Knowing that today’s 36C temperature is the last of the very hot weather for now and tomorrow will be in the 20s.

Hah! It's gone back over 30 again! Proper Aussie summer....

Finally getting rid of a bit of food stuck in your teeth Goodbye blackberry seed. Thanks to you that was a very long hour.

Opening a new Avalon Hill game and punching and sorting counters. Since AH games have been oop since the early 1980s this involves finding "like new" "unpunched" collectors' items and ruining their collectibility in a punch-and-sort-and-bag fest. I love the smell of the cardboard as it comes off the matrix.

Crosby, Stills and Nash. Some people say it doesn't stand the test of time. They are wrong.

For breakfast: Waffles with maple syrup, cream cheese, and several strips of bacon (applied to the waffle in that order).

[Dujon] Felicitations. Unlikely that my surname will be carried on to future generations, but as it is one of the more common ones, that isn't a problem.

The first balmy evening one can take dinner alfresco.

(Superman) Same here. "Everyone" in N Wales is called Rosie, if you see what I mean.

About time we had some happiness around here... in my hotel room looking at this website and eating shortbread. Not much wrong with that.

Sitting at my desk at home, eating chocolate, drinking tea, and editing an opinion piece by someone else, after which (post 5pm) I can work on my own blogpost what I have been invited to write for one of the tourist websites of my native Lincolnshire. There's work, and there's work that I like doing.

Visiting Spain.

Clearing out all the crap from under the bed. I’m sure we thought all those empty shoeboxes would come in useful one day.

This is more of a Room 202 entry, really, but Halloween. Because without Halloween, Christmas would probably be starting in early September by now.

Respiration. The Bronchitis is ebbing, the pneumonia is *not* taking hold and I can finally breathe without coughing, wheezing and my life flashing before my eyes as I strain to pull volumes of life-sustaining air into my tortured lungs.

Azathoth, I hope I go in an explosion or freak 16 ton weight accident. The Old Man Standard Death sucks balls if this trial run is anything to judge by.

[Stevie] Sympathies and get-well-completely wishes. My entry shall be Freedom from the crap microbe which screwed me over for most of December, involving robbing of life energy and torso-wrenching coughing, compounded by pulling my right IT muscle and contracting conjunctivitis to boot. Not a month I wish to relive.

[Pablo] On the plus side you have a starring part as Uncle Jack in the remake of Ripping Yarns: The Curse of the Claw.

Escape Rooms. A new experience for me, and the most fun I've had in years with my clothes on.

The first half term in 20 years that I have had off, really, really off.

waking up to see the first snowfall of the winter

Trees in blossom, seen from my home office window. And being able to make use of the good weather to get the laundry dried outside on a workday.

Finding a home workaround for restless legs
I get restless legs. Lying awake in bed at 3.a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m. with a pair of legs that think they want to go for a half mile run while the rest of me just wants to go to sleep is like Chinese water torture . My known exercise workarounds are to tire 'em out by going for a long walk, or running up and down a flight of stairs 6-10 times or pedalling furiously on an exercise bike for a couple of miles. But I live in a flat and have no stairs (and no exercise bike), so the two quick and easy workarounds were not available to me at home. Very, very glad to have found a life hack that I can do at home that also works and doesn't take the couple of hours the walk takes.

[Simons] You're going to tell us what it is, aren't you...? Sorry to hear of your case, it must be horrible to face up to confinement. Very glad you have found a solution.

[Simons] Yeah, what is your fix for the problem? (I bought a treadmill on Friday. Half of it was delivered on Saturday, the other half came this morning. I have paid for it by not having to buy petrol to drive to work for the next 6 weeks. I am imagining walking and listening to half-hour episodes of the Goon Show or Poirot or Paul Temple)

Well it's a home hack; I realized my futon base is at a usable height for 'step training'. Really it's far too high for proper step training but as I need the equivalent of running up at least 6 flights of stairs two steps at a time it'll do.
Normally a divan-like bed would be too soft, but mine's got two tatami mats in it so it's firm enough to step on repeatedly.
For restless legs, the NHS suggestions include taking a hot bath in the evening, or applying a hot or cold compress to your leg muscles - only cold works for me. In fact I also discovered that my legs don't get twitchy as long as they remain cold, so I sleep with not just my feet but my legs outside the covers, and provided it's not too warm a night that also works. Unfortunately my exercise tolerance and cold tolerance are increasing with practice, so my legs and I are locked in an arms race.
And when it's too hot, tiring them out (by any expedient method) is my only fix.

[Simons] Tried lying on your back and pedalling furiously?

I haven't actually, but that probably wouldn't provide heavy enough resistance to work against.

Strap bricks on your feet?

[Pablo] No, that's cruel. Poor bricks.

The silence.
I also heard there was a petition out to switch the street lights off so we could all see the stars.

And no junk mail either, have you noticed?

Pathetech's jumping pillar box pp Stevie

Practising pedal notes on the trombone. It's taken me 25 years to get the hang of this, for some reason. A wonderful rich farty sound that shakes the very walls.

So,Rosie, it wasn't trumpets that brought down the wall of Jericho?

(Dujon) Nah, it was a load of King 3B's. Pricey, aren't they? Mine cost £595.

The day I realised that my musical skills would never lead me to buying a musical instrument, brass or otherwise. It was the brass involved that disillusioned me.

(Duj) Musical instruments, especially new ones, are a ludicrous price and there's a lot of pretentiousness involved. The keys of a bassoon, so I was told by a bassoon player, are made put of silver. Why silver? Brass would do, or chrome-plated mild steel or even cast iron or even nylon, which is strong stuff. It's all bollocks, I tell you. Everything is. I could go on.

I would postulate that when it comes to the quality of metal, we are talking about the difference between a responsive brass instrument and one that has as much life in it as a 3 day old dead ferret. Like my French horn - complete crap, but then so am I as a horn player so it doesn't matter. There are, however, cases where it matters very much. Like real brass players.

(Pablo) The quality of the metal probably reflects the overall quality of the design from an engineering point of view but should not affect the actual tone since all the sound comes out of the bell and the material of the instrument itself hardly vibrates at all. This obviously does not apply to an instrument with a sounding board such as a piano, violin or guitar but it certainly does to a brass instrument. You can make a "brass" instrument out of anything, even cardboard. A metal mouthpiece probably helps though.
The worst thing about a cheap 'n' nasty trombone, say, is a sticky slide or leaky water valve, engineering defects. If you open the water valve some notes just disappear; they just cannot be played whereas others are completely unaffected. Weird! All to do with nodes and antinodes.

Watching the little birdies scoffing their mealworms. It seems mealworms are the best thing ever, to a bird. I am less enthused over the featherless cat that also likes them.

[Rosie] Granted that brass instruments are at base, merely tubes (so the didgeridoo qualifies as a brass instrument(??)), I think you could find many top pro brass players who say the metal matters very much. Not just for reasons of weight and balance, but the sound that they can get on them.
Re the water valve, I once knew a trombonist who could play a scale on it. You had to be there.

(Pablo) They get a good sound because they feel comfortable with the instrument which is probably expensive, shiny, well put together, well balanced and has a nice easy slide. The material simply can't matter because it doesn't vibrate.
As for the didgeridoo, I'd say yes, it's fundamentally a "brass" instrument because the sound is formed by the player's lips, not by a reed. So, for the same reason, is the sodding vuvuzela. I've played one made out of rubber. It blows just below the Bb below middle C. Harmonics are difficult to get and ridiculously out of tune anyway.
BTW I'm not "top brass" let alone a top brass player. Big Band hack, more like.

[Rosie] technical qiestion: is a Kazoo a brass instrument or a reed instrument?

(pen) It's a reed instrument. The wonderfully vulgar sound comes from a vibrating membrane. Brass is basically blowing raspberries down a long tube, in my case 9-13 feet.

[Rosie] Us French hornets have a technique called bouchée or cuivré, whereby one partially stops the bell with the right hand while blowing like the proverbial. If the metal is good, the bell vibrates like crazy, which you can hear. If the metal is crap, nada.

Survival Just read back my entry directed to Stevie from early in the year, commiserating with his bronchitis. Christ, I must have had Covid! Pre-release version, OK, but it has been established that it has been around since November. Note to self - get antibody tested.

(Pablo) If the bell vibrates surely it can only do so at one frequency which may well not be the note you are blowing. My trombone does this and the bell resonates just above D a ninth above Middle C. I can only get this note on a good day (a D-day, I call it) but you can excite the resonance by playing the G below Middle C, just slightly sharp. But none of this affects the sound of the 'bone in its normal range.

BTW I hope the Covid hasn't done you any harm. I certainly don't want to get it myself, not at my age.

[Rosie]Without trying to labour the point, I think this shows the difference between quality of metals, as instruments respond very differently. Tried doing harmonics? Like playing a note and humming strongly the 5th, 10th or 12th above? Bones are particularly good for this. Horns OK, Weber even wrote them into his Horn Concerto.

Thanks for the Covid good wishes. As I am still here, and as good as ever, no, it didn't bloody well get me, despite my age. I'm sure it's the cabernet sauvignon that did it - excellent preservative.

(Pablo) Can't do those harmonics. However, I can do quite a good growl, something that goes down quite well in a trad band but would get you some funny looks if you tried it in a big swing band.

[Rosie] Eh? Since when was growl banned from big bands? I've written it into swing charts myself. Bubber Miley in Duke Ellington's band?

(Pablo) You certainly wouldn't put in a growl when playing ensemble but I agree it could easily be part of an ad lib solo. I've even tried it myself but not to any great effect.

[Rosie] No? Try the first 10 sec of this

[Pablo] I relate that music to not very good chocolate chip cookies (though, if given them, I won't refuse) because of this

(Pablo) Top trumpet players but that isn't a growl, it's the wa-wa mute and probably marked as such on the chart.

[Rosie] Actually it's marked as a plunger growl. (Wah-wahs wouldn't cut it - not gutsy enough)

A little rain.
A little rain is a little pleasure. A lotta rain, I agree, maybe not. But overall I like rain more than not, personally.

Lunchtime dogwalking wearing a coat Much cooler today, around 19C after last week's 32-33-34C, and I'm back at work (although still working from home) which means I do the lunchtime dog walk. I had to wear a waterproof coat and actually enjoyed the cooler temperatures that made me walk faster on the 1.6 miles to the potato warehouse and back. Thank goodness I've invested so much in boots and coats over the past few years. I have gear for every possible lunchtime meteorological condition from now until at least next April.

(pen) Well, don't hold your lightning conductor like that - it could be live.

The shipping forecast. Just been listening to a French person who said he liked listening to the French shipping forecast as he used to go sailing with his grandfather. Not just a Blighty thing, then.

I remember - 20 or so years ago - driving around somewhere near Aberdeen or Inverness for work and playing around with the Long Wave on the car radio and picking up what I presume was the Danih- or perhaps the Norwegian shipping forecast. It certainly wasn't German or French, but I could identify the names of the shipping areas.

Serendipitous discoveries Today my friend and I took a slightly different route on our walk round Wimbledon Village, and found Cannizaro Park, which neither of us knew was there.