We all need to make a pledge to change

Well we all know it's interesting times right now, but they do not need to be negative times. Yes of course we can focus on the things we can't do right now and yes there are some challenges (see my last post for such challenges) Please be assured in writing this I am aware for many working there are some uncertainties but again they can be turned to change opportunities? But what do we have to be positive about, well things will get better and return to something 'not quite normal' but that's how it should be. I'll come back to the return to 'not quite normal'... but focussing on the positives from this period of our lives...

• In the main apart from our wonderful health and service sectors plus others we are getting a forced rest
• Our planet is breathing fresh air again
• We are talking to our friends and neighbours much more
• Great acts of kindness and friendship are happening (see my free beer offer) 
• Many of those 'jobs I'll do when I have time' are getting done
• Our homes have never been cleaner !
• Working at home  (and therefore less commuting  = less pollution) is now viable
• We are appreciating the simple things such as reliable technology, food in the shops, sunshine, love, family, friendships, planning ahead, natture, remembering past holidays, playing games, spending time with the kids.... many many more positives...

So - 'something not quite normal' will be our future. But thats ok, life is constantly changing, events change lives, positively and sadly sometimes negatively, but life is about living and adapting. So what does this scribbler think will change, simply put YOU will change,  you will change based on how the world adapts post virus. 

The world will be poorer, but that's no bad thing. It will give new growth and investment opportunities and there will be a need and willingness to support such growth. There will be a levelling of wealth, sure not some communist dream but and here is an important point in MY pledge to change we need to be fairer and more supportive,  and here is the even more critical change point the support should be focussed on environmental humanitarian considerations... for ME that's...

• More charity
• More ethical purchases
• More ethical investments 
• More environmental considered purchases
• More staycations
• Less European and international travel
• Certainly less air travel 
• Constant review of how I can be a better human 
• Add yours in the comments below to inspire me ?

It's ok me pontificating about all the stuff I can and will do, yes I'm retired, yes I have a small and believe me it is small pension but I HAVE to make changes otherwise this life lesson is lost and wasted on me and that will be the same for the billions around the world. 

So specifics from the list above for me as I've pondered this opportunity (please see it as an opportunity) ...

Critical point here and I've wrestled with it over the last couple of weeks is spending money. There is a lot of stuff we don't need but is sold to us as essential, I've blogged about this before. So targeted spending to support our economy is essential. Buy local (support all those shops that supported us during the lockdown) Buy UK products where you can. Spend money in pubs (yes) and cafes. Book B&B's and hotels for local trips no need to go to Barcelona for the weekend when you can do the Peak district, East Anglia, Wales and Scotland are beautiful locations for short breaks (use the money saved and take the train and talk to people ?) Spend but spend wisely and spend in a supportive way?

Back to my pledge to change.... 

• Do I need two motorbikes when one does 45 mpg and the other does 80mpg..... 
• I have Percy so staycations are a given (along with my 80 mpg motorbike)
• The motorbike touring in this country will put money back into the UK economy
• Make do and mend, I've amazed myself what I can turn my hand to and repurpose and continue to do so, it's enjoyable saves money and saves resources.
• My Old Rover is financially worthless but is also a diesel 38 mpg very heavy large and in the main overkill for moving me and Leia around. It's high tax as its a relatively high emissions car so it needs to go.
• We need to invest in an electric car
• More efficient home power use. Need to get some low environmental impact  (wood) double glazing at home to both keep the fitters and makers in work and save ££'s and oil use.
• We will grow a few more veggies. We don't have a large garden but are making troughs for summer veg and planting in our cottage garden borders also (how it used to be I'm told by Rachel) 
• Other stuff I've not yet considered but will keep the 'change' option in the forefront of decision making.

That'll do for now. Putting these words down in my blog really is the start but an essential act to make myself the promise to change. Hopefully these changes if done in any small part by the rest of the world (and that's you dear reader) will make a change and send a ripple around the world and hopefully redirect all of our futures to a brighter place physically and emotionally ?

Stay safe and please please follow the government advice to protect all our essential worker by staying local  and minimising your personal contact.

Another one goes..

 Remember my blog about my Rover going .... here click me 

All part of my pledge to change - remember that, how's yours going  ? Click me 

Back to my pledge to change.... 

1. Do I need two motorbikes when one does 45 mpg and the other does 80mpg..... 

2. I have Percy so staycations are a given (along with my 80 mpg motorbike)

3. The motorbike touring in this country will put money back into the UK economy

4. Make do and mend, I've amazed myself what I can turn my hand to and repurpose and continue to do so, it's enjoyable saves money and saves resources.

5.  My Old Rover is financially worthless but is also a diesel 38 mpg very heavy large and in the main overkill for moving me and Leia around. It's high tax as its a relatively high emissions car so it needs to go.

6. We need to invest in an electric car

7.  More efficient home power use. Need to get some low environmental impact  (wood) double glazing at home to both keep the fitters and makers in work and save ££'s and oil use.

8. We will grow a few more veggies. We don't have a large garden but are making troughs for summer veg and planting in our cottage garden borders also (how it used to be I'm told by Rachel) 

9. Other stuff I've not yet considered but will keep the 'change' option in the forefront of decision making.

So progress is great 

1 partially sorted - see below

2. Done two staycations this year on Percy

3. Just come back from Scotland and have a few tours already lined up next year.

4. Ongoing ......

5. Rover gone IQ in 

6. Not yet too expensive 

7. Double glazing and wood burner  (to replace open fire in progress) 

8. Eating our own veg - quarter sack of spuds still to go 

9. Ongoing 

Picking up from my last post about bikes the big 1300 cc (well 1260) is gone today 8th October 

My lovely Honda ST1300 Pan European V4 is PX'd. Not much pillion stuff in the foreseeable future lighter bike(s) needed more economical, and easier to look after and service (by me). 

It realised a youthhood dream of fast big bike European travel. My two Pans have taken us all over the UK, England Ireland Scotland and Wales plus Europe a few times into Belgium, France, Germany Luxembourg. I dreamt big and the Pans enabled me to realise those dreams.

Its gone from 1260ccV4 to 411cc single  - meet Anode my Royal Enfield Himalayan.

It's now about exploring my country and not motorways and fast A roads where places flash by.... just bringing it home I rode through two villages I've ridden by signs for many times. Lovely traffic free country roads instead of following lines of traffic, waiting for that overtake to get behind the next car etc. 

Panniers are due hopefully this week, I spent a wet day in the dry garage farkling it with extra lighting, sat nav wiring and fitting etc. I've also spent some time planning routes that will get me from one end of the country to the other LEJOG (Lands End to John O Groats) by minor roads and places to see.

It'll give me 80mpg - the Pan was between 35 and 40. I still do not need two bikes but for now let me enjoy a bit of my retirement !

Sadly time to get rid

Nope not Percy but I'm delivering on my pledge to change.... remember that, read it here Click Me 

Specifically I planned to scrap my old Rover I typed;

"My old Rover is financially worthless but it is also a diesel, 35mpg, very heavy, large and in the main overkill for moving me and Leia around. It's high tax as it's a relatively high emissions diesel vehicle."

A quadruple dose of good has come from its sad (to me) demise. 

1. The planet has had a polluter removed.
2. I used Charitycar as the agent to help me scrap the car. They basically operate as the middle person and arranged for my car to be collected by a dealer ( I asked the car be scrapped not sold on) then I choose what charity I want the proceeds of the sale of the car to go to. We chose CoolEarth a charity working to halt the deforestation of the rain forests and therefore protecting our environment. 
3. Whilst I didn't buy an electric car for its replacement the car I did buy was being sold as the guy was getting an electric car - so one dirty diesel out and one no emissions electric car in - result.
4. The car I brought is polar opposite from my Rover - it's a Toyota IQ so from diesel to Petrol, from 2 litres to one litre, from nearly 5 metres to under three metres..... still an automatic though.

So I feel good today, it helps the IQ fits in the garage (just) with my bikes. The IQ has a tax of just £20 per year - the Rover was £320. The savings I recon on fuel will be over £400 per year and servicing will be cheaper as well as hopefully less MOT work in the future (its only got 34k on the clock)

Here is the wee beasty 

So a homage to my Rover. 

I brought it in January 2015 from a dealer in Burnley, found for me by my then transport manager at the Uni who I provided a spec of a car I wanted to replace the petrol hungry and wallow'y Honda CRV (That I brought specifically to take my late father in law back to Wales for one last visit in 2014.) James came up trumps with a Rover 75 Tourer 2.0 Contemporary SE 5DR 'Genuine 66k + FSH + Massive spec! (the advert I still have) 

I needed a comfy tourer for the 200 mile each way trip I was doing each fortnight to Chichester where Rachel was working  - its all in the blog ! I'd leave work on a Thursday evening and then drive the three and a half hours to Rachel, work at home on the Friday then on the Monday morning my alarm would go off at 4.45 am and I'd be on the road for 5 am to get to work in Derby for 8.30am.... after stopping off a the boat at Fradley to drop Leia off and in the winter set a fire going so the boat was warm on my return in the evening  ( another 30 minute drive from Derby to Fradley) 

I needed a mini limo that the Rover was with leather fully adjustable seats cruise control decent lights etc etc. 

The Rover was also used a van, my youngest son will attest to this as it was used to transport literally tons of stuff from his flat refurb to the tip in London - I even drove his cut up bathroom suit from London to Ashbourne to the tip there on my way home one time !!  

Indeed its last trip for us was to take a load of sleepers from our cottage to the mooring to make some better steps and a small retaining wall.

It only let me down once when the alternator expired at about 130,000 miles.

I brought it at 66,000 miles and drove it to 158,000. The biggest mileage year by MOT I think was 22,000. Now retired I think (not counting the bike miles) I'll struggle to hit 6,000 miles.

Simply the best car I've ever owned by a country mile, but not what I or the planet needs now so it's just started its last journey. Its a shame in some ways it'll not be stripped for parts, there is a very helpful and active Rover 75 community, but this way it'll be as the pick up driver said "baked bean tins before you know it" So for now every time I open a tin of beans in the future I'll reflect on my trusty old Rover how great a car it was for truly strange living times for Rachel and me.

RIP faithful and much loved Rover 

The insurance cruise

So I’m back …. Lots of catching up with retrospective posts to come that are really for my memory down the line …. But for now The insurance cruise.

Percy is 30 years old and whilst the current insurers haven’t yet asked I know they will before the next renewal. So we are booked in at Stone boat yard for diy blacking and ( hopefully if the surveyor gets back to me) a hull survey. I also need a boat safety and again waiting for a surveyor to ‘get back to me’ 

To be honest I’m frustrated with the whole canal and boating thing at the moment. The canals are overgrown as CART have reduced / removed the veg pledge …. The Caldon is almost grown over now and just today so many broken paddles and really badly leaking gates. I would not be spending in excess of £100,000 to drag that investment or spend around these ditches right now. 

I may well get Percy valued when we moor up for a holding period at Great Haywood. Lots of things are impacting what I consider enjoyable cruising now….. 

Anyhow we set off Tuesday evening to get to Great Haywood a week on Thursday so no great pressure other than a lunch appointment on Sunday around Weston Upon Trent. Tuesday night at Norbury, Wednesday at Stretton Thursday at Gailey and Tonight above Deptmoor Lock. 

We will edge around weeping cross and Redford bank tomorrow and may stop at Great Haywood to go collect the other car. (one car has been left at Great Haywood Marina) then stop at Ingestre (sp) on Saturday. 

We are due in at Great Haywood for a couple of weeks then off to Stone for the above works.

  

Flying high - my drone history

I used to call them Quadcopters - that was the name given when I was building them from scratch. It all started on a visit to Scotland to see my good friend John who was building remote controlled aircraft using some new hardware  - an intelligent flight controller, fully programable to control fixed wing aircraft or Quadcopters. There is a company called Hobbycraft who were very able to sell me all I needed to build my flying machines.

It was a great hobby, lots of soldering, building  programming and planning. We were the 'drone' pioneers. I built two drones one with a camera attached and another to just fly to learn how to control them. I think I enjoyed building them more than flying - and therein was the issue. Where I lived then was in a city - Derby. Lots of parks but not ideal or safe to be flying there. Luckily one of my responsibilities at the University was Security - so I had access to all the sites including a large area of green that was fenced off, my own private testing ground.

This is a short video of my scratch built quad on its second outing testing what was then called loiter mode (gps lock) No camera on board at this time. Taken on the Rugby pitch at my University before it was dug up and a sports complex built there - see later videos.

But the hobby needed more time and access to flying areas so I reluctantly sold the job lot - drones, controllers all my tools and spares. To keep the boating theme, I sold the lot on Ebay to a fella who had two charter yachts in the Mediterranean and he wanted the drones to get some publicity pictures.

I did take it to its place of spiritual conception before it all got sold.... Dumfries and Galloway to fly at John's land that overlook Loch Ryan up the west coast of Scotland. Here is the video.....

I did eventually get another but this was a commercial drone. By this time there was a race to commercialisation of the drone market. DJI being the leader with a raft of others bringing commercial drones out with varying degrees of success. I waited and spent my hard earned on a DJI Phantom 2. It was a good drone, but let down ultimately by DJI's race to the top as they kept bringing out newer drones and committed the sin of not providing spares or firmware upgrades for their older gear. It was a time still of little regulation and I used my drone to take shots for the university - including an impressive New Sports centre.

The university was keen to have more such videos and stills of their (our as it was my university as I'd been there so long and committed so much to it)  property and land so I sold my drone to the University. It never happened of course as it got damaged in 'test flights' !! 

To keep the boaty context I did take some video and stills of Percy at Fradley.... this one being my favourite, the music is royalty free courtesy of U2.

So why this blog - apart from some self reflection I've bitten the bullet and purchased a new drone. Mea Culpa  - yes I did indeed blog about my pledge for change which was about buying less.... and I can assure you I have been buying less and spending less, my trip to the NW500 in Scotland has been canned as has a long weekend meet up with 30 other bikers in Derbyshire and my battlefield tour of Normandy in June.... so I have some money and I did say I wanted to balance the economy (not all of it) using my pension ££'s.

I opted for a DJI Mavic mini... price for performance one of the better drones. Inspired by some of the stunning videos from the vloggers out there. When one of my friends who lives close to John in Scotland was last on my boat Percy one very boozy night we were discussing drones and he encouraged me by saying if he had a boat he could not think of a better 'tool' to use to capture the beautiful countryside we cruise through. Based on my plan for staycations on bikes and boat for the future I think I will get some value for money from this little drone.

Little it is.... the new UK drone laws mean any drone over 250g needs to be licensed by the CAA. The drone I have is 249g's so no need to be registered. However I have taken the test, passed and am licenses and a flyer and owner. I need to put the details of my license on the drone and print out the license should anyone ask to see it while flying (even though I don't need one) 

So hopefully when back on board Percy I can give a better idea of where we are and show you some of the views we see..... just need to be back aboard ! 

Who doesn't like a stat or two

I've always liked playing with numbers and recording unnecessary  bits of information. When we were younger and money a lot tighter I used to work out our spending and income each week ( remember when we were paid weekly in cash !) This extended to monthly accounting in a blue ledger book I still have for posterity. I moved on to Microsoft money in latter years but now in retirement thankfully I just spend ! 

I don't record all spending on Percy just fuel ( more for how much is left in the tank) or how many hours I have done since last fill up etc. 

One stat I'm pleased about is the number of posts I did last year - I smashed my Percy blog record by some margin.

Never hit over 100 before and my 113 for last year was 2.17 blog posts a week 

It was 20% more than my previous best year in 2013 - the first full year we had Percy

It was a splendid 135% more than my worst year in 2014.

Ironically it was the lockdown that gave us the opportunity to use Percy more and did those two long planned trips the four counties and the Llangollen and back. The blogging each day no doubt helped plus I had more time to blog about other stuff during the year.

Hopefully this year will be more blogging about Percy and a few jobs I need to do.... the next blog will be just that ! 

Reverting back to house stats that got me thinking of this post in the first place.... Today I upped our electricity direct debit as we are using more electrical heat sources as this is renewable ( remember my pledge to change here)  

I initially was a little annoyed as this was mainly due to Rachel working from home.... but then I realised she had not been doing the 50 mile a day 3 days a week commute to work. 

Look away those of you that live aboard or have a thermally efficient home. Our energy use is reflective of us living in a cottage over 200 years old with single glazing and three bedrooms so not too tiny. Also I do feel the cold - could be called a wuss lightweight etc but I can afford not to be cold and have always said I'll pay what it takes to be warm. Having said that we are looking at using more renewables and will be spending on double glazing this year to reduce heat loss. (Plus we have two wood burners now and each walk I bring back a chunk of blown down wood for next year) 

Reviewing the info it's interesting how over two years we used a difference of just 21 litres of oil. The savings was on cost with the pandemic dropping the cost of oil to a very low price. Savings on fuel for commuting was impressive even if we did have to heat the house more. 

When all combined we were a decent chunk of cash for Motorcycle spending up on 2019.

Anyhow better get to the vets with a wee sample from Leia. Poor Leia is getting old and had started with kidney failure, the vet suggested a choice of quality or quantity of life left sadly. I opted for quality as I would want myself, no point her living longer in pain and discomfort. 

As Forest Gump advised "My Mom said life is like a box of Chocolates, you never know what your gonna get" Leia and me are both heading for the coffee cream ! 

Just do one thing....

I've watched Frozen planet II with a wonder and dread in equal measures. The final program is heart wrenching in its call to arms for the people of the world, the developed (sic) nations in particular  to honour the pledge to hold global temperatures. It's not my world that will be destroyed but that of my children and grandchildren. It is them that will see all the impacts of our intransigence and lack of respect to nature and climate. 

I am not detailing a sermon as I am not in a position to do so as I am part of the problem. I am also trying to be part of the solution. There is no doubt the society we have developed is one of encouragement of profligacy. No one person can resolve the situation but every little thing we do hopefully multiple times of the day builds into a move towards change for the better. 

We can afford to make changes that helps, in how we travel, how we holiday, how we eat, how we heat. how we shop.... everything we do we can review and look for change to make a small positive change.

Here is a contentious thing - challenge me if you like but I think recession and expensive electricity gas and oil is a good thing. People are now looking at what the actually need rather than want. People are turning thermostats down and putting on layers. They are delaying putting central heating on and heating the rooms they use rather than the whole house. Yes its hard but is is going to make a difference. 

Please try and do something, anything that you feel or know will help reduce the impact of your life on this planet. It's a beautiful place, let's work together to leave that beauty in place for future generations ? 

Remember it's your responsibility despite what the media and social media tell you. Just now it seems many are able to justify non action by blaming others ... I grew up in a time when you were responsible for your own life and decisions... now it seems evermore it's someone else's problem. Maybe that is the case in some circumstances but don't let it be a reason to do nothing, doing nothing is akin to being culpable. Be a hero,  be a role model to your children and grandchildren. Seek out change for the better however small every little thing helps.