Delight, Poetry, Painting and Theresa & Boris.

We drinkies from now until Tuesday for me.  I am assured I will not be required at the museum till then, the painting is finished even if I now have a mound of things just lying about like Syrian migrants looking for a home, and I have nothing imposed upon me till Tuesday.
And tonight and tomorrow and Saturday there is football to be perused, proper football featuring Scots teams, none of that foreign rubbish (except for our foreign players that is).
How lovely!

Sir John Everett Millais

When on my way to a BA (failed) via the Open University some years back we began with Victorians society (meaning of course English Victorians Bah!) and pre-raphaelite painting was among the items noted.  One of the paintings that thrust upon me was this one of 'Mariana' by Millais who sounded like one of those immigrants Brexit was supposed to stop.  This was based on a Shakespeare play, 'Measure for Measure' and a Tennyson Poem.  In the play she was awaiting marriage but as her dowry sank in the sea he hopped it and found someone else.  The poem follows:-

 

Mariana

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

"Mariana in the Moated Grange"
(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure) 

With blackest moss the flower-plots

Were thickly crusted, one and all:

The rusted nails fell from the knots

That held the pear to the gable-wall.

The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:

Unlifted was the clinking latch;

Weeded and worn the ancient thatch

Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said, "My life is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even;

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;

She could not look on the sweet heaven,

Either at morn or eventide.

After the flitting of the bats,

When thickest dark did trance the sky,

She drew her casement-curtain by,

And glanced athwart the glooming flats.

She only said, "The night is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night,

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:

The cock sung out an hour ere light:

From the dark fen the oxen's low

Came to her: without hope of change,

In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,

Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn

About the lonely moated grange.

She only said, "The day is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

About a stone-cast from the wall

A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,

And o'er it many, round and small,

The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.

Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver-green with gnarled bark:

For leagues no other tree did mark

The level waste, the rounding gray.

She only said, "My life is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;

She said "I am aweary, aweary

I would that I were dead!"

And ever when the moon was low,

And the shrill winds were up and away,

In the white curtain, to and fro,

She saw the gusty shadow sway.

But when the moon was very low

And wild winds bound within their cell,

The shadow of the poplar fell

Upon her bed, across her brow.

She only said, "The night is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;

She said "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

All day within the dreamy house,

The doors upon their hinges creak'd;

The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse

Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,

Or from the crevice peer'd about.

Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors

Old footsteps trod the upper floors,

Old voices called her from without.

She only said, "My life is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,

The slow clock ticking, and the sound

Which to the wooing wind aloof

The poplar made, did all confound

Her sense; but most she loathed the hour

When the thick-moted sunbeam lay

Athwart the chambers, and the day

Was sloping toward his western bower.

Then said she, "I am very dreary,

He will not come," she said;

She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,

Oh God, that I were dead!

It must be said that by the time you get to the third stanza you wish she was dead also!

BBC

So we now have an idea of what May has for us.  Out go the majority of the 'Posh Boys' and in come her mates and several women all sharing her vision and all looking for half a chance to take her place when she falls.  There is no doubt the planting of Boris Johnson in the Foreign Office and one of the top four jobs in government was a shock.  A shock best summed up by the US spokesman who managed to stifle his laugh and merely smile when asked about the appointment.  Other leaders were less generous and made mocking comments while the personnel of the UK just placed their hands over their heads and wondered what Putin would make of it.  
Dearie me, this is either a way to let him hang by his own rope or a mistake of gargantuan proportions.  I await his meeting with Mrs Clinton who he likened to a 'sadistic nurse in a mental hospital' or Obama who he described as 'part Kenyan who harboured an ancestral dislike of Britain' or the Turkish president who, he stated in a poem, 'has sex with a goat.'  
I should point out this man was born in New York and it is therefore possible he could become President of the United States!
So we now know the right wing leaning cabinet, Hunt remains the Health secretary as no-one else wills to take it, and we await the new 'caring' Tory party with delight.
Hmmm... 

Clever Folks

Tidy Workplace

Today, while the world turned unhindered by my presence, I moved the desk, which does not come apart, painted, hoovered and painted and hoovered and fought with the furniture to place it in a better position.  How can such a small job take all day?  When I think of 'The Venomous Bead's' new building and all the work required, with or without doors, I envy them the energy and talent that has gone into it.  Moving in with the help of the men at full speed I envy not however.  How could they create a new building so quick and I struggle to paint mine?
Of course the things I found behind the desk are interesting.  No idea what some of them are but I am sure they will plug into some device unused since yon time.  However it is wonderful to see clean walls, torn paper right enough but clean walls and a desk now better organised.  Next stop bookcase corner, moving the books, moving the bookcases, painting, returning things in better order.  That should take a week!

   Theresa May

This is the woman who will become the new Prime Minister as of Wednesday evening.  Who is she, what will she do?  

She claimed years ago that the Tory Party must get rid of the 'Nasty party' image.  Since then we have had years of Eton toffs running the country, more suffering for those on benefits, a rise in the number of Foodbanks from 66 to over a thousand, and a growing divide between rich toffs and the rest.  She claims today she wishes to end this divide.

Now she is a Tory, and worse a woman!  This never brings good things to the land.  However I am of a mind that she does indeed wish to change the 'Nasty party' into a more open one, and as a woman she, unlike Thatcher, is actually female!  This will bring a new view of the Tory boys to us all.

Stubborn and pig headed - she is a woman - she will push her ideas through.  We wait and see what her new cabinet will look like, that should start appearing on Thursday or Friday, and this will give a hint to the direction she will take regarding her promises.

We can do nothing but hope she will remove the stain of the past six years.  We can only hope something positive for most will arise.  We can only hope she is not the serf of Mr Murdoch!

Theresa May has always been a private person not keen on PR or too much public attention.  This role will change that but I suspect she is ready, she has been planning to reach for it for some time and now she is here we will see what she is made off.

Sunday Thoughts

Yesterdays early start was indeed a good idea.
I had the day planned, well after I returned I planned it, I would visit the expensive shop for the required stuff, consider painting this bit round the desk but knowing I had already decided to leave that till Monday, and sleep all afternoon.
Naturally this did not happen.
My aching knees took me to the overpriced shop and indeed back again.
I pushed aside the paint brushes, stuffed my face and considered my pillows.
The museum called.
No one had come in and the lass was on her own.
So scruffily & unshaven I toddled down there for an afternoons running around, and it got quite busy after I arrived.  I considered sleeping at the desk but was unable as people kept coming in and speaking loudly.  Tsk!  
When my now tired and aching knees got me back home and up the stairs I struggled to feed myself a morsel and later toddled off to bed.
I couldn't sleep.
I was too tired!!!

This is the weather vane that sits astride the steeple in St Michael's church.  I often noted it way above me and still don't know if it moves or not but thought I ought to capture it for histories (History's?) sake.
I suspect the bird (chicken?) was added during the restoration work in the 19 century.  Much was done then and a lot of controversy abounded.  One woman, who's father had been vicar at one time, fell out with the then vicar over changes, possibly within the building or the grounds.  Being a woman she did not leave money to the church as was usual for such folks, no her quite large estate (she had a large house, servants and acres of grounds which are now a park) was left to build another church rather than develop St Michael's.  Her church was built after she died, large enough for 300 people but with space and buttresses sufficient to enlarge the church to 600 as and when.  That has not happened.  The church, now a High Church, or Anglo Catholic if you prefer, has sold the large 7 bedroom vicarage provided and where the new man sleeps is unknown, the park possibly.
Her church has a few members and still operates but St Michael's remains the main one for the town.  St Peters does not have a spire or wee hen sitting above it.
Quite what drives some men to sitting at the top of church spires hundreds of feet above the ground to fix these things is beyond me.  My skin creeps at the thought and vertigo becomes my name.

I'm sick of all this tennis on TV!  Bring on the football!

Early Start

This is the world at shortly after five in the morning.  OK I tweaked the picture a wee bit by pressing one of the many buttons on this camera but it is a decent image in the end.  How lovely to be out there before the dog walkers.  How nice to see dozens of rabbits running as I approach, how hard is it cycling up a slope before breakfast?  

   
The council have done an excellent job of improving this area, money well spent and much used by the locals.  The locals have fought of an attempt to turn part of this area into allotments for desperate gardeners and if memory serves well they also stopped a developer enriching himself near here.  Well done to them, the council would not spend this money then sell it soon afterwards.  The designated housing blocks near here are far away from the town itself, other peoples worry now. 

I found these mill stones embedded by the council next to a hump in the ground.  There must have been some sort of mill here but this is the first I knew about it.  Oh the fun and excitement here never ends!

This treehenge must have stood here for thousands of years, well at least since last year when the council workers knocked it up out of left over fallen trees!  The things you find round the corner!
I'm now off to the museum, once again no-one has turned up.  Volunteers need shooting!

Watching Paint Dry

So far I have managed to paint half a room.
The painting is quite straightforward.  I take the paint, apply it to the roller and spread it over the wall, the ceiling, the floor, the furniture and myself.  This in spite of acres of plastic sheeting, spending half the day just shifting things into spaces that don't exist and being as careful as I always happen to be.  had it not been for the window I would paint naked as it would be easier to clean afterwards.  This suggestion has not met with support from colleagues who muttered "Cap'n Ahab, thar she bows!" In a rather unkind manner.  
This morning, intending to continue on this side, I replaced the items from the other back where they belong.  This was going well until I decided to change things and naturally it has all fallen apart.  The exercise of moving things this way and that might be good for me but it is a pain just the same.
As I spent all day at the museum yesterday (95 children from that school!) I was not inclined to do anything that evening.  I still wasn't this morning.  However I managed to get something done except for the vast amount of stuff all over the floor placed in such a manner to ensure I fall over it constantly.

  
Much of the time has been spent considering better bookcases (of the cheap variety) that would be more appropriate for that corner.  Also deciding whether to move everything around and as always realising there is only one place they can all fit.  That and scraping white dots from almost anything to hand fills the day.  

 

The Conservative Party leadership election continues apace, a slow pace that is.  The rigged Tory only election has been easy to read, with all decent characters, that is able men, ruled out, only inept half wit men were able to stand, they are left with a choice between two women who have all the ideology of Margaret Thatcher but without the intellect.  This is so Theresa May, seen in this rigged picture, will be able to continue destroying the nation as ably as Cameron and Osborne had been doing up till now.  

May keeps herself to herself, has until now few friends in government, a husband who is a director of Group 4, a company who have failed and failed again spectacularly yet for some reason keep getting government contracts to run prisons, escort prisoners, run security at events and the like.  All fail, all cost vast sums and all contracts are renewed at great cost to the famous taxpayer.  

As Home Secretary May has cut the numbers of police, prison warders, and wishes to do more of this.  She hates the NHS and anything socialist, like care for others, and will undoubtedly be created Prime Minister in a few weeks time.

Her opponent whatsername is apparently a Christina and as such has been pilloried by the perverts in the media as you'd expect.  Few have bothered much about her dubious CV, her lack of ability and experience and none have mentioned she is only there to allow Theresa May to win.

The nation trembles.

50 years No Change

The elite who dominate television today are much more careful of the effects programmes can have than they were in the past.  Or possibly it is that in the past TV producers were really trying to prove the power of TV and also wished to change society for the better, today TV people are the elite and wish to keep it that way.  Therefore the screen is dominated by pap!  Soap Operas dominate, drama is mere soap opera with guns and explosions and the day is filled with mind numbing emptiness.
Anything that shakes society is not allowed, any programme that investigates the powerful is hindered all the way, even the BBC news broadcasts are strictly limited by government influence these days, how bad is that?
During 1966, when I was a mere 15 years old and therefore open to radical thought, a programme appeared on screen during a series called 'The Wednesday Play.'  Today this would be middle class angst at best or soap opera pap at worst but in 1966 these plays tackled social issues in a manner never seen before.  Radical, outspoken and bringing the reality of life into the home for many thereby disturbing the nations settled existence.
One such programme was 'Cathy Come Home,' a play concerning the break up of the happy life of a young couple left to defend themselves against an uncaring state.
The story is simple enough, young and free they marry, get a house, get a job and begin a family.  All goes well until illness means he loses his job, bailiffs throw them out of their house, they end up squatting in ruined homes, he runs off and eventually the kids are taken away from her.
Watching this in my happy Edinburgh home I was seriously touched by the image in front of me in the way only a 15 year old can be.  The nation was touched also.  How could such things be in our state?  Questions were asked in parliament, debate raged in the media, and in the end nothing changed.
In the early 60's some were working to change the situation regarding housing in the UK one of them a Church of Scotland minister called Bruce Kenrick.  This man worked in Notting Hill now the paradise of £1 million pound one bed flats but then a hell on earth of bed sits and crooked landlords. On top of this there were racial tensions as the locals objected to black and Irish immigrants moving into the area, many flats for rent had signs, 'No Blacks & No Irish.'  Riots occurred in Notting Hill during 1958 in which local 'Teddy Boys' attacked those they disliked.  All lived in squalid poor accommodation and the lack of decent housing was one cause of the problems.
Bruce Kendrick began the Notting Hill Housing Trust with no money whatsoever and this has since grown to manage some 28,000 properties.  I spent a year working there moving people into new home back in the early 70's before you were born.
A few weeks after 'Cathy Come Home' was screened Bruce brought into being the housing charity 'Shelter' which has become established throughout the land campaigning for better housing for all.  It is noticeable that since Thatcher their work has been harder still!  
The quality of the production, using radical techniques unknown at the time to TV audiences heightened the power of 'Cathy Come Home.'  It hit hard and has often been seen as the best TV programme ever offered.  Maybe this is indeed the case, the effect has never left me and was one reason for my joining the charity work in Notting Hill in 1971.   However the programme made little difference, governments then, Conservative and Labour, were concerned with keeping their jobs rather than running after TV programmes and public outcries.  Fuss and bother has never moved an MP to radical action and it did nothing in 1966 and does nothing today under an ever more elite governing class than what existed in the 60's.
I just remembered how things were after the war, then there was an urgent need for housing and various governments wondered what to do.  The Conservatives led by Churchill (a Liberal by nature) instructed Harold MacMillan to build 3 million in three years.  This he did in less time!  These council homes were on the whole decent enough and if the people were good the area was good.  The people decide if it is decent  not politicians.  Until Thatcher all was well but the greedy money loving uncaring brute allowed these to be bought by the residents cheaply, these decent homes were soon sold for a fat profit (by Labour 'socialists' as well as Tories) and now we have a housing problem.  I wonder why?  New houses today will only be built by developers for fat profit not for the people. 
Only strong political leadership can change a nation, we appear to have had little in the past and certainly have none whatsoever today.   

Normal Day

Back to normal today.  
Busy morning tending to people who come to the museum to borrow things for other museums or discuss items from the recent deceased they will to donate, or a gas man wondering if he has to dig up the mains into the building.
All the usual stuff.
Oh and one young Star Wars Jedi came to see the exhibition and left happy to have stood near Darth Vader and some strange looking creatures I know nothing about.  I can recognise Superman and Batman, Spiderman and Darth Vader but some of these things are beyond me and my will to ask about.
Still it brings people in, brings in enough to pay for the exhibition (privately owned exhibits, owned by a Mr Luke Skywalker!) and during the summer hols will entertain the kids, the weirdos and no doubt we will enjoy it also.

The eyes on these creatures is quite something but my wee camera does not capture it properly.
Just wandering amongst them made me wonder about the people who think up the variety of creatures shown here.  Someone has to sit down and design them, where do they get their ideas from?  I know the models used in the film, the huge space ships, the flying things and the lights were all made somewhere in the UK, and when put into a film look brilliant.  

  
Not too sure about this creature, nor the lighting they have used on him!
What sort of superhero canny fly anyway?

My Joy Continues

Returning home yesterday morning from St Paul's where I had been persuaded to add my name to the church booklet (does this mean I'm an Anglican heretic?) I discovered the place swarming with these bees.  The kitchen was full of the brutes and having cleared them out I spent the rest of the day forcing more, in one's and two's, out of other windows.
Where did they come from?
I have a horrid idea that a Queen has found a home in the side of the house and we will have this lot all summer buzzing around the kitchen window, hovering across my delicacies and being annoyed by my swiping them with a rolled up newspaper.
Oh joy!

  
How old is this oak tree?  This one has sat here near a p-lace called 'Hanging Hill' for many a day.
i wonder if it is 300 years old or thereabouts?  They do last a long time.
Whether 'Hanging Hill' was used for hangings has not yet been proved but the name comes from somewhere.  Possibly a corruption of an old English word, possibly where they hanged miscreants. Rough justice in these parts in days gone by.  There again the justice was served by the local nobles and not near this place, and hangings took place shortly after sentence unless you were an important bod. 
So who planted the trees down by the river?  Did they occur naturally or was there a plan?  I suppose we will never know.  Today this is a pleasant but muddy wander along the unseen river at this point.  That appears later when a wooden path has been constructed. 

The far banks were until recently the grounds of a convent of some sort.  Here the nuns and their visitors could relax and contemplate while pushing one another into the river for fun.  Next time I take the bike out I will trundle down the councils newly laid path that runs around this area and see if I can find anything interesting.
Treasure chests, dead bodies, plastic bottles and empty beer cans possibly. 

The rain clouds, complete with a tiny airplane, threatened me all the time I wandered along.  Pah!

Now I have to spend the morning furniture shifting, wall painting (which will go on for ever at my rate) and go to the museum for an afternoons volunteer get together.  When, ask I, will I get my siesta?  

O.A.P.

I couldn't take it any more.
The red eyes this morning told a story.
Breakfast was poor.
Weather was windy.
The item I bought early on did not fit.
The trip I planned fell through.
I reviewed my life.
The years of stupid actions.
The mistakes.
The failings.
The time I stood among Hibernian fans instead of the Heart of Midlothian fans and cheered a goal.
The failings with women, "psst missus, fancy coming up and ironing my shirts?"
Failure in the hospital, "You cut off what when shaving the man?"
The failure at work, "I disagree boss..."
The failure at writing begging letters and end up sending them money.
I sat in the cupboard and downed cyanide tablets but they were out of date.
I went to drink turpentine but there was non.
The razor blades don't work.
There was nothing for it but the river.
So attached to an aged mill stone I jumped in, you can just make out the ripples.

I am 65 today.   

 

2nd Battalion Essex Regiment, Somme 1st July 16

The Somme battle was a result of war co-operation between the allies Britain, France and Russia for the offensive's in 1916.  While Britain and France 'pushed' from the west Russia was to launch an attack in the east on the Austro-Hungarian forces.

The Germans however got in first by attacking at Verdun in such a manner as to 'Bleed France white.'

Such was the weight of the battle that the French began to drift from the Somme attack and left this to General Haig to command.  Haig did not wish to fight at the Somme but the London government were in awe of France and insisted that he follow their lead as they had done the year before when forcing the then Commander in Chief Sir John French to fight at Loos.  That was a disaster and the fighting there continued until 1918.

A huge logistical operation was undertaken and a line sixteen miles long became the battle line.  Over 1500 guns were to spend an entire week firing at the German line in an attempt to break the enemy wire and damage their trench system.  Shortly before the attack mines spread along the lone were to be exploded, damaging the trench system and the shock allowing the allies to penetrate the enemy line.

The majority of battalions participating in this battle were the men who volunteered willingly in 1914.  Over two and a half million men volunteered between August 1914 and December 31st 1915. Some had been in France since Spring 1915 and seen action of some sort, others arrived on the day of battle and few of these had fired a shot in practice let alone in anger.

On 1st July 1916 the mines went off, the barrage lifted to the second line and over 100,000 men left their trench and advanced on the enemy. 

Only then were the failures to be revealed.

The enemy wire in many places was uncut, trenches often undamaged and the early firing of the Hawthorn Ridge mine ensued the Germans were ready and waiting when the attack came.  Many of the million and a half shells had failed to explode or went off early.  The shock element was limited and with both machine gun and artillery, and artillery which had been 'hidden' by the Germans, opening fire the attackers came under a hail of fire and advance bent over as though walking through heavy rain.  In some places the front line and further was reached but in many the British fell within yards of their own trench.  

Two men from this region fell that day. 

Robert Leslie Ratcliff a 19 year old Bocking man was one.  Born Bocking in 1897 a resident of Panfield Lane Robert enlisted in the 2nd Battalion of the Essex Regiment.  It is most likely he did so with friends from the area at the time.  Also serving in the 2nd Battalion was 19 year old George Leonard Smoothy from Chapel Hill.  George came from a family of ten children, not uncommon for the time.  George had enlisted in the 12th Battalion of the Essex Regiment, a 'Kitchener battalion comprising local volunteers and been rejected because of faulty vision.  However with a brother a 'regular' in the 2nd Battalion he turns up there in time for this battle.  His brother fought through many major battles surviving the war yet died from appendicitis in 1919.

The battalion advanced and came under heavy machine gun and artillery fire the moment they left their trench. Firing from the residue of the towns of Serre and Beaumont Hamel on either flank hindered the advance however some parties advanced 2000 yards into the enemy line reaching to  Pendant Copse until enemy bombers forced a return to the trench system known as the 'Quadrilateral.' Here a stand was made until relieved during the night.

Somewhere during the battle Robert and George fell, their bodies were never recovered and their names are engraved on the Theipval Memorial along with almost 72,000 others from the Somme conflict.

Battalion Casualties were 22 officers and 400 other ranks.

Total casualties that day were around 19,000 British dead and another 40,000 wounded.  By the end of the battle, or series of 'battles' there were almost 400,000 British and similar German casualties.  However in context of the time the 'Brusilov Offensive' where the Russian forces attacked across what is now Ukraine against the Austro-Hungarians some 1,350,000 were casualties.  

By the end of the war Britian lost less men that France, Germany or Russia and their Generals were not hounded as some of the British Generals were by politicians, like Prime Minister LLoyd George trying to avoid responsibility for the deaths. 

Braintree & Bocking Great War Memorial 

A Signpost or Not

I have been so confused re the stuff I have scribbled recently that I am not sure which way I am headed.  In deed so unsure am I that I just spelt 'sure' as 'shure!'  I am not used to work, let alone with deadlines.  
Taking the laptop into work today I managed to complete one paragraph of three sentences because of all the interruptions.  Who allows people into a museum when I am busy?  Why do they keep asking questions when they can see I am thinking?  Yes thinking!
Bah!

So after all his careful stabbing in the back Boris Johnson is not going to be Prime Minister!  
His devious Aberdonian mate Michael Gove looks now to be the front runner and the man to destroy our economy sleekit like instead of by handfuls of incompetence that Boris offered.
Now he and several others, that means Theresa May, will fight it out for the job.  Does he wish the responsibility of leaving the EU?  She says she will but is in favour of it, some say anyway.  He is not in favour of the EU yet was in favour of lying in his teeth to get the position.
Doomed, we are all doomed!
Which way now UK....?

Laptop Shaped Eyes

Having spent most of the day typing the wrong words into the laptop I am not willing to type many more.  Pictures, yes, moving images, yes, line after line of words, no!
Once I shook of the early morning lethargy, around ten, I began scribbling away.  Naturally I had no idea what I was talking about (The Somme and our local men's involvement) and all the links I looked for turned out to be useless!  My ever helpful array of books did not have the information I wished, the Google search was fruitless much of the time but eventually I found the lost links and got what I required.  
I was writing about five dead men killed under a hail of bullet and shell, why do I grumble when little things go wrong and nothing makes sense?  
Anyway I wandered away to address other problems and returned to the by now switched off laptop.  Coming back to life it went haywire and I found myself with my old 'Word' asking which saved copy I wished.  Neither were the one I was working on, that had disappeared.
I chose the best, returned to rewriting the whole thing and by long after the curfew I managed to scramble something together that will not do at all when she sees it in the morning.  
Muttering things of the top of my enormous head here is one thing, writing for others who can read and think at the same time with no understanding of my mental outlook is quite another.  When I enter the premisis tomorrow I expect blank looks and rude words for my efforts.

An almost twenty year old picture there, but the weather has not changed much, except for getting worse of course.  How can I excercise when the wind outside is so strong it blows my bike back the way I have come?  Worse on a hill!
So instead I exercised inside today as I hoped this woudl stimulate the brain.  
It failed but it did stimulate several muscles to screech blue murder as I did so.  Now other areas are indicating they did not like such efforts either.  It's not as if I did much is it?  Yet I fear for the morning as it will be rougher when I wake.

Iceland Make me Giggle.

The sad faces around town today after England's ignominious defeat by Iceland in the European Championships has really made my day.  All the vehicles yesterday festooned wth little England flags are suddenly  without them and nobody wishes to bring them back to memory.
It's a giggle innit?
Naturally I have said little, few at work care, but it is clear if I play my cards correctly I can wander round to the 'Iceland' supermarket and carry one of their bags for a few days in an irritating manner just for fun.  Well fun for me anyhow.
The TV & radio appear disinterested in the result.  An attempt at hanging them all has been underway but there is no real heart in it.  Before they went they knew deep inside they would fail so resentment is hard to collect.
In fact so little trouble was caused in this small town that it took over an hour before a set of blue flashing lights made its way towards the pubs.  In the past it would take around ten minutes for trouble to brew.  
Ah well, real football begins on Thursday anyway.

     
A hard slog today.  Suddenly I was ordered to dig out material so that we could put something in the local paper.  
"When do you want it?" I foolishly asked. 
"By three!" Shae replied.
 Yikes! It's half one now!
Coming home the workman was next door and he started to ask about his dead uncle who served in the war.  Foolishly I began a search.  Finding nothing Idiscovered I had ten minutes to send something I had not done by email.
Doing said project I discovered it was a daft idea.  So I did another relevant one and sent it on.
"Good."  Came the reply,  "I can make use of this mess and rewrite in English."
Happily I relaxed.
"And I want a full blog on this NOW!" 
I have started it and have been given the impression it must be in by tomorrow or bits will be cut off.
Women are such hard taskmasters.
I have not had my siesta because of this and I feel the lack of it now.
Bah!

Rabbit & Squirrel Breakfast

Rabbits, those cuddly creature loved by kiddies and hated by farmers, go back a long way.  Excavators at Boxgrove in West Sussex found evidence of then dating back to half a million years BC.  The Ice Age soon chased them away and the Phoenicians recorded them in Spain 2000 years BC.  Some claim the Romans brought them to Britannia but that is not yet proved.  Certainly the Romans farmed them, except when the beasts dug deep and escaped, and somehow or other farmers can prove they exist in Britannia now.  The Romans ate them as a useful food source but the Old Testament classed them as 'unclean' foodstuffs as they like pigs, camels and other banned creatures  scavenge and live off anything around and are therefore unhealthy.  You would not eat pigeons today for the same reason, whether wild rabbits are healthy only farmers can say as I believe many still eat those they shoot.

Six thirty in the morning is a good time for breakfast.  Fattening food from chip shops or takeaways do not bother some people however.  If it's free go for it is the attitude even if it is raining hard.

 
Not sure I would eat him either mind.

Spy Woman, Fat and Mess

Last night, as there was no football to stimulate the mind, I wandered round to the museum to hear a talk on Krystyna Skarbek by a local author Clare Mulley.  It seems this was a well to do Polish lass who  was a bit of an adventure seeker.  When the Germans invaded she was in South Africa for reasons I forget and made her way to London and offered herself for spy work.  The British of course had no women in such roles and espionage and behind the lines work was considered somewhat dangerous for wee lassies early in the war.  Later when things were organised several women died, often horribly, for work behind the lines in France.
Eventually Krystyna got work via the Polish forces and spent some time gathering information and boyfriends along the way, I told you she was adventurous, predatory possibly one said.  She worked in dangerous situations in Europe with a husband/boyfriend I forget which there were lots, and only by feigning TB did she manage to get the Germans to throw both of them out.  Their escape across Europe led them to Cairo where the British considered her a German double agent!  Lifes like that.
Later from London she entered France and worked alongside several others annoying the Germans before and after D-Day.
She was awarded many medals including a George Cross, the highest civilian award for bravery, an OBE and the Croix de Guerre plus the usual things.  Not bad for a wee lassie.  She also ended up with two husbands, several men and lots of associations.  As the Soviet KGB also knew about her she was of no use after the war to the British spy network so she was dumped.  She was also refused British citizenship, something this continues today where such folks are concerned, but eventually settled under one of her many names in London. 
Here however an angry boyfriend stabbed her to death and ended her life in 1952.  A somewhat sad end to a woman of adventure and er, romance.
The talk was interesting even though the acoustics are not great and my hearing failures meant I missed much of it.  I would have bought the book but through no fault of my own I ended up washing the cups! 

Before the thunder & lightning returned this morning I headed East into the sun on my rusty old bike and made my way around town in an effort to get fit.  I got stiff knees and aching back so this fitness idea is working.  However the weight is creeping up rather than falling and later today as I visited the Turkish Market that appeared the other day for the second time and came home with a large bag of Mediterranean sweet cakes I wondered why?  You know what I refer to?  The Middle East sweet cakes stuffed with healthy things and wrapped in greasy unhealthy stuff?  I love them and rarely see them so I bought too many the other day and foolishly ate them!  I may need to ride the bike to Inverness to lose the weight I am putting on today!   
However I managed to buy the black cord jacket I have been looking for since three years ago for £12 in an expensive charity shop.  This idea of smartening myself up appears to be working.  Now I look like a poor man's Jeremy Clarkson but without the talent!
Good news however football has returned for a while.  Are you not all glad?

Well it worked!  Farage told them what they wished to hear, Boris scared them with talk of millions of immigrants and the people who read the 'Sun,' 'Daily Express' & 'Daily Mail' fell for it.  Now everyone with an Irish ancestor is applying for an Irish passport so they can travel in Europe, buisnessmen will have to fill reams of paper to visit EU nations, young folks are unable to work in EU as they are no longer part of it and even today some nations will not exchange the pounds in tourists pockets because they do not know hos stable the Pound actually is.  Well done Boris!
Interestingly the people who will discuss the leaving strategy have excluded Nigel Farage the rabblerouser who led from the front with his lies.  Poor thing how I feel for him!  
We now have a 'lame duck' Prime Minister who will not do anything to help the Brexit folks who have cost him his job, he cannot bring in legislation as he has no control over his party, the main contenders for his job, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Theresa May are collecting friends and stabbing each other in the back as we speak, well they are stabbing Boris as no Conservative member really wishes him as leader.  George Osborne however has disappeared altogether, where is he?  His faulty handling of the economy, his high handed approach to the nation and his failing budgets mean few Tories will vote for him. The Labour Party is divided and the lack of leadership worrying, The Lib-dems mean nothing and only the Scots nationalists have a clue what to do.
Another independence vote is on the cards soon.  Just see how many companies cross the border and settle in Edinburgh then!  In Ireland even those who wish to remain 'British' and looking for Irish passports, and the Belfast government has no choice but to discuss unity with Dublin.  Europe on one hand laughs, on the other is afraid others will wish to join England.  
All is amiss and if Putin wishes to invade now is the time!