Working Technology!!

Monday. 8.40 a.m. Yet another mild and sunny, although not particularly warm, day. Dare I say 'springlike'? Probably tempting providence if I say that. Alfie and I were out well before 7 o'clock. He had to be woken up, as he was fast asleep in his bed.

I have printed off the first twenty pages of my writing project. I'm not sure whether to call it a novel. It was never really intended to be a 'novel' in the strictest sense. I think it should be issued in 'episodes' or 'instalments' which is how many novels were published in the 19th century, most notably Dickens'. I will now edit and modify what I have written and, having begun some research, be able to continue what I have been working on gradually over the last couple of years.

The Canon printer is working well! After all the issues I had with the HP printer, it's great to have a printer which does what it's supposed to do. The Wi-Fi connection works exceptionally well, meaning I can be in the lounge with the MacBook and the printer, which is in my bedroom, basically, because there's no space in the lounge for the printer, which is set up on the unit I got from Amazon. Definitely a good buy, having wheels and space underneath to store paper and other supplies. The printer will print on both sides of the paper, which is good, as it saves on paper. It's fascinating watching it work. When a page is printing, and it gets to the end of one side, the printer stops for a second or two, presumably to give the ink a chance to dry, and then the sheet is drawn back inside the printer so that the second side can be printed. The HP printer wouldn't do this. Considering all the problems I have had with the various printers I've owned, it's great to have at last got one who actually WORKS!

10.30 a.m. I've been to Sainsbury's, and at last done the shopping (or I should say, the rest of my list. I could only manage to carry one bag of shopping back home after my trip on Saturday, due to having to walk when I'd had problems with the power steering. See the last blog post for more details. I bought daffodils. It's approaching Carol's birthday. It's 7th March, and she would have been 59. So, in memory of my lovely lady, I have cut daffodils, which are replaced in the vase I have. The current bunch is at a very early stage, so they will gradually open as the days pass.

Tuesday. 7.15 a.m. I've only just got back from going out with Alfie. It's another fine morning. I've done all the washing-up and the kitchen is tidy. I've also done my pack-up to take with me to Camphill. This is why I went to Sainsbury's yesterday. I have pork pie because I have got tired of boring sandwiches. 

5.40 p.m. I had almost forgotten that today was Shrove Tuesday, better known as Pancake Day. Arriving at Camphill, I soon discovered that things weren't going to be the normal sort of format for the day. As it was Pancake Day, the theatre workshop team were going to have an outing to Campbell Park, as there was scheduled to be a pancake race event, with one of the leaders of the group running to represent Camphill. Some people were going to walk, whilst some were to be ferried to the site via minibus, some were going in Terrie's vehicle and I was going on my own and wouldn't be able to take anyone, because my car isn't insured for such work, only having private insurance. All this wasn't going to kick into action until after tea break.

Terrie had a meeting with me. She told me that, because the theatre group was growing, with quite a few people coming from outside the Camphill Community in Milton Keynes, the ratio of clients to staff was being eroded. She told me that she and Julia had been discussing the need for there to be another member of staff in the theatre and that she would like me to have more of a role in the group, which would probably mean me leading some of the sessions, because, with so many in the theatre group, it might eventually be possible to run separate teams within the workshop. I am now going to consider how I could see my role, but still remain a volunteer. This really makes me so pleased as I want to be able to give as much as I can to the theatre workshop.

Around 11.20, I drove off to Campbell Park, not knowing exactly where I was going to park. I remember going to a history festival there in 2019 (which is how I made contact with various groups, such as the Bucks Archaeology Society and Milton Keynes Heritage Association.) I couldn't remember whether I had parked nearer the park (where the pancake race was to be held.) and then realised, during my drive, that I had parked nearer the shopping centre, probably near the Xcape. At which point I decided that I would need cash to pay to park and then drove back to Dexter House to collect my wallet.

Having done the journey back to Dexter House and then return to park near Xcape, I walked over to Campbell Park and, as I crossed the road, I could see in the distance the encampment which had been set u for the pancake race. As I got closer, I saw the Camphill stand, with staff selling food and some of them cooking pancakes. There were several heats of pancake races, run as relays, one of which was a Camphill team of staff and one member was Mitchell, who works in the theatre workshop. There was also a special race for those with disabilities, in particular, Camphill and something called Snap (Special Needs Advancement Project) which is a day-services organization. Some of the Camphill residents go there. It was one of the organizations I had considered volunteering at before I discovered Camphill and the theatre workshop. This race was run with the circuit broken into quarters and each team only running each quarter. I'm not sure, but I think Snap won. 

The group who had walked from Camphill arrived long before Terrie arrived, no doubt because she had to park her vehicle and then walk over from near the shopping centre as I had done.

There was plenty to eat, as well as drink. I got a free pancake from the Camphill stall as well as a latte which I paid for at a nearby coffee stall. I think I recognize this mobile coffee van, possibly from the Bucks agricultural show from several years ago.

After all the races were won and prizes distributed, the event was over, so I walked back to my car and drove back to Milton Keynes. On arrival, I discovered that the car park was full, so I had to park in an area outside the Camphill campus I sat in the car and ate my pack-up, which I had put in the car well before leaving Camphill earlier in the morning.

After lunch, we watched a couple of silent films on YouTube, although it was projected onto the cinema screen in the Chrysalis Theatre. There was a bit of a problem getting the laptop to connect to the internet, but it eventually worked. One was a very early French film, made in around 1903 called 'From The Earth To The Moon.' Probably the first science fiction film. The second one was from around 1922, based loosely on Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland', and utilized all sorts of visual effects, both films were restored (as far as it was possible.) by the British Film Institute.

After a short tea break, everyone went outside into the forecourt area of Camphill, because there were to be some further pancake races. I think my last visit to Camphill, before the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, was coincidental with pancake day, and I  have seen video footage of it on Vimeo.

1450th Blog Post. Unpresidented Times!

Another milestone reached. This is the 1450th blog post. I'm not sure how many words I've written, but it must be quite a few.

I was running low on milk. I'm fully stocked with everything else. My fridge/freezer is fully stocked, so I do't need to buy anything for a while. I'm not sure whether I can order from Sainsbury on-line (other supermarkets on-line shopping are available.) I took Alfie out for his morning trot (not really a walk as he doesn't walk.) and no sooner had I got back to the flat, I went back out and went to Tesco Express in Oldbrook Boulevard. I wasn't sure whether they would be open, or whether there would be a queue outside, but, fortunately there wasn't. 

Having a keen interest in history, I have signed up with Milton Keynes Heritage Association, which I discovered when I visited the History Festival which was held last year in Campbell Park. I get regular emails from them and the last one had details of Milton Keynes Living Archive, which I discovered  is based at Milton Keynes Museum. In the email they mentioned that they would be interested if people were keeping diaries or journals about the coronavirus pandemic and in particular, the lockdown. I think what I am recording in this blog might be quite useful in years to come as a historic document. Well, there is enough of it! Just think of Samuel Pepys, who wrote a diary, and which is a good record of what life was like in the 17th century and covers the Great Fire of London and several periods when plague swept the nation.

Later. It's as warm as ever. The sort of weather that would get you out in your shorts and T-shirt and drive to the seaside. Probably Southwold or Frinton-On-Sea. I had to take Alfie out for his final walk around Oldbrook Green, although, I'll be perfectly honest, the sight of it is beginning to wear a bit thin. It's a bit boring now. There are signs on some of the play equipment around the Green, on the children's playground which has a fence around it and the skateboarding park. As I walked around, barely 10 minutes ago, I saw some youths quietly throwing a ball into a basket on the tarmaced area which has a netball basket on one side and a goal on the other. It seems quite harmless to me, but a four-wheel drive vehicle drove up on the grass and told the youths that they weren't supposed to be playing there, which was contrary to the anti-pandemic regulations bought in to help control the spread of  the coronavirus. I thought he was being somewhat heavy-handed and then drove off. I don't think it's such a good idea to drive a large vehicle across the grass as it ruins the surface. I am somewhat shocked by the high-handed and rather pompous attitude of the council man (I think from Campbell Park Parish Council, which controls this area of Milton Keynes. They have fixed notices to some of the equipment, but they could at least put 'please' and 'thank you' on them. I am naughty and I expect I could get a tongue-lashing from the fact I saw one of these notices on the ground as I walked past the other day, and, heaven forfend, put it in a . . . bin! I plead guilty, your honour. I know, I know. Unpresidented times and all that, but what do you expect???

History Festival and Changeable Weather

At last! Some sunshine. The big question, is it going to last?

Saturday morning. It's quite bright and sunny this morning. I managed to take Alfie out for his early morning walk. I just hope it's going to last as I don't want to be sitting around indoors all weekend.

I'd planned to go to the history festival which is on this weekend in Campbell Park. Actually very little advertising for this event which is surprising. I only knew because it's come up in my feed on Facebook, I think through Milton Keynes Museum, who are partners for the event. I knew it started at 11 a.m. and that I didn't want to get there too early. I think they realise that on a Saturday a lot of people don't get up early, so there's no practical point in opening up too early, so it makes sense to open a bit later, 11 o'clock being sensible. I drove in and parked where I parked when I went to see Les Miz the other week. I have an app on my mobile called Ring Go, which I've used on quite a few occasions. It saves having to have coins to pay when you park. I hadn't got any change so I was relying on it working. But when I got to my parking space, right behind the theatre, I couldn't get the app to work. It has been upgraded recently and there was no way it was going to work. It annoyed me because I'd made the effort to come into the centre of Milton Keynes specifically to visit the history festival. So I had to drive all the way back to Eaglestone and went to the shop, bought some sweets and paid with a £10 note and got change and then drove back and used some of the change to pay to park. I have to say I'm not impressed that the Ring Go app has failed. It seems a familiar problem, they have to upgrade these things, tamper with it. They work well enough but not after the upgrade.

I walked into the centre and then through towards Campbell Park. I crossed the main road via one of the footbridges but I should have used the one closer to John Lewis, but it didn't make a lot of difference. I could hear a man's voice on a Tannoy system, describing some event at the history festival site. As I approached I could see tents, flags and banners which gave a sort of fairground or even a sort of battle feel to the site and eventually came out in the midst to the enactor's tents and stalls, various periods  being presented by people in costume. In the centre of it all an arena for enactors to represent battles and other period displays, from Roman times up until the 20th century.

I stopped at one of the food outlets (for want of a better word) to have a coffee frappé. I really needed a drink by the time I trudge over from the carpark. It was quite a treck. Then down some steps into the amphitheatre area where there were tents with displays from a variety of organisations such as the National Trust, Stowe House Preservation Trust, Buckingham Old Gaol Museum and many others. I spent quite some time chatting to a variety of people on these stalls.

The next day, Sunday, I returned to the history festival after Church. I took my camera and managed to take a few photographs of the Sealed Knot doing a demonstration of the tactics used during the English Civil War. I posted several of them on Facebook. Unfortunately the weather changed. From being fairly bright and sunny it began to cloud over, so it was at that point I decided to leave and walk back to the car because I didn't want to get caught in a downpour.

Lost Phone and More Rain

I had a phone call yesterday, Wednesday, But when I went to answer I could't find it. The landline phone is wireless and it has a base unit near the point where the line comes in and the handset sits in this unit. I usually return it to the base when a call ends, but for some reason it go separated, so when I went to answer I couldn't find the thing so the ringing came to an end. I hunted around  the lounge and the table where the unit sits and then realised that there was a button on the base unit which would find the handset if you pressed it, which I did and there was a 'peep' and the handset was discovered between the sofa and the armchair where I usually sit. So, panic over. No idea who it was who rang, but later I got a call from one of those computerised systems, saying it was BT and they were about to turn off my broadband. But, considering what happened a few weeks ago with my laptop being hacked, I doubt it was genuine. When they rang then and said they were from BT, no doubt this latest call was a scam of some sort, so I put the phone down very quickly.

The weather is as wet as ever. I just hope it improves soon. I want to go to the history festival in Campbell Park this weekend and if it continues to rain that's going to be washed out, unfortunately. Alfie didn't get his routine early-morning walk around Eaglestone Park. I'm not taking him out in pouring rain otherwise we're both going to come back soaked to the skin.

I've been to Sainsbury's this morning. They've moved everything around in there and it's annoying, to say the least. You get used to the layout and then on your next visit it's all been moved around. They know that the average shopper buys basics, such as milk, bread, potatoes, sugar, each shop and these are like points on a compass which you move between. They haven't been moved, I notice. In the personal care and pharmacy area everything is different. I just cannot find bath gel, how ever hard I look.

Friday morning. So, another week almost over. No sign that the rain is going to stop. I left off taking Alfie until I was sure it wasn't raining, or if it was, that it wasn't too heavy that we would get a soaking. After 7 o'clock I peered out of the bathroom window and couldn't see the stream that we usually get, running down the road in front of the house, so I made the decision to venture forth. Alfie is like a coiled spring, he doesn't relish being cooped up indoors.

The bird feeding station is suddenly alive with birds! As I write this and look out of the lounge window I can see at least 6 little birdies on it. I think they're some sort of tit, but not sure. Only problem is, a great fat pigeon insists on landing on the feeder and almost destroying the entire thing. It frightens off the birdies and then a loot of the food in one of the feeders gets knocked and the seeds fall out on the ground. I don't know how to prevent it coming and ruining things. I know what I'd like to do, but I don't think the neighbours would be happy. I might get a pea shooter and shoot it up the backside. Anyway, I took some photos of the birds on the feeder yesterday and uploaded them onto my Facebook profile if you want to have a look.

  

Birds on the bird feeding station

After some thought, I decided to upload a photograph onto this blog post, so here they are, tucking in to the grub in one of the feeders.

I've been out. I have to get flea and worming treatments for Alfie, so I drove over to the retail park at Rooksley. Pets At Home is one end of the parade of units and Smyth's Toys is the other. I walked the length of the parade, past Hobbycraft, one of Carol's favourite haunts as well as Next. A lady was arriving at the Costa's branch and she unlocked and then went inside, locking the door behind her. When I walked back past later I noticed a sign on the door, saying, 'closed due to technical problems, sorry for the inconvenience.' Don't ask me what the problem was, because I didn't know, but probably an electrical fault with some of the machinery they use, a fridge or one of the coffee machines. Not good for business, I'm certain. 

Pets At Home have a subscription service for the flea treatment, which means I will have the phial with the treatment in it delivered via post every month, which means I won't forget to treat Alfie every couple of months. Then I walked along the parade and went into Smyth's toy warehouse. Not actually a good idea, because I was surrounded by so many toys it was impossible to choose what I was after for grandson Eddie. I was after a bath toy, something for him to play with when he's having a bath. I couldn't resit many of the interactive toys, those that make a noise, dance around or otherwise have a button on them to get you to press and get the toy to dance, burp, sing, or make some sort of noise. Something that Alfie would love. So I fell for a  Grumble, which makes rude noises and does all sorts of strange things. If nothing else, it made me laugh, a d probably some other customers in the store!

Alfie Has A Haircut

I've had Alfie booked in to have a grooming session at Pets At Home in Bletchley today for about two weeks. I don't know how he knew we were going out, because I had put the cage in the back of the car earlier in the day. I had to do this without him seeing me lifting this thing out of the house, otherwise he would have started making a lot of noise, as he does before we go out in the morning.

We arrived in good time at the retail park where Pets At Home has a branch. As soon as I parked the car, Alfie was off, barking madly. When the car is moving, he's quiet, except for a couple of yaps. With the parcel shelf in place, it must be safe and cozy. Not pitch black, but safe. He was like that when I took him to Worcester at Christmas. Wed didn't stop on the way, although we should have done. I managed to park right outside Pets At Home, and in such a position that the car faced forward so driving out wouldn't be a problem. Then I got out of the car and opened the hatch at the back. Alfie rattled the cage to be let out. Now I know where the expression 'who rattled your cage?' comes from. I think, if he could, he would have opened the gate on the cage and would have been out. I had to make sure I was holding tightly to the lead, which I always manage to have outside so I can grab hold of it before I open the gate and he bounds out.

Alfie barked all the way through the store and into the Groom Room, which is at the rear of the store. He got quite a reception from other customers and store staff. Well, a small, barking and very lively little Yorkshire terrier, who was very eager was likely to get such a reaction.

I left Alfie in the capable hands of the staff in the Groom Room and drove home. I was told that he would be ready for collection by 3.45. There was no point in me waiting around the retail park where Pets At Home is situated. It's no more than a 10-minute drive home, although it was really busy on the traffic front. Probably because it's the Easter holiday. The roundabout on Standing Way can be really difficult to cross because of the volume of traffic. Certainly not my favourite place to cross.

About 15 minutes after I arrived home I got a telephone call from The Groom Room. I was told that, unfortunately, Alfie had an infestation of the little persons, in other words, fleas. I was horrified. I was totally unaware of them. He has been scratching a lot recently, but it never occurred to me that it might be cause by fleas! I was told that they would have to use a anti-flea shampoo and that Alfie would need a flea treatment. I had already used a treatment but it obviously not effective enough. I would need to buy an over-the-counter treatment which I could buy at Pets At Home and also use a strong, spray, treatment in the house, because there was a likelihood that the house was infected with fleas, although I have seen none. It would take some while to spray around each room, from top to bottom, and have to use a facemark, as the treatment is quite toxic. Alfie wouldn't be able to stay in the house. So, on going back later I was given the two treatments and I went home to wash Alfie's two blankets which he often sleeps on which are on the sofa. I began the first course of the anti-flea treatment which I put on Alfie's back. There are two more to give him which I should use every month.

 This morning I put Alfie in the cage in the back of the car and ,putting on the face mask I was given at The Groom Room, I began spraying round all the rooms in the house. Then, we went out of the house in the car. We went to Campbell Park and walked along the tow path along the side of the Grand Union Canal. So, in the midst of all this, Alfie had a treat, a second long walk which he wasn't expecting. We had to stay out of the house for at least an hour, which, hopefully, went to work killing off any fleas that might be lurking in the house.