After a rather restless night I tried to make some toast. The toaster was particularly uncooperative this morning. Decoratively the thing can’t be bettered, but functionally it leaves a lot to be desired. Eventually it warmed a couple of slices of bread sufficiently and I scoffed them whilst watching an episode of “Hardy Bucks”.
The internet was interesting this morning. Someone had posted on the “Historic Hastings” website asking about a particular house and as the thread developed someone asked why the area where I played as a child was called the “Arvy Tarvey”. I never remembered it being called that. Isn’t this one of the wonderful things about history though? No one really has any idea what happened – you can just make up stuff like this and no one quibbles.
There was also some posts about how managers in a place where I used to work are so pleased that some of the volunteers who do vital work for them have received the Queens Award for Voluntary Service, Using herculean restraint I didn’t say anything, but there is a place for voluntary work and it *isn’t* in healthcare. I can remember when this bunch of volunteers were first given the job they do. I can remember the chap who was made redundant because someone offered to do his job for free. As I’ve said before, no government of any political party isn’t going to fund anything (hospitals, schools, public services) all the time someone else is already paying for it. For example look at the hospice where my mother died. Two thirds of their income is from donations where the government has realised that someone else will pay for the place.
I sent out birthday wishes to “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” and set off to work. Before going to my car this morning I popped round the corner. A day or so ago someone had dumped some wooden boxes by the side of the road. Yesterday I had a stroke of genius about how I might use them to fix the knacked wooden boxes in the garden that I built a few years ago. However in the meantime someone else had snaffled them. Oh well... You snooze, you lose.
As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were still obsessed with coronageddon. There was an interview with someone or other who claimed to be a representative of health workers (doesn't everyone claim that !). She was rather concerned that the face masks that thousands of hospital workers wear don't actually protect the wearer against the particulate droplets that spread the COVID virus, or stop them from spreading them either.
Well... this isn't news is it? I can remember “My Boy TM” taking a huff on his vape-stick-thingy, putting on one of these surgical masks and then gently breathing out clouds of vapour which spread in all directions from the edges of his face mask. And I've smelled plenty of farts whilst wearing a mask myself. Explain that one, science!! (Unfortunately for me, science has already done so)
There was also talk about half the students in full time education being unhappy with having to study on-line and not wanting to do distance learning.
As a graduate of the Open University I managed to do a degree via distance learning, and I also have a post-graduate certificate in the delivery of teaching via distance learning. There's a lot to be said for a style of learning which *doesn't* involve sleeping in a lecture theatre (posh word for classroom) every day.
I did my degree (mostly) at home whilst working full-time, and many people in my line of work also studied and obtained post graduate qualifications whilst doing the same. As opposed to studying full time which has you running up debts of tens of thousands of pounds to get a degree which you never use. So many people see having a degree as an end in itself. Why get a degree?
Do you actually want to learn about something in great detail whilst still being able to go about your daily life at home (like I did)?
Or do you want to get vocational qualifications (like many of my students did back in the day)?
Or do you want a three-year-piss-up (which many of my friends openly admit to having had)?
I got to work, made myself a cuppa then as I drank it one of the girls (just returned from maternity leave) told me she was sorry to have heard about my dog's passing. That set me off. In the seven weeks since he's gone, something or other has set me off several times each day. Fortunately being sat at a microscope for much of the day I could sulk about my dog in peace without anyone clucking over me. And having made up the time lost the other weekend meant I got to go home on time this evening.
It was a shame I only drove two miles in the direction of home before finding that the motorway was closed. With the eastbound lane closed and all the eastbound traffic being diverted into Maidstone I went west and took a rather convoluted route home via Snodland, Rochester and Faversham and got home an hour late for the third time this week. If it had been any other day of the year I wouldn’t have minded do much but it would have been good to have seen “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” on her birthday.
I came home to find the postman had been. I’ve got an adoption certificate from the goat sanctuary. I’ve adopted Natalie (my goat) for another year. Apparently. I must have set the bank direct debit to carry on going when I set it up last year. I don’t mind though – if I don’t set an example of goat care, who will?
er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner and we scoffed it whilst watching the latest docu-drama about Anne Boleyn. The show starts off by saying it is based on truth and lies. I suppose it has to; it really isn’t racist to say that Anne Bolen wasn’t black… is it?
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