Food and Ambulance

Last night I had the pleasure of a visit from my favourite Great Nephew!  He has a dew days of and motored down to Duxford to see the great airfield there, the vast collection of aircraft and the tanks at the far end.  Even he found it much larger than he thought.  It is a great huge space.  

I did not go.  

Twenty or so years ago I was there twice, both time with an attractive young woman, and we both found it exhilarating and tiring at the same time.  The 'Battle of Britain Ops Room' a room where part of the  Battle was directed from, the Fighter Collection, USAF, several aged passenger liners and the large Tank collection at the far end make it a great day out.  It cost him  around £30 however.  These places are not cheap.

When he arrived, eventually, he found following my clear directions difficult, I fail to comprehend this as there are only two main roads in this town, he arrived and we set off  down the road for dinner.

The 'Yak & Yeti' is a Ghurkha themed restaurant which turned out to be quite quiet, apart from those collecting their online orders, or taking them to the customer.  Cleary the place is popular.  

Our hot stuff was very good, the Ghurkha lager also excellent, far better than the stuff the yobs drink, and as he paid, in spite of my desperate pleading to pay, the evening went very well.  

It has been many years since I saw him, and most of the others, one day I will make it up there, and not for a another funeral!  

After he had left, I sat here attempting to sort the day out in my little head when there was a knock on the door.  This means it could only be the downstairs woman.  I heard some chatter down there and thought they were discussing who should take the dog out last thing.  

It was very different.  

I had not realised an ambulance was standing outside the door.

He had begun to have a stroke, the conversation was about calling an ambulance, he not bothered, she worried.  The ambulance came, told him he was going with them, and off he went.  No arguments with them.  

She came up to inform me of this problem.  One he has had before, and the lass was understandably worried.  She remained here, probably for the best, and this afternoon I can hear him return to the fold.  No doubt I will here soon about the result.  

We can worry about global warming, WWIII, Freeports, and who will replace Sunak, but for most of us it is the reality of life that matters, strokes, arthritis, leg breaks, schools, and holidays are more relevant.  As always, great happenings are occurring all around us, but it is where we are and what is happening to us that is really important.

Stieglitz

Books! & Family.

So, in spite of my better judgement I wandered off up the road to the wee shop, entering just after they had opened.  I am always wary of this shop, on the few occasions I have used it I have been confronted by what we refer to
as 'wide boys.'  However, after a quick prayer, and a quicker breakfast of stale hot cross bun and coffee, I made it anyway.  They were still sorting themselves out for the Saturday traffic and quickly I explained my desire and quickly the packet was forthcoming.  Soon I was heading home via Tesco.  This surprised me as I was aiming for Sainsburys but fell into a dream and found myself at the wrong shop.  This may not surprise anyone.  A quick wander round for the needful, and a fight to stop the girl at the checkpoint stealing my packet, and home I stumbled.  Another exciting Saturday in flow.

I have always liked the H. V. Morton style.  Especially as the books date mostly from the 1920s and 30s and as such offer a differing view on life.  Already I have mentioned his book on Scotland which I have somewhere on the shelf.  The link also offers the other Morton books I have read, and one on the man himself.  While his books offer an insight into the world of his day they also offer an insight into the man himself, this is not always pleasant.  

With the book on medieval churches I failed to realise that is contains over 400 pages of small font!  It looks historically interesting, probably is, and will be very interesting to read.  However, with several other 'heavy' reads on the go it may not appear here for a while, possibly this year!  

There are quite a few books I am slowly working my way through at the moment, and one of my sensible nieces has given me an 'Amazon' voucher, this means I will have to make use of the second hand books available there and save money and increase the book pile.  I am not sure this is a good idea...

I will start looking on Monday!

Yes its a baby.  Yet another great niece for me to spend money on.  However, on this occasion, the mother has brothers and family without nieces or nephews to spend money on, so I will not venture much more than I already have.  As far as I can count, that is four nieces, one nephew, three great nieces and two great nephews.  Though I may have missed one.  They are all at a distance, only the latest two require anything, the rest all successfully grew up and found work, bar the archaeologist who still has to decide whether to find work or study for a PHD.  

Her dad says 'Work!' 

Boxing Day 2022

I have no idea how I got fat, I ate only morsels and chose carefully at that.  Possibly all those puddings made a difference...?

Anyway, I had a good Christmas Day.  A trudge down to the Kirk, here I handed out chocolate to the ladies and miniature whisky to the men, I had promised them all a bottle of whisky for Christmas...

I felt welcomed, even before this, and obtained a lift home easing the walk, and enjoyed a decent lunch.  It was good day I must say.

Today, I remained indoors eating a veg type diet.  I need more veg and mostly that was called for today.  Very enjoyable, if you put cheese on the top!  

A walk round yesterday revealed a very quiet scene.  Today is no different, apart from kids making use of scooters, bikes and who knows what few are about bar dog walkers.  Traffic is sparing, and while one or two shops may open today most will be closed until tomorrow.  In big towns many will crowd into shops for bargains, as if they were indeed 'bargains.'  Having no obvious needs to purchaser and no desire to be ripped off I remain indoors quite happily.

However, news come through of most spending required.  My nephew has just had a baby, or at least his girl has.  Two kilo's in weight and looking fine.  This requires more spending on uncle's part, though I am glad to say uncle's nearer at hand will do all the work, thankfully they are 200 miles away from me!

Once again I will trust the Royal Mail to deliver, sometime in the next four weeks!  Another girl on the family, her cousin now 18 months old, and her arrival gives all the women something to purr about.  That is, they also are miles away and not called upon to do anything!  Purring is best done from a distance.

Nothing else has happened.  Other than the router playing up, speed down to 13 at times, other times it is slower.  Something must be done but all are on holiday.  Ah well, Wednesday maybe.  I may have to visit Tesco in the morning, I expect it will be full of people desperate for things they do not require alongside the few they do need.  I may be one of them.  

I hope my readers have had a decent Christmas.  Commemorating God taking human form is always good, and celebrating the solstice at the same time also worth while.   Jesus was probably born in March or April but as that is too near Easter it cannot be remembered then can it?  I hope your family gatherings were enjoyable and fun.

My family appear a bit disparate at this time, so many going in different directions to visit people who must be visited makes one day together difficult.  I must get up there one day however, just to annoy them.   However, when their cards and gifts eventually arrive I will love them more.  I need the socks...

Happy Christmas...

Easter Monday

Easter Sunday was the usual gathering.  Almost all had washed and shaved, almost all wore their Sunday best, almost all were gagging for Easter chocolate!  

I deposited around 50 Cadbury's wee eggs for handout at the end, which went down very well apparently, not that I got one!  I trudged wearily down the road and trudged wearily back up again, ready for some spiritual Rangers v Celtic Scottish Cup football.  After eating what was left in the fridge I settled back to watch the game.

Now, my niece was coming to me on Monday, so having nothing in the house I was going to fill up Monday morning and prepare a suitable feast.  Imagine my panic when ten minutes into the game she emailed me to say she was half way to me (from Burnley) and would soon arrive!

Panic!  I trudged out again, unwillingly, to Sainsburys, as I got there a young man said "It's closed mate," as he passed.  So it was, as was Tesco!  I remain convinced these shops are always open at Easter, maybe I got this wrong, I never checked this year.  No other shop is within my walking distance, my knees would go no further, so I contacted them and they found some foodstuffs at the nearby petrol station when filling up.  

So, once the car was parked, the kid carried upstairs, and me also, we ate what we could and spent the rest of the day sharing the seven month old from one to another.  The boy was at his most contented when chewing a box that once held coffee sachets.  The expensive goods lying around were not as good.  

It is of course no surprise he took to me, his favourite Great Uncle, didn't they all when young?  There again, after a few minutes getting his bearings when he arrived I think he would take to anyone.  

The three of them have been travelling around the country visiting the family and friends unseen for years.  This child has travelled further in 13 days than I have in three years!  He has been manhandled in Aberdeen, York and Edinburgh, plus elswhere.  Passed from one to another, and often stolen back again.  I get the idea he is enjoying himself.  The parents are clever, now he has been seen by all the women their minds everywhere are contemplating what to give him at Christmas.  This will save the parents much money!  Mind you it cost them coming here.    

Even though they were only here a few hours I really enjoyed it.  It is around 20 years since we have had a wee one in the family, now we have one to spoil.  I suspect however, his clever parents will not allow this.  They are both bright, indeed I spent much of the time ensuring dad did not steal my books, (he is a Uni librarian) and she a musician.  I think this kid will be too bright for the rest of the family up north!  Throughout the day the football was on in the background, though following it was impossible.  It distracted the kid, and distracted the father from pocketing my books, I had to pat him down police style when they left.  As to the football I have little idea what happened in most games.

Bright this boy clearly is, when I carried him about telling him of my exciting life here in the wilderness of Essex he soon fell asleep.  Just as well as my arm by then was beginning to feel the weight.  

After they left, I cleaned up and found I was exhausted. 

The cleaning week was good exercise but tiring, the walking also.  I was knackered last night.  This morning there was little difference to that.  Eat yesterdays leftovers, sleep, make lentil soup, eat and soon sleep once again.  Though I did find Sainsburys open this morning to stock up I was so tired I just grabbed what was in front of me, sorry madam, and came home quick.  I ache everywhere.  

Still, all in, a good Easter Morning, a good Easter family evening, and a good cheap Chianti to keep me going today.  

 

Monday Muse

Mid morning saw me the only person in the queue at the wee post office.  I go there as the queues are less and the Asian lass always smiles at me even if she considers me an idiot.  This was the three important Christmas packets full of rubbish and the cards dumped in the box.  3rd of December and all is done bar two cards I forgot and the local folks who turn up out of the blue.  Many of those will get an email card!  Cheap and miserly I may be but I am happy with that.

 
Sitting here in the 'Winter Palace,' that is my bed, I was listening to the radio iplayer (now called 'Sounds' for no good reason) as Jo Brand blethered her advice on families.  I was thinking the families she meets are pretty rough, her own had its problems, but thought I my family was quite good, and I suspect most still remain 'quite good.'  Of course we had problems, the usual family squabbles, and most of those around us were similar in approach, the area it must be said was composed of good working class types of the early 50's.  Nearby were rougher areas where at school I discovered families of a more troubled type, their kids were in my class.  This is part of the area in which the book/film 'Trainspotting' was based so you can imagine the type.  
I suspect 'broken families' come from 'broken parents' people who came from such families however you conceive them and lack people around them in the neighbourhood or at work who can coach them into something better.  The faces of those 'wanted' on the local police Twitter site often offer those not quite mentally aware for 'minor crimes.'  The families are usually of similar type.  
While I was listening the phone rang forcing me out of my comfort and made me clamber through to the east wing to answer.  This was my sister and when mentioning the Jo Brand topic she agreed we were lucky to have a decent reasonable family, only one black sheep she mentioned, "Who? I asked, "You!" she said!  I have asked the postman not to deliver her parcel...
It is at times like this I miss the family, I suspect they do not miss me...

The sky is quite good at the moment.  Black clouds threaten rain in the distance much of the time but we get these interesting skies as the low sun heads home.  If only I could get into a better position early in the morning and grab a few shots of the sky then.  Not tomorrow as work calls....

The Family Shrinks.

Our family, just six of us when I was a lad, has shrunk in recent years.  First of all died died from cancer, too much smoking over fifty years in 1969 when I was too young and stupid to comprehend. Then to our shock some 15 or so years ago my sister also had one of these things but of a different order and she too left us. My ageing mother complained that my sister expected to look after her and not the other way around!  Then some eight years ago mum joined them leaving us three only.  
Now my brother, who managed to get bits cut out of him last year and was still rather shaky, has gone and died rather surprisingly to us early this morning.  His son managed to get him into hospital via an ambulance early in the day yesterday and spent a while frantically calling his sister, the one with the brains, who was working in Austria.  
This morning we were told my brother died, possibly in his sleep, and now we are left wondering about arrangements and what will happen to the family there.  The problem is my niece lives in London and while her brother lives at home (both are in their 30's) their mother has begin dementia of some kind and life in the house looks to be a difficult one as the son is not the wisest.  Just imagine me without the intellect!  Hopefully soon my niece will get things organised, then we shall see what we shall see. 
Of course when I imply only two of us are left I ignore the nieces, nephews and their kids also but you realise that.  There are plenty of them at Christmas time and all very capable of looking after themselves these days.  However it does me my sister and her 82 year old husband along with myself are the oldest and she is drawing lots to see who is next!  I have not indicated to her that I am not feeling very well... 

The 'Beast from the Eats,' surely a name coined by a tabloid hack, arrived today but most of us did not notice.  It was certainly cold and while some snow fell even lying for around an hour or so it soon faded.  Snow showers fell and while leaving  for the short trip back to the museum from Tesco I walked into one and looked like a Nannook of the north for a few minutes, I got no sympathy just grinning workmates.  
The sky is now blue edged with pink as the sun goes down behind the trees, one day it will get stuck on top of them.  The weather gets chillier, minus 4 (28 F) last night and my feet are turning to ice as I type but this is nothing to get excited about, especially as I will jump into my bed soon where it is warmer!  Jack Frost was on my window a wee bit last night but most of us can cope.  The kids managed to get themselves into Victorian costume and into school today without fuss and I don't think they cared about the possible snow one bit.

I have ignored the news for a while and feel it has done me a lot of good.  No arguments on comments pages, no stress from slanted news coverage, no worries caused by fretting re the snow on the roads/rails/schools etc which lead to screaming paper headlines and mean little in reality.
My brain is stimulated instead by the Radio iPlayer and programmes found thereon.   This is much better and puts the shambles of this government in perspective.

The 'Beast from the East' has not hindered the dying sun from lighting up the trees around here wonderfully.  I will look out my boots for tomorrow just in case it arrives a day late.

The 25th.

The 25th of this month was always an easy one to remember as not only is today Robbie Burns birthday, and Scots everywhere eat Haggis, drink whisky and commemorate his immortal memory but it was also my sisters birthday. 
I had two sisters one of whom died early aged 56 of a nasty disease.  Today I was somewhat taken aback as her daughter posted on facebook her picture as this would have been her 70th birthday!
Several things combined here, the picture, which I had not seen before, in which she was looking good, and the idea that she would have reached 70 years combined to shock me somewhat.  This was unexpected and recalled the time she died and I travelled up to the funeral.  I went to the funeral directors alone confident that nothing about a body would bother me having seen a great many working in hospitals, however the sudden emotion of the moment shook me then as it did to a much lesser extent today.  In fact back then it took a day or so to get over, not so today.  
The memories do flood in, such as her idea of sending me a packet of cheese and onion crisps in a small A5 envelope "Just to see what would happen."  Or her irritating habit of calling or emailing me on Saturday evening to ask "Did you know Hearts got beat?" Knowing full well that I would know!
I often hear her when I use the phrase "What a load of rubbish," as this was one she often used, often near me.  Her daughter is much like her also, but less grumpy, like what I am...

Another Monday

I was surprised by the heat as I wandered out this lunchtime.  It appears we have anther short summer this week.  Hot tomorrow then temperatures descending lower and lower until we reach the ice age of winter again, probably next Monday!  I was off to the church for a discussion on outreach, with lunch provided to ensure people turned up, and a good time it was at that.  Naturally  I talked to much and said too little but what do you expect?  This is my family heritage!  Some years ago when researching the family line I was in contact with someone somewhere in Aussiland, in our conversations by email, passed on to others over there, I mentioned my dad and aunt disagreeing over the date of their mums death.  I pointed out one said it was before the end of the war, the other claiming it was afterwards.  Both, following family tradition were determined they were correct!   A third Aussie chimed in after this saying "We are related, all my bloody lot are like that!"
For that reason I never go to Australia!

So the Cameron era has ended finally.  'Good bye' is all I can say to the worst PM this nation has ever had, and we have had some dumbo's right enough.  'Don't slam the door as you slink out' is another. He leaves for several reasons but money making is one of them clearly, just sitting on the back benches supporting the present PM who has made it clear his 'Posh Boys' policy was not right and she is working hard to eradicate almost all he has done is another good reason for him to head for the money.  An ex-PM sitting on backbenches is in a difficult position, anything he says will be taken as support or opposition of the present PM, and as her policies are very different from his, in word if not yet in deed, then he cannot really say much at any time.
In my view he is not much of a loss, Osborne may go next although they do not want by-elections at this time, his job is only on the backbenches and never will Theresa May the present PM allow him back!  How different it would have been if they had just gone six years ago....

 'Road works today' said the sign.

   

Another Day of Joy...

 

As my technical abilities are way beneath my intellectual ones you can gather I am in quite a fix at the moment.  With a day or two to myself, although I almost had to work today and might tomorrow, I intended to fix some of the broken bits.  "Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans" sang John Lennon and he is right.

I brought the wheel up to fix the puncture, then I began to seek my grandfather and his first wife through Ancestry.  This meant I forgot the bike, except when I fell over the wheel, until today.  So I removed the tyre, pulled out the inner tube, discovered the puncture in a strange place and checked the tyre.  No wonder I got a puncture where there ought not to be a puncture, the tyre is falling apart, I thought it felt thin!  Anyway I reached for the new inner tube I was going to insert, then fix the punctured one as a spare, when I realised the new one had one of those 'Shrader' car type valves, eejit!  I took action, I dumped the lot and will visit Halfords tomorrow, it was too late today.

The other jobs, let alone the ironing and the trip to somewhere nice, must wait.

So it was back to granddad and his missing children.

He was born on a farm and ended up driving steam trains by the 1880's.  He also drank and this cost him his two marriages.  Plenty of kids from the first one, three from the second, from which I come somewhere down the line.  

I have found it difficult using both ancestry and Scotlands People to find any trace of some of them.  One poor lass is born in 1891 and disappears, I don't think she lived long but she might have gone to relatives in Newcastle with an older sister. Travel would be cheap as I think railway families went free and the journey would not be long.  One man is found in the Royal Naval Reserve but I have yet to get his record, another becomes a jeweler in Cheshire and his sister joins him later but what happens after that?  One daughter marries well, he had money, but she appears to die at 45 sadly.  So many stories but so hard to uncover.

There is a problem in that dad never spoke of his father, or at least so rarely I canny mind anything he said.  His mother moving them out affected him in that he determined to be a good father and look after his family, which he did and at some cost.  Not that I understood that for any years.  

Naturally I got involved in this and suffered yet another burnt dinner.

So tomorrow I may be working, i may be in Halfords and I may be grumbling on genealogy sites!

Cabbage

A man during the second world war was given the responsibility for ensuring children received sufficient nourishment from the limited foodstuffs now available.  Oranges and bananas, often beyond the price of many at the time, were amongst other luxuries no longer considered vital to keep the nation afloat.  This gentleman, who's name escapes me, decided that the answer was cabbage!  This combined with the 'Dig For Victory' campaign enabled the British population to be healthier during the war and the restrictions thereof that they have ever been since!    
However as I mused on this I cogitated also on how to cook this beast.  I looked closely at the fat, dense, wrinkled green creation in front of me and considered how like the rest of my family it was.
Dense, sums so many of them up, wrinkled takes care of others who will not be mentioned, and green, well, less said about that I suggest.

The wrinkles reminded me of the TV that the women watch.  While some refuse to lower themselves to the banal offerings (my sister insists on wasting her senility on X-box or whatever games) most will sit for hours watching programmes made in the seventies which are repeated several times a day (always with the same ending) and these women will get involved once again with a tour de force of bad acting!  The cabbage sums this up well.  Quite why there are so few couch potato size women around the family I know not, possibly the shopping sprees help there.  How can anyone with half a brain, and that sums up the family all to often, watch such badly made tripe beats me.

 
Worse still some would say, not me, is the way the cabbage reminds me of the men in the family.  Note how easily it stands alongside a, now empty, but full a short while ago, bottle of wine and half a bottle of beer.  Reminds me of the nieces husband and his fridge full of beer bottles for the cup final.  It turns out that was that fridges natural state!  He and his son probably have a fridge each these days.  The cabbage itself may be wholesome but the people around it require some improvement.

My delightful and best looking, indeed most talented and clever niece arrived one day last year and enabled my mobile to work!  So good was she that she managed to send a text to my phone and indeed from my phone.  I was glad as I had not managed to do so myself.  I indeed do not require the text facility as I do not have the friends to send meaningless texts to however it has some uses I suppose.  As she made her way homewards on the high speed rail network I sent her a text, well I tried to, as I typed all that would come up was CABBAGE.  So I gave up.  She understood, her dad had the same problem.  I blame her.

The weather is dreich, I sit listening to Radio 3 via the TV as the somewhat depressing fiddle violin quartet music is better than anything available elsewhere.  The boring tennis final is about to start and I suspect women everywhere are getting ready to waste hours watching.  I might drop in on the 'Tour de France,' a much more interesting activity, especially as by touring the country you see places you will never visit.  I read the 'Tour of Italy' might take a day out and pass by my window in a year or two's time, that will be good.  No cabbages there, unless I get on my bike to join them of course. 
Ah well, soon be time for bed....   

Home is Where the House is.

We were chatting in between those irritating interruptions called visitors this morning about home and house.  What I refer to is returning to the place you were born or in which you grew up.  Home in your mind, yet just another dwelling to the passerby.  
My 'home' disappeared when my mother died.  The flat that we always called 'house' was handed back to the council for use by a new family, well once they chucked the two nancy boys who moved in forts out that is.  Why did they get a three bedroomed place when a family was waiting I ask?  Mum could have bought the place under Thatchers ridiculous sell off the housing stock idea for £5000!  She refused and we agreed that she enjoyed moving out of a tenement of two rooms and a small toilet into the three bed place with kitchen and bathroom, what luxury in 1953!  Because we wished another family to get a similar benefit she turned the idea down, and we could have sold it after she left for around £100,000.  I hope the new folks get on well there. 
However when I return to Edinburgh I will be without a 'home' as that is no longer mine.  I can no longer walk in unexpected without getting six months in prison.  The family have dispersed and each has a new 'home' where their kids and grandchildren will gather at the centre of their individual little families.  A strange sense to no longer have a home while everyone else has.  
Of course this is my home, but not as 'home' was home.  
For many home is a flat or a three bedroom house, for others a collection of iron sheets or mud walls but the sense is the same, and by the way happiness may be better in such places, that does not come from wealth as we have found.  'Home' remains in the mind as my colleague found when she returned to her long gone parents house, one of the elderly neighbours remembered her and chatted about past times yet things were different, nothing remains the same and the past is in our minds, not in front of us.  There must be many who would never return to a home as their past was to say the least rotten. Family or circumstantial difficulties may leave bad memories and returning would be a terrible time for some.  Just be glad that you may be able to return 'home' even if only in the mind, that home is a good place to be.

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Family

I had an enjoyable few hours today when my highly talented, intelligent and best looking niece came to visit.  The preparation for this visit meant a Spring Clean of course, I think I need more than a weeks warning if that is required, and by the time she arrived the fumigation was almost complete.  

How lovely to see her again, the only one that visits me.  This she does because they are hundreds of miles away and she is convinced I have boxes if used £20 notes under the bed.  I saw her looking but she was most disappointed!  The lass makes her living by pursuing her talent as a classical accompanist, and very good she is too!  Her musical talent came from her dad, he used to play the wireless! She is also available for work if you have money suitable employment available.

Having received my orders for a new diet naturally I ruined it by feeding her properly, including too much strawberries and cream.  Certainly too much cream on my plate but still some left for tomorrow....  The diet starts again tomorrow.

What with cleaning, scrubbing, hoovering, opening windows to let in air and then entertaining the lass by asking her to make my mobile phone work, making her visit the museum, I had little time to look at the world, but it seems to be the same as usual.  It is surprising how the world continues when you ignore it.  Now I am too knackered to care.  All this eating properly is taking my energy from me, and there is not much to begin with.

Bah!

Did you also know the Second World War began on the 3rd of September 1939?

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Now I'm not one to complain, but....

So for a while the laptop has been doing strange things, one of which concerns Google.  Normally on Chrome I have the Google UK picture, and on the right hand side a link takes me to the next page where the 'Add-Ons' are found.  Now when I click a tab the Google page that appears is different, and the next page link on Google UK has gone.  The new page is not 'Google UK' but a Google page with no Google mail, images, +You link or indeed the email address as usual.  There is nothing aIong the base either, instead under the sign there are links to places I have been, none of which I use as I don;t trust this, and attempting to use the type an address in the address bar takes over.  What is this? Is there a way of fixing this?  I have run the anti bad guys stuff but none have worked so far.  This irritates me, and I am not one to complain.....

There is the usual fuss in the media concerning this appalling event.  It appears this took place last night when I was busy having a life.  As usual banal, trite melodies offered by perverts and weirdos won the day.  It is long since this vapid bilge ceased to be an opportunity for struggling singers and became a replacement for the psychiatric hospitals Thatcher killed off, but why do people watch it?  This freak show 'entertains two thirds of the European public, yet there is nothing there!  I am more and more convinced the end is nigh, when you see what won can I be wrong?

"You'll never get out of here alive!"

Once again I spent Saturday morning at the museum as nobody was available to work it.  Next week l, off my own free will and kindness, will be there on Saturday again.  You see I am so kind and caring gentle and sweet.  I was also knackered!  I did manage to persuade the boss to make up a short advert looking for volunteers for the museum to fill in the empty spaces, far too many are sick, dying or finding jobs, and sweet as she is this happened.  So I shoved them into three churches letterboxes as there are people there who will be available I am convinced.  As one of the churches has many older "cough" peoples there will be historical knowledge also.  We will see!

Hours I have spent looking for my family.  So far none have been in prison but several have disappeared, if only one or two others would join them?   This has helped with finding dead soldiers but there is so much to do and I have hours of work to do to get through it all.  This and watching the football takes up so much time!  Of course dithering, falling asleep and wandering to the shops to obtain reduced price goods has also been required, the falling asleep bit being most popular.  However uncomplaining I battle on, my day ahead is planned out, nothing will deter my study, rise at six and plod on till midnight!  But I ask, what happened to my man George....?

Musing Wasted.

I sat in the early morning freshness the park offered this morning and mused. This resulted in a wonderful post concerning friendly people, dogs, crows and daisies.  The east wind caused a wee bit of a chill and at eight in the morning the sun had not removed the cloud cover yet leaving what to me was a perfect Edinburgh Summer afternoon.  Up there the folks would be taking their shirts off, putting on dark glasses and asking for sun cream!  Here they wrap up in large coats and mutter about the cold!  Tsk!
Sadly however while I enjoyed the fresh air, especially as I had not really got out yesterday, and I was intending to hide my face behind the laptop today, first to remove the glitch that has arrived and them seek out dead soldiers, things did not turn out right.  The thing is I did manage to work out how to fix the Windows Live Mail, it would not send photos and IE came up by itself and that would not work.  It appears something has been switching things off.  The 'proxy' setting was on, but it ought not to be on! That fixed Windows Live sent pics again.  Little things have been arriving, a strange new 'Google' page for one, yet the defenders claim all is well.  Bah!  The search for dead men got somewhere, a better picture emerges, yet there is such a long way to go, and now I have to meet someone on Saturday to offer information we don't have! Tsk!

The things started well, but after lunch all fell apart.  I fell asleep, diner took for ever, I sauntered out, and once the muck I called dinner was over my sister phoned.  You will of course realise that as she is a woman and has not been on for months she had lots to say!  She did!  Lovely it may be, informative, enjoyable, but my ear burns now!  This means my wonderful erudite post fell from my brain and once again, late, unready, I am filling space waffling contacting the real world via the internet, which may not be wise after all.  Why does the brain function so well at different times. My body gets weary yet my brain offers deep thought late at night, however before that, around now, it is befuddled.  Early in the morning I am either still asleep or desperate to get going, but the brain is not always as sharp as it is late at night, why?  Who knows what state it will be in if I wake at three in the morning.  Bah!

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Friends

Friends, how nice to have them.  Two, and I have at least one more, arrived on a visit today, the first time we have met face to face for about fifteen years. They are staying with their friends who have moved into this locale, and good luck to them, so took time out to meet handsome young me.  How they have aged while I stay the same!  They have not changed mind.  She immediately went off for a nose around into everything, typical woman!  She did ask first, which was most unlike her.  Had I said "No!" she would have gone ahead anyway.   

We first me forty years ago when I wandered into the church on Westbourne Grove, London, he was running at the time.  Having only been there just over a year he was young and eager, and delighted to trap another into attending.  Three years later I returned after a period back in Edinburgh, this time I was indeed trapped and found a home there.  Most folks who walk into 'The Grove' find it becomes a 'home.'  Many around the world have been there for a few short years (very London that) and have memories of their time there.  Once the pair had left and moved to the coast many kept in touch and as my 'spiritual adviser' (if shouting loud 'Why?' can be called advising)  we have been close ever since.  They became my second family, the first rusting away in the Edinburgh downpours (how lovely summer is up there) and I miss them and all their adventures.  Sometimes being far from folks is a good thing, but not always.

To sit for a couple of hours and discuss this and that was a treat, even though I had to rush around cleaning the place, looks like another new Hoover bag is needed already!  What laughs gossiping about other folks,well she did, men don't do that.  What a funny old world it is as people from their time at the 'Grove' are found all over the world, even in Mongolia of all places!  Folks we knew have been through some strange experiences, some good some bad, and even the renovated building now has flats at the top that cost over £2 million each!  Looking at pics of the modern flats where broken pews and peeling paints once stood is quite something.  'The Grove' itself remains the same as always I suspect.  Time marches on, and the mice run up the clock as someone said, or something.  OI!  I've just realised, that git has gone off with my pen!  Typical!

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How to be an idiot No 89.

Like debt 'idiocy' runs in our family.  Great Granddad Robert was after all the one who looked down the muzzle of his gun at Ladysmith muttering "I can't see the problem," before getting a close up view of what the problem was.  Granddad also used the term "You and who's army rather loosely," in the 'Red Lion,' before discovering just who's army those Gordon Highlanders belonged to.  My dad cleverly bought my Mum to improve the intellectual gene pool.  She often said she had never had a drink since they met back in 1936 and I begin to wonder why?  Dad of course was famous for going with his mate to enlist in 1925 and finding himself alone in China after his mate was rejected because of 'flat feet!'  He also managed to create me!  


My education in stupidity goes back a long way. Putting my hand into a tape recorder in 1968, to have a feel of the bits inside, while leaving it plugged in and allowing the back of my hand to touch something live was a shock that remains with me to this day. While at primary school I helped my mother clean up after tea by pouring the old chip fat from the chip pan down the sink. It took dad three days to clear that lot. Having watched as the room was decorated in lovely Heart of Midlothian coloured wallpaper I proceeded, as eleven year old's do, to cut open a discarded golf ball to see what was inside. What was inside appeared to be hundreds of tightly woven elastic bands surrounding a small whitish ball. As I stuck the blunt knife in the ball it exploded releasing a stream of white gunk that flew up the newly papered wall. The phrase "I think I am in trouble," arises around this point.

Numerous other instances of idiocy have arisen, the times I have attempted to pick up a tray with bare hands taken straight from the oven, getting on a bus to discover it was going in the wrong direction, indicating to females that their bum is 'blocking the light,' suggesting another should redecorate three days after she had just done so, all these could be construed as idiotic. As does walking home late at night as the Notting Hill Carnival was ending and finding thousands of young black youths coming the other way yet making no attempt to avoid them certainly was a piece of idiot behaviour that startles me yet!

So it was no surprise when, tired as I am from the bug, rising early, and suffering malnutrition from the scraps I scavenge from the back of restaurants, it is no surprise that last night things went haywire. Once more the evening arrived, this time the evening of the 'longest day,' although the clouds and rain made this difficult to verify around here - again! The evening arrived with a promise of European Championship football! Now it has become my habit since obtaining this beastly laptop that hates me to go to bed and watch football in the evenings. The man below gets disturbed by loud noise such as coughing or breathing, and certainly was not happy when I played Lynnard Skynnard that time I thought he was out! So to avoid the axe through the head again I take the beast to bed and watch football in comfort. Very different from the days of long ago when watching football from a damp, cold terracing brought bronchitis and head wounds from flying beer cans, and all that for a poor mid table finish at the end!

The first half of the game went much as some expected. The Czechs made a good start, fell away and Ronaldo spend much time posing for the cameras. "He lifts his eyes to heaven more than the Pope does," said one commentator. However come half time, and after my mug of cocoa, I then decided to publish a quick post. Now the beast does not like watching TV and publishing posts at the same time that much, it strains the memory, so I put up a short but deeply profound post. I decided not to review it as the teams were returning to the field. I posted the profound and found the profound had another of those format problems. That's three in a row. I then went back and fixed it, but found the format had altered another area. This was fixed but not fixed. Time was running out and the game kicking off. Again I fixed the problem and again another fault arose. Grrrrrrrr!

I was of course using only one browser to do two things. One tab had the football (BBC1 iPlayer) and the other had Blogger. Now the BBC website has been getting updated recently, and a fine old mess they have made of this! The iplayer has this week added a large button allowing the viewer to go back to the beginning of the programme, a button that is far too big in my opinion and needs alteration. The laptop keyboard not helping here as the letters are too near one another.  Switching from the mess that now was Blogger to the football to check progress I accidentally touched the return to beginning button. This took me back over an hour and a half to the beginning of the whole show!! So I attempted to 'fast forward' but this only went half way through the first half. By now my language was something akin to Arkkadian! Vile thoughts of retribution on the iplayers designers head filled my mind as I closed the tab, began a new one and fought for the football again, this time succeeding and at the right place. Once more unto Blogger and once more attempt to update and once more (amid much yelling that possibly made my neighbour go out for a walk in the rain) I failed. I decided time was against me and I must delete the whole post! This I did. But I had not done so! Oh no, the professional idiot had deleted the futile post from the day before and had not yet perused the one comment thereon! I deleted the profound, but by now less interesting, post informing the blogger and iplayer geeks what I considered them to be. More gnashing of teeth than even Ronaldo could offer after diving and claiming a penalty was my lot by now! Incidentally my description of the BBC web designer by now would make an ideal experiment in one of those hospitals that specialise in psychotic killers. My consideration for the man who set up the Blogger was along similar lines. Returning once again to the football I found it difficult to concentrate on the shirt pulling hordes as the room was by now filled with steam that had emanated from my ears.

After Portugal scored an excellent goal. making me glad there would not be an extra thirty minutes, my head would not stand that. I lay for an hour and tried to ponder my reactions. Was the tiredness was more than I realised, the bug was a pest right enough, is blogging late was really a good idea, should I have used two browsers, and was it really cocoa I had been drinking?


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Lost Relatives

I have spent much of this week in a daze.  Another of those bugs has been irking me and my concentration levels have been low.  A pain as I had the museum meet on Monday and found myself involved with preparations for the 2014 centenary of the Great War.  The bug meant I ate little so was quite content to play couch potato and sit at this brute of a laptop and look for dead soldiers, some of whom I actually found. (By found I do not mean I discovered a dead soldier in the back garden, I mean a record of his death.  I know one or two of you are a bit slow.....)  However I was dragged out to the museum to discover I had been volunteered for more work.  How nice I thought, although I am yet to be let into the secret as to what this entails.  I hope it's not brain work, I tend to fail at that.     

Tonight however as the bug had worn off, I decided to eat without burning the chips (yes oven chips can be burnt) and look for dead relatives.  My granddad married grandma when both had been widowed.  Three kids she left as he drunk too much and for this reason dad, and my aunt, rarely if ever spoke of him.  I think it made my dad very family orientated later.  Aunt Annie did allow some information eventually, but she was always very careful with what she revealed.  It appears two previous sons may have taken poison, but I wonder?  I looked tonight in all the (free) places where info might arise and found nothing.  Plenty of relevant names to be found, all the wrong ones, and almost all in the US!   

I did however go through that strange emotion again of wondering about the lives of those who went before.  Each link brought information which while irrelevant made me wish to wander off down alleyways into stories untold, well to me at least.  It was as I allowed my mind to wander through the grimy smoke filled streets of the past that I realised my chips were done, well done.  I think I will have salad tomorrow....

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Mothers

Mothers, you can't do with them and you can't do without them! Obviously we need them to enter this world and without their help we would find it somewhat difficult to have made our entrance. However, I sometimes wonder whether some folk I come across in fact actually entered this world in this manner. When reading about the 'Ned's' who roam this world, or maybe any 'B' celebrity informing us of the deep traumas of their existence, or indeed meeting those women who insist on spending an eternity putting their change into their purse and moving away from the checkout, then I find myself asking 'Do they have mothers?' The question remains unanswered.

Some mothers of course fail their offspring. We all know of someone who was rejected by their mum at birth and has let it affect their life ever since, sometimes tragically. The fashion for single parents, whether mum or dad is not wise. Children need both parents, and parents who are committed to them at that! In fact a few years ago I heard of a scientific study in a US university which had spend several years, and much money, to come to the conclusion that a child benefits from one male parent and one female parent! Gosh! Well done folks! Of course putting aside fashion death and divorce often leaves a child with only one parent, and this does not necessarily lead to disaster. It has happened in my family circle and possibly in yours, but two good parents, one of either sex, caring and committed, is always the best bet.

So, why all this concern for mothers? I spoke to my 94 year old mother tonight. She has successfully raised four children, and we are grateful to have her alongside a good father to bring us up. Always and ever the cry was 'to behave' and to 'do the right thing.' Consideration for others was inbuilt into that generation, a generation that had seen a major war, dad being recalled into the army to sit tight for two day while watching the Armoured divisions cross the Rhine, then he wandered over. He was too old by then for a front line soldier, but he had the inbuilt soldiers knack of ensuring he avoided the worst! Alongside the war they had both seen the depression, mum reared in Cowdenbeath saw the six months long general strike cripple the whole of Fife, dad had enlisted in the army the year before because work in Edinburgh was impossible to find. After the war, in the new opportunities created, they looked for a decent kind of life, for themselves and everybody else.

Our parents influences influence us. Mine had some church influence, but nominal at best, and I doubt dad believed much. But like so many working class folk they wanted the best for themselves and their neighbours. Today that attitude seems less obvious, wealth has stifled it and 'political correctness' has become the new 'moral law.' Obviously I am not painting a picture of a world where all was love and goodness in days gone by, human nature never changes, but the culture in which we are nurtured does! I am glad my folks were brought up in they way they were. Often tough, never easy, granddad on one side was a drunk, on the other a miner, and times were always hard down the pit. But this shaped them, along with their kind.

So caring was my mother, that when I called tonight, at half time during the football so I did not have to listen to her for too long, she asked how things were?
'Terrible' says I. 'I don't think I can go on.'
'Poor you,' says she. Then begins to burst into laughter.
'Everything is awful, it's falling apart and so am I,' says I.
'Oh dear,' says she, again sniggering,' Poor you eh? Tsk!'

Mothers love and care never falters, does it...........?