All In A Day's Work

Tuesday. 10.20 a.m. It's still mild. Not sunny, although a slight chill. For late January, really mild. I thought it was cold enough for snow, but it doesn't seem cold enough for snow at the moment.

I have been to post the parcel for the grandsons. I drove towards Coffee Hall, but for some inexplicable reason, I missed the turn, thinking I had gone past the turning for Milton Keynes Academy. So I had to take the next right turn into Coffee Hall. A real maze of roads and with some manoeuvering, I managed to get to Garraways where One Stop is which has the post office inside.

I'm gradually transcribing my handwritten work onto word processing. The new MacBook is certainly making life easier in that respect. I have well over 1500 words written and it's going well. Not just transcribing, but making alterations as I go.

Wednesday. 9.40 a.m. I'm continuing with the transcribing. It's going well. A slow process, but it has to be done.

Yesterday evening I watched the first episode of 'The Green Planet', the latest David Attenborough natural history series on BBC 1. (Although I watched it via BBC iPlayer.) What can I say, except that it's beautiful and totally amazing, especially the use of time-lapse photography, to show plants growing? As usual, the final ten minutes is devoted to the people who make the show, answering a question I had as soon as I saw this footage, 'how do they do it?' This is the type of programme which only the BBC can make. The patience of the makers is totally incredible. It's a bit like animation, something else that intrigues me. A very slow process to get a mere couple of screen time. 

Oh dear! Boris Johnson is in a pickle. Nothing new there. He's something of a loose cannon. Partygate, which it has been christened, is all over the papers. There have been parties, both Christmas and the birthday variety, within the hallowed confines of Number 10 Downing Street during the lockdown in 2020. It would appear that there has been a certain amount of hypocrisy going on here. One minute our esteemed Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has been telling us to 'remain at home' during the pandemic lockdown, during the almost daily press conferences, the next he has been holding gatherings within Downing Street, one of which was in the garden. It has since been revealed that he has a birthday party held in his honour. There is a picture circulating where he has been presented with a rather tasty-looking birthday cake and he has a wide grin on his face. It seems that he cannot resist cake at any price. Even though he must have know that a gathering of his cabinet or other political allies within Downing Street would have been against the rules. 

Johnson is a combination of Mr Toad, Bertie Wooster, Billy Bunter and Winnie The Pooh!

There is an investigation going into Partygate. It does seem rather extreme, to say the least, and somewhat unnecessary. Will Boris be forced to resign over eating cake? Will he bite the dust? All rather like an episode of the rather brilliant 1980s political sitcom 'Yes Prime Minister."  Even something out of Oliver Cromwell's time as Lord Chancellor. Or perhaps something out of the works of Frans Kafka. Certainly comedic. 

So, what happens after the findings of the independent investigation are revealed? Will Boris be sent packing?

Just tell me, what did this woman Sue Gray investigate? Did she go round 10 Downing Street with a magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes, looking for birthday cake crumbs? Did she find party poppers on the floor? The candles from Boris's birthday cake? The wrapping paper from presents? It all sounds so idiotic it sounds as if it's been fabricated by some sort of spoilsport.

Mixed Weather and Other Matters

It's been a good deal milder the past couple of days. Which means we haven't had the central heating on, which can only be a good thing. We have crocuses coming up in the garden, the one's Carol's mum gave us and which were planted in the large round ceramic bowl we bought when we went to Norfolk Lavender several years ago when we went to visit my brother Andrew. The Christmas tree, which has been put outside in the garden once the festive season was over and still in it's plant-pot (and in definite need of a replant in a larger one at some point in the not-too distant future.) appears to be growing quite considerably. But yesterday the weather turned a good deal colder, so we had to put the heating back on. Well, considering we're almost into February (well, it will be tomorrow.) we seem to have escaped the worst of the winter weather. I just hope we don't get another dose of snow and ice. As I write this (at 8.55 a.m.) it is raining and there quite a river running down the road in front of the house.

We are slowly filling up our new bookshelf unit. The boxes of books and other things are being emptied from when we dismantled the old shelves. As I write this, the bits of the old shelves are still piled up on the grass at the front of the house, ready for the Council workmen to take them away.  I'm surprised that nobody has attempted to shift them in the night. There are spaces for baskets or boxes which we will eventually buy from IKEA and these will hopefully hide a lot of the items which previously lived on the shelves, the bits and pieces you can't avoid having somewhere or other in the room, such as the cables which connect our cameras to the computer, glasses cases, spare change, pencil sharpeners and a host of other things you can never do without, however hard you try.

Alfie has become even more clever We gave him a large tin of Baker's dog treats for Christmas. He knows exactly where it is (standing on one of the red IKEA coffee tables near the window.) and what it contains. He goes and stares at it, even poking it with his nose. Or his other trick, taking you to the sliding patio doors in the kitchen which lead out into the garden. Goes out for a wee in the garden and comes in and waits, expecting to automatically get a treat for going outside, but now he just takes you to the sliding door and stares out, and seems to think that alone warrants a treat. Crafty little dog. Also, if he sits in front of either of us, when we're watching television (cleverly in our eye-line) and stares at us, he will get something such as a treat from the tin.

I'm continuing to read 'Goodbye Christopher Robin,' by Ann Thwaite. It was a free book one Saturday when you bought the Sunday Telegraph. I think I might have read it, having borrowed it from Bedford Central Library many years ago. It is the basis for a film of the same name. It's about how A.A.Milne came to write the 'Winnie-the-Pooh' books. I'm enjoying it up to a  point, but then Milne isn't a particularly interesting person. Pooh is a far more interesting, which says a lot about his creator. Milne was a relatively successful playwright before the 'Pooh' books were published, but nowadays the plays are relatively unknown. Milne is not as interesting a person, or so it would appear from reading this book, as, for example, Oscar Wilde, or Noël Coward, who wrote plays which are still being produced and never seem to date. Both came out with witticisms and many quotes come from their plays and other writings. I have to say it's a bit of an effort to read and I'll be glad when I have finished it. I'm interested in the creative process, how Milne came up with the idea for the stories and characters, but that is about all. I do like 'Pooh,' but I think the whimsy does get a bit cloying and mawkish. I prefer children's writing to be more acerbic. Writers such as Roald Dahl, who gave a far more realistic sense to their characters, not in the last sentimental and whimsical in the least.

This last section is being written at 7.35 p.m. The pieces of old bookshelf, which were piled up on the grass at the front of the house have now been removed by the Council workmen of the refuse collection department. It makes me laugh when I knew from hearing them collect the stuff, but then when I went online and opened my emails I saw the Council had sent me an email informing of the fact that the wood had been taken. Good of them to let me know.