John - Archived Entries for 2021 / 3

Dr John Hawkins

Welcome to my bit of the Maison de Stuff, home to a huge load of pictures, and my daily blog.

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Recent Entries:: Wednesday
Sunny Heath
Monday
Sunday
Sleepover
To Bermondsey and Back Again
Thursday
Wine Deliveries
Worst Witch
Flowers
Sush
Den
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Fox, Cava, Tarp
Beans
Clock Tower
Birthday
Sunday
Brent Cross and Environs
East Meon
Heath with Christian
Wednesday
Tuesday
Monday
Belgravia in the Car
Pink Sky on the Heath
Small Beer
Boundary Stones
Car, Budget, Girl's Day
Tuesday
March

Wednesday: [Wednesday 31st March 2021]
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Sunny Heath: [Tuesday 30th March 2021]
Lovely warm spring day today, and with the easing of the stupid restrictions the day before, the heath was joyously full of people enjoying the weather this afternoon.
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Monday: [Monday 29th March]
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Sunday: [Sunday 28th March 2021]
Checked up on the state of the garden in the morning. Walked down to Regents Park in the afternoon to see the cherry blossoms.
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Sleepover: [Saturday 27th March 2021]
Erika had her friend (who we're in a "childcare bubble" with) over for an extended playdate / sleepover today. I went off to the heath for a bit in the afternoon.
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To Bermondsey and Back Again: [Friday 26th March 2021]
My company had another global day off today, under normal circumstances I would have liked to go for a walk in the countryside, but frustratingly that relaxation of the ridiculous rules wouldn't come until the following Monday. So instead I did a long walk in London - all the way to the Angel in Bermondsey, about a 15 mile round trip in total.
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Thursday: [Thursday 25th March]
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Wine Deliveries: [Wednesday 24th March 2021]
A couple of wine deliveries today - a mixed case of ESW from Waitrose wine, and a bottle of Vacqueryas from Tom the wine merchant.
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Worst Witch: [Tuesday 23rd March 2021]
Erika put together a Worst Witch type uniform and I went for a quick early evening stroll to the heath.
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Flowers: [Monday 22nd March 2021]
Just one picture, checking on the state of the flowers in the garden at lunchtime.
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Sush: [Sunday 21st March 2021]
Sushi for lunch, which we went to pick up in the car. In the afternoon I had some Nuits St Georges on the heath.
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Den: [Saturday 20th March 2021]
Made a den for Erika in the lounge with one of my tarps.
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Lincoln's Inn Fields: [Friday 19th March 2021]
Took the afternoon off work and walked down to Lincoln's Inn Fields to meet Andrew.
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Fox, Cava, Tarp: [Thursday 18th March 2021]
Somehow a fox got into our garden this afternoon Spanish food and Cava for dinner. Put up a tarp in the lounge later on in the evening.
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Beans: [Wednesday 17th March 2021]
Bulk order of beans, lentils etc from Hodmedod's arrived today.
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Clock Tower: [Tuesday 16th March 2021]
Erika and I finished off the Lego Hogwarts Clock Tower this evening.
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Birthday: [Monday 15th March 2021]
My birthday today. Took the afternoon off work, went for a walk to the heath, then when I got back had black forest gateau with the girls, and in the evening started building the Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts Clock Tower with Erika.
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Sunday: [Sunday 14th March 2021]
Not much to report. Tulips started flowering in the garden.
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Brent Cross and Environs: [Saturday 13th March 2021]
Erika's Japanese school was back to having lessons in person today, so we drove her there in the car, and Chie and I hung around in the area until pick up time. It was a bit dull. Later on I headed to the heath.
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East Meon: [Friday 12th March 2021]
A glass of East Meon in the garden to round off the working week.
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Heath with Christian: [Thursday 11th March 2021]
Met Christian for some wine on the heath.
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Wednesday: [Wednesday 10th March]
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Tuesday: [Tuesday 9th March 2021]
Had some breaky bottom in the garden.
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Monday: [Monday 8th March]
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Belgravia in the Car: [Sunday 7th March 2021]
First drive in our new car. Went down to Belgravia for pizza from Oliveto followed by gelato from Olivogelo.
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Pink Sky on the Heath: [Saturday 6th March 2021]
Went to the heath to catch a bit of the sunset towards the end of the day.
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Small Beer: [Friday 5th March 2021]
Worked quite hard today, and was still going at 5:30, which is unusual for a Friday. Tortelloni for dinner (we'd had an Ocado delivery the day before).

Tried "Small Beer" this evening, a brand I'd had my eye on for some time, and discovered this week that Ocado sold it. I thought their lager tasted pretty good and is only 2.1% ABV. Although at £11.99 for 6 350ml bottles (£5.70 a litre) they must be making good profits on it (and for once it doesn't seem to be any cheaper anywhere else than it is at Ocado). At current duty rates, were that bottle a 5% beer it would incur 33 pence of duty. However there's a different band below 2.8%, and so the duty here is just 6 pence. Much higher margins on an already premium priced product. Once taxes are made (and ignoring retailer margins) they'll make £4.61 per litre. Compare that to something generic like Foster's, as sold in a 4x440ml pack at Ocado (£3.60), at 4% ABV means the cost per litre without any taxes is £1.07. That's quite a difference!

Small Beer as a company only makes beer at 2.8% or lower, and what initially sounds like a laudable attempt to make decent tasting beer without some of the downsides of typical ABV levels actually starts to sounds more like a shrewd business opportunity.
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Boundary Stones: [Thursday 4th March 2021]
In the interest of trying to make my walks to Hampstead Heath a bit different, today I went looking for the boundary stones I'd seen marked on the Ordnance Survey map.
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Car, Budget, Girl's Day: [Wednesday 3rd March 2021]
A lot on today - we bought a car, the budget (thankfully nothing bad for me) and also it was Girl's Day in Japan.
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Tuesday: [Tuesday 2nd March 2021]
Quick check on the cherry tree. Not much more progress.
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March: [Monday 1st March 2021]
So it's March then.
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