Reflections - An interview with SPVR

Comments

Nature's factory swings into action

Today marks the start of a very different, and much more active, online Parliament. This morning, I shall be part of an informal Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee meeting. In the afternoon, I shall be at a private "set-up" meeting of the new COVID-19 Committee which Parliament agreed to establish yesterday. During tomorrow it's an informal meeting of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. On Friday we have our first formal meeting of the COVID-19 Committee. It's followed in the afternoon by questions to Ministers. The COVID-19 Committee has among its responsibilities, oversight of the new, and rapidly developed legislation brought in in response to the coronovirus epidemic. Some of this is time-limited. There is a requirement for the Government to make various reports to Parliament on how they are using their new, and quite wide-ranging powers. I expect the new Committee will be the first port for these reports. So despite my being req...

Re-calibrating life

As a measure of our creeping away from most restrictive aspects of this pandemic lockdown, we had our first proper fish supper at the end of this week. Rockfish in Whitehills has adapted its layout to create a one-way system which allows 2-metre social distancing. They used to have 38 seats for eating-in customers. For the time being they're gone. They have always taken telephone orders and that now enables them to book you in for a specific time; in our case 1830. And on arrival, the order of two portions of lemon sole and one portion of chips awaited collection; fresh and hot. Herself who had placed the order had not specified the enclosure for the fish. So they were battered rather than breaded as I might have specified. But it's a lovely light batter. Looking at the kitchen orders behind the staff, it was clear that they were in for a fairly busy evening. This fine establishment says on their web site ( http://rockfishwhitehills.co.uk/ ) that: "Our family has ove...

No tears

I wrote yesterday about getting my diary organised for the remainder of the year. It just makes me comfortable to be able to look that far ahead and see a structure to my working life. Because that gives me a framework around which everything else can be fitted. A wee while, ago I also wrote about my first day at school as a five-year-old. In fact the school made little impression upon me. It was merely the journey to it that has stuck in my mind. There are other aspects that I do recall with ease. The slate and slate pencil. One creating a terrible screech when engaged with the other. The process of learning to write I have no memory of. Reading was something I had been doing since being about three. There could be a debate about this claim. On one occasion, when wheeled out at that age to, presumably, exhibit my precociousness for some guest or other by reading something from Winnie the Pooh, I performed the task perfectly. However, mother, years later, reported that she had ob...

Search This Blog