Wasted viewing time

I slept quite well last night and woke up at six thinking I had an hour and a half to snooze before listening to 'Thought for the Day'. The next time I looked at the clock it was eight fifteen, half an hour too late to hear it live. I'm most thankful for the BBC Sounds app, enabling me to catch-up. It's go easier and easier to use as it has developed over the past decade. Streaming BBC broadcast content, audio and video began fourteen years ago, and has become very comprehensive and sophisticated beneath its several changes of name and appearance since then. A triumph for free public service broadcasting. I'd be lost without it.

For lunch, I cooked a spicy chickpea and veggy stew with potatoes, then walked for an hour and a half around the Fields. Another overcast but mild day. Outside the SWALEC stadium were were lots of parking stewards in hi-viz jackets hanging about, waiting for cars to arrive and park for which I presume is an evening cricket match. There were no signs yet of spectators arriving on foot. BBC news is driving me crazy, obsessing about tonight's soccer game between England and Germany. Meanwhile, Wimbledon and cricket get relegated. 

It's as if we our faces are being thrust into the hype around the Big Game, as if it represented something significant for the future of the country post-brexit. There's been so many backward glances at the 1966 World Cup final in which England beat Germany. I find it quite disturbing, subtle propaganda surrounding justification for leaving the EU, insinuation that Britain is better than all of them over the Channel, as the heavy price for departure is already starting to be paid, politically and economically. A slow awakening is taking place to the reality of the deceit. You can't fool all of the people all of the time.

We had a call from Owain this afternoon. He's taking a few days of his week's leave making techno tracks with a mate in a recording studio with a view down in Devon, then coming to us to celebrate his birthday on the weekend. At least, that was the plan. His NHS app pinged him for having been in contact with a covid infected person - he thinks it's a vinyl record store owner in Bristol. He now has to self isolate for five days when he returns to Bristol tomorrow, and won't be with us for his birthday after all. We're all disappointed. Another Zoom or WhatsApp birthday party instead, but no means to get a cake to share with him on the day. At least, he doesn't think he's infected, but he'll have to get tested at the end of his quarantine period, before normality can take hold again. What bad luck. 

Since I bought the Honor laptop the Friday before going to Aberaeron and installed the essential apps that I bought it to be able to use better, I've not switched it on and used it, despite taking it with me. Doing a full Windows 10 setup with one's own accounts take time and concentration. On purchase, the laptop was set up for a single user, independently of any Microsoft account, an option when a factory reset is done if you don;t want to commit the device to an account holder with an established file system. The task I have been putting off since setting it up initially was to make the laptop an account holder to the same account as I have on my desktop machine. It took me over an hour to work out how to do this and get it to mirror my desktop. 

I'm pleased with it now. It's quick and has a beautiful crisp display. I can now consider converting my desktop machine to Linux Mint. It will never run Windows as quickly as the laptop unless I change the hard drive for a SSD, I'm not sure how to do that. Besides, it's unlikely to run as fast as a much younger laptop with higher specifications. On the other hand, I've already found at that the desktop will run much faster using Linux Mint, as its not as dependent on high specification hardware. Windows 11 is about to be released, and I get the impression that it may not work or maybe work less well on my desktop device, but I'm confident of a better outcome and a longer life for a five year old machine using Linux. It's a matter of finding time to do the job.

Clare returned from her afternoon walk with four pounds of strawberries, on special offer at the Co-op. After supper I got to work preparing them for cooking, a very pleasant task enveloped in the aroma of fresh summer fruit. Fruit is now stewed, jam tomorrow!

After supper I finished watching 'Time is the killer' - not so much a psychological thriller as promoted as a complex whodunnit with some surprising twists. The whole story could have been told in six rather than eight episodes, to prevent boredom setting in. The worst aspect was actually the implausibility of the central narrative thread, entailing the forcible abduction and incarceration in isolation of an innocent bereaved mother presumed killer for 25 years, without her going insane or succeding in escaping. Worse still, her face has no sign of ageing despite her long grey hair, and she looks acceptably clean and tidy in her secret prison. Totally incredibly ridiculous. And this key element of stupidity was evident from episode five of eight. Pathetic.

More covid news

When I opened the bedroom curtains at sunrise, the sky was pale blue, dotted with pale yellowy-pink clouds high up, very beautiful. It didn't last long, however. By breakfast time a layer or low lying rain cloud moved in, and it rained as long as it was daylight before the sky turned clear again.

We used a portion of Clare's sourdough bread dough from yesterday to make two pizza bases, and I cooked different veggie toppings with vegan cheese for both of us for lunch. A tasty result again.

It rained throughout my afternoon walk and again my rain jacket but also my shoes got soaked through, this time it was my new rain jacket, whose seams aren't waterproof, I discovered. The majority of trees in the parks around have now lost their leaves, although there are still some trees which seem to have lost hardly any and others whose leaf cover is thinning out very slowly. It would be interesting to know the reason for these differences.

In the evening a most interesting documentary programme on Sky Arts channel, a biography of French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas, as he's known. In a brief glimpse of the family tomb in which he was buried, the inscription on the lintel stated that the family name was 'de Gas'. Joining the two like that is improper. I believe that the use of 'De' instead of 'de'- the so-called 'nobiliary particle' - isn't French. The joining of particle to surname and use of a capital 'D' is, however, found in Italy eg Dicaprio, Dinozzo. Now that's something new I found out today. The paintings shown in the programme, and sometimes the detail within them were very beautiful. They look better on TV than in reproduction postcards and prints and that's not something I often say about colour TV imaging, which often seem to be too bright and over-saturated, slightly unreal.

News today of a second covid-19 vaccine reported as being even more effective than the first announced last week. It's a different type of vaccine two that interacts with the body in another way. The greater the variety of efficacious vaccines, the better will inoculation programmes be able to reach a wider range of ages and ethnicity. Meanwhile, Boris Johnston is back in quarantine up stairs in number ten, as one of the MPs he had a meeting with last week has since tested positive for the virus. 

The Prime Minister's official residence is claimed to be a 'covid safe' zone, so how come this happened. Nobody in an official press photo of the meeting with half a dozen others was wearing a mask. It's as bad as the White House in Washington. The likelihood of Boris being reinfected is quite low, but he still has to self-quarantine, and set a good example. Who knows what'll happen downstairs while he's tucked away for a fortnight. 

Getting ready to isolate again

Another sunny day, after much rain in the night, despite forecasts of more rain today. I succeeded in getting out of the house to walk for an hour and a half before lunch. As it's half-term as well as lock-down, the parks are busy with parents and children. I saw two women of  a certain age, out with a lively spaniel sit down with their coffees on a park bench with a huge rain puddle next to it. The dog ran up to them, straight through the puddle, soaking them before attempting to climb over them with wet muddy paws in search of attention. They laughed, as much out of exasperation as anything. I don't know which is more trying, let loose in the open air after home confinement, children or dogs.

We took a look at the official self quarantine instructions from The Spire hospital. In effect, the same as those on the standard hospital sheet, a one size fits all prescription. Keep it simple stupid, I suppose. It's complete confinement to the house and complete separation for Clare and I for over next fortnight in spite of living in a bio-secure domestic bubble with no household visitors since Diana and Pete sat in our garden for tea over a month ago. In the end, getting the op requires  testing negative for covid-19 three days before, getting no other infection and keeping fit and well enough to survive the op. An obstacle course by any other name.

We watched another amazing episode of the art detective series 'Fake or Fortune? on Telly, then I did a little work on my novel before turning in. I'm beginning to feel as if I'm on the final stretch at last. Can I complete it before the op, and get it ready for detail and error checking, before the final edit?