Getting Old

 I still find it hard to believe that I'm 67 and not 37!  I don't feel old in my head but my body, well, that's quite a different matter.  It reminds me all the time and thereby hangs the frustrating thing about getting old.

Recently the backs of my hands have been feeling a little tender not helped by Grandson 1 cracking his head against the back of my right hand!  Jeez did that hurt.  It's where countless cannulas have been inserted over the years (on both hands).  They tended to ask what hand towards the latter period but now the skin shows the scars of these insertions as do my arms. 

I damaged my knees when I was in my 30s playing cricket and they've never been the same since.  I had 6 weeks of barely being able to walk and had to have taxis to and from work!   SO now, if I do any heavy lifting or perhaps I'm working off of steps or ladders, I can really feel it not at the time but next day. If I remember I have knee braces and so that helps.

My back just gives me a bit of jip when I do silly things like lifting grandchildren, leaning out too far, lifting heavy stuff.  I have a back brace if I remember to use it.  At least I don't get the debilitating back pain but I know it is there.

My arms ache if I've done some heavy work so muscle relaxant for those.

My eyes are sensitive in Hay fever season but sometimes they just get weepy. I have heat mask and drops in case I need them albeit its not that often.

Lately my left hip has been giving me some problems - no idea why, perhaps creased bed sheets and lying on them, not sitting properly in my chair, who knows?

I don't get headaches, or very rarely and so that isn't a problem and I've had problems with my ears all my life but I live with that every day.

So there you have it, falling apart although I am pleased that I do not have anything more serious and I'm glad that the Bladder Cancer is behind me and I don't think about it much unless it comes up in conversation or some sort of reminder, normally someone I know who has cancer or knows someone who does.

I think I'm not ready to get old nor do I have the right attitude about it or am I doing things in retirement that I have the opportunity to do.  I'm working on that now.  I must do things and get out of the house more whilst I still have the energy to do so!

That Rare Feeling

That rare feeling is when you are unaware that it is or was a magical feeling.  Somehow you were connected to something much greater, you felt quite different.  It was probably fleeting, it was in my case but it is quite memorable and I can recollect these feelings in vivid recall.

I've probably mentioned the one that was the most powerful.  Eleven years ago I was head over heels in love with my "Angel" as I called her back then, she came in and out of my life in a way that altered much of how I was feeling and changed things around.  It was never to be, sadly for me I guess but the amazing summer of 2013 is vivid and whilst we only me a handful of times those moments were quite magical as were some of the experiences.  

We met at a location where there was a "secret" walled garden with a pond nearby and we sat on a bench and so heightened were my senses that I could smell all the flowers, hear all the insects and we held on to each other in the softest way you could imagine.  Everything was right, the soft afternoon sun, there were very few other people about.  It was just the sun's warmth and the heady smell of the flowers, the buzz of insects and the wonderful person I was with.   I wrote a poem about it, it's in a special place stored away.

Whether or not it was a warm and sunny summer in 2013 I don't know but to me it was always warm and sunny and I spent a lot of time wandering across the fields and woods were I lived and everything was alive.  The wind rustled the Silver Birch trees and danced among the trees in the woods and when I got across into the golden cornfields, the pre-harvest heads were dancing in the breeze and it was like nothing else as I stood there, in the middle of all this corn with no one else around just me, the corn, the sun warming my body and the breeze making it all dance together and it was then that, once again, I was somewhere else, in tune with this landscape, at one with my surroundings and deeply connected to it.

When I was a young man and we had moved to Orpington / Petts Wood area I was walking toward home, from Petts Wood past the suburban houses and I was in Willett Way, I remember it most vividly when the sun again was warm and you could feel your whole body warm up but not humid hot or overly so just warm and comforting and it warmed your bones if you know what I mean?  The Privet Hedges were in bloom and I recall the smell of them as I walked past, the smell of other fragrant garden flowers as all the gardens were so well tended with bedding plants.  Again. it is only a momentary glimpse into something or somewhere else.  Somewhere where we should be more often, connected to out surroundings and at one with it.

There are a few other moments like these but they are few and far between and it's something we are all missing.  The trouble is you cannot find it by inquiring or reading books (although they can point you there I guess).  It's a case of feeling it and letting it take you over.  Being an INTJ does not lend itself to this sort of thing and trying to work out what is going on in a spreadsheet isn't going to help me.  I intend to try and be at one more often but planning to let it happen is not going to cut it.

So here's a little bit of the lost poem:

I walk through countryside and remember the warm summer heat,

I see her now in every whispered zephyr in the trees and branches,

The warmth on my face from the sun’s warming rays, 

The fragrance of a hidden garden and invisible breeze on the corn field dances.

The rest of the poem is ours and actually it's painful for me to read it now, gosh it opens me up to the world and not in a way that I'd be comfortable with?  It's private but it is emotionally deep for someone like me who doesn't normally display emotions.  

Old Friend - Reconnecting

 I noticed a post on LinkedIn and there was a name I knew and so I clicked through and realised it was who I thought it was and then checked my email address book and confirmed that it was correct and noticed the last time I wrote was 10 years ago just as I moved to my rented house and left my ex.

Gosh, ten years, where has that gone?  We've just exchanged a few emails and caught up.  Not the greatest of news on their side which is very sad I have to say.  It's been a sad week as my friend who fosters children has had the devastating news that their young charge is now terminal with leukaemia.  He wasn't given long around 9 years ago but he pulled through making what everyone predicted was a full recovery but it is back and he's not at all well.  My friends are wonderful people and no one deserves this.  Likewise my reconnected friend has similar trials and tribulations going on too.

How strange it was that when writing to my reconnected friend I had an ear worm rattling through my head and I recognized it as the first dance tune for their wedding where I was the DJ.  It's a lovely piece of music and I hadn't known of the artist until they requested it.  That was interesting that my connection was like that.  Interestingly I've know the person in question since we met on holiday in .... wait for it ..... 1977.  I went out with their friend, my first serious girlfriend.  

Lovely memories I think....  

Unintended Consequences

I used to argue with my bosses that they often did things without thinking through the consequences of doing them.  They would change their minds like they changed their underpants and you never knew what plan we were on during any given day.

The problems were that they obviously were sitting in the bath the night before and suffered a Eureka moment and then it was policy the next day.   I like a plan but one that is ill thought through or costed or that has no tangible benefit is not going to wash with me and hence I used to have arguments with my bosses quite frequently.

They could not understand that when they made some sort of ruling that there would be impacts elsewhere.  I don't know why but when they attained these high offices on the business, someone obviously sucked out half their brains, I'm sure of it.  If you expect a certain type of behaviour from your staff to, say, earn a bonus or some such then they, generally, are going to do what is wanted to earn said bonus or whatever is available from the boss.  It meant that quickly things got out of control as staff now motivated and targeted to do certain things to secure their bonus or whatever it was acted differently achieving goals that were not putting money into the company or delivering any value whatsoever.  People disappeared from my teams and projects as the bosses did whatever they were doing and I was left to "discuss" the lack of progress with the customer.  Me, being me, would get my boss in front of the customer to explain where my staff had disappeared to.

These things are missed by politicians and they make some edict and wonder why something else happens they weren't expecting.  The tick the box exercises in Government Departments being a case in point.  The process is the problem in so many projects.  It's a bit like quality assurance versus quality control.  Assurance means that you go through all the various stages to assure the quality of the deliverable.  If it is a piece of cr@p to start with it will still be one at the end but with full traceability.  It doesn't make a better deliverable whereas quality control does (is it fit for purpose?).  

When the Government bring in certain things, albeit for the right reasons, they don't see that the consequence of their actions are diametrically opposite of what they thought.  They aren't business people and so don't "get it" that, for example, Landlords don't rent out the houses and flats for the love of it.  They do so to make money and for profit (the great God).  Legislating that Landlords will have less powers to evict etc will lead them to do something else with their properties and why not?  Trying to protect the tenants using the "Sledgehammer to crack a walnut" doesn't work.  If it goes through it will drive behaviour the wrong way and suddenly there'll be a shortage of rental stock and the politician's, too stupid to work it out, will try and do something else which will worsen the situation further. 

Like my old bosses, they just cannot leave things alone, they have to pick and nanny around the edges and rather than improve things, many times they screw things up.  Tell them this and they shoot the messenger.  

We're All Far Right Now

 The level of complete unawareness - cognitive dissonance if you will, of our ruling class borders on complete ignorance.

Let's take the hooligan element out of it as there are other ways to protest, such as the Gandhi style of making yourselves ungovernable.  What's happening is that no one is listening to the population of this country.   They say they are but they just don't get it and they don't understand that their actions (or the lack thereof) has some sort of reaction.  Things have been going bad here for 20 - 25 years or so I guess, certainly since the last Labour Government and no one has tackled any of it.  The stealth taxes, the immigration and the lack of integration of those immigrants.  The rise in sectarianism, the lack of values of these people, the loss of our country's values - if you don't fit in but want to make our country like the sh1t hole you escaped from then you are coming here for the wrong reasons.

The lack of value of human lives, the rise in violent crime and all other forms of crime and not doing anything about it.  Penalising ordinary citizens with ridiculous road and car rules, green taxes rocketing fuel prices, no Plan B for when the wind don't blow or the sun don't shine.  Shutting down our industries and pricing them out and now importing all our goods and services - moving your half-witted green agenda off shore!  Wankers!

The new Government are now myopically trying to work out whey the people are angry and upset.  They have started to have enough, it's beginning to brew up and they don't realise what is causing it and are treating the symptoms and not the cause.  Weak on crime, blaming ordinary citizens, making us pay through the nose for their failings, higher taxes and no improvement in services.  Obvious and outright corruption right in our faces but of course, it's our fault, the great unwashed.  They've forgotten that they were put in place by the people and are there to serve us not vice versa.

They throw our money around the world giving it to countries, some of whom, have their own space race! They promote war(s) and send out money there, they give billions to people who've never done a decent days hard work in their lives who then lose it and plead it was somebody else's fault all the time, the public take the brunt of the f**k ups.  Take the Post Office and all the innocent Post Masters and Mistresses locked up because of a Corporate cover up.  The people at the top get a slap on the wrist other lost their livelihoods, their families, their life savings, their friends and some lost their lives.   Just collateral damage for the corporate good/greed.  

Don't get me wrong. I'm a capitalist and a conservative but all of this corruptions and inability to control money, do the right thing, bring people being paid our money to heel and get them to actually do the job they are paid to do, it's basic sh1t right?

My job back in the day was to get things done.  In my world, someone who was not fit for the job would be reassigned or fired.  Simple as.  My bosses and our shareholders wouldn't allow for anything else.  It didn't matter who you were either.  They were there to do a job for which they were handsomely paid and whilst we all make mistakes, failure to do your job, deliver on time, cost, quality etc. was the fastest way to see the exit doors.

If you stand up and say that these things are so, that immigration is out of control, that people are not assimilating in to our way of life, that the tail wags the dog so to speak, that crime is out of control, that we are being robbed of our money by people who squander and p1ss our money up the wall, well.... you guessed it you are Far Right apparently.  So be it.  I suggested many years ago that there would be a kick back against all of these things.  You can only berate and beat the public unjustly for so long.  Beating up the working class will get you into very hot water.  This Government are just beginning to learn that.  It's a bit late though. 

Interesting. Social Media Leaves Nothing Unrecorded

 So the Government knowing full well that electricity prices are going up 10% in October and that other commodities may be volatile especially oil (so my heating fuel) decide to stop the annual fuel payment to pensioners (me) this year.  That's quite a blow as it covers around 475 Litres of fuel (or about a month and a half of heating oil) that I've now got to find.  With a 10% increase in electric probably going to set me back around £200, it's an unwelcome - but not surprising - move from s Socialist Government.  

The Internet is fun though as it shows last year that the very same people were cautioning the Government NOT to take away the fuel allowance as (you know) it affects the pensioners who actually need fuel and the like to keep warm in the winter because climate change hasn't delivered in the past 50 years the Mediterranean or North African climate we were promised, nothing like it!  The last time these goons were in power they kicked off this cheaper, reliable, renewable electric sh1t.  Guess what?  Our fuel prices have exploded as we pay more to line people's pockets, green though they may be, and not deliver one benefit to us, the people who are paying through the nose for it.

It wouldn't surprise me if the next move is to take away the triple lock that aligns pensions to the cost of living etc.  They also argued for that not to be taken away.  Lying scumbags the lot of them.

My response if going to be that I will now use my lovely log burner more this year.  I'll stockpile a load more logs than usual and f**k the lot of them.  I also intend to claim every benefit I can and make myself a bloody nuisance in the process.  I do feel sorry for those who voted for this bunch of chancers.  They are probably now beginning to see what we've seen for years that they aren't that different from the last lot at all.  They can afford to send £11 BN of our tax money overseas but cannot fund £300 for 10 million pensioners who, in the main, have worked all their lives to earn their pension and had it delayed too.  Some more than others, some women 6 years delay me 1 year.  

So come this winter, let's see how many old people they sacrifice to support foreign aid, equality rights, reparations and all the nice virtue signalling stuff.  There's not a practical one among them.  It makes me laugh when they speak about how wind power powered the whole country once, on a specific day for an hour or two.  They totally miss the point that when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine you need to have the exact same amount of backup generation available at a moments notice to cover that off.   But that's OK because we blew up our old Power Stations!  Utterly useless politicians playing with our lives.  When the lights start going out across the country in rolling blackouts and people can no longer heat their homes, I do hope they'll remember the utopia that they are building for us?  

Me?  I'm going to work out how I can stick one finger up to the lot of them and be a pain in their side.

Really? Bat Sh1t Bonkers

 The new Chancellor has found a £22 Bn hole in the finances. Surprising as she has had privileged access to the accounts all the time she was shadow chancellor!  Suddenly a few weeks into Government she has magicked up these figures when the OBR and other Fiscal Organisations like the ECB etc and the Civil Service have all said everything is as was stated before.  So here we go, lying scumbag time and the first thing they do is take away the Pensioner's fule relief.  I got that once last year it was useful considering their batsh1t bonkers plans to go green doubled my fuel bills.

Pensioners get around £12,600 a year or thereabouts and the £300 (I think it was £500 though) helps with fuel bills which in my case are around £1800 for electricity and £2,000 or so for heating fuel which we pay in advance not monthly like gas or electric. The minimum wage is £11.44 an hour or £85.80 a day for a 7.5 hour day and if you work say 45 weeks a year then you'd see around £19,305 a year so around £7K more than a pensioner has to live on.  You'll hear the well off stating that they're glad that this has happened.  It's just the first slash of the knife and it's a Labour Government, it will get worse.

So let's assume she's lying because a). she's a politician and b). she needs to pay for all the spending she's about to do to pay for her spending spree.  Anyway that's batsh1t part one.

Batsh1t part two has to be the JSO boys and girls who yesterday tried to stop passengers at Gatwick and this morning have done the same at Heathrow.  Another lot tried something in London and let's hope the Judge deals with them the same way the M25 and Dartford protesters were dealt with and they go to prison.  Once again, a minority cult tries to impose it's ideas on others not by rational debate, data and persuasion of argument, oh no, they have to force us to be as stupid as they are because they cannot win and argument when they hold religious zealot like ideas hatched in the shrivelled brains of their low IQ leaders.

At some point we should all get mighty fed up of this.  Hard working families who have saved all year for a family holiday with their children should not have to put up with soap dodging smelly wrinkled hippies trying to stop them.  I know a few likely lads that would enjoy sending these cultists to the land of nod with a carefully aimed suitcase :-)

We really are living through the strangest of times and the backlash, when it comes will be palpable.  I clearly enjoy the thought of these feckless politicians forcing us to drive massively expensive un-affordable EVs and then trying to lumber us with a tax for owning cars of that value - not exactly joined up thinking is it.   

I'm waiting for the next batsh1t bonkers thing to come out of these people's minds.  It's been like the Emperor's new clothes for 10 to 20 years now and no one seems to think that it is absurd or strange that these people are making our lives cr@p through their "leadershop" rather than what we pay them to do.  No one asked for this stuff, it isn't in their Manifesto or the promises they made to get elected, it never is, they lie all the time.  How do you now a politician is lying?  Their lips are moving, that's how.  

When Will The People Wake Up?

It's all a bloody con, all of it.  Heat Pumps, Windmills (17th Century technology re-imagined), Electric Cars, or battery cars (20th Century technology replaced by cheaper reliable ICE cars) look at London of the early 1900s and see the electric cars we had back then.  Solar panels and "CHEAP Renewable" energy that is neither cheap nor renewable.

The bare faced lies about how better our lives would be is not matched by the action nor the will of the politicians.  The bottom line is we cannot afford it.  Estimates of £3 Trillion or more just for the UK to achieve a reduction of 1% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere.  Absolute idiots.  with CO2 at 424 parts per million we really could do with more around 1200 parts per million as that would green the planet and increase yields of crops etc.

But people suck this sh1t up and love it, telling me about Climate Justice and all the wonderful things that will happen when we give up oil and coal.  Where do these people think nearly everything we have relies on these fuels - I won't say fossil fuels as that in itself is another gimmick word like Global Warming, Ice free Arctic, unchecked global sea rise, extreme weather and any other crap adjectives they appear to throw at it.

Some basic questions could be asked about the rise of humans.  They came out of Africa and moved along the coasts and populated most of the world.  They did indeed do this without oil, gas or coal (I guess).  So presumably it was a lot warmer back in those days or you'd have frozen to death without clothes and shelter of some sort?  So today, could you live without clothes and central heating?   Not here in the UK, you would die and it isn't warm enough even in the summer without fire, clothes etc.  So why do people want to go back to a period when without these essential to life sort of items you'd die?  Have you observed the poor homeless on the street?  Would you like to end up there, in a cave or all the things you take for granted?

I see the JSO brigade were out this morning trying to block people from flying using their nylon clothes, oil based trainers, oil based glue - you get the picture.  They all look the same whenever you see them, the sort of Hippy styled never worked a day in their lives sorts who are cult like certain that they are right and the vast majority of us are stupid.  Luckily people were walking over them and dinking their suitcases into them doing so.   

I don't feel the resentment brewing yet, I suppose give the Labour Government - they appear to be lying already about things like the economy and why we must pay more money to them!!!!  It will hopefully end very badly indeed for them too.  Government Money = Our Money....  

Anyway, enough of a rant for today - I just need everyone to wake up, do a little research and get angry that we aren't better off even though the bloke who's in charge of energy told us years ago that we would be.  We are paying the highest taxes already since WW2 - around 70% burden I understand and it's going to get worse.  It's already turning into a sh1t show and this bunch of clowns are so detached from the public and what they think that things could indeed start to turn if not this year then I hope next year...   We wait and see if the pain caused by higher prices and taxes will wake the great unwashed up and they will be heard. 

My MP is probably fed up of me telling him what I think.  Not enough people do this though they just carry on being "RULED" by these incompetents.  

In The Event Of My Death

 trying to get people to talk about death is difficult.  I'm just going through the process of putting in place a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) for finance and health together with what used to be called a Living Will - which is about treatment (or not) and DNR notices etc.

I need to speak to those who will be affected but I can see they really don't want to broach the subject.  But, we have to talk about it.  So I've ordered a little book to write all this stuff down, you will be surprised how much there is.  Just killing off my Social Media footprint and so on is a start and then there's all the other stuff not contained in my Will.

I'm not planning on disappearing in the near term but you never know do you?  Best get all this lot straight so that when I'm not here they can work out what to do and untangle the stuff I've take 60+ years tangling up!!!

Diet, No Alcohol - going alright

 Feeling OK after over a week of doing this now.  Appetite is good, some weight lost - apparently my face looks thinner and definitely some gone off my waist I can see and feel it.  I don't know how much as I'm not measuring this time.

The money I'd spend on beer has gone towards some nice food that I'd not normally buy, Crab, Artichoke, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Olives, Salamis (of all types) and so on.  I've just got to keep away from bread, beer and pasta which isn't too hard so far and I'm drinking plenty of carbonated water too.

I think I might have a beer on Tuesday with some friends or perhaps I'll see if the have the 0% Guinness which is pretty OK.  Has carbs in it for sure but at least I won't be pressurising my Liver too much.

I am looking at living wills today and lasting power of attorney for financial and health reasons.  I'd like to get these into place in case anything happens to me.  I'm an attorney for my business partner and for my mother.  They are legal documents that set out who you would like to make decisions on your behalf.  

It's complicated as I have two daughters and I'm living with my partner and I cannot quite reconcile the health element.  Who decides whether it's time for me to be moved to a home for example if I become incapable and trying to get an answer to that difficult question has delayed the process by 6 months so far as there's no willingness to address that possibility.  Many people don't want to face up to what could be inevitable. I'd rather spark the conversation now and draw up plans for it so they know what my wishes are.  I do not want to be a burden on anyone and I'm not sure the triumvirate are thinking practically at the moment.

I'm sure I can get them all to see the logic and practicality of this at some time in the near future.  I'm also looking at a funeral plan that just involves no real service, just a cremation and that's it.  If anyone wants to do anything else then they can but I don't want any fuss etc. 

There's Something Strange Going On

 I don't know about you?  I used to find that things happened and whilst I might have been p1ssed off about it, I moved on and found the next thing that p1ssed me off?  I found that I dwelt on things in my head, I'm an INTJ, that's what we do but some time ago I worked out that these things were very damaging to my well being.  They lived rent free in my head but I didn't go around spouting this stuff off to random people.

There's lots going on out in the weird world.  Today I came across someone who was convinced that people reminiscing about the late Queen's appearance at the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony was all about Brexit.  That happened - I don't know, what six or more years ago?  It's a bit like people who don't like Donald Trump.  He's actually been the elected leader of the USA.  To hear people here in the UK say stuff like he's an idiot or stuff like that is just strange as you don't get to be the President if you are an idiot, oh wait, Joe Biden, OK I'll take that all back LOL.

It's this calling names, yelling vitriol and judgemental world we live in these days.  Social media doesn't really help with everyone jumping in, making absurd comments, unjustified accusations and in many cases perverting the course of justice.  Something happens and the great unwashed become judge and jury, condemning someone based on a 30 second piece of mobile phone (there's always a bloody mobile phone) footage!  

Social media shows its side of the story and everyone jumps and accuses.  They aren't so quick to undo their actions when a little later some more facts come out, the damage is done.  Whilst I'm on the Social Media bandwagon, so much of it is contrived nonsense, no doubt TikTok or whatever is partially to blame but there's never a good deed done that doesn't go un-filmed from many angles?  When was the last time you were out and just happened to stick your phone onto HD Video mode and filmed a random stranger in the remote possibility they may do something nice to someone you don't know?  

The Brexit thing makes me laugh as it has been a long time now and people are still angry about a fully democratic vote that didn't turn out the way they wanted.  I've just felt the same where a new Government has been elected on around 30% of the vote with a huge majority and we now have a socialist party in place.  Now I remember the last one and it was pretty bad and cost me personally tens of thousands of pounds, they destroyed my first business with their taxes (I'm the sort of person who decided that I didn't want to litigate or fight, I just took the money and shut down the business and they had no taxes from me so at a stroke that's my personal tax, company taxes, NI and all of those - I used to pay my way but not after they stole it from me).  They destroyed my retirement savings and my shares were raided, as was my pension and savings and people have very very short memories.

We also forget that we, the people, have the power but we think that our MPs and the like do.  The late Tony Benn  (Labour party) developed five questions to the powerful – “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?”

People are generally ignorant of how they could take back control and how to exercise their power but they are too busy not listening or learning to know how to do it. 

The Weaponisation Of Words In The MSM

I have often found that the language being used today as well as graphics are designed to confuse and obfuscate an ever more stupid populace.  People seem to have gone in to stupid sleepy mode.  No one questions things anymore for fear of being yelled at or worse almost assaulted.  I've had people yell to my face that I'm a racist, an unthinking bigot and so on all the while they are the ones exhibiting the sort of behaviour that is unwarranted in a truly free society! 

Weaponisation - so here there are people erasing or changing words to soften the message or harden it - based on how the think we should feel about it.  Today, removing the word "Illegal" when talking about Illegal Immigration for example.  Heatwave used to be for one or more weeks now it is a day of heat.  Unprecedented when most things have happened before like it.  Weather maps look like the fires of hell when it's 25 Degrees C.  Graphs that only show what they are trying to prove not a proper analysis.

The other one is this propensity to say things like 75% of 65 women agree.  which is something like 48%.  It's all bollocks again and the worst ones are figures for things like ur national grid which almost all of our demand was met by renewables when that's probably no where near possible.  We need every square metre of the country filled with Hydro, Wind and Solar to actually do that.  A look at the National Grid's own website shows that we import quite a lot of energy from the continent - we import our electricity and gas.

Heat Pumps are the way forward?  Well I got quoted close to £30,000 to change from my Oil Boiler to a heat pump  and the major costs were to do with upgrading everything to maybe perhaps get the thing to work properly in the UK!

What else?  How about just dumbing down the way that things are spoken of, The one that is "Interesting" is Islamophobia it's a nonsense what are you frightened of?  Phobias are not hatred, they are for example like my Claustrophobia it doesn't mean that I hate tight closed spaces, it means I'm frightened of them, arachnophobia means you don't like Spiders and most people are too afraid to hate them or even get anywhere near them.  These are lazy words, they are in themselves designed to be misinterpreted and feared.

As I said graphs are even worse, they only show you a little part of the argument  they support.  Climate Change is so hilarious.  It was hotter in the 1930s than it is now so when do you think the graphs start.  When they talk about historical data they never include the Roman or Medieval Warm Periods when it was warm enough to have vineyards right up to Newcastle in the north of England.  When Greenland was in fact a Green Land - so why are they doing this?  It's propaganda pure and simple, keeping you under their thumb and making you do their will.  

I can only fight my little area but fight we must as these people who claim to be in power are only there by our will and are meant to be working on our behalf.  Watching the creep of the Labour Party and what they are up to should send shivers down the spines of all working class people.  They will find out too late that they are the sheep in this equation and that the Shepherd and his Dog might be keeping them safe for now.  

That Was A Good Night

 Out with my school chums - known them all over 50 years.  Drank only 0% Guinness and my friend who had his heart operation too was drinking zero cider.  It's actually quite interesting as I suggested that I'd not been great these past 4 years and they too felt this.  We don't do things as often as we used to.  We stay at home more than go out now and we all sort of agreed that we weren't feeling "quite right" can't put your finger on it but not quite right.

I've planned to limit drinking right down now hence no actual alcohol last night at all.  The newer versions of 0% beer are OK and fill in nicely - you don't actually need to sauce yourself up to enjoy a good time.   

I'll be having a few beers in mid August when we are away but other than that, I am going to essentially go dry and cut out the beers and give my body a rest.  Since lock-down I've been constantly having one or two beers in an evening and frankly it can't be doing me any good.  I haven't had any beers now since last Friday and I only had those as I'd been working on my daughter's house in these high temperatures and came home, bought a six pack, had a shower and sat in the garden, with my neck fan on, enjoying some music and beers.

That's where I'll miss it I guess as that's when I associate one with the other.

I have to say that a long chat about our ailments and our various drinking habits (or not) has made me feel a lot better today, better than I have felt for a while.  That's good, I just need more of the same.  What I certainly don't need is the traffic App saying the road was clear when, in fact, it was totally closed last night Grrr.  I had to drive quite a way out of my way to get there and back!  Oh and pay the bloody ULEZ charge - I was probably only 500 yards into the zone!  

Still in Recovery

 I guess that's possible.  It's traumatic having Cancer no doubt about it.  I think I found the treatment the worst part in it all as that often seemed the harshest bit and the side effects weren't pleasant but I AM STILL HERE. That's important in this thinking.  

There's the physical stuff and the mental stuff, then there's the affect it has on those around you whether they say so or not.

I'm not my old self, not by a long way.  I'm far more emotional and not my good old logical self, although others may tell you otherwise as I still have my INTJ traits and so I'm good at those sorts of business situations that need thought and planning to get out of wherever there are problems.  I still do not suffer fools gladly and I still speak my mind.  I enjoy watching people of modern disposition cringe when they hear my views and they are forthright of course.  I know what I know and I also know what I don't know.  A lot of people are very surprised when I say that I haven't got a view on something.  If I have no interest in it, or I don't know enough about it, I don't comment other than to state that I don't know.  

I am though somewhat out of sorts at the moment.  I don't think the last 18 years or so have been easy for me at all.  My cancer, the loss of a great job, getting involved with a bunch of (I can't say crooks) utter idiots who failed to work out that in order to be millionaires you actually had to do some work for it and not rely on other people. Then the relationship breakdown, the house rental, the divorce, finding someone else and the uncertainty that brings when you've failed in the past how do you work on not screwing up again?  Suddenly you are walking on egg shells and tiptoeing around so as not to end up back where you were?

It's been very strange recently as I have gone back to being a bit of a hermit and not really wanting to go out and do stuff.  Saying that I am venturing out tonight to see some old school chums.  I've found recently that I hate London, I dislike driving, people drive like they are in an F1 Race!  The roads aren't all that nice and of course, like tonight I get £12.50 for driving just into the ULEZ zone - that's probably more than I'll spend on a couple of drinks!

I need to get out more and do more things, I know that but I also have to stop my head doing whatever it is doing at the moment and giving me such a hard time.  I know how to do it and I kind of understand what is going on but it really is hard.  Knowing what is happening is OK because you recognise these changes but dealing with it, well that's another matter entirely.

When does it get better I wonder?  I need to be relaxing and enjoying my retirement which I am not doing right now.   

A Vertigo Morning

 An occasional rough morning.  Quite groggy still (it's early afternoon). It felt like I hadn't eaten for a few days that sort of slight sickness of an empty stomach and then the dizziness hit me.  Yuck, I don't like the feeling at all, I had to entertain the grandson from quite early in the morning until after breakfast and then just went and sat down in my chair and dozed a little to try and work it off.

Sort of OK now, still a little heady and my right ear (for which I've had trouble all my life) is certainly misbehaving.  Probably it's that causing the dizzy spells.

Other than that, I have started to try and settle myself down a bit and to try some relaxing techniques.  I am not sure the CBD oil has actually helped me at all.  I thought I'd give it one more try and the jury's out on its effectiveness with me.

Do let's see how I get on, I'm due out tonight to see some friends.  I think I'll not actually drink anything and in fact I'm erring on the side of keeping away from alcohol for a while.  I like a beer at the end of a day but I think I need to give it a rest for a while and see what happens.

Fighting the pain body still although not as bad as it was last week and the vivid dreams are no longer with me and I'm hoping that these give me a rest too.  It's difficult when you are fighting your own brain FFS.  It's certainly no use looking back at what might have been as nothing can be done about that no matter how much you wish for things to be different.

I've now got to tackle expectations too really as I had plans for a future that haven't materialized and those too, are totally out of my control and whilst you might like to think you are in control, I doubt that any of us truly are.  

Nothing Doing - Tired & Emotional

 Bloody hell!  I'm not my usual self and haven't been for a couple of years possibly 4 years - I'm sure that the lock-down sh1t didn't help my well being at all.  The way so many people just let a bunch of bureaucrats dictate what they could and couldn't do showed me another side of humanity and the collective sheep like reaction of most people.

I said it before that the Top Bloke Whitty had already been at his College explaining all about it and it wasn't dangerous to the vast majority of people.  Once I'd seen the video and digested all the facts he laid out the only people I felt worried for was those who were outlined as vulnerable and that wasn't me or about 95% of the population.

So that's one thing.  Then there's the amazing vaccine - developed for a Coronavirus (a cold) in 10 days and magically a number of companies all came up with it around the same time!  No one questioned it - some people I know are 6 shots down and without irony tell me they've caught Covid again?

What else is getting me down?  General nastiness and this current selfish attitude it goes from everything from how people treat each other whether driving, in the shops, online (it's disgraceful), forcing their views on others, doing things that they wouldn't like done to them and this victim culture is so bad at the moment.  We have people of notoriety saying they have PTSD because they were treated bad on a TV show for which they were paid handsomely and seemed to me to want to be competitive but suddenly, when they didn't get what they want, they are the victim of some one using "hurty words" or perhaps something equally awful.  I mean PTSD.  I know soldiers who have witnessed stuff that we, as civvies, could never understand or imagine.  They actually do have PTSD.  Getting shouted at because you are stupid does not qualify you for that.

I mentioned some years back that I had a sort of PTSD - not knowing quite how to describe surviving Cancer and more so the treatments, perhaps I can claim that it is something  like that.  The shock to your system, the "survivor" syndrome, the impact of Immunotherapy on your body and the worry about whether you will live or die (I had two young girls at the time - now grown up) was also uppermost in my mind.  

So that is just ridiculous and it really shouldn't worry me but I despair for humanity the way they act and behave these days. The lack of empathy for people and the taking sides in conflicts is another thing.  Listen to the arguments made for any conflict in the world and these days no one talks about peace, they take sides and fight proxy wars with our money and other people's lives.

I should like to stop thinking about these things and should do so.  Too many things are occupying my thoughts and I'm not just getting on doing what I'm doing.  

Sunday, a day of rest.

 I appear to be doing a lot of resting - having said that I spent a day at my daughter's helping her husband doing odd jobs on their new house.  Bless them, I remember well having to try and sort out major DIY work whilst working out what to do with the children.  Once I sent them away on holiday whilst I installed the kitchen - I did remarkably well, installing it all, including the tiling and making good, I then set off at 3 am the following Sunday morning and arrived by 9 to grab breakfast with them all.

It was a great drive to Wales - with very little traffic and in the darkness I could go at reasonable speeds through to where we were staying.

I'm still getting these flash back memories of things and I'm not sure why that's happening.  I grabbed some CBD bits but I don't think they help me at all in fact I think they make me worse really. 

You shouldn't regret things I think.  They just happened and that's it.  I found myself thinking, not obsessively, about the lady I met all too briefly 11 years ago and it couldn't have been, I think I knew that.  Circumstances were such that it couldn't have worked out for her.  I'd have given it all up but that's life as they say.  So my mind is playing tricks on me and I never truly forget about her - it may be months between these flash backs and I know it's just my ego / pain body trying to get attention.  I suppose I have to content myself with knowing that in another parallel universe we are together and we are happy.   

When I move on from that, other things occupy my mind and this battle is going on constantly and whilst I understand what's going on, I find it tiresome and a little annoying that I can't get out of the rut I'm in and move on doing something.

Retirement has sort of left a hole in life.  Circumstances too, in a way, do not help.  I've gone in on myself again and the thought of going to London for example fills me with dread.  The city I loved working in is a mess now.  I again recall how amazing it felt.  Late night London, perhaps raining, the lights in the houses observed from my train home. Taking the slow train as it wouldn't be too crowded, wondering what was behind each lit window and house, how they were warm and watching TV or listening to music and I was on the late train after a late evening at work a few beers with the team.  Things felt so different, quite alive back then.  I don't get those alive feelings much these days.  

By that I mean that there are certain times in life (maybe you can recollect them) where you were suddenly at one with your surroundings.  As a young man recently moved from London I recall walking on a summers afternoon towards home past houses on a typical suburban road and noticing the smell of the Privet Hedging, in bloom, the sun just felt right, warming the whole of my body, I could hear the bees and insects buzzing about, the sky was blue, and the air was warm to breathe.  Everything connected.  It happens less these days.  I struggle to find the peace and beauty that are there and then I try too hard to make those moments happen, concentrating on the wrong thing trying to focus too much, you just have to let these things happen.

The last time I truly felt alive was 11 years ago with the lady I mentioned at the beginning of this blog.  Maybe that's what I miss, how she made me feel?  How glorious was that summer?  The feelings were amazing, very real, magical and very special to me.  I wonder if you need love to make you feel that way or whether it is just to reconnect with nature and switch your brain off for a while.

Those who know me probably understand that switching my brain off would be very difficult for me.  Anyway, there you are, it's a lazy ish Sunday but I need to work on unplugging my brain for a while and to  stop regretting things for it shouldn't be a regret, it was wonderful, glorious, amazing and special.  Thinking of it that way cheapens the rest of my life and achievements though. 

A Neck Fan

Honestly, who'd have thought you'd want or need such a strange device?  Well, I saw someone with one and heard them saying how good it was and as luck would have it, on Amazon Prime day, for less than a tenner they delivered these amazing neck fan thingies.

They last about 6 hours on low - you probably don't need it up too high as it's like being out in a gale.  They lightly blow air up across you neck.  The only downside is that the air moving past your ears means you are aware of them sound-wise.  However, in the recent few days heat and humidity they are really rather good.  It's nice to have a small flow of air up your neck and the sides of your face.  They take about 2 hours to charge up off of a USB.

So there you go, another thing you never thought you'd want or indeed need turns out to be really useful especially in my little pokey office which can get a bit on the warm side.  

At Last, British Justice System

Sometimes I despair at the light "sentences" given out to wrong doers.  Some people steal thousands, get to pay back a £1 and get a slapped wrist.  That sort of thing.  It looks as if you can go steal anything you want up to the value of £200 and get a caution if indeed they find you.   

Just Stop Oil protesters have been given sentences of 4 and 5 years for bringing the M25 London Orbital Motorway to a standstill for about 4 days on and off.  The wet liberals protest this saying that they are exercising their right to free speech?????  Huh, free speech is exactly that, your right to say what's on your mind and generally, in these cases, make a bloody fool of yourself when challenged.  However, making people late for funerals, delaying an ambulance and the patient dying, thousands and thousands of wasted car journeys as people were stuck on the motorway, people missed flights home and missed Hospital Appointments, Cancer Treatments and so on.  How is that free speech?

These idiots, for I know no other word to describe them, are the sort of soap dodging scum who feel that it is right to force the rest of us to join their cult.  For a cult it is.  They all look the bloody same and they all spout bollocks freely like "Climate Justice"  "Stop all oil now" as they wear their oil by product clothes live in heated houses and actually, when you look deeper, run around in mummy and daddy's Range Rover SUV.  F*****g hypocritical slime bags.

You see what I did there?  I used my right to free speech to say what I felt :-)  I felt no need to block the road and stoop everybody going about their own business.  

So the other hilarious thing is my right not to hear or read what they say.  They also don't get that I have a right not to listen to them, not to engage, not to give a flying f**k what their point of view is either.  It drives them wild that you might block them on Social Media - watch the outrage and bed wetting melt downs of these insignificant half wits.  It really is fun to watch them explode with rage, they must have so much pent up aggression, poor dears.  I'm sure it will shorten their worthless petty lives too all that pent up stress, poor luvvies.  

Anyway, they can have a long hard think about things in prison and I imagine that when they are asked what their crime might have been there may be a little retribution.  Who knows one of the inmates might have got caught due to the M25 being blocked?    Perhaps one of their relatives was badly affected by their actions?  At least they'll be given soap and water and nice prison clothes (a by product of oil).  I imagine that they'll be a little disappointed at the Vegan options available and they made need Tarquin to smuggle in some Tofu or some such stuff.  I hope that they will have the decency not to have warm food or use central heating provided and that they will only use horse hair blankets and so on.  

Finally, no slapped wrist, five year (they'll only serve half for good behaviour) something that sends a message to stop pissing us off and affecting us with your inane climate bollocks.  You'll have yourselves a captive audience in Prison to tell your cultist theories to.  Good luck with that though, I imagine they'll shove your solar panels up where the sun don't shine!  

We, the general public, don't like these people ruining our lives and finally it looks as if the Courts agree.  About time I say, about bloody time. 

We Have Delivered Your Parcel

 After looking at the Proof of delivery picture that they now take I can say that emphatically you have delivered my parcel, I can see the logo clearly on the box.  The only problem being that it isn't my house at all. It's someone else's house.  My house is the on a road uniquely the only one of its name in the UK!  

Normally I don't have problems getting stuff but this time it's obviously gone wrong and these things happen and they happen rarely but trying to report it is a nightmare.  It (they have an AI Bot) sends you to a set of web pages that you go around and around in until you end up back where you started from.  What's the point in that? I've had to email my supplier to see if they can help to let them know as I'm blowed if I can.

So - another crap application by customer service and their developers.

This hot on heels of signing up for an online retailed offering discounts and free delivery.  So I have to register, no problem there and I go to search for the stuff I want when this FO intrusive pop up arrives asking me what I think about the experience.  Dear reader, I let them have both barrels - what a bunch of idiots.  Why not wait until after I had completed my very first order and interaction with them?  Then I would have known what the experience was like - I think I said that in a more robust and Anglo Saxon sort of way.

And my lovely neck fan has arrived courtesy Amazon Prime Day.  I don't know if you've seen them, they sit around your neck and blow air on to your head, not your face.  It's great, has three speeds, nice, powerful and a setting like a little tornado :-)  I find that I get quite hot in the office and my big chiller / cooler is located upstairs in the bedroom - it's heavy and so not exactly portable - this is lightweight and very good indeed.  It just takes away the overheating feeling I get quite often (more so since my treatment).

God Help Us All

 State opening of Parliament. King's Speech, good God.  Nationalization - again.  Jeez the cost to us the Tax payer.  Not just that, we aren't going to explore for more oil, why should we we can just import it!  Surely they'll give us a good price for it?  Wait until you see the reserves that Argentina have now discovered, we will be a third world country in no time the way we are heading.  

I've yet to hear that they will probably borrow more money to pay off our debts.  Those are in the trillions of £ss now.  Net Zero add £3.2 Trillion at latest estimates. That is approximately £47,760 per person in the UK.....  

Some of the other stuff is as barmy and head in the clouds as this too.  Oh well, we didn't actually proportionally vote this lot in but we get the leaders we deserve.  There will be a lot of people who thought these guys were the real deal who will end up a lot poorer because of their ill advised policies.  Live and Learn, live and learn.  

What's The Point

Yes, What's The Point of advertising in the local social media outlets and then not responding to an inquiry?

I need some work done to my wall and generally around the house - I can do brick laying and repairs but this is a little larger than I am used to doing.

I had someone quote me and I accepted the quote, they never got back despite following up from me.

Latest, another bricklayer looking for local work and I've sent the spec off.  Not a sausage, nill, nada, niet!

The gates which I ended up doing myself were either going to cost a King's ransom (more than a new car) or no one turned up to price them or they turned up and then didn't quote for them.  

Kinder, Nicer

 Espoused by politicians and "celebrities" (persons of notoriety more like) who tell us we should be nicer (hate that word) and kinder.  Well, they're the very opposite of what they say they are.  I've never seen so much hypocrisy as we see these days.

President (or is it ex President - I don't know the protocol) was almost assassinated and there are people wishing it had been successful!!!!  What planet are these people on?  Politicians had already said bad stuff about what should happen to him.  Then there's Pelosi who if I recall had wished actual bodily harm on him.  Now it's not confined to the US, it's everywhere.  Whether or not you like or dislike someone is your own business.  To spout off about hoping that they are injured or die is horrendous.  In recent years we've had two MPs murdered and the general disregard for people's lives is horrific.

So called celebrities are the same.  Sports people, Actors (who make a living pretending to be something they are not), musicians and TV commentators (the funniest experts have to be those who appeared on Love Island or Made in Chelsea or some such).  These people set themselves up as social commentators and they are full of vitriol and hate.  I'm surprised that with all the bile inside their bodies they don't melt away from all the acid in their bodies.  The spit out hatred and normalise behaviour which is unacceptable in modern society.  

I am making a conscious effort to stay away from Social Media and the TV as it really is poisonous stuff.  No one debates anymore, it's all yelling until you yell loud enough to drown out the opposing view and impose yours on them/us.  It's a bit like these pressure groups representing less than a quarter of 1% of the population who block roads, damage art work and disrupt our lives trying to force their ideals on to us.  Just Stop Oil, why don't they go to Saudi and stop the production?  Perhaps go to India or China and complain.  The trouble is they don't actually know what they are asking and they, when questioned are as thick as sh1t about what stopping oil would mean to their own lifestyle let alone trying to impoverish the rest of us.  Go live on an island with no oil for a year and see how you get on.  The other ones were the Vegans - throwing perfectly good food away and wasting it.  Now I know a couple of Vegans and whilst they are always happy to tell you all about it ad nauseam they realise that I do not subscribe and I realise that without me eating meat, there wouldn't be any vegetables to feed the animals I devour!  

There's nothing stopping an individual being just that, individual,  If you want to live in a cave with rough clothing and just wood for fuel as you don't want oil or oil based products, off you go, I won't stop you, it's your life choice but it is not mine, stop trying to force me to do things that you wont do yourself and then prove to me by discussion and example how good it is for me.  I reserve full rights to do exactly what I want with my life.  Same with Veganism, Vegetarianism, Pescetarianism etc that's fine by me, do whatever you want to do.

There are no limits to what you can and cannot do within the law.  Do it but don't drag me along with your fantasies.  Likewise don't foster hatred and division.  You start to normalise that sort of behaviour and you start to get to the breakdown in civilization and the smashing down of social norms.  It isn't OK to go around inciting or delivering violence.  It isn't normal by any means to force your views on others or try and change the natural law to accommodate your cult, religion, misogyny, cruelty, bizarre fetishes, criminal behaviour and so on.  

I like to think I'm pretty tolerant and nowadays I just isolate myself from all of this nonsense as I know that it poisons my mind and I actually feel uncomfortable with "humans" acting and voicing their opinions which do not in anyway reflect how one ought to behave in civilized society.  Of course, that's my opinion and I'm allowed to have it.  I suppose everyone should have their opinion but when it comes to physical violence and threats, forcing change on people who don't want it and coercive control the line has been stepped over.  Celebrating someone's death or wanting it and saying it out loud?  Well should we accept that or not?

No matter what you think of someone there's often two or more sides to an argument.  Shouting and wishing harm on another person is not exactly a good basis for discussing the bigger picture and shows a lack of compassion, a lack of value of human lives and a closed mind unable to accept that other people too have a mind of their own, their opinions and they too need to be heard.

Global Warming My Arse

 It's around 17 Degrees C outside and it's summer!  It's hypothermia weather and I hear people are switching their central heating on.  Our idiot Energy Secretary has just banned future oil exploration and we are now importers of energy not exporters like we used to be.  Of course, he doesn't understand that we actually need to use cheap oil and gas to keep the lights on and to produce stuff!  He's betting everything on wind and solar!  Today there's little solar about especially at night and it's barely blowing a stiff breeze either.  But that's OK because we are getting our electricity from France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway Here's an overview https://grid.iamkate.com and https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk .

I like that they still use words like Renewable and yet the glass fibre blades are not renewable and lay buried in the ground in landfill and the crap chemicals in solar cells and plastic etc - well you get the picture.  It's bollocks.

And here's the thing.  I was trying to explain that the only reason we can live at these latitudes is because of burning fuels.  Try living as we humans evolved, you know, in caves, without clothes and you'll find that without modern day heating and energy sources, you are going to die from exposure.  Try sleeping out at night with just an animal skin to keep you warm and you'll probably see how unsustainable it is.  It was a lot warmer 90 years ago than it is now.  It's been a lot warmer and a lot colder over the past 1000 years too.  Just ask yourself what the Roman and Medieval Warm periods were about, why Greenland was named as such and what the Little Ice Age was all about.  No one can actually tell you if the Romans driving their SUVs actually changed the climate but when they were here they were growing grapes right up to the Scottish border.   How did that occur it was comfortably a few degrees more than it is now, so it has happened before.  The Medieval Warm Period too. 

It's all a money making scam and no one apart from those who aren't affected is in agreement.  If you have your own resources it's best to use them.  We sit on coal,oil and gas fields that would allow us to grow our economy and lift many out of poverty but no, the silly buggers at Westminster are rushing us to the bottom trying to go green and zero carbon.  It was sold as being cheap renewable - so cheap it must have trebled in price by now if not quadrupled.  

Why do they not see that this is just crippling us?  They just don't care and they are too stupid to look at the consequences, there is no Plan 'B' they have gambled on this hook line and sinker.  The crippling cost modestly evaluated is £3.2 Trillion.  Trying to put that into some perspective would be that one million seconds is 11 Days. One billion seconds is 31 Years. One trillion seconds is 31 thousand, 710 years.

Good God what are these people smoking or drinking.  FFS! 

Here are those flashbacks again

 Spooky,   I've been doing some gardening - well jungle control more like it and I've come indoors and the smell of the grass (and weeds) on my clothes and the sunny weather (for a change) flashed back to my first garden with the Ex.  It was massive and despite us both working full time we were able to tend it - it had plums, apples, pears, elderberries, damsons, cherries and then other fruit like raspberries, black, red and white currants, rhubarb.  Three huge lawns at the back and two smaller ones at the front.  We grew vegetables and we kept it really nicely.

The flashback was actually, having finished mowing the lawn and sitting back a little hot, sweaty and smelling of grass and the garden having a cup of tea.   Things weren't so bad back then we worked our backsides off, did full time jobs, overtime, looked after the garden, and everything else.  Life was simpler, we made jams and wine and cakes and froze so much produce for use later.

Happy days.  Interesting these flash backs to these times.  The brain is associating smell particularly with good times and those moments in time that were special.  When you were in the present moment if you like.

I really need to get myself back to being appreciative of Now, the Present and not to be elsewhere. 

 

The Lack Of A Moral Compass

Maybe it is me but I see so many rude, ignorant and self righteous, vile people these days.

The standards have dropped and good manners are rarely encountered.  Plenty of examples but I find the way people drive aggressively,  have no patience, no self awareness and so on is concerning.  Quite why this should be I do not know.  Lack of an old fashioned 'values based' up bringing, ill discipline at home and school.  A society where everything is handed to people on a plate, increase in overall wealth (you are considered poor if you don't have Mobile Phone etc).

I am trying to deal with it without resorting to sarcasm (very difficult for me is that) or just plain pointing it out to them.  So I prefer to not react these days.  Many years ago I would have wanted to point out the errors of their ways but who's to say that I am right and they are wrong and in each of these confrontations there's a loser so why provoke things further?  I tend not to react and in many cases ignore things.  In the narrow country lane where we live people are in such a hurry.  When I see someone coming toward me in their car at high speed.  I just pull my car over and stop and wait for them to decide what they want to do.  If they slow down then I can work out how to let them pass.  Generally that works - it isn't worth trying to force them to do anything, they have to arrive at their own decision.  Walking down the street and it's crowded and someone is walking straight at you expecting you to move out of their way.  Again, these days I just stop dead and let them make a decision, I'm a big guy and so if you want to walk into me, that's your decision.  I like the way that they look when they don't get their way.

Pushing in, not saying please and thank you. jostling you, being generally ignorant, offending shop worker and others.  

When I was much younger I would probably have tackled this stuff head on but now, that's not an option.  Sometimes you have to let karma deliver in other ways.  It's nice when you get to see it happen though isn't it?   

Testing Testing Testing

The App we have been working on is almost ready - hopefully a final test in August and we can go live in September.  That's the iOS version with the Android to follow.  I looked back and the last time I had testing was 2019.  It's been a ridiculously long haul for what it is but almost there now just a few things to iron out and we can hopefully release it out to the world and see how it goes.  No matter how many times I try and stop people changing their minds, they still do and this is a direct result of changing the spec when the job was almost completed - we were in public test and this interfering chap suggested a change.  It was working perfectly well without it.  SO here we are thousands of pounds and 5 years later getting back towards something we already had but with a couple of pretty lines on it.  

It's been a testing time for me too recently.  I am not 100% sure what is going on but I am restless and not particularly happy with the way things are.  I suppose there's nothing unusual there.  I getting old which I didn't think it would, perhaps it troubles me is more accurate.  When you cannot do the things you used to do and physically I have jobs to do here that as a youngster I'd do in my spare time.  I've got brickwork to be re pointed and that sort of work and these days, I don't have the physical ability to do one or two days hard labouring type work.  If you've ever raked out and re pointed a wall then you'd probably guess that the strain on your back and knees will make for plenty of aching and the like for weeks after.

I'm fighting the inner demons, the what if... this had happened.  What if.... you were still in that situation and so on.  The Book of Regrets but I know that I am here, in the present and none of that can happen it's just the pain body and the ego having free rent in my head.... and yet.... what if :-) Tantalising and torturing at the same time.  

Whats and ifs and maybes don't cut it of course.  But try telling my brain that - it's fighting the good fight in there and the emotions versus the logic fights continue.  

Even Longer Day

 The UK road network feels like one continuous building site.  We were going to Amberley Museum in West Sussex it's near Arundel way a typical 2 hour run across country from us normally.  We were within a few miles when the traffic stopped and we spent an hour moving around 2 miles!  Yet it wasn't the only set of roadworks we encountered and around our way they've really had a brain melt and a major resurfacing job is going on but if you try and avoid the area you are hit with, yet more roadworks.

It's a bloody mess frankly and some spotty planning clerk has completely screwed this up.  A bit like yesterday, there's the Goodwood Festival of Speed going on and the A27 was paralised and just to add insult to injury it was closed later as they found some old munitions (possibly WW2) and had to get the bomb squad over to dispose of them with a controlled explosion!

Getting home was slightly quicker but the M23 and M25 were almost at walking pace.  Again roadworks, miles of them and how many workmen did we see in the snails pace progress.  Not one.

We saw some pretty awful driving though and the one car that I wanted my dash-cam to pickup was the moment the dash-cam decided to go to sleep for 10 minutes!   

Anyway, it's a nice place and lovely people there.  There's a museum of electrical stuff - I was in my element as was this chap who volunteers there.  Gosh we must have been chatting for about an hour - such great things to see and reminisce about - stuff that was going out of use when I was a lad were there and my word, they had some Tesla Coils there and a whole load of electrical things going back to the earliest vacuum cleaners, TVs and Radios, plugs, lamps, even carbon element ones, valves,, switching gear, generating gear and so on.  Amazing. They even had a Mercury Arc rectifier which changed AC to DC using a huge glass vessel with mercury in it.  Seeing these working when I was a lad was absolutely amazing.  

I worked at a certain large Palace in London and back in the day they had 6 of these (much larger than the one on display) in a special room.  I can only imagine they were removed and given to a museum somewhere.  The Mercury inside them would weigh a hell of a lot, a couple of bucket loads in each I'd say and would be pretty valuable.

There were displays of the various meters we used to use.  Gosh what a nostalgia trip for me.  My dad would have loved it as he would have been just that little bit older and have actually worked with these amazing pieces of engineering. 

What a long day

 We were testing the App and it's coming along fine but we had to re-code one of the songs.  It means entering the notes and lyrics, direction changes and so on one by one into this database to allow the App to just interpret the information and draw the notes and so on.  Clever stuff but the last time I did this was in 2019!  SO it was a bit of a steep relearning curve.  We got there in the end.

It's looking great and working well.  The usual odd issues with things not looking like they should can be easily ironed out.  My business partner and I are pleased despite the fact that we are 6 years later than we should be.  I hope we will get this launched this year perhaps in 6 to 8 weeks.  We could do with that so we can start to recoup our investments.

Testing is always tedious as you have to go line by line and watch out for things that you might otherwise overlook.  I'm used to being a nit picking tester so I'm hoping that for me to only find a series of common faults and a few usability issues all looks remarkably good.  

It's tiring as you are using different parts of your brain to do this and it is intensely involved and needs concentration to ensure it is done right.  I could go to sleep right now but it is on 7 pm!

Procrastination - Slowly Slowly but progress is being made

I made a start on the office today and got rid of loads of paper.  I had lots of paper only used on one side so I've cut that up to use for scrap writing paper - I write a lot just to get it out of my head and do planning.  It works well and I find that I develop plans and think it through and then come up with something often quite different but more effective.

 So it's Elephant eating, you can only do that a bit at a time of course.  So a tidy up, a run over with the vacuum and shredded loads of old paperwork that is no longer needed.  It feels good and I don't need to over do it.  I can do this sort of three hours of effort and you can see a change, I can see the wood on my desk and lots of loose paper work, sat on the side to "do something with" has now been tackled and sorted out.  Yay for me!

I am going to continue to do small achievable tasks as it actually gets things done that you can see and measure.  It's no good trying to tackle the big stuff at the moment but that will come and it will be done bit by bit.  It's the only way.

I'm glad I made a start and also I had an incentive as my business partner is coming over tomorrow to do some work so the office is clean if not quite as tidy as I like.

Wow. People are strange

 I live in a narrow lane with passing places and we have farm vehicles up and down all day long plus delivery lorries for Oil, Septic Tank pumps and so on.  So when you come across one of these you wait unless you can get past.  Today my butcher is delivering, now he takes about a minute to drop off my supplies and there he is bagging up and I come out of the house and pick up bag one (of two) when a chap in a Range Rover decides that he is going to squeeze past the delivery van.

As he's doing that manoeuvre I thought to myself he's got to have room to do that, my car a big old Volvo would struggle and so a Range Rover would too.  As the butcher is handing over bag 2 his van lurches towards us and there's the telling sound of a bump and a scrape and the chap just drives off.  I mean he's caused a collision and you are meant to stop.  Luckily he had a light grey Range Rover and so I imagine it's got a least a big black bumper mark along the side or better still his car is dented across both doors it certainly seemed heavy enough to do that.

The butcher and I just looked at each other incredulously I mean who can't wait for a few seconds.  Well most of the people around here actually.  I've never knows such entitled stuck up entitled twats as we have here.  I hope he's got hundreds of pounds of damage.  The butchers van seemed to get off with just a scrape along the bumper.

Reminds me of when we were having our Kerosene delivered and I think it was around 1,000 litres so that takes around 5 minutes total to dispense.  A "young madam" in her sporty car, wearing her gym kit just kept blasting her car horn and then got out and came to the end of my drive in a real temper - "I'm late for my gym"  she was saying "How long is he going to be?" 

Of course, as I spoke to the driver I suggested that the louder the car horn the slower the delivery.  He smiled that knowing smile and then I realised that she would have to reverse her car so that the delivery lorry could go up the road and turn around.

People really are impatient, entitled and strange.  It takes a few minutes to wait, quite often you'll get thanked or a friendly wave.  Be an arsehole and things will take a lot longer than they should.

What a strange world we live in, I'm sure people are losing their sh1t more and more and they really don't need to. I suppose the other thing is these Townies living in the country and don't know how to act or react to normal every day life around here.

 

It's the end of the world as we know it

 The OH has a habit of leaving things (normally breakable things) towards the edges of shelves, surfaces like tables and worktops.  Occasionally I might clatter one of these.  So I managed to drop one of her cups, this time it was slippery and as I moved it to safety it shot out of my hand and broke.  These things happen.

Owning up to it you'd have thought that we were all going to die in a moment.  Complete drama and melodramatic going on.  So I suggested that as they inferred it always their stuff (not surprising as nearly all of it is very little of my stuff is left) that gets broken that I'd break one of my cups which I duly did outside on the patio.  Oh no that made things worse even though they said do it.

You can't bloody well win can you.  I have barely spoken to her since.  It's crazy behaviour what's wrong with people?  It's broken get over it.  When you're dead you can't take it with you FFS.  We have perhaps 100 mugs and cups in the house and she's worried about one getting broken.  I give up.  

How Long Will It Take?

 Hopefully not too long before the horror of the new Government dawns on people.  The Energy Minister will be looking to throw Trillions (yes that's correct) at "renewable" energy which was meant to be cheaper, more efficient etc etc and in fact is the diametric opposite.  Hey ho, as people see their bills go up, their taxes increase, pensions raided, insurance premiums increase and so on, then they will start to realise what's gone on here.  Sure punish the incumbents but to vote for more of the same but worse, what gets into people's heads?

I recall both the previous Labour Governments and so I'm pretty sure it will look all rosy and wonderful and then scratch off the thin coating on top and we will have a socialist nightmare to deal with.  Windfall taxes - on the companies that supply us with energy - I wonder who will end up paying for that then?  

I've almost had it with the majority of people who don't quite get it.  But, there you are, let's see what a mess these guys make of it.  Judging by the people appointed to Cabinet positions and the "quality" of them we will just get Mass migration on steroids now not a halt to it as we were promised and the Home and Foreign Secretaries will probably open our borders and at the same time get us involved in some one else's war too.

F*****g pathetic the lot of them.  As a pensioner now I see that they might be coming for me as I diligently saved for my retirement.  

Terminal stupidity plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose or perhaps the more that changes, the more it's the same thing : the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Our Election just returned more of the same and our electoral system allows this to happen when the winning party didn't get as many votes % than they did when they lost last time?  

Anyway, I don't get it.  It's going to be more of the same.  OK everyone wanted the Conservatives out but why vote in way that is actually going to make you worse off.  Does no one know that they are two cheeks of the same arse and the prices will continue to go up, taxes will increase and I have no idea how bad things will be in a year or two.  Oh well, there might be some eyes opened soon enough because the very people that voted these people in will feel the bite in their pockets quicker than those who didn't.

Let's see what the hell happens....Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Satisfaction In Life

 The Rolling Stones "I can't get no satisfaction" comes to mind.  I was thinking (dangerous I know) that I am going through that awful state once again of not being satisfied with what I have, wanting something different, regretting past missed opportunities especially in relationships at the moment.

There's nothing to suggest that any of those paths through life would have made me happier, richer, poorer, more satisfied and that's the reality of it all.  I am where I am and I should be happy with that but the ego is always trying to beat you up and take control.  It's pretty apparent to me that what I thought I wanted will not come to pass even if I win the Lottery or something else comes along that might change circumstances.

It's not easy at the moment as I feel disconnected from just about everything.

It's twelve years today since my Dad died.  Twelve years ago I was with my Ex and my daughters still lived with us.  It's been one hell of a ride since then.  Not sure why I'm not happy at the moment other than imposing unrealistic expectations and yearning for different outcomes to situations long ago in the past.  

I'll know tomorrow I think, it's my birthday and perhaps that will shake down any doubts I may have.  I'm deliberately leaving this vague as I think it is a sort of test that will leave me in no doubt what the lay of the land is.

Ear Worm Time

 So here is the song that's rattling around in my head over and over.

It's very personal to me indeed.  It sums it all up nicely but it's a lovely tune.  The trouble is it doesn't move things on it halts that process and conjures up the wrong thoughts.

However, do listen to it, it really is very good I think. 

Loss or Lack of Interest

 I've never really enjoyed certain things put on for "entertainment".  Sure I go to them normally if forced and in the main I tend to enjoy them.  I have never liked or enjoyed crowded places.  I've been to a few festivals and can get myself tucked away from the crowds.  I'm no great lover of theatres or cinemas especially those with little leg room and I need to sit adjacent to the walkway aisle so I can satisfy my claustrophobic nature.

So today I was just thinking along the lines of what to do and where to go and I don't want to do anything at all.  I want to get myself out of my rut and I know I should but I just cannot do it at the moment - and I just don't know why that should be.

My mind is doing stupid stuff like dreaming up and digging up past relationships and I could make myself busy but the great stealer of time, procrastination, interferes.  I've got some stuff planned for August but nothing else.  Last year's holiday to lovely Mauritius was not a great success, I felt deflated rather than elated.

I cannot be bothered to do things that I suppose I should do and I know that I've got to do the Elephant eating here and just do small achievable things to get out of it but at the moment, that's not happening.

I keep saying to myself, I'll just get "such and such" out of the way, there's a few things going on this week, and then I can settle down and concentrate on myself and some jobs that I can do.  I've got all the materials to do them but haven't gotten around to it.  These are things that I could easily achieve in a reasonable time.

Perhaps I am also feeling that I'm "on my own here"  by that I mean that my Ex always did things with me when she could or if I was doing things she was around to feed me coffee or food whilst I did the heavy work.  That doesn't happen now and generally I'm out there on my own doing stuff.  It feels weird and perhaps there's that to it.

OK - Now Just Get Over It Already

 It's over.  It's been 11 years since you last met her / saw her and whilst you occasionally drop a note to each other and so on, it just isn't going to happen is it?  

You see, I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic and we couldn't carry on because of complicated circumstances and whilst I accept that was what it was, I never really stopped loving her and that's a problem isn't it I suppose?  It's that we couldn't be together was the limiting factor and me hoping that anything might have changed in that setup is just wishful thinking and fanciful romantic mindset.

It's her birthday today and I sent an e-card and a copy of my playlist that I made recollecting our interest in music and the songs we liked.  I don't know whether that was worth doing really?

So here I am feeling OK about things, after eleven years that should be the case as what else can I do? I can't force the situation and I cannot change her circumstances and I suppose I cannot change my circumstances either.

Get over it I tell myself and I will in a day or so.  The music from the playlist goes around in my head for now though and one song in particular is giving me the ear worm.  She said she liked the playlist and of course, that's not surprising given how we shared these things together.

I am still working out what I intend to do with myself really.  I don't feel that my current situation is entirely good for me and I imagine that has set off my wanting to look back at an amazing time in my life?  I need to work out what I am to do and this week will release me of some outside commitments and that may help me to get off my arse and actually do something - there's plenty to do in and around the house but I'm doing most of this stuff on my own and rarely get any assistance.  Maybe that's it?  

Wow, what a time I had eleven years ago.  Such a shame it didn't work out.