Tuesday April 30th 2019

Time is a strange thing. Before I headed north, my mum asked me to purchase a basic alarm clock for my dad. Since he's become her carer, he sleeps in one room, and mum in another. Technology is not his forte and so the alarm/clock radio he has is never accurate as he can't work out how to change the time. So before heading north I bought a radio controlled alarm clock which will be accurate to 1 second every million years. Not sure the battery will last quite that long. But this image isn't of it. This image is my travelling alarm clock from many decades ago. My dad had put it next to the spare bed so I had a clock with me. It was odd seeing this by the bed as I can not recall the last time I used it. It's a bit battered and only keeps time for a day, but a lovely surprise. And dad's new clock? He loves it, though as I'd also reset the alarm/clock radio to the correct time he apparently woke at 1am and thought it was 5am as he'd been used to adjusting the time on the clock by 4 hours to be accurate. Love my dad and his absolute inability to comprehend anything technological. A true artist.

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Monday April 29th 2019

Home is where the heart. Tonight this is in my parents back garden. Strictly speaking this home is the view I had whilst taking to Julie this evening on the phone. Having set off at 0945 from Somerset, I arrived at 1450 in Boldon 316 miles later. A good journey by modern standards and one accomplished with no breaks Not ideal to drive 5 hours none stop but sometimes when the traffic is free flowing and the mood is right, I like to just keep going. That said, it's also lovely to arrive, relax and unwind. A week in the North East just being with my parents.

Sunday April 28th 2019

When this was taken there was no internet,  no mobile phones. It was April 3rd 1983 (handily I'd written this on the reverse). I was 18. And this was my first selfie. Before selfies even existed. I stumbled across this astonishing image of myself 30+ years ago while looking for something else. It was inside a book being used as a book mark. A book I'm possible not opened for to decades. I can vividly remember this image being taken. My friend had just begun a photography course and he was full of ideas for images. We're in the back garden of my parents home in South Shields. It was Easter Sunday and we were two mates messing about with my new Olympus OM10 camera. But looking back it seems very strange viewing my young self. It doesn't seem like any time at all since this was taken yet as I scan my outer shell of 37 years ago, captured on film, it seems a strange visage. Almost unrecognisabe. Time definitely has moved on, not least the fashions....that hat was bought to impress a lady. I'm not sure what happened to her. Hummmm........

Saturday April 27th 2019

Storm Hannah was a very unwelcome guest in late April. This deep depression unleashed 82 mph winds onto the Welsh coastline. A windspeed only a few degrees lower careered into this part of the Somerset coast. With the garden battered and the gale subsiding enough to allow for upright walking again, we decided to venture to the Mendip Hills. It was still windy when we arrived at the Rocky Mountain nursery to mooch among the plants, which by then were mostly horizontal, waiting to be up righted. Perusal over, off to Downend near Wells, a recce for Julie to find a horse riding centre. Both chores completed I stopped for a short while at Becon Hill Wood to take a photograph. The image can never represents the perfect glorious light green of newly emerged leaves at this time of the year, nor the strong wind steamrolling through the branches. But I tried; even though post Storm Hannah, many of those delicate leaves were now festooned on terra firma.

Friday April 26th 2019

My final view of the trees at work. I've got 10 days off and this is the last view I'll have of these four trees. This weekend they'll be coming down to make way for a new wheelchair ramp. They've been part of the scene here for as long as I've worked here. Smaller then of course, more like foliage rich walking sticks but over time they've graced the terrace outside the Bar. They were a form of maple which I never identified. That didn't matter. In autumn drifts of seeds fell to the ground. All year the resident blackbird sang in them. It will be sad to return to the office and not see them softening the area. Especially as the huge pine which was in front of them was felled last year too. Thank you trees, you've been AceR.

Thursday April 25th 2019

And then the rain came. As if by magic for as long as I've shuffled across this planet every time the trees burst into blossom, the weather either becomes windy, or wet and windy. Today was exactly that. Yesterday evening I saw this tree in blossom by the car park I frequent daily. It looked stunning but the light was poor so I thought "I'll photograph this tomorrow". Overnight, wind and rain pummeled the area. This morning? A lovely ground cover of pink. Next year then!

Wednesday April 24th 2019

Human evolution has come a long way since we split from other Hominid species and became 'sapien' - or, wise man. Well it was a wise man this lunchtime who avoiding the light monsoon without, who ate his Sainsbury's meal deal lunch in the car. Wise beyond reason.

The view was stupendous, the muti-story car-park I use daily to reach my place of employ. And there you have it. 1.5 million years of evolution of the human race and it all comes to this, a damp Wednesday, and £3 meal and a moist windscreen partly obscuring the bargain car park charges on a Sunday. I'm sure when I frequented senior school (in-between bouts of truancy) my careers master never said 

"Dawes, if you work hard, focus on what you want out of life and persevere, you'll end up in your 6th decade eating a sandwich in a car park watching a man in front of you getting soaked as he repeatedly comes back to the car for things he's forgotten" 

No, I'm sure it was all about if I get a good career, I'll have a nice house, 2.4 children and holiday in Costa Brava for two weeks in August. I'm sure evolution has brought great benefits, but this lunchtime as the rain obliterated shorts man from my view, I did begin to wonder.

Tuesday April 23rd 2019

April is " National Kite Month". Not in the UK, but in Newport, Oregon.  Now why on earth would I be sitting in Bristol but writing the daily blog about a place on the other side of the pond that until a few hours ago, I'd never heard of. Well it is simple. I look after a lot of equipment in the Radio department here and a small compact camera was found recently - in a locked drawer. The camera contained a memory card, so I thought I'd have a look. Around 80 images from what seems to be a beach clean in 2011, in Newport. I wonder why? My guess is that a recording trip resulted in this blizzard of images, of coastline with golden sand, of people collecting plastic, standing loving with their catch, and of lovely scenic images of the town and landmarks. 

These three especially caught my eye so I had to look up where Newport was. And this is what I discovered. Sounds great. (although one image did say Tsunami Debris). Funny what is found in locked drawers, and where it leads an inquisitive mind......

Newport Facts

Population: 10,400

County: Lincoln County

Elevation: 150 feet above the sea

Time Zone: Newport is located in Pacific Standard Time Zone

Miles to Portland: 130 miles to Portland International Airport

Most Visited Attraction: The Oregon Coast Aquarium

Major Industry: Tourism, fishing and wood products

Approximate number of restaurants: More than 80—ranging from four-star dining to small, cozy cafes 

Monday April 22nd 2019

One of the joys of spending 4 days at home, much of that time lying in a sun lounger in the garden, is that things we'd normally not notice in the rush of life, we see. The holly blue butterfly is aptly named. Actually it should be called the holly and ivy butterfly as within it's life style it requires holly for the first generation and ivy for the second. We have both. This species is one of the beneficiaries of climate change as it is moving further north than before. My parents in Tyneside have a huge holly tree, lots of ivy, and around 5 or 6 years ago, holly blue butterflies arrived. One of the first records in the area. Now these enchanting butterflies are in Scotland. The holly blue is also the only blue butterfly you will see in gardens (unless your garden is open grassland loved by the other blues). I've been mesmerised by them all weekend, a male and female (in pictures) have swirled and danced around the two holly pom-pom's we have. A sure sign that even the smallest of habitat changes will bring the wildlife in. I tried to get a good picture of the male but he was very flighty. Interesting final thought, holly blues don't take nectar, but drink honeydew from plants such as the forget-me-not below. Nature is fascinating.

Sunday April 21st 2019

It's been another hot and sunny day over Easter. Perfect for just lazing about in the garden. I've finally finished my book which I began on Friday - a real page turner, which is unusual in a biography - though technically it's a Bio-fact-based-study of Welsh society. By 7pm there was an element of cabin fever creeping in, despite Julie still having a bad back from riding on Thursday. I had an itch to hear a cuckoo and so we headed off as the sun began to set, initially to the Somerset Levels, but en route decided to head into the Mendips as it was closer. We ended up at Velvet Bottom which is a great name. Very few people about, the sun setting over the reserve. A perfect end to the day. sometimes these daily posts are purely about life. Not much happens, but it's quite nice. No cuckoos however.

Saturday April 20th 2019

This has been my view most of the day. 

That was after I popped out to Congresbury for shopping at 7am (yes the local convenience store, butcher and baker all open at 7am). It was so lovely, not a cloud in the sky, yet cool, a heavy dew on the ground - I was out in the lovely Clio for it's monthly drive in the sunshine - magical hour of calm. £37 later I was home with Wiltshire bred bacon and (lovely as it turned out) Toulouse sausages, a lovely bloomer and a manic bag filling episode whereby thinking I'd only buy orange juice and a single apple, following a text from HQ I ended up doing the weekends shop. Hilarity ensued as I tried to get a very full basket loaded up into my canvas bag already groaning under the bacon, sausages and bread.. as one chap in the queue said, It's a recreation of the elephant in the mini sketch... oh how they all laughed. Then I left the shopkeeper said "Good Luck"

So after all that excitement, what better than on a hot sunny day, lie on the lawn, a good book, doing absolutely nothing. Exactly what Easter is all about. Well not exactly all about, there was a trip to the tip with 6 bags of garden rubbish at 3pm. 

Good Friday April 19th 2019

It’s not often I pick up a book and within minutes I’m transported elsewhere. Pages turning with quickening speed. On The Red Hill hasn’t been published yet, this is a proof copy, ahead of the June publication. The subject, a gay couple who died leaving their small farm to a younger couple they’d befriended is a topic I’d not normally read. Nor know much about. Yet this well written, well paced book spins the story from modern day deeply conservative mid-Wales to the post war gay scene in Bournemouth, via natural history observation and social change over 60 years. Well observed studies of human nature add to this mix. I’m half way through, a perfect relaxation for a Good Friday (that and watching a lovely film on TV over breakfast called When The Whales Came from 1989. A lovely relaxing day so far.

Thursday April 18th 2019

They're back. Who are? 'My' house martins, that's who! 

Not the three birds in this picture it has to be said, which was snapped in 2015. But their offspring. Miraculously appearing today as if they'd never been away. Early September last year there were a number of martins chattering noisily around the house. We went on a weeks holiday only to return to silence. Deadly, claustrophobic, morbid silence. They'd gone, a month earlier than normal. And who could blame them. 2018 was not a good year for wildlife. Summer migrants began arriving just as the successive Beast of the East waves of arctic air barrelled into Britain. Temperatures plummeted and an easterly airflow managed to subdue temperatures dramatically along with the most impressive late season snowfall for decades. Mid April then saw the most dramatic switch resulting in nearly 4 months of dry hot sunny weather in the South West at least. Everything turned yellow, crisp and even. With no rain, insect populations crashed, breeding success was subdued but still life went on. Some species of course, butterflies and moths for example, enjoyed this hot weather. Not until early September did any rain fall in Somerset, first appreciable falls since early May. And then the martins left abruptly. 

They usually return here at the start of April, just a few then a rush by the second week. This year however I was beginning to worry. Not a single bird. Had 2018's odd year suppressed the breeding success of the birds, a species already in serious decline? By April 16th I'd got so worried having seen a number of swallows but still no martins, I asked on Facebook. Friends hadn't seen any either, except surprisingly one in Cleveland who's seen a couple of birds a week before.  I looked on-line, hardly any reports, a few here, a few there, even the Portland Bird Observatory was just counting high teen numbers. Worrying. Where were they? I need not have worried.  Arriving home at 5pm after a busy shift at Tyntesfield, I opened the car door and there they were, swooping noisily in and out the nest as if they'd just been away for the day. Such joy. This morning as I left silence, tonight they're back, a week or so later than usual, but they're back. Back in December I'd gazed on the nest and thought of them overwintering 4,000 miles away in warm, sunny Africa, hoping they were well.  And they were, for by this evening half a dozen were flying above the house. Magic.

I'm overjoyed. So much so I'm going to experiment with some clay mud in a dish in the garden for them. It's been dry for weeks here and everything is baked hard. I've been reading that doing this little thing can make all the difference to their repairs of last years nest. I hope so.

Wednesday April 17th 2019

Small copper. Julie noticed this on the garden fence this afternoon. I’m not sure there’s ever been a small copper butterfly in the garden before. However this beauty now adds to the garden list. Are species increasing in the garden as it’s a fully organic affair. Or just increasing in the surrounding countryside. Whatever the reason this lovely species was wonderful to see.

Tuesday April 16th 2019

Unintentionally this is a double headed posting coupled to yesterday and the blackbird losing it's perch. I did plan to write about rooks. However sitting this afternoon having a screen break, in the newly open aspect, newly smoke free BBC Club terrace, I caught my reflection. My reflection is not important but the view, which for years having been lost under the umbrella of smoking, is. My world. The trees, soon to be felled (April 23rd they'll be gone) and my office are all in this view. My Canadian mug which I now use as an environmentally sustainable cup. The seats I sit on. And me. They say an image can say more than 1000 words, well for me, today, unintentionally here's my 134 words explaining the scene. Economic with the wordsmithing there Andrew

Monday April 15th 2019

Thomas Hardy's short poem "I watched a blackbird" seems very apt today. For this afternoon I did watch a blackbird in Easter week

I watched a blackbird on a budding sycamore

One Easter Day, when sap was stirring twigs to the core;

I saw his tongue, and crocus-coloured bill

Parting and closing as he turned his trill;

Then he flew down, seized on a stem of hay,

And upped to where his building scheme was under way,

As if so sure a nest were never shaped on spray.

Soon however I'll not be able to watching particular blackbird on this particular tree. As despite protests and gnashing of teeth, these ornamental maples, there are four of them,  are soon to come down as a new accessibility ramp is built on site. Even my wheelchair colleagues are aghast at the tree removal. But that's progress. There will be other perches, yet for many years now I've listened to blackbirds singing in these trees. On dark winter evenings especially their plaintif contact calls have enriched a tramp across the car park to buy my cup of tea. It may not be a budding sycamore, but as a close relative, farewell maple, farewell blackbird, farewell smokers. 

Oh I forgot to say, today is the first day the smoking area at work has moved to a small bus shelter in the car park. This hasn't gone down well in some quarters. At least thought the blackbird isn't passive smoking as it sings, as until today the smoking area was under these trees!

Sunday April 14th 2019

Life but not as we know it. My first day at Tyntesfield when the Cadbury's Easter Egg Hunt is in full swing. Behold the mighty advertising displays blowing in the breeze. Not a visitor in sight, it's 0945 in the morning. A song thrush is bellowing from a tree its melodic song. Rabbits frolic among the tulips. A passing sheep baaaa'd in the lowly meadow. All was peace with the world.

By 1700 when I finished my shift, I'd handed out what felt like 3 million Easter eggs to very excited children. I was in bed by 1930hrs, exhausted. Fun though. It really is.

Saturday April 13th 2019

As the crow flies Chipping Sodbury is around 13 miles from where I am typing this daily post. Yet in over 25 years of living in the area, I've visited this lovely 12th Century town just once. That single visit was recalled to me to be when I drove my breakfast companion to collect her car, many many moons ago at a time when we worked together. Today however the three of us, for Julie joined the merry bandwagon,  headed on the spur of the moment to Hamptons Delicatessen and Cafe for a late breakfast. We've been trying to catch up with Sheena since Christmas, thus having finally pinned down a date in the diary, what do we do now? Lets have breakfast. Two hours later we emerged from the aforementioned eaterie, most happy and willing to wobble around this ancient town, in the April sunshine, letting the big breakfasts digest en-route. I hope Chipping Sodbury retains it's quaint air, as Yate its rude and brash neighbour has expanded to the very edge of the Chippings foothills. Not good.

Friday April 12th 2019

I have just realised that although this year long personal diary is littered with images, none of me in this celebration year. Until now. It came to me this morning as their is an image in the kitchen wall of my favorite view in Northumberland. It was taken in 2008, I have my back to the camera, and the view is before me. And I have dark hair.  Okay, a semi circle of dark hair, and very little grey. Tempest Fugit now dictates that the silverback persona is a reality. I sometimes look at myself and wonder who I am. Not in a psychotic paranoid way but in a way of failure to recognise myself. I feel exactly the same as I did in my teens and early 20's but now the reflection which stares back at me is a stranger. I'm not keeping pace with Wilde's fabled Dorian Gray novel. I don't mind getting older, it's just that it's really weird. My parents say this, that even though they're in their eighties, they feel inside like young adults. And I'm glad of that, both for them and for myself. I can vividly remember most of my childhood. Events, feelings, emotions, smells, emotional first stirrings of the natural world, and a feeling of unbridled freedom. 

I had a lot of freedom in my childhood, hours spent wandering the countryside, nowhere to be, no meetings to attend, no responsibilities. Just lazy days sometimes a whole day sitting under a tree, or beside a river, for absolutely no reason other than I could. In many ways, this year is about recreating this. Idle thought. Time for that childlike wonder of freedom and exploration to once again become my soul mate. Middle age I believe is a state of mind, settling into slippers and a steady life planning what to do when we retire is a recipe for growing old. View the world as a blank canvass, and the future seems a long, long way away, as it did fifty years ago when aged 5, my Birthdays took decades to arrive. I've long avoided any responsibility. Except to tread lightly on this life. That, and trying not to look back too much, but dream forwards. Failing that I might just sit under a tree for 6 hours and do absolutely nothing.

Thursday 11th April 2019

I've posted about Oscar before. Oscar belongs to my neighbour. He is a hardened hunter, who fails to catch anything. We think. Certainly there is no evidence of his dastardly deeds.  Today while at work, Julie emailed me this picture. It now seems that being white, Oscar has decided he needs an ambush hide and has resorted to the wheelbarrow to engage full stealth mode. Obviously he can not be seen in this mobile bucket as it offers Oscar full camouflage in the surrounding landscape. Poised, and invisible, he is all set to pounce out and snare a suspecting blue tit. 

If they weren't all watching him from the trees wondering why he's sitting in a wheelbarrow. 

Wednesday April 10th 2019

there are some stunning views to accompany a luncheon of sandwiches and a pot of tea. But this isn't one of them. But it paints a picture of life within the barricades at work. Not much else to say really other than the satellite dish fried my cheese sandwich lovely.

Tuesday April 9th 2019

Its amazing what happens at home when I'm not there. Arriving in the study this evening this highland cow greeted me. I'm sure it wasn't there in the morning. And of course it wasn't there, it was drawn this afternoon by Julie after I suggested she moves away from drawing birds. Many farm shops we frequent have cows and sheep paintings for sale. They must be popular. They must sell.  So there you go, another planning piece for potential sales. Not finished of course but Julie really has nailed a lovely typical cow like expression so far. I wonder what'll be in the study tomorrow when I return home.

Monday April 8th 2019

It’s odd in many ways seeing someone you know on the telly. Channel 5 are running again Spring on the Farm co-hosted by my colleague Lindsey Chapman. If you haven’t seen it, it’s much like Springwatch but involving a lot more rectum fondling. Not of Lindsey or Adam Henson (as far as I’m aware) but farmstock giving birth live on TV. I really like it as a show. Fairly simple format but as in tonight’s episode the animals are the stars. They definitely were today. Goats! Goats are just mad, thus any sane director would never put a goat entertainment structure behind the presenters. At one point Adam and Lindsey were having a long conversation about something, but I’ve no idea what it was as behind them a pigmy goat was just messing about. This culminated in it sliding down the ramp as if on a conveyor belt then leaping off. Sorry Lindsey I’m sure what you said was of great wisdom, but you know what they say “never work with children or animals” And especially not goats. They’re just nuts.

Sunday April 7th 2019

Many times it is the smallest aspects of nature which can give the greatest pleasure. Working in the garden this afternoon I spied this cowslip. One of my favourite plants. But how did it get here? The garden is fully organic, but cowslips like undisturbed grassland. Not a well known habitat in a domestic garden.This one is growing along the edge of a path which is a fair substitute. However it got here is immaterial it brought diminutive joy to a domestic day.

Saturday April 6th 2019

Its funny. We always sit at this table, and we always sit in the same chairs. Julie and I on the settle, Alan and Christine opposite on chairs. In the winter the fire is on, on April 6th it was too hot for a smoking grate. The reservation sign at the Dog Inn Old Sodbury tells a story, along with the menus. 4 times a year we meet up with Julie's friends from Wiltshire. Christine's mum was a great friend of Julie's mum and so they became friends as well. Of course until 2014 Julie could have popped over any time. now she's entombed in Somerset we meet half way for lunch and a natter. not sure what was in my lunch but by the time I got home at 4pm, I was exhausted and needed a little nap before the Grand National, won by tiger Roll for a second time in two years. First time that's happened since Red Rum in 1974. There lies another story, as a 10 year old, in that race I had First, Second and Third. Mt 10p each was in the Rothbury betting shop netted me something like £1.50. A fortune for a 10 year old and I know I bought a balsa-wood plane with some of it (if not all of it) from Murray's toy shop.   

Friday April 5th 2019

Success. A month back I attended a Northumbrian Smallpipes taster day at Halsway Manor in Somerset. I loved it even though I found my fingers were about as flexible as a brick in boxing gloves. Despite being unable to play along with my fellow taster chaps, I loved it. The conversation moved to electronic pipes and well to make a short story even shorter I bought these e-pipes for my birthday. However on unpacking the beast, nothing happened. Batteries checked, manual (quite rudimentary) consulted, but still no. I emailed the supplier and after a number of exchanges last night I got a squeak from somewhere. Tonight then, can the squeak become a note. Well yes, after two hours of blood, sweat and tears I triumphed and got the e-pipe to play a tune. I’m not sure what the tune was but as I also produced silence, I had cracked it. Silence? Yes indeed, in the smallpiped silence is the default sound and part of the playing style. I like making silence.

Thursday April 4th 2019

One day this will not be a view I will ever see again. The pictures on the wall are actually front covers of the Radio times going back to the 1960's. For years each time the BBC's Natural History Unit had one of their programmes on the front cover, a framed copy was delivered to the head of the Unit; Small inscriptions lie beneath the cover  - presented to John Sparkes, presented to Alastair Fothergill,  These were the golden years of the Natural history unit when their programmes took the listner to places that most people had never been to, nor had the opportunity to. Life on Earth, Wildlife on One, Natural World, Private Life of Plants, Flight of the Condor, these ground breaking series flooded out of Bristol. It's why I'm here having seen an advert to work here, and I arrived just as Life in the Freezer hit the airwaves. A long time ago now. 

For years these framed gems lined the corridor of the BBC Buildings where the NHU central hub lived, they were impossible to miss. Then around 10 years ago the NHU moved into the newer part of the site, with few walls. Thus these historical artifacts were unceremoniously moved to the BBC Club in Bristol as a backdrop to the games table. Where they remain to this day. For how long they'll remain there before they're seen as old fashioned, I don't know. And one day I'll not be here either to remember those nuggets of excellence on the BBC. Tempest fugit.

Wednesday April 3rd 2019

A month ago I bought a pair of tickets to see, or more importantly hear Kathryn Tickell at St Georges in Bristol. I've known and followed Kathryn for decades, ever since we were both teenagers. She'd come to the Rothbury Music Festival, perform in Morpeth, Hexham and elsewhere in small venues with Ian Carr and Lynn Tocker. Then in the 1980's her fame grew. Partly hugely talented in playing the Northumbrian smallpipes, and partly I'm sure being a young girl not playing synth-pop chart topping music. A Teenager playing bagpipes isn't an everyday occurrence. But I love it. Reminds me of 'home' and so it was tonight when a set was played referencing the River Coquet and Holy island that I found myself crying gently. Why I don't know but it transported me home and I miss it so much. More so than ever, and the sound of the pipes transports me back from Bristol to The Wild Hills of Wannie.

Tuesday April 2nd 2019

What on earth? Well this is the bottom of my new Technopipe. A month or so ago I went on a Northumbrian Pipes weekend and really wish to give it a go. A full set of real pipes heads close to £1000 and then beyond, and for the moment what I need is an easy peasy way of learning to get my sausage like fingers going. On the course the teacher Francis and I had a chat about the Fagerstrom Technopipe. This seemed exactly what I needed, a small instrument that could be played anywhere discretely. That's the plan anyway, in bed, watching TV, at work, I could practice my fingering. I say that's the plan, the trouble is after receiving it as a gift yesterday, I can't get the damn thing to work. This photo of the battery in situ was sent to the supplier.  Frustrating and looking on YouTube it seems as easy as put a battery in and off you go. Not tonight. To be continued.

Postsctipt, Two days later I made a strange noise. Probably the pipes coming to life, but aged 55, maybe noises off. Lets hope the former.

Monday April 1st 2019

Well it's arrived. My halfway point in this recording year. The first day I could retire with a pension! Old enough to retire - how on earth did that happen? And a day when I had 18 Birthday Cards.  So April 1st 2019 is here, and the half way point. Five years ago I went to London for the day and walked around the Viking exhibition at the British Museum. 

You can read that here.... April 1st 2014

Today, a much simpler affair. Work through the day and then home to a rousing banner, lasagna, feet up watching Endeavour on TV and bed. It's a wild Rock and Roll lifestyle but someone has to do it. Though at my age, it's less Rock and more Rickety. 55 Eh..... astonishing.!