seaside towns day five (an early spring)

horsemouth is having a dull day in the seaside towns. this is because he isn't doing the thing he should be doing but is instead arranging to do all the other things he could be doing.

yes it is in fact groundhog day once again. punxsatawny phil has prognosticated - it is an early spring this year he claims and here is horsemouth is stuck in a time-loop wasting time. 

the catkins are out on the tree in the front garden. 

in a bit he will move up onto the sofa in the living room and read (the living room gets more sunlight than horsemouth's bedroom and so is a little warmer).  he's not feeling keen on going out for a wander (after 22 miles in the last 4 days), he did a quick patrol around the block in the morning (up to the powerscroft road book box then back via colenso) that will have to suffice.

in the evening he realised it was bandcamp friday - by the time you see this it will be bandcamp friday no longer. 

horsemouth has turned down some of the heating for the now less used rooms - the power company are threatening them with a bigger direct debit. true the gas usage has gone up when compared to last january (by about 200kwh a month) but the main factor is that the price is set higher jan-feb-march and is likely to fall april onwards - horsemouth thinks if they can just get to the price drop without the power company bumping up the direct debit they'll be ok. 

so no howard on the friday (howard on the saturday) - horsemouth will be taking it easy.  he's read more of adam tooze's $hutdown: how covid shook the world's economy in particular chapter 2 wuhan not chernobyl which makes efforts to get inside china's initial response. 

'if one word could sum up the experience of 2020, it would be disbelief.'

'people are making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow.'

'what? too soon?' 

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so yesterday 12 years ago marked the end of horsemouth's involvement in this sort of thing (what might be  labelled 'volunteer led renovation'). for horsemouth it was about bringing 9 flats back into use so that 9 more people could be housed (or 5 more in the previous campaign).

in the end the deal with poplar harca could not survive successive government attacks on social housing and they took the block back  (horsemouth thinks one flat still survives of the original program).  it worked for a few years (that's probably the best deal that could be got). 

he was interviewed about it the summer before last.