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Back to Normal

How nice to see the museum back to normal, short staffed, awkward questions, disappointed visitors, no-one making my tea, only one sale, heavy boxes to lift, my chocolate robbed, and having to look through 800 wedding photographs.
Not a child in sight, how quiet and tidy the place appears once it has been tidied up!  I did spend some time cleaning paint of one or two tables, the result of arts and crafts last week, that was required as the tables will be used for tea and biscuits by some group or other.  Otherwise I spent my time looking for photos and answers to a man's query.  Sadly there are no photographs of his street, little information and less to go on.  It just shows that we need to take pictures of our locale and place them where they are required, the local museum, for further investigation in years to come.  That is a hint by the way...
Tomorrow and Thursday I will spend time there again.  Where are all the volunteers these days?  At least in the morning I will make use of the bike, a massage may be needed later if anyone is around. Well if that's your attitude....

Once upon a time such as these were kept in 'Doocots' for use as meat during the long winters.  Where I was raised the 'Big Hoose' at the back on whose land our estate was built in the early fifties possessed one not far from us.  As kids we regarded it as some sort of witches house or a place to find rats.  In fact it was just an empty shell slowly disintegrating.  It still stands but I reckon it has now been roped off by H&S for safety.  I think these boys taking the sun early the other morning would not be as healthy as birds feeding on the one time fields of northern Edinburgh.  

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A Day Trip

In Camolodunum again today, I travel the world you know, I discovered a church building I had passed but ignored for some reason.  This lay behind the Roman wall, note the red bricks and the construction of the wall, solidly built to ensure no more Boudica's attacked and burnt the place down again.  Amazing to see these walls, ignored by most through walking past them daily, these solid walls were erected in the first century and stand proud, if not beautifully, today.

This was the first time I had noticed St Mary's by the Wall, and naturally I first took a picture of the once elegant door.  It is likely a Saxon church once stood here, the Norman's liked to build stone churches where old wooden ones once stood, and this one dates back to the 1200's.   You can see the lack of respect for history as the lower walls are built using portions of the Roman wall!  The tower above is probably the only remaining original portion, the church was rebuilt in the 1700's and many unreadable tombstones stand there some from that date as far as I could make out.

During the English Civil War, which imperiously included invading Scotland by the Margaret Thatcher of the day, one Oliver Cromwell, the church was used for defence by the Royalist side as Colchester opposed Cromwell and the Parliamentarians.  Whether the people had a choice is not noted!  A man named as Thomson set up his gun there and directed fire on the besiegers until the many returning cannonballs brought him and the tower down.  The top of the tower has been renovated with red brick and shows in between the remaining Roman bits.

I wondered a bit about the sign above the door.  What kind of church is this that has a licence for booze?  A Catholic one looking after the priests?  An Anglican one with a thirsty vicar?  In fact it is a redundant building now used as the Colchester Arts Centre.  I didn't go in.  There may have been a chance to look around but I considered they may have an 'art' exhibition on and I would possibly express my opinion, and I don't like losing new friends...

The graveyard is a bit of a mess in truth, this was one of the better graves established in 1797 but imaginatively I forgot to check the name.  They clearly were important enough to have a block of stone and iron railings around their tomb.  Most of the others must have dated that far back, the town must have been on the up during the 1700's and wealth flowing in the right places, but the place is a sad site now.  Only one drinker was found there today and we shared a couple of words but clearly many more waste their lives here.  How sad is that?

 On the way to the bus driven by a man unsure of the braking capabilities on offer I once again was impressed by the war memorial.  This angelic creature is a magnificent example of war memorial of the time.  Totally ridiculous regarding the conflict but like many others a magnificent creation.  What soldiers thought I know not, but less was spent on wounded men's care than on this!

 

On the way home I bought two appropriate inner tubes for future use!  No fool me!  This time I spoke to someone who knows about bikes, and recognises an idiot also.  This shop ought to be nearer home I say!

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Morning Wander

This bright yellow thing hung above the trees this morning trying to pretend it was summer. Nobody was fooled.  We have too deep an ingrained cynicism to be fooled by the big yellow thing pretending it is hot when we all know it is warmer at the North Pole than here on some days when it shows.  We still walk out in it, men in shorts trying to impress their girl and cleverer men in thick jackets like me!  

The Bocking Windmill is one of the many in East Anglia, some which actually work, and may open during the year to visitors keen to climb about in them.  I find them a wee bit boring myself but from the history point of view Mr Miller made a lot of money and was in an important position in his world.  Each village required at least one mill of some sort or other as flour was the basic requirement for the daily bread and a local mill was important. On occasion this one opens to visitors, but rarely as far as I can see.  My boss has the key and he controls the thing but not enough wish to visit to make it worth opening more.  I doubt we will ever see flour coming from there.  The one we saw long ago in Woodbridge worked well enough selling its own flour to all who had a desire to bake.

If I remember right these are 'Teezles.'  These were, and probably still are, used by weavers and cloth people to 'fluff up' cloth.  There were a few of them growing wild around this green area today, whether these grow in the far east where most of our cloth comes from now I know not so how do they 'fluff' their cloth I wonder?  We could gather them and sell them on I suppose.

Now that September has arrived we will at last be free from people talking about cricket surely? The local clubs entrance looks a wee bit tired today, a bit like the local clubs players I suspect.  I have no idea if they are any good, I don't read the local paper, and only when passing do I see men of varied physical shape throwing the ball around or standing talking to themselves in distant corners of the ground.  They could be the second XI I suppose.

Sad Saturday

In more time than it took to build the Forth Bridge I have fixed the puncture!  Indeed there is the proof!  The tale of missing spanners (that's wrench to you), wrong inner tunes, crass stupidity, trips to cycle shops, swear words even I had never heard before, and a new tyre at last it appears to be done.  I certainly have been.  In times past when I had a puncture I removed the old inner tube, inserted an awaiting good one and moved on, fixing the puncture in my own time.  This saga has filled my weary life for an eon, I just hope it is not flat in the morning or I may say something about it...
On the journey to the cycle shop by the free bus amongst a thousand kids going shopping for shiny things I cogitated on the drivers of this bus.  The journey lasts about two or three minutes depending on traffic, leaving from either stop about every twenty minutes.  The first driver appeared to have difficulty understanding the clutch, brakes and the accelerator.  The second, and the third, found it easy when parking to hit the raised pavement that enables prams and wheelchairs to climb aboard.  Today the man was so fat it was clear he had never used a Hula Hoop and his cheerless approach to the job implied he once drove buses in London.  Saturday traffic and the people he met may have hand a hand in his attitude.  Driving back and forth for a few hours may be enjoyable during the quieter periods but with millions of kids around I suspect it is less attractive.  They are all back next week to school, everyone, bar teachers, cheers!  
Today has not been good in many ways.  My technical incompetence has been a pain, even turning on the TV made it reboot itself, searching for all the channels and taking all day about it.  I lost a small cap and found it in a box, it took four attempts before I could get it out!  At Halfords as I paid for my treasure the machine printing the receipt gave up!  Just being me ruins things.  Oh yes, the cooker over light has failed also. And there was no football to speak off today.  I'm scared to switch the kettle on these days.

Tomorrow I will pray a lot harder, maybe if I spend more time with Jesus life will be more enjoyable than it has been lately. There again maybe if I had spent more time with him it would not be such a mess.  

 

Fun Friday, Bah!

This rain grubby window sums up today.  
The tired feeling arrived last week and has hung around, the past two days have been a pain.  Add to that the journey to fix the bike, and after finally fixing it I have just found the new tyre stinking the place with rubber aroma has once again gone down.  Ogh I am so happy!
I had bought two new inner tubes and both were the wrong type, they were for mountain bikes, not road ones.  The tyre fits mind and now I am staring through the grubby window forgetting all about it till next week.

There has of course been a lot of talk recently re migrants/refugees depending on your stance in the news recently.  I have avoided most of the reports.  The sight of a child lying drowned on a beach was too much to look at and the confusing loud voices telling everyone what to do helps no-one.  
Here we find Europe overflowing with people attempting to enter one or other of the nations.  Many come from war zones such as Iraq and Syria, others from despotic nations like Eritrea, still others just wish to enter Europe to find a better life.
In amongst all the noise I find myself with no easy answer to all this.
Many simple answers have been heard this week, one says let them all come, the other send them all back, neither are correct.  It is right to help refugees, Europe however expects them to be somewhere far away like the Middle East or Africa rather than at their doorstep.  Should we keep the refugees and return the migrants who want a better life and how do you tell one from another?
The laws of various states, let alone European law does not help here especially when so many nations ignore the law while struggling to cope with thousands who arrive daily.  
The UK government has been awfully quiet and rightly so.  For years the Conservative Party have had their lackeys in the media offering propaganda which stresses the danger of 'swarms of migrants' coming into England (note, not UK but England as that is where the 'British' Tory vote lies) and people, even those of keen brain, have swallowed this propaganda and believe we are being replaced by a new nation of foreigners.  Such lies keep the Tories in power, no wonder they say little about this problem.
Nothing was said for a while and now David Cameron who, believe it or not, is actually Prime Minister, did mutter something about taking some refugees (not migrants) and other lying words.  No numbers were given.  Germany is taking considerably more than we but that matters not as the lie also claims the UK is awash with Eastern Europeans taking all our jobs, living on the dole, begging on the streets, so we must not take even more from elsewhere.  Hmmm, many from Poland stay a year or two and return home money in wallet, the beggars tend to be from south east Europe, Romanians mostly and for them this it must be said, is a way of life.
So what to do?
One answer would be to deal with the terrors back home.  Encourage Saudia Arabia and Quatar to stop paying for the fighters in Syria and Isis in Iraq.  This could be troublesome as they have oil and money both of which are important to this country, especially this government.  Eritrea has a despot, he could easily be overthrown, why not?  Because he has no oil, in fact they have no nothing as far as I can see so the west cares not yet thousands from there come to Europe.  Nothing will be done to upset those paying for Middle Eats fights, Eritrea will be ignored like Darfur now is, remember that?  Afghans and others strive to come here, those who worked as translators wish to enter the UK but this government refuses them permission even though many friends of our army have been shot!  Other madmen have been allowed to remain according to their 'human rights' even if they were murderers or rapists, why not interpreters?
This is a confusing situation, no country wishes to make decisions, nobody really has a clue what to do, yet all around the cry is keep them or send them back and all the while people die or live rough.
What a situation.

During Victorian times when the police force was just beginning there was no established police station in the town.  Pubs in the Braintree centre were numerous, as were 'beer shops,' not pubs but places to buy beer, several such were found in this town.  With long hours of work, cold houses, possibly colder wives, many made their way to such establishments for food and drink.  Down New Street, imaginatively named after it was  created, stood four pubs that we know off.  There was the 'Three Tuns,' 'The George' and the 'Green man.'  These were known as 'Little Hell,' 'Big Hell' and 'Perdition' by the folks of the town!  This indicates problems at closing time, and indeed all other times, with the gentlemen and ladies who inhabited these places.  The fourth pub did not have such a nickname and I have forgotten its name, 'The Angel' perhaps?  
As a result of the problems with drunks the 'cage' was erected in 1840 to cater for those whose indiscretions merited a place to sleep it off.  Each parish council required to have such a 'cage' which explains so many 'Cage Streets' etc to be found in villages and towns.  This one has two cells, about six feet long, each with a bed of sorts along one side, the cell may have been designed for one but I suspect had more on Saturday nights.  No doubt most who entered pubs, like today, behaved themselves reasonably well (does any drunk behave reasonably?) and bigger families with many working could rent better housing and avoid the need to dwell late in such pubs.  These places at least were warm, offered company, entertainment often ( Music Hall grew out of these) and cleaned the throats of men working in local foundries where dust in the air was part of the job.
The cage was still used until 1875 even though a decent police station then stood in the town.  Now demolished and replaced by a 'Peel Crescent!'  The police developed over the years and now their hulking great station sits behind my head, all too often we hear their sirens at just the wrong moment, and I wonder if they actually have less officers on the beat now than then!   They all use cars today, George Osborne's 'austerity' has taken beat officers of the beat and allowed many crimes to flourish.  
The 'Cage' has been used by the militia once the drunks were removed, to store weapons and ammunition, and has lain empty for many years preserved by the local Civic Society.  Most do not even know of its existence, yet many had a relative who could tell them what the inside looked like before 1875!

One Man & His Bike

Amazon

The other day I mentioned the need to acquire a new 'Can't put down book' and soon afterwards had several in my possession.  This was indeed one of those 'can't put down books,'  "One Man and His Bike."  The story concerns a Guardian travel writer with problems, (I spelt Guardian wrong, that's irony) and he works through these by accident while cycling around the coast of the entire United Kingdom.  This is the type of book I like, it covers places I know or would like to know, the type of people and situations I have known and would like to or not like to know, and takes me out of the world around me and into a far flung land at least for a time.  It also makes me want to get on the bike, when fixed, and travel down country lanes enjoying the quiet sun filled backwaters.  It also makes me wish to write a similar but different version of the book.  One of these is possible...

The book is unputdownable!  Divided into relatively short chapters rather than a long slog Mike Carter cycles off traveling through Essex keeping the Thames and later the sea on his right and the land on his left.  Here we find his first surprises, London and all large cities are full of grumpy miserable people yet before he has passed out of the conurbation he is given a map book by a friendly Asian shopkeeper, something that did not surprise me but did him, as he learned here that not all in London are gits, just the majority.  His second surprise is the vast difference that appears when out of the metropolis.  Another world awaits just a few grossly overcrowded roads away from the M25 circular.  Mike was to learn from his travels just how kind people in this island can be and just how wonderful the island is outside of the city.  

Mike cycles for a total of five months camping or staying in bed and breakfast places, his descriptions of the people encountered ring a bell with anyone who has passed this way before.  The dragon at one camp and the off hand kindness at another, the B&B's with friendly hosts as they all appear to be and the people he meets on the way who become friends overnight.  Indeed the people he meets are as important as the coast itself.  His descriptions of the land and the conversations of the people made me wish to travel out and meet similar, but we can all do that daily nearer home I suspect.  After all I have met you on here and that has been good for me in similar manner.  

Occasionally he meets with rebuff, indeed slight violence, but the majority of the time and people are good to him.  His problems with the bike required help from occasional bike shops but these allowed him to delay and consider the place in which he stopped.  The sight was not always good.  The collapsed towns where Thatcherism had removed the old industries reeked of decay, even worse nobody appeared to do anything about it.  It brought to my mind Cowdenbeath during the General Strike, both then and afterwards the vast majority made the best of it, no vandalism, no graffiti or smashing empty homes, instead the men grew veg for the pot and people worked together, I found myself asking why can they not do this now?  His meeting later in his journey while in Wales with the 'DO' conference made a very different impression, that was worth reading.   

So much of the west is wealthy, and many middle class towns with Couscous and Adoki beans for lunch rather than chips, incense from shop doorways and Laura Ashley dresses came under his wheels, in some the Guardian man felt at home seeing there a vivaciousness where I would have seen people far from the real world.  The contrast throughout the book reveals Britain as it is today in a manner those passing through in a car or train would fail to notice.  When his bike fails he struggles get a bus into a town with a bike shop, deregulation means several bus companies but each travelling at limited times.  A journey to Castle Douglas and then Dumfries to the bike  shop takes 13 hours, he could have ridden in an hour - if the bike was fixed.  Thatchers legacy is everywhere.

Others come into the picture, the many he passes riding from Land's End to John O'Groats, others like himself riding around the coast, one great man in his seventies and faster than Mike! Characters all who bring the trip to life and who encourage the cyclist on his way.  I was going to say weary but his weariness came as he became fitter by the day, my weariness is unlike his!  Cafe owners, cyclists, B&B folks, camp site owners, all had a story, all covered life, almost all were good to the passing cyclist. Such travellers find temporary friends everywhere,  could we find them if we were more permanent I wonder?

This is a great book!  It is enjoyable, covers a lot of ground, several thousand changing miles, takes us out of ourselves into other worlds and other lives, reveals the beauty of the land and at times the beauty of the people.  It affected the rider, changed his life for the better, it might change you also.  Read this book if you like travel writing, it's worth it.   

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!

Summer Drizzle

Stupidity some say is inbuilt.  I disagree.  Stupidity of a sort is inbuilt, with slow thinking, inability to consider all options, a lack of concentration or care but this is not enough!  Oh no I can assure you this is not enough!  I inherited the family trait of stupidity but this was not early enough to enable me to fail so spectacularly as I have down through the years, oh no, I had to work at it and work hard.  Anyone can make it through life by being stupid, only those who practice can manage to grasp the wrong end off an electric cable, spray an aerosol on a fire or look down the barrel of a gun to work out why it was jammed -then pull the trigger.  These things take practice.

Anyway I have not down these things, recently anyway, but I did run about the town looking for tools for the bike and fail to find them.  This morning, as the Bank Holiday rain teemed down, I got myself ready to travel on the free bus to Halfords to spend money.  As I did so it crossed my mind there was a yellow tub with bike things somewhere under everything else, so I took a look.  Inside I found the yellow box filled with bike bits.  There was no tool to turn the nut however, that remained missing.  However removing from the box I discovered a mass of small items that once had a purpose and many that had been used once and forgotten, among which was a double headed spanner for turning wheelnuts on bikes!  This had disappeared an eon ago and now I knew why.  That said I still journeyed down to Halfords on the bus in spite of the now drizzle like weather.  A cloud lay over us, hovering just above the tops of lamposts drizzling on those who dared to walk out.

A wander through Halfords, being ignored by the surly chap playing with a very expensive bike, this revealed the tools I might need in any off a hundred situations if I was cycling far, not that I will be these days.  I bought nothing as I could not remember the size of inner tubes I need or much else about the bike.  Technical things were designed only to expose my stupidity.  At least I now know where to find things, the local shops being useless.

I wandered through the shopping centre, famous for the 'outlet shops' those who sell the stuff proper shops failed to sell, and was struck by the prices on offer.  Barbour for instance sell jackets worth £250 for £179, shoes retail at prices well upwards of £80 and more, other shops know suckers when they see them and even that early in the morning, drizzle or not, the place was full of families seeking goodies!

Yet did I see a happy face?  No I did not!

There are people in the UK who depend on foodbanks, there are many striving to survive on disability allowance or some other meagre benefit, always considered 'scroungers' by the 'Daily mail' and other Tory media.  Yet there is vast wealth in the UK and that could be seen by the cars queuing up to get in the car parks, the fat men bulging through their T-shirts (English men in shorts & T-shirts in spite of the damp!), and the miserable people buying things they do not need. 

Wealth makes us happy. That is, if we have enough we can be satisfied but always and ever there is something else we MUST HAVE even if it really is just a shiny thing that passes in a moment.  The eye sees more than the stomach requires, but we go for it anyway.  Our houses are full of things, things which have not been used for years perhaps, items that cost loads yet we never use, now we complain we have no money!  

Having endured a long period of pauperism, missing out on Christmas, travel, holidays, and new things I now find myself with a bit more in my new state of mere poverty.  The temptation to buy things because I can was real today, as was the sickening feeling when too many things are bought.  What I need, and there are many requirements that must be met, are not the same as what I find I must have.  Things for the bike were required, books I bought were more or less required, the jacket was required but did I need to consider that thing I pondered on this morning (a thing that I cannot now remember what it was!)?  The money was there so the object became important.  Maybe we have too much money floating around, maybe we would be happier if we wanted less and spent less?  People smile more in India and Africa so I am told, what does that tell us if true?

Meanwhile...

     

 Summer continues as it has always done...

Slow Sunday

It has been a slow Sunday indeed today.  Rising early for breakfast I retreated to bed to finish my sleep awakening only in time for the football.  Since then much time has been taken up with attempting to fix the other laptop (again) and downloading slowly things required which then do not work.  I have tried several times to buy memory for the beast from 'Crucial' but although I have changed the password they will not let me in!  Grrrrr!  Not a lot has happened elsewhere I suspect as the cloud overhead has blanketed the world and a dreich day has resulted.  Tomorrow is the bank holiday Monday and you bet this cloud will stay hanging around.

This reminds me of the two or three years I spent in a somewhat larger version of this van happily wandering all over London.  The drivers I worked with were on the whole a decent lot, not that all of them liked work of course, and when the sun shone I could sit back while he struggled with the traffic and I enjoyed the view.  I got to know a great deal of London, bar the north east part which for reasons unclear we were not allowed to deliver in.  The furniture vans certainly went there, why not us we did not ask as we preferred the better class areas anyway.
When living in the centre it was always good on a Tuesday or Thursday to find ourselves so far out of town that we could occasionally find potato fields.  I must say the one we did drive into was a wrong turning, but I blame the driver!  On one occasion while in an aged green van used as an emergency backup we missed a turning of the A3, that is a main duel carriageway this driver carrying billions of vehicles in and out of town.  The simple answer was to drive to the next roundabout and return but no, this lad stopped the van and reversed back the way we had come!  There was an opening in the road designed for the turning, one we had missed, and eventually we arrived there and turned into it.  However the van stuck out a wee bit into the outer of the two lanes, that is the fast lane, and while awaiting a break in the traffic on the other side we heard the approaching screeeeeeeeeech of brakes.  This interesting sound continued for what appeared to be an awful long time and eventually a Lancia car, containing a red faced man waving towards us appeared to our left.  Maybe he was the man we were delivering to I wondered, but then we moved on.
This driver was generally capable which was more than could be said for the temp one who parked the van in Kensington High Street, one of the busiest of streets, in a bus lane, on a no parking area, and went for lunch.  When he returned the van had been removed by the police and an almighty fine was awaiting payment.  The lad returned to work the next day but was shown the door before the boss upstairs came down and found him.
One man was a bookmaker and his life was horse racing, or at least the bets to go with this.  A good man who was forced by a wife to earn money he stopped off at various places to either borrow money, repay money, lay bets with friends, cash in bets with friends or on Mondays stop of at a bookies (owned by a man called Stallion) for a coffee early on.  This bookie by the way informed us of a man with a gun trying to rob him not long after he had opened.  It took a wee bit of persuasion  to get the robber to remove himself and "come back later when we have taken some money."  We came down Balham High Street on our homeward journey one afternoon and stopped at the lights.  I glanced around me as we stood in the long line of traffic and suddenly realised the driver had disappeared!  I looked all around the van but he had vanished.  he had noted a bookmakers shop over the road and ran in to check the results!
One of the best was a Spanish chap called Joe.  He and I worked well together for some time especially so as he was friends with a man in a restaurant who provided us with large slices of apple pie and coffee at the start of the day.  Well we had a large round up through St John's Wood and Golders Green etc.  There we encountered many Jews, mostly women, all neurotic to some degree, some of whom had seven or eight locks on the doors.  Many had originated in Austria and Germany and seen sights we would not wish to see and possibly lost relatives shortly after.
On that round another driver and I encountered a man from a competitors shop.  He had a better van but never smiled.  Day after day it became a thing with us to get a greeting from him, something other drivers never failed to offer, but this one never answered and never smiled.  Each time we passed our greetings got louder and more obvious until one day a tired response brought cheers.  That was a day of a Jewish feast which meant lots of chocolates, flowers and fruit baskets were being sent round to folks everywhere in the normal Jewish manner.  The vans were overloaded and he was on his own, how we greeted him and how we laughed.  He must have hated us!
All good things come to an end eventually however. 

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Hullo Old fruit!

This is a bank Holiday Weekend, you can tell by the 'pitter-patter' of rain on the window.  I worry not but the dafties who drive off to the coast or other holiday spot to get away from it all soon join with thousands of others getting away from it all and fail to get away from it all.  It is however a change, apart from the rain.  
I am going nowhere.  The past weeks activities have worn me out.  Once you stop work it is very hard to start again.  For too long I have sat around on my behind and now I am so unfit that running around for a few days on the trot leaves me very tired at the end.  This week has been busy at the museum as so many are off sick, have to look after relatives or have disappeared that I and others have to cover up a wee bit more than normal.  Next week I am only down for Tuesday morn so that should make this week easier, unless another decides to run off.

For a start my knees were not keen, the weather too keen and last time I was out all was well however the other day I noted the tyre was flat!  How did that happen?  Something wee, like a bit of glass from the kiddies beer bottles round by the recreation ground, has got in there again. 
So having slept much of yesterday yet still found myself knackered today I eventually got round to finding the bits to remove the wheel.  They have disappeared!  The one tool that always turned the nut was not to be found.  I have a feeling it may have been licked under the skirting board and gone down into the messy depths that lie beneath the flat below, a messy 'Somme' like place that it impenetrable.  Nothing in the tool box fits to turn the nut! Nothing!  So this afternoon instead of my much needed siesta I went searching for bicycle tools.   I obviously went to the cheap shops first to see if any Chinese made equipment was available for less money than they were worth but I was unsuccessful.  This meant I had to wander round the two cycle shops in town and search the racks on the wall, this also was unsuccessful.  What can be the deal when two shops selling bikes have limited equipment that go with said bikes?  Possibly these tools are hidden away behind the profit making things like shorts, saddles, and er, bikes, but in one several items were marked 'SALE' but the label hid what the item on 'SALE' was!  How does he survive?
Two cheap Chines supplied shops failed me, Tesco had loads last week all removed to make space for CHRISTMAS stock, and two cycle shops had nothing on show that helped.  This means a trip to 'Halford's' where I suspect upstairs plenty of suitable odds and ends will be suitably overpriced but I canny go there until Monday, and as it's a Bank Holiday I suspect it will be chock a block with bargain hunters spending money of overpriced stuff they do not need, just like I sometimes do but will not admit to myself.  

I decided on a fruit and healthy pasta lunch, I thought it would keep me on the run, and it did!  On Wednesday at work one of the trustees and I compared beer belly's and it was not a nice sight, almost like one of them maternity gatherings most men rightly ignore.  The problem is coming home after a day out I am not in the mood to fuss, just eat and sleep I say.  It is only with free time a proper diet can be made available.  Of course once I get the bike fixed, if I get the tools, and by means of a sensible diet, if I bother, I can exercise, unless the rain comes back, and eat well, if I have time, and then I will lose weight, be healthy and enjoy winter and the cold, wet, rain and snow with eastern winds driving hail into our faces for months.
Sometimes I wish I was not so optimistic.

  

Laptop Tribulations

 

In an attempt to remove needless items on the laptop I searched through everything and removed those I thought no longer required.  This pleased me and helped the laptop breathe again.  

Yesterday I opened up a strange item on the desktop, it was a dead 'Word' item!  

Fool that I was I had deleted all the 'Office' items (an aged office at that) and now nothing worked.

All my museum stuff is on Word and now all was dead!

After a search I found the old disc and after a struggle (why are these things so difficult?) I reinstalled all I needed and now it works.  Relief ran through me and next time I will be a wee but more careful.

An item in the ever trustworthy and reliable (sarcasm eh?) 'Daily Mail' tells us that women are getting fat because they are not doing enough housework.  Clearly this university study has been money well spent as a look around the streets shows this to be the case.  To many devices making a women's life easy, once the work is done there is not enough work that requires exercise for a woman, all this sitting around gossiping and coffee drinking has got to stop.
I have found a way to enable any volunteer among you to quickly lose two stone, come clean my place and do the ironing!  That should make you lose weight.

 

 

Rain

We have in this country a thing called 'rain.'  Not all nations have it, we do.  Recently a series of weather 'Lows' have circled around the nation dropping water all over the place.  Normally we say this would please the farmers however it fails in this as they wish to harvest their crops and the rain hinders this.  Combine harvesters catching fire also hinders as one found out last week.  Today we stood at the window wondering whether we could reach Tesco without drowning, bread and milk was urgently required and some of us wondered if we would eat tonight!  The rain came down in monsoon impersonations for a long time.  I knew it would not last and I was of course wrong!  As you note we were inside and had no reason to rush out but closing time came near and hunger was beginning to call.
Programmes have appeared on radio wondering what is wrong with the weather.  Is it climate change, could global warming have moved the 'Jet stream?'  People shake their heads and wonder.  So do I.  A few years ago my mother, then about 90, grumbled about the weather, I mentioned that it had been like this for the 90 years she had lived and wondered if she had not noticed.  We had to laugh as it always rains in July and August, it is the British Isles after all.
It is possible that the weather is worse than before, only weather men with the facts can say, and the intensity of the weather is greater than before but this could be a passing phase.  Today a report of a house damaged by a mini cyclone, roofs blown off flats elsewhere and off course the rain.  Maybe it is indeed changing, maybe indeed it will get worse worldwide, maybe after all Jesus is returning soon and this is a mere forerunner of worse to come.  That is worth considering as well as checking the Met office reports. 

Tuesday Tattle

I walked into work in a chill breeze but with the sun shining on me this morning.  I splashed out money for milk for the fridge and entered the museum by the back door, the best way I find.  There I set things up, cleared the mess around the sand pit (archaeological digs for kids) and filled up the stickies (a trail for wee kids) and cleared space on the desk while I tried to sort out what to do.  The main feature of the day was the approach of a herd of children and attempting to picture some of the stock just in case we need to post pics somewhere.
When things got going I was busy, I was on my own today, and I never stopped except when I stopped and even worse I never got any tea!  It's a disgrace I say.  However in between taking pictures and watching the mum's leave, when the kids are settled indoors many run off to shop or sit gossiping in the cafe, I dealt with lots of grans and granddads bringing the kids to fill in a couple of hours.  They all appear to be happy with the museum but fail to spend enough money in the shop!

The beauty of the rain hammering down yesterday meant I was forced to remain indoors and attend to things that required attention.  Some corners of the house have been cleared and the spiders inhabiting the area removed.  Next time I finish a few repairs and clean out the corner under the desk, that has been waiting for a year or so.  In fact I was so busy I accidentally cleaned parts of the oven!  At least the removable bits, the rest can wait until Spring.  

However I am so knackered after a day running around and have not had time for my siesta yet!  Here I am trying to watch the Champions League, scribble this and keep my eyes open, life is so hard for some of us...
oops second half beginning....

 

Rain Stopped Play

Rain stopped play.

Sunday Smile

Saturday Meandering

What a brilliant sunshine day today.  Naturally I stayed inside, I don't want this to become a habit or I might start enjoying life.  It has been a restful few days, I only went into the museum for half an hour on Friday, I came out two hours later, these women do talk, but it was less busy than I expected.
For some strange reason having had almost no books to read a few days ago I appear to be finding them everywhere, I landed two in the museum, and there appears to be a growing pile in, er, well several places.  Three by my bed, a couple here, a few in the loo, and several on the shelf waiting patiently.  Funny how few in the family read anything but a tabloid paper.  They have the brains, why do they waste their lives like this?  

As you are asking yes the Heart of Midlothian still top the league.  A win against Partick Thistle today by a mere three goals to nil was the least we would expect.  I listened on the Hearts radio but it is not as good as seeing pictures.  Indeed the Hearts radio output has never been good since Donaldson left to make money in far of USA.  In those days the three men worked well together, it was like being with your mates at the game.  Today the commentator does his job, Jimmy Sandison also but there is no 'spark' no humour, no life to it.  This is a shame as it would be good if the element of enjoyment of sharing the game with mates returned.
Still we are top of the league and doing OK all things considered.

 

I'm annoyed.  Indeed I am somewhat peeved.  The media are showing video clips of an aircraft crash at an airshow.  A Hawker Hunter jet, once the best in the world, attempted a loop the loop and the pilot misjudged his angles or had a problem on the way down.  The plane crashed into the ground near a roadway and several are believed dead. 

That in itself does not irk me, such tragedy's do occur though rarely at UK airshows these days.  The problem is the video taken at the time is shown complete until the moment the aircraft hits the ground then the picture 'stutters' and restarts moments after the crash.  Why?  Are we not supposed to see the plane hit the earth?  Is this a legal thing?  Could it be considering the victims on the ground?  I wonder.  It appeared to me to be yet another of those 'nanny' like things which bedevil society today.

There are warnings on almost every packet saying 'This could contain nuts,' things that get heated warn 'This could be hot' and signs everywhere say 'Mind the step' or 'Slippery when wet.'  What happened to common sense?  

I agree some situations warrant a warning sign but most are posted just because daft folks sue simply to make money, the majority are not required.  I doubt hindering the death of an airplane requires a two second blurring of an accident.  Good grief I came into this world just after a war, fifty million died yet nobody held up a warning notice. Would it have helped to erect one on the Polish border? 'War making can be dangerous, contact your solicitor.'  Plane travel is safer than any other form of transport these days but in the fifties accidents, even at airshows, were common.  Why have we become so namby pamby these days?  

It is time for a return fo some 'stiff upper lip' and some 'common sense.'

     

I Have Nothing to Say

I have nothing to say.  Nothing worth mentioning has happened, nothing worth noting in the diary.  The world has gone on its way with me ignoring it for the most part and in turn the world has gone out of its way to ignore me.  I ventured into it, a haircut from a nice young lady, a fruitless search for bargains in charity shops, a walk around town looking at the girls shops, a few dirty looks from people practicing to live in London and listening to one neighbour describing the illness of another.  So I saw the world and went back home again.  
There was a ten minute exercise session after hearing a Radio 4 programme on the brain informing me how much exercise improved the mental faculties (don't ask!), and then several gallons of tea to return me to normal afterwards.  I helped one woman find her dead relatives online, after informing her those names mean nothing to us I found they did!  I ironed enough shirts to last a month!
See, nothing happened.
Quite nice after doing too much last week.

I've been ignoring the papers, merely glancing at the headlines, none of which are startling, and feel better because of it.  I did take the opportunity to read blogs, not your lot which I read anyway, the other ones from your other readers.  A journey through them was stimulating to the mind and I found some interesting people.  I must look at some more.  
This is the best of the internet, research which finds answers and new blogs which finds new people worldwide.  I hasten to add these people are not quite up to the standard set by your good selves and will never replace you in my admiration and love (cut the slush! ed.) but it opens new doors and I hope you try likewise.

  
   

Write, Right!

I came across a few files on 'Dropbox' and cleared out the old, the repeated and unwanted files.  Some of them surprised me as they were so old I had forgotten them.  I added them to their respective folders and checked the contents thereof.  Among them were several books I had started, one even going as far as seven pages, and I wondered how I had failed to be famous by now.  The answer was not long in coming- illiterate!  
The books vary in subject, reflecting my mood at the time, and I suggest only 'Living Death in the Museum' will ever reach a small audience, this however might lead to a black eye or two.  Another problem appears to be that I have lost it!   Shame as one or two ideas on there were quite useful.   Today gave opportunity for more as crowds came in, phones rang, questions were asked, kids tantrumpted and the funeral parlaour grumbled about our leaky guttering pouring water on their garden seat.  I dealt with this magnificently, I moved the seat!  
The trouble is I read a book and find it exhilarating and wish to copy it, half way down the page I realise things are not so easy and the steam eases off and I fall over a cliff.  After the day we had today I am not in much of a thinking mood anyway, I'm not use to work, I am in the mood for closing my eyes and listening to something interesting on the wireless so I am off to Radio 4 on the iplayer to search for an old programme about country views or waling through interesting places.