Been out sorting the greenhouse. Putting compost in seed trays ready for planting. Figured I’d find a podcast to keep me company and put on BBC sounds. The first one that caught my eye was The Peter Crouch Podcast which I listened to briefly. It is a popular podcast but didn’t feel it was what I wanted in my ear when pottering about in the garden. I ended up listening to The Infinite Monkey Cage. Much more my thang.
The upshot of all this is that the seed trays are now ready to host their seeds and I know a little bit more about geology than I did before. The next job is to identify what goes in the trais. I have taken advice on this and am opting for padron, jalapeno, thai hot and birdseye with scotch bonnet and habanero to be avoided (I know, wimp). Interestingly enough, I think, I found jalapeno, habanero and cayenne in our seed box so am going to plant them and separately source the padron and Thai jobs. I grew jalapeno last year and was quite disappointed with them but will have another go. Maybe read up a little on instructions.
Today is my dad’s 87th birthday. He seemed in good spirits when I had my video chat. Had taken breakfast in the restaurant. He lives in a care facility and it has been pretty tough going the last few weeks as everyone has been confined to their rooms to avoid covid. Some of the residents had tested positive.
Dad was the first to test positive actually, coincidentally on the day he got his jab. Amazingly he showed no symptoms and has now made it through to the other side. A sigh of relief all round.
The challenge now is to improve his quality of life where he lives. We are optimistic that at least my sister Sue who lives around the corner from him will be able to visit him soon. I’m quite looking forward to being able to pop down to Cardiff meself.
The media this morning is full of speculation on the content of Bojo’s covid update tomorrow. He is going to outline the steps by which life will return to normal. The news from Israel, a country leading the charge on covid vaccine inoculation appears to be very positive with 95% of those having the jab not showing any symptoms. On the basis that most of the people in the vulnerable category and therefore likely to be hospitalised if they catch the virus will have had the jab by the end of April this suggests that the reopening of society can’t be that far off.
They are now also saying that everyone will have been vaccinated by the end of July. There is always the possibility that a new variant could affect plans but the hope is that the current vaccines will offer some protection against this.
We even hear that fans are likely to be allowed back into outdoor events such as football matches and festivals from the end of May. This is fantastic if you run a festival such as Beyond The Woods (as one does). We shall see.
I leave you with a question. When will spring have sprung on Jupiter and Mars?
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You should never finish a jobs list. This is a much more profound statement than some of you might realise. I don’t want to finish the list for someone (a greater being?) to then say “your work here is done” and I keel over. Kaput. The End. Nosirree Bob why tempt fate? That’s why you should always leave one job left on the list.
Now there is a counter argument which is if you leave a job on the list and you still kick the bucket people will say his life’s work was incomplete, never finished. You might find yourself looking wistfully down from your cloud (/up from the furnace) wishing you’d finished decorating the spare room. I don’t think I will if only because Anne does all that sort of thing, or we get someone in but you get my drift.
Currently the only job left on my list is to repair a photo frame. This feels dangerous. It won’t take long although it has been on the list for some time. It’s only sin is being the last job on the list not to be ticked off. I am confident that others will appear. Soon. In fact I know of one or two that Anne hasn’t yet written down.
I might play it safe and add one or two jobs that are near to impossible or at the very least implausible. Jobs that require significant research and preparation. Building up to. Ones that need looking up and down and through gritted teeth saying “this is not an easy one – it will take some time”.
This does happen more often than you perhaps might think. Jobs that end up getting someone in to sort. Take hedge trimming as an example. Hedge trimming has appeared on the list in the past. In the interest of getting the job done in a timely fashion we have ended up getting Tom The Tree Man in to do it. It takes Tom with all the right gear a whole morning to do the hedges front and back. It would take me days and the job would not be as well executed. Now we don’t even think about sticking hedge trimming on the jobs list. We just give Tom a bell.
Anyway take my advice. You should never finish a job list.