Thursday Drivel...

After a year of almost constant bugs bugging me I now find myself somewhat free from them for a moment.  This is great as I am able to write drivel on here and research dead men with a degree of enthusiasm that had long since departed.  I even began tidying the house, replacing things on shelves they have missed for months and putting away dust covered items that ought not to have dust anywhere near them.  I am even contemplating cleaning the oven!  Now that doesn't happen every year.
Of course I still have the fridge to do, paint the bedroom, fix the tiles, and a thousand other items that required work months ago but they will be done, if the weather warms up and there is no football to watch.  How lovely to be almost fit.  Indeed I have done more exercise in the last two weeks than done in months before this, I am almost beginning to feel better about it.  Naturally much of it is not helping my knees get me up the stairs, that requires different exercises that I must add, later I think...

Stumbling through Sainsburys ignorant and cretinous customer base today, I had to go there for items only they stock, I remembered the coffee had run out.  So the choice was which of the £3 bags to buy, I am now hooked on real coffee for a while, and there could only be one choice, Costa Rica!
Grown in the 'Tarrazu' region it is claimed by 'connoisseurs to be one of the best coffee growing areas in the world.'  Doesn't it say that on all the packs?  Just asking...  Whether it contains 'Milk chocolate and floral notes' I am not yet sure but it is smoother and less bitter than the Italian and Ethiopian coffees I had before.  This will bring me into the world tomorrow morning and if it doesn't work I will send it back to the Tarrazu mountains. 

Something exciting is happening, a French bloke is seen taking the salute alongside Mrs May, has she gone over to the other side?  Did I miss something in the news?  If she joined the anti-Brexit mob it is likely it would not be printed in the right wing press, they like to keep that sort of thing secret.
Maybe we are going to war with Trump?  I must check twitter...

Sunshine!

The rising sun promised another day of sunshine and bitter cold winds.  This mattered to me as I rose earlier than usual to devour my 'Ancient Pave' bread and slimy cheese breakfast.  How 'ancient' the recipe is for this bread I know not but I suspect the ancients never made it like this.  However as I increased the heating level and downed the last of the coffee slumped at my desk I perused the papers for interesting information, the type that keeps me in touch with what really matters in this world.
I found none.

The noise outside forced my nosey nature to rise and open the curtains and watch the workmen laying out the 'Stop and Go' signs for the road works up beside the building works.  A small digger was also unloaded proving that no matter how small and no matter how efficient such machinery might be they can still deafen anyone better than a runaway jumbo jet!  
While watching the men clad in bright yellow suits I noticed the Daffodils are beginning to break through already.  This is the 17th day of January are these meant to appear so soon?  As the cold wind howls through the gaps in the windows I ask 'Is it global warming responsible?'  
It is always a glad sight to note bright flowers but this does appear early, and so far I have failed to notice any snowdrops, a flower which is supposed to appear at this time.

 
When I first arrived here all these years ago I thought to myself that this view was reminiscent of all those old postcard vies of 'Old England' that once filled postcards.  I soon learned that these expensive houses have heavy traffic all day, and much of the night, hammering past their door and paying stupid money for a five or six hundred year old house, some with remnants of the one time weaving industry that flourished here since the 1400's within, paying such money does not always lead to peace and quiet.  At least you mix with the 'right sort of moneyed people.' 

I wandered into the sun, not quite like a cowboy did at the end of these old movies and headed up the hill.  The thought crosses my mind, when those old cowboys wandered of into the sunset where did they go?  Could there be a small town somewhere filled with ageing cowboys waiting for the evening so they can continue their journey?  Did they meet a friend or were they run down by a stampeded of passing Buffalo (that's 'Bison Bison' to you)?  The thought that 'The West' was populated by thousands of men heading into the sun does not inspire.  They would certainly have problems when they reached California...

 
I wandered into the sun until I decided hunger was important.  Having exercised, done the washing, even dusted the house and now wandered abroad I felt enough was enough and it as time to return to my normal vegetative state.  This as you can see I have succeeded in doing...

Work, Work, Work...

As I ambulated towards the museum this morning, not quite awake, it crossed my mind that it would be good to rest my eyes from the laptop.  Staring into this infernal machine leaves them strained in winter light and does them no good in the long term.  Happy was I then to sit and stare for an hour or so in the quiet of the museum.
Lies!  All lies!
To ruin my day I was asked to stare into the museum computer and search for pictures for the upcoming 'Cold War' exhibit.'  This meant scanning fotos already scanned of the nearby RAF base used by the US for many years.  The one major problem with these is the vast number that feature personnel, and important personnel at lunches, dinners, prizegivings.  It also appears few have names to go along with the faces!
Of course I suppose having to proof read a document and having Peggy arrive to do the same and find mistakes I had missed says something, but I will not say it, and that too interfered with damaging my eyes on the screen in front of me.
In between this people kept coming on the phone to book children onto half term events, while doing this the computer closed down and as I logged in I misread the password and closed it down altogether.  This required contact with IT somewhere in Essex to open it up again.
As I returned to work people came into the shop, after them folks visited the museum, then a call to book someone onto a future event and after all this I had killed the computer again!
After an icy stare or two I was instructed in the use of passwords and kicked in the shin in a loving manner and returned to my duties of not finding anything exciting to select.  The computer was still working when I left for home via Tesco.
There I was unlucky enough to miss a loud shouting match at the checkout, I got there too late after dithering over the types of oven chips on show.  I can smell them burning as we speak....

 

Census Returns Return

When you rise and find the clock reads 8:45am you begin to wonder what makes the day arrive before you are ready for it.  Stumbling into the day I finished breakfast so late it was lunchtime before I got started.  The word 'started' is a misnomer here as I didn't actually start anything though I thought about what I could do then didn't do it.
Once begun I cleaned things, exercised things, and got on with things until foolishly I needed to check the census returns.  Everything stopped while I searched these for a man and his family.  Thus taken back into the lives of men who's only option was farm work or joining the army was not enthralling.  Just imagine the long hard days, the weather, the low pay and little opportunity for advancement.  One man joined the army in 1915 and it was noticeable that on his attestation for his name is singed by the sergeant and he leaves his 'mark.'  He was 41 and working as a 'grocer' at the time it appears.  Incidentally he was dead by 44.  
All this occurs while the banging and crashing continues at two nearby building sites with lorries blocking the road and annoying the traffic.  The larger of the two sites began later than the first and while it is larger it has moved much faster, most must have been sold by now I expect.  The smaller, containing only four quite small units, has had may troubles and the man in charge may just wish to dump it on another.  Meanwhile we just sit back and wonder if the infrastructure has been inserted to enable this to work without collapsing and somehow we doubt it.

On the Firefox toolbar all the avatars for the important links sit proudly.  At the far left happily sits the Google avatar.  This is not news to many of you as it appears there on many toolbars however the other day after I had been perusing the papers for something to get irked about I noticed this avatar had become a 'Daily Mail' avatar!  Ironic that this now sits at the 'far left!'  
Why did this happen?  How to remove it?  Is it a sign Google sponsor the 'Daily Mail?'  Could it be DM 'workies' forced to amend avatars across the nation to pretend people support the paper?  Is this the work of this treacherous government I wonder or one of their Russian 'bots?
I am in turmoil here.

 Daily Mail readers!

Adverts, Census, Maps and Research

BTSport featured an appalling mushy advert the other day featuring a black girl and her mother preparing for her wedding.  The items required, the dress, the weeping mother all were used to sell whatever the product was.  Sadly I had my head over a bucket while watching this but did manage to note that as mum (no dad I notice was this an attack on the descendants of those West Indian men who live in London) as mum walked daughter down the aisle and presented her there the camera changed position to reveal the husband, a handsome white male!  
Have you noticed that in the UK adverts may feature black males with white wives or white males with black girls but never do we see two blacks together, why is this?  An advert for some food product some years ago featured a very happy black family and ran for a while, and I have a faint memory of an Asian family of some sort featuring also but these are rare.  I know that nobody uses gays to sell products because this stops people buying the product but surely black couples do not have the same effect do they?  

     
I had a great deal of research to do this weekend, it wasn't really a great deal but I kept putting it off and now it requires some work before Tuesday, and I have done little.  One reason was the census!  You see on ancestry it is possible to look at the census returns for the town since 1841.  Therefore numpty here began to search these, downloading lots of them for research later, in the hope of finding people who lived in this building in times past.  Naturally it failed!  
For a start the numbers either do not run as now or they do not exist at all.  This is not unusual as many houses then had names, however most people rented their homes and numbers are seen on some of the census returns, it is that these numbers are 'odd' numbers and today the numbers are 'even' numbers on this side of the street.  I wonder if some cooncil worker in the big office would have details of these?  I must ask around the people that know these things, if the do know these things that is.  
On the latest census returns the numbers go up to 96, with is interesting as I look for 98 next door.  However that does not appear and 92 - 96 does not fit with the housing as it stands just now, some building work has been undergone I note from old maps but in what way does this affect the numbers.  The next number I come to is helpfully 110, which does not exist any longer having long since become a Sainsburys petrol station.  No help to me in any way.
The older census either has no or odd numbers or is somewhat mixed up in the way it lists the homes.  Names are given which sometimes helps, 'Baptist Minister indicates the Manse that once stood up the road (Knocked down by the Luftwaffe in 1941), and 'Mount House Lodge' also indicates a house on the maps from 1875, the oldest available.  

The other problem I find is the need to check 'Old Maps' when doing this as I get involved in the maps.  It is invariably interesting to note the changes, not always noticeable at first, between the town today and how it was laid out in the past.  Obviously maps do not indicate the lack of pavements, unmade or 'rough' roads, or the state of the buildings marked on the maps, then we have to seek out old photographs to compare with what the maps reveal.  Luckily I was too lazy to start searching through photographs yesterday or today.  However just looking at the first map I bought when I came to this town twenty one years ago, then around 30,000 persons, and noting how it has grown with housing estates filling in what once was fields and offering some 40,000 persons to annoy me today.  Each week small corners are filled in and a block raised her and there to really annoy the postman who is expected to deliver there but allowed no more time in doing so.    
All in all the time spent perusing a map, and an ageing won at that, is never wasted in my view.  There is always old industrial sites to note, now housing though I suspect many living there have little idea of what lies in the ground beneath them, old railway lines, buildings that were there soon after the Normans built them and remain solid still, public houses that once filled with men from the industry and are now blocks for those 'over fifty' and oak trees that stood for several hundred years in the middle of the road that have been sacrificed for the motor car, so many interesting changes.
Of course I may just be weird...

Nothing To Say

I failed to find anything.
It has become dark and dank.
I'm back off to bed...

Blogger, Trump and Farage, What More Could You Ask...?

Is it just me or is Blogger slow?
Several times when attempting to press 'Publish' the thing has 'hung' for a while before posting.
This laptop is not very good, the buttons are not doing what they are told and often do what they wish so it makes me wonder if it is me or they?
It works but there is a delay.
A couple of days ago everything ceased for a few minutes, nothing would come up and all halted.
I am beginning to wonder if 'Firefox' is to blame?  I went over to 'Chrome' for what I wanted and this worked but it may be things returned to normal by then.
All in  a days grumble...

Poor old broke Nigel Farage is even more broke now.  The EU investigated his claim for an assistant and have decided the assistant was not assisting Nigel in the EU but working on UKIP party work.  This is not allowed under EU rules and Nigel knows this. 
Such a shame the EU have decided to withhold £35,500 from him, half his assistant funds because of this lapse.  He must be feeling ashamed to have made such a mistake, he must be embarrassed by such pilfering of funds and feel really repentant.  Ha!  Some chance!  I suspect he will appeal and blame anti-English EU staff for attacking him.
Poor lad, hasn't he suffered enough...?

Poor Donald Trump, another political success story, he has been getting grief just because he referred to peoples from Haiti and Africa as 'shithole nations' and wished for better, whiter, people from Norway instead.  Norway it must be said has indicated they are doing OK thanks and Haiti and Africa, those that bothered to listen, have responded with an amount of disagreement with him.
It just could not get worse but then it did!
The 'state visit' which gave Donald the impression he would cavort about with the english queen, has been put back and the short visit to open the new American embassy, moved south of the river and based on an idea by Geirge W. Bush, this visit also has been canned.  
The idea of lots of helicopter rides above the traffic avoiding UK citizens indicating their displeasure at his visit plus the truth that he was never going to drop in just to open an embassy, has led to his breaking off any visit to the UK at this time.  Pity, it might have been interesting to see peoples reaction.
Worse still, our own imitation Trump, one Boris Johnson, has risen to his man's defence slighting the Labour Party by claiming it is their fault Trump is not coming.  The Labour Party, who are not at fault, would do well to proclaim this to the rooftops.  Boris is no doubt lying in his teeth, something he does often and is very good at, but he intends to show the UK stands with the US.  Actually we all know this and we also know that Boris considers Trump a liability and awaits the nutter gunman who is scheduled to end the reign of Trump, whoever that may be.  In the USA the chances of someone taking a pot shot at Trump must be high, I just cannot believe it has not yet occurred.

Misty Tuesday

It was like living in a cloud today, not that I noticed as I did not arise from my pit until almost nine  in the morning.  I keep waking up around four or five and remain awake for ages only to find it is late in the day.  The misty day was worth missing and by the time I had got round to eating and checking whether the mouse has got through the steel wire (he had failed to do so) and then read the emails etc it was lunchtime.

I did spend some time on newspaper forums arguing with people.  The 'Daily Mail' is always good for a historical laugh.  The history much loved and accepted by the readership bares no relation to what actually occurred but this suits their wishes perfectly and all the problems are the fault of the migrants who flood the land, or the unemployed or benefit scroungers or Europe or someone else but we don't know who but it is not us and bring back the England we knew in the past (which never existed) and do it now!
They don't like me.
Neither do the gay/secular types who cut and paste  the same queries day after day on suitable items.  Offer an answer and they offer the next question or excuse in line, there is no real debate.  This is probably because these 'bots' just post and run and do not want an answer and those that answer don't want the honest answer just one they like.
They call me names, I am upset.

   
However I managed to finish the 'Wilfred Owen' book that I was reading, one by Dominic Hibberd.  It certainly is a big book and Dominic has spent much time going through as many letters, books, poems etc as possible in the writing of his work.  It is a good book and the details regarding Owen's war experience appear to ring true to me, and they offer an insight into the young officers life in action while doing so. 
Too close to his when young, strangely close in my view, a mother steeped in Victorian evangelicalism but also steeped in class consciousness, a class awareness that never left Owen and often saw him, rightly I suspect, considered a snob.  His joy at being accepted by the poetry society in London, mostly gay as he was, revealed yet more snobbishness as he was delighted to be with 'gentlemen' who had studied at 'good schools' and then university, something he would have liked to do.  His lower middle class background did not reach this level and failed to prepare him for his short attempt at joining the ministry.  
Altogether a somewhat mixed up chap who took too long to get away from mother, his dad appears to be OK but his nearest brother a bit of a dreamer, and once he was finding his feet in the real world the war broke out and intervened with his life.
As an officer he appears to have been decent to his men, though they were of course just 'course' and he found 'batmen' who he was attracted to in a way that the rest of the platoon might have made comment about if they had known.  One at least was shot dead in action alongside him.
His fear was being regarded as a 'coward' and this thought may have just been in his own head, his misreading of another officers attitude towards him.  His time at Craiglockart Hospital, where he met Siegfried Sassoon and altered his poetic style, was replaced by light duties and then back to the front line.  There his courage won him the Military Cross and a few days later death by opposition fire as he led his men across the Sambre Canal.
He died in action on the 4th of November 1918 the armistice arriving at 11 am on the 11th of November almost at the same time as his parents received the telegram regretting to advise that Wilfred had been killed in action.

Having finished my book I wandered in the mist seeking fresh air.  Here I met an old postman who informed me of the death of another postman who died on Monday, that I believe was the very day he came into my mind for some reason.  Then in the gardens I spoke to the chap who twice a week has the job of tending this large space, (that's him in the distance, I was unable to offer help today) occasionally with help and more occasionally with volunteer help.  While it looks dreary at the moment it is still full of birds and beasties and as it lies low the garden prepares for the soon to be Spring show of flowers abundant, blue sky and sunshine, hopefully.

Too Busy

Too busy moving furniture to fond the mouse hole and fill it with steel wool.
Too busy exercising to get fit.
To busy making stew.
Too busy praying.
Too busy writing up some of the area's 1918 war dead.
Too busy considering writing up a 1917 war dead who is coming into the museum, well one of his descendants is, he is unavailable.
Too busy to have a noon nap.
Too busy to write....

Mouse, Theresa and Money

Mugmania

This is a small bag of chocolate coins, the type that appear every Christmas to overcharge the parents and vainly satisfy the kids.  These are popular, these are just chocolate wrapped in gold foil, and these were stolen by the mouse!
To combat this menace I have taken obvious action.  Food is hidden, bins removed or sealed, nothing left making it easy for him, and holes searched for.  This however is not perfect.  On my bookcase I
have a cup wrapped in paper which will soon wend its way to the birthday girl on the appropriate date.  Inside that mug, just to keep it somewhere, was a bag of gold chocolate coins.  On the shelf beneath were coins, fivepences, tenpences etc that I take into work to use in the till.  Yesterday morning I came into the east wing and found coins on the floor alongside other detritus, all of which had been knocked from the shelf.  Collecting them I noticed the gold coins had gone, the metal ones to hard on the mouses teeth I suspect, and no trace to be found.  
Eventually I found the hole where he had taken them, only one item of gold paper to be seen, alongside a scouring pad, backed by foam, that disappeared the other day from the sink.  Last night, having moved heavy items of furniture, stacked with books, I shoved the scourer into the hole in a vain effort to seal it, it had been pushed aside this morning, and decided to buy some 'wire wool' as I have heard this deters them as their teeth don't like it.  Now I have some of this steel wool I will spend tomorrow morning filling holes with it and see how mouse likes that.  I may even find the rest of the golden paper.  The cheek of the brute!

Indy

Theresa has done it again.  She may it clear a shuffle of her cabinet was under way to prove she was in charge and she would get her personal manifesto put into action.  She failed.  Her Health Secretary refused to move and added another bit to his kingdom, the Education secretary refused the poisoned chalice of the DWP (where sick and unemployed and put to death) and this was later filled by another hard hearted type much loved by 'Daily Mail' readers and lots of nobody's took positions nobody cares about (including our Boris fan MP).  In short it was an abject failure.

The press, especially the ones that hate immigrants, and announcing a 'diverse' cabinet as if they cared while they really want a white, right wing, male cabinet to satisfy their ideas of superiority.  All this while pretending to support the women while striving to have her removed.

I begin to feel sorry for the hard hearted bint.

 

The media, run by men, are making a big deal of Carrie Gracie's publicity stunt of the last few days regarding men being paid higher salaries than she was.  She has 'stepped down' as the BBC China correspondent to return to a sea on the BBC newsdesk.  This she did as a complaint regarding BBC men being paid more than women.
She forgot to mention how much she is paid (just under £150,000 I suspect) and she does not lose any of this by moving to another department.  She does however get to spend more time with her family which she claims to have missed though taking a job 5000 miles from home would probably lead to that happening I suspect, and now she is better of than 90% of the population and grumbling about it not being fair.
The phrase 'aye right' goes through my head.
Why is it that the best paid women, doing fewer hours than most, grumble about a 'gender gap?'  
I have never had a job where I got paid more than the women!  Secretaries simply by being secretaries get paid far more than men who have to work.  Office girls are well paid unlike men working on the job and yet grumble about cash.  Media stars have an inbuilt right to more money than anyone else but there appears to be no reason for this.  If you don't like the conditions, which you signed up to, do what a man has to do and find another job.  Then we will see if anyone thinks you are worth what you think you are worth.
Oh and as you are paid a s a 'company' I suspect you pay little tax on this money.

Sunday Search

I am searching for something interesting to scribble.  Nothing comes to mind.
There are reasons for this.
For a start I went cheerfully to church this morning and walked into Janet!
This lovely woman has a way of getting things done, and she done me!  
"The coffee lady is off sick, would you...?"
This is said with the implication of what a refusal might bring.  I obeyed!
So I sit here with washday red hands wondering why we washed up more mugs that those we put out full of tea or coffee?  It is always thus!
Then once home I had to watch three, yes three, English cup ties one after the other. 
OK I fell asleep during the first and missed the excitement and missed the beginning of the second from the same reason but at least I saw Arsenal reserves prove they don't have what it takes to beat a lower division side.
After this I am trying to restore my mind to a state of normality, though this may not be a good idea.

The Calender Year

Early this morning, long before breakfast, I rose into the freezing air and headed once more towards the sorting office.  The land was white with frost, the air clear, and the sun vainly tried to shine through the thin layer of cloud that covered the land.  A similar one to mine was noted over a Scots golf course this morning.  I passed a miserable postman scraping ice of his van windscreen (Van? In my day a bike was all we had!) and joined the well wrapped up folks in the queue awaiting mail the postman had failed to deliver.

 
The small queue moved slowly as the miserable old git struggled to operate the computer system, read the paperwork and remain alive while doing his job.  As I waited I cuddled a female postman who passed by on her way to her van, she was one of the more intelligent women when I was employed here, now she is a mother of three wondering what the museum can do for the kids during half term.  We discussed this while she held the door open allowing freezing air to enter the building thus allowing the others to offer dark stares from under their woollen headgear.  

Eventually misery took my card and half heartedly listened to my description of the goods (large white card envelope for calender) he should search for.  He disappeared into the building and I watched men in red shirts shove items large and small from one place to another.  I knew the man in charge had a good idea what to do but I got the impression he was moving things they had just placed in their place to offer them the correct spot!  Nothing new in 'the box' I thought.  Misery trudged through with the large white card envelope as described and slowly and at the second attempt grumpily flashed the hand held computer over it and passed it to me without a smile.  
Clearly, as I thought, the goods were there when I was telling the girl the other day they were there and some grumpy dope had not put it on the system.  
Twice I have taken my sore knees down there without complaining to collect this and what do I now have sitting here on my desk?  A 'Broons' Calendar!  The 'Broons' are a Scots cartoon family that live in a tenement building somewhere in industrial Scotland.  Originating in 1936 they were intended to be generic of a typical Scots family of the time and their adventures are still recorded in the 'Sunday Post' week by week and remain a children's favourite.  'The Sunday Post' once sold so many 'family' papers that it was thought 80% of Scots read the paper.  The writing style was often called 'old womanish' in its approach though often what is written is far from that these days.  I myself ceased reading it forty years ago and seeing it now it changeth not. However it will decorate this room for the next year allowing me to forget to add birthdays, events etc as I ought....

Sorting Office Blues.

The staff at Royal Mail must remember me.  I can tell that by the way they hate me!
Yesterday I managed to find time to hobble down to the sorting office, little red card in hand, to collect the goods that were ''its too large for your letterbox."  He did not add "I was too stupid to read the note above the bell saying "BELL BUST: KNOCK LOUD" so I rang the bell and got no answer."  
'He' being a new young lad who looked lost while trying to find his way around the 'walk.'  Why he was on it and not the regular man was not made clear.
Anyway I dragged myself up to the counter enquiring as to the goods of which I had no knowledge.
"We don't have them" said the attractive blonde young lady working behind the anti-gunman/knifeman/violent person/weirdo screen.
"You must have them," said I "As you left me this card."
I thought this example of reality would aid her understanding.  
It did not.
It crossed my mind that few attractive young women become postmen and I wondered why she had not been there when I did the hard walks from this office with never a word of complaint?
I gave up this thought when a second thought crossed my mind, that thought muttered 'She was still in school when you worked here' and I let the matter drop. 
"It is not logged on our system," she explained, as if that was an answer.
I indicated that I had once worked in this place and I understood the efficiency of postmen therefore the system may not be telling the truth.  
My understanding of the situation was clear, the goods were in the building yet not on the system, "Why not go look at where they ought to be" said I using common sense and deep understanding of how postmen, especially relatively new ones, operate.
This brought an excuse re the 'new system and way of work' meant that if not on the system they could not be 'here,' that fooled no-one, especially me.  
In the end she photocopied the card, and promised to identify the eejit postman and make enquiries, she took my number, I had already taken hers, as it were.   

This morning I awoke full of joy and happiness as always.
Well OK, I awoke.
The call from the postman never came, this did not surprise me as I know how busy they can be early in the day and how passing the buck and avoiding contact with the public is always a good thing, however I planned to await the delivery from the man himself which would come in due course.
I therefore checked about 10:40 as the regular man often arrives at this time but nothing was to be seen but dust.
Later my neighbour arrived and I mistook his entrance for the man.  This neighbour has been back home in the Ivory Coast for around six weeks, "Some holiday," I said looking at the woman with him, "No, this is my wife." 
I congratulated the lucky man and wife (who sadly only speaks French) and wished them well.  The thought also crossed my mind that I will not go to the Ivory Coast on holiday if it means a French speaking wife returns with me!
I sat here awaiting the postman's knock (Insert joke here) and continued my half asleep ravings on this laptop.  
I heard no knock.
After lunch (around three in the afternoon) I was forced out to buy bread, here I found my mail with another wee red card with ''its too large for your letterbox" scrawled upon it, and the time of 12:20 indicated on the back of the card.
I was HERE at my desk at that time! 
At this point re-read the bit about notes re knocking on door and not ringing bell.  It's his neck that requires ringing !!!!
The brutes at the office never phoned but I suspect they have found said item, which I now know to be a large white hard envelope containing a calendar, and have passed it on to the man to deliver.  
So tomorrow I will trudge wearily once more down to the big fat bearded miserable lump who will be on duty instead of the attractive young lass to enquire if they have done their job properly!  
I may indicate displeasure, I may point out such incompetence is wrong, I may indicate that before privatisation things were better, I might mutter about knowing the manager (actually I don't and the new ones I know are rubbish), I certainly will resist indicating the name of the postman who once delivered to 'Walnut Grove' the mail that ought to have gone to 'Chestnut Grove.' That will remain confidential! 
Accidents will happen....  

Normality Resumes

The world is back at work, even Scotland has returned now, and the 'peace and joy' of the Christmas period is once again replaced by the grumpy faces we have become used to.
Nothing happened, Theresa May said the NHS has no crisis while Jeremy Hunt the inadequate Health Secretary apologised for the NHS cutting back on routine work because there is no crisis.
The press made a lot out of another daft named storm.
Footballers are beginning to transfer from one club to another.
Donald Trump is in trouble again.
People who live in a road called 'Bell end' wish to change its name but others, who have lived there for years object.
London fire brigade complain to BBC after a character in a children's programme was called a 'fireman' and not a 'firefighter.' 
I still have a mouse.

Joyful Return to Work

The day of depression descended on the town gently this morning.  The deep red sky, much brighter than I have seen for a while rose with the sun and disappeared by the time I grudgingly left the house.  Those forced back into reality after the Christmas period slogged along to work, shops, museums or wherever their steps were leading them, few with a cheery smile on their face.  It was easy to understand their reasoning.  The early brightness reflected against their blue thoughts as the populace reset their minds for the real world.
I have already been informed by one rough Leith type that Scotland is still on holiday and many football matches are shortly under way.  I am about to watch one on BBC Alba and regret that down here in the wilderness of England we have to return while sensible people are still on New Years holiday.  I am not one to complain you understand...

In spite of the threat of rain, high winds and another named 'storm' I proceeded eagerly to the museum where in spite of my aching knees removing Christmas was made compulsory.  This meant clambering on unstable stool to reach high up, without once complaining, and dismembering the plastic Christmas tree, an ungodly Easter European pagan symbol.  
Nothing else, outwith abuse from certain staff members, occurred until many minutes past noon when someone came in!  She had a query, soon dumped upon the boss, and then proceeded t spend money, I smiled keenly at this.  Two other figures appeared in the doorway, glanced at the many leaflets and went away.  All this to the joyful sound of non Christmassy music which has filled our ears for several weeks.  I choose music fitting the exhibition, an album re 1970 music and the Beatles White Album.  
The world returns to normal once again.  Next week all the schools will be back, most will have forgotten Christmas, the weather will be dreich, and life with broken new year resolutions will return to the same state it was in a few days ago.
Oh yes and tomorrow Scotland suffers depression and blues as they return to work.  Hee hee!

A Good New Year to One and All