{"id":1615,"date":"2024-04-07T17:30:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-07T16:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/?p=1615"},"modified":"2024-04-07T17:30:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T16:30:21","slug":"the-times-they-are-a-changin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2024\/04\/07\/the-times-they-are-a-changin\/","title":{"rendered":"The Times They Are A-Changin&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hard to believe, but 4 years ago we were in lockdown. Bit of a shit time, really, with scary NHS bears yelling at us to STAY HOME, schools shut, people being shouted at for being (gasp) outside, and all that NHS <del>crapping<\/del> clapping. At least there was Joe Wicks.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Scary NHS bear\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pommiebastards\/53638217560\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53638217560_c62da3aff0_z.jpg\" alt=\"Scary NHS bear\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s not do that ever again. Please.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t all bad. I built a scale model of London City Airport (and of all the airports in the world this being the best is the hill I will die on). I learned how to make bagels.<\/p>\n<p>And I built a treehouse.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Throw a pallet in a tree\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pommiebastards\/53636874587\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53636874587_a07d26c20a_z.jpg\" alt=\"Throw a pallet in a tree\" width=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This started with me throwing a pallet up into the willow tree and then figuring out what I needed to put on top of it, and\u00a0<em>then<\/em> negotiating the shortages of all sorts of building materials (because everybody was at it, remember?) and <del>fucking<\/del> social <del>fucking<\/del> distancing at <del>fucking<\/del> Wickes to collect the damn materials once they were in stock and cramming it all into my tiny Peugeot (God rest her soul) to get them home.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Treehouse, nascent\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pommiebastards\/53636874552\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53636874552_e66ca75a1a_z.jpg\" alt=\"Treehouse, nascent\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nJoshua, being 6 at the time, wasn&#8217;t exactly helpful, but at least he enjoyed it.<\/p>\n<p>Today, nearly 4 years after assembling the roof and then disassembling it &#8216;cos I had to get it into the damn tree, I finished the project.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, it&#8217;s been loved and used (and almost turned into a gin deck) since June 2020, but the skylight was just just a hole covered by loose roofing felt.<\/p>\n<p>One of my &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2024\/02\/29\/opportunities\/\">sabbatical<\/a>&#8216; projects was to actually fit the skylight.<\/p>\n<p>Today, dear reader, that happened.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Chisel\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pommiebastards\/53637976988\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53637976988_42959af046_z.jpg\" alt=\"Chisel\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And Joshua was actually helpful. He was able to hold the window from the inside, chip away at the rough edges, and even wield the No More Nails gun to immense effect.<\/p>\n<p>I guess 40% of your time on Earth will make that kind of difference.<\/p>\n<p>How times change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hard to believe, but 4 years ago we were in lockdown. Bit of a shit time, really, with scary NHS bears yelling at us to STAY HOME, schools shut, people being shouted at for being (gasp) outside, and all that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2024\/04\/07\/the-times-they-are-a-changin\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174,417,39],"tags":[427,289,425,426],"class_list":["post-1615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dont-try-this-at-home","category-offspring","category-science-less-sunday","tag-fucking-scary-nhs-bears","tag-joshua","tag-lockdown","tag-treehouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}