be.  Of course, he doesn't understand that we actually need to use cheap oil and gas to keep the lights on and to produce stuff!  He's betting everything on wind and solar!  Today there's little solar about especially at night and it's barely blowing a stiff breeze either.  But that's OK because we are getting our electricity from France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway Here's an overview https://grid.iamkate.com and https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk .

I like that they still use words like Renewable and yet the glass fibre blades are not renewable and lay buried in the ground in landfill and the crap chemicals in solar cells and plastic etc - well you get the picture.  It's bollocks.

And here's the thing.  I was trying to explain that the only reason we can live at these latitudes is because of burning fuels.  Try living as we humans evolved, you know, in caves, without clothes and you'll find that without modern day heating and energy sources, you are going to die from exposure.  Try sleeping out at night with just an animal skin to keep you warm and you'll probably see how unsustainable it is.  It was a lot warmer 90 years ago than it is now.  It's been a lot warmer and a lot colder over the past 1000 years too.  Just ask yourself what the Roman and Medieval Warm periods were about, why Greenland was named as such and what the Little Ice Age was all about.  No one can actually tell you if the Romans driving their SUVs actually changed the climate but when they were here they were growing grapes right up to the Scottish border.   How did that occur it was comfortably a few degrees more than it is now, so it has happened before.  The Medieval Warm Period too. 

It's all a money making scam and no one apart from those who aren't affected is in agreement.  If you have your own resources it's best to use them.  We sit on coal,oil and gas fields that would allow us to grow our economy and lift many out of poverty but no, the silly buggers at Westminster are rushing us to the bottom trying to go green and zero carbon.  It was sold as being cheap renewable - so cheap it must have trebled in price by now if not quadrupled.  

Why do they not see that this is just crippling us?  They just don't care and they are too stupid to look at the consequences, there is no Plan 'B' they have gambled on this hook line and sinker.  The crippling cost modestly evaluated is £3.2 Trillion.  Trying to put that into some perspective would be that one million seconds is 11 Days. One billion seconds is 31 Years. One trillion seconds is 31 thousand, 710 years.

Good God what are these people smoking or drinking.  FFS! 

Here are those flashbacks again

 Spooky,   I've been doing some gardening - well jungle control more like it and I've come indoors and the smell of the grass (and weeds) on my clothes and the sunny weather (for a change) flashed back to my first garden with the Ex.  It was massive and despite us both working full time we were able to tend it - it had plums, apples, pears, elderberries, damsons, cherries and then other fruit like raspberries, black, red and white currants, rhubarb.  Three huge lawns at the back and two smaller ones at the front.  We grew vegetables and we kept it really nicely.

The flashback was actually, having finished mowing the lawn and sitting back a little hot, sweaty and smelling of grass and the garden having a cup of tea.   Things weren't so bad back then we worked our backsides off, did full time jobs, overtime, looked after the garden, and everything else.  Life was simpler, we made jams and wine and cakes and froze so much produce for use later.

Happy days.  Interesting these flash backs to these times.  The brain is associating smell particularly with good times and those moments in time that were special.  When you were in the present moment if you like.

I really need to get myself back to being appreciative of Now, the Present and not to be elsewhere. 

 

The Lack Of A Moral Compass

Maybe it is me but I see so many rude, ignorant and self righteous, vile people these days.

The standards have dropped and good manners are rarely encountered.  Plenty of examples but I find the way people drive aggressively,  have no patience, no self awareness and so on is concerning.  Quite why this should be I do not know.  Lack of an old fashioned 'values based' up bringing, ill discipline at home and school.  A society where everything is handed to people on a plate, increase in overall wealth (you are considered poor if you don't have Mobile Phone etc).

I am trying to deal with it without resorting to sarcasm (very difficult for me is that) or just plain pointing it out to them.  So I prefer to not react these days.  Many years ago I would have wanted to point out the errors of their ways but who's to say that I am right and they are wrong and in each of these confrontations there's a loser so why provoke things further?  I tend not to react and in many cases ignore things.  In the narrow country lane where we live people are in such a hurry.  When I see someone coming toward me in their car at high speed.  I just pull my car over and stop and wait for them to decide what they want to do.  If they slow down then I can work out how to let them pass.  Generally that works - it isn't worth trying to force them to do anything, they have to arrive at their own decision.  Walking down the street and it's crowded and someone is walking straight at you expecting you to move out of their way.  Again, these days I just stop dead and let them make a decision, I'm a big guy and so if you want to walk into me, that's your decision.  I like the way that they look when they don't get their way.

Pushing in, not saying please and thank you. jostling you, being generally ignorant, offending shop worker and others.  

When I was much younger I would probably have tackled this stuff head on but now, that's not an option.  Sometimes you have to let karma deliver in other ways.  It's nice when you get to see it happen though isn't it?   

Testing Testing Testing

The App we have been working on is almost ready - hopefully a final test in August and we can go live in September.  That's the iOS version with the Android to follow.  I looked back and the last time I had testing was 2019.  It's been a ridiculously long haul for what it is but almost there now just a few things to iron out and we can hopefully release it out to the world and see how it goes.  No matter how many times I try and stop people changing their minds, they still do and this is a direct result of changing the spec when the job was almost completed - we were in public test and this interfering chap suggested a change.  It was working perfectly well without it.  SO here we are thousands of pounds and 5 years later getting back towards something we already had but with a couple of pretty lines on it.  

It's been a testing time for me too recently.  I am not 100% sure what is going on but I am restless and not particularly happy with the way things are.  I suppose there's nothing unusual there.  I getting old which I didn't think it would, perhaps it troubles me is more accurate.  When you cannot do the things you used to do and physically I have jobs to do here that as a youngster I'd do in my spare time.  I've got brickwork to be re pointed and that sort of work and these days, I don't have the physical ability to do one or two days hard labouring type work.  If you've ever raked out and re pointed a wall then you'd probably guess that the strain on your back and knees will make for plenty of aching and the like for weeks after.

I'm fighting the inner demons, the what if... this had happened.  What if.... you were still in that situation and so on.  The Book of Regrets but I know that I am here, in the present and none of that can happen it's just the pain body and the ego having free rent in my head.... and yet.... what if :-) Tantalising and torturing at the same time.  

Whats and ifs and maybes don't cut it of course.  But try telling my brain that - it's fighting the good fight in there and the emotions versus the logic fights continue.  

Even Longer Day

 The UK road network feels like one continuous building site.  We were going to Amberley Museum in West Sussex it's near Arundel way a typical 2 hour run across country from us normally.  We were within a few miles when the traffic stopped and we spent an hour moving around 2 miles!  Yet it wasn't the only set of roadworks we encountered and around our way they've really had a brain melt and a major resurfacing job is going on but if you try and avoid the area you are hit with, yet more roadworks.

It's a bloody mess frankly and some spotty planning clerk has completely screwed this up.  A bit like yesterday, there's the Goodwood Festival of Speed going on and the A27 was paralised and just to add insult to injury it was closed later as they found some old munitions (possibly WW2) and had to get the bomb squad over to dispose of them with a controlled explosion!

Getting home was slightly quicker but the M23 and M25 were almost at walking pace.  Again roadworks, miles of them and how many workmen did we see in the snails pace progress.  Not one.

We saw some pretty awful driving though and the one car that I wanted my dash-cam to pickup was the moment the dash-cam decided to go to sleep for 10 minutes!   

Anyway, it's a nice place and lovely people there.  There's a museum of electrical stuff - I was in my element as was this chap who volunteers there.  Gosh we must have been chatting for about an hour - such great things to see and reminisce about - stuff that was going out of use when I was a lad were there and my word, they had some Tesla Coils there and a whole load of electrical things going back to the earliest vacuum cleaners, TVs and Radios, plugs, lamps, even carbon element ones, valves,, switching gear, generating gear and so on.  Amazing. They even had a Mercury Arc rectifier which changed AC to DC using a huge glass vessel with mercury in it.  Seeing these working when I was a lad was absolutely amazing.  

I worked at a certain large Palace in London and back in the day they had 6 of these (much larger than the one on display) in a special room.  I can only imagine they were removed and given to a museum somewhere.  The Mercury inside them would weigh a hell of a lot, a couple of bucket loads in each I'd say and would be pretty valuable.

There were displays of the various meters we used to use.  Gosh what a nostalgia trip for me.  My dad would have loved it as he would have been just that little bit older and have actually worked with these amazing pieces of engineering. 

What a long day

 We were testing the App and it's coming along fine but we had to re-code one of the songs.  It means entering the notes and lyrics, direction changes and so on one by one into this database to allow the App to just interpret the information and draw the notes and so on.  Clever stuff but the last time I did this was in 2019!  SO it was a bit of a steep relearning curve.  We got there in the end.

It's looking great and working well.  The usual odd issues with things not looking like they should can be easily ironed out.  My business partner and I are pleased despite the fact that we are 6 years later than we should be.  I hope we will get this launched this year perhaps in 6 to 8 weeks.  We could do with that so we can start to recoup our investments.

Testing is always tedious as you have to go line by line and watch out for things that you might otherwise overlook.  I'm used to being a nit picking tester so I'm hoping that for me to only find a series of common faults and a few usability issues all looks remarkably good.  

It's tiring as you are using different parts of your brain to do this and it is intensely involved and needs concentration to ensure it is done right.  I could go to sleep right now but it is on 7 pm!

Procrastination - Slowly Slowly but progress is being made

I made a start on the office today and got rid of loads of paper.  I had lots of paper only used on one side so I've cut that up to use for scrap writing paper - I write a lot just to get it out of my head and do planning.  It works well and I find that I develop plans and think it through and then come up with something often quite different but more effective.

 So it's Elephant eating, you can only do that a bit at a time of course.  So a tidy up, a run over with the vacuum and shredded loads of old paperwork that is no longer needed.  It feels good and I don't need to over do it.  I can do this sort of three hours of effort and you can see a change, I can see the wood on my desk and lots of loose paper work, sat on the side to "do something with" has now been tackled and sorted out.  Yay for me!

I am going to continue to do small achievable tasks as it actually gets things done that you can see and measure.  It's no good trying to tackle the big stuff at the moment but that will come and it will be done bit by bit.  It's the only way.

I'm glad I made a start and also I had an incentive as my business partner is coming over tomorrow to do some work so the office is clean if not quite as tidy as I like.

Wow. People are strange

 I live in a narrow lane with passing places and we have farm vehicles up and down all day long plus delivery lorries for Oil, Septic Tank pumps and so on.  So when you come across one of these you wait unless you can get past.  Today my butcher is delivering, now he takes about a minute to drop off my supplies and there he is bagging up and I come out of the house and pick up bag one (of two) when a chap in a Range Rover decides that he is going to squeeze past the delivery van.

As he's doing that manoeuvre I thought to myself he's got to have room to do that, my car a big old Volvo would struggle and so a Range Rover would too.  As the butcher is handing over bag 2 his van lurches towards us and there's the telling sound of a bump and a scrape and the chap just drives off.  I mean he's caused a collision and you are meant to stop.  Luckily he had a light grey Range Rover and so I imagine it's got a least a big black bumper mark along the side or better still his car is dented across both doors it certainly seemed heavy enough to do that.

The butcher and I just looked at each other incredulously I mean who can't wait for a few seconds.  Well most of the people around here actually.  I've never knows such entitled stuck up entitled twats as we have here.  I hope he's got hundreds of pounds of damage.  The butchers van seemed to get off with just a scrape along the bumper.

Reminds me of when we were having our Kerosene delivered and I think it was around 1,000 litres so that takes around 5 minutes total to dispense.  A "young madam" in her sporty car, wearing her gym kit just kept blasting her car horn and then got out and came to the end of my drive in a real temper - "I'm late for my gym"  she was saying "How long is he going to be?" 

Of course, as I spoke to the driver I suggested that the louder the car horn the slower the delivery.  He smiled that knowing smile and then I realised that she would have to reverse her car so that the delivery lorry could go up the road and turn around.

People really are impatient, entitled and strange.  It takes a few minutes to wait, quite often you'll get thanked or a friendly wave.  Be an arsehole and things will take a lot longer than they should.

What a strange world we live in, I'm sure people are losing their sh1t more and more and they really don't need to. I suppose the other thing is these Townies living in the country and don't know how to act or react to normal every day life around here.

 

It's the end of the world as we know it

 The OH has a habit of leaving things (normally breakable things) towards the edges of shelves, surfaces like tables and worktops.  Occasionally I might clatter one of these.  So I managed to drop one of her cups, this time it was slippery and as I moved it to safety it shot out of my hand and broke.  These things happen.

Owning up to it you'd have thought that we were all going to die in a moment.  Complete drama and melodramatic going on.  So I suggested that as they inferred it always their stuff (not surprising as nearly all of it is very little of my stuff is left) that gets broken that I'd break one of my cups which I duly did outside on the patio.  Oh no that made things worse even though they said do it.

You can't bloody well win can you.  I have barely spoken to her since.  It's crazy behaviour what's wrong with people?  It's broken get over it.  When you're dead you can't take it with you FFS.  We have perhaps 100 mugs and cups in the house and she's worried about one getting broken.  I give up.