Saturday 26 June 2021

Cricket. Wild flowers. Packaging. UFOs still unidentified.

There was something going on at the cricket club this morning when I ran past. Indeed, it was difficult to run past as there were so many cars parked on the pavement alongside the road, in some cases right onto the grass as well. Cars were parked for a good half mile on either side of the entrance to the cricket grounds. 


I think it was some kind of junior event, maybe an inter-schools competition or training event. Large numbers of youngsters, some of them looking no more than 8 or 9 years old, were there, wielding cricket bats. Some of the bats were bright blue, which looked really odd. Cricket bats are surely supposed to be wood-coloured! Parents were setting up camp on the outer edge of the playing field: blankets, flasks, refreshments, magazines and books, obviously planning to be there for the long haul. People were signing in at the gate - Covid rules - and late arrivals were rushing along excitedly, getting in my way!


I’ve no idea what was actually going on but they had a reasonably fine morning for it and everyone seemed very excited about the prospect of a cricketing morning. Good for them!


Incidentally, further round on my run I saw that someone has been busy planting wild flowers. 


Poppies of unusual colours are popping up.


Back home for breakfast, which most days turns into a kind of brunch as it ends up being mid morning, I had to rush to answer the door. Earlier this week I had received a parcel from Holland and Barrett, the health food people. Unfortunately it didn’t contain the mixed nuts which were the main reason for placing the order. I checked my emails and discovered that this time it was on fact my fault. Somehow I removed mixed nuts from the order. So I re-ordered on Tuesday or Wednesday and, lo and behold, the parcel arrived today. Except that there were two parcels, clearly both from Holland and Barrett. A small mystery.


I opened the smaller one first, a box about 10 inches x 12 inches x 8 inches.  On first inspection it seemed to contain nothing but crumpled brown paper, which many companies use as insulating packaging. It recycles more easily than bubble-wrap. Sometimes I store it in case ai need to wrap something for posting. There is, however, only so,much brown paper a person can keep. Eventually, from amongst the packaging there emerged a small packet, 3 inches x 2 inches x 1 inch, a packet of gingko biloba tablets. It turns out that Phil has a regular order with Holland and Barrett for that and other vitamin-based stuff. But his delivery arrived earlier in the week, at the same time as the parcel for me without mixed nuts.  Another example of two parcels arriving from the same source at the same time.


A few questions arise: 


Why does the company not put together orders for the same address at the same time in one parcel?


Why did they send most of the vitamins earlier in the week but the gingko biloba only today?


Why did it need to be in such a large parcel, relative to the size of the contents?


I have heard that there is a bit of a crisis with packaging. Our H & B order in multiple packages explains why. It’s a good job we recycle, rather than just throwing it in the general rubbish bin.


It seems that the Pentagon has released its report on UAPs, the strange things seen on the sky formerly know as UFOs. Apparently it has been a little disappointing:


“The truth is still out there,” several reporters who covered the news wrote, after the report could only explain one of 144 reports of what the government calls “unidentified aerial phenomenon”.

“We were able to identify one reported UAP with high confidence,” the report says. “In that case, we identified the object as a large, deflating balloon. The others remain unexplained.”


Oh dear! Here we are with our heads full of ideas about aliens, fed by stories in science fiction novels and films and TV series, and in my case going back to 1950s radio dramas like “Journey into Space”. 


We’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out whether all the UAPs are just space debris from all the stuff we have been sending up there by way of satellites and so on. 


Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

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