Its VE day in the UK and we’re celebrating 75 year anniversary since becoming a free world once again. It’s appropriate therefore that we’re all in lockdown and can be even more appreciative of being free, although right now it doesn't appear to be that way.
So it was a day off from work, but not a day off from chores and seeing as it was going to be a warm day, we did some laundry. Apart from that not much else to be fair. Okay I did have to sit at the computer for an hour or so and we ordered a new vacuum, Gtech Pro. Fingers crossed it will work beautifully for our home!
Everyone is talking about the anticipated relaxing of lockdown measures, which they hope will be announced on Sunday 10 May, by Boris Johnson, UK’s Prime Minster. I will be very surprised if we have any major announcements, this is going to be a very slow and painful opening up of the country. We probably wish that we would stay in lockdown a bit longer as the alternative is probably not worth having to go through with.
We watched the last few episodes of Ricky Gervais’ ‘After Life’.
All morning was spent doing things for Taiko West as usual. The amount of work is still quite large. Emailing folks with their passwords and sending surveys out.
Then an hour’s long call with James, 45 minutes for lunch and back at the screen at 1.45pm for a Taiko drumming class starting at 2pm. About 4/5 people there, saying 4/5 as one person’s technology failed.
A further discussion with James about process and procedures for next week, when paid classes start and doing loads of research on using DSLR cameras and GoPros as alternative webcams. There’s so much conflicting information out there, wow!
The whole online teaching of Taiko drumming is going quite well.
Feeling quite exhausted after this week, so looking forward to a day off tomorrow, a UK bank holiday for the 75 year celebration of VE day.
Oh wow, I know it’s getting repetitive now, it was another full on day with Taiko West, Japanese Taiko Drumming in the U.K.
First assisting one of the attendees with their technology issues.
I must say I’ve learned that people’s Tech/IT knowledge is really quite bad. Going online for people has been a real challenge. It’s not just the online bit most folks don’t even understand their own computers let alone their broadband speed and WiFi connnections.
Oh wow it’s a real mess and
We did another two classes so finished quite late again, 8.30pm.
Next week less pressure hopefully with just 3 classes throughout the week.
I’m not spending much time on my own business and my prospects/clients are on a massive go-slow at the moment, hopefully they’ll wake up from their slumber.
The days just merge into one blur to be honest. Decided to stop writing about my walk with Pip and instead focus on some of the bigger stories that have made an impact on me.
Today was again another busy Taiko West day, website work, emails and other things.
The biggest impact on me is the disgusting failure of the U.K. government to promise 100k tests per day and not achieving these now. What a massive failure! I couldn’t believe that Matt Hancock the health secretary in the UK was so smug when he confirmed that the testing totalled over 120,000, when he announced that on the 1st May 2020, that figure was in fact never true and the subsequent days figure confirmed this. When government officials are even bending the truth for their own personal gain whilst families are losing loved ones, it does make you think, whether you can ever really trust what comes out of their mouths and the answer is a resounding NO!
The main news from my walk with ‘Pip the Dog’ was that a dog walker ensured that he ran with his dog in order to get ahead of us on the fields. His dog’s name is Poppie! Wow never thought I would see that during COVID19. Never mind this period on planet earth is affecting everyone in different ways. The only leader in the world who I would vote for to become actually the leader of the whole world is Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister, who called it right very early on and has proven that early action was necessary. Well done to her!
I visited New Zealand in April 2005 and it is in my humble opinion THE most beautiful country on earth. If I had the opportunity to live there, I would move in a heartbeat. Below is a picture I took whilst being on the south island. I was there on my own as a single man at the time, but never felt lonely and drove around 2,000 miles on the south and north islands.
New Zealand — South Island: Lord of the Rings country…
The rest of Monday was spent on Taiko West, adjusting, amending and improving communications in the morning and then in the afternoon, one lesson and another one at 7pm. They both went quite well. This week, we’re teaching the monthly drummers how to play Taiko Online and next week, we’re going live with paid classes, I feel a sense of achievement, although it’s not even my business. I work on the project as if it is though!
Oops it’s raining again, so a shorter walk for Pip and me this morning. Lots of dog walkers leaving their dog’s business on the pavement for other people to walk in, so decided to find a stick. and flick it off the pavement. It always happens down an alleyway where they can’t be seen to not pick up their dog’s business. Grrrrr!
A quiet morning, the usual stuff on a Sunday morning, watching The Andrew Marr Show. Guess what the topic was for the whole show? Yes you are correct, COVID19! Blah, blah, blah…
Clair had to go out and sort out gas and electric meter readings at her eldest son, my stepson, Bradley. Always expect the unexpected with Brad, he tells Clair that he has an ex girlfriend moving in with a dog. Fingers crossed that all works out great!
And at 3pm, we had a Google Meet call with my family, my sister and her kids, who are adults with their own kids and my brother and his wife. So we spent a good hour exchanging COVID19 stories. I had invited a load more of my extended family, but they didn’t show. Maybe they didn’t see the invite? Oh well never mind.
Settled down for the evening to do some TV catch up.
Looks like the drier weather is back, so Pip the Dog and I had a peaceful and sunny walk this morning. Never came across any other dog walkers, just a couple of mountain bikers who were jumping in the small wood that we have to go through to get to the fields with the cows.
The other day, I took some photos of the bike track in the wood. There had been a discarded bit of cardboard that would have carried a six pack of bottled beer, guess what the name of the beer was – “CORONA’’. But it wasn’t there any longer so instead a photo of a can of beer hanging in a tree! You will notice some discarded tools and a bucket, which they use to shape the bike track from the mud in the wood.
Walking back from the fields, Pip and I were walking on the pavement, which is about wide enough for both of us, it was dead quiet everywhere and hardly any cars on the road, then moving towards us, was a road cyclist, but he was on the pavement and I though, well he will stop anytime soon, but he didn’t, he just carried on cycling towards us and last us, within a a few inches of my arm. I was SO angry, I really wanted to curse at him and the words that came up were ‘you f…ing selfish git, seriously?’ But something stopped me, I’m sure he would have been capable of stopping and beating me up, so I didn’t say anything but I could feel the blood rushing into my face with anger, wow that was horrible, thankfully I was walking so managed to walk it off before coming back home, not a nice experience at all.
Today is cleaning day at Clair’s Mum’s, which Clair has been doing every Saturday since lockdown. I usually do a bit of cleaning at ours, so I did some vacuuming, floors washing, bathroom cleaning, study cleaning, obviously washing up etc. Felt a sense of satisfaction after all that.
After that some computer work and a bit of Taiko drumming practice. I managed to master a really tricky rhythm we’ve been learning over the last 2 weeks and felt again a massive sense of achievement with that. The song is appropriately titled “Lockdown”, written by my teacher James Barrow, the founder of Taiko West.
Finished doing the weekly washing and hanging up in the garden and Pip found my garden chair and cushion to relax on in the sunshine, she just loves the sun!
Had some lunch and then it was time to catch up with Jacob Granville, the founder of Distributed Bio, who are working on a antibody drug to treat COVID19. He was featured in the Netflix documentary Pandemic!
Watch his update, which he lived streamed yesterday, 1 May 2020.
[embed]https://youtu.be/Xh1pX-5etHg[/embed]
Last thing to share, which I will share daily from now on, is the U.K. daily charts, it will be interesting to look back on these in years to come.
ps. My part-time business partner on a project I brought to him, has reduced my commission this month, I wrote about this in a previous article. I received the email from Udemy today!
Pip and I did a shorter walk this morning, just to give our legs a rest.
It was a calmer day today so I could get loads done. I did have a call with James of Taiko West to discuss a few things and we went down the rabbit hole of testing Internet speed and I was quite pleased that we were able to conclude that James’ broadband connection is really quite good but the data transfer from the BT OpenReach box is only able to transfer data at 100mps instead of what I’m getting, which is 1Gigabit. So the definitive conclusion is upgrade the router so James can eliminate the DSL box.
After that I went straight into my weekly LinkedIn Lunch event via Google Meet. It’s so funny whenever I’ve done one of these, I’ve always ended up with just one attendee and today was no exception. I was delighted though because we had a really good hour chatting about well-being and of course the current pandemic. It was a lovely chat with Robert.
Thereafter I had a late lunch and caught up with many emails and get in touch with a client and a potential client. I am quite astounded that I may end up with 4 animation projects during lockdown, unbelievable.
Finished at 4pm for the day after helping one of the Taiko online students test their technology.
The fields were very wet from all the rain we had overnight and yesterday, so consequently, the cows who roam the fields and leave their deposits all over the place, we (‘Pip the Dog’ and I) discovered some of them and I stepped in one. When it’s dry, you can see them easier and avoid them, when they’re wet you can’t!
I spent pretty much most of the day, working on Taiko West Taiko drumming stuff. Produced 2 tutorial videos, that James recorded yesterday and uploaded them to YouTube and then uploaded them to the relevant page on the online resources section. The song is called ‘Lockdown’, especially composed by James for obviously ‘Lockdown’!
Below I am sharing the slides that are being presented daily at the UK Government news briefing, which shows that now the UK is number one in Europe and number two in the whole world, when it comes to the amount of people that have died from Covid19, a pretty sad situation.
I remember when I heard the stories coming out of Italy and Spain and we had not had anything as yet in the UK, I was astounded and very shocked about how many people were dyeing every day, but somehow over the weeks and months you get ‘immune’, sorry for the obvious connection, to the numbers, especially in your own country. We have no where near been as locked down as in Italy, Spain and France. My uncle and aunt in France have to take a form with them when they go out, with a note of the time they left home, as they are only allowed out for an hour and to go no further than 1 km from home. Really we’ve had it easy in the UK, but not many realise that!
James delivered a further two live online Taiko drumming classes, the afternoon session went really well, but the evening session was fraught with technical issues caused by several of the attendees. It was really, really hard work. Afterwards I felt like screaming because the success of these online classes is totally dependent on either the IT experience of the individuals or the set up of their equipment and how old it is. I felt totally drained afterwards. And for some reason folks will not listen to simple instructions and they like to test the system to see if it will break and of course it does!
It’s dry but cloudy and felt quite warm out on my daily walk. Seemed quiet as far as dog walkers but seemed very busy on the roads again and the stats from UK Gov confirms that traffic has increased so not just my imagination.
Another busy day with Taiko West. Website issues now resolved by the technical guy who originally has organised the website. Produced a tutorial video for students to learn about Jitsi but will need to make amendments.
Watched the U.K. Government briefing today and astounded at the death toll figures having risen so much due to the new figures from care homes and the community. We’re now on target to become number two in the coronavirus hit parade. Dreadful.
I’ve noticed how they are now trying to bamboozle us with many charts that have loads of data trying to make us look better than we actually are. Every night now we get new charts presented slightly differently. Hmmm yeah bamboozle is the right word.
Haven’t seen proper rain like this for weeks that was a massive shock for sure.
So a very short walk for Pip this morning and she really doesn’t like the rain.
Rest of my work day again spent on Taiko West. Still having website issues though the web pages are just not loading properly and quite a bit of editing, adding audio files etc.
I did finish early today at 4pm.
Oh and I made a Lentil Dahl curry for our meal tonight and for the next few days. Yum it was delicious even if I say it myself. Today I heard that journaling is a good thing to do during this crisis and guess what, that’s exactly what I’m doing!
It was a loooong day. Early start as usual. Dog walk, breakfast, shower etc.
Then the rest of the day was just a blur.
Basically the whole day was spent on Taiko West. Website issues oh my, so frustrating, I detest Wordpress and that bloody Divi, the worst web program I have EVER worked with.
2 drumming classes and loads of producing to do as well.
Pip and I came across 6 dog walkers this morning and she was very well behaved indeed. She also made sure that she didn’t do any business on our way to the fields. My word it was such a beautiful morning, there was no breeze, beautiful sunshine and hardly any traffic on the roads at all. I know it’s a Sunday but even so, it was completely deserted. I believe the weather is changing from later today and in the rest of the week, but super grateful that we’ve had such gorgeous weather whilst in lockdown.
Clair had to do some work for one of her accounting clients and I did an hour of Yoga via Facebook live with a local Yoga teacher who we used to be taught by some years ago at the local leisure centre. It was wonderful to hear her calming voice. She just asked for donations, but it was only £3.75 for the session, which I thought was very fair indeed. So I will be attending this next time. I believe she is doing it 3 times per week.
Then I cut the grass before the rain arrives this evening!
Did some research on the web to help me with Wordpress and that blasted Divi Theme! And I’ve started with Instagram again, after leaving it 2 years ago. But doing to for a very specific purpose, to only upload all our whiteboard animation videos and cartoons. Took some time to format the videos to the ideal height and width. So strange why they have such an odd format, that doesn’t fit to anything standard, very annoying!
Quiet walk with Pip this morning as I decided to just go for a short walk and rest up.
Had to do some work, work on a potential short cut format for my Taiko drumming teacher when he does the verbal notations for his songs he teaches. He didn’t ask for it, but I just felt he needed a potential short cut way for doing it, to save him time. So I worked it out and recorded a short screen share video to show how it’s done.
The Japanese word for Taiko drumming notation/music is Kuchi Shoga. A very cool name I thought.
So after all that, I watched a new blockbuster movie release on Netflix, ‘Extraction’ with Chris Hemsworth of ‘Thor’ fame! It was a wild wild ride and although it was very very violent, not for the faint hearted, I did enjoy it. Netflix are obviously storming at the moment. And then caught up with one of my other thriller series on Netflix, ‘Ozark’.
And shortly after that Clair came home with vegetarian sausage rolls made by her Mum, so I made a lovely salad for us.
And Clair made a gorgeous, apple, pear and rhubarb crumble, with Rhubarb, which she received via a neighbour at her Mum’s and some pears which had been delivered today in a veg box. Yum!
It was a ‘s..t’ walk with ‘Pip the Dog’ this morning. Why? For some bizarre reason she decided to have two poos in the middle of the pavement!! And this was before we got to the fields that we normally walk on! Normally she does a number two (poo) when we get to a small wood that we walk through to get to the fields and maybe another one on the fields, although usually just one is enough. So, two smallish ones on the pavement on the way to the top of the hill, towards the small wood. Normally I take two poo bags with me, to collect her business, so I had already used those on the way to the fields. I really didn’t expect her to do another bit of business, the very second we were back on pavement again. This time she found a bit of grass, but still I had to collect it, luckily for me there was a bin quite close by. But, I had no more bags and the only thing I did have was my glove, yes I have a glove that I use to put on my right hand when I collect her business so that I have double protection in case a bag splits. So I had to collect her third bit of business with the glove and then place it in the bin and at that very moment in taking the glove off, a bit of poo, stuck to my hand, aaaaaaargh!!!
Quick wiped my hand on the wet grass a few steps away and then walked home with my right hand in the air, making sure I didn’t touch anything, even when I got home I made sure I opened the door with my left hand and then rushed to the tap to thoroughly wash my hands.
I know, I know too much detail, but remember this is my personal journal and therefore these COVID19 notes are only for me!
The rest of my day was spent until about 4pm doing bits and pieces of work, emails, tidying up stuff, sending more login details to taiko drummers for Taiko West, adjusting the website, uploading an audio track and other various things.
I finished my work day at about 4pm.
The funniest event of the day was some messages that were exchanged between Luke and his Mum, Clair.
He’s designing a Tattoo and told her that he didn’t realise how unprepared he was during this s..t corona lockdown, stationary wise. He needed, so he explained, A5 paper and paper with small squares, he meant graph paper and also pencils and a rubber. So Clair explained that the correct spelling is stationery with an e, instead of stationary as in ‘the train is stationary at the station’. So we had a real chuckle about this, because Clair is stationery obsessed and likes all sorts of stationery and she told him that she has been waiting for this moment all her life. Of course she has plenty of stock of all of this and as she’s going to her Mum on Saturday, tomorrow, to do the cleaning she will drop off all the stuff that he needs and more in the morning. Clair also does an evening call with her Mum at 7pm every day and explained this story and again there was a huge amount of laughter and I couldn’t help joining in, even though I was sitting in the other room.
After the day had finished I normally have a quick look at LinkedIn to see what’s happening and saw that a recent client, Gorilla Spirits, asked if I could do a small edit and whether I would charge for it or not. Hmmm, what to do.
Hi Michael, I wonder if you could do a small thing for me. I’d like a copy of our video with it to finish after the team slide and before the ‘over to you’ slide. I don’t think there’s much work involved but let me know if you need to charge.
So I responded with:
Hello Andy, thanks for connecting here. Normally there would be a charge, as these things never take just 5 seconds to do. The charge would be £50 + vat. However I would like to be helpful and maybe if you have a future project, I will remember to add the cost to that? I know there are no guarantees, especially at the moment. Will get it done over the weekend. Best, M
And this was his response:
Thanks Michael, much appreciated. I’m sure we’ll do more.
Fingers crossed then that there will be more in the future. 🤞
OMG, couldn’t believe how many dog walkers had congregated near our walking spot, of course it’s not ‘my’ walking spot, but I felt totally over crowded with several dog walkers and 6 dogs all in one place and nowhere to pass them. I had to walk on the road to get past them, so thankful that it’s quiet at the moment with very few motorists out on the roads.
More Taiko drumming lessons today at 2pm and 7pm and also attended an online workshop on how to get more clients in this current world. I had one major takeaway, see image below.
So here I am typing the final sentences for a week of journal entries and I am fading fast, running out of non-sense to write and wondering whether doing this is helpful for me or not.
So a couple of things that may be worthy of mention. This current world definitely brings out the worst and the best out of people. I know someone, let’s call her Sophie (not her real name), who I thought was a beautiful human being with a wonderful like minded soul. She not long ago joined telegram and all of a sudden I am being bombarded daily with conspiracy theory videos. I’m thinking WHAT! How did this happen? Not at all what I expected.
Last night during towards the end of our Taiko drumming class, we paused to go outside and clap for our key workers. This time I used a singing bowl and tapped it with the wooden handle that is supplied with it. It really made a wonderful noise! Will be using that next week.
Today was another peaceful walk with ‘Pip the Dog’ and the weather continues to be super mild and dry! Totally unheard of in the U.K.
Then when I got back I had to produce 6 videos for the Taiko West online resources page on the website. Too me from 9am until 1.15pm, wow a lot of work, but pleased I got it done.
We then conducted online Taiko drumming classes at 2pm an 7pm and they went really well with one decent and positive feedback from people.
A busy day and I was exhausted at the end of it, hence the very short post!
Well, the weather in the UK is just awesome, long may it last! I can’t remember such a long spell of dry weather in years. Could this because of the reduced pollution? I hope so, I hope they prove that this weather we’ve been having can be directly related to the reduced amount of flights, cars etc. on the roads.
A lot less dog walkers out this morning, I knew it, people decided on a Monday they need the early exercise but by Tuesday, they’ve given up. There was one walker we had to avoid, but otherwise quite still. The fields that we visit have about 10 Shetland Cows on it. They have been chosen because of their docile nature. The problem is they have free grazing access to a lot of the fields, which means you always have to be aware of where thy might be, so you an avoid them and also be alert for any ‘cow pats’!
My work was mainly focussed on Taiko West — Taiko drumming — work. I had to update the website, get hold of email addresses of the folks that attended the live online classes, so they could access the practice videos that James recorded and I produced. Add private users to the website, add them to Hubspot and send emails out with user login and passwords.
Late afternoon I had a catch up call with my friend Keith, who is the love man and we had a could catch up call. We had originally planned to go for a walk in a forest on Tuesday 24 March in a location away from people and then on Monday 23 March we had the lock down announcement, which meant I cancelled the walking meeting.
A very very crowded dog walking episode this morning when taking ‘Pip the Dog’ out. It was as if everyone decided they needed exercise after sitting on their butts over the weekend.
If you have read any of my previous journal entries, you will know that ‘Pip the Dog’ doesn’t do that well with other dogs and the annoying thing is, where I walk with her across fields the other dog walkers, let theirs off the lead. And poor Pip stays on the lead. So every time I see another dog walker I have to turn into a different direction.
Today was the big day in terms of going live with Taiko West online drumming classes. It has been 4 long weeks working up to this moment. Pretty much all day was spent on this until 8.45pm. I was totally exhausted, and I’m not even doing the teaching.
But we had terrific feedback from the students and they all enjoyed it very much. More to do on Wednesday and Thursday this week and then repeat the whole process next week. Thankfully the technology behaved, but James the teacher did have some technical issues his side again because of the sound quality etc.
Oh, I’m very late with my journal updates, but I’m sure you wouldn’t have noticed!
So I am writing this on Thursday 23 April, 2020 and now I have to remember what happened last Sunday!
Well, from what I can remember, ‘Pip the Dog’ and I had a quiet walk, not that many dog walkers out and about, I guess it’s because it was a Sunday!
As is normal on a Sunday and in fact every day, we have our super healthy fruit and soaked oats breakfast and then watch the Andrew Marr show. Andrew Marr is essentially a reporter who has is own show on BBC One every Sunday morning from 9am until 10.15am, it has got 15 minutes longer in recent months. He usually reviews the papers, speaks to a few other reporters and then in the main has politicians on his show. To be honest I have no idea why I watch it, because I think that most politicians are total morons, especially the Conservative Government in the UK, well in fact most of Conservatives have no clue about regular life.
Once we finish watching that, we’re still in the kitchen by the way, we watch something on Channel 4, called Sunday Brunch, one of these magazine shows with a couple of presenters, Simon (the chef) and Tim (nice but dim), who have a series of guest articles on. They talk and they cook and they cook and they talk. Pretty mind numbing to be fair. However due to current circumstances, they have to transmit from their homes and fill in the gaps with some clips from past shows. I do believe TV production teams are having to be very creative in so many different ways at the moment and I applaud them, the production teams that is, not the presenters they are still fairly useless!
Then later on Clair used up some Bananas that were going over to make a delicious home made Banana Loaf (Cake). Yum!
Watched some telly in the evening, walked ‘Pip the Dog’ in the evening and that was it!
