Spring In The Air

That is metaphorically and actually. Each day that passes, it's getting lighter each morning earlier and earlier and at the same it, it's warmer. Yesterday was particularly sunny and warm.

Wednesday. 3.45 a.m. It's still and quiet on the weather front.

I have contacted Amazon regarding the missing DVD. This, via the online 'chat' function. It is the third attempt at sorting the problem. I am being sent a replacement DVD of the new, Stephen Spielberg directed 'West Side Story.' I have just this minute received an email telling me it has been dispatched and should arrive sometime today. I am still intrigued to know what happened to the first place containing a DVD. According to the Amazon website, it was 'received by the resident.' Not true. The delivery driver wasn't doing his/her job properly if that's the case. We'll wait and see what develops.

9.55 a.m. I was up early and my first outing with Alfie was around 6.20. Why hang around in bed when it's bright outside? Not sunny, but still bright. I don't think Alfie was awake when I went into the lounge to find him curled up in his bed. Never mind. I washed up from the evening before. I can't stand having dirty pots and plates in the sink, so I soon had it all done and put it away. We went out for another trot around the park at around 8.15, and then I thought I might just as well go to Sainsbury's. Go early mid-week and you avoid the crowds you would probably get on a Friday when people have been paid. Then I discovered that some bright spark had decided to rearrange the shelves in the store. I've been shopping in there for goodness knows how long, and you get used to where things are, but to suddenly find it all in different places is somewhat annoying. What is the reason for all this? No doubt they're preparing for something new in the store. I don't think I was the only customer to be somewhat lost as there were one or two others with annoyance written all over their faces. I do think if they are going to do this, they should at least have notices up telling you where the products have been moved too. Surely not much to ask. Never mind. Things will sort themselves out eventually.

1.30 p.m. There is a light rain as I write. Drizzle, I think the word to use is. It was similar to what it was like a few hours ago. Alfie doesn't like getting wet, but still wants to go out, but the moment he feels a raindrop on his back, he'll be back through the door and no doubt be curled up on either my bed or in his little nest beside the television. 

6.00 p.m. The 'West Side Story' DVD arrived at around 4.45 this afternoon! So that issue is now resolved.

There seems to be a rash of new game shows on television at the moment. BBC 1 has Pointless, which seems to be a more or less permanent fixture at 5.15 five days a week and now it's joined at 4.30 by 'Bridge of Lies', which is hosted by Ross Kemp, formerly of EastEnders. Then on BBC2 there's one I hadn't come across before called 'Lightening.' 'Eggheads moved to Channel 5 a couple of months ago and is on at exactly the same time, 6.30, that it was on when it was on BBC2. This might explain why the new kid on the block, 'Lightening' is on at the same time. Then ITV has 'The Chase' on at exactly the same time as Pointless. On ITV they have Tenable, Tipping Point and The Chase, one after the other. It really is taking it too far and totally unimaginative of ITV to just put one after the other. Why no drama in the afternoon schedules? The BBC has done rather well with their drama offerings, with Doctors doing well just after lunch, followed by such things as Father Brown and Shakespeare and Hathaway. Always good to watch that and pick out the cleaver Shakespearian connections, plot devices or character names worked into the plot. But it's a shame that BBC1 stopped showing children's programming in the 4-5 p.m. slot. I know they moved it all onto the BBC children's channels, but to just churn out endless gameshows really shows a total lack of imagination. It's obvious that game shows are cheap to produce, well, certainly when compared with drama. I presume the jackpots on Pointless (and other similar shows.) comes from the Television licence. As for ITV, it's just the slippery slope really, more dumbing down. Some questions on, for example, Tipping Point, are just plain embarrassingly easy, such as 'what colour is grass, or the sky?' Not really going to challenge a child for more than five or six really, or is that how they see their daytime audience? A lot of toddlers? Now, one doesn't expect Open University type programming (No, not like the 1970s lectures which were broadcast at nighttime for students.) Probably produced just up the road, here in Milton Keynes. But come on, at least have more difficult questions.

Things Can Only Get Better!

Monday. 7.30 a.m. It's still and calms on the weather front. It's not particularly warm, but there's no wind blowing, as is it was this time last week. I am going back to IKEA to get a second recycling bin to match the one I purchased yesterday and will be to separate glass for recycling. At least I can get rid of the horrible old cardboard box which served as my recycling bin. Not exactly the best thing for the job and now gone.

Yes, things can only great better, especially now we don't have to endure endless days of lockdown, but now we have to contend with Vladimir Putin's sabre-rattling in Ukraine. Let's just hope and pray that it doesn't escalate into something worse.

12.45 p.m. I've been back to IKEA and bought a second recycling bin, which is for glass. I have seen some LED strip lighting, which I think I'll buy at some point in the future. It can be stuck on surfaces, and I'm sure it would add a certain bit of style to an otherwise rather boring room. Also, some really brilliant hanging lights remind me of the Death Star in Star Wars (Darth Vader's hideout.). They have pull cords that you pull (now, there's a surprise!) and the sections open out. I'm not sure if I got one, it would work in this flat as you really need high ceilings. Whatever the height of the ceilings, I just love them and are so imaginative. 

I'm watching a documentary on Channel Five about the winter of 1962-63 which I remember well. I would have been about 12 in 1963, the year I had my appendix out and spent a lot of time in what was the children's ward of Bedford Hospital. I was supposed to have been operated on around Christmas that year but somehow or other it was bought forward, so I could be home for the festive season, thankfully. The surgeon who did the operation was Peter Lacey, who was a shooting friend of my father, so perhaps that was how the date was changed. Quite handy when you have the surgeon as a family friend. I know he used to come for tea and other meals, and I think one of his sons went to my school. The actual scar in my abdomen is very small (no, I have absolutely no intention of showing it off, thank you very much.) only a couple of inches, and it's very neat, compared with those of other people I've seen with them. It just shows what a good surgeon he was. I don't remember much about it, other than I was in that hospital ward for a few days and then was sent home.

As for the 'Big Freeze', it caused a lot of problems on the farm, and we had to feed the cattle out in the fields which were covered in snow, taking bales of hay out to them and, because my father grew Brussell sprouts on the farm, having to keep pigeons off them in the fields. I feel sorry for the pickers who had to work in really awful conditions to have bags of them ready to take to Smithfield market to be sold, going on a lorry which came each evening from a company called Bennett and Hawes.

At school, the playground was covered with snow which froze and thawed as the winter progressed. We had to clear this snow, as it was difficult to walk across easily. The shovelled snow and ice was heaped at one end of the playground against a wall, which made the wall lean dangerously as the freeze continued.  I cannot imagine today's schoolchildren even being ALLOWED to help with such jobs as shovelling snow. They would moan about being made to work or claim it was against their 'human rights.' Also, there would be something mentioned about our dear old friend 'health and safety.'