Trying hard

It's six weeks since my dad died.  It's been .... difficult.

Then the suicide bomber at Manchester Arena last week.  Targeting kids, and the parents waiting to pick them up.  Kids!  One casualty was only 8!!

My daughter is 10.  Had her music tastes been different, it's possible we would have been there - she reports one of the kids in her class actually was at the concert; school sent round a letter saying several pupils had been there, but all were safely accounted for.  It's only a couple of miles away, I saw some of the ambulances rushing in that night!

So that hit me hard.  I spent the next few days feeling stunned. Shell-shocked, I guess.  Fighting back tears all the time.  Just like most people in the area!  I've been glued to the TV News, glued to Twitter, had local radio on in the car and kitchen... watching the local paper websites..  It does seem that the Police have a handle on things, which is gratifying, and they are making progress tracking down all those whom have connections with the bomber.

To try and recover, I've tried throwing myself at various unrelated projects. Here are some of them -

• Finishing the stuff I started for Retrochallenge..
• Cataloguing and Imaging the vast number of BBC Micro floppies I have
• Adding BBC Micro SSD/DSD/ADx image support to TC4Shell
• Getting a VPN client working on my Sophos UTM 9 firewall
• Planning content for the new viewdata.org.uk (but not yet writing any..)
• and watching some TV!  (Well, netflix..) Normally I hardly ever watch TV..

Each works for a bit, then I get distracted, interrupted, or just dispirited.  So I swap to something else. Right now, I don't feel up to doing any of them..  I've tried ignoring the news this evening, as there's not been anything new anyway.. but that's not helped either.

Strangely, Mr Biffo wrote a piece this week that resonated with me. It's one of the reasons I'm writing this... I was hoping it would help.

I'm not much of a sharer.. this is new to me,  So, I'm going to leave this here. If anyone wants to jump in help with any of those projects, feel free to get in touch.  Apart from watching Telly - the Mrs is happy to do that with me!

Stay safe, people.  Love you all.

End of an Era

Those of you who follow this blog, or my social media accounts, will know that I don't share too much that is personal on-line.  Some people do too much of that - I don't need to check Facebook to see what you had for breakfast, and your tweets about how you met your mates for lunch are just white noise.  So, I don't do it.

There will be exceptions, of course, and this is one.

Given it is the Easter holidays at school, we decided to grab a few days away with our little one.  We don't generally go far, so just stuck with Pontins at Prestatyn.  Monday to Friday, just a little break.

Tuesday afternoon, I get the telephone call I never wanted to get.  It was my sister, Jenny: she had picked mum up from shopping in town and took her home, and they had found my dad dead at the foot of their stairs.  He had fallen while attempting to carry a folding bookshelf back upstairs.

Obviously I dashed up there immediately - they live in Wigan - and spent the evening with Mum and Jenny, and the police!  Any unexpected death needs investigating, apparently.  His body was collected eventually, and will be dealt with by the Coroner.  I had to return to Wales, but have been in constant contact with Mum and Jenny ever since,  Obviously they are both distraught.

This put a bit of a damper on the holiday, to put it mildly.  Obviously I am going to be exceptionally busy too, helping with Mum, dealing with all the funeral, estate, paperwork and so on.  I am pretty sure all my hobbies are going on a back burner for now.  So, that's it for Retrochallenge this year...


Dad was John O'Donnell.  He was a world-renowned aeromodeller, having been involved in the hobby for over 70 years, and having held many records.  He contributed to the model press regularly and frequently with articles and model plans,  He was a keen photographer, and ran a professional photography business doing commercial and wedding photography for a time.  As a mathematician he worked in the aeronautical and chemical industries, before finding a home as a lecturer (in statistics.)  He enjoyed serious Science Fiction, and was becoming recognised as intensely knowledgeable on the subject. He was intensely organised, and pretty much everything he did is recorded and filed away neatly.  We intend to publish as much as we can.

We have created a memorial site for him at jod.org.uk - please feel free to visit.