At home

Let it snow!

/ masher / 11 Comments

It can’t have escaped anybody’s attention, that we have had a reasonable fall of the white stuff over the past couple of days.

And whilst it looks pretty and it gets the kids and the dog excited, I hate it.

Yes, it was great when I was young and I can remember being out in it all the time back in the early seventies – that’s when we had proper snow… and at Christmas too.

But once I grew up (last Tuesday), I took a real dislike to the stuff.  And, as I’ve got older, I’ve come to dislike it more and more.

And there are two main reasons for this:

  1. It’s cold.  I hate the cold. I used to relish it, but not so much nowadays.  Actually, I don’t like the heat either – I’m more of a temperate kind of guy: 20 degrees is the Goldilocks zone, for me.
  2. It disrupts my journey to work.  As if I don’t spend enough time sitting in traffic as it is, a half inch of snow will double or triple my journey time, because we are rubbish at driving in the snow.

Whenever snow falls, I literally dread having to drive to work.

But, every cloud has a silver lining:

We are in lockdown and I am working from home.  I can sit in the warm comfort of my home office, with a nice cup of tea, looking out the window (because that’s what I normally do at work) and thoroughly enjoy the snowy spectacle outside. No having to defrost the car for fifteen minutes before I start; no sitting in a line of traffic en-route to the motorway, because some silly sod is just sat spinning his wheels as he tries to get up the slip road; no frustration at being stuck for hours on the M25 because a lorry has jack-knifed 30 miles ahead of me on the other carriageway.

Nope, just me and a cup of tea and a lovely view out the window as the sun rises.

I don’t know if any more snow is forecast, but if so, bring it on!

The Brexit Effect

/ masher / 8 Comments

Pinch, punch, first day of the… er, year.

So, how’s 2021 been for you so far?

It’s all been a bit “meh!” so far, in the Masher household.

Christmas went OK, but shortly after, Son started feeling ill: headache; bit of a cough; that sort of thing.

He got over it within 48 hours, but then it was Daughter’s turn. She seemed to have it a bit worse than he did… but then she’s also a bit of a drama queen, so we took that with a pinch of salt.

Then, the current Mrs Masher decided it was her turn: headache; cough; shivers… she had it pretty bad.

I thought it inevitable that I would catch it too.

But,  I didn’t.

And then, I did.

To be fair, I wasn’t too bad: headache and flu-like shivers and a touch of diarhoea  diaroeha diahre…  the shits.

Well, when I say a touch of… I mean it was unwise of me to be further than 30 seconds from a lavatory!

My sister reckons we’ve had a touch of the Covids, but I don’t think so: I don’t remember the ability to defecate through the eye of a needle, being one of the symptoms listed.

So, after several days of this, Mrs M popped out and got me some Imodium (other poo-thickening remedies are available) and that seems to be doing the trick.

In fact, it’s now gone the other way:  we had a curry last night and a full English breakfast this morning, but so far, there has been not a squeak from my bowels.

We’ve been out of the EU for less than 24 hours, and I have already lost my freedom of movement.

All over now… bar the shouting

/ masher / 1 Comment

Amazing, isn’t it?

Weeks and months are spent planning the event.

A small fortune is spent on – generally unwanted – presents.

Enough food is cooked to feed the whole street.

At least that’s how it is in the Masher household.

And then the big day arrives; we indulge in all our excesses and then it’s over.

Just like that.

And once the day is done and dusted, I just want to get everything back to normal: claim back the mantlepiece from the the mass of cards all carefully squeezed on there.

Get that tree down and take off the lights that have been reflecting in the TV screen for the past week.

Take down the lights that I put up outside (yes, for the first time ever, I was cajoled into illuminating the outside of the house.

And then of course, we steel ourselves in readiness for the next big event just seven days later: New Year.

Every New Year’s eve, my dad throws a party at his house.   There are silly games to be played; finger food to be eaten and much, much alcohol to be imbibed.

And once Big Ben has chimed in the New Year, there is loud music and dancing and shouting to be had. It’s generally a lot of fun.

But not this year, of course, as we are in Tier 4.

For us, the New Year will be seen in, watching Jools Holland on Channel 4 whilst trying to make some headway into the mountain of homemade sausage rolls and mince pies left over from Christmas.

Which suits me just fine: as I get older, I seem to be getting less enamoured with New Year celebrations.

I’m sure my dad’s neighbours will be pleased too, as this year they won’t have to put up with us doing the traditional – and very noisy – 3am conga down the street.

Telly

/ masher / 5 Comments

I’ve been watching a lot of telly of late.

Probably too much.

But my viewing habits – like so many others – have changed, considerably.

Firstly, it’s very rare that I’ll watch linear TV nowadays: just about everything is recorded and watched at a time when it suits. If the programme is on a non-BBC channel, then it definitely gets recorded and watched later – simply so we can whizz through the adverts. But, to be honest, there isn’t a great deal that we are recording.

So, if there’s not much on, just what are we watching so much of, that it’s inspired this post?

Box sets, that’s what.

Mrs M and I are ploughing our way through whatever Amazon and Netflix have to offer us.

Currently, it’s Away, on Amazon: a sci-fi drama about the first manned mission to Mars. It started off quite promising, but has got a bit boring, with much of the story being around the personal lives of the crew and their families, rather than the actual drama of being in space and all the jeopardy and excitement that entails.  But, we’ve invested a fair number of veiwing hours into this now, so we are kind of committed to seeing it through.  It might get better.

Before that, we watched The Fall on Netflix, with the still-very-attractive Gillian Anderson doing her best to catch a psycho serial killer, played by that bloke out of 50 shades.

Before that – back on Amazon – two seasons of Hanna. Based on the film of the same name, We found it quite enjoyable.

But, whilst all that is going on, I have also been watching the box set of Monty Python’s Flying Circus on Netflix… usually when Mrs M has gone to bed or is out, because she most definitely is not a Python fan.  I am though: a huge fan. And I’m thoroughly enjoying seeing sketches that I’ve not seen in years.

And, in a similar vein…

The Professionals.  Oh my god, I love The Professionals and Amazon are showing the whole lot!  I immediately became a fan of Bodie and Doyle and their escapades, when the show first aired back in 1978 (I think it was). And, over the years, I have watched the repeats several times.  Yes, time hasn’t been kind and it does look seriously dated nowadays (well, it is over 40 years old), with its cheesy dialogue and flared trousers. But I still love it and have seen every episode several times.

Except… I haven’t:  I was watching the box set the other day and sat through an episode I’d not seen before. How could this be, I wondered?  As the show progressed though, I realised why and then confirmed it with some internet research a bit later.  The show was all about racism and  – with today’s enlightened views regarding race and creed – I did find it quite uncomfortable to watch.  It seems ITV thought the same 42 years ago and the show was never aired on British TV.  I thought it interesting that in the current climate – Black Lives Matter etc – Amazon thought it OK to include it in the box set.

I wonder if they’ve got some old episodes of Love Thy Neighbour kicking about as well

Getting back to normal

/ masher / 9 Comments

Or for whatever counts as normal, round here.

This morning, me and seven others, jumped onto our motorcycles and took a very enjoyable ride out through Hitchin, Letchworth and Baldock, and then cross-country through Buntingford and then a blast up the A10 to Royston, where we stopped at our regular biker’s café for a slap-up cooked breakfast.

Of course, the café was closed, so we had to settle for whatever we had taken with us – in my case, a bottle of water and a bar of peanut brittle. Not as good as two sausages, egg, beans, mushroom and toast all washed down with two cups of splosh, but it had to do.

We all sat at different benches outside the café and shouted to each other, which felt rather stupid.

But the actual ride was brilliant fun, and it felt great to get back on two wheels.

And on Friday night, we had our first McDonalds for two months. The kids were ecstatic!  As I tucked into my Big Mac, I realised it was something I hadn’t missed at all.

So, a couple of small steps back toward normality.

But it does annoy me, that the government have said we can now meet one person outside of our family… but they haven’t yet told us who it is.

Flying like an eagle… Eddie the eagle

/ masher / 6 Comments

With all this Stay At Home malarky going on, the gardens at Masher Towers are looking splendiferous, for a change. The current Mrs Masher and I are not ones for gardening, but hey, what else are you gonna do? To be fair, it’s Mrs M who has done most of it; I’ve just got involved out of a sense of guilt.

Our garden waste bin is full-to-bursting and weighs a ton (maybe). That’s not helped by the council stopping the garden waste  collections during this time of the plague. And the glass bottle crate is also full-to-bursting, for the same reason.  The two things that many people can legitimately do during lockdown – gardening and drinking – and the council won’t take it away! Oh well.

It’s not just the garden that looks the best it has in twenty years, but the garage has also been tidied, to the point where I can now walk from one end to the other, without tripping on something.  And, during that big tidy up, I found our old Nintendo Wii Fit.  Mrs M told me to throw it out, years ago, as it wasn’t being used anymore. But, you know me: I don’t throw anything away if it’s not broken.

As such, there has been a resurgence of running,  stretching, balancing and ski-jumping in the Masher household.

Add that to the World Swingball & Badminton Championships that are happening in the garden this weekend, and it’s looking to be a great Summer of Sport!

I was especially pleased to see that the Ski Jump record of 398 meters, that I set in 2016, has been retained in the Wii memory. It still stands, even now, despite many valient attempts by the rest of the family, to oust me from the top spot.

Of course, being as modest as I am, I hardly ever mention it to them.

Still here

/ masher / 6 Comments

Greetings one and all. I hope you are all still alive and are staying well, during these ‘interesting’ times.

I’ve been working from home for the past two weeks. Somehow, I’ve not yet gone stir crazy.

Some of that is undoubtably down to the Skype chats that many of us are using as our natter/gossip catch-ups.

And some of it is because I am supremely excellent at getting distracted by other things.

Many other things.

Any other things.

Ooh look, a squirrel.

But, I have been surprised at just how actually productive we are all still being.  Conference calls and video meetings are in abundance and they seem to work pretty well, now that we have decent laptops.  I’m thinking that when all this shit is over and things get back to whatever counts as normal, I may look to see if I can work from home more often.    Some things definitely require me to be in the office, but it seems that I can effectively do 80 to 90 percent of my work from home.

Food for thought.

Talking of food, I went up to do my weekly grocery shop this morning.  I thought that it might be less busy than going at the weekend – I hasten to add that I am on annual leave today… I’m not shirking. But when I got up to the supermarket at 8 bells, I was astounded to see a single-file queue of people – all clutching trolleys and bags – stretching out the door, around the full perimeter of the car park, along past the petrol station and down to the road.  I reckon that’s probably a two-hour queue. Sod that! I went straight back home.

Of course, I won’t be saying that when all we’ve got to eat in the house are the bread crusts and that half a tube of tomato puree that’s been in the fridge for the past year.

Getting one’s affairs in order

/ masher / 11 Comments

Last year, whilst the current Mrs Masher and I were out walking the mutt one day, Mrs M suddenly said – apropos of nothing – “We must get our wills updated.”

I agreed. We had made a will together shortly after we got married and so much has changed since then – (kids mainly, but other stuff too) – that I realised our will would be woefully out of date and was no longer what we wanted.

We agreed to sort it out… but haven’t yet done so.

“Also”, she said, “if you suddenly snuff it, I’ve got no idea about your bank accounts. You need to write the details down, so I’ll know.”

Again, this is true: we both keep separate bank accounts (always have done). It works for us.  But, I have half a dozen different accounts that I use for paying bills and for savings and things.  If I were to drop dead tomorrow, she would need immediate access to those accounts, in order to keep the debtors from the door.

I agreed to sort that out too. But, how to do it? I certainly didn’t like the idea of writing everything down – account numbers, passwords, security questions, etc – and putting it in a brown envelope in the filing box, as per Mrs M’s suggestion. Far too risky. What if we got burgled whilst away on holiday?

What you see in the picture above, is the solution I came up with. Inside that red key box, is a memory stick. It contains EVERYTHING. All my accounts, with login details and passwords, but also a written description as to what I use each account for.

There are also written instructions on what to do with all my stuff, if I unexpectedly shuffle off.  I’ve got a lot of gear and have already made some verbal arrangements with friends, but these instructions should help her to dispose of some – or all – of my ‘crap’.

There are also some detailed instructions for the funeral, including the mp3 files of the music I’d like played.

And contact phone numbers of various friends etc that I’d want to be alerted to – what would surely be – the terribly sad news of my demise.

But – I hear you cry – a memory stick! That’s not very secure!

Well, there are three levels of protection here:

  1. It is hidden. Very well hidden. Hidden such, that it wouldn’t be accidentally stumbled upon and only an extensive search would uncover it.
  2. The memory stick is 256AES encrypted and only the multiple character encryption key will unlock it. And you only get six attempts, before it self-erases.   Mrs M only knows part of the key; the other part is with a friend.
  3. The financial files on the stick (giving access to Masher’s millions) are further protected with extra encryption, for which the key is also with a friend – a friend who is under strict instruction to only ever give the key to Mrs M… and even then,  only when I’m gone.

I feel confident that this is secure enough for me to hold such information on.  Plus, it’s dead easy for me to update, as and when I need to.

Now all I need to do, is get round to sorting the will out, then a copy of that can go on there too.

Affairs sorted.

Almost.

Birthday Girl

/ masher / 6 Comments

Today is the current Mrs M’s birthday.

On Saturday – whilst in Sainsbury’s – it occurred to me that I had better get her a card.

More than that, I had better get three cards: one from me and one from each of the kids… because they are bloody useless and won’t think to do it themselves.

The greetings cards in Sainsbury’s are overly expensive, in my opinion (other supermarket giants charging extortionate prices for a bit of card, are available).

But… between 2 and 3 quid for a bit of printed card?

No-way.

Especially when I have to buy three of them.

No matter… I had a plan!

Son was in town and rang me, asking for a lift home. “Sure thing, but first I want you to pop into the cheap greetings card shop and get three birthday cards for your mother.”

It was a bit of a risk, because he’s sometimes not the most savvy of kids, living as he does, in a world of almost perpetual online gaming and youtube videos.

But, I picked him up and he briefly flashed the cards at me. They looked OK. “Well done.”

Then last night, we went to write in them.

Mother’s Day is next month, right?

Locking the stable door

/ masher / 6 Comments

Our neighbour was burgled last week.

The neighbour that backs onto our garden.

They only moved in about six-months ago, so that’s not a particularly nice welcome for them.

To get in, the perpetrator(s) climbed over the fence and smashed the glass on the patio door.

Their new patio door that they only had fitted last month.

I don’t what (if anything) was taken, but I think they were possibly targeted because they were one of a very few houses around here without a visible alarm system… a police officer once told me that 90% of burglaries happened to properties without an obvious, visible alarm system.

Our neighbour has now had a visible alarm fitted.

And CCTV.

I do wonder as to the worthiness of CCTV though.  From what I have seen on telly, the hoodie is the chosen attire for most of these criminals and it does an effective job of hiding their facial features.

We don’t have CCTV, but we do have a Saber… and she is an excellent deterrent!

M… m… m… my corona

/ masher / 4 Comments

I buy a lot of stuff from China.

Just small stuff.

Electronic components, in the main.

Because they’re cheap and are all over a well-known auction site.

In the past, even the postman has moaned to me about all the “… stupid little packets from China…” that he has to deliver to our house.

One such package arrived yesterday: a small Bluetooth module for a forthcoming project.

“Is that from China?” asked Mrs M.  I nodded. “Well, make sure you wash your hands after handling it, she said, in obvious reference to the Corona Virus outbreak.

“Oh, don’t be daft”, I said very matter-of-factly, “It’s absolutely fine. There’s no way a virus could survive a three-week journey through the postal system.” I continued… as if I actually knew what I was talking about.

Then I took the package upstairs to the shack, where I stopped briefly in the bathroom, to wash my hands and spray some Dettol on it.

Best till last

/ masher / 6 Comments

Mrs Masher bought me an advent calendar at the beginning of December.

A big box, with a bottle of beer behind each perforated cardboard window.

Different beers from around the world.

And, it was a cracking selection because, out of the 24 bottles, I think there was only one that I didn’t enjoy (can’t remember which it was).

But last night, sitting in front of the telly, watching Spiderman: Homecoming, whilst balancing a plate of home-made enchiladas on my lap, I finished off the last of the 24 bottles.

Brewed in Assemini, a small town in Sardinia, this was quite possibly the pick of the bunch.

I’m quietly hoping for another advent calendar, this year!