Defrosting the microwave

Item #1 on today's agenda was inspecting the bees.  

The weather has been cool and showery over the past week and, unsurprisingly, the bees have not been flying as much as they would in warmer weather.  I waited until the day had brightened somewhat, but the hives were still packed with bees as I examined the frames.  This made it a challenge to find queen cups or cells, let alone the queens themselves.  

The inspections went reasonably well, but it was apparent that the the bees had been relying on their stores rather than foraged nectar.*  The frames of stores that surround the brood nests had, mostly, been emptied to keep the colony sustained over the past seven days.  I'm not concerned, as there is ample honey in the supers to keep them going.

After checking on the bees, 30% and headed out in to the garden to deal with a vermin problem ... Over the past few weeks we had noticed that something had been chewing holes in the poultry food sacks.  These are kept in what, until recently, had been a vermin proof store, so it was time to investigate.  The little shed was emptied and 30% dived in to sweep up.  She soon called out that she had found rat droppings.  At this point I suggested that she should retreat, so that we could check that the rat wasn't still there.

I started looking for rat runs and, as I looked around the roof space, I saw a beady eye looking back at me.  Neither of us fancied having a startled rat jumping out at us, so a length of cane was deployed to persuade the verminous, little sod to vacate the premises.  We then spent an hour, or so, clearing up the shed and relocating the food to a rat proof metal bin.  With the poultry food gone, a couple of traps were set, although I didn't hold much hope of success;  they are very clever animals.

There's not much else to report, apart from the fact that I finally got my arse in to gear and descaled the coffee machine this evening.  I love to start the day with a cup of proper coffee ... A black Americano made with an espresso machine and, preferably, from freshly ground Old Brown Java coffee beans.

I have a little Gaggia classic and it makes a great cup of coffee, but it is a complete faff to descale.  It needs doing every couple of months and the process can take a good couple of hours.  This necessary chore is lovingly referred to as "defrosting the microwave" in the panoply of nonsense I spout as I grow older.

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*  Here in the UK there is a phenomenon called the"June gap" where nectar sources diminish during this month and then increase again from July through to September.

A possible buyer?

We had a viewing scheduled for eleven o'clock this morning, so the hours before were spent tidying up and TP and I took the dogs out for a walk shortly before the viewers arrived.

After a twenty minute wander around the local playing fields, we headed back to The Pile and guessed that the viewing was still in progress, based on the unfamiliar car parked outside.  We sat out in the back garden with the dogs to avoid interrupting 30%'s sales pitch.

A short while later the potential buyers came out to see the garden and it was clear that they absolutely loved the house and neither of us will be surprised if an offer is forthcoming in the next few days.

There are, however, a few flies in this sweet smelling unction ...  They have yet to sell their property and are going to need to borrow* to buy The Pile.  It might happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

They were incredibly keen and even asked if the woman's mum and dad could pop over to take a look from the outside. We were happy to oblige and let them view the inside too ... after all, the bank of mum and dad might be involved in the financing.

Later in the afternoon TP was out in the kitchen making up a batch of Halloumi.  He called me over and we could see that the viewers had returned and had parked up outside and were talking and gesturing at the outside of the house ... as I said, they seem quite keen.

That is the big news for Saturday,  I did head over to the Cotswold Shooting Ground at Childswickham for 100 sporting clays.  Bubbles had shot earlier in the day with a mutual friend, so I had a sort of blind date with a chap from Bromsgrove for the 13.55 pm slot.**

I shot appallingly and ended up with 36/100 on my card.  My best stand was an 8 and my worst was a 1.  I checked my blood sugar as I prepared to drive home and saw that it had been low for most of the time I was shooting ... I always shoot badly with low blood glucose.***

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*  They are in a two bedroomed flat valued at £210K.  Personally, I doubt that they own it outright, so my guess is that they will need to be borrowing the fat side of half a million.

**  The shooting grounds used to operate on a "turn up with a bunch of mates and just get on with it approach".  Covid-19 has put the mockers on that and they are now only allowing pairs of shooters, with pre arranged start times to control numbers at the grounds. 

*** Other excuses include; "it was windy today" and "a lot of the targets were edge on" ... actually there are several volumes of excuses, as to why I shot badly!

That's not how I'd go about it

I took my first honey crop in the May of 2017.  There had been a significant acreage of oilseed rape around the village and the bees had made good use of it to produce an early honey crop.  It's not the finest of honeys because it is prone to crystallising within hours of extraction, but it was our first crop and we were just delighted to see the honey pour from the extractor.*

Later in the Summer I was approached by an acquaintance that had heard that I had some bees.  He had a hive up in his Orchard and wondered if I would be willing to extract some honey from his hive.  He offered up half of the crop by way of a reward and I agreed ... What could possibly go wrong?

On the agreed date** I loaded up the Defender with my beekeeping kit and drove up to his orchard which is close to the tower that overlooks the village.  We wandered over to the hive and I was presented with a very scruffy WBC hive that was sat on a wooden platform some 3' above ground level.

I suited up, lit my smoker and clambered up on to the platform to open up the hive.  The owner had already informed me that he followed a hands off approach to beekeeping and this was apparent as soon as I managed to wrestle the roof from the hive.  

The WBC hive is the traditional English beehive that most people tend to picture when asked to imagine a hive.  It is a double walled design, with outer walls surrounding and protecting the hive that sits within.  

This hive had not been inspected for months, if not years.  It was apparent that ill-fitting supers and frames had been added at some point and these had created gaps that had allowed the bees to colonise the space between the inner hive and the outer walls.  This space was crammed with honey-filled comb and bees.

I could see that the colony was healthy enough, but it was clear that the owner had no spare equipment and neither did he seem to have any desire to take any care of the colony.  I therefore advised him that I would only take one of the two supers for a harvest and that was on the understanding that he returned the super to the hive to give the colony the space it needed.

After a bit of work with the hive tool I managed to break the super free from the hive.  As I did this it became apparent that the outer hive was starting to rot.  I upgraded my advice from "inspect them and give them more space" to "move them in to a new hive".  I lifted the honey filled super from the manky hive and stepped back ... I had forgotten that the hive was 3' off the ground and found myself falling with a 25 lb super in my hands.  As I landed, the super crushed the top of one of my fingers and my pride was somewhat bruised too.

To cut a long story short, the honey was extracted and I received a bottle of wine, a leg of lamb and nearly eight pounds of honey in payment.  I also ended up with a broken finger and several hours of work to clean the extractor after this harvest. 

Funnily enough, I hadn't really heard from him again until I bumped in to him earlier this week.   He asked how my bees were doing and I asked how his were, in return.  He advised that the colony had died out a couple of years after we had taken the harvest.  He had cleared the hive and bought a new colony from a local semi-professional beekeeper.  The semi-pro had advised this chap to inspect the hive every eight days, but this chap seemed to take a perverse pleasure in advising that he hadn't looked at them since introducing them to the hive.

I really don't understand why this chap has bees.  He takes no care of them.  He doesn't need them for pollination of his orchard as there are ample local colonies to perform this service.  I just don't get it!

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* I had borrowed a hand cranked extractor and all the other extracting paraphernalia from Doctor H; Village Idiot's son and heir.

** 30th July 2017 ... I knew my beekeeping notes would be of use eventually.

A glimmer of hope?

Late in the afternoon the 'phone rang.  I answered and found myself talking to a rather excited 30%.  It appears that the daughter of the owner of the cottage we like has tracked her down on FaceBook and sent her a message saying that her mum wants to sell her house to us and is willing to give us a little more time to see if we can sell The Pile.

30% spoke to the daughter this evening and it appears that her mum really liked how we responded to her home and felt that we were really suited to it.*  She has the flexibility to give us more time and is willing to do so. Apparently she has received another offer, but has rejected it in favour of ours.

As the title of today's entry states, this is only "a glimmer of hope", as we still need to get a Buyer for The Pile.  We did have a viewing today, but we have yet to receive any feedback.

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* Maybe our bees bring us luck?  When we spoke to the seller we mentioned that the orchard and paddock would be perfect for the hives and she instantly responded that her father had kept bees.  It's a little odd how keeping bees seems to lead to all sorts of new encounters and relationships.  I even had my Boss ping me over the weekend to ask for advice about a bumblebee nest in his garden.

Who turned the heating off?

This week it has been reported that we have had the sunniest Spring on record.*

Today's weather was therefore something of a shock.  I awoke to a grey sky and drizzle with temperatures ten degrees** lower than they were yesterday.  It was cold and depressing after the glorious sunshine of May and breakfast was eaten inside rather than in the garden.

There is little to report for today.  The cooler weather meant that the dogs could have an afternoon walk around the Three Miler.  I also dragged the porn mower from the shed and endured forty minutes of fine rain as I tidied up a damp lawn in preparation for tomorrow's viewing. 

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*  Also the eighth warmest and fifth driest.

**  Celcius 

A quieter day

For the first time in a week it was a fairly normal day.  I got annoyed wth fuckwits at work and seemed to spend most of my time either placating people, who had been upset by Colleague R, or stopping him from making mountains out of molehills.

There were no house selling, emotional roller-coaster events, although the Agent did get a call from a potential buyer who advised that he'd be willing to come and have a look, provided that we were willing to accept twenty to thirty thousand less than the asking price, and that was only if the house didn't need any work doing to it.  Our Agent informed him that this was an unusual approach to house buying and that it was unlikely to get him a viewing appointment.  We all agreed that he could go and fuck himself!*

We do have another viewing on Thursday, so it looks like tomorrow will be mostly cleaning and tidying.

I did also brighten up the outside of the house by planting the raised bed with marigolds.  This has become an annual event over the past few years.  The bed is situated alongside the footpath and the orange of the marigolds add a welcome splash of colour to this rather austere aspect of the property.  The locals seem to love  it and are always very complimentary when they see us preparing and planting out the bed.

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*  We want to sell the house, but we are not desperate.  We have no intention of letting some tyre kicking arsehole walk through our home, spouting bullshit in an attempt to screw the price down below market value.

The bubble burst

Today we found out that our prospective buyers would not be making a further offer and had, in fact, submitted an offer on 30%'s "Uncle Brian's" house.

Obviously, Uncle Brian is well aware of our situation.  When they viewed his house he noted that they didn't seem that interested and his current opinion is that he doesn't trust them as far as he could throw them.  He is yet to respond to their offer.

We are very disappointed but, having completed the post match analysis, the warning flags were there from the start.  The Estate Agents had indicated that they didn't show the normal behaviours of a buyer* and the lack of response after we rejected their opening offer was certainly not the norm.  The more we think about it, the more we conclude that it was never a proper offer and it is better for the sale to fall through now, than after we had spent a few thousand on Solicitor and Surveyor fees.

We are both very cross and very disappointed at having to withdraw our offer on the cottage, but we have a couple more viewings of The Pile in the pipeline, so let's just wait and see.

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*  Remember, they viewed the house three times, including a visit for their daughter to "chose her new bedroom".  Their feedback was gushingly positive ... and then just lost all interest when their opening offer was knocked back. Strange!

Surely it can't be that difficult?

This morning started with a delivery ...

I've been in contact with a chap down in the village who is anxious to get a nucleus colony of bees installed in his new hive.  To be honest, I'm not sure* that he is sufficiently prepared, but all I can do is give him a few pointers and hope that he a) listens,  b) follows sound advice and c) joins a club and gets himself a mentor.

So, as I said, this morning I trundled down to his house and spent forty minutes installing six frames of bees in his hive.  He is going to have a few challenges as my frames aren't really compatible with his hive.  I've already mentioned that he isn't properly prepared and not being aware that there are several frame and hive types, most of which are not cross-compatible, was his first major crime.**  For Fuck's Sake!  Keeping bees is challenging enough, without making it even more complicated by trying to migrate bees from one type of hive to another. 

Anyway, the frames were introduced and I left him with some basic instructions to follow over the next days and weeks.  I don't want him to fail,  but, at the same time, I have no desire to take on another mentee.*** 

I've advised him to do weekly inspections, but does he know what he is actually looking for?  Can he identify queen cups and swarm cells? Can he spot eggs and young larvae?  Can he even identify a worker, drone or queen?  The list of questions and concerns is as long as my arm, but 30%'s advice is ringing in my ears "You've done everything you can, its his problem now".

The problem is that I feel a sense of responsibility for the future of the colony.  I don't want a novice beekeeper's ignorance to lead to the demise of a colony of honey bees.

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*  Actually I am bloody positive that he is nowhere near sufficiently prepared.  His comment that he had "watched a few YouTube videos" told me that he has severely underestimated the knowledge and skill needed to maintain a colony or two.

**  Try fitting a Ford fuel injection system to a Volvo and see how far you get. 

*** This is a hideous word and I actually cringe as I type it.

A bit of normality

Earlier in the week Bubbles sent me a WhatsApp asking if I fancied going clay pigeon shooting this morning. 

It has been more than ten weeks since I last shot* and I'm not that good at the best of times, so I was expecting to be absolutely appalling after two and half months without laying a finger on a shotgun.  There was also going to be the novelty of the new social distancing procedures that had been implemented to minimise the risk of infection.  It was going to be a strange mix of familiar and new routines.

It was quite reassuring to go through the pre-shoot routine.  110 fibre wad cartridges in the bag ... check.  Ear plugs and shooting glasses ... check.  Hat, shooting gilet and licence ... check.  Finally I unlocked the gun safe, pulled my Browning out of her "sock" and zipped her in to a gun slip.  I was ready to go out and smash some clays.

Today's shooting ground of choice was the Hereford & Worcester ground over on the other side of Redditch.  Bubbles had got us booked in for a 10.15 start and we navigated our way through the new one-way system to pay and enter the ground.

I volunteered to shoot first at stand #1 and was somewhat apprehensive as I loaded and shouldered my gun.  I called "pull" and Bubbles released the first clay.  I tracked the clay's path, fired and missed.  There was no time to think as the sound of the first shot was the signal for Bubbles to release the second clay.  I picked up the path of the second clay, took aim and fired.  I was rewarded with the sight of clay fragments raining down.  

It is fair to say that I was somewhat relieved that I had managed to "get my eye in" and hit one of the targets.  Eight more clays followed in quick succession and my score for the first stand was 5/10.  It's not a great score, but after a ten week gap I was happy enough ... it could have been a whole lot worse.

Before lockdown my percentage score was mid to high fifties on a good day and forties on a not so good day.  Today I managed 56% and was quite chuffed.  Bubbles is a far better shot than I, and scored a solid 81%.

Bubbles did say "You'd better check my maths"

The thing is, we both agreed that the shooting was great.  What can't you love about using a shotgun to blow targets to smithereens? However, the camaraderie was equally as important.  It was lovely to wander around in the sun talking bullshit, catching up on each other's news and alternating between congratulating great shots and ripping the piss when we missed the easy ones.

Now I've got to clean my gun.

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*  14th March at Hailes Shooting Ground

The suspense is intense

Our BAFO* on Pile #2 has been accepted.  There was a momentary pause for a minor celebration, but we still need to get a firm offer in place on The Pile.  Our potential buyers have been in contact with the Estate Agent, advising that they had viewed another property yesterday, but "it wasn't for them".  They have another house to look at this afternoon** and then they will get back to the Agent about our house.  They say that they, and their daughter, love our house, so we can only wait and see.

You can rest assured that we are constantly revisiting our decisions and second guessing each and every one of them.  Should we have accepted their only offer?  Surely everyone comes in with a low bid at first?  Then there is the forensic analysis and reanalysis of the scant facts with the hope that the cosmic tumblers will, once again, click in to place an unlock a new future for us.

30% keeps telling me that "it will happen if it is meant to be", but, as you have probably worked out,  I'm not a great believer in fate*** and am currently thinking "have we fucked this up"?

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*  Best and final offer.

**  This turned out to be the home of 30%'s "Uncle Brian".  It is £50K more expensive than ours and has the space they need, but not the location.  30% interrogated Uncle B via FaceBook and his view was that they didn't seem that interested.

*** Now the bell shaped curve of probability is a completely different thing.  Everybody gets lucky once in a while.

Who is going to blink first?

It came as no surprise that our opening offer on the property was rejected.  It was £20K under the asking price, but surely no-one starts a negotiation with their best and final offer?

Well, it appears that may be the case with our potential buyers.  The feedback from the Agents is that they are not going to come back with another offer and are, in fact, now going to look at other properties in the area.

So today was spent with very high stress levels with both of us wondering whether we had messed up by not accepting the one and only offer on The Pile.  We are both aware that it was a very good offer and was only 3.33% less than our asking price.  Have we fucked this up?

Later in the day 30% did some social media stalking of our potential buyer and discovered that she was a senior buyer for an automobile manufacturer.  This is a women that understands the art of negotiation and this had a somewhat calming effect.

Are we in a staring contest where it is a case of who will blink first?  If she blinks we get a few more grand and that will certainly help with fees and stamp duty.  If we blink first the buyer gets the house for her opening offer.

Our desire to buy the house we have viewed is obviously a massive incentive to cave in and accept the offer.  It is fair to say that this is a nerve wracking situation.

We have done our sums and worked out that we can afford to buy the new house for its asking price, based on what our potential buyer has offered.  We will need to hit our savings hard, but we are willing to do so.

This evening we submitted an increased offer on the new house, well aware that we can't proceed until our potential buyer blinks.

It looks perfect

With an offer made on The Pile, we promptly made an appointment to view the property that we had driven out to look at last Saturday.

At eleven o'clock this morning we turned up for our viewing and were both bowled over by the house, its gardens and its views over South Worcestershire.  Admittedly it will need redecorating and, in time, the kitchen and bathrooms will need to be updated, but it is a property where you could just move in and enjoy your new home.

We both absolutely loved it and put in an opening offer as soon as we got home ...

The only problem is that our potential buyers haven't come back to us with an improved offer.  It is fair to say that our stress levels have not subsided.

A disturbance in The Force

The possibility of moving house suddenly got very real!

After more than fifteen years here at The Pile we have become very accustomed to our environment and our daily routines.  One might say "stuck in a rut". If that is the case, it is a very pleasant "rut" and I would argue that we have just become very settled to, and comfortable with, our life here in the village.

There was, therefore, a massive disturbance in The Force today, when we received a very respectable offer for the house.  All of a sudden everything that seemed permanent was not.  Our future was unclear and a thousand questions filled our heads.  

It is fair to say that both of us were very unsettled by this sudden turn of events.  I know that this is the natural order of things when you put your house up for sale, but after the complete lack of interest a couple of years ago, we didn't expect anything ... but we did hope.

Needless to say we have politely rejected the first offer.  As I said, it was a good offer, but surely the prospective buyer has left some wiggle room and can up a little more ... After all we have conveyancing, removals and stamp duty to consider.

Other stuff

Obviously 30% and I are in a head spin as a result of today's news, but life goes on and there were a couple of other noteworthy events ...

Firstly, Dog #3's recent behaviour can now be explained.  She has come in to season over the weekend and is unbelievably clingy at the moment.  She is a complete "wuss" at the best of times, but can now be found lying outstretched on the sofa with a pained expression and exhibiting the occasional whimper.*  

I also grabbed a camera and took a few pictures of the Moto Guzzi to preserve her for posterity.

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*  This could be due to the indignity of having to wear a pair of Huggies pull-ups to prevent any mess. 

Weekend round-up

It's the end of a relaxing, yet stressful, long weekend. Let me explain ...

Saturday

I've already recounted that we had a second viewing of The Pile On Friday.  Well, early on Saturday morning the phone rang and it was the Estate Agents.  A third viewing had been requested with the stated purpose of "allowing the children to choose their bedrooms".  The family are obviously very keen, but isn't it more appropriate to agree a selling price before choosing where the kids will sleep?

30% was somewhat stressed by this rather bizarre situation, especially as Social Distancing is still in place and viewings should be kept to a minimum. She had a lengthy conversation with the Agent that climaxed with the advice that the prospective buyer should "shit or get off the pot".  I must admit I smiled to myself as I listened to her rant at the Agent. I attempted to calm her down and see the positive side of things, we definitely have a fish on the line and now we just need to stay calm and reel it in.

Much of Saturday morning was spent tidying the house in preparation for viewing #3, although 30% and I did have time to display a possibly serious error in judgement ...

We drove  few miles down the road to do a "drive by" of a property that seems to be just what we want.  It has land, a lovely view and is on a quiet lane, yet is within easy reach of the local town.  It looks like it could be perfect for us, but we cannot get a viewing until we have an offer on The Pile.  

The result is that 30% and I are now stuck in a complicated emotional stew of desire, frustration, anticipation and fear.

Sunday

A good chunk of Sunday was spent inspecting the hives.  The weather was just about warm enough, but the bees weren't flying well and the hives were stuffed with irritable workers.  All seemed well and the queen in the most recent shook swarm seems about to start laying.  

Sunday's inspection did have another objective.  Aa a result of Wednesday's chimney clearing escapade, I have been contacted by a chap who wants a nucleus of bees for a hive that his wife gave him as a present.  As a consequence I was looking at which of my queens I was prepared to let go would be suitable for him.  The prospective beekeeper is a nice enough chap, but he has virtually no knowledge of beekeeping beyond watching a few videos on YouTube!  He has a lot to learn in a very short space of time!*

The afternoon was started with a kip on the sofa before I headed outside and finally threw a bucket of water over the Moto Guzzi.  After her sponge bath, I wheeled her in to a sunny spot to dry off in the evening sun while 30% and I enjoyed the calm that comes at the end of the day.

Monday

The weather was scorching from the start, so I opened up the garage doors, assembled cloths and cleaning products and spent most of the morning and early afternoon polishing the Guzzi.  She now looks presentable and I need to photograph her before she gets grubby again.

The afternoon saw a trip to Redditch for a socially distanced afternoon tea with Mr and Mrs Tweedy in their garden.  It was Mr Tweedy's birthday and fun couple of hours were spent catching up on their news whilst partaking of tea and cake.

So, that's a quick summary of a long weekend.  The next few days could be interesting, exciting or very disappointing.

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*  I did give him a bit of advice and suggested that he joined a local beekeeping club and got himself a mentor.  I got the feeling that this seed of wisdom fell on stony ground, so I made it absolutely clear that I would give him a bit of advice, but was not willing to mentor him ...

I made that mistake a while back and spent eighteen months being accompanied for an entire beekeeping season by a chap who was intent on having a Top Bar Hive.  From the very start I advised him against it and pointed out the various failings and limitations of this third world beekeeping practice.  He steadfastly ignored my advice and I ended up spending a lot of time developing an approach to produce a nucleus colony that would fit in his non-standard hive.

The nuc was delivered and I saw very little of him after that, although when I last bumped in to him, at VI's funeral, he advised that he was giving up the Top Bar and moving to National Hives. At no point did he apologise for wasting my time or ignoring my advice and, to add insult to injury, he promised a curry to "thank" me for my mentoring and the nuc.  I'm still waiting!

Another long weekend

It was the start of yet another long weekend.

For most of May I have worked part-time and have really enjoyed the new balance between working and non-working days.  This new working pattern stemmed from the fact that 30% and I had planned to spend a few days down on The Gower at the beginning of the month.  That mini-break got cancelled, so, with the agreement of my Boss, I rescheduled my three days of holiday across the entire month. Basically I tacked them on to the weekends. This gave me three four day weeks and one three day week, as I took advantage of the two Bank Holidays.

Although I was allegedly not working, my days was already looking fairly busy.  I had arranged for "the impulse buy" to be serviced and MOT'd down at Arden Motorcycles in Alcester.  We also had a couple coming back for a second viewing of The Pile.  As a consequence I was either schlepping to and fro between home and Alcester or tidying up the house and garden.

Today I thought I'd jot down the story of the impulse buy...

TP and I like to go the Motorcycle Live event in Birmingham. It takes place every year around the time of his Birthday and, as we both love bikes, it's an event that we can both enjoy together and relate to it on equal terms.  30% likes to call it "male bonding". I suppose I see it as a maturing of our father/son relationship.

We attended the event back in 2018 and, frankly, we were not overly impressed with the styling of the 2019 models being presented.  They looked very similar to each other and their ultra-modern styling didn't appeal to either of us.   We found ourselves drawn to the more retro designs being produced by manufacturers such as Triumph, Royal Enfield ... and Moto Guzzi.

We lingered at the Guzzi display and both agreed that every one of their limited range of models was a delight of Italian design and individuality.  Their transversely mounted, air cooled V-twin engines are a prominent feature and were proudly incorporated in to the designs.  It is fair to say we both rather liked them.

For the preceding few years Moto Guzzi had been very successful with their V7 model range and one model had really caught my eye.  In 2016 they went from the V7 ii to the V7 iii and produced a limited edition model called the V7 ii Stornello.  It is a Street Scrambler design with a red, tubular frame, white paintwork on the tank and brushed aluminium mudguards.  It was a lovely bike, but there were only one thousand of them spread across the whole planet.

Our experience at the Bike Show rekindled my interest in the Stornello and, shortly after the event, I casually entered the model in to a Google search field.  I found a beauty about sixty miles away and, on impulse made a call to the Seller.  It was eighteen months old with only 1600 miles on the odometer.  The previous owner had bought it new, ridden it for a while and then px'd it against another bike.  After a very short discussion with 30%, I put down a holding deposit and arranged to view it...

By early December it was delivered and I couldn't wait to see the look on TP's face when he came home for Christmas and saw what his idiot Father had gone and done.

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Post script:  The purchase of the Guzzi was really the death knell for the Bonneville.  They both had the roughly the same amount of power, but the MG was much lighter and consequently performed and rode far better than the Bonnie ever would.  Its limited edition status also gave it an individuality that the Bonneville could never attain.

I would have added a picture in this entry but the Stornello is embarrassingly filthy, so that will have to wait until after I have "thrown a bucket of water over her".

My dog is a little shit!

This morning I was roused much earlier than I wanted to be.

I was dragged from the depths of sleep by dog #3 licking one of my hands. I withdrew it under the covers and the little bugger moved down the bed and found a foot poking out from under the duvet. That got licked too.  Having seemingly got tired of licking that foot, it then rummaged around until it found my other foot and gave it the same licky treatment.

By this time I was most definitely awake and I cracked one eyelid.  The light level told me that it was well before six o'clock and I groaned inwardly.  You see, the problem is that once I am awake I find it virtually impossible to fall back to sleep or lie in.  I knew that I was going to have to get up as it seemed that the dog wanted to be let out for a pee. My night's sleep was definitely over.

I checked my watch and saw that it was five, fifteen.  I'll repeat that; the little bugger had woken me at quarter past bloody five!  Now. I'm happy to rise at six, but this was unacceptable.  Clothes were thrown on and dog #3 jumped off the bed and trotted happily to the bedroom door.

We made our way downstairs and I grabbed the keys and unlocked the door to the garden.  The little sod had no interest in going out in to the garden.  She headed straight to the lounge and curled up in her favourite spot on the sofa.

The bloody thing then snoozed for a couple of hours until the Marauder and Whiffler woke and, only then, went out to desecrate the lawn.

I don't like heights

As a beekeeper I seem to have become the "go to guy" for any Hymenopterid related issue that may arise in the vicinity.  If a friend or acquaintance encounters a swarm, a wasp nest or even bumblebees in the garden I seem to get a call.  It actually goes beyond that and I now get a summons if friends of friends have an insect problem!

I don't really mind and am happy to offer advice or guidance. I'm also happy to collect a swarm. provided it is within easy reach.  I am certainly not going to put myself at risk climbing up trees to collect a swarm, especially as I already have more colonies than I really want or need.*

So, how on earth did I find myself forty feet in the air on a scaffolding tower, wearing a bee suit and looking down a redundant chimney?

For the past few weeks I have been consulted intermittently by a friend who has bees in one of his chimneys.  The chimney is no longer in use and the friend has had scaffolding erected so that he can re-point the brickwork.  He is no fan of being stung and consequently wanted my advice about the bees that appeared to be in residence.  We initially thought that they were masonry bees, but found them to be honey bees when a brick was removed from and he found himself peering at comb crawling with bees.  I was sent a WhatsApp image and asked what to do.

This wild colony probably originated as a swarm and had viewed the hollow of the capped chimney as the perfect place to settle, they live in hollow trees, small caves and crevices in the wild and a chimney is a handy man-made substitute.  There was no way to remove the colony without significant risk, so the decision was taken to use a chemical insecticide to kill them** and enable the removal of the combs.

The insecticide was applied about a week ago and this afternoon I turned up with a couple of bee suits and we were soon high in the air looking at bees buzzing around the chimney.  As it says in the title; I really don't like heights and I was very conscious of being so high. Even more so, when I had to climb up off the platform and perch on a scaffold rail to peer down the chimney.

The weird thing was that my fear of heights disappeared as soon as I found myself inspecting the comb blockage.  Apparently doing something normal is a great distraction from one's phobias.  Over the next forty minutes we dug out fifty or sixty pounds of sticky honey comb that extended a couple of feet down the chimney. This bagged and lowered to the ground and then we celebrated our ingenuity with beers in the sun.

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* I worked out that four colonies are more than sufficient.  I can take a reasonable honey harvest from them and their management takes a couple of hours every week, leaving me enough time for family and other interests.  If I loose a colony over the Winter there are still three remaining and a split or shook swarm can be taken to replace any losses...  The problem is that bees do like to reproduce and I overwintered six colonies and currently have eight spread over two apiaries!

** This may seem harsh, but this pest removal rather than the destruction of threatened British wildlife in their natural habitat.

Politicking

This morning found me with my nose to the grindstone reviewing feedback on the recommendations that I had spouted before disappearing for a long weekend.

It was no surprise that I had ruffled Colleague R's feathers.  He needs to understand that his reign is over and the brave new world is going to fall under my dominion rather than his.   I may need to calm him down, but it'll do him good to stew and lick his wounds for a couple of days and I am never in a rush to talk to him ... on any day of the week.

As for Colleague M, I had heard nothing from him directly, although I had seen a couple of emails that reinforced my view that he is a bone idle fucker that does the bare minimum to push a task forward. I have worked with him on previous occasions  and am well aware of his shortcomings. It is unfortunate that my boss never took enough interest to work out what the rest of the team have known for a long, long time.  As a result I ensure that I always give him clear and documented direction and follow up on a regular basis to make sure he is doing a half-arsed approximation of what he is supposed to.

I managed to grab ten minutes with my Boss to have a quick chat and to ensure that he was crystal clear on the whys and wherefores of my recommendations.  He had already agreed to my approach, but I just wanted to double check before I committed resources. The clock is slowly ticking down to the end of June when the contracts expire and I don't want to pulled up in a couple of weeks' time and asked "why the hell are you doing that"?

In summary; my day was spent talking to a number of colleagues and my manager to ensure that we were all aligned and in agreement with my plan of action.  If I wasn't playing politics, I was setting up meetings to get the plan moving.

Oh, and a couple came to see the house. We don't think they were particularly impressed to be asked to wear masks or gloves for the viewing and the feedback suggests that this wasn't what they were loooking for.

A busy weekend

It is fair to say that my three day weekend was fairly busy.  Our primary goal was to get the house and garden cleaned and decluttered in preparation for the viewing on Tuesday. 

In addition to the Spring Clean, TP needed assistance with bottling twenty litres of home brewed IPA and he also had a young cheddar cheese that needed to be coated in beeswax before it was placed in the cellar to mature.  He is certainly trying to keep himself occupied during the lockdown.

There were also bees to be inspected, lawns to be mowed and dogs to be walked. At the risk of repeating myself, it was a busy weekend.  I won't create a boring narrative of domesticity, but will note down a couple of things that amused or interested me.

Firstly, I inspected the hive from which I created a shook swarm in mid-April.  I am pleased to report that the new queen has mated and has started to lay.  Hopefully she will have the colony back up to strength in the next few weeks and they will continue to add to the honey already stored in the hive's supers.

The second was an amusing discussion that I crashed in to.  30% and TP were discussing the impact of the lockdown on students and graduates and ended up talking about the son of one of her colleagues.  Apparently he was due to go to University in September, but was considering taking a gap year to concentrate on his sporting interests.  We were advised that "he is one of the best swimmers in the Country".  My pithy response was "What, better that a duck?"  After a few minutes of analysis it was determined that, however good this chap was, there were a significant number of British ducks or pike, for that matter, that could out-swim him.

What a couple of wankers!

I've already mentioned that my Boss has asked me to manage the handover of work from a pair of Contractors that will be moving on in a couple of month's time.  They both have a reputation for being wind bags and slackers and, so far, my findings have reinforced that view.

Today I had workload review calls arranged with both of them and I turned up promptly for the first with Contractor M.  I had already picked up M's most significant piece of work because he hadn't got a clue how to move it forward to completion. As we worked our way through his very short list it was apparent that he had one key task that needed attention and he had done fuck all with it in the three weeks that it had sat in his work stack.

He has been coasting for a while now and, if I am honest, there is little point in kicking his arse at this late stage*.  Instead, I pointed out that he had an administrative role looking after a configuration management database and he was going to be spending the next few weeks preparing a "Dummies Guide" and performing knowledge transfer to some selected colleagues. 

He is an evasive little fucker and I am going to have to keep a close eye on him to ensure that all of this happens. Step 1 in the management of this was a full set of meeting notes with actions that were issued to him and our Boss.

The second call was with Contractor R and this took place about forty minutes later.  I had been focussing on this chap's work stack since the beginning of April and had already proven that eight of his nine work activities required zero input from him.

At this point I will acknowledge that the ninth work activity is a bit of a beast, but I had spent the past few days preparing for this call and had summarised the task, the deliverables and the fact that all Colleague R needed to do was prepare a Service Description Document.

We spent the next eighty minutes in the most ridiculous discussion where it rapidly became apparent that R had absolutely no plan to close out this work activity.  It appears that he is simply revelling in attending inconclusive customer calls and claiming that a lack of requirements is preventing progress.

I'm a completer/finisher by nature and this situation is absolutely abhorrent to me.  This chap is being paid a fortune and is happy to coast along spouting nonesensical bullshit to conceal the fact that he is making no attempt to drive this activity to conclusion.

It is fair to say that I came very close to going ballistic at a few points in this discussion, but kept my temper in reasonable check and formulated a plan to delimit the requirements as they were currently understood and to develop the solution definition document to align with the pricing that is being developed by a frolleague of mine.

Funnily enough my manager got another meeting summary with a proposal that the current documentation should be abandoned and that I should manage the production of the necessary document. 

Let's see what he says when I get back in to work on Tuesday.

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*  and that would be my Boss' job, not mine

Furniture Polish recipe

The main purpose of this journal is jot down the comings and goings of life, things that amuse or irritate me and useful pieces of information that I want to note down for perpetuity.  Basically it's part diary, part scrapbook, part jotter.

It was a quiet day today, so I thought I'd note down a recipe for furniture polish that I had made at the back end of 2018.  I made a couple of jars, so have a plentiful supply.  Its likely to be years before I need to refer to the recipe again ... but at least I stand a chance of finding it in here.

I suppose I had better start with a warning. If you attempt to make this polish you will be working with highly flammable substances and you do so at your own risk. I'm not responsible if you set fire to yourself.

Ingredients

1/3 Beeswax

1/3 Boiled Linseed Oil

1/3 Pure Gum Turpentine (not the synthetic stuff)

Method

1. Measure out the ingredients.
2. Put the turps and linseed oil in sealed jars and put these in warm water to heat both the jars and the contents.  The aim of this stage is to pre-warm these substances safely.  If cold turps and linseed oil are added to the melted beeswax, it will solidify quickly unless it is kept over the heat.  By pre-warming these solvents it should be possible to blend them with the beeswax away from any source of ignition. Do not use a Bain-marie, double boiler or any other stove top device. Put the sealed jars in a washing up bowl and add hot water from the tap or kettle. As the water cools replace it with warmer water to keep the solvents nice and warm.
3. Melt the bees wax in a Bain-marie or double boiler.
   Once melted remove from the heat and turn off any sources of ignition
4. Add the warmed Linseed Oil to the melted beeswax and stir well
   If the wax starts to solidify it will be necessary to return the container to the Bain-marie, which should be warm enough to melt the contents without the need for the external heat sources.
5. Finally add the heated Turpentine and stir well.
6. Pour in to the warmed jars and leave to set

Note: test the polish on a concealed area of any item you plan to polish to ensure it is compatible with the wood finish.  

Shit! We need to tidy up

Back in August 2018 we actually put The Pile up for Sale.

Many people were surprised by this. "You have a lovely home", "You've made so many friends in the village" and "you will be really missed" are a sample of the lovely comments in response to the sight of our "For Sale" board.

Each of these comments was absolutely correct and we both acknowledged that, if the house didn't sell for the right price, we would live happily here into our dotage. However, if we could get a buyer we would love a similar sized property in a quieter location with a small parcel of land, say an acre or two.

The fact that we are still at The Pile today is evident that we didn't attract a buyer. After about twelve months on the property market we got fed up with the stream of idiots that came to see the house and their nonsensical feedback after viewing*, so we took it off the market.

The recent reduction in road traffic, as only essential journeys were undertaken, has reinforced our view that we would love a property in a quieter location. As a result 30% got on the 'phone to the Agents and the house was put back on the market a few days ago.

We didn't expect much to happen as Estate Agencies were in tick over mode and video viewings were the rule. However, Sunday's Ministerial announcement relaxing the English Social Distancing Regulations has enabled the housing market to restart.

Today we had our first request for a viewing and, with guidance from the agents, had to consider how this should proceed ... we decided to go with "face masks, gloves and they look but don't touch anything".

As it says in the title of today's entry, it looks like we need to tidy the house.**

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* I could go on at length about the viewers. 

There was the one that was downsizing, but wanted an artists studio and couldn't see that any of the four bedrooms, four reception rooms,  cellarage and double garage might serve this purpose. This is despite the fact that floor plans were provided with the house brochure. 

There was another that advised that she loved the house, but the garden wasn't large enough as she wanted to keep chickens ... we have a flock of fifteen layers that she cooed over when she visited. One can only think that she wanted a 5,000 strong, commercial laying flock as a garden feature!

** Apparently many people went overboard with cleaning and tidying as they went in to lockdown. We definitely did not!

Number crunching

I was absolutely delighted to be back at my desk, working my way through a surprisingly long list of emails that had accumulated in the couple of days I had been away from work.

In fact, I was so delighted that I had to use a reward system to encourage myself to "get my arse into gear".

I had spent the past couple of days refining some crappy wax comb in to a 3lb disk of beeswax.  My reward was to allow myself to continue with the refining of the wax provided that I did some bloody work first.

Consequently my morning was spent reviewing raw data and collating information in to a solution cost model that became more complex by the minute.

As midday approached I deemed that I had earned a break, so decided to refine some of the beeswax.

The large disk of wax had been broken apart and divided in to four roughly equal portions. One of these was melted in a double boiler on the hob.  It was then filtered through some fine cotton fabric to remove any remaining crud.  After cooling I was left with an aromatic block of beeswax.

Over the course of the day I returned to this activity, whenever I felt that I had earned a break, and ended up with four blocks of wax that will be perfect for candles, hand cream, shoe or furniture polish.

Oh, and I also produced a rather fabulous set of pricing options and associated financial analysis.

Boris may have overestimated his electorate's intellect

I had today booked off as holiday, making this the final day of a four day weekend.  It was going to be another cold day, so my plan was to stay inside as much as possible.

I started the day by carrying on with the beeswax rendering process that I started yesterday. The four disks of wax were broken up and melted together in hot water. Then they were, again, poured through a sieve in to a container and left to cool.

The cooling would take a good few hours, so I joined 30% on an expedition to Redditch to pick up a few "essentials".  She headed in to the super market and it was agreed that I should visit the DIY store next door for compost ...

It all seemed to start reasonably well. The store had laid out a queuing area and were restricting numbers entering the store. I was initially confused as to where the queue started*,  but eventually located the entrance to the queueing lane.  It was as I waited that things started to go wrong ...

Another potential customer wandered up and took up position in the queue no more that a meter behind me.  He seemed oblivious to the fact that he had breached my personal two meter exclusion zone as he surveyed the fine vista that is B&Q's carpark.  Fortunately the queue had started to shorten and I was able to increase the distance between us.  This odd cat and mouse game continued for the five or ten minutes of queueing. On occasions he seemed to observe social distancing and at other times he seemed not to be aware of how close he was to me.

I was soon permitted to enter the store and was able to shake him off my tail. My shopping trip went reasonably well and I soon had a trolley loaded with compost ... and this is the point when matters went awry once more.  

The store manager had laid out a one-way system to the tills to enforce social distancing.  Unfortunately, the stupid fucking idiot, had deemed a 5' wide hardware aisle as the best point of entry to the tills.  As I turned in to the aforementioned aisle I was confronted with three elderly gentlemen wandering up and down enjoying the wide variety of screws, nails and other assorted fixings on display.  There was no way I could pass down this aisle until they moved on.

These elderly gents were totally oblivious to the fact that they were blocking the only access to the tills and a queue started to develop behind me as I waited and hoped in vain that they woud develop a modicum of social awareness.  Eventually a helpful assistant appeared, moved the old farts on and the log jam was removed.  She also asked me to do her a favour and respond to the "How have we done today" feedback request, by pointing out what an idiotic arrangement had been put in place.**

The Government's advice has now changed from "stay at home" to "stay alert".  Based on my experiences today,  I think a significant portion of the population have been intellectually defeated by the specific instruction to stay home. How the fuck does Boris expect them to handle the more nuanced "stay alert"?

Let's see how the R number responds.

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* or is that where the queue ended? This is a puzzle, one starts to queue at the queue's end, but finish queuing at the queue's beginning. So, do I join a queue at it's end or beginning?

** Her actual request was focussed on the mental capacity of the Store Manager and a lot funnier.

Slumgum

Today I got around to a job that I had been putting off for a while. The day was forecast to be cold, so I committed myself to refining some beeswax in the garage.

Over the course of the beekeeping season I tend to accumulate a reasonable quantity of beeswax and today had been put aside to process it. This is not a job I enjoy. It is messy and there is a significant amount of work to produce perfect, yellow ingots of wax.

In its raw form beeswax is comb; brood comb, brace comb or honeycomb.  The comb is generally contaminated with honey, pollen, bee larvae, their faecal matter and pupal cases and the older the comb, the more contaminated it is.  Old brood comb is black from the accumulation of debris over time.*

So, this morning I settled in the garage, spread sheets on the floor and started to dismantle a dozen old brood combs. In no time I was covered in wax, squashed larvae and smears of honey...

Oh, and I had a heap of comb to process. I do this using an old rice cooker. About a pint of boiling water is added to the cooker and it is switched on. The comb is gradually added and within twenty minutes I have a gently bubbling mass of black pupal casings.  This is poured through a sieve in to a bucket and is left to cool.  A few hours later I am left with a reasonably clean disk of wax floating on a soup of water, pollen and honey.  The disk of wax is rinsed and set to one side.

I repeated this process three more times and I ended up with a reasonable quantity of beeswax that will be ready for the next steps tomorrow.

3lb 3oz cylinder of beeswax

Now I had better explain the title of today's entry. Slumgum is the black, waxy collection of larvae, larval cases, pollen and other debris that is sieved from the melted wax.  Apparently it makes an excellent fire lighter for bonfires.

---

* It is good practice to change the brood combs every couple of years to minimise the bacterial and viral load in the hive.

Does this bode well for a good harvest?

Today was beautiful from the start and it was a simple delight to drink our morning coffee in the sun, watching the bees as they started to fly from the hives.

Once we had breakfasted I spent the morning inspecting the hives and was quite amazed by the one that produced the shook swarm on 19th April.  At this time of year the supers do not demand much attention and my main focus is on the activities of the queen and workers in the brood box.  However, I always take a quick look at a couple of super frames, just to see how much nectar is being stored and converted to honey.

The uppermost super on this hive was crammed with stores and the bees had already capped off* more than half of the cells.  This is very early, especially as there is very little oilseed rape growing nearby to support an early honey crop.  I estimated the weight of honey as close to twenty pounds and can only hope that the other hives do anywhere near as well as this one.

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* The bees will seal each cell with a cap of fresh wax once the moisture level in the honey has dropped below 20%.

Another essential journey?

Today was another beautiful day, made even better by the fact that it was a Bank Holiday.

I spent the morning pottering outside. The recently constructed supers were given a coat of Danish oil, frames were constructed and equipment was gathered for Saturday's hive inspections. I even managed to drag the mower out and trim the lawn before lunch.

Throughout the morning fragments of an idea tumbled around in my head.  Basically I had a memory stick holding some rather precious material.  30%'s dad's band had been persuaded to reform and play at our wedding and the stick contained a video recording of what is most likely their last ever performance.  I needed to deliver the memory stick to the man responsible for "getting the band back together".

At this point I need to introduce, give credit and offer huge thanks to Buzzer.  Buzzer was the lead guitarist in the band and can still be found gigging in a number of venues around Alcester.  He and his lovely wife have become very close friends over the years and they are affectionately known as my Alcester Mum and Dad.  It was Buzzer who basically used fairly unsubtle, emotional blackmail to "persuade" 30%'s dad to pick up his bass again and perform for his daughter's wedding.

So where have I got to?  It was a beautiful day. I'd completed most of my chores and I had a very small, but precious, item to be delivered...

I had motorcycles that were long overdue for riding and today was the day!

Only two of the bikes had a valid MOT certificate* and one of those was right at the back of the garage.  Being lazy, I was therefore left with no choice but to ride the most recent addition to my small collection; the R nineT.

I had admired this model since it's first release in 2014.  Last year I managed to find a little used 2015 bike with 6,000 miles on the clock.**  It was my first BMW and my first experience of a boxer twin engine.  My only regret is that I didn't get one years ago.  What a fantastic machine!  It isn't particularly large and is dominated by the two 600cc cylinders projecting from each side of the bike. Once you have thrown your leg over it, you feel like you are sitting on an enormous engine and not a lot more.

So, the R nineT was wheeled out and fired up. The route to Alcester includes a short, twisty section that is great to ride and the roads were traffic free. It was a delight to push her through the bends, but frustrating that I couldn't ride far as only "essential journeys" are currently permitted.

I found Buzzer, his good lady and their daughter all sat out in the sun dressed in 1940's fashion. Their entire street had decided to put on a "socially distanced" street party to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE day. It looked great fun, although I think my little Royal Enfield might have been more appropriate than a large German bike.

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* The Social Distancing Regulations have extended MOT expiry dates if they were due for expiry on, or after, 30 March 2020.
** barely run in.

Two minutes of calm

One morning in the week I had a brief interval of absolute calm.

For the shortest period I was focused on the absolute present and everything else; the plans for the day, the niggles, concerns and irritations simply faded away.  It was two minutes of simply delightful calm.

It happened shortly before I started work. I wandered upstairs to brush my teeth and, after applying toothpaste to the brush and hitting the start button, I wandered to the bedroom window and looked out at the flowering cherry that sits just outside.

A flash of movement caught my eye and I spend the next two minutes watching a pair of blue tits flit amongst the branches collecting insects, presumably for their hatchlings.

It was two minutes of my life where nothing intruded to disturb the moment.

I appreciate that this might seem a bit Zen, but I wish more of my day was like this.

Sometimes the Caveman approach is best

Now I'm a strong believer in using the right tool for the job and that there is a right way and a wrong way to complete a task, but today circumstances proved that sometimes crude and brutal works a treat...

Let me explain. This morning I was busily entering cost estimates into a new model when my Boss pinged me. "Badman" he typed "Can you do 15 minutes on today's team call about bees and beekeeping?"

For the love of God! I know things have been quiet recently, but I'm actually close to working a full day at the moment and preparing a talk about one of my hobbies for the fortnightly team talk was not a welcome addition to today's schedule.

Fortunately I had a PowerPoint presentation and accompanying notes from a talk I had given to the local Women's institute back in 2018. I swapped from my work laptop to my Mac and soon had the presentation attached to an email. I had assumed that it would be a simple matter to email it to my work email address. How wrong I was ...

On hitting send I was immediately informed that the file was too large and could not be handled by the Gmail server.  "No worries" I thought " can simply upload the file to the Cloud and then download it to my work machine". A few minutes later I was attempting to access my Cloud storage from my work machine and was presented with a variety of security messages instead of the chubby PowerPoint file.

After a couple of attempts I gave up and went the Caveman approach ...

The original presentation was broken down in to two files and these were sent in separate emails to my work machine.  It was a matter of a few minutes work to stitch them back together and I celebrated my crude ingenuity.

Now there are people out there that would have spent hours pissing around with network settings and use of other Cloud providers to transfer the file across the ether. 

I say "why"? 

From memory, this is the first time in my professional career that I have ever encountered this issue. Why would I want to spend my valuable time farting around trying to find another, possibly more elegant, solution to a problem that is highly unlikely to arise again?

Picture Post

Having scanned the last few Journal entries, I can see paragraph after paragraph of unbroken text, so today I thought I'd go with a Picture Post for a bit of variety.

These were taken back in August 2015 on a road trip in the US.  

We were driving Route 1 up the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles towards Monterey when, somewhere close to San Simeon,  30% spotted a sign indicating an Elephant Seal viewing area.  We pulled off the road, wandered towards the beach and were rewarded with the sight of close to one hundred seals hauled out on the beach. We were commenting on their impressive size when we looked out in to the breakers and saw this colossal bull come in on to the beach.

A local lady informed us that we were lucky to see him, as, at this time of year, most of the seals were this year's pups!  It was likely he was coming ashore for the annual moult. 

A change of plans

It is the start of the working week, but at least this one is only four days in length, as Friday is the early May Bank Holiday.

We had planned to be staying at the Oxwich Hotel on the Gower peninsula for three days of this week, but our mini break was scuppered as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak and the resulting Social Distancing regulations.

We used to stay at a rental property a few miles down the coast from Oxwich in Pwll Du near Bishopston. We first stayed there in 2012 and had the honour of being their first ever booking. We had many lovely stays there, but became disenamoured over time as the beach became busier and was no longer the secluded hideaway we first discovered.

Our trips to Pwll Du had given us the opportunity to explore the Gower and we had walked the sands of Oxwich Bay beach on several occasions.  Our visits to Oxwich often ended with a drink in the hotel bar as we rested after our exertions.

We discovered that the hotel was very dog friendly and became aware that they did various doggy deals featuring three nights for the price of two, complimentary cream teas and other tempting offers.  Our first stay was probably in early 2017 and we had a fantastic time.

Having been used to dog friendly actually meaning dog tolerant, it was a revelation to be welcomed and the dogs treated as honoured guests. Our rooms were spacious and each dog was provided with a bowl, a handful of treats, pooh bags and a towel for drying them off after a run on the beach.  We were treated just as well and were delighted to find that there was a "snug" where the dogs were welcome to curl up under the table as we enjoyed their splendid menu.

Over the past few years we have become regulars at the hotel, often visiting twice a year in early Spring and and again in the Autumn.  We had our "mini-moon" there in March immediately after our wedding and had planned to have a few fun days there this week with Grubby Sue and Mark.

Unfortunately that will have to be put on hold for a while and we'll just have to make do with the lanes around the village.

A new drinking game for the middle classes?

Since Saturday didn't involve bees, Sunday did.  I could go on at length about the fun and games in the Apiary, but won't as I'm well aware that the intricacies of beekeeping do not make the most enthralling read.

This morning we had some unusual avian visitors. The garden normally plays host to a few overweight pigeons and a handful of Jackdaws that wouldn't look out of place on a Game of Thrones set.  However, today we found four mallard ducks grazing the lawn.  There have been reports in the media of wildlife responding to the lockdown by becoming less fearful and reclaiming territory lost to humans and their infrastructure. It may be that the quiet had boosted their confidence.

We have, on occasions, had unusual birds in the garden and I can remember a golden pheasant and a red winged startling* making an appearance, but this is the first time I can ever recall waterfowl turning up.  It was rather nice to see them pottering around, but I don't want 30% to get too fond of them as she has a penchant for domestic poultry ... chickens yes, ducks definitely not.**

As I've already mentioned, the day was mostly filled with beekeeping, but I did managed to come up with a possible new drinking game for the British Middle Classes ...

All that is needed is a bottle of one's favourite spirit, a few shot glasses and access to any of Lucy Worsley's splendid documentaries.  The rule of the game is simplicity itself, settle down in front of the television with a shot of your chosen spirit in hand and watch the delightful Lucy as she does what she does best ... and take a shot every time she changes her outfit.

Respect will be earned in great measure for anyone who can make it to then end of the show and still walk out to the kitchen to top up the dips and nibbles.

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* Presumed to be an aviary escapee rather than a wild bird making a significant extension to its normal range of Central and Southern Africa
** They are very noisy and even messier than chickens!

A new look?

Today wasn't the most productive of Saturdays.  I assembled one of the supers that I'd collected on Thursday, 30% and I walked the dogs, I had a massive kip on the sofa and then, feeling guilty, ran the lawn mower around the garden.

This would be a very short entry if it weren't for the fact that I made something of a change to my appearance ...

My last haircut was back in late January and three months growth has turned my "grade two on the back and sides, short on the top and a tapered neck" into a scruffy mess.  My crown has become increasingly more head than hair over the past year, so I finally bit the bullet and let go of the minimal vanity I had about my hair.*

TP was instructed to get his clippers and within a very few minutes, my hair was littering the floor and 30% was muttering about collecting it and putting it out for the birds to use as nesting material.**

It is going to take a while to get used to seeing this new version of me when I catch sight of my reflection, but at least I don't have a head shaped like a potato.  30% has, however, now instructed me to shave, as a week's stubble doesn't work with a neatly shaved scalp.

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*  Bad Man Senior started to go bald in his late teens and, by his early 20's,  only had hair on the back and sides of his head.  From my earliest days I recall that he deployed a faintly ridiculous comb-over in an attempt to disguise his baldness.  The comb-over flapped in the slightest of breezes like a cheerful little pennant until his wife finally snipped it off when he was in his late seventies.
From my teen years I swore that I would never attempt to conceal my thinning scalp.  Fortunately I was somewhat more lucky than my Dad and, apart from a receding hairline leaving my with an obvious widow's peak, I managed to retain a half decent head of hair in to my 50s.
** This possibly amounts to animal cruelty!

The next two days are mine

There's not a lot to report for Friday. I avoided work as far as possible; dogs were walked and TP was given a modicum of assistance with his latest project, which is the construction of a cheese press.

Over the past few weeks, he has made ricotta and mozzarella and is now investigating the making of hard cheeses.  He has set his sights on producing a farmhouse cheddar and is in the R&D phase of the project. This morning I discovered him attempting to reorganising the garage and when I say "the garage" I clearly mean "my garage", so some gentle paternal guidance was provided.*  After a couple of hours he had constructed a working prototype and then headed upstairs to source a bacterial culture. ***

I've already mentioned that it was a quiet day, so I'll mention a couple of conversations we had as dinner was being prepared this week.

I suppose I had better set the scene. 30% tends to come in from work around 6.35 pm and we all tend to congregate in the kitchen for a drinks, nibbles and a chat about our days, whilst our evening meal is assembled.

The first conversation was with Marauder, who was mooching around begging for treats. I offered her a tortilla chip, which she wolfed down. She then looked up at me and asked if I didn't have anything better than "those crappy Mexican dog biscuits"!

The second was more of a learning experience for me ...

Thursday's dinner was a salad with baked potatoes and slices of pigeon and chicken terrine.  I had made the terrine a few months back and part of it had been frozen. I had also been instructed to put potatoes in the oven, so that they were ready shortly after 30% came in from work.

I learnt that it is not wise to claim that I had cooked dinner and that 30%'s sole contribution was the addition of garnish.

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* It would be fair to say that I am somewhat territorial about the garage. At this point it might be worth picturing a crazed, alpha male chimp having a full-on, screaming tantrum including the waving of branches and the throwing of faeces when his territory is invaded. It is, after all, my garage.
30% is, grudgingly, permitted entry provided she limits her activities to the deposit or removal of items from the freezer.
TP needs close supervision as, at the tender age of 23, he has yet to be trusted to follow the rules of the garage.**
** 1) Don't touch anything
     2) If you touch anything, put it back exactly where you took
         it from
     3) If it's plugged in and switched on, fucking leave it plugged
         in and switched on
     4) If you don't know what you're doing, ask
     5) see rule no. 1
*** Take your choice between an internet searching session or a commentary on the state of his bedroom!

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.