HEM

Not only is there the moon - but planet Venus is a brilliant light well into the evening in the West (& has been for some weeks).

I actually got "O" level woodwork! Came in handy many years later building a set of very stable shelves in the cellar of the house we were moving into. Some of the skill helped in the years of aeromodelling. Totally missing at school. Same here - its now a co-educational Grammar School

Here its said the waiting rooms at othopedic Drs. are full on a Monday morning with people who fell off their horse over the weekend.

In many countries.

My last employment (for just short of 20 years) was with Sun Microsystems / Oracle where I ended up in Global Hardware Support (mostly involved with the introduction of new hardware products). Reached retirement age just over 2 years ago. I'm not sure when I started working from Home Office but it was for probably about 15 of those years. I have to say that none of my immediate colleagues were in the local office - I had one team guy (also a Brit) in Dusseldorf, two in Denver & managers either in Belgium or in the US. My children were already of school age & I had a separate room for work. The advantages: - Avoided the 30-45 minute drive each way through Hamburg traffic & could put that time to better purpose. - Able to concentrate much better on my work without being disturbed. - Flexible time-wise: could take a few hours in the morning for the fitness center & then be available in my evening for conference calls. My last manager was in San Francisco area with 9 hours time difference - we had a one-hour "meeting" every 2 weeks! The disadvantages: - One missed snippets of useful information that come from chance overhearing of conversations in the office. - Tendency to become a hermit & still be in pajamas at 11am. - When you do go into local office for quarterly work's council briefing or similar you get met with "oh - you are still here!"

You would think so, particularly when flying solo. Even when training (I am not an instructor) there are only two on board. The poor winch driver is alone, the log-keeper usually also. But there is bound to be a small group at the take-off area (gliding is teamwork on the ground). However over here all sporting activities have been stopped & gliding is undeniably a sport.

Same here - I feel most uncomfortable going up 3 or 5 rungs on a ladder cleaning the gutters on the house. Same here (& I am at the controls) - though I do sometime wonder "what am I doing here" when thermalling under a dark cloud at over 6000'. Currently we are all grounded due to this virus...

That was in the morning. The last few hours have strong sunshine, clouds streets and a bitterly cccold NNE wind. Not so much the Siberian Blast - more like the Norwegian version - straight from Spitzbergen.

First day of "Summertime" and the snowflakes are hitting the window panes.

I'm 67 and its not that bad yet... and why not? At the beginning of March (i.e. just before the shutdown) I was in Budapest to attend the Plenary meeting of the International Gliding Commision as the deputy delegate forthe German Aero Club (how I as a British Citizen came to be in that role is a longish story). The Hungrian organisation was superb - led by Andras (in real life a Meterologist) and his wife Diana. They all spoke very good English. I nearly put my proverbial foot in it by asking Diana whether she got the opportunity to fly - she said she was lucky in that flying was her hobby & job. I thought maybe she worked at the airport - with a certain amount of pride in her voice: "I am captain B737 since 12 years". Given that she is 43 that means she was captain at 31. Not bad! Photo from Google...

I worked from Home Office for about the last 15 years of my working life (which ceased just over 2 years ago). In the final years I had a company-supplied desktop workstation with a fairly large Dell monitor - I attached a second not-so-large monitor as I found it very useful to have the mail tool of browser on one device whilst working on text files on the main one. Also when comparing two documents to each other (one per screen)... Now that I work almost as much (just don't get paid) I have a similar setup attached to my own PC. Very handy when editting videos on the main screen & being able to search directories for photos etc. on the second one.

How "big" is asparagus in the UK? When I lived there (until 1982) Asparagus mostly appeared in Beatrix Potter' Tale of Peter Rabbit. I can only recall once in the 30 years my father bringing asparagus home from the local market. Here in Germany asparagus is almost a religion where there is a race to offer (at exhorbitant price) the first shoots of the season. Often eaten with smoked ham (delicious). Actually we find frozen asparagus from Lidl to be just as good & saves the work of peeling. Similar problem here - with less water in the way. Asparagus farmers moaning about no slaves being available (& the asparagus is early this year).

Good News at last: The Eurovision Song Contest has been cancelled.

It was a doctor (a children's doctor at that) that first bought the virus to Hamburg - into the main hospital! Which is where my daughter works - but in a different department (forensics).

You have a dog? I raise you a young horse (will be 2 years old in June). This is "Lenti" ("Lenticularis") - belongs to my daughter... Photo taken last Saturday.

Six months ago I had booked a week's vacation to Mallorca / Majora to start tomorrow & was really looking forward to it until family members started putting pressure on me to cancel it (of course with loss of payment). That & the not unreasonable fear that there could well be a total lock-down in Europe during the week I'd be there led (forced) me to cancel. Grrr.

I fly tomorrow to Budapest (from Hamburg) to attend the annual Plenary Meeting of the International Gliding Commision IGC which is held on Friday & Saturday - I'm the deputy delegate for the German Aero Club (how I came to be that as a British citizen is a longish story). Delegates from all over the globe! Just have to hope that the Chinese delegates don't come (they have not the past 2 years) but the Japanese always attend. Our chairman has already communicated "We are all friends, but no handshaking, hugging or kissing!!". My return flight is Sunday afternoon...

Same here - also going back to when it was known as StarOffice & briefly Oracle OpenOffice.

In recent years we have had a lot of cranes (Kraniche) flying overhead - in Autumn they are often to be seen on the fields. We thought we saw a group yesterday (high speed to the East due to the winds). When flying one usually hears their call before seeing them (if at all). I have not met any in the air - occasionally have a stork at my wingtip; more often a bussard.

Been very windy all day here in North-Western Germany with the wind (South-Wersterly) ramping up. Now its started to rain. At least that means we will not get severe flooding in the centre of Hamburg as the river Elbe is oriented towards the North-West thus NW storms are very bad here. German railways are shutting down their long-distance services.

I remember when computers were only for universities & filled a room (Atlas, MU5) To quote Simon Lavington (one of my lecturers way back when) "now your washing machine has more computing power than Atlas did".

They lived on Broadway not far from where the A627(M) ended. My father originally came from Oldham. At that time we lived in Bramhall & later my parents moved out to between Northwich & Knutsford. Long time ago... Another aunt taught mathematics in an Oldham Grammar school for girls.

I second that. At senior school the meals were awful & you had to take them (pay for them). Many years later (the school had changed from being a 'direct grant' school to a 'private' one) I revisited & was invited to stay for lunch in their new canteen - a WORLD of difference. Last April (2019) my wife & I had a short vacation in the North-West & we were given a guided a tour of the old school. But they didn't invite us to stay for lunch!

I thought it was early in 1975. I remember because I was trying to write my M.Sc thesis in "advanced Computer Science" at the time. I'd been booted out of home because my parents were looking after my dying grandmother & I was staying at my other gradndmother's & aunt's on the North side of Manchgester (Chadderton). This was of course well before the days of text processing - luckily one of my aunts was secretary at a hospital & she typed up my whole thesis - as long as we had power to be able to see in the evenings. This was early 1975 as I started gainful employment in May that year. There had however been a Winter of power cuts whilst I was an undergraduate. 1972?