People being nice

Despite Trump's determination to prove himself to be the worst kind of guttersnipe imaginable, lots of other people around the world have stepped up to the mark to prove that humanity has a great deal to feel positive about.

At 7am I awoke to the news that Captain Tom's charity walk for the NHS had just tipped the £12 million mark, so while my coffee was brewing I wrote him a birthday card, popped it into an envelope, added my best guess at a postal address and stuck a 1st class stamp on it.

Coffee brewed, I logged in to work to find that Rebecca Pow, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had written to us to thank us for keeping refuse collection going and for generally doing our bit to keep everyone safe. It was nice to hear. Yes of course everyone thinks of NHS staff first, but there are a great many other support services missing the limelight. I shan't list them.

Mid-morning I took a little break away from my screen to see this. The social housing/housing association building which had been devastated by fire last year is in restoration. About ten days ago there was scaffolding all up the front while burnt-out gutters were replaced and the entire frontage repainted. Now it seems that the interiors are being gutted in preparation for a re-fit. I was impressed by the roadside sorting of materials requiring disposal. Next time I looked out the street was as clean as a whistle. 
I am seriously impressed by the professionalism shown here.

After work I put Tom's birthday card into the pillar-box, made the (disappointing) Sainsbury's trip, came home, phoned Step-Brat to wish him a happy birthday, and stuck my head out of the window at 8pm for the Thursday clap. This evening we were accompanied by ships on the river hooting their horns.

Nice day.