The Close Season Zander Quest Pt.*** - Plump Pillows and Planetology

The supermoon was a bit of a disappointment, for me anyway, it's a full moon where the moon is just a little bit closer to Earth than usual, so it looks a little bit bigger and a little bit brighter.

Now a supermoon happens when the moon reaches the closest point to Earth in its 27-day orbit and it happens to be full, which occurs approximately once a year. While the moon will be around 40,000km closer to Earth, some of the photos doing the rounds of enormous moons in the sky are simply optical illusions.

The best I could get last night was this above, and it certainly wasn't pink in my neck of the woods where elsewhere the same moon appeared like God ( Insert your God here ) had been holding it with his ( or her ) nicotine fingers. 

It was 10% closer and 20% bigger in area and brightness, to be honest I'd seen bigger moons in a recent visit to Tesco, the jeans just about bearing up under the strain.

Although it’s called “pink”, it is just a name, like “blue moon”. It simply means the April full moon and it will probably still be silver or yellow-tinged in the sky. The only time that we get unusual colours for the moon is if say, we’re looking at it through smoky or dusty skies like we had last summer, or in a lunar eclipse.

However it's still worth venturing into your garden or gazing at it out the window. The moon is a really rewarding astronomical object to look at. Even with the unaided eye, you can see the dark blotches on it which are the basalt plains.

If you have a decent set of binoculars or a cheap telescope, you can see craters and some of the mountains. It’s a good opportunity to just take a look and appreciate the moon for what it is and give trying to gaze in the neighbours window a bit of a rest, the chance glimpse of some plump pillows can wait.

Ok it helps I've access to some of my own !!!!

Now with a  £100 telescope you can see the rings of Saturn and the clouds of Jupiter, so it’s certainly something one can undertake while stuck at home, a rewarding family quarantine activity.

So nearly three weeks in to the lockdown the routine still in place, the family coping thus far. It's be a struggle for sure being contained in the house for days but the weather has been fair the walks about helping with the mind.

Still when I dip in and out of the news occasionally, we've got it pretty good to be honest.

Weekdays's I'm 'WFH' so it's passing pretty quickly, and working hours are flexible too, because I've  two kids to entertain as well. To be fair considering we've not done a huge amount for three weeks it's gone pretty quick.

Even the home schooling better than expected, Sam commandeering ones iMac aiming to boost his class dojo's. A domain I hasn't really much involvement in till now.

We have begun to walk the same walks, tread the same steps, but up till now, they haven't got that repetitive as yes, maybe ask me again in two weeks if the lockdown continues in similar fashion.

The spring blossom in full bloom, the sun strong enough for shorts and t-shirts.

Now being in lockdown as had one advantage so far and that is my firm belief I have and that is I hardly go anywhere near social media.Some of the comments on Facebook from the sanctimonious  finger pointers, calling people out for the smallest of 'misdemeanours', is frankly quite scary to be honest.

I'm quite happy to let the keyboard warriors get on with it and argue amongst themselves and some random person or persons who they will never meet and never put a face to a name.

Even LinkedIn the job networking site not free from arguments and disagreements some thousands of replies long, so I dread to think what other platforms are like.

Now I listened to a podcast the other day and one of the presenters used to spend hours a night replying to comments on Twitter, his life taken over big time and ended up being determent to his health.

Sleep patterns all over the shop, his mind active such the need to reply, the need to get typing post notifications.

Luckily a trigger for him was needed to break the cycle and his life transformed once the app on his phone was deleted, his mind back in a good place again. The trigger many will I'm sure will be thankful for.

I'm glad I've held off all these platforms because I'd probably get myself in to similar situations, similar spats and scuffles because having the need to put someone 'right' where they are clearly in the wrong.

Still if your mission and your earning are made from growing your audience then you need to appease the masses these worrying times with many sat on their backsides with more time on their hands than normal are to be lapped up at the minute .

Create a divide and opinions on completely different sides, even universes apart to get those hits up, those subscribers scribbling and those subscribers sharing.

All I can say is you're welcome do it, I don't think I'm missing out.

Anyway back to the fishing, in progress is a rod mount for the Suzuki Jimny. The purpose is that I don't need to break down the rods going from one canal to the other, one stretch of river to the other.

It's coming on ok so far I'm just waiting for the odd bits and pieces from Ebay to turn up to finish it off and I'll post some better pictures.

I've not even driven the car for ten days, typically the petrol prices at the pumps at the lowest level I can remember for a good while, cheap as chips.

Still it's be nice having an extended period at home with the kids, the bouncy castle dusted off from the garage, the realisation just how big the kids are getting.

Where did that time go ?, scarily fast that's where.

Also judging by ones aching bones and sore joints my days as a trapeze artist are long gone, I'll just have to stick to one beginning with 'P' I seem to be good at that.

Anyway I need to sign off, good work to do, so the Easter weekend looks to be nice to hopefully all the blog readers are in good spirits and fingers crossed we can get back out fishing again, I for one need it back in my life. Ones resolve is starting to be tested.