When Midnight Comes At Noon

 Took the title from a Daniel Easterman novel, although just referring to the early morning darkness on my walks this week, and not what actually happens in the novel. Last week I did little walking this week it's been a lot.

This week my main network hard disk died so need to sort another one so that I can listen to music round the house , the backup drive is doing fine but a bit smaller. We expect things to last forever but they don'yt always.

There is no real sign of this lockdown ending so we have sort of drifted into an alternate reality, mask wearing , and avoiding contact, I'm not sure when I'll see any friends again, and I still remember the last friend I had physical contact with was Sophia which was a hug as we finished a lunch at Snackwallah.

The working from home has enabled me to catch up on a great deal of music, although I am barely scratching the surface of my own music collection, and my own collection while large is a mere dot on the universe of music.

One other thing is that I have managed to curb my chocolate addiction , I have had two 100g bars courtesy of The Co-Op and Morrisons for my birthday , and they were very nice but I have not felt a desire for any more. Tesco didn't give me one.

So it's late at night , and my posts have been sparse this month , so song time . One of the songs that impressed me was "Season of The Witch" from the album "Bang Bang You're Terry Reid" , also a rather good album, so that's what I'll play out the week with.

Hello Again Hot Chocolate

It's 4am on a Wednesday morning and I should be asleep but have been woken up by a tickly cough, so have made a cup of hot chocolate to coat my throat and hopefully get an hour's sleep before I get up for work.. Basically I have stuff running down into my throat causing the tickle and that's what's causing me to cough and wake up, but I am tired and want to go back to sleep. The hot chocolate is helping.

The other thing is that Feedburner has picked up the blog again so yesterday the blog overall got over 1,000 hits rather than the normal 50-100 jhits , so not sure if this is just a daily spike or if I will get another month like May and June which hit 20K and 25K respectively, it it does then the blog will hit quarter of a million visits by mid September as it's currently sitting at 229K so that would be nice.

The thing is chocolate and paracetamol are scientifically the best things for treating a cough as the chocolate coats your throat better than any cough medicine according to several articles such as this one although this one says not.

So "Sleepwalk" by Santo & Johnny, the inspiration behind Peter Green & Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" would be suitable before I go and get a little rest before work.

Tickle

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I'm not going to work tomorrow, or Monday and not going to do anything this weekend. The doc says I have something unpronounceable on my left side and has provided me with a five day antibiotics course. The situation is that I have the most aggressive tickly cough which waits til I'm about to sleep then kicks in causing and coughing fit, not the most restful situation.

I was in bed at eight and it's now ten thirty and sitting up writing this is giving me some respite,, although the chunks of Galaxy plus Buttercup Syrup and other sundry druggy things are keeping it at bay though not sure for how long.

I really had no intention of writing this but I am just hoping it can lull my whole body into a sense of sleepiness. I really can't take any more chocolate and I am not sure what other options I have.

If I do drop off I don't have to get up tomorrow, the doc recommended a couple of days off and spoke with a couple of bosses today before tidying things up and setting my OOO.

I will leave you with the excellent "Take The Skinheads Bowling" by Camper Van Beethoven which is just a wonderful song and can bring a ray of brightness into the most mundane of situations.

I Didn't Make A New Year's Resolution

I didn't make a New Year's Resolution . It didn't slip my mind because every year I just resolve to try and be happier and compassionate for my friends , family and people in need. The New Year is a good place to start , but really my plans involve just doing the best I can in all areas.

Some people see Christmas as a time for being nice before spending the last year acting like an unreality show judge or competitor. I will go into work today and that is going to be a topic of conversation.

There is plenty in this world to go round everyone , and working together will create even more, greed IS NOT good.

King Charles

So if you haven't made a New Year's Resolution let my vague premise be  your guide. Today will be the first day back at work for many people. Be positive , be nice ,  smile a lot , and take chocolate with you , plenty of chocolate.

I chose this King Charles song , because , well I dare you to listen , and not come away feeling happier. Smiling is good.

Have a brilliant , brilliant day.

How To Make Your Weekend Better - Hug Someone

Pet Lamb Cup Cakes

The weekend is here , Autumn has come , the mornings are dark , but you are probably lying in bed as I write this as really I should be , but I just thought what could make a good thing a little better. I'm actually doing something for work this weekend , it's not been asked and actually gently discouraged , but the people I work with are great guys and I am happy to put in a little extra effort because I know that they would do the same for me. I brought in cake yesterday because that's the sort of think we do , except I got mine from Pet Lamb in the Grainger Market as the cakes have maltesers , chocolate orange and all sorts of goodies. Love treating my friends.


And really it's always good to give someone a call ad a hug because that makes you feel better and them feel better. It's to easy to put things off til next week or next month which turns in to next year. Do it now , reach out to someone, it will lift both of you and you never know your friend my need it , you don't know what's happening unless you talk, which is vaguely the subject of my TED talk submission which I will send off when they are next looking for speakers.

We should all talk more , hug more , spend time together more , and we will enjoy life more. So Saturday starts here , and if you want a hug from me me let me know , I always have one for my friend , family and those I love.

Someone at work checked out my blog this week and they said that they found it remarkably uplifting, I do hope they read this as well , but what better , more uplifting start to the day could you have than Elbow's One Day Like This , wouldn't you just give that guy in the video a big big hug . I would!

Have a wonderful day.

Seven Days In Orton Cumbria

I came up with the name for this blog as a travel blog about places I'd stayed, which maybe is a bit ambitious as I don't travel very far. I detest flying , not for the actual flight , but for the endless queuing and excuses for delays, plus the fact the flight is usually a miniscule part of the journey unless , say, I were going to Australia.

Anyway the place we were it was Orton in Cumbria, just off the M6 but very quiet and very relaxing. It is also about a mile away from the Tebay / Westmorland Farm Services which are the benchmark for Motorway Service Stations. The now have one on the M5 and one on the M74 planned. While the prices are Motorway Service Station levels, the service, location and food on offer is the best you will find on a Motorway (In this case the M6).

The cottage is a converted barn and can be seen here , and has everything you need although the village is still waiting on broadband and the mobile signal is a little erratic. This meant that for the first time I ran out of data on my EE contract , and due to the stipulations and expense of buying extra data I decided I didn't need it. Of and after 2 messages with a URL to buy the extra data , their app then stops letting you see your data information so you couldn't buy any if you wanted! But it wasn't a major hassle , there are lots of places that let you hook into wifi including the aforementioned Westmorland Farm Services and the excellent Kings Head at Ravenstonedale, which sounds like somewhere from Game of Thrones.


We ate at the excellent Black Swan which is well worth a visit if you are ever in the area, this is one of the meals I had , runny scotch eggs, gammon , garlic cheese potatoes, tomatoes and green stuff. There's also images of the giant meringue on my instagram feed if you want to try and fine it.



The countryside is very relaxing and great for just walking and doing not much out of contact from mobile phones and the like, and the great thing about staying in Orton is that it has a post office that sells 99% of stuff that you actually need, then there's the George Hotel which does food and drink and the people are really pleasant in there, and then you have Kennedy's Chocolate factory where you can buy almost anything made of chocolate , including boxes of chocolates made out of chocolate.

I thought a suitable tune was Lindsey Buckingham's Holiday Road from National Lampoon's Vacation , the guy is a total musical genius , and that is the best of the vacation films.

So that's some short thoughts on my week away, now I'm back home and the weather is looking very good.. Have a fantastic Sunday everybody

The Day After Christmas Day

Edge

Well it's the day after Christmas , and I'm "Still Ill" to quote The Smiths, although it's essentially nose cold , running into my throat causing and tickly cough which then can go on for quite a bit. Dealing with it with , paracetamol . drink and chocolate.

Seen and talked with family over Christmas , exchanged presents, great to see people getting perfume they want , no chocolate , I got some clothes including a Kelly's Heroes T-Shirt, a totally not over the top Christmas.




Manage a few films and the Christmas Doctor Who and even caught a bit of the Queen's Speech which focused on the 1914 Truce when the French and German soldiers stopped fighting and played football in a brief interlude before going back to slaughtering each other and the behest of the paymasters safely enjoying a drink and mince pie back in London or Berlin. These days David Cameron, Ian Duncan Smith and George Osborne would have had them shot while Nick Clegg, Ed Milliband and Nigel Farage gave their backing. Remember it was your "working man" who called that truce, not the officers and it does make me sick to hear it romanticised as it is now. We should remember for the right reasons, as a beacon for peace , not a glorification of war.

Oops don't know where that came from, but it's how I feel.

Anyway, I've had and am still having a brilliant Christmas, and I hope you all are too. This Christmas we have four days of being off before having to go to work and clear up the mess on Monday. Have another brilliant day my friends.