Month: February 2021

Perseverance

Snowdrops

If we were having coffee I’d tell you  how exciting it was to watch the live stream of the Mars Perseverance landing this week.  Purely by luck I stumbled upon the details about 30 minutes before it was due to land and even joined by the young adult in the house.

How great it was to see it at as the main first news item on the News at 10 rather than another story about politics. The decisions that the bureaucrats are making for the greater good of everyone and everything.  It just struck a chord with me in relation to the feats of human kind.

I then saw the cost this morning, roughly $2.7 billion and thought….yikes that is a lot of money and then I saw another article about the prospect of a tunnel between Scotland and Ireland (about 31 miles/50km) and wondered how much that would cost.  As it’s merely thoughts at the moment….I thought I’d take a look at the channel tunnel costs and came across the wonders of the world databank….a rabbit hole if ever there was one for the inquisitive mind.  The channel tunnel according to this site was $21 billion.

Back to Perseverance and the cost, I came across another site, putting the cost of perseverance in context and like the comparisons.  The same amount of money that Disney made in global box office revenue for avengers end game and the amount of money Google makes in 6 days (which is so it’s eye watering it’s unreal).  So the cost of perseverance, seems like a steal, spent over a long period of time, funding science and moving us on with wonder.

Obviously these figures and facts are from the internet…it’s got to be true! And I don’t have the budget to check whether the facts are indeed true, I’m just sharing the thoughts!

Managed to re-open the black box this week with an impromptu-start, it’s been nagging at me for some time, an exploration into grannies recipes .  When I first started a good while a go (I’m embarrassed to say when) I’d definitely entered into the challenge with rose tinted spectacles.  However a certain reality hit this week that the recipes.  They are definitely of a time and it’s not due to the units.  The ingredients are for items that just don’t feature in our house and I think have long gone out of fashion like corned beef and Campbells condensed soup.  Some of the recipes are (I want to use the word terrible) just not to our current tastes like liver creole, salmon pudding and chicken mousse.  Discussing this with the boss we then realised it was more about the memories than anything else.  I’m going to persevere though, ditching the ones that don’t appeal and writing up the ones that do.

Last weekend we were marching through a foot of snow, today though at 9°C we made a great loop round the citi on the bikes.  A few muddy trails…but lots of snow drops.  Have a great weekend and hopefully you can get out where you are!

 

The #WeekendCoffeeShare is an informal weekly link-up hosted by Natalie the Explorer that serves as weekly heart beat and sort of of a mind-dump. Helps me reflect on my week, with a list of achievements, thoughts and rambles normally whilst drinking a beverage probably listening to music.

 

Impromptu – a start

Coffee and Notebook

I feel a bit of an imposter writing this, a strange feeling where I’ve just started to type. I know I want to blog, but the fear of putting something down. The questions in my mind around who, what, why when floating around in my mind forcing me to question the whole point……then it hits me. Just type and start.

6.45 the house is quiet aside from the quiet clunking of the radiators warming up as the central heating turns over. The boss has gone for a run, a welcome relief as the snow has gone and the outside is at a temperature where there should be no black ice.

I’m trying to focus myself more, I’d normally have grunted rolled over and put the alarm on snooze. Instead I’m in a state of fuzzy shock. I’ve started putting an alarm on in the corner of room forcing myself to get out of bed rather than pressing the snooze button. I’ve made it to Thursday, 4 days in a row! It’s a tiny change something I’m trying to take from Jame’s Clears atomic habits, small incremental changes.

I’ve started up on the black box again, the recipe file that we inherited. I’m starting to be ruthless, there are recipes I’m never going to touch like bacon and liver, liver loaf and a tinned salmon ring and salmon pudding. I’m determined to examine everyone and setting a target of one a day in terms of transcribing…..got to be achievable and a start.

Valentines Coffee Share

Valentines Coffee
Coffee is served with chocolate and Charbonnel truffles, a gift waiting for me at breakfast this morning.  I’m a sucker for this kind of chocolate and thankfully in small boxes not to disastrous!  Fortunately I’d got my card ready, written with a few meaningful words and was able to reciprocate the thought.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on the weekend coffee share.  My attention has just been elsewhere and I have to admit that I’ve been struggling to write.  I’ve started a couple of times and then events have conspired against me.  I’ve struggled with being at my PC all the time and not taking enough breaks.

The days are getting longer  and more than a welcome relief where I’m hoping for light at the end of the tunnel with this pandemic but I know we still have a long way to go.  It’s been the half term break this week so no on-line lessons and a huge dump of snow at the start of the week has been a huge god send in terms of not having to twist their arms to get outside.  The lure of a sledge and the mention of hilly golf course the only nudge required.

For me though work is even more pressured, project milestones ever closer and although working from home is allowing me to consider self-learning and more reading.  There is an underlying feeling of being trapped.  The papers are constantly mentioning the subject of mental health relating to the reader.  The  shared feelings of angst helps on some level, that we are all going through this, but on another level there is a feeling that its adding weight to it.  The irony of my writing this isn’t lost on me.   At this point I put my head in my hands and wonder why am I even writing this.

I can’t help thinking we are eating more, even though we are trying to eat less.  It’s a coping mechanism and my constant need to feed us must be some underlying cave man thing going on my subconscious.  Food though is my way of sharing and getting through the dark nights and worrying times. Tonight’s meal is an attempt at making a cassoulet that will last a few meals followed by a cherry and apple crumble.

The last months reading included the really thought provoking ‘Atomic Habits’ James Clear and Downsizing by Tom Watson.   If you are podcast listener I definitely recommend the following podcasts where the authors are interviewed.

How to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones with James Clear
From Sugar in Tea, To Butter in Coffee: Tom Watson’s Weight Loss Story #542

 

The #WeekendCoffeeShare is an informal weekly link-up hosted by Natalie the Explorer that serves as weekly heart beat and sort of of a mind-dump. Helps me reflect on my week, with a list of achievements, thoughts and rambles normally whilst drinking a beverage probably listening to music.