[pen] Now that's a bloody good idea! Why didn't I think of that?

The smell of new wood I've got a new fence, 'cos the old one blew down. I keep getting little whiffs of fresh DIY store fence wood through my window. While it's not as nice as freshly sawn timber, it still qualifies as a little pleasure.

OK, this is getting a bit meta, but also: Noticing Little Pleasures.

Because of this game, I always keep an eye (or a nose) out for little pleasures. And because I do that, I'm more likely to notice them.

Also, Getting meta :-)

[Simons] I'm all for getting meta. It's an element of mindfulness. I'm getting better at it on lunchtime dogwalks. Last week it was watching stormy shelf clouds skirting around me, and noticing the ash twigs blown off the trees onto the path looking like broken wands from Harry Potter and wondering what high jinks they'd been up to, this week it was noticing the twigs laid like directional arrows on the ground (did we used to call them Indian signposts or something? A long, long time ago at Girl Guides...). And how good the potato blossoms smell. And how the smell of the next field with onions reminds me of a fairground hot dog stand. Anyway, the point is, the more you look, the more you see.

*pays close attention to SM’s move*

The nectarines are really good this year. Sweet, juicy, not fibrous or unripenable.

Dark chocolate from Poland.
I guess you could say I'm polishing off this Polish bar of dark chocolate.

No quarantining if I visit the UK from next week. The need for quarantine and the costs of tests during it have kept me away from friends and family in the UK for a year and a half. Realising that I can now start to plan visits again is a huge relief.

Do keep your mask around: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cdc-covid-coronavirus-masks-indoors-vaccinated-people-pandemic The delta variant apparently also produces 1200 times the viral load in less time. So, the aerosols spewed out are massively more infectious.

Someone I follow on Pluspora just posted:

So one of my colleagues, doubly vaccinated (Astra), just tested covid positive. Life is a bitch.

Symptoms were two days of flu, but then everything went back to normal. I suppose you could say that the vaccine worked.

And how do you get covid? By having a son watching a football game in a pub.

[Simons] I know this. This is why I'm probably not going to go back to the office in a university with 7,000 students, not until most of them get vaccinated.

Got my Pfizer vaccines - 2nd does was in April. I'm watching news for updates with booster shots.
I get so tired of people denying that COVID exists and claiming that vacccines are dangerous or don't work.

Enjoyed seeing a sign which said: "All of you panic buying, stock up on condoms, so you don't produce any more fucking idiots."

Taking a whole shelfful of books to the charity shop, even though I want to keep them. See the Good Books game over at MCiOS.

(KagShu) Just had my booster. I agree with you about anti-vaxxers. Politely, they are misguided; less politely they're thick as pigshit and completely up their own arses. I despise them. BTW do Americans refer to The Jab? The term is universal over here.

Visiting my students on their apprenticeships and seeing them really excited and enthusiastic about what they're doing. Whenever I start getting a bit cynical about teaching, I think about a student excitedly showing me the production line that he's now responsible for maintaining. Warm glowy feelings a-go-go.

[nights] could I ask what/where you teach?

[Bismarck] You can indeed - I teach at a further education college in France on the local equivalent of an HND in Industrial Maintenance and another in Physical Measurement. Our kids are training to be maintenance or metrology techs of all stripes, or to go on to further study at engineering school. My speciality is technical and scientific English, as the French have finally realised that all the innovation in the world is useless if no-one can understand them. I'm also involved in the administration of our apprenticeship scheme, and I genuinely feel like I've found my niche. [/advert]