LD +14 4 APRIL 2020 Saturday week three – daily Peep
Mock Dementia test 4. It’s thirty plus years ago, and a plane is flying at 20,000 feet over Germany (If you will recall, Germany at the time was politically divided into West Germany and East Germany ) Anyway, during the flight, two engines fail. The pilot, realizing that the last remaining engine is also failing, decides on a crash landing procedure. Unfortunately the engine fails before he can do so and the plane fatally crashes smack in the middle of ‘no man’s land’ between East Germany and West Germany . Where would you bury the survivors? East Germany , West Germany , or no man’s land’?
(Answer below)
Wednesday 4 April 2012 Aboard the ‘good ship’ Lucinda. Unlike 2020 the weather had been warm and sunny, but as it approached the time to sail the forecast became less and less favourable. It was not looking good for a Thursday departure, Force 5 to 6 from the East but we had to give it a go so early supper and bed in preparation for an 0500 alarm call. For the second night we swung on a buoy and I froze in my sleeping bag which claimed to provide a comfort zone down to -1ºC and that in spite of piling on extra clothes. Heating is for the faint hearted, apart from which there wasn’t any.
Back to the real world:
A villager went shopping to Shepton Tesco yesterday. She said it was awful with people (mainly old people) pushing, crowding round the shelf-stackers and paying not the
slightest heed to the 2 m rule, and she came away feeling quite traumatised. Thorners was by contrast almost empty and a calm oasis. Incidentally I hear that Morrisons in Wincanton was orderly, and Waitrose in Sherborne was both orderly and meticulous with their decontamination routines.
I do not know whether anyone installs decking any more. Once it was fashionable and then people discovered that it does not look after itself, needing both regular cleaning (not easy) and periodic preserving, until finally it rots and there is then an expensive rectification project or a bonfire or both. We had some ghastly crazy paving, neither pretty nor weed free nor particularly practical. It was a good spot to sunbathe all the same so I put decking over it at a stage when it was no longer fashionable. For reasons I will not bore you with it now needs extensive renovation to look loved once more. I am on day two of sanding, scraping and quietly wondering why I ever put it in? (Actually I do know, it was on offer in Wickes and seemed a good idea at the time.)
We have had a solid fuel central heating boiler for about 36 years and it has done us very well but earlier this year I decided it was time we changed to oil (I would rather mains gas but that is another story too). I had booked for Roger to come and work out the best plan and give us a quote with a view to putting in a new boiler and all the oil tank paraphernalia, when CV-19 reared its ugly head. Am I destined to shovel anthracite for another year?
Answer: You don’t bury survivors. (This must be an old test.)
Andrew lydfordbulletin@topp.myzen.co.uk
I see from the County Council website that … Somerset County Council is suspending parking enforcement across the county. The County Council is standing down its Civil Enforcement team in line with Government guidance during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. The change means the Council can redeploy officers to support community services.
This was posted on 1st April but is not a joke; however, I do not know which car parks this applies to so check when you get there and only go there if it is an essential journey.
LD +13 3 April 2020
FRIDAY – week two – Daily Peep
Mock Dementia test 3. If a red house is made from red bricks and a blue house is made from blue bricks and a pink house is made from pink bricks and a black house is made from black brick s, what is a green house made from?
(Answer below).
8 years ago, Paul, a friend of mine, sailed from Falmouth (Mylor) to Falmouth (Mylor) round 75% of the UK. His boat, Lucinda, was a Cornish Pilot Cutter, not tiny but only 30ft long with a 9ft bowsprit, and I joined the first part of the voyage from Mylor to Inverness through the Caledonian Canal as his crew. On the third of April we were dropped off at the marina by his wife and made final preparations whilst awaiting favourable weather. It was cold and windy, and despite it being the week before Easter and the Schools on Holiday other people had more sense and the marina was deserted. So now that I am in Lockdown I decided that it might be fun(?) to re-live some aspects of the voyage day by day and share snippets with anyone who cares to read them. After all we have to pass the time somehow and this will take me through to the 26th April.
A friend bought us a Saturday Telegraph last weekend along with a loaf of bread. He has offered to do the same again this Saturday. I more or less managed to make it last all week (the paper that is not the bread) as I poured over the increasingly out of date news at successive Breakfasts. The colour Supplement has no News value so that is held in reserve – at the moment there are five of them in the queue. First time ever I decided that it was not going in the recycling until I had finished the crossword, I hasten to add, without the help of the various crossword solvers which are there to tempt one. What pleasure is there in that unless to try to impress one’s nearest and dearest with one’s intellectual prowess. It took me until Breakfast today to finish the last difficult clues (difficult for me that is). A dictionary is allowed to check spellings. What has amazed me for many many years is the way in which the brain subconsciously works away at the answers until suddenly they pop up as if from nowhere. It probably takes longer as one matures. I get a feeling that somehow I will never be mature, but it still takes longer.
I see that clapping for the NHS had, unbeknownst to me, become clapping for key workers, I am pleased about that, and it is to happen every Thursday at 2000. By the sound of it West Lydford still lags behind East – as in the cricket.
Answer: Greenhouses are made from glass. If you said ‘green bricks’ I think your tomatoes won’t do too well. Mind you I don’t think that was a fair question because greenhouse is all one word and it wasn’t in the question.
Andrew lydfordbulletin@topp.myzen.co.uk
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