Weekly whinging from a Grumpy Old Woman
Do you like the title? I felt my weekly blog posts/items needed a sub-title that explains where my thoughts are coming from. This post unusually spans two weeks rather than the usual one because I was so tired at the end of last week from the activities therein. Nice activities but exhausting. Why did I say yes to not one but three events as part of Sidmouth Science Week? I love showing off a wind tunnel model of a rocket I happen to be custodian of and encouraging young people into STEM subjects. Two of the events involved simply setting up a display and talking to people, while the third was a talk cum activity involving young people pegging planets onto a string to explore the scale of the solar system.
As a result of one display session at the science festival, something lovely happened. A scientist acquaintance beheld one of our artist/astronomer friend’s railway paintings and was bowled over by it. Not only by the skilled artwork but by the subject matter of a double header passing through Dawlish. Upon explaining our friend’s background, the other man was keen to meet him. This happened and the two gentlemen enjoyed a couple of hours talking railways. One regaling the other with tales of the GWR, the other listening rapt at meeting a senior GWR manager. They enjoyed playing with our friend’s 00 gauge railway to round off the visit.
The whole country it seems is having a whinge at the moment. Inevitably, there is the usual half yearly debate about the clocks changing. For me, this can’t have come soon enough as an amateur astronomer and as someone who is in tune with the sun. Losing an hour’s sleep in order to gain some extra evening daylight for a short period of time seems out of proportion to any ‘gain’. Given the length of daylight in June and July, there seems little point in moving the daylight and the heat. The latter seems not to be considered yet it is this aspect which affects me most. With the hour moved forward the heat from the sun is delayed of course meaning the mornings are colder than they should be and the hottest part of the day, not to mention that having the most UV, is shifted away from noon. The darker evenings in the north of the land affect those going to school or work, while the lighter evenings in the south make it difficult for those needing early nights, such as children. Research has proven that these changes wreak havoc with our body clocks, yet the twice-yearly changes continue.
Storms of a natural nature have also wreaked havoc. Trees down, trains cancelled, bridges closed, as the first storm of the winter season struck with a vengeance, closely followed by the second storm. Sadly, this meant cancelling a long looked forward to visiting to my daughter in the north of the country. The first storm was centred on our area and the south coast, while the second on her area.
However, every cloud has a silver lining, and we used the bonus time at home with nothing planned, to sort out our finances and make progress with the projects we have on the go. I have several writing projects nearing completion and am working hard on finalising some of those. Our finances are complicated, as are many people’s, due to the different dates our income arrives. After much thought and tweaking of spreadsheets, I think I have made our income and expenditure not only easier, but less worrying on a monthly basis. Most of the stress comes from the fact that the direct debits were set up after the main pension amount comes in on a set day each month, while the other pension comes in every four weeks meaning that sometimes there is a shortfall in the main account. We have not been in a position to stockpile funds. This has now been drastically sorted by cashing in an old life assurance policy. Yes, it gave a massive payout upon death, but there is still the house to sell for our children – who are all doing well financially – and we need to live without such stress now. It was the right decision. I feel better, sleeping better, and better able to concentrate.
