Marty

Sweet dreams, bro!

It was a cool, drizzly sort of day here. Spent most of the day inside. Caught up with some reading, cooked a big pot of beef stew, baked a loaf of bread, sowed a few seeds in pots (not wild oats, unfortunately ), and now plan on finishing the edit of a chapter for someone. All in all, a lazy sort of day.

Hi, buddy. Hope you're having a good Sunday.

Greetings. Albert!

You can have him, dugh. Truth be told, I'm not really a fan of meat markets. Poacher. Thank you Albert. ME!

Hot-diggity! A clean-shaven stud. I'll have to hide his shirt. Otherwise dugh will try to claim him.

And you, bro! Is the stud swimming under the water today?

Greetings, Gary.

There's a history of cataracts in my family on my mother's side. Fortunately, every time I have my own eyes checked, I have been told I have no sign of any developing. But, as horrible as it may sound to me to possibly have that sort of work done on my eyes, everyone I know who has tells me that it's really quite straightforward.

Greetings, Albert! Good news on the eye test, my friend. I had my annual test a few months ago. The results came back good for me, as well.

I spent a few hours yesterday evening, and again this evening, with the hoe, breaking down about half of the soil I had roughly turned over with the spade in the vegetable garden over the past week or so. I was working on the area where I intend growing my root crops (beetroot, onion, parsnip, carrot, etc.), and the area for the legumes (peas and beans). The surfaces of both are now reasonably firm (from me walking over them), and have a nice tilth, which means I can start actually sowing seeds in them over the next while. I'll also be reassembling my runner bean trellis, and putting up nets for the peas to climb. I find hoeing to be a really relaxing sort of job. It's not hard. Certainly not as hard as digging. And, as I am doing it, I find my mind starts to wander. Yesterday I came up with lots of ideas for possible haikus. Now, they all need working on before I would think about sharing them with the world. The syllable count is wrong at times. And some of them are only two lines yet, and I need to work on the third line. Not necessarily the final line, as a few of them are actually missing the middle line. But the easy and repetitive nature of the hoeing allowed my mind to just wander. As I was hoeing this evening the words of a song kept repeating themselves over and over in my head for some reason. I haven't a clue why I thought about it, but it basically became some sort of ear-worm, and I couldn't even get it out of my head when I came back into the house. Maybe by sharing it here, it will finally go away... Tomorrow, I plan on hoeing the area where the brassica crop is to be grown this year. I wonder where my mind will take me when I'm doing that..?

In March, the Irish health experts were predicting that we could reach as many as 2,000 cases per day here. But yesterday the chair of the Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, Professor Philip Nolan, said there have been significant positive improvements ... over the last fortnight, and that “The seven-day average (is) sitting at 400 cases per day, the five day average at 358." He also went on to say “If we were at the EU average, we’d be reporting between 1,500-1,600 cases today. The public’s efforts have made an enormous difference.” Part of the improvement must be down to the fact that just about all of the over 70's have now received their first dose of vaccine, with most of those also having had their second dose (I'm expecting my second dose in about a fortnight). But I think the main reason for the improvement is due to the government not rushing to ease restrictions that were put in place in the week between Christmas and the New Year, when a sudden spike in numbers left Ireland as the worst affected country in the EU as far as numbers of new infections per million of population was concerned. The fact that we are an island may also have helped, although the fact that we have an open land border with part of the UK (Northern Ireland) doesn't help. Hopefully Ontario can get the spike in numbers under control, and the vaccine supply will improve, Gary.

Same to you, bro. More overcast than recently here. But at least it's staying dry. I met up with my social bubble today, and we had a takeaway lunch. Mine was fish & chips. So it was effectively a communion, as the fish was the blessed Cod.

Big pharma are not necessarily as bad as people like to paint them at times.

True, Geron. Sadly, the problem some people have is not feeling able to talk; or not believing anyone will understand or be able to help. The mind can lead people into some very dark and scary places at times.

Thanks, Chris. That means a lot to me.

Thanks, Val.

Life's good, B. Thanks for asking. Another nice spring day here again, today. Although there's a slight wind coming from the east, which is making the day feel cooler than it really is. All good with you?

Greetings, young Albert! All's good with you and Steve, I hope.

Don't give up hope, buddy. We have similar problems regarding AstraZeneca and J&J here in Ireland. Fortunately, Pfizer are promising extra supplies. When this pandemic started last year, it was expected that it would take at least two years for any vaccine to be developed and fully approved. The fact that we have a number of them already being dispensed is actually pretty amazing, when you think about it. And no need to apologise for "whining". We're always here to listen, and often it can be good to get things off your chest. Fingers crossed for the mare. I know how much she means to you.

And for me, too. I think it was probably just a glitch.

Ah! Now I know why Bucket was so excited. It made the Australian news: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/zoom-strikes-again-canadian-parliament-cant-unsee-members-member/news-story/2c3bf49cd07fec2deb81f5da6fe31a8d Apparently it was his mobile phone that hid his business. (Or maybe he was trying to get a close up shot of it? )

When I read the word naked I wondered whether some Canadian politician has been doing a Lady Godiva...

Thanks, Gary. I thought hard and long about publishing this piece, and nearly decided against doing so. It has been sitting in my list of completed haikus for a good while now. But, as you so rightly say, it is not something that should be hidden under a rug.

Thanks, @84Mags. I was thinking of adding a list of crisis helplines but, living in Ireland, I wasn't too certain how relevant the ones I know of might be for the majority of GA readers. However, here's a list of some of the services available in Ireland: The Samaritans (www.samaritans.org/ireland) are available 24/7 - ring them for free on 116 123 Also, out of hours and in an emergency, you can text the Crisis Text Service (text50808.ie) 24/7. Text HELLO to 50808 to connect with a trained Crisis Volunteer. Pieta House (www.pieta.ie) have a service for people in crisis. Freephone 1800 247 247 or Text HELP to 51444 Spunout have a list of suicide support services on spunout.ie/mental-health/suicide/suicide-support-ireland I would also welcome, and encourage, readers in other parts of the world to add lists of support agencies and contact numbers for their own countries.