It was dry and bright for a change today. So perfect for a Sunday pottering about in the garden.
I spent most of the day clearing and cleaning up the polytunnels and greenhouses so they are ready for a fast start in the spring.
I've already got a few things in the ground and on the go but I'm really looking to get two good harvests out of all parts of the garden this year.
Valentina came out for a bit. She brought some sandwiches and we had a little lunchtime picnic.
The big polytunnel really is my man-cave. I've got a nice setup there now - a radio, two easy chairs, some LED lights for the evening, and even a little solar powered mini-fridge. I do a lot of my big thinking there.
We listened to the lunchtime news as usual while eating the sandwiches. Both of us find it easier to listen to the news now than spend so much time reading on the web.
Nothing more than the usual troubles and hotspots around the world today. But we did prick up our ears when they were talking about some pension leaks. According to one of the Sunday papers sources have told them that the Government is about to introduce legislation to raise the retirement age for men and women to 72 to help balance the books with the National Pension Scheme.
I thought they had settled that a few years ago when they brought forward the plan to increase it to 70.
Hopefully this won't affect me. It's not going to be much but I'm hoping to get some pension at least when I reach my 70th in a couple of months. But it could well hit Valentina as she's got another four years to go.
I guess the old are living longer and not enough young people are working to generate the tax needed.
That's all this automation taking away jobs and biting us in the backside again.
Picnic over Valentina went back in to do some more on the jumper she's knitting me and I continued clearing the old cabbage beds.
I was going to go down to the lake but it was nearly four by the time I had finished and my back was getting a bit achey by then. A soak in a hot bath was more inviting than a hike down the hill to the lake.
And I wanted to get in as Anne had messaged earlier to say she was going to try to Skype between 4 and 5pm if she could.
Valentina had the computer on ready when I got in, but five o'clock came and went with no call from China. It was after midnight there so maybe Anne was too tired or too busy or couldn't get wifi. She'll probably try again tomorrow.
The chickens had laid three eggs today so we had poached egg on toast. We usually only get the odd egg from them every few days in January but I guess the hens are getting confused by the weird weather these days the same as everything else.
The bath was most relaxing. Nothing beats a good soak after a hard day in the garden.
It was getting on for nine by the time I was finished. And I couldn't do more than just surf around the web a bit after that.
Randomly clicking around I came across the forum of the New Planet Army that I used to hang out in about ten years ago.
I was surprised they were still going, and even more suprised my login still worked.
The forum certainly wasn't the hotbed of new age revolutionary thought it used to be.
It seemed mainly to be about kombucha therapies and earth singing now. Rather lost its edge I think.
But there was one thread that caught my eye - "AnonoDomes - how to live without them watching".
The thread had been started about 18 months ago by RebelRebel75, and the OP just said...
"Would you like to live in a world where they can't listen to what you say or watch you from above?"
"If interested, tell me why in one sentence and I will make contact with you."
It was rather spooks and drama but it had me intrigued.
There had been an initial flurry of a couple of dozen responses but no more since last March so I guess nothing came of it.
I couldn't resist my curiousity though. Little flickers of my old rebelrebel days came back to my typing fingers...
"Why should they know what we do and what we say. I'm in."
I really wished I could have come up with something a bit more radical and profound but it was almost eleven and I was not at my sharpest.
I pressed submit, logged off, shut down and headed for bed.
Goodnight Vienna.
If you have missed the previous diary entries, you can catch up...
FutureDiary : 12 January 2030 - Custard Tarts, Golf Guides & World Collapse
FutureDiary : 11 January 2030 - Where did all the groceries go?
FutureDiary : 10 January 2030 - Storms, floods & electric dreams
FutureDiary : 09 January 2030 - Trees, Australians & Lentils
FutureDiary : 08 January 2030 - Guns, Trump and PolliDrones
FutureDiary : 07 January 2030 - Valentina robbed at knifepoint
FutureDiary : 06 January 2030 - A panic in Cardiff
