Blog ≫ 2020 ≫ Our turn to do a quiz next week
Did the quiz yesterday with Kez's friends, though without Kez herself who was tired out from running! Everyone's at it. We only came third in this quiz, a poor TV and film round. We have offered to host the quiz next week, so I have to get on with writing fifty questions. I'll definitely do that soon and not leave it to the last minute.
I must go running again today, though also tempted to cycle. Jules who I was getting competetive with has switched to cycling. He does have an ace new lightweight bike and I have an older and heavier model so I can use that as an excuse for not riding as far as he does for now. Been looking at bikes again, I'd really like one that is lighter with some cool modern features but think it would be more sensible to get one with an electric motor in to get me more easily up to the train station in all conditions in case I need to do that journey regularly any time soon. Oh, and of course it will be handy for work, because where I work now is at the top of a big hill and I'm sure to be going back there soon... Ah just heard an update from work, we were expecting an announcement Mid-June and it's now been pushed back to Mid-July.
Speaking of a big hill, I walked up Castle Hill in Folkestone yesterday before collecting our shopping from Sainsbury's. First time I've ever been up there. Who knew there was a castle up there???. No remains there, but you can imagine it. I didn't realise it was the same thing referred to as "Ceasar's Camp".
Some positive news, I won £50 on the premium bonds this month, and I think I have been achievous today and yesterday. I've done a little more painting, trying to sort out a damp stain on the lounge ceiling where we had a leak. I'm about 50% confident that just painting over it is fine, and it's not still damp, and there's not still a leak from the shower in the en-suite. That is one of the jobs for after lockdown, maybe replace the whole en-suite and also pull the lounge ceiling down, putting some new lighting up as we go. In further achievements since I last updated, last night's tea was one I'd made a few weeks ago and froze, and then I finally addressed the "why does this light switch fizz and pop sometimes?" issue in the utility. The light in the boys bathroom started flickering a bit, which made me think something was loose. I replaced the switch, and all good again, and so I took on the utility which has always done this. I replaced a chocolate-block behind the switch and that is now all good too.
Achievous is totally a word. I am inspired to use it today by a spelling test thing one just did. He got forty out of forty on a school list of words that we realised we hadn't looked at before, so all good. Then I set him another twenty-five of tricky words for his year (including "mischievous", though not "achievous") and he only got nineteen... so a little more practice needed before returning to school on Monday. I'm further inspired by some clever writing here by Marina Hyde, another one well received in my snowflake echo chamber.
Ah yeah, he is going back to school on Monday (his birthday), I think I said. Only ten percent of the school are invited back (just the year sixes) on the two days he will go in. Interested to see how many of them actually do go back, I think we know of two in the class who have said they will not. Clare gave him an actual haircut yesterday in preparation, and it went surprisingly well.
Really enjoying The Interpretation of Murder1. It sounded like the case was solved and the killer revealed too early in the book, so there must be more too it. I'm about half done.
This is an amazing summary of where we are with coronavirus2, how badly it is being handled and how misinformed (lied to) we all are. It's proper 1984 stuff, we're being told don't worry numbers are down, when it fact they're up and so on. This is my favourite bit:
36: The govt refused to consider delaying Brexit, even though they accept we will not be ready, it will cause a hard border down the Irish sea, and no deal will cut GDP by 10% for a decade
37: This is because they say we can make a great deal with America
The situation in the USA is astonishing.
| Country | cases | deaths |
|---|---|---|
| USA | 1859323 | 106925 |
| Brazil | 529405 | 30046 |
| Russia | 414878 | 4855 |
| Spain | 286718 | 27127 |
| UK | 276332 | 39045 |
| Italy | 233197 | 33475 |
| India | 198370 | 5608 |
| Germany | 183765 | 8618 |
| Peru | 170039 | 4634 |
| Turkey | 164769 | 4563 |
Supposed to be 6 degrees cooler today according to my phone, then BBC says still 19° here. About right I suppose it was super hot yesterday.
Kids have done their schooling for the day and are now watching Newsround and about to start an hour of gaming. Then out on bikes I think.
I nearly forgot, we all really enjoyed the Space X rocket launch the other day. The boys stayed up specially. Terrifying of course, two tiny humans sat atop a hugely explosing pile of fuel, and then blasted out into space. So glad it all went smoothly and they've now joined the ISS. It happened just about a year to the day since we were at the Kennedy Space Centre. Wonder when we'll get a holiday again? Interested to hear about Portugal maybe opening up a bit earlier, we've not been there, and we could probably cope with quarantining on our return...
Coronavirus weekly death graph for USA + UK + Italy + Brazil + France + Spain
- Removed old amzn.to/3de4gX2 link here.
- Removed old twitter.com/RussInCheshire/status/1267792785257758720 link here.