World time for FI Grand Prix World - Saturday, 4th October 2014

His clock alarm shattered the still-dark morning hour for FI qualifying day in Japan, for Japan's GP weekend, at 5.30 am this morning.

Yesterday, also at 5.30 am, the alarm shocked lingering sleep rhythm from our bodies, as we came to with a mighty noise resounding in our ears.

Tomorrow, at the slightly/st the same time, we will be forced awake, once more, by his most insistent alarm clock, for  the Japan GP itself and sleep will, once again, be a diminishing, lingering dream.  Perchance to dream, let's hope so, for the GP, for the drivers and for my dear SO, hoping for his Boy to do well - Jensen Button.

My Boy - Lewis Hamilton, qualifying for 2nd grid spot, is already doing well - my chance to dream is already set-up.

An FI GP world time, to enable us to watch all GP's at a fixed time would be good.  Japan is GMT+9, so an afternoon time for them, but oh too early in the morning to be woken up here in the UK.  Ah well, my internal clock was already whirring, waking me up before the dreaded alarm shrill shattered the quietness of the morning.

So, the view from here was darkness, with pools of bright yellow light from bedside lamps, the brightness of iPhones and iPads, plus his computer screen.

The country view from Oxfordshire of open fields waking up beneath wide pale skies.  The town view of an Oxfordshire morning, waking up to a off-white leaden sky for a dull morning, where folk must safely inhabit.

Do read the online BBC News report on Caesium  - The element that redefined time" - which now "keeps time so accurately that it has forced us to reconsider what time really is" - by Justine Rowlatt.

I know what time is to me!  Its the standard which keeps me chasing thru' my days to get everything done.  That piece of elastic which never stretches far enough, or long enough, leaving me short of "time" to finish my chosen chores and tasks for the day.

Its that extra 24 hours per day, just for me and like-minded souls to complete whatever task it is they've decided must be achieved and completed by a set time.  It's something there's always a shortage of.

It's something we yearn for, argue the case for, always ending at a slight disadvantage for the clock has beaten us again, with our race with time cut short, leaving us defeated.

"Bloodied but not bowed!" as my mother would have put it.  We can run that race again another day.  Do it all over again tomorrow.  Who knows, we may just achieve our goal and beat time, achieving all we desire, in the way of getting things do, one way or another.

And one good point to finish on, for I'm already running out of time, tomorrow is only another 24 hours away, the world is my oyster, life is up for grabs and I'm going to do just that.  Grab me a piece of the action, see where that leads me.  Who  knows, I may just come out ahead of my game at least.

I leave caesium to the world.  My clock is generated by an inner desire to do all I wish to do in my personal 24-hour period.


So - ready, steady, go....Catch me tomorrow if you can!  I'm off to catch me a slice of action.....

Toodle ooh

Daisy

PS - photo-shots next time - my camera's still sleeping and re-charging!!!

A clear blue sky for a tale of the glass milk bottle - Monday , 29th September 2014

Bue skies over a remote corner of Oxfordshire....

...and a country tale of 1930's agricultural workers enjoying their cold tea drink from thick glass bottles, probably of a green or brown colour, without milk of course, for that would have gone off in the midday sun.

Stopping the tractor for a quick drink, then carefully returning the milk bottle to a capacious pocket or over the shoulder bag of some description.

No Thermos flasks for such as these workers, much too modern and probably not for the likes of farm tractor drivers, out in the fields all day where a bottle would suffice.

Homely thoughts as we idle over a nice, hot, cup of tea...!

A little online research indicated the Thermos flask or Dewar Flask/Dewar Bottle, named to honour Scientist Sir James Dewar, who invented the vacuum flask when busy with his work on cryogenics (from Wikipedia I learn that this is the name given to the "study of the behaviour of materials at very low temperatures").  No Patent for this flask was taken out by Sir James - I wonder why that was, needs do more research??  An early vacuum flask had already been produced by Adolf Ferdinand Weinhold in 1881.  Then, in 1904, two Germans created a commercial entity out of  Dewar's design under the name of Thermos which name became a genericized trademark for the Thermos Vacuum Flask, such as is to be found in most households, today.

I have only three such flasks at home, of different heights and decoration and, quite frankly, wonder how I should cope without them.  When my children were at school, after school activities were greatly enhanced by the availability of hot food ready and waiting at home.

But back to the clear glass milk bottle of today and from my childhood, watching the Blue Tits peck away at the silver foil top to get at the cream, the gold foil cover for the Jersey Milk and the stripy blue or red tops for the semi-skimmed or skimmed milk.  In my Aunt's childhood, milk was delivered by a milk cart, being ladled out into householders "milk can" and carefully carried indoors.  I've often wondered how folk managed on this small amount of daily milk so I was grateful to the online article by Tom Heyden of BBC News Magazine of 26th September 2014 "Nostalgia for an old-fashioned milk bottle" in the section "A brief bottle history" in which he states "At that time, milk was "delivered there times a day - "pudding round" later dropped due to WWI constraints" - and another of his interesting facts - "Estimated 30 million lost glass bottles a year during WW2 - some return to tin can delivery using ladles."

Having missed this online article on Friday, I am only now conscious of the fact that Dairy Crest have stated their intention to cease daily milk deliveries of glass milk bottles by 2016, from which time only plastic milk bottles will be filled and deposited daily to householders' door steps.  What a sad day that will be!  What memories do we all have of the milkman calling - the crunching footsteps on a winter's day, the frozen milk, the pecked-at foil caps and waking up with the thought of fresh milk ready and waiting, to be brought indoors for breakfast.

I once owned a family milk can, now sadly missing; it would have produced a great photo-shoot for this article - why do old and historic bygone artefacts go missing, its so sad!

The tea cup and saucer, another somewhat "old-fashioned" household item but definitely relevant today still, for the elegance of delivery and the fashion for using a special china tea service for afternoon tea.

The ubiquitous mug of tea, so quick and easy to produce with boiling water and tea bag is a blessing for many and, indeed, an individual cup of tea may also use this delivery but here the tea cup has one special advantage, the tea will cool down considerably faster due to the outward-sloping shape of the cup, for busy people or for those who prefer a cool cuppa.  For myself, boiling hot tea is a must, whether in a cup and saucer or mug, so that I may linger over a book and still savour my hot morning tea!

If I am using a mug for any welcome beverage, it has to be highly decorative and attractive, and well-worthy of its place on my pine display shelf!!!

a pretty few...!

Daisy

Please refer to online material from The Telegraph by Mehreen Khan 22nd September 2014  "The death of the glass milk bottle" and from BBC News Magazine 26th September 2014 by Tom Heyden "Nostalgia for an old-fashioned milk bottle"