It’s all about the timing!

So I have just gone and booked a little city break to Ireland in Dublin.

The accomidation we will be staying in is an appartment right by the bridge in the photo above.

I am so excited and it was a little bit of an impulsive holiday booking for me and a good friend to go over for a long weekend in late November.

At present you are not able to travel to Ireland from the UK without getting a Covid-19 test first and then self-isolating on your way there and on your way back. I am hoping these rules with have been relaxed by November and we are able to travel over without these restriction in place.

Dublin can be a very expensive city to get accommodation in and the 3 nights stay in Dublin in our apartment is costing us about £33 each per night to stay which is so cheap and it’s a perfect location for the area of Dublin we have enjoyed staying at in the past.

If we can’t go not to worry, nothing ventured nothing gained as they say. But if we can it will be blast.

So I just need to make sure I can get the time of work now and arrange how we get to Dublin too.

Exciting times ahead, needing some of that luck of the Irish for this trip to come off though.

One time when I went to Dublin I saw the Waterboys sing the song below at a race course it was amazing. I look forward to making more memories there in November

Wateboys – Whole of the moon

Dublin is such a magical place with people from all over the world mixing, chatting, smiling, laughing and drinking.

A great none judgmental place that takes you as you are. Had so much fun there on many an occasion that I have been there and I do really hope I am there again in November.

Taking a little time out

Well I am just coming to the end of a week off work, had an eclectic mix of things that I have done, went and caught up with some friends that I have not seen in over a year at a barbeque I made time to sort my home out a little too, taking out some stuff to the recycling centre and also some charity donations to the Oxfam shop.

Also made time to go to a friend’s birthday which was a great quite night in a local bar on a Monday where said friend was running around in a dinosaur suit, I have not laughed that much in a long time, a good night was had by all.

Kyle’s Birthday Suit!

So I will be back in work tomorrow and a little nervous because I am so darn tired today and have not left the flat since Thursday. I have no idea why I am so darn tired. It’s been a great week though.

I have not lost any weight this week though but I think that is down to the drinking of Guinness on a couple of nights out and also eating larger meal sizes than I have been used to of late. I did not put any weight on also which is good.

Still in two minds presently about the unlocking of lockdown, it’s lovely for us all to be catching up with people we have not seen for a long time and also be just around people in general. But you just hope that the vaccines continue to work their magic and we get on top of the virus in the long term.

2nd Covid-19 jab done & how I feel about that

I had my second Covid-19 jab over the weekend all went well and no ill effects from my second oxford astrazeneca vaccine injection. I am incredibly grateful to the NHS staff and volunteers that have helped deliver millions of vaccinations in the UK and covered over 50% of the adult population with 2 injections now

So I have my little NHS Covid-19 card with my name spelt wrong on it, to say that Hugh has had his 2 jabs done now so I will keep his card safe for him just in case he needs it back.

In the last 24 hours in the UK there have been no Covid-19 related deaths for the first time since March 7, 2020. Which is really good news, it hopefully shows that vaccines are working, the latest lockdown worked and the unlocking of lockdown is not resulting in increased deaths. But you just really have to be mindful of other variants and their future impact on all societies.

I feel a little strange at the moment like the calm after a storm that I am still not 100% sure is over yet. I still remember some of the good and bad times from last year, the light and dark moments and still think did that really just happen. It’s such a weird time to live through.

I know I have been told throughout my life by peoples whose views I respect and cherish that I can over think things, so maybe it’s just one of those over thinking times. I do like over thinking, as I do like to over think positively too. To be grateful for what I have more so than I am fearful for what I do not. To be happy for what has happened to me rather than sad about what has not.

I am definitely a glass half full person rather than a glass half empty person and even if a glass is less than half full well the fact that it still has something left in it has to be a bonus right!

I hope your glass is half full from where ever you are reading this and you feeling good today.

Gabrielle Aplin singing How Do You Feel Today

Ecological Spring cleaning

So I have just renewed my membership of Moor Trees a fantastic rewilding charity based here in Devon. Their long term vision is for a Wild Heart of Dartmoor, a core zone that is predominantly wooded and largely shaped by natural processes, but combined with low density grazing. The core zone would be surrounded by a mosaic of moorland, blanket bog, mires, pasture and crops with managed native woodlands, including working woodlands.

Dartmoor is the closest area we have near to where I live that can be described as close to a wilderness area as we have. A stand out wild area of beautiful landscapes and legends. Dartmoor National Park is a vast moorland in the county of Devon, in southwest England where Dartmoor ponies roam its craggy landscape, defined by forests, rivers, wetlands and tors (rock formations). Trails wind through valleys with Neolithic tombs, Bronze Age stone circles and abandoned medieval farmhouses.

A Dartmoor Pony grazing next to Plymouth Leat, above Clearbrook in south-west Dartmoor. Photo by Nilfanion

In the UK if you stand still long enough one of the utilities companies that you use will find a way of making more money out of you or just simply taking you for granted. So I decided to shake up some of my utility suppliers last night. Its well worth checking prices online and going to a comparison sight to decide what it is that is important to you and then signing up to who can best deliever what you want

I signed up last night to an Octopus Energy – renewable energy deal where they are also able to carbon offset my home gas usage. My Dad has been signed up with them for a couple of years now and finds them really easy to work with and loves there ecological motivation and credentials. I clicked on a link from my Dad which enables us both to get some cash back by me signing up.

I also eneded my contract with Talk Talk for my Phone and Broadband deal after they deciding early in the year to double the price of my broadband and mobile deal that I had with them as well as destroying the quality of my broadband speed and reducing the customer service number to a we wont answer your calls line. The speed of braodband was so slow that it was affecting my abilty to work at home.

So I also changed broadband supplier in order to get a fastrer supply for a cheaper price and a better customer experiance. So I am going to try POP telecom Broadband and see how that goes.

Amy MacDonald – Dancing in the Dark

From small acorns do mighty oaks grow

Exeter (my city), Devon (my county) and the rest of the UK (my country) held elections yesterday and many of the results have been announced today.

I voted for the green party where I live and I am very pleased to say that a green party councillor called Amy Sparling won the local ward on my council so Exeter City council and St Davids ward where I live now has two elected green party councillors.

It would be awesome if one day Exeter could send a green party elected official to our parliament in London to represent the people of Exeter, who knows what might happen in the future!

So I have just put on my green party of the USA T-shirt this evening, which I bought during one of the lockdowns last year while they were campaigning for the USA Presidential election, though it could have got here by plane so not sure how environmentally friendly my purchases method of transport was!

I also joined the green party in the UK last year and had some help from the other Green Party Councillor regarding an investigation into chopping down hedges along the rail track by my house during the bird nesting season in a spring 2020 lockdown. Although it was all said to be legitimate cutting of greenery by network rail by the wildlife crime officer which I could not really argue with in the end I was grateful to my local green party councillor also for checking out the legality of the cuttings being done and that really won over my support to the local green party even more than it already was.

I have already been really interested in politics from an early age and studied politics at university (although not staying there long enough to get a degree). I struggle to understand why so many people say politics is irrelevant to them or that it does not matter who you vote for their all as bad as each other.

I person in work said I quote that I had not heard before which is ‘if you don’t do politics, politics will do you’. I think that is an excellent phrase in which never was a truer word spoken.

The Beatles – Sea of Green

Sting – Englishman in New York

The weighting game

So I went on a train trip down to Cornwall, a couple of weeks ago, where I was able to celebrate Christmas, Easter and pubs reopening all in one week with my parents. I also even found time to get my hair cut for the first time in 6 months to ensure that I no longer look like I am in some kind of 70’s TV police show.

I have also been trying to lose weight, since my diabetes diagnosis and its happening slowly but surely and I weighted in this morning and find that since I started reducing my intake of unhealthy foods, portion sizes and eating less carbohydrates and more vegetables I have lost about 1 and half stone in weight or 9.5 kg. I was a little worried about my weight this week because I went out on my first lads night on the beers for the first time in over a year and also had a meal out to. But I was still able to loose a little weight due to the healthier eating and drinking in the rest of the week.

I still have a heavy weight to loose and a long way to go but it’s all going in the right direction. My biggest risk to my physical health will be when the pubs open up full time and I want to go out and be social and have a pint and listen to live music. But if I do so once a week and keep on track with my eating for the rest of the week (and my life) I should hopefully be ok.

Gabrielle Aplin – Home

The Killers – Human – Live with Orchestra & Choir

All people should be treated equally

The following definitions of democracy are commonly understood and accepted

Government by the people especially: rule of the majority

A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.

All that sounds very straight forward and who would argue against that well if you watched any TV in the UK or picked up a so called News Paper then you might have been under the misimpression that we have a one state controlled media promoted through TV and written publications all singing from the same hymn sheet.

A picture of the UK has been attempted to be painted this week of a county full of royalist worshipping citizens whom need to be reminded every 15 minutes through news bulletins, and documentary dramas that we have a monarchy they are very wise and superior to us mere mortals, intellectually, spiritually and genetically. There will be no talk of the future of the monarchy in anyway of whether we want, need or even should have one moving forward. If you are not crying at your TV because someone you have never met and never loved has died, then there is something wrong with you. It’s all quite an odd state of reality really.

The British Royal Family is deeply part of the political fabric even though the monarch is claimed to be above politics is still a deeply political position. The head of the machine of the states is our monarch and the tentacles of the state and our poorly unevenly handed media went into overdrive in the last week showing just how important to the system the promotion of the status quo is within the UK and chance of change or how such changes might take place in order to make our unwritten constitution and the construction of how our state works and to whom it works for are very remote.

Are we merely born into a system where the blood line of a head of state is more important than the blood line of any and all other citizens born with in it? If the answer to this question is absolutely yes, then this system is very much archaic and needs much needed reform which may never come.

We have a house of lords with some peers appointed from state supporters (none elected though the ballet box and some life long peers). They are responsible for keeping an eye on our political laws and ensuring due process is undertaking in parliament.

There are many who ridicule democratic due diligence, process and democratic political power. The reasons for these are often complicated and not easy to understand or even see. But most notably if you are not in favour of democratic due diligence, process or democratic political power it is because you have an invested interest and already receive power from an alternative form of government within which the ordinary man or woman does not have such power or privilege from.

Van Williams – Revolution featuring First Aid Kit

A day to remember them

A day of mixed emotions today I have been advised that I no longer needed to shield and so stepped out of my home and walked to work this morning and returned to the office. Its the first time I have walked into Exeter since I had my coronovirus jab, so things on the up for me personally.

But the lives taken of two young people in Exeter were also weighing on my mind. Firstly Lorraine Cox who was murdered in the Summer of 2020 had a jury find the murderer guilty of killing her and he is due to be sentenced next Wednesday. On the night she was last seen she was drinking in a local bar I drink in which is a lovely and friendly place, always welcoming to people who come through its doors and little did the people drinking with her on her last night know when she left what would next happen to her that terrible night in August 2020. It really has been deeply dark time for some of her friends and family that know and love her.

Secondly there is a wonderful young man, younger that is than me that very recently died in Exeter and his funeral was today. His name was Trevor Garman and he was a local legend within his lifetime. He had such a warm and worldly way to him and when we would get talking he was always very welcoming, kind and a great teller of stories and a champion of social justice to boot. Plus he made a great pirate and ran the most awesome karaoke night in town, where even I would occasionally get up and sing. He was always so warm and welcoming to the people that got up and sang and really made you feel supported up on the stage and was always making you want to go back for more.

Sadly after posting this page I have another soul to add to the list of the lost humans

I was lucky enough to meet and work at the Devon Wildlife Trust with a wonderful woman called Emma Parkinson some 20 years ago. We used to chatter in the office, go camping on Wildlife Nights Out for School groups and also go out with the rest of the crew at DWT for an occasional beer or two. When I moved away from Exeter she was one of many wonderful people that I lost touch with and hoped to one day meet again. So I was trying to see if she had a facebook page this week and sadly came across her memorial page I don’t know how or under what circumstances her life was lost but it happened a couple of years ago another real tragedy of a good person taken before their time.

So all in all a sombre day for many Exetonians today.

Eva Cassidy – Fields of Gold

Your Coronavirus Pandemic 1 Year on

On 11^th March 2020 the world health organisation announced that COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic and that a pandemic was not a word to be used lightly.

The early stages of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns were hard on many people, in different ways, unemployment, families trying to live, work and study under one roof or individuals having to rely on themselves and draw on their own resilience resources to adapt and absorb the enormity of the situation. There were also many other challenges severely affected the mental well-being of many people around the world and yet here we are, a year on.

It’s a tough subject to write about and one which we are all effected by on daily basis in our own uniquely uncomfortable way. It’s possible to feel both guilt for the good things that have happened as well as joy or remorse for the bad things that have happened and yet relief for the bad things that have not happened too, all in one blink of an eye on a reflection of range emotions and issues.

I do also wonder what would have happened politically, socially and environmentally to our streets, towns, cities, countries and planet had no pandemic occurred and life had continued to race on at its break neck speed into potential oblivion.

It feels like the brakes have been put on a runaway train of consumer capitalism that was our everyday race for life and although consumer capitalism is still very much our way of life and affords us to live, can we now appreciate what we have a little more and aspire to protect and value the sanctity of life in a new found appreciation of what we have and what we hold dear to us. Essential workers can finally feel that well for want of a better word they are essential to the fabric of human life and society.

Who would have thought 12 months ago that to stack a shelf in grocers store was a means to help feed a nation. If I had my way I would give all essential workers and minimum waged workers a huge pay increase not as a thank you but as an acknowledgment to the role they play in a society and economy. This would enable workers to be able to afford to keep an adequate roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. The money that the low paid earn is ploughed straight back into the economy because unlike the wealthy they don’t have the luxury of saving wealth you simply spend to live.

You could tax pollutants such as fossil fuels like they were industries equivalents to humans smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol. You could also create a new digital economy type of VAT where everything bought online had a Digital value deducted tax. It would cause prices to increase but if people are earning more this would still balance out.

Well look at that not been in a pub or had a drink of alcohol for what must be over 3 months and still getting drunk on ideas and trying to put the world to rights. Roll on the open of those bars again so I can go in and start to have a conversation about ideas like this and pretend it is because I am drunk again!