An essential journey?

Since the Social Distancing Regulations were introduced in the last week of March, the furthest I have been from home is the, almost daily, walk around the Three Miler with TP and the dogs.

There was one other exception, when I accompanied 30% in to Redditch for pet supplies and pharmaceuticals, but for the most part, my horizons have been very close to home.

Today I needed to make an essential journey ...

The very sunny April has kick started the beekeeping season and my colonies are increasing in size at a tremendous rate. There is a risk that I may run short of supers for the bees' stores, or just to give them more space in the hive.

I ordered three supers from a great, little, local supplier earlier this week and, this afternoon, TP and I headed out in the Defender to collect them. The local lanes were very quiet and our twenty mile round trip took barely forty minutes and that included a few minutes chat with the supplier.

It felt quite odd to be out and I do have a feeling of being constrained the restrictions. It's because there is the potential need to justify the journey, rather than being able to travel as required and ensure that sensible precautions are taken to maintain social distancing.

I am starting to wonder how this is going to come to an end? Certain elements of the population have ignored the restrictions since the outset. Others have patiently complied and then there are those like me, that understand the reasons for the regulations and follow them, but are concerned about how long they will be in place and whether they will ultimately be effective or destructive.

I prefer to be asked rather than being told what to do.

Making up the numbers

My workload has started to increase after a few quiet months and today was the busiest I have been for a long time.

I opened up my email first thing this morning and saw that a set of management costs had come in  from colleagues in the US. As a result, the rest of the day was spent drafting a solution document and aggregating the US costs with estimates* to cover ancillary activities.

Shortly after lunch I was able to get the work peer reviewed and submitted for pricing. Now our Pricer is a stroppy cow and I was expecting her to perform her usual trick of rejecting the request and demanding pre-meetings and reformatting of cost sheets before she would develop the price. I was therefore truly amazed when I saw the pricing delivered to my inbox a few minutes after four o'clock.

I have to admit that it was an enjoyable experience to be busy after such a long interval and the piece of work is likely be accepted by our client as it will facilitate network connectivity for personnel required to work from home as a result of Covid-19 Social Distancing regulations.

One unexpected result of this flurry of activity was that I was exhausted by the end of the working day and asleep on the sofa by eight o-clock this evening.

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* The less generous would say that I had simply pulled these numbers out of my arse. I would counter that years of experience had allowed me to suggest reasonable numbers without the need to trouble very busy support personnel.  I would probably also add that I have the sense to document my work in order that there is full disclosure of the approach.

A new anniversary

Today could be regarded as an anniversary.

Not one of the traditional ones like Birthdays or a Weddings, or even one of the less formal ones, like a first date* or a first kiss.  But today is definitely a date that deserves to be noted down somewhere.

Back in the October of 2018 we were invited to the wedding of a couple of friends from the puppy training class. Initially we were just invited to their "evening do", but we actually got upgraded and attended the entire event; Church, Wedding Breakfast and Evening Reception.

We had a fantastic day and were absolutely bowled over by their choice of venue for the Reception. It is a Country Manor House on the Worcestershire/Gloucestershire border and it is superb; rolling park land, splendid views out to the Cotswolds and a fine Manor House hotel, settled perfectly in the landscape.

We enjoyed the day so much that we actually started to think again about our own wedding ... or, more accurately, the fact that we had been engaged since 2005, and had not got around to tying the knot.** If the truth is told, we were both apprehensive about "the whole wedding thing" and that nervousness had resulted in a very long engagement.  We had both been married before and had attended quite a few as guests, but that wedding in October 2018 was the first time we both felt that that type of wedding would work for us.

Over the following months we discussed our wedding often and even started to look at venues.***  We didn't get very far with this selection process before we both realised that we both actually wanted to use the same venue as our friends had.

On this day last year, we headed over to the venue to attend a wedding fayre. As soon as we walked though the entrance we knew that we had made the right decision and were soon sat with their wedding coordinator discussing packages and dates in 2020.

I had been thinking about an Autumn wedding, whilst 30% was keen to go much earlier and February 2020 was mooted. We started to look at dates in February, having agreed that Friday, 14th February was definitely not an option.  As I started to work out the Saturday dates in February it dawned upon me that it was a Leap Year and that the 29th was going to fall on a Saturday!

The cosmic tumblers had clicked in to place and a booking was made.

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* 30% and I cannot agree on our first date.  I say 22nd December 2001 which was the date we first met up after linking up via the old Friends Reunited website. We had a curry at the Shahi Palace in Redditch ... see I do remember!
However, 30% claims it was 14th February 2002 when we went to see Monsters inc at a Cinema complex in Rubery.
Now we both agree that we were at both of these events, so how on earth can the later event be the "first date"?
** We considered getting married in Las Vegas on our first trip out there in 2006 ... that was until we got there and immediately realised that neither of us wanted to associate our marriage with the tacky, "plastic" Vegas experience.
*** We went to look at one local venue and, after making an enquiry about menu choices, we were asked "Well, didn't you register and get a package as you came in?"  It rapidly became apparent that 30% and I had been considered to be parents of the Bride or Groom rather than the happy couple ... funnily enough, we didn't give them any further consideration as a potential venue.

Sometimes you need to rant!

Today was always going to be challenging!

On Friday I was instructed to take over the lead on a piece of work assigned to Colleague M.  Now Colleague M is a well meaning and intensely irritating little tit,  so today was spent on a series of calls attempting to extract information from him in a structured way and get the aforementioned info inserted in to the relevant sections of a Solution document template.

You can imagine how delighted I was to hear such comments as "So, all you're doing is putting information that I have in a series or emails or in my head in to one spreadsheet" or the equally inflammatory "You seem to be spending a lot of time saying what we won't be doing".  There was absolutely no fucking recognition that I was taking his scant items of information and using a common sense approach to weave a service definition that could be rapidly costed and contracted without causing financial exposure the Neat & Tidy Piano Movers.

Option 1 was to remind the moronic prick that I had suggested that he start to document the solution over a week ago, and had even provided the template to do so.  In this option I would have also pointed out that he didn't have the intelligence to realise that I was defining the solution, it's components and how it was dependent on other Service elements.

Instead I went with Option 2, where I bit my tongue* and made vague statements about how well he had done in his initial investigations and how defining the solution would ensure that there was a clear and common understanding by all involved parties.

If I'm honest, it was actually quite rewarding to perform the interrogation and see the resulting solution start to appear from Colleague M's addled ramblings. We now have a pretty clear, high level scope definition and now know who we need to talk to about costs.

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* I had to bite it quite firmly

More nonsense

I'm certain that many of us have encountered a blinkered old fool that rambles on about how "things were much better in the old days" and the possibly contradictory statement that "kids today haven't had it so good".*

Right, where was I going with this?

...  Crisps, that is the subject for today's dissertation.

When I was a child there were only four or five flavours of crisps; ready salted, cheese and onion, salt and vinegar, smokey bacon and roast chicken. These flavours were judged to be the only necessary snack flavourings in the early 1970s.** They were just perfect, except for salt and vinegar which is just a bag full of fried potatoes covered with acetic acid dust and ready salted which needed a more mature palate, than that of an eight year old, to appreciate their simple perfection.

So, why did crisp manufacturers decide to release new ranges of flavours? We clearly didn't want or need them and this is evidenced by an internet search of UK crisp sales by flavour.  This shows that these 1960s flavours are still top of the charts.

At this point in the rant I'll mention that some of the new flavours are just cynical rebranding of an existing flavour. How different can Red Leicester and Caramelised Onion be from the flavourings used in the original blue bagged, Walkers Cheese and Onion?

And, now I'm on a roll, let's get to the quite bizarre flavours that are available. Thai Sweet Chilli and Worcester Sauce and Sun Dried Tomato are a couple that spring to mind. Why on earth would you want to taste those in preference to the "original 5"?

One evening last week TP and I were having a G&T and tucking in to a few crisps that 30% had tipped in to a dish. Not being able to see the packet, we started to try to guess what flavour they were.  We are still undecided but, after several of the of the unappetising, vaguely tangy slivers, we agreed that a strong favourite is Tramp's Vest.

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* 30% and TP are concerned that I may be heading in this direction at a rapid rate of knots.
** I do have a theory that you should never eat a food product that has been developed any later than about 1976. If you stick to this rule of thumb, you will still be able to enjoy well made convenience foods, confectionary and desserts but avoid the chemical laden, massively processed crap that is on offer nowadays. I will mention one example ... a few years ago in the US we encountered a pressurised can that sprayed "cheese" from a nozzle. I rest my case.

What on earth are you doing up there?

Saturday; the weather was forecast to be fine, so today's plan was to mow the lawn and, once the day warmed, inspect the hives. This is fast becoming the norm for a lockdown weekend.

The turf was soon clipped and I then headed over to Kathy's cottage with a car stuffed with beekeeping paraphernalia.*

My main objective was to relocate the shook swarm from their six frame nucleus hive to a National Brood box. The National Brood holds eleven frames and will give the colony almost twice the space it had in the "nuc".  Hopefully this will assuage its swarming tendency. I soon had the bee covered frames transferred to the larger hive, although I failed to see the queen during the procedure. I then went through the other two colonies and both are doing reasonably well. I needed to remove a few queen cups and they are likely to need additional supers if this warm spell continues.

Back at home, I made a start on three of the four hives in the garden.** All was as to be expected until I reached the smaller of the colonies. I took a look at a couple of frames in the super to see how much nectar was being stored and was surprised to see large patches of worker brood.

Now the occasional few drone cells at the bottom of the frames are to be expected, as the workers will relocate drone eggs from the brood box up in to the super, but solid patches of worker brood suggested that the queen had managed to make her way up through the queen excluder.

It took me two searches of the super's frames before I found her, returned her to the brood box and reassembled the hive. I am now wondering whether I have a small queen that can fit through the bars of a queen excluder or whether this recently acquired excluder has an oversized mesh?

The aim of a queen excluder is to ensure that the stores of honey and the developing bee larvae are kept separate. This is because no beekeeper wants brood contaminating their honey crop. The brood in the super is not a major problem this early in the season as the eggs and larvae will complete their development in no more than 21 days.

I just hope she doesn't make her way back up their again.

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* Keeping Bees involves a fair bit of planning, especially if the hives are away from your equipment store. I had a mental list of everything I was likely to need and still managed to forget syrup for the shook swarm.
** The hive from which produced the shook swarm will be left for four or five weeks before being inspected. This should be sufficient time for the queen cell to hatch, the queen to have her mating flights and start laying in the hive.

Dad does dinner

For the past couple of weeks I have been shadowing two colleagues that will be leaving the Neat & Tidy Piano Movers in the near future. They both have a muddled and confusing approach to work and I have been attempting to sift through their rambling narratives and contradictory emails in an attempt to work out what the hell they have been doing!*

Today I finally thought I had made progress as I had whittled Colleague R's task list down from three pages to one and had provided much needed mentoring and guidance to colleague M. You can imagine my delight when my Boss pinged me for a discussion about colleague M. We both agreed that he had bitten off more than he could chew and it now appears that I am to lead his piece of work complete pile of fucking shit ... Oh Joy!

I am now going to step away from this rant as it is Friday and this bloody mess can wait until the weekend is over.

This evening I was assigned to Dinner duties and 30% instructed me to "do that smoked salmon and pasta thing that you do".  This was a dish that I picked up from my elder sister many years ago.  It has almost certainly evolved over the years and this is its current incarnation ...

Pasta with Smoked Salmon in a Cream Sauce (serves 4)

1 medium onion (finely chopped)
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
Sliced button mushrooms ... I must have used 20 of them?
olive oil
A dash of white wine or cider, half a glass or thereabouts
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
A pack of smoked salmon cut in to narrow strips
1/2 pint double cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
15 oz of pasta ... I used penne

1) Add a good glug of the oil to a frying pan along with the onion and garlic, sauté until they start to soften.
2) Add the sliced mushrooms and dried herbs, continue cooking until the mushrooms start to soften
3) Add a good splash of white wine or cider and continue cooking until virtually all of the liquid has evaporated
4) Remove from the heat, season with the salt and pepper and add the sliced smoked salmon. Set the pan to one side
5) Cook the pasta and drain it well.
6) Return the drained pasta to the pan and add the salmon, onions and mushrooms.
7) Stir in the double cream and place the pan on a low heat. Continue stirring for a minute or two to ensure the dish is heated.
8) Check the seasoning and serve immediately with a green salad

This takes no more than twenty five minutes from start to finish and is a simple, but tasty supper dish.

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* At this point you might be wondering what my boss does during his working day ... so do I!

Is this the new "normal"?*

I think TP may have made a serious misjudgement of my abilities this morning ...

He approached me, whilst dragging his fingers through his hair, and asked me if I would consider giving his hair a trim. I have to wonder if he has lost all sense of reason after five weeks of Social Distancing?

Let's be clear here, I have only ever cut a persons hair once before and that was over 35 years ago when I was a student. Since then my barbering experience has been limited to clipping a number of Standard Poodles and the occasional trimming of 30%'s fringe.

I can do a half decent lamb clip on a reluctant dog, but, for some strange reason, TP appears to think that this qualifies me to trim a 23 year old's hair.  His view was that, if it all went horribly wrong, I could just give him a crew cut and it would eventually grow back.

On a completely different matter, I have also noticed that honey sales appear to have increased significantly recently ... Four jars were sold from the doorstep in quick succession this morning.

This may, in part, be due to an increased footfall past the house as people take their daily constitutional, but I also wonder whether it is because there is still the urge to shop, but very few outlets to satisfy this desire for retail fulfilment?

Well, if a tastefully packaged jar of honey is now seen as retail therapy substitute, I'm happy to oblige.

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*  In the past 24 hours Government Advisors have started to make statements about some degree of Social Distancing measures being necessary until such time as effective vaccines are available and that might not be in the next calendar year.

Another departure

The exit of the Triumph wasn't the only departure from the garage in early 2019.

The Black Enfield Bullet Classic that 30% presented to me for my 50th was sent over to Arden Motorcycles to be sold on commission too.

As with the Bonnie, she was a pleasant enough little bike and quite enjoyable for a potter around the lanes at 50 mph.  However she lacked power and even I could get the rear brake pedal to grind the road surface when she was leant over negotiating roundabouts.

It was 30% that suggested that I part with her on one condition ... that I used the proceeds from the sale to buy a proper present. In other words, I wasn't to just put it in the bank or fritter it away on shirts and shoes.

So this left me with a couple of grand in the bank, potentially another couple of grand heading my way once the Enfield sold and two empty spaces in the garage.*

Time to peruse the internet!

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* At one point in time I had accumulated six bikes. There were the two Enfields, the CBR 600, the Ducati 996, the Bonneville and the impulse buy.**
** More on this in a future entry

Been and gone

It's very frustrating that the weather is so splendid and I have a selection of motorcycles sat in the garage just begging to be used.

My only essential journeys appear to be trips down to Kathy's cottage to attend to the bees and it is never going to be feasible to use a bike to transport the various bits and pieces I need for a hive inspection.

I suppose I am just going to have to be patient and wait for the Social Distancing restrictions to be eased.

Work was equally frustrating today, so I decided that today's entry would be an update on the contents of the garage ...

Back in the Summer of 2016 TP passed his motorcycle test but was without the means to purchase a "proper" bike. To be fair he never complained and was happy to take the occasional ride out on one of mine, but I eventually took pity up him and started to peruse the internet.

Late in December 2016 I found a 2001 Triumph Bonneville in amazing condition, with very low mileage and at a very reasonable price. Within a few weeks it had been viewed, paid for and delivered.

It was the perfect bike for TP. It had much more grunt and much better handling than his Yamaha 125 or my Enfields, but it wasn't so ridiculously powerful that he was tempted to ride at speeds beyond his level of experience.

Both TP and I really liked it and TP used to comment that he used to regularly get approached by men of a certain age that "used to have one  like that years ago".  30% was also rather keen on it. She loved the colour and really got in to riding pillion, as it had a very comfortable saddle and handled reasonably well "two up".

I even located a few upgrades and she sported twin clocks, alloy indicators and a much nicer rear light unit in time for TP's birthday in the November of 2017.

As I said, we both really liked it, but we never actually fell in love with it. It was incredibly heavy to push around and the performance from the air/oil cooled 790 cc engine was nothing to write home about.*

I eventually took her down to Arden Motorcycles and left her there to be sold on a commission basis. Surprisingly one of the partners decided to buy her and gave her a street scrambler conversion.

The Bonnie hasn't been the only change in the garage, but I'll leave that until I have another crappy day at work.

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* I originally had it restricted so that TP could legally ride it on his A2 license. However a mechanic may have inadvertently removed the carburettor restriction device a few months later,

Picture Post

It was going to be challenging to make Monday look interesting.  I had a minor rant on a call at work, the dogs were walked and I popped down to Kathy's cottage to put a feeder on the shook swarm.

See, I did say I couldn't make it look like fun, so I thought I'd go with a picture post. Now I do like an unusual botanical subject, so how about this "beauty"?

I'm reliably informed by Wikipedia that this is Aristolocaceae grandiflora or the Pelican Flower as it is better known. This strangely evocative* flower is one of the largest in the world and reach 60 cm in length.

30% and I encountered this one at a butterfly farm on our visit to Costa Rica in 2018.

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* It was interesting that many of our tour companions commented that it seemed vaguely pornographic, but none of us could explain why?

A shook swarm

Today's weather was much improved compared to yesterday and, although cool to start, it looked like it was going to be a fine day.

My plan was to inspect the bees and mow the lawn and I really wanted to leave these until the weather warmed up.  Ideally it should be above 15 degrees centigrade to open up a hive and I always prefer to mow a dry sward.

This meant that I had the early morning to finalise volume five of the Journal, upload it to the Blurb website and place an order for a single copy. The Gods appeared to have smiled down at me today, as I tracked down a 25% discount code just before committing to purchase and a good amount was deducted as I checked out.

I then headed down to Kathy H-R's cottage and checked on the two hives. One was doing reasonably well and the other was absolutely booming.  The very prolific colony was rammed with bees and had nearly filled it's super with nectar. A second super was added to give the bees some space and, hopefully, reduce their urge to swarm. Surprisingly I was also rewarded with a glimpse of each of the two Queens* as I worked my way through the hives

Back at home lunch was taken and then I wandered out to inspect the four hives in the garden.  The first was fine and required little work, other than a clean up of some brace comb and the squashing of a few queen cups.

I then moved on to the second hive and was gobsmacked by the difference. It was very busy and had laid down significant quantities of nectar in the super.  As I started to inspect the brood box it was apparent that this colony was going to swarm as there were a number of queen cells developing. I needed to respond immediately, so a Nucleus Box was fetched and I started to search for the queen.

My plan was to create a shook swarm. **  This management technique should create two colonies rather than letting nature take its course and watching the original queen and half the colony bugger off in to the wide blue yonder with little chance of catching them.

I eventually located the queen and placed her in a small nucleus hive with a couple of frames of brood, a couple of frames of stores and shook a frame of bees in to keep her company. The shook swarm was sealed up and then TP and I took it down the road and sited it in Kathy's garden.

This left two more hives to inspect. One was doing well and second super was added to create room for the bees. The second was fine, but needed nothing more than a standard inspection.

Its early in the year for swarming behaviour and the swarming season lasts through until July.  That means three months of preventative management. I may need to consider brood reduction to keep them in check.

After the fun and games with the bees, I was ready for a kip, but I fulfilled my promise and the lawn was shorn first.

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*  They can be challenging to spot, especially in a large colony and, as an alternative, I often resort to checking for eggs or young larvae to confirm that the colony has an active, laying queen.
** A shook swarm is a management method where the beekeeper removes the queen and four or five frames of stores and brood. These are all placed in a nucleus hive and a few thousand bees are shaken in from the original hive.
The nucleus hive with the shook swarm is then sealed and relocated a few miles away. At its new location it is opened up and the colony is provided with a feeder filled with syrup to sustain them.
In due course the nucleus will be transferred to a full size hive as the number of bees increase.
The original colony is closed up and left well alone for about a month. Hopefully the queen cells will hatch and the young queen will have a successful mating flight, returning to start laying and thereby creating a new colony.

Remember, 50% of the population is below average intelligence.

Today's weather was pretty miserable.  The day started with heavy rain which eventually petered out leaving an overcast sky and a chilly breeze.

A consequence of this was that I spent much of the day sat at my desk polishing the turd that is volume 5 of the Journal. I've sort of proof read it and performed a visual check of the page layouts and formatting. I even managed to find my way in to the Blurb files of an earlier volume, so that I could check the RGB values* for the cover and thereby ensure that volume 5 will match volumes 1 to 4 on the bookshelf.

TP and I eventually persuaded ourselves that we should walk the dogs and headed out on to the Three Miler in the early afternoon. It was obvious that a significant proportion of the village had the same idea and we must have encountered 15 people in the first half mile of our walk.

It also appears that the International System of Units (SI) has redefined the meter and it is now 60% of it's former length.  This observation is based on the Social Distancing applied by most of the people we encountered and also at the village shop.

Not being particularly tall myself, it appears that, as a result of the revised Covid-19 definition of the meter, I will now be able to walk under tables without ducking.

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* R 0, G 159, B 0 ...  if anyone is interested.

Filling in some of the gaps

In any spare time I had today I finished copying the last of the Journal entries from the Blogger web site in to the Blurb book wright software on my Mac.

Once I've finished formatting, editing and proof reading, these will become the fifth hardback volume of the Bad Man's Journal.

As I scanned the entries from 2016 it dawned on me that the Journal recorded the trials and tribulations of my first year of beekeeping, but I had left the story unfinished.  At the point of abandonment I had two hives, one of which had been re-queened, and the beekeeping year was coming to a close.

Well I can report that both of those colonies survived the Winter of 2016 / 17 and over the intervening years the number of hives has increased. At the start of this year I had five in the back garden and one a mile, or so, down the road beside Kathy H-R's cherry tree.

We took our first honey crop in 2017 and our two hives gave us 90 lbs of honey.  As the number of hives has increased, so has our crop and we produced 145 lbs in 2018 and close to 185 lbs last year.

We've designed some rather natty packaging and seem to have developed a reputation for producing a quality local honey. As a result we have no problem selling a good portion of our crop from the doorstep.

 We have been invited to sell at a couple of local food fairs and even went "International" for a while when the Cardiff Deli, that employed TP, decided to stock our Honey.  Now a Deli is exactly the sort of outlet where you would expect to find a small scale local honey, but our honey has also done really well being sold from a local Hairdresser and currently from a rather bijou little Jeweller in Alcester.

We're still alive

Earlier in the week 30% had served up a splendid Lamb and Chickpea curry.

We tucked in and were thoroughly enjoying it when TP commented that the Lime Pickle tasted a little odd. I sampled it and agreed that it lacked the expected zesty tang. At this point I enquired about the Use by Date and 30% waffled that Lime Pickle didn't go off.

I reached for the jar and saw a date in the middle of 2016!

We're both still breathing and I think the jar has been thrown away.

The irony is that one of 30%'s favourite Sunday morning jobs is to go through the kitchen cupboards; tidying and seeing what provisions are needed ...  Checking sell-by-dates is obviously not part of the job description.

More nonsense

This time it's somewhat less amusing.

As I've mentioned, things are livening up at work and I now have almost enough to keep me busy.  Today my Boss gave me couple of new activities to add my "to do" list.

Task no. 1 was to fill in a spreadsheet that his Boss had asked him to complete. "Don't spend too much time on it" he said "An hour should be plenty".

I took a look and saw that I was required to assess ninety projects and provide yes/no responses to 6 parameters for each project.* We discussed it and agreed that I shouldn't let poor project descriptions and incredibly vague parameter definitions get in my way.  I didn't challenge my Boss' crappy estimate, but I did dodge delivering it today and instead got him to agree to a joint review the following day.

As a result I was going to be spending two hours tomorrow morning populating a spreadsheet with data of the worst possible quality ... At least it will have his name on it rather than mine.

Task no. 2 was to attend a call to get an overview of a piece of work that a Contractor is working on.

It was an absolute train wreck of a call and the amusing thing is that the Contractor is so clueless and out of his depth that he didn't actually pick up on how badly it was going.

There is much work to do to get this deliverable back on track and me and another Colleague have been asked to shadow, mentor and step in as necessary to make sense of his nonsense.

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* If you do the maths this works out to be 6.67 seconds per parameter, or about 45 seconds per project assessment.

Back to work

I was back at my desk this morning and my plan was to draft a requirements document that I should have been given last Thursday, when I was engaged on the latest project.

It's mildly irritating that I need to do someone else's job, and then make sure that they agree that I have done their job properly, before I actually do what I am paid to do. Ah well, at least I'm adding value.

If I'm honest I had real problems applying myself after the long Easter weekend and I was frequently to be found away from my desk on vital errands. *

On one of these forays I wandered in to the lounge and found Marauder watching Homes Under the Hammer. **

"Wotcha doin' Pip?" I asked
"Watchin' this" she replied

She then went on to inform me that, based on her understanding of the rental property market, the chickens' coop rental payment of four dozen eggs per week was way under market value, especially in view of the fact that I was providing full board too.

She suggested that I kick the buggers out on the street or demand an immediate improvement in improvement.

She is a very wise and knowledgable dog.

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* 30% was frequently to be heard applauding my efforts with a hearty "Will you get out from under my bloody feet and go and do some proper work?"
** Some of the finest daytime TV there is.*** A strangely orange tinged man from Cheshire previews a ratty property that is up for sale, then goes to the property auction and collars the landlord that buys it. He then returns to the property after the landlord has splashed a bit of magnolia emulsion on the walls and gets two chubby Estate Agents to provide a sale and rental valuation. A TV Commissioning Editor actually heard this and agreed to produce several series of it ... go figure?
*** This is sarcasm

The last of the 2019 crop

Back in August last year we harvested 160 lbs of honey from our five hives.  Most of this was bottled and has been sold over the intervening months. We did hold back a dozen, or so, pounds for gifts and personal projects, but in the past couple of weeks we noticed that supplies were dwindling.

It was time to break out the "Reserve". This had been sat in a sealed, 10 litre container in my study since last September and now it was time to crack the seal.

The honey had crystallised in the intervening months and I would need to use a water bath to gently warm the honey to get it to return to a liquid state.  This sounds straightforward, but a 24 lb slug of honey was going to take a very long time to warm up and become runny.  My approach was to scoop it out and put it in to smaller Kilner jars. These were then placed in the water bath and within an hour I was able to decant it in to jars.

All I need to do now, is get them labelled

I wonder whether this will last us until this year's crop is ready for extraction?

Beekeeping notes

Yesterday's Journal title mentioned the bees, but they got nothing more than a name check in the actual entry. Instead I spent too much time rambling on about the delights of home cured bacon.

So, today's entry is about yesterday ... an update on the bees.

It has been a beautifully warm Easter weekend and yesterday (Saturday) was just perfect to have a proper inspection of the hives. Shortly after lunch I donned my bee suit, lit my smoker and took a look at the four hives in the garden.

Three of the four hives had been supered the previous Sunday and all were doing well. The colonies had expanded up in to the Supers and nectar was already being stored there.  The bees are clearly doing well. There are no crops of Oilseed Rape in the vicinity, so they must be working hard amongst the Spring flowers and hedgerow blossoms to be bringing in significant quantities of nectar so soon.

I moved on to the fourth smaller colony, expecting it to  still be somewhat smaller than the hives I'd just inspected.  It was a pleasant surprise to see the brood box absolutely brimming with bees.  A Queen Excluder and Super were quickly grabbed from the shed and added to the hive.

Later in the day I headed over to Kathy H-R's cottage and added an excluder and super to the colony that I relocated there last weekend. I also took a look at the hive that has overwintered there. If I thought that the hives in the garden were doing well, this one was amazing. The Super was already heavy with nectar and I would estimate that there was a good 15 or 20 pounds of nectar already stored within.

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In previous years I had overwintered my hives with a brood box and super. I was always concerned that they would run short of food and starve if I removed all of the supers in the Autumn. There is a downside to this approach as the Queens often move up in to the supers and start to lay. This means that the Queen has to be located and moved back down in to the brood so that an excluder can be put in place.  Then there is a three week wait whilst any eggs she has laid in the super complete their larval and pupal stages before the young bees emerge.

Last Autumn I took a different approach. I have been befriended by a delightful, retired Gentleman who has a semi-commercial operation of about 50 hives. He has been a wonderful source of guidance and information and it was he who suggested removing all of the supers and feeding the bees on an inverted sugar syrup. He reassured me that they would be fine overwintering in the brood box and he was right.

I'll admit that I did give them all a pack of candy in December "just in case", but all six of my colonies came through the Winter and are now starting to produce this year's crop with far fewer management issues than I have had in previous years ... Thanks Pete.

Bacon & Bees

I woke early on Saturday and, after letting out the chickens, I wandered over to my smoke box.

As I approached I could smell a faint aroma of wood smoke and I couldn't resist a peep inside. As soon as I removed the front panel I was rewarded with the most fantastic aroma and the sight of a beautifully smoked loin of pork

The eighteen hours of smoking had turned the skin an amazing tan colour with a very firm texture* and I could see that hand slicing the rashers was going to be a pig of a job.  I'd anticipated this challenge and had decided that today should be the first outing for my new bacon slicer.**

Once breakfasted, TP and I headed out to the garage with the loin and he guided me through the finer points of the slicer's use. It worked beautifully, slicing through the firm rind and soft meat with ease and within twenty minutes we had about 7lb of smoked back bacon rashers and a few lardons.

I then headed back in to the house with the bacon and my vacuum packer and spent the rest of the morning getting this lot packed, labelled and stored in the freezer.

The rest of the day was equally productive, dogs were walked, bees were inspected, the slicer was cleaned*** and gin was consumed in the garden.

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*  I usually remove the skin before curing as it can be very challenging to hand slice. On this occasion I was just too lazy short of time, so decided to get the cure underway and deal with the bacon rind at the end of the process.

** This mechanical marvel had been lurking untested in the garage for about 18 months and had arrived courtesy of TP.  The brief back story is that TP had worked in a Delicatessen whilst he was a student at USW's Cardiff Campus. The Deli had an absolutely fantastic meat slicer that was going spare and a deal was done. This allowed me to replace the decrepit slicer that I had given up on using years ago.

*** As I scrubbed the slicer I asked TP how it used to be cleaned when he worked at the Deli. He took one look at the blade guard in my hand and said " we never used to take that off". I commented on the food hygiene certification of the establishment and he grinned and advised that he only used to get paid £8 an hour.

Meat Fest

I probably need to start with a warning that this is probably not one for the Vegetarians ...

Two weeks ago I started to cure a loin of pork.  I do this every couple of months, having become disillusioned with commercial bacon.

The loin sat in the cure mixture for six days before being dried, wrapped and hung from a meat hook for a further six days. Early this morning it was taken down, unwrapped and a butcher's hook was inserted in to one end.

The loin was then hung in my smoking box and a cunning little device* manufactured by BBQ Dave was filled with applewood sawdust, tamped down and lit with a blowtorch. I made certain that I had a good ember smouldering in the smoke generator and then placed it at the bottom of the box. The smoke box door was put in place and that was it for the next nine hours.

I think this is version 4 of Dave's smoke generator

The smoke generator will need to be refilled with sawdust this evening and the loin will continue to smoke overnight.  Now 3kg of smoked pork loin might seem like more than enough protein for one day, but I had other plans ...

After walking the dogs I headed in to kitchen and took two whole chickens from the refrigerator. I'd promised 30% and TP that I'd do Beer Can Chicken on the barbecue and it is fair to say that they were delighted. For those of you that have never sampled this delight I can say only this "stop fucking around with sausages and burgers on your Barbie and cook something worth eating".

It is simplicity itself to prepare and cook and it tastes incredible. You can also leave it pretty much to itself while it is cooking, so there is no need to hover over it getting smoke in your eyes and missing out on the gin, nibbles and chat.**

At this point I should state that you need a kettle barbecue as this is cooked "lid on". The recipe is as follows:-

1 whole chicken (1.5 kg or thereabouts)
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp of Thyme
1 tsp of Rosemary
1/2 tsp Brown Sugar
Salt and Black Pepper
A good glug of oil
2 tsp of Paprika
1 oz of butter
1 can of beer

1. Mix the chilli flakes, Thyme, Rosemary, sugar, salt and pepper together in a small bowl.
2. Place the chicken on a large baking sheet and drizzle oil over it. Gently rub the oil on to the bird to ensure that it is completely oiled up.
3. Now rub the mixture of chilli flakes herbs and seasonings on to the skin of the chicken.
4. Take the can of beer and wash the outside thoroughly. You'll see why in a minute ...
5, Open the beer and pour half of it in to a glass .... you can drink this.
6. Place the half filled beer can on a baking sheet and position the chicken so that the can sits inside the body cavity and supports the chicken as shown in the photo below.
7. Now melt the butter in another small bowl and stir in the paprika
8. Then brush the butter and paprika glaze over the outside of the chicken making sure that you cover all of the skin.

9. Set up your barbecue for indirect heat.  Basically this means that the charcoal is lit and then split in to two piles, one on either side of the grill. Some barbecues have charcoal baskets that make this straightforward. The key point is that there is a central area with no burning coals. ***
10. Place the grill bars over the coals and put the lid on. Leave the barbecue to heat up to about 180 degrees centigrade and then add the chicken on the centre of the grill.
11. Cook for about 80 minutes. You can use a meat thermometer to check whether it is cooked. It should be at least 75 degrees centigrade in the middle of the breast meat.

12. Remove the chicken from the grill and let it stand for ten minutes before shredding the meat from the bones.

The chicken is absolutely gorgeous as the steam from the beer keeps the meat beautifully moist and the herby rub, paprika glaze and barbecue smoke gives the most fantastic flavour.

You may be wondering why I cooked two chickens when there are only three of us here at The Pile ...

Once you've tasted this you will understand that one is never going to be enough and we will make several meals from them. It's great as a main meal, in sandwiches and a multitude of other dishes. The carcasses make a fantastic smoky chicken stock for soups and as for potatoes roasted in the oil that collects in the trays!

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*  Sections of perforated steel have been riveted together to create a zig-zag channel about 1" in section. It is filled with sawdust that is tamped down and then lit at one end. Over the course of about nine hours the smouldering ember burns along the channel creating a continuous stream of smoke.  Simple and incredibly effective.
** This obviously refers to social events that were allowed prior to Social Distancing.
*** Add pre-soaked chunks of apple, hickory or any other wood that is suitable for smoking for a fantastic smoky flavour.

Busier than expected

I had hoped that today would be a gentle coast through to the long Easter weekend and it started out looking like I simply had to kick my heels for a few hours and then knock off early and enjoy the glorious Spring sunshine.

However, a couple of minutes before half past two I was "pinged" to ask if I was joining a call. I responded that I had not received any invitation, but was free if I was needed.

It appeared that I was needed and spent the next forty five minutes trying to make sense of a rambling discussion which could actually be condensed to a couple of sentences.

This engagement stems from the recent request to pick up work from the departing Contractor.  He had waffled about this on our initial hand-over call and made very little sense. It now appears that the Architect of this solution is an equally skilled communicator and spent much of the first half hour describing existing network components rather than outlining the key support requirements that needed to be implemented.

I'm not saying that this is a piece of cake, but it looks to be a fairly simple job involving making sure that a Supplier can talk to our Support teams and that the Support Teams understand which components are supported by which Supplier. None of this appears to be a particularly novel feature, so I'm bemused by the amount of waffle and irrelevant information I was fed this afternoon ... Maybe I've oversimplified and I am in for a horrendous learning experience.

The day still wasn't over and I needed to chase a couple of individuals and send out some pricing before I was able to close down the laptop and enjoy the late afternoon sunshine.*

TP and I headed out around the Three Miler with the dogs and I then put a new spark plug in the lawn mower and gave the lawn a much needed trim.**

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* The surprising thing about today was that I learnt that the "mega-urgent" activity, that I had been waiting on for the past week, was still not clearly defined and it would be next week at the earliest before I was needed.
** Mowing the lawn is definitely my preferred transitional activity to adjust from the working mindset to "home mode".  Many people have their daily commute to mentally file away the work crap and, instead, think about their home, family, personal interests etc.  As someone who works from home, I don't have that transitional activity and have long understood that I need something to switch from one mindset to another. 

Parcels galore

With the majority of retail establishments closed at the moment, the on-line retailers and distribution companies are seeing a significant upturn in their businesses.

We're all doing our best to keep the economy going and, today, we had a plethora of parcels delivered, including an illustrated German vocabulary text for TP*, a set of replacement toothbrush heads, a new queen excluder and a service kit for the lawn mower.

I am now set up for the Easter weekend and will be sporting a dazzling smile whilst trimming the lawn and inspecting my hives.

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* His girlfriend's mum is from Austria and the whole family is bilingual. TP is making good use of his enforced incarceration by learning German

Job for Life?

Work is starting to pick up.  I would hardly say that I am close to capacity, but at least I have a few things to keep me busy. 

At the back end of last week I was summoned. along with another colleague, to a call with our Boss.

It appears that the Coronavirus pandemic is starting to impact the piano moving industry. Apparently our customers actually have an increased demand for our services, but their revenue streams are being driven downward by Social Distancing.  There have even been requests for payment holidays.  As a result the Corporation is looking to "restructure" its workforce and a number of Contractors are to be released.

We were asked instructed to become familiar with the workload of another Colleague who will be leaving us in about three months time.

Today the discussions started and it is certainly going to be an interesting experience.  This colleague is notorious for his muddled and waffly narratives that wander so far off topic that his entire audience either looses the will to live or actually does die.*

He is actually quite a nice chap, but his unstructured narratives are indicative of his working style and there are concerns that we are about to open a can of worms.

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* 30% worked with him many years ago and summed him up thus; "He gives old women a bad name"

Bugger!

I've noticed that one impact of Social Distancing, or The Lockdown as it is referred to in the media, is that it has a tendency to induce a reluctance to get on with domestic tasks that are still actually achievable.

I mentioned this to a frolleague and he confessed that he, too, was experiencing the same sense of inertia.

With this in mind, I'm doing my best to keep myself occupied and so, since I have recently returned to The Journal, I decided it was time for another book.

When I was blogging regularly I used to produce a hardback copy of The Journal every year or so and four volumes sit on the bookshelf in my study. Volume 4 ran from 21st April '13 through to 20th October '14, so I estimate that there are about 290 unpublished posts. This is certainly enough to fill the next volume.

I used an on-line self-publishing company called Blurb previously, so I logged on to my account and started to reacquaint myself with the tools. I recall that the actual desktop application was a bit glitchy as the file sizes increased, but this was offset by the functionality that allowed one to literally "slurp" the contents of a blog direct from Blogger straight in to application. It was then simply a case of formatting and editing, as required.

It came as a very unpleasant surprise to learn that this functionality was no longer available and I will be copying and pasting each and every post from the website to the tool on my desktop ...

That should keep me busy for a while.

TW3

Saturday
I started Saturday enthusiastically with my planned activity; Sour Dough Bread ...

Unfortunately this was nowhere near as successful as I had hoped. The end product was edible, but I don't think I knocked back the dough sufficiently and ended up with loaves that had large voids, rather than a more light and consistent texture.

It went well with 30%'s Fish and Chorizo stew in the evening, but it was certainly nothing to crow about. I plan to make another attempt next weekend, but, if I am going to put the effort in to making bread by hand, I think I'd rather go with a recipe that uses yeast.  They're more reliable and without the faffing around maintaining starter cultures.

Another activity that didn't go to plan was my attempt to mow the lawn. The mower started, ran for a few seconds, died a death and then refused to start. I performed a few basic checks and determined that the spark plug had died. The air filter looked well overdue for cleaning too ...

A service kit was ordered, but it looks like the lawn will go untouched until next weekend at the earliest.

The day wasn't a complete failure. TP and I managed a pleasant walk around the Three Miler and I did some preparatory work for the beekeeping I have planned for tomorrow. Supers and Queen Excluders* were removed from the shed and a hive was prepared** for relocation to Kathy H-R's garden early on Sunday.

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* Modern hives are modular allowing a beekeeper to add or remove sections depending on the Colony's needs for space and nectar storage. Supers are sections that are added to the top of the hive where the bees will store nectar and convert it to honey. A Queen Excluder is a wire grid that prevents the Queen from moving up in to the Super and laying there.
** The hive entrance is closed of and the floor and crown board are strapped tightly to the hive body to prevent any escapes. A car full of annoyed bees is never going to be fun!

Sunday
At eight o'clock in the morning TP and I loaded the hive in to the back of the Land Rover and headed over to Kathy's house.  The hive was set up in a matter of minutes and we were soon removing the foam entrance block and heading back home for breakfast.

I'd planned to complete my first proper inspection of my hives today, but I needed to wait for the weather to warm up before that happened. I therefore occupied myself by attending to the pork loin that I am curing.

The loin was removed from its bag and the cure mixture was washed away with cold water. It was then dried off, wrapped in muslin and hung from a hook in the kitchen. It will hang there until the end of this week before it is smoked.

After lunch I grabbed my smoker and hive tool and headed out to look at the hives. TP accompanied me and we spent a pleasant hour assessing the state of each of the colonies.  Three of the four in the garden were doing incredibly well with large brood nests and fresh stores of nectar and pollen. Each of these had a Queen Excluder put over the Brood Box and then a Super was added to give the colony more space. 

The fourth hive was not so prolific. There are no concerns, it is just smaller than the other Colonies and it will be a two or three weeks before it needs Supering up.

I then returned to Kathy's garden and inspected the hive that had overwintered there.* The Colony was a reasonable size, so an Excluder and Super were added.

The remainder of the day was spent with a minor reorganisation of the garage before 30% and I joined a virtual Cocktail Party for a couple of hours with some old friends from our College Days. We had met up recently at a rather significant event and, since then, have made efforts to stay in touch more frequently than we have previously.

We had an absolute hoot, courtesy of Zoom Conferencing Services and were all quite "relaxed" before we disbanded and headed off for our respective Sunday Dinners.  Another event is planned for next weekend, with the agreement that we will all "dress up".

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* The hive I moved this morning will be given a few days to settle down before I disturb it with an inspection.

It's Alive!

And on the 6th day Badman said "let there be life" and there was life ...

Sour Dough Starter

Close up showing bubbles of carbon dioxide

I'll acknowledge that it is a very simple form of life*, but my sour dough starter is most definitely ready for use. The recipe has produced about a pint of starter plus the half pint that I froze on day #4.

Unfortunately I actually had some work to get on with today, so this was put in the fridge until tomorrow when I will make my first attempt at a sour dough loaf.

I also made up another batch of tomato soup in a free hour I found in the early afternoon. We're really pleased with the results, so I've jotted down the recipe for future reference.

1 lb, 8 oz ripe plum tomatoes, quartered
10 fluid oz chicken stock
1 medium potato, finely diced
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tsp dried basil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
salt and black pepper

1. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan
2.  Add the onions and potato and cook on a low heat for 10-15 minutes until they are softened
3. Add the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes
4. Add the stock, garlic, basil and seasoning
5. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes
6. Liquidise with your weapon of choice**
7. Add a healthy glug of single cream and serve

These quantities will make a couple of pints of soup. I actually tripled the quantities and ended up with nearly four litres.

Well, that's about it for today.

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* Mind you, it's a few evolutionary stages beyond some of the people I've seen in the media recently.
** You can freeze the soup at this point in the recipe

Waste not, want not

A combination of the panic buying public fuckwits, empty supermarket shelving and being confined to home has tended to make us more focussed on our store cupboard than we usually are.

30% and I are batch cooking more than normal, thereby making sure that we have plenty in the freezers and limiting the frequency of our shopping trips.

Today 30% headed over to a nearby Farm Shop to pick up some fresh vegetables. This establishment has a reputation for being a little on the pricey side, but that's not the case if you know what you are doing.

The shop is part of a local estate that hosts game shoots and, quite surprisingly, the majority of the Guns have no interest in taking the pheasants and partridge home at the end of the day.  The Shoot Organiser is quite happy to give the birds away "in feather" and over the course of the season our freezers become well stocked with free pheasant breast fillets.

Another shop secret is the waste vegetable bin.  Overripe and wilted stock is not seen as saleable and is removed from the displays and is placed in a bin "round the back".  30% discovered this little gem and our chickens have reaped the benefits, being rewarded with a regular supply of greens, bruised apples and so on.

Today she popped out to the bin to collect some chicken treats and came across several pounds of overripe tomatoes.  These were brought home and we took a look at her spoils ...

After a wash and wipe they were found to be perfectly acceptable and I spent an hour or so knocking up four litres of tomato soup. The only ingredients I needed to add were three potatoes, three onions, a glug of Olive oil and a pint and one half of Chicken stock. I think my total investment is less than £1 for ten or twelve servings of a rather tasty soup.*

Whilst still on culinary matters, today is day five of the Sour Dough starter preparation. The recipe instructed me to remove half of the starter and discard. I couldn't bear to just throw it away, so this is now carefully labelled and placed in the freezer. It means that I can thaw it and create another starter that will be ready for use in about 24 hours if I decide to do this again.

Having split my starter in half, I added 150 ml of water and whisked in 150 g of white, bread flour. It was then covered once more and placed in a warm spot. Apparently it will be ready for use tomorrow.

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* I do acknowledge that the cost will go up when I add a liberal helping of single cream, just before serving.

Sour Dough day #4

With very little to keep me occupied at work it seems that a few of my colleagues are doing their best to fill more of my time.  Their current approach is to make things unnecessarily complicated and take the most circuitous routes to achieve the simplest tasks. Ho-hum!

As it says in the title, today is the fourth day of my Sour Dough starter recipe. 180g of strong white flour, 100 ml of water and 40 ml of milk were mixed well together and added to the starter culture. It was then covered and now needs to be left for another 24 hours at a "warm room temperature". More on this tomorrow.

In other news, 30% took delivery of ten cubic feet of polystyrene beads as our bean bag is looking a little deflated. I inspected the enormous box and advised her that all I could see was a huge amount of polystyrene packing material with no sign of her actual purchase ...

She was about to phone the supplier until today's date registered.

Short of material?

I tend to start my day in a leisurely fashion with a cup of coffee whilst I catch up on the news headlines.

I was about to say "my media outlet of choice is BBC Breakfast", but I think I'll rapidly correct myself and, instead, and describe it as "one of the least worst options for the morning news bulletin".

Once you've absorbed the BBC's choice of morning headlines you are left watching a series of quite bizarre journalistic articles punctuated with mundane vox pops all of which repeat on a 30 minute cycle.

It must be stated that there is far, far more going on in the world than could ever be ascertained from BBC Breakfast.*

Anyway ... to the point of today's rant ... Obviously the majority of the main news items are related to the Coronavirus pandemic.

However, it appears that the BBC have now abandoned any effort to collate and present real news stories, as this morning it seems that the Editors have given up and just let Dan Walker and Louise Minchin prattle on about interesting shit that they had seen on Facebook the previous evening.

Give me strength!

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* The one thing I can say for this TV show is that it does increase my heart rate as I am usually in full on rant mode after watching about ten minutes of their bumph.

The makings of a fine bacon sandwich?

It was yet another quiet day at "the coal face", although a reasonably straightforward request for support did arrive.  I leapt on it like a ravenous wolf, before any of my equally short of work colleagues could dash in and take this morsel scrap.

Twenty minutes of admin were necessary to log the work and arrange the necessary calls before I was, once again, left with very little to do.

30% headed out for essential groceries leaving me to occupy myself ...

It is day #2 of the sour dough starter preparation and a few minutes were spent whisking 120g of strong, white flour in to the milk and yoghurt mixture. It has now been covered and will be left at room temperature for two days. By Wednesday I should be able to see lots of small bubbles and it should smell "pleasantly sour".

30% returned from her mission and reported that the local Farm Shop was very quiet, as was the Butcher's. She had had a successful trip and presented me with a large loin of pork ...

Previously we had discussed making some more bacon and a quick rummage through the store cupboard had uncovered a pound, or so, of cure* all mixed up and ready to go.

I am now using a curing method given to me by a local pig farmer; Mick The Pig. The method involves massaging the loin with a few handfuls of cure, ensuring that all surfaces have been well rubbed. The loin is then placed in a vacuum bag** and a couple of handfuls of cure are spread on the upper and lower surfaces of the meat. The meat is then sealed and left in the bottom of the fridge for six days. It needs to be turned over once a day.

At the end of this process the bacon will be removed from the bag and washed and dried. It will then be wrapped in muslin and hung up for a few days before smoking.***

More on the bread and bacon, over the next few days.

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* A 50:50 mixture of salt and brown sugar mixed with ground aromatics; Bay leaves, Coriander seed, Black Pepper, Star Anise and Smoked Chipotle Chilli flakes
** Apparently a Ziplock bag can be used as an alternative.
*** I thought you ate bacon ... groan !

The staff of life

Self isolation/social distancing has resulted in a very quiet weekend and there was no way that I could make tidying the office and walking the dogs interesting.

Despite being at home most of the time, the very fact that I am not allowed out, except for exercise and essential journeys, does have an impact and there were points over the weekend when I did start to feel somewhat constrained.

The weather has changed significantly and the warmth earlier in the week as been replaced by a bitter blow from the North. As a result there was no way that pottering in the garage or messing with the bikes was an option.*

I needed something to pique my interest and a recent impact of panic buying may have provided the solution.

We have used a bread maker for most of the bread we eat for the past 15 years. Our cupboards normally have plenty of flour and yeast, but our pot of yeast is running low. At the moment the shops have none in stock as the panic buying fuckwits have obviously bought every pot they can lay their hands on.

At this point I should advise that we are not in dire straits, nor are we at risk of starvation. The local shops have plenty of bread and BBQ Dave has given us a tub of yeast that will last us a few weeks.

However, this shortage got us thinking and we decided that making a sour dough loaf might be an interesting diversion and possibly be the way forward if the current movement restrictions remain in place for any length of time.

Obviously our bread maker is of no use at all for making a sour dough loaf,** so it looks like I will be making bread "hands on" for the first time in many, many years.

I thought back to the last time I made bread by hand and it was probably back in 1983 when I was a student living in a grimy, damp, shared house in Park Lane, Wolverhampton.  For some reason I got it in to my head that making bread would be more economical than buying it and I started to make my own wholemeal loaves using the most basic of baking equipment.

Despite the cold house, the lack of experience and a complete absence of loaf tins, I produced some fabulous bread that was appreciated by my housemates.

Anyway, back to the present, I dug out a sour dough recipe and it is fair to say that it didn't occupy that much of my weekend...

Step one was to warm 175ml of skimmed milk, add 75 ml of live yogurt, stir, cover and put in a warm place for 24 hours.

It will take about 5 days for the starter to be ready to use, so next Saturday could be a busy day.

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* I hate being cold. I love cold frosty and snowy weather and am happy to be out in it wrapped up in the finest warm weather clothing, but I loathe trying to complete a task and be distracted by that whole body discomfort of feeling cold.
** There are bread maker recipes for sour dough loaves, but they all include measures of dried yeast, which, to me, seems to be somewhat contradictory.

Toast

After our rescue mission on Monday, TP is now enduring a period of self isolation to minimise the risk of infecting me or 30% with the Covid19 virus.

He's not showing any symptoms, but he has been out and about for the past couple of weeks, so this is just a precautionary measure.

His confinement is far from arduous as he has a spacious bedroom and his own bathroom and he is able to get outside for fresh air and exercise.  Meals and snacks are ordered via WhatsApp and are delivered on a tray and left outside his bedroom door.

Fundamentally, it is like he's in a hotel where room service is the only option for food and beverages.

As TP is totally dependent on us for nourishment I decided that his meals should be assembled with, shall we say, a creative flourish.

His preferred breakfast is a mug of black coffee and a slice of toast with peanut butter. Rather than simply cut the toast in to approximate halves along the centre line, I decided to mix things up a bit.

On Tuesday his breakfast slice had been cut in a "V" and Wednesdays was a rather random sort of zig-zag.

Today I may have peaked as I presented him with a slice of toast cut in to 32 roughly equal pieces about 2cm squared ... he wasn't amused.

Tomorrow I'm thinking about combining toast, peanut butter and coffee in a delicious breakfast smoothie.

Messing around with a few numbers

Thursday was slightly busier than Wednesday and I spent the morning trying to get to grips with a rather complicated cost model that a frolleague had developed back in 2019 for a piece of new business.

Apparently there is a problem with the specification of some servers and the ones that are being installed need to be removed and repurposed while new hardware is brought in to replace them. I've offered to help "Tel" out by updating his model as, and when, the costs arrived.

After some initial head scratching I soon developed a basic understanding of how the numbers were presented and collated and started to record the new data.  It then became clear that the quote was not as straightforward as initially thought and we are not clear on whether the price, the quantity or both are being increased.*

I now need to sit and wait while we get the Supplier to be a little more precise on the costs and how they are changing.

As a result I had a fairly slow afternoon and enjoyed another walk with the dogs in the glorious sunshine. The local lanes have finally dried out and I no longer need to restrain the dogs to prevent them getting filthy.*** They had a wild time bouncing off each other as they charged about, begrudgingly coming back when I called them in as we encountered other walkers.

And that is just about it for today.

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* The quote identifies the affected line items and advises the amount that each will increase. It details both price and quantity, but doesn't advise whether "p", "q" or both are increasing. The price appears to be the same as the preceding quote, but it is possible that they are just doubling their price!**
** This is network hardware after all!
*** I enjoy a walk, but am not so keen on spending twenty minutes hosing down and drying two reluctant Standard Poodles afterwards. This does happen frequently over the wetter months, but I do try to minimise post-perambulation canine ablutions as much as poss.

Nothing to see here

It is fair to say that work is very quiet at the moment and the two requests I picked up last week were quickly resolved, with no real need for me to get involved.

A frolleague; "Tel" is in need of some assistance and we had a quick chat about it this morning, but there is nothing much to do until some fresh costs come in later in the week.

As a result I had a very quiet day and the only thing of any significance was a walk around the Three Miler in glorious sunshine with TP and the dogs.

The lack of events, occurrences or situations have resulted in me trawling my photo archives and presenting a picture post.

Cocoa Pods - Arenal, Costa Rica

I do like an unusual botanical subject and this one was taken in 2018 when 30% and I were touring Costa Rica. These are cocoa pods and were surprisingly large, being eight to ten inches in length and tightly packed with the cocoa beans.

As I mentioned last Tuesday, our holiday in Costa Rica will always be tainted by the loss of Tyson while we were away.  We did have a lovely time and some amazing experiences, including seeing Olive Ridley Turtles hauling themselves on to shore to lay in the starlight.

But, as I said, it will always be a great holiday that we wish we'd never taken.

A Blast from the past

30% headed in to work early this morning, as she wanted to get ahead with a new service that is likely to be needed without delay.

As she left she pointed to a thawing pack of stewing beef and "suggested" that I might like to use it as a basis for tonight's dinner.

Now, many years ago I used to cook a mean beef stew, but that was a long time back and the details of the recipe were a little hazy. I wandered over to the cupboard that houses the cook books, but could find no sign of the little pamphlet that documented this culinary treasure.

I was left with no option and simply had to wing it. This is what I did ...

Beef Stew

1kg Stewing Beef (cubed)
3 medium onions (chopped)
4 carrots (sliced)
2 heaped dessert spoons of flour
Salt and black pepper
1 pint of Chicken stock
3-4 tsp Worcester Sauce
3 or 4 Bay Leaves
3-4 tsp Dried Thyme
2 handfuls of Pearl Barley

1.  Coat the beef in the seasoned flour and brown in a frying pan
2.  Once browned, remove the beef and set to one side
3.  Add the carrots and onions to the frying pan, adding more oil if necessary
4.  Saute the carrots and onions for 5 - 10 minutes until they start to soften
5.  Add the stock, Worcester Sauce, Bay Leaves and Thyme to the pan and bring to the boil
6.  Add the beef to the simmering pan of carrots and onions
7.  Add the contents of the pan to a slow cooker and cook on low setting for 6 hours. Add a little extra stock or water if the gravy needs thinning
8.  a couple of handfuls of pearl barley can be added two hours before the stew is to be served, if desired

At seven thirty dinner was served and, what can I say ... "I've still got it".

Dunkirk

Let me set the scene ...

TP holed up in deepest, darkest Cardiff.  Cases of Covid19 on the increase. An announcement of movement restrictions expected imminently.

As I am sure you can imagine, 30% was in full on "mum mode" and resources were to be mobilised immediately for a recovery mission.

Putting crappy jokes aside for a moment, TP's lease expires in the very near future and his workload has completely dried up.  Based on current Government advise it would be virtually impossible for him to locate another room to rent, let alone move himself or pay for it for that matter.

Early in the afternoon 30% and I headed down to Cardiff in the Defender and her Mini.

TP was well prepared and most of his belongings were already packed and piled in the hallway ready for loading.  It took an hour, or so, for us to cram our vehicles to the proverbial gills. We managed virtually all of his stuff with the exception of his home brewing vessels and an aged Sony flat screen TV.

We were back on the road before three o'clock and we were all back home safely by five.  TP actually seeing Army vehicles heading in to Cardiff as he left!

TP is now self-isolating for the next week and both 30% and I are relieved to have him back at home.

Our timing was perfect, as later that evening Boris Johnson announced the initial set of movement restrictions.

Weekend Round-up

 Saturday
Social Distancing/Isolation is now the new normal and, to be honest, it hasn't made a huge difference to 30% and me.

I have been a home worker for fifteen years and am used to, and actually enjoy, the isolation, using the 'phone, instant messaging and e-mail for work and social contact. 30% is much the same and fortunately we actually enjoy being at home together.

I am not so naive to not be aware that that several weeks, or even months, of social distancing will be tough to bear, but at least we both have some experience of living this way and it is not such a complete culture shock as it will be for those that head out to a place of work every day.

We spent the morning cooking up a batch of Bolognese and other culinary activities. I then nipped out to fill the Defender with diesel as the price has plummeted over the past few weeks.

Lunch followed and then we headed out around the 3 miler with the dogs and this is where we saw the impact of SD.   The lanes around the village are just like they are at Christmas with walkers I have never seen before.  People are clearly feeling the need to get out of the house now they are unable to escape to their places of work.*

A kip on the sofa followed the walk** and I then released the porn mower and trimmed the lawn.

The evening began with a G&T followed by a steak dinner and a night in front of the television ... trying to ignore it and read tablets, magazines and other alternative forms of entertainment instead.

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* We are bumping in to dogs that we have never seen being walked before. They are easy to spot as they are all on leads and have quite a surprised expression on their faces.
** This is the law.

Sunday
A quick breakfast was consumed before I returned to the kitchen, knocked up a batch of pea and ham soup and tidied up the aftermath.

30% had headed out to the supermarket to take advantage of her NHS staff card in the hope of picking up a few store cupboard essentials that we are running short of.

And that just about takes care of Sunday morning.

In the afternoon we eventually headed out around the Three miler. I say eventually as 30% had to pop over to the local surgery where key staff are working at the weekend to prepare for the next set of Covid19 initiatives. It appears that she has a new role involving the set up and support of the new services that will be needed as self-isolation of vulnerable patients takes effect.

We eventually hit the lanes with the dogs and it was rammed with families out escaping the confines of their homes. Yesterday I said that it was like Christmas, but I was definitely under calling the number of people out on a walk.* I think there are two or three times the volume of Christmas walkers.

Several hours** later we made it home and settled in for the afternoon. I cleaned my shotgun as it looks like it is going to be months before any of the local shooting grounds re-open ... unless, of course, this really is the dawn of the Zombie apocalypse?

It looks like we will be heading down to Cardiff in the next couple of days to collect TP and his belongings. His lease expires in the next couple of months and he has little chance of picking up freelance work in the current environment, so has decided that home is the best place to wait this out and then start afresh when it all blows over.

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* Why do their bloody kids feel the need to take a scooter out on a country walk? I wonder whether the thought process is as follows ... " I don't wanna go outside, I don't wanna go for a walk, its boring out there ... I'll take my scooter/skateboard/bike that'll minimise the effort and minimise the time away from the TV/tablet/'phone."
** That's what it felt like after 30% felt obligated to chunter on to each and every one of them.

All is well

Well, at least it is on the beekeeping front.

The weather was reasonably fine today and shortly after lunch I found a spare half an hour to pop down the road to see Kathy H-R.

I dropped off a small parcel of groceries that 30% had picked up for Kathy and then I took a quick look at the hive that sits in her front garden.

It was going to be a quick peek at best since a cool wind was blowing and I didn't want to chill the colony nor any brood that might be developing. I got the smoker lit and gave a few puffs at the hive entrance. I could see worker bees taking in pollen, which is usually a sign that the queen is laying and that there are larvae to be fed. So far, so good ...

I lifted off the hive roof, noting that the colony had eaten most of the 2.5 kilos of candy* that had been provided as emergency winter feed. This was another positive sign.

I lifted the hive crown board a centimetre or two and gave the colony another couple of puffs of smoke. The crown board was then lifted and I was rewarded with a marvellous sight. The colony covered eight or nine of the brood frames, which is a good size at this point in the year.

I inspected a few of the frames in the centre of the cluster of bees** and saw a healthy patch of capped brood. That was all I wanted to see and I quickly closed up the hive, hopefully without chilling it too much.

All six of my hives have made it through the winter.  I just hope that we get a mild dry Spring with plenty of blossom and flowers ...

... I've already been asked about whether I can supply some mini jars of honey for wedding favours.

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* A soft sugar paste, very similar to fondant icing.
** This is the warmest part of the colony and where the queen and the brood nest are most likely to be found

Yes, no, maybe

I picked up a couple of piece of work yesterday and spent this morning clarifying the requirements and getting them off the starting blocks.

Both appeared to be relatively straightforward opportunities that could be turned around with little effort in short timeframes.

I discussed the first with the Sales Guy, clarified a minor discrepancy and within 40 minutes I had the correct teams engaged to develop the solution and quotes.

The second was somewhat different. For starters the Sales Lead didn't bother turning up to the kick off call and neither did the Project Manager. Our Architect did appear and, in his genial manner, dismissed the Approach being undertaken by the Designers and told them to go and do something much simpler and more appropriate.

After ten minutes it appeared that there was nothing for me to do, other than issue a short call summary and then close out the work request.

However this is now looking a little premature and I may actually need to get my hands dirty.