wednesday 1 – listening to prayer for the day on radio 4 in the morning and catching the last of it, which for me is: “leading our ordinary lives with extraordinary tact and tenderness”

going out to the office – trains massively affected by the storms yesterday and snow had fallen overnight!

watching film with emma thomson and pierce brosnan “the love punch”, interesting song at the end, “in my arms”, teddy thompson

friday 3 – doing the readings at church on good friday, which was very draining, come back and lounge on the sofa the rest of the day, nodding off to sleep

saturday 4 – again exhausted and take a nap in the afternoon
katie borrows the film “eat pray love” again from the video shop and we enjoy it all together

monday 6 – reading an article in the guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/06/glasgow-murder-rate-knife-gang-crime-police

nice quotes in the photo on the office wall of John Carnochan, now retired, of the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in Glasgow.
“the plural of anecdote is not evidence”
“luck is a faithless friend”
“being clever is a gift; being kind is a choice”
success needs:
– passion
– hard work
– focus
– push/drive
– serving/doing good
– ideas
– persistence
-> people affected by the outcome should be involved in the process

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but certainty that something makes sense.” ..
which somehow leads me to:
http://www.takepart.com/
and gives the quote:
“Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.” Einstein

we watch the film eat pray love again and the clear out in the head which the us guy mentions to julia roberts (“groceries”, since carrying so much baggage, actually reading through the book, this is because she eats so much) hits home a little, that to let in something more important in your life, you first have to de-clutter the space between your ears as it were, also the idea of bringing feelings with you, thoughts creating feelings and behaviours etc.

Nice part of the film; also the quote “ruin is on the road to transformation”

sunday 12 – email advice:
“Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send.”
Jon Postel, Internet Pioneer / August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998

monday 13 – sabs enthuses about her day in school and the film they saw about plant development and the whole magic of it all, venus fly catchers, the hummingbird, dandelion/sugar stealers

wednesday 15 – eve enthuses about religion from what they’d be discussing at school, including what quakers are etc. and how her friends are being brought up, she ate some quavers, so we laughed making up funny sentences and ending that “a quaker eating quavers would be quackers”.

saturday 18 – went swimming with eve, she’s learning backstroke for school and her stroke is coming along

sunday 19 – still trying to get motivated to doing some work and clearing some space in the office downstairs, but as with yesterday, too tired and napping in the afternoon, when planned to do something and reminiscing over the phrase: “time is life”, which will become my catchphrase for action I’m thinking

taking middle ones for sunday school and katie suggests we just take them into the park near sendlinger tor, which we do and it is minimum hassle maximum fun for the children, they seem to have a good time of it, mostly behaving, except pakosi and joel borrowing a couple of skateboards lying aroung

went again swimming before tea with eve, builds up a big appetite, got 1000m done with 800m crawl in 6×100 and 4×40; eve’s style is getting second nature she says, so it’s been worth it

chatting in the evening with saby about learning ukele or guitar and how difficult it is, assigning time etc; she is so keen to have a sing along, that we sing american pie (which she says is so much of her childhood) and blowin’ in the wind and play the intro to dust in the wind, which saby says so much reminds her of me and guitar playing and that she’d like to have it on her phone and listen to it whilst watching the sun setting – makes a change from what eve says that a aoutube clip of someone playing it reminded her of me trying to learn it!

watch final episode of pride and prejudice with katie, then girls join us

tuesday 21 – “wer laute grösse Wörte verwendet, wird sich nicht informieren, sondern sich imponieren”
oskar von miller
who uses a lot of long words, doesn’t want to inform, but impose (views)

having a laugh together about how germans mispronounce and laughing out at how the following would sound:
the people in that willage are not werry well, because they eat too many bisqueue-it and there are too many sqwirrels

wednesday 22 – eve comes back from school and we have lunch together, her nuggets and croquets, me a fladenbrot, but we in any case swap bits.

she came back having got a 1 in sport for endurance running, completing 33 mins non-stop, even to get a 4, you had to have gone over 18 mins, think that is quite tough; still waiting for her backstroke test though!

thursday 23, flight to skipton – work from the office and then catch bus and s-bahn before taking flight to uk with hire car booked at the other end

friday 24, skipton – couple of links from the local skipton press:
howardmbeck.co.uk
grassington-festival.org.uk

saturday 25, skipton – doing some research before starting the pointing work on the yard wall:

just seeing the videos makes my tired in retrospect, it was so much hard work!

http://www.davesdiytips.com/2009/07/pointing-brickwork/
found that the mortar used on the walls contains river sand giving the tough, resistant silicate texture to it, get some from merrits and mix it in with the cementone mortar mix – this turned out to be better than the tarmac mortar mix which i got from b&q, having also having to get another 20kg from jacs – so in total i used 10+20+20, around 50kg, ironic because I was at merrit’s i was toying with the idea of taking a 5kg tub, underestimating by 90%! There was a similar underestimate on time needed to do the work, it meant i spent most of the time just on this task, took around 8 hours of actual work time over the 2 days, but with getting materials etc, another 2 hours.

went to see mum, who is looking positively radiant and happy; watched a film about the dardanelles campaign from 1915 with the whistleblowing keith murdoch, father of rupert the media mogul.

went back and did the sealing between worktop and plinth, especially around the sink

sunday 26, skipton – up early to carry on pointing outside, finishing at 11.30am
pack up, visit mabel and leave bright st at 2.35pm to catch flight, punctual and unstressed overall

met up with chap on the s-bahn who had run the london marathon and was spending a few days in munich with friends, interesting comments of his experience, since he’s doing the big 6, being tokyo, berlin, london, boston, new york, not sure on last one, but it was interesting that he said, comparing london and tokyo – in london everyone gets these high-value plastic bottles which get discarded around the feeding stations at enormous risk to athletes and massive environment waste (with 20,000 competitors and at least 5 stations, that must mean upwards of at least 100,000 discarded bottles!) – in tokyo everyone gets paper cups to drink from which they without exception deposit in bins near the stations; i mentioned that my experience of german runs is again paper cups with a small proportion being deposited in bins nearby – but the key thing is use of paper cups which crush and are neither a waste nor a trip/injury danger.

he mentioned he worked for deutsche telekom and had been in calls with all the big IT bosses in the US, being involved in new ideas and startups in solicon valley, so larry page, tim cook, zuckerberg, chambers rolled off the tongue as he was often called upon to organize meets.

he recommended a good book, which is inspiring me to train a little harder:
“Younger Next Year for Men: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy Until You’re 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge

monday 27 – see a link from handsfreemama in a similar vein to handsfreemama:
http://whatconnectsus.ca/

thursday 30 – registering Mum to vote via:
https://www.registertovote.service.gov.uk/register-to-vote/complete