Let us return........

In view of the current goings on, I thought I ought to return to the barn where I parked the WB Pippin blog back in August 2018 to see if I could get the old thing going again.

It hasn't been easy........

The tyres were flat, as was the battery, and I had to drain the joke tank of about seven and a half gallons (Imperial mind you!) of very stale humour....... (which will be very much not a surprise to any of you who've read this nonsense before.)

But with a few day's worth of fettling, it has stuttered back to life.

Anyway, what's been occurring down in Groovetown since last I blogged?

Quite a lot actually, yet much remains reassuringly the same: Jackie and I are still aboard the eponymous widebeam, still moored at The Parish, near Cambridge, and we're still doing the same jobs.

The Alvis is 'nearly finished', but as I've been saying that since 2013, it doesn't mean much...... Though in all honesty, it's a lot more finished than it was.

It's got a hood now, and a new/restored interior.

(There may even be pictures....... once I've worked out how to post them again.)

This may take some time.......

In the meantime, if you are looking to me to get any news or views re: the current unpleasantness, then I'm going to be a sad disappointment to you. Go and have a look at TwitFace, or whatever they call it, if you want any of that......

It's worth pointing out that I don't own a Smartphone.

My phone has about the same processing power as the computer on the Apollo 11 lander..... (i.e. virtually bugger-all).....and is used to make and receive mobile telephone calls and to send Short Message Service messages. ( I believe these are now known as 'Texts', if you are sufficiently 'down with the kids'....).

I have no wish to avail myself of the latrine trench of public opinion that is TwitFace. The ordure therein is deeply unedifying. (Jackie has an account and I sneak peaks occasionally so's I can reinforce my feelings of innate superiority.)

It never takes terribly long.

So what to talk about, in this first blogpost in many a long moon?

Ah, I know: the weather!

(That good old British stand-by for when we're stuck for something to say to someone we may not know too well.)

Hasn't it been rather lovely the past few days? Just as well really: a drop of sunshine definitely perks one up. And I think it's fair to say we are all in dire need of a jolly good perking at the 'mo....

(Put that on Twitface and watch the trolls come running out, comments blazing.......)

In fact, I got a mention on Radio Three this morning, for suggesting just such a thing...... though perhaps not in quite so many words......

Every morning at 10:30, whoever is presenting 'Essential Classics' (either Ian Skelly or Suzy Klein, normally), will play a follow-on piece suggested by the listeners. It follows on from a piece they've chosen which is played at 09:30, so you've got about an hour to think of something suitable. It's great fun, and John Witts from Waterbeach has had a few mentions, and even had suggestions played!

Today, he struck again, with Holst's "Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity," from The Planets Suite, which was played, I suppose, simply because we need all the jollity we can lay our hands on right now.......

You can check it out on BBC Radio 3 'Listen Again', for Monday 23/03/20 if you doubt I speak sooth. It'll be there for a couple of weeks at least......

Oh, and a couple of days ago, when I was enjoying a particularly lovely sunset over the fens from the back deck (large gin and tonic in hand, you know the deal....),  I saw a contrail in the sky, heading west, straight as an arrow. It was dyed a deep peach colour against the almost saffron of the low, westering sky, just where it began to turn the purest cerulean.

Where the fuckin' 'ell's 'e goin'? I thought.

Which sadly, rather robbed the moment of any poetry.

More soon.