mid-break jangles

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19°C, light cloud. CR:26 miles

Mid summer holiday causes a strange feeling. It really does take three weeks to recover fully so that now I have to carefully harness the physical energy that’s liberated. Perhaps soon a trip to the Scottish highlands. With time running out, I have to worry that I’m using this time wisely. The decorating is underway, I like the colours I have chosen and the first layers are showing the effect. I want to use the multi-surface reflections which give richer colours in areas like corners and alcoves. The trick is to use several colours that are very similar. The bounced light takes on the surface colour before illuminating adjacent walls. It works a treat!

French bites

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19°C, light clouds. CR:35 miles

French bites are not like French Kisses- the bites are French but by Mosquitoes. The itch is persistent. So where have I been? Corsica, a mountainous island in the med- the most mountainous island of them all in fact. The landscape was rather like semi-desert, dry hot & dusty land, a dense soil of barren dust. Each step taken scatters lizards amongst plants that are so dry they almost rattle. that’s nothing though, the scent of the macchi was the most magical sensation from the place. It was like a mixture of fennel, artimesia,  annise, pine and the smell we get here in the England- oil-seed rape. A nice souvineer would be some plants that I can get for the garden. Oh and an olive tree– they’re not vulnerable to frosts.

decorate

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21C, Rain

Painting the attic room. First put a coat of white matt to act as an undercoat & hide the rather unpleasant colour beneath. It’s been a while since I have done any of decorating and I have become rusty. Worse, some of my tools are old & shagged out. Still, Radio 4 was there to carry me along. Notably Afternoon Reading by Dermot Bolger. Followed by the excellent Russia- the Wild East.

Crows in Leomondsley

50% fail

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24C, hot & humid.

Education panic: BBC 30% of 10 year olds fail to reach the “expected” level in maths & literacy. Erm, this is where I need to call on the services of a statics expert. Remember in the Labour Govt Ed Balls wanted most kids to achieve “above average (mean)” results? So with results scattered on a Normal Distribution curve, shouldn’t there be about 30%percentage reaching only the arbitrary “expected” level anyway? If you’re comfortable handling standard deviations, then perhaps you could post me an informative link. My competence with bell-curves falls below the required standard I have to say!

What I suspect here is that we are dealing with politicians’ stats rather than competently functioning data handling. (It’s not just me that feels uneasy)

I recall as a kid leaving primary school my own reading age test result was considerably below my chronological age. I’m sure I now have a reading age considerably above 46 years. So the problem was only really a problem for the school, not for me. On the other hand, statistics abuse is a real problem in journalism and politics in the last few decades.

A snake and a fire

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21°C, Clear, dry & dusty: CR 30 miles.

Rode back from a lunchtime care stop, there was a snake weaving its way across the road. Wow! Probably a grass-snake, it looked grey with a zig-zag down its back. It wriggled away too fast for me to get a photograph.

Fire on the horizon: to the East, perhaps beyond Measham was this thick oily fire billowing up above the light clouds. [ Update: it was a fire in Ashby-de-la-Zouch)

First wasp sting of the year: It got me just under the tongue of my cycling shoe. After a few hours though it hasn’t gone itchy like in the past. However, since it stung below the shoe-tongue and through sock, I didn’t actually get to see it as I rode, looking down and rummaging with my fingers. It was more important to brake and get off the bike without injury from falling off. It was strange, for the rest of the ride, the odd sensation moved down to my toes. Perhaps that was the result of swelling restricting blood flow. I sound like an expert don’t I? you know that hollow bit where the tendon joins the top of your foot, the one that pulls your big toe? It should have a hollow to the side. It doesn’t on my right foot any more.
Still, it’s been a very nice day, finished off with some alcohol-free German beer and bed by 10.

Gotcha back

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20°C, light grey, warm & close

Result: the gutter press have been clobbered for their bad behaviour last Christmas. Observers have felt annoyed about this story over the last half-year, now they are ordered to pay large fines to the innocent landlord for their ludicrous inventions last winter. It’s still remarkable that these papers make up those stories with no apparent inhibition; we knew back then, it was probably false. They must have felt, at the time, that there was nothing to stop them.

Home: Tiled behind the cooker; paid unbelievable amounts of money to get the car serviced. Weather is threatening Wales and a hiking trip there next week.
King Cnut: look up where he came from on GoogleEarth:

I'm in this kind of mood today.

Try it yourself & let me know what result you see.

July, the tired month

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16°C, grey, dull, very dull. CA:20

Bone-tired II: yes yes, I know I say this every year, the last week of term and all. I woke in the night, about 4 ish, and my heartbeat was still thumping, I’m that tired. It seems like a very physical state to be in. Three more getups to go.