Heating Up

It’s been hard to disentangle my thoughts about the week from the events of the country and the wider world, and even harder to get through the work I’m supposed to be doing instead of writing posts here. Trying to keep on top of a full-time job from home, with two school-age kids and a partner also working full-time and all the other constraints and tensions of lockdown, is like trying to juggle the contents of the computer cable drawer while walking calmly across the room. You’re lucky to get a few feet before stepping on a three-pronged plug.

Good sunset last night. Click for bigger.

25 May 2020 · Journal

Cummings and Goings

Travel North, Follow Instincts, Save Dom

“In travelling to find the right kind of childcare … he followed the instincts of every father and every parent and I do not mark him down for that.”

24 May 2020 · Politics

Damage Control

Thank you NHS postbox
Craighouse Gardens, Edinburgh, Saturday 16 May 2020

17 May 2020 · Events

Collateral Damage

Nothing I’ve read in the past two months has changed my suspicion of early March that the UK government would use the pandemic as cover for refusing to request an extension to the Brexit transition period and ending it on 1 January 2021 without a deal. When everything’s shit, it’s too easy to smuggle in an extra steaming pile of shit.

Merkel ally warns that the UK will need to extend the Brexit transition. What Northern Ireland’s businesses need to have in place by the end of the year is daunting. EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan thinks that the UK will blame a hard Brexit on COVID-19. “The Conservatives are embracing the timing with the sweaty gratitude of a guy who knows that the unfortunate fire at a storage unit facility will take care of the corpse he’s been storing there.”

A strange idea derailed by these strange times. Lost in time and space.

Cast your mind back to where this all began.

17 May 2020 · 1 Comment · Politics

Rebel Botanists

Good Omens: Lockdown.

Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama.

N.K. Jemisin interviewed.

Tom Hardy’s bedtime stories.

17 May 2020 · Weblog

Fermented Breakfast

More grouse recipes from Nat’s What I Reckon: Wham Bam Thank You Lamb, Chili Con Can’t Go Outside and Eggs-istential Crisis. Recipes do not involve actual grouse.

Cooking food on the Internet for fun and profit.

The stay-at-home bread boom.

Duck eats yeast; man loses eye. It checks out.

Big Butter and Big Cheese have taken over France.

17 May 2020 · 1 Comment · Food

In Bloom

Posting new pictures from the garden seems to be my way of postponing writing about the miserable state of Coronavirus Britain, or about the stuff I’ve been watching and listening to lately, but I’ll try to get onto those once the latest batch of marking is out of the way. In the meantime, the tulips have lost their petals, the trees have gained their leaves, and spring is about to give way to summer…

13 May 2020 · 1 Comment · Journal

Hunting for Worms

I'm not a real doctor

The rain yesterday morning meant that the conditions were ideal to hunt for earthworms with my daughter for an outdoor learning project. We found this one as soon as we started digging. After a good look we let it loose, then watched it take ten minutes to burrow its way out of sight.

1 May 2020 · Journal

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