A while ago I was enjubilating over the absence of traffic in the skies. I still am (and I hope that we never, ever go back to the levels of air-traffic of pre-nuisance days), but it struck me this morning. No, not the aeroplane, the thought that in fact spotting an aeroplane con-trail might now be a very rare thing – so I photographed it.
[Mayhap the only flights in future will be private jets and government aircraft?]
While the Hooman species is behaving [having to behave] in utterly insane ways due to circumstances of our own making (whatever polarised opinion you favour of the cause), Father Nature is just getting on with it. This little bugger spent ten minutes singing at me yestereve as though birdsong were a weapon.
Moonbase Alpha took a wider view of us.
Yesterday’s sun didn’t so much set as it sort of “burst” like an enormous splodge.
I empathise wholeheartedly.
My photograph of a passing railway train was “photo-bombed” by a shrublet.
The water-point – sadly, a sign of the times, one of the new-fangled tin ones instead of cast iron – was working nicely praise be to Zeus et al, and continued to work even when doused in six gallons of Dettol solution.
The top gate on Cholmondeston (“Chumston”) Lock, as ever since the restoration, was spending its days half-open. The only way to keep it shut while going down the lock is to open up one of the lower paddles a bit to get a flow going (followed by a loud thump). I believe that the current vernacular is “first-world problem”. 😉
Twixt me and the lock I now have some five neighbours:
The usual corporate suspects continue to cover themselves in executive… something (and it’s still not “glory”). They are in a mild blue executive funk now because they’ve just realised “Oh gosh, duty of care to boaters living on the waterways” and are wondering how to wind back in (their necks, and) their blanket, active, enthusiastic advice for the world and its pet virus to “come on down to the [usually narrow] canal towpaths to do the coughy-coughy wheezy-wheezy exercise and be wellness incarnate by water – right next to ten thousand people on boats who have nowhere else to go to get away from you…”
Pardon my French here, please, and know that I refer to the putative “heads” of the organisation, not to the grunt workers and volunteers:
Wankers.
#neverforget #neverforgive
Small people, small characters, small minds, now exposed as being in vastly over-paid jobs that they were never really fit for.
Vengeance is mine sayeth some folk’s idea of “The Lord”, but if He wants a list of people who really won’t be missed when this is all over, I have one ready…
On the flip side of [Dominick Hide] the coin:
One organisation that I have been mightily and immensely impressed with is the
National Bargee Travellers Association.
Lots of contact, lots of advice, lots of action. Every email full of information and useful things instead of the weak and watery and positively actively dangerous piss from more “official” sources.
Right-o chaps, here endeth today’s lesson. We shall now stand and sing the first sixty-seven verses of ‘If you don’t mind I am going to stay inside and let myself lose it a bit today, boing boing moo wibble fribble de-clomp’ (Crimond). The collection plate will then be passed around, and do – if you want me to unlock the chuch door to let you leave – give generously. After that we will all rise again (to our feet, I’m not suggesting some sort of end of days ascension through the roof) and sing the first ninety-twelve verses of ‘And even if you do mind, I’m still going to stay inside and let myself lose it a bit, wibble wibble frabjous-jam sandwiches collie-wobbles poopoo abounding on the seas’ (also Crimond). Anyone not giving the vicar (and Doris on the organ) full measure of gusto in the chorus will be denied salvation and fined six shillings per tonsil.
Stay healthy, stay happy and, if you must suck your thumb and rock back and forth until this all goes away, and I do recommend that as a course of action, then please do wash your thumb thoroughly first and apply a quick rub of a reputable anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-world-in-general hand-gel. Even if you are part of the same household, please do not share thumbs.
😉
Chin-chin, Ian H., and
The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company. 
Congrats on your veggie delivery! 😀 … love the photos and accompanying edificationing. 🙂
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Thank’ee – with rambleperambulings being limited to tottering about fetching water and wotnot the scope and scale of the photos is going to become increasingly limited I’m sad to say, but needs must. I’ll have to dig into the archive!
Keep well, keep Happy (other Disney Dwarfs are available, mention of Happy does not imply endorsement.).
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😀
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With aircraft, it’s now just the trails and the pollution. Remember when they were all grounded when the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano blew up? I was on holiday in the Loire valley. Beautiful sunny weather and not a cloud in the sky (nor vapour trails, either). We were still there when the ban was lifted. Almost immediately there were clouds as well as the vapour trails. The clue is in the name VAPOUR. Water vapour, that is. So all these aircraft flying around are generating clouds.
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I remember that, the panic began when a commercial passenger-carrying aeroplane decided that it would just fly through the ash and dust and fumes and promptly lost five or six out of its four engines, causing a slight deconvenience in re continuation of flying at altitude…
Clouds are splendid things – in moderation, or in brief magnificence. Fascinating. My niece gave me a book on the things many years ago, and it has proven invaluable.
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Boat names are always intriguing – the letter style, the colors, the name choice. Always interesting
Love the picture of the bird in the tree against the blue sky.
It is so nice and quiet now – no traffic, few yard companies, absence of the everyday human racket. Very rarely do we see the NASA jets going over – used to be once a week as the astronauts still have to fly a certain number of hours…and if the weather is nice…or the teen girls out around their pools ( yep that was a issue HAHA). The NASA jets are never a problem. It is sci-fi quiet now
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It is indeed quiet. We are all living in one of those Charlton Heston films – the last man, or whatever it was. When I go for my water/whatever walk in the mornings it is very eerie and other-worldly. Very unsettling.
Boat names are hard to come up with – an awful lot of names are the names of the two occupants stuck together, or else “Kingfisher”. I had about four days to come up with the new name, narrowed it down to half a dozen and eliminated those that might be misunderstood. As it is, lots of people assume that I am some sort of fanatical Catholic… 😉
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I know exactly which film that was. Eerie indeed. I keep waiting for someone to jump out and screw, “Surprise, You’re all on Candid Camera.” or “punched”…the younger group might understand that?
HaHa. You gotta be careful when naming a boat – she won’t forgive a bad one
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Omega Man – I think that was the Heston movie
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It was – Heston was scary enough all by himself, but that was a very disturbing film on top of his scary character. 🙂
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I’m amused at your optimism about planes. I have taken a more cynical mindset and am strongly considering plunking the full virus money from the government into buying airline stock while its so low. I have not nearly enough money saved for my infirm years. It seems like an opportunity to cash in. But like so much of this mess it has revealed a dirty side of me. I am appalled by people who use planes like a taxi. But I am considering riding that stock rise like it has no climate implication. And I don”‘t think the world will stop flying. It’s going to rise
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I can’t think of a single valid, pragmatic reason why you ought to be constrained by any putatively-moral objection when the rest of the world – and when most especially governments and big business – have no such scruples. I don’t think that the fad for flying will end either, the great “they” will all want to fly hither and thither for holidays once freed from social distancing &etc. If you think it a good investment then go for it and go totally guilt-free! 🙂
I seem to be pulling off my usual trick of being at the wrong end of time and/or falling between the cracks. When I was a child children were rarely seen and never heard (well, sort of) but now that I am in my sixth decade that has been reversed – children rule (Greta Thunbuggery, anyone?) and we oldies are the worthless drain on resources, derided for causing all of the problems, somehow! Luckily – thankfully – happily – have insufficient medical conditions to make me a priority of any kind, yet old enough to be up the slope of the curve of those most affected, but not old enough to be “protected” or have “vulnerable” status (which is why I can’t get my usual grocery deliveries etcetera). When I had mortgages interest rates were up to 15.4% at one stage. Now that I live on a (private, work, tiny) pension and have a (tiny) savings pot interest rates are negative and we’re probably heading for global hyper-inflation!
If I didn’t laugh I’d have to pick up my axe and go crazy. 🙂 It’s a talent!
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Wonderful as always. I do think that Nature is rejoicing somewhat in the absence of people to mess up the terrain, it does feel a bit like a cleansing process, does it feel anything like that where you are? We all have to do our bit, stay out of the way and let the world rectify itself again.
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Even out here in the (relative) countryside (of heavily-populated) Cheshire it’s spookily quiet – at least, it is when I go outside, waking up the sparrows as I go. I just cannot get replays of the 1975 “Survivors” television series out of my mind. It’s all very. very spooky indeed. Unsettling is an inadequate word for the feeling. I keep wondering if nothing is ever going to be quite right ever again. Not that most of it was in any way “right” before – perhaps I ought to say wondering if anything will seem familiar or ordinary ever again?
Just had a delivery of fruit and veggies, by boat, via the combined efforts of three households (boatholds?) of the local support group that we’ve set up. 🙂 Wheeee – thank’ee!
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