Mrs Basil and I were ramping up our search for a dog right when Covid rocked up.

Lockdown put the breaks on the search but now the rescue centres are slowly opening up again.

Lockdown Pastimes

There were shortages of baking consumables, DIY good, exercise equipment, and bicycles as people took up hobbies or ways to pass the time in lockdown.

Now it seems people want dogs.

Lockdown Companions

An employee at one of the centres said they are all very concerned about the surge of interest they are getting in adopting. They are worried that most people are wanting a dog for the temporary situation their lives are in.

They are bracing themselves for an abandonment tsunami.

Here’s hoping they are wrong, sadly, they probably aren’t.

I was 19 years old when I started waiting for this day.

I’ve drink and am drank. On any normal year I’d probably be outside the stadium right now. But it isn’t, so I’m not.

All Leeds Aren’t We. Marching on Together.

I’d been pondering and hoping to write something a bit more thoughtful around this, about sporting highs and lows, elation and anxiety, but I have struggled to make any inroads.

The big sleep

It’s been 16 long and annoying years since Leeds United went stumbling out of the English Premier League like a football club impersonation of Frank Spencer.

After a few false dawn’s and final hurdle stumbles sprinkled in amongst the years of dreary nothingness and calamity, maybe, just maybe, they are finally back.

Nervous wreck

After tonight’s game finished I had to go and sit in the garden for a while to de-stress.

Two games. One single little point required. Just one. To close this 16 year loop.

That’s my only observation of the day. Literally everything is now turned into a battle. An Us Vs Them.

Everything is politicised.

Crikey, it’s exhausting. Even ignoring it takes conscious effort. The amount of people who are vindictive, thick as mince, or both amazes me everyday.

Was it always like this? Maybe it was and I was just better at ignoring it.

After pointing out my unwavering procrastination when faced with small fixable problems, here’s another character flaw for you.

I have a tremendous ability to just stop reading a book that I’m allegedly enjoying.

Self loathing

I can forgive myself to some extent for not wanting to read. For getting a book and never getting around to it. For starting a book and abandoning it for not liking it.

Enjoying a book and just stopping, I hate myself for it and I can’t explain it, but I do this over and over.

Sometimes I will be reading regularly then, all of a sudden, I’ll stop. Sometimes my rate of readings will slow down over a few weeks before I stop. The ability to start again is almost completely lost.

My many bookmarks

There are 5 books on my bedside table alone that I have started but are all, at most, only half read.

The latest victim is A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton. I was enjoying almost every chapter of this, yet there it sits, atop of my pile of shame with the bookmark on page 119, like it’s stuck in treacle.

Good thing I have a lot of bookmarks. Leftover from those handed out to our wedding guests. I think I have about 200 left.

Mrs Basil wanted to go on another ride the chip away at her virtual pilgrimage. So we headed out at around 9am on a loop that took us out to the Derwent Valley.

The land of oak and iron

The name Derwent comes from the old Brittonic meaning Oak Walk. This means that there are rather quite a few Derwents scattered across the country.

This Derwent was one of the iron epicentres of the country, as high quality imported ore from Scandinavia had easy passage up the Tyne, and coal was obviously abundant. This advantage was lost after the development of the bessemer process for removing impurities from ore.

The Derwent Iron Company built a railway to connect the Tyne to the north with the Bishop Auckland (of covid eye test fame) and the Darlington railway to the South.

Thank deity for old railways

This railway line is long gone and, like most old railway lines, is now a shared path that is part of the national cycle network. To the point where it seems like if not for the old railways, there would be no paths at all.

Mrs Basil just about made the distance, suffering with fatigue and cramps in the last 7 or so kilometres, but she did well.

I finally fixed the garden gate.

A trip down the road to Toolstation. £8 for a pair of gate hinges. An hour out of my day.

That’s all it took.

A daily annoyance

Both hinges had corroded and one had almost snapped, the floor clearance was nonexistent and the latch would stick.

Opening the damn thing, especially with bags or a bike in tow was a real pain in arse.

It makes no sense that I didn’t fix it before now.

Until next time

That said, I know it won’t be the last time this happens. It’s just the way it is.

After a few months of belt tightening I allowed myself to restart my Spotify subscription. This meant I could finally see if I could get ncmpcpp (stupid name) to play music from spotify.

I’d already setup mopidy and configured the mpd and spotify plugins but hadn’t been able to test the connection.

It kind of just worked

So, although I did have issues getting mopidy set up originally (I think pulseaudio / permission issues). With this last step, after upgrading spotify, it all just worked.

Search and playback from ncmpcpp are both working fine. I was fully prepared for this to soak up hours of my evening and then maybe just not work and then writing a long post about all the faff.

But it was plain sailing, so there we are.

Tonight there was a 30 minute long filler program on between football matches. It was a fairly run of the mil documentary about the Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa. The kind of program that is only watched by fans of the subject matter that is cheap and easy to churn out. In this case, that’s me, and I’d just watched Leeds win 5-0, so I watched it.

It was perfectly fine. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know but there were a couple of nice quotes from people I hadn’t heard before. The best part though, was a short interview with an amateur street artist in Leeds, who spends his free time painting (usually Leeds United) murals.

He spoke about how dramatic and immediate Bielsa’s impact had been and told of watching the 2nd game of his tenure with his son.

My son turned to me and said ‘Dad! What is happening?’ I just said ‘I don’t know’, and he hugged me. He’s a teenager, he never hugs me. Bielsa made my Son hug me.

I thought it was a really good moment.

As long as I can remember I’ve always loved Sport, I’ve always loved football, I’ve always loved Leeds United.

And now I love Marcelo Bielsa.

Mrs Basil is waking up at 3am to go and film the sunrise at the coast. So, fingers crossed it’s a good one.

She asked me if I’d like to join her, I had to glance up from what I was doing to double check that she wasn’t joking.

Reader, I will not be going.

Daydreaming

I spent a chunk of the evening daydreaming about the renovations we want to make to the house. An utterly nonsensical activity since such things would be the thick end of a decade away, if at all.

The main challenge we are having with the garden at the moment is how big everything is getting.

Inhospitable weather

The wildflowers have almost all capsized under the weight of all the rain of the last week.

The potatoes are only just still standing after the rain and the gale force winds. I only recently read that Maris Piper should be avoided for windy areas due to their height so… Good to know.

Like sardines in a tin

The tomato plants are now pressing up against every limit of the greenhouses to the point where I’m not convinced I’ll be able to stop them falling over.

I had such low expectations I honestly didn’t expect to have problems with too much growth.

Today was a stay indoors sort of day.

There was a lot of football going on and I watched plenty of it along with a very distressing documentary on Netflix called Athlete A.

Horrible story

It was a well made program but difficult to recommend since it’s such a horrible story of the abuse suffered by the girls in US gymnastics program.

The worst of all is it seemed to barley scratch the surface.

Drunks everywhere

I did eventually have to venture out to get some food. The pubs were full and the street was teaming with pissheads.

It took me about 10 minutes to buy some chicken because about 15 drunk lads came bounding into the shop to get beer. Staying out their path (and everyone else’s) took quite an elaborate effort.

I followed through on my plan to make a conscious effort to sit my arse down to work first thing and do nothing except concentrate on my main task.

I did ok for the most part. Got distracted a few times, but not too much or for long. Got more done today than the rest of the week put together.

Working soundtrack

I got a coffee, put my headphones on, and listened to brain.fm.

This really felt like it helped rein in a lot of distraction and mental drifting. I didn’t read any of their marketing and I imagine they make a lot of outlandish claims but I think a repetitive sound worked a bit like blinkers.

I’ve always struggled to think when listening to music but I think I just need to find the right music. I’ve searched in the past but never quite found anything that lets me concentrate.

Hopefully I can find something to download or a Spotify playlist. Brain.fm was great but I’m not looking for another subscription in my life and a monthly fee for a curated playlist, no, just no.

Today was a bit manic at work. Tomorrow I will attempt to sit down and smash out 3 hours solid work before getting distracted by auxiliary tasks and the wider world. You know, like how the pros do it, or something.

Bought some furniture

I had been looking for a blanket box for a while and finally got my hands on one. Socially distanced buying and selling is tricky.

She had tried her best by wiping down the whole thing with antibacterial wipes (my confidence is low that this has any effect on a virus but I know nothing). What I can tell you is that when you wipe them all over glossed wood it makes carrying the furniture a great challenge.

Three separate humans offered to assist me. Sure let’s huff and puff all over each other, I can’t think of a reason that could be problematic.

Then I Took an Arrow to the Knee

After lugging the thing upstairs my knee felt a little sore but nothing particularly painful. I got to making tea. Crouching down to set the oven temperature my left knee said goodnight.

I’m currently, when seated, unable to bare the weight of my leg off the ground with my knee bent, and certainly can’t stand on it with more than a few degrees in the knee.

I’m hoping the pain and instability will be short lived but it feels a little more serious than that.

Welcome to the middle ages, I guess.

Beer, junk food, and football. That was my evening, and it was good.

I watched 2 good matches in the top 4 race. There were goals and controversial incidents and it was excellent. Most enjoyable football viewing since lockdown easing.

Leeds shenanigans

I’m still watching Leeds’ progress through my fingers and my confidence is currently 50%.

One typically stupid development is the situation around one of their strikers.

Signed in January on a 6 month loan with a permanent fee agreed in the event promotion is achieved. The loan has expired.

Leeds have sent him back and are arguing that the agreement has lapsed since they have not won promotion yet.

Here comes a solicitor battle. Which they will lose.

Iceland crest

The Iceland FA have redesigned their crest and it’s rather good.

Motorsport

Formula 1 starts this weekend. Motor sports certainly shouldn’t suffer the same issues as stadium sports with a lack of spectators.

Days of late have been spent only half concentrating on work and pondering the things I could be tinkering with instead.

Evenings have been spent not doing any of those things. It would be folly, however, to suggest this is a new skill. I’ve been a world class procrastinator for as long as I can remember.

Mrs Basil insists I am subdued. Perhaps she is correct.

Not much going on today, bit of a comedown after a decent weekend. Incredibly dull day at work. Struggling with boredom, motivation / giving a fuck, but at least I still have a means to pay my mortgage which is more than can be said of a lot of folk.

One slight development is I received my welcome / induction email from Sustrans, so should be a volunteer ranger by the end of lockdown, whenever that is and whatever that looks like.

Ranger of the North

It’s a pretty basic role with a cheesy title. I’ll be helping take care of the National Cycle Network paths in my area including a few parts of the coast 2 coast and Hadrian’s cycleway. Keeping them cleared, fixing signage, reporting structural issues etc.

I figured, since I use them constantly, it makes sense to help with the upkeep.

I had a productive Sunday. Well, after my obligatory lie in until 10am.

Walked down to Screwfix with Mrs Basil to get an LED batten light and some electric cable, because this nonsense just couldn’t continue.

I seem to have done it right

As ever with these things, I don’t really know what I’m doing so it’s remarkable I’m not dead.

Now I have a relatively well organised cellar with some space to move around and work. Still have stuff to do but I’m very pleased.

On top of that I dismantled an old bookshelf and re-built it so that if fits in the space under the stairs where there was previously a disorganised mess.

Frogger

The last of the work involved helping Mrs Basil dig up the neglected corner of the garden behind the greenhouse, were we found a couple of… Frogs?

Finished the day off with lamb steaks and beer.

Sorting out my cellar is coming along.

After hanging my bikes from the beams (and shoving the robot behind the door) I have moved the timber slats that were acting as a partition wall across a few feet and assembled a workbench to run along it.

Same space, more access

There was an enormous table down there but it was difficult to move around and just ended up as a dumping ground, now I have one wall of worktop and shelving that I can actually access.

Next step is replacing the light fitting so I can see what I’m doing, getting some organisation up on the wall, and getting rid of some junk.

The visit to the tip can wait until later in the year but the light fitting I might tackle tomorrow.

Sportsball

In other news, Leeds United are back to the top of the league and I can relax about it until maybe Monday, when I’ll become nervous again.

After getting up early (relatively) in order to squeeze in a bike ride before the early afternoon rain and mid-afternoon lightening storm. The poor excuse for a storm passed us by.

Mrs Basil always scoffs at British thunderstorms, she’s right, they are usually not much of anything.

A Coastal Loop

The ride was decent. The first 40km was on ok cycle paths along to, and then up, the coast.

The last 20 wasn’t great, nasty roads and paths and 2 incidents.

There’s always two

A driver with attention on his phone gave himself a fright I think, when he saw us waiting to cross the road. Perhaps because I was balancing on my pedals I think he maybe thought I was in motion. He did an emergency stop and started screaming at us, calling us all sorts. I was completely surreal because we were on a footpath.

About 2km from home a car came out of a private estate driveway that crosses a shared use path. I put my brakes on and stopped just quick enough so that they only clipped the very front of my tyre with their wheel arch. I don’t think she saw me even after the fact.

I was trying to think of something else to write about as neither incident was pleasant to recall but I couldn’t think of anything at this late hour.