ur first week of summer staycation has been very good. Vacations that involve staying in Greater Manchester still leave a very large radius for exploration and we did different things every day. Rianne has rated it 9 our of 10. After today “week 2″ starts, then we have one more week and it’s Bank Holiday. We can leave Town for a bit. Back to normal after that.

There are still some house chores to complete, some of them physical, but with 2+ week left there’s no pressure, no hurry.

In September we’ll take publication up a notch. Back to normal routines.

N two days from now Manchester City can lift another “trophy” (shield), the first one for the new coach, Enzo, as well as for some new players in the club.

We’ve already put some drinks in the fringe in case of celebrations.

The above photo was taken across the road from the stadium, at Lazy Panda.

‘ve decided that, weather factors taken into account, it would be better to go feed the birds again, not visit Trafford Centre like we originally planned. Or go around Town this coming Sunday.

The birds at the park look very hungry, desperate for food. We want to prioritise them.

Water shortages are also becoming a matter of urgency across Europe. This is climate change in action.

oday this blog hits the 3,000-posts milestone. It took 22 years. This year I decided to make better use of this blog, even if just to offload more personal stories and opinions… keeping them out of sites that are technical in nature.

Blogging is still a lot of fun.

“If you love the personal aspect of blogging, sharing your thoughts with the world, no matter the number of views, you will always have someone who loves your blog: you.” -Robert Birming, this week

think it’s fair to say that the Clacton by-election became a feeding frenzy for people who knew entering would guarantee much media attention.

People who don’t live in Clacton entered.

There were people whose entire platform was satirical.

Even some of the policies were, in effect, jokes.

Some local media moaned that Clacton election turned the town/area into a “circus” or an international laughing stock.

ased on these results from the Clacton by-election, 7 candidates received fewer votes than Daniel Pocock.

We hoped he’d win hundreds of vote(r)s, but he got 16.

Daniel Pocock’s campaign did, however, attract a lot of press.

T seems like the clouds reduced the heat somewhat, so 35 degrees felt more like 30 and we didn’t find apples today, only berries. Lots and lots of the latter.

We brought about 2 KG of premium seeds with us to feed the birds and taught the young kids to feed the birds, not to chase and scare them. Rianne gave fistfuls of seeds to about 6 young children, who learned that the birds are “friends”. It was a lot of fun, so we’ll come back there again on Sunday.

It’ll be a lot cooler in the coming few days. I got some strong tan throughout the day today and it felt like I was near the beach. How long before the sixth and seventh heatwave?