I must be feeling a bit grumpy today - one block, one unsubscribed, and two mutes

Good Friday chums.

I've got an appointment at the hospital late this morning for an ECG (which I strongly feel will be a waste of time). I'm going to drive part of the way and get the bus in rather than try to park at the hospital, or get two buses that'll take over an hour.

The weather forecast isn't promising so I won't get my garden jobs done this afternoon.
We've got a Gousto meal kit delivery today, so I'm cooking tea.

Enjoy your day - seize it, don't waste it!

#Today

Excuse me while I have a rant to get things off my chest.

I'm increasingly feeling that urban & suburban England is utter shit (and it's spilling over into rural Britain)

There's litter & tags everywhere. Vehicles are parked, blocking the crumbling pavements. Roads are potholed.
No one seems to care about what their houses look like (least of all grifting landlords) with scrubby front gardens littered with rusting cars & vans.

Public transport is expensive, unreliable & doesn't go where you want to go when you want to go, leading to vast areas of concrete car parks that are licensed to print money for car park barons

There's no law on the roads, roads policing doesn't exist, and the Highway Code is ignored with impunity. Vulnerable road users take their lives into their hands every time they go out

Racism and all other -isms are displayed openly

I get why Reform people are angry, but their solution is wrong. We need more community & cohesion and much less hate.

#ukpolitics

My Granddaughter is a second year Fine Art student who will be taking commissions over the
summer for custom artwork. She's happy to work from your photos.

Whether that's a pet portrait or a landscape painting inspired by a special place.

She's offering:
Pet portraits starting from £40
- Black and white or colour
- Pencil or watercolour
- A5 or A4

Landscapes starting from £60
- Colour
- Acrylic
- A4 or 40x50cm

Although she's in the UK, she's happy to talk to anyone, anywhere.

DM me and I'll put you in touch with Izzy

#FediArt #FediCraft #MastArt #CommissionsOpen #PetPortrait

Hello Pocket Pals
It seems a fair bit cooler here in central England this morning, although I've not yet looked out the window.

Today we will go to the allotment - jobs on my wishlist include getting more weed cover fabric up, turning a compost bin, weeding between the carrots, and planting some of the seedlings I've e got at home. Two out of those would be counted as successful!

Sacha has been stressing about organising a n afternoon tea for us and our two children. We think we've got it sorted, but it turned into a different kind of stress about how little she's seeing our son's children. Some people just need something to worry about.

Have a good time today, and if you've got a list, then ignore it and just go Wild (although someone else may have co-opted that emotion, badly, and sadly)

#Today

I've only just realised that the pencil they give you as your 'admission ticket' at the Pencil Museum in Keswick is a special pencil!

I'm wondering if a museum purely devoted to pencils might be one of the most Mastodon places in England?
Maybe it's one of Mastodon's Spiritual Homes!

#Museum #Pencil #PencilMuseum #Keswick #Cumbria #Mastodon

More EV charging nonsense today.

Car park charger obviously working because there was a Volvo in the next space charging ok, but I couldn't get our side to fire up.

Two issues:
Firstly, the display screen QR code pointed to the wrong app! (#Autel)
Secondly, the contactless pay thingy wasn't connected to a network (3g?) and had a continuous error - so as the Volvo driver had realised, the only way to charge was through an app, but he'd worked out the correct app from the council sign! (#Fuuse)
So I downloaded yet another charging app and got the car fully fired up.

It shouldn't be this difficult!

#EV

There's a lot of posters up around here for The National Emergency Briefing
It's this : https://www.nebriefing.org/
Which to my shame I had never heard of.

However I think they need to rethink their publicity because my first, and enduring, reaction was that it looked and sounded like a Far Right group declaration of an 'emergency' related to immigration or us woke lefties.

#NationalEmergencyBriefing #Cumbria #GettingItWrong

I'm considering reactivating one of my dormant Mastodon accounts to follow accounts that don't mention politics etc.

As much as I usually enjoy reading about current events like everyone, I need to disconnect occasionally, but I don't want to miss all the other good stuff (like cats)

I've solved an inconsequential allotment mystery.

There's a plot holders near me who is frequently doing video recording.
Being the dollop I am I've been too awkward to ask her about it.

I previously searched for her but only this evening have I found her vlog - she's on YouTube & Instagram at DogOnThePlot

I can't speak for how good her videos are, but she's a really nice person.

#allotment #Youtube #vlogging