Fatigue

This one is a Goldfinch surely?  
He was sitting chatting away on the TV aerial this lunchtime just waiting to pose for me.  I suspect Dave sent him so that I would know the difference between a Goldfinch and a Chaffinch. 
However I have discovered a wee book on birds, you have seen the type, in amongst the few bookshelves and will endeavour to identify the beasts properly in future.  A handy book ideal for pocket, I wonder where it came from? 

The Spring Bug has still not left me!  Three months every year it bugs me and this year it has hung on longer than usual.  I have hardly got out and about unless I really need to go. This makes life boring.  It also means I do little here as I just canny be bothered to think, anything that requires thought is just left aside.  Outside the sun has often shone, half naked wimmen stalk young men, persons clad in dark glasses T-shit and coloured shorts roam the streets while staring into their phones all while I sit indoors half asleep much of the time.  Exercise does not help, my aching knees don't help and dirty looks from checkout lassies when I do get out help none either.  
I'm really cheery today!

  
Tomorrow I will drag the bulk down to the museum hoping there is little to do.  This is unfortunate as there is much to do in preparing the new exhibition and I really canny be bothered offering to help.  The energy just is not there and this is embarrassing.  Nothing has got done indoors and apart from food shopping I have not been out.  I look forward to Wednesday so I can have a day off! 
Bah!

 

It Was 20 Years Ago Today...

It was twenty years ago today that I entered this domicile, as I remember at the Easter weekend that year.  Twenty years, almost as long as the time I spent in London, longer than most murderers serve these days in this country, longer than many folks marriages last.  
That Easter weekend I turned up to discover there are many differences from living in a bustling city, as I always had done, and existing in a small market town out in the sticks!  One such was the electric meter, this was at that time paid weekly by a card system to stop folks running away and leaving the lights on for the landlord to pay.  I had no card.  My limited memory tells me I had two £1 cards which didn't get much electric in an all electric house and somehow I discovered the Post Office was the place to go.  The long weekend was on us and electric was useful at this time so cheerfully I waited for ever in the queue to be told things had changed and none could be given out till Tuesday next week, I forget the reason why.  That somewhat chilly Easter Weekend, it is usually chilly at Easter, I spent an enormous amount of time trying to conserve the limited power I had.  
For reasons which I forget I discovered and emergency button which allowed me a free  £5 of power to be paid later, I grabbed this with both hands, the same hands I wrapped around a candle in a vain effort to keep warm in the dark at night. 
A long weekend that was, eventually Tuesday arrived and I managed to obtain the new cards for the meter.  How lovely to switch the wall heaters on!  How lovely to eat hot food without watching the clock!  Ah well things settled down and twenty years on the meter is paid monthly, the gas fired central heating while expensive works well, life is settled in some ways and this boring little town which at first I thought had closed down has become home.  The day I walked down 'The Avenue' listening to the birds singing and watching the blue sky above I realised it was not such a bad place after all.  Getting old and no longer interested in the false flashiness of city life, the bright lights here I admire are the ones that stop the traffic so I can cross, may have had something to do with it but in the end this town had all I wished for.  Local doctors, supermarkets, rail & bus, all that was missing was a church and a woman to do the laundry.  The last two have still not arrived.  

So today I arose feeling considerably better than I have done for weeks, I slept until nine, I arose and coughed my way through to the east wing to contemplate cleaning up some of the mess I have left behind me.  It was time to celebrate the twenty years, time to remind the Landlords lassie how long I had been here, time to remind his workmen how many cups of tea they had drunk!  Twenty long years, I wondered how I could commemorate this event?  What would be suitable, what would ease my pain and give me a day to remember...?
The electric was off!
What?  The kettle would not start.  It was one of Tesco's best (£5) and it was bust.  Then I noticed the laptop, always the first thing switched on, was not going online.  After fussing for a bit I realised the WI-FI was dead, so was the phone, so was everything else bar the lights.  After about three hours it struck me the laptop has a battery that is why it came on but this fooled me into thinking that was one plug that worked.  I fussed but the deadened mind was thinking slowly, oh so slowly, and I called the Landlord to speak to my friend Lisa.
"Hello, this is Lorna."
Lisa has followed Chris, the one who ran the place for around 15 years, out the door in an attempt to make some money.  Lorna was the new lass and she sounded about 19!  I explained the situation and she called John the workman and later he called to say he would be round.  
No tea in a dead all electric house.  No hot food with a dead oven, dead microwave and dead head.  
Having eaten only rarely in the past week and living on my abundance of fat I was not too keen to do without something warming.  Add to my desire to return to bed, eat something hot and stay far from the world came the noise of men repairing the road outside while others hammered away at one of the other flats somewhere round the back.  My joy was complete.
John arrived claiming to be unwell and looking sickeningly well while he said so.  Quickly we traced the various fuses, I had tried earlier, and we soon knew it was the kettle itself that had blown.  It probably blew as I switched it one but no spark, noise or explosion occurred at that time, not that I noticed anyway, and having proved the point John left grinning.
Still this meant I could heat things and later would obtain a new kettle.

Having managed to rise, decided life could be good and then had it smashed in my face I returned to the real world and switched on the laptop which connected with the real world of the Internet!  At last I could get on with the important work of reading email, facebook, Twitter, and the various gutter press editions that lay about.
What's this?  "You connect via WI-FI.  Log on here BT Fon?"  There follows a list of things to select
What?
A bloody virus!
The whole morning wasted already and now a virus! 
There was in the end nothing to do but run a Boot Time Scan which takes hours!  This I did and while I pretended to eat, my insides were not fooled, the scan ran and ran.  Later, much later, I was able to make use of the laptop thankful the brute had gone.
It had not gone!  
Oh no he was still hanging around and the thing had to be done again.  
It was not till near five o'clock that I finally satisfied myself he was beaten, I hope I am right!

There were times today I wondered where my guardian angels had disappeared to.  I realise this is not an easy option, they could on the other hand have Donald Trump,  I understand the difficulties involved but all I wanted was to rise feeling considerably better than I have done for the past ten days, I wished to make and eat a nourishing breakfast, clean the mess of the last week and hopefully return to work tomorrow.
Instead the electric goes, my friends go and some sort of JS virus arrives.  To my mind this is not what I wished for this morning.  Luckily the other day I discovered just how many people are suffering this bug in similar fashion to myself.  Thousands are being beaten down by the latest flu,cold, man flu bug.  An item in the paper drew many to comment on their long lasting problem, three months in some cases and mine goes back to February yet nothing can be done about it but suffering.  
Onwards and upwards, 'per adva ad astra' as they say in the RAF, in Edinburgh we say "Haul awa lads, I'm no deid yet."

Another Maudlin Monday

Before nine this morning the day looked to be full of action as the firemen appeared outside once again dealing, I thought, with the brats setting fire to something on their way to school. Possibly this is part of Michael Gove's (education minister) new curriculum, 'Arson for Beginners.' Usually there are one or two schools set ablaze before the new term although round here we lost one by some sort of fault.  Helpfully the primary kids now travel 14 miles to continue their education!  Once again the authorities were their usual unhelpful selves when enquiries as to what they were doing was concerned. Several who asked were heard to reply, "And you!" before continuing on their way.  

The day darkened when for reasons unknown the lights went out.  The box switched itself off at the mains and once reconnected everything appears OK. Why does electric do this?  Could it be it is preparing for the country running out of power once all the coal fired power stations cease to operate?  Could it be nuclear power stations may once again be built, and guess who will pay, certainly not the power generators!  Even the desperate for love Liberal-Democrats have now agreed the vast number of windmills dumped across the nation cannot supply our needs, as if we didn't know this forty years ago, and they have accepted nuclear is required in spite of the problems associated there.  

The day has once again been terrible.  I am convinced I am suffering a serious disease, unknown to science, that makes me lazy, slothful, shivering, and wake up tired in the mornings.  The bug that first arrived in 1987 may be taking its toll at last.  

I noticed however, between bleary eyes, that Obama is paying for his throwaway 'red line' comment last year.  At the time he said this I got the impression it was 'off the cuff' and he had no idea it would be brought up once again.  When chemical weapons were used, but by whom we don't yet know, he had to take action on this comment or look weak.  With the military machine determined to smash Iran it was inevitable their Syrian adventure would require statements of intent from the president.  The cry was 'Go get 'em,' but his heart was not in this and when the UK population made it so very clear that they would not tolerate 'our boys' in that adventure he saw a way out.  Pass the buck to Congress!  If the UK parliament could stand up and be counted for once then possibly the US could do the same.  However John Kerry, the anti-war veteran, offered 'unbelievably small' attacks while Obama said he 'Didn't do pin-pricks,' showing some confusion.  Confusion also where it was important to stop CW falling into 'wrong hands,' meaning the rebels.  Now however in the 'right hands' it appears to have been used, so who is the right hands today?  Russia possibly, tee hee!  Note nobody asks where the CW comes from, although the UK has sold most of the chemicals required to make them.  The US supplied masses to Saddam when  he was their man fighting the Iranians, but we don;t talk about that, nor the CW held by Israel.  Of course we talk about CW but ignore the routine weapons that are killing the population on both or any side as that is not important just now.
Obama found escape from attacking Syria through his friends in the Soviet Uni oops Russia.  The political nous that enabled them to jump in and obtain a promise from Assad to hand over the CW (to whom?) therefore doing away with the need for missiles.  The Russians have of course won a great victory, celebrated by Assad's men, and put Kerry's ever increasing threats into place. Obama must be relieved that an unpopular war has been avoided, however the Pentagon appears sure that some 75,000 men on the ground are required to remove the hidden (where?) CW.  Where will they come from, how can they do the job in a few months with a civil war, backed by the US friends Saudi Arabia and Quatar, is raging all around?  No-one knows, no-one cares.  As long as we don't get involved we don't care either.  The homeless, the wounded and the dead might have an opinion, but politics is not about them.

As we speak another success for the National Rifle Association at the Washington Navy Yard.  A man with a gun, possibly two men, have opened fire and killed one or two.  It makes me feel safe walking UK streets when I see this!  Guns have their place I suppose, but in the middle of a major city?
   
.

Mindless and Distracted!

For over a week now I have been mindless and distracted. I have no concentration, little energy and no desire for anything but mindless loafing. No a cynic might not notice the difference from my situation when a postman, but they are avoiding the very real issue here of 'The Bug!'

Yes indeed 'The Bug' has returned and I am sick of it, and indeed with it, once again. Last Monday, the holiday you lot all enjoyed, saw me cycle around twelve miles, and not one of you cared! I was rejoicing at my near fitness and yet, within 24 hours I noticed the bug returning. The swift annoyance, lack of concentration and sharp tongue when provoked, especially by people saying nasty things like, "Hello." My insides were grumbling and food was not tempting, although this may have something to do with what I can do with a potato! And only now, after several early nights and daily cat napping, can I begin to see some health once again. This bug, er bugs me! It keeps returning and making life miserable. Doctors say, "Exercise and eat well, lose weight and it will vanish." Or, "It's a bug, sod off I'm busy." They are of course right!

I have met others who suffer these strange 'cold like' symptoms, some minor others quite severe, but nobody has a clue what to do, nothing helps. This continues for years and may be a sign of age, cold/flu virus adapting and changing and the body having some resistance but not enough. It could of course be that I am just a wimp who should, if I was speaking to myself in an encouraging manner, be told, "Just get on with it and stop whining!" The serious question regards how to keep a job if this goes on? Of course I have to find one first!

Answers in Genesis

Now there is a thing, Jobs hunting in a recession! I have attempted this before in the eighties after breaking my leg and being turned into a brain dead zombie working with brain dead zombies in Selfridges (better known as Selfishes!) so called accounts department. No woman with an IQ over four works in such a place, actually one did, a sweet little Indian lass who was far to good for them! I almost fell in love, and would have had her her husband not had a way with a hatchet that the Vikings would have been envious off. In those days Thatcher was closing down all training course for folk over 35, and I was 36! Now Labour are encouraging many attempts, some good some bad, at helping folk back to work. When they work they are great, but there are no jobs to apply for, and when they fail it is because the course offered are badly prepared, staff untrained and inappropriate for the district. Most suit folks who are under 50, and I am, er...over 21 now. On top of this there are no jobs out there! At one time the job shop was signing on 400 a week,and that is here in a backwater! So many were small companies who supplied goods to larger ones that have failed and left them high and dry. Sad for many men who are often skilled, but in the wrong thing.

Dumb people, like me, skilled in moving things, packing and other manual labour, and this is a skill in many instances, are too old or dumb for what is out there, office jobs mostly. When something suitable arises 300 men apply! The hospital porters job I went for, and should not have as I am supposed to be off my feet, not my head, gave the girls interviewing two, and I think, three days of work for one position. That of course discounts the applications ignored! What to do? The training was not there for me, so I began driving lessons, and I notice all those fences and lamp posts have been replaced now. This was a good idea in my little mind. Cars are really a necessity out here with such poor public transport, thanks Maggie! Many jobs are in outlying areas, on farms and the like, and impossible to reach otherwise. Naturally by the time I passed the test, and I did, the recession had brought out all those other drivers, and with a lot of experience, and the riving job I dreamt off, running around the country in a little van dropping of packets to pretty young farmers daughters, has so far come to nought. I have forgotten how to drive now.

Being limited by gormlessness and sloth a lack of suitable easy appropriate work I am left sending out CVs to any one who will recycle them, often tot he most inappropriate people who must be scratching their heads at the CVs landing on their desk. However you have to show willing and make an effort. It is a bit upsetting when the folk at the dole office ask if you will be at the Christmas party mind, one even gave me a form to discover how much of a pension I would receive! Not yet dearie! Still, this time has it's advantages. I can be sick if I want and lie abed all day. I can sit in the sunshine, when it arrives, and read books and do interesting things on the PC (no dear not that!). Had I money I could do a lot more and see interesting places and people, however I am limited to Tesco's for that at the time of writing. There is a growing list of what I could have been doing had I thought I would still be here, and been as rich as I once was. But it must be said I am also quite happy sometimes not working. In the eighties I was frantic to work. When I came here I despaired at not working at first, but today I am just tired of it. The 'office politics' of any job, the 'rat race' element, miserable people, bullies, meaningless jobs that mean a slog to finish them, and for a minimum wage. All these I can do without. It would be nice to do something worthwhile and even enjoyable, or work amongst decent folk, and the people at Royal Mail were for the most part decent enough to work with. Such work is found only in dreams, and when no-one replies to the begging letters I find an attraction in lying on the floor staring at the ceiling once again. Ah well, maybe I will risk £1:50 on the lottery of Friday. £37 million this time. Just enough to clear my Visa card. Oh must go, I have to hide, that bailiff is wandering around outside attempting to look in the window.....