Procrastination Or Should I Put Off This Post Until Tomorrow

 So annoying, so annoying is procrastination.  It comes at me in waves and sometimes I used to kid myself that I was building up stress pressure to make me do something.  It's a bit "Eat the frog" as we used to say.  I have stuff to do and it just sits here staring at me and before I know it, it's late afternoon and I head off out with nothing done of any significance.

It doesn't help with the craziness going on with all these threats and unpleasantness which I really don't need at all and that makes me tetchy too.  I don't mean to be sharp with my responses but I do find people these days appear to want to be told what to do or have questions answered or generally be looked after and so I sometimes get a bit one word answer mode and also my sarcasm superpower goes full superhero and I find my attitude whilst 100% accurate hasn't been tempered with what little diplomacy I own.

So I am annoyed with myself as much as anything and I don't like getting old as I no longer have the Rhinoceros hide that protected me through my working life.  I don't need all of this, it's unwanted and I'm lumbered with it.  I just want to actually enjoy my retirement, perhaps that's it.  You end up in situations you never planned and your reward is to get castigated by others for something you never wanted, never wished for and would happily get rid of.  Maybe that's what I really needed to do (if I wasn't so deeply involved and embroiled) walk away and let some other schmuck take it over.

Kubler Ross Revisted

 I am revisiting this as I am beginning to recognise the signs that I am in this loop once again.  I'm too bloody old for all this sh1t and some people just go way beyond what is acceptable behaviour.  Also some people enjoy the flogging of a dead horse too.  They have no idea what their crazy little world view makes them do.  They have utter belief that they are right and they have convinced themselves that logic is on their side.  Viewed from any other angle, you'd say it's the opposite.

So here it is in all it's glory.  I'm at Anger now and I'll have to see where I am going with this.  I'm meeting a friend on Friday and I'll get a bounce off of him as he's pretty stable and I trust him, unlike the other chap.  Over a decade I've known this chap and suddenly he's turned into a monster, lost his logic and his moral compass all at the same time.  

Anyway, it's annoying because I've gone past shock and straight to anger.  I don't need to be angry, I need to have a steady head and be calm.  On that front, so far so good.

Disappointing Betrayal Again

 I used to have a poster above my desk of a cartoon mouse (I think it might have been a person) with a screw right through their middle attached to a wall.  It said something along the lines of "Be kind, good and gentle to others and you will obtain your just rewards"  

Once again, in life I have gone out of my way to help someone, for over a decade I have helped and guided this person and my reward?  You guessed it, they've made some sort of decision themselves that has backfired and...... it's my fault!!!  Quite how this logic and powers of deduction led their decision to have been in anyway involving me I don't know so they've gone off the deep end and accused me of all sorts of stuff and yet if they'd have spoken to me I could have given balanced reasons why they should probably not have made a hasty and ill thought through decision to their detriment.  Having not sought my advice or consulted me they then go on to do the most illogical thing and realise too late that it cannot be undone.

As I say, not the first time in my life.  Three others when I was younger were looked after as my own, I spent time with them, helped schooling, college and university, became a father figure and was parent taxi to them.  I barely hear a word from them now.  The amount of support I've given to various people including monetary support goes un-repaid.  Minds, like my wallet are empty and forgetful when needed.

I'm getting too old to give my time to these people anymore, I will help anyone but now I feel that I'm getting metaphorically "screwed to the wall" when I freely offer to help.

It feels wrong but I have to withdraw helping others out to my detriment if all they do is forget all the help you've given them.  They try and make you feel bad and stupid me, I do.  It worries me that they've done stuff to themselves and want to victimise me for their own actions.

Smashed It

 After my note about the Who Dunnit yesterday I am pleased to say that by 10 minutes in I had worked out who it was and how they did it.  Dead Goldfish was a giveaway :-)

In other news I am still quite stressed out by recent events that I cannot mention at the moment but it's annoying that people can be so awful.  Those who you help out and look after turn into monsters and betray you.  I've always been helpful to others and this is the reward, you get stabbed in the back.  I think I am too old for this now though.  I used to be able to take it in my stride but this is beyond the pale and it just erodes your trust in people and I've noticed it more and more.  People just don't know how to behave these days and courtesy and gratitude, please and thank you, kindness and politeness are, like our society, being ground into the dust.

I don't know what it is that makes people believe they can act like this but it isn't honourable and getting a metaphorical kick in teeth for all your help and assistance really hurts.

Lesson learned I guess!

Who Dunnit!

 I don't know if there are subtle clues in these detective series but 9 tomes out of 10 I tend to guess quite early on who dunnit!

I don't watch too much TV these days but there are a couple of programmes I like to watch that don't take too much thinking and a few things like University Challenge and Only Connect when occasionally I amaze myself by what I know and also bristle when the teams don't know the answer. However, pride before a fall, often kicks in when I don't know the formula for unobtainium or some such :-)

These light detective stories are generally easy to solve as it is the least obvious character (at the beginning) and so far I am spot on with these.  I think the more you watch them the more obvious the formula is and strangely the easier it is to work out the perpetrator.

In other news, the sun is shining although it is quite chilly at the moment.  Two seasons in one day.  It used to catch me out when I'd leave at around 5:00 to go to work in a big overcoat and by the evening I'd be sweltering and carrying said overcoat home :-) such is the UK weather and why we always speak about it.

Stress - I Really Don't Need It

 Who does?  It's not really needed and I am far too old to have to deal with it but, there you go, deal with I must.

Why people are so difficult, illogical and vengeful, even though they bring these things on themselves I have yet to fathom.  Their actions are now apparently my problem to deal with.

Oh well, it will be what it will be but it's just a trivial waste of my time and energy.  

The bottom line is I should be retired and not having to deal with all of this, but I am!  

That's A Relief

 A visit to the Dentist and an all clear and see me in 9 months time (2026) which I'm most pleased about and also the slight gum problems I had are all gone.  I'm impressed she can remember that far back but there you go.  So I am hopeful that all the work I've been doing has paid off and that next week's visit to the Hygienist will not be as traumatic as I am expecting from my last visit there.  Fingers crossed for that.

Growing Anger - Is It Just Me?

 There's a growing anger in this country, one that stems from ongoing lies and deceptions and a populace that has seen things decline and get worse as we reach the bottom and continue to dig.  Injustice seems rife and the entitled are slowly realising that they cannot ride roughshod over us.   Everyone in the country has faced massive increases in costs and its starting to bite that these people don't give a flying F about us.  They rode in with huge statements about freezing this and that and the bottom line is that prices for us all and taxes have gone up appallingly.

I think my household bills are near double since 2020 and it's unsustainable and do they do anything to tackle and manage it?  No they blame someone who left them with..... <insert excuse here>  When I was in business and having to sort out other's sh1t it was down to me, I could perhaps get a few weeks or months grace if it was screwed previously but I had the power and authority to change it and that's what I did. These guys don't get that - yet!

Anyway, the more people I speak to the more they hate what's going on.  The UK people are patient and generally pragmatic people but they really do seem to have had enough.  You can feel it and hear it now. 

It Seems I Am Always Moaning About Something Or Other

 Stuff that boils my p1ss - why are people so horrible these days/I don't know the answer but the Lock-downs have a lot to answer for and expectations versus outcomes also appear to me to be an issue with people.   A lot of people haven't been told NO and so when they are presented with stuff they don't like they throw a paddy or a tantrum, lobbing all their toys out of the window.

And, what's with the double standards too.  People are happy to dish it out but give some back and they go into full melt down?  You can probably tell that I hate fools and deliberately stoopid people along with those deliberately pretending to be naive when they are anything but.  Yes these people really annoy the hell out of me as they aren't clever enough to get away with it and they rely on your innate goodwill to get away with their manipulation techniques.

I still enjoy the "never interrupt an enemy when they are making a mistake" phrase as it is all you need to catch out a liar or a badly thought through ploy.  Just let them go on for long enough and they grind themselves to a halt or forget up to what lie they are living in and ultimately they betray themselves and destroy their own fantasy.

So, yes, I am moaning about all these people, I wish they'd just go away and leave me alone.  I wish they'd treat me as they'd want me to treat them but oh no, they cannot do that as they are always right and in their minds I am wrong.  They insult my intelligence and defeat their own arguments as they convolute their narrative to fit their fantasy.  If they'd all just f*** off everything would be fine.  

Definitely Dark TImes

 I think that we should be worried about the way things are going.  I've often said it but today we appear to have gone soft on the things that should be important and hard on the things that should not be.  You can get a visit from the thought police for posting hurty words online yet they are reducing police numbers in areas where, in reality, they should be boosting them.  A number of ex Police friends lost their jobs some time ago now and they were happy to be paid off, let's face it, it's not always Dixon of Dock Green, when they took out a layer of experienced Officers.  Of course some were taken back under contract but hey.

The "Trump Tariffs" have made markets jittery and I can see why he's done it.  It's a world-wide economic gamble and our Rachel from Accounts didn't see it coming....again!  I'm shaking my head again wondering why we cannot see beyond the Friday of the week we are in.  There is no long terms strategic planning at all.  It's crazy that we are about to shoot ourselves in the foot yet again when the foot we shot last week hasn't really begun healing up!

So, how about our Canal system.  I imagine very lightly used as a means of transporting goods but there is a little commercial traffic on them.  Thousands of miles of Canals, Tow Paths, Locks winding their way through beautiful countryside (in the main) and big cities too.  So they want all boats to be, wait for it, electric, not to have log burners blah blah.  Somehow they are going to need to put infrastructure by the sides of the Canals and in the Marinas.  Being a trained electrician, I ought to warn people that the old mantra we used was "Water and Electricity do not mix"  So the dangers are electricity close to water now I know you can hook ups in Marinas but the joy of canal boating is that you poodle along at 4 mph maximum and that you have the bump bump bump of a diesel engine under you.  I imagine that electric would make it quieter, we have a local electric boat which is whisper quiet.  You wouldn't need a Tesla type arrangement as the water would provide you o glide through but who pays for the conversions and who pays for the infrastructure, how do ensure complete safety of the charging?

The other "Look at how stupid I am" was that they want to reduce the size of petrol and diesel tanks on cars to 20 gallons and then to 10 gallons.  These people are absolutely crazy - what does that achieve?  These days it's like a class of ten year old children have been asked to come up with energy saving ideas and their class project is to demonstrate how they'd save energy.  The trouble is, these fanciful ideas further oppress people who are already made poorer and struggle on day to day living costs because of Venezuelan style policies.  Once one of the richest countries in the world you can do some research on what's happened since they adopted socialism.

I don't know how long it will take to impact people but I feel a growing resentment coming, even among my friends that are shall we say left leaning.  Time will of course tell and these mistaken ideological policies will, as they always have, lead to the very people they are meant to help being the victims of the very well intentioned but worthless policies our naive elected politicians think are so clever and helpful.  As they will inevitably end falling flat on their faces we can only hope that, as they are always saying "Lessons will be learned" are uttered as their faces hit the mud.

A Few Days Away - Just What Was Needed

 Well that was good.  A few days away, some sunshine (but a bitterly chilly wind). A Nice Hotel and a visit to a few places, sun, sea, air, all  is good.

Have some cr@p going down here which I need to sort out which is disturbing and a little worrying but, some time to think this through and I think I can now handle that too.

Nice to have good weather and to start to get things sorted, apart from my bloody gates - they've got a mind of their own at the moment and I have no idea what they are doing or why they are doing it.  I'll have to go through my troubleshooting routine to sort it out.  

I do find that "people" act strange and do crazy things, not well thought through and completely missing the point and completely at odds with reality.  Perhaps it's just me but I find people who tackle problems by menace and threat miss the target.  A person who's only tool is a hammer treats every issue as a nail!  So, applying logic and thought would have removed their anger issues and now having blasted their point out and painted themselves into a corner, they have no escape route nor plan after their actions.  Crazy attitude. 

Fantasy Land

 La La Land isn't it?  In a world where I am happy that you can be what you want to be, don't you find it strange that those whom I have no interest in and I am happy for them to do what they want, be what they want to be, etc etc don't actually really want that.  No they want me to go along with their fantasies whatever they may and to my detriment not theirs.

The general public that makes up let's say 98% don't seem to worry as little by little their voices get eroded so that we can accommodate other's.  I think we all originally thought that we should let people be what they want to be etc but the tail wags the dog in this country and stuff that never needed to be said may soon have to be.  

Anyway, these fantasists really need to get a grip because they've been pushing it for a long time now and I wonder if patience is going to eventually run out?  The give an inch, take a mile sort of attitude is one that will inevitably lead to a pulling up short.

I wonder if people ever think about the way they portray themselves and the way that they try and push their views onto others because it has got to a sort of turning point now where many people are fed up of having to walk on eggshells around their fellow citizens, where a word you use in common parlance suddenly has a different meaning and someone gets offended.  It's got to stop and the trouble is it's all been held in, contained inside and I worry that it will boil over at some point.  Worryingly, we aren't allowed to talk about it openly for fear of being branded as <insert hurty words here> that has got to brew over time and needs a vent.

I suppose the only thing to do is to watch it happen and then say "I told you so"

Do People Actually Think Before They Act Anymore?

 I wonder whether people actually think before they act at all?  Some make the most curious decisions and make the most inappropriate suggestions.  They then double down on a decision that will actually end in their own embarrassment or to their own detriment as they haven't considered any other position other than their own.

What I always enjoyed when I was at work 20 years or so ago was how someone would purse a course that was vainglorious, predicated on their own world view of the situation and their belief in the "justice" and right of their position.  Often the action were not the correct ones and furthermore they had ignored advice, fired a letter off before reflection or perhaps had reflected on it but ignored the obvious flaws of their argument.  It happens, you are convinced that your truth is the only way of looking at something.

In cases like this it was always a good strategy to take your time to analyse what they were trying to achieve by their actions and work out what you were going to do about it.  Seeking clarification sometimes works to reflect back the errors of their argument but not to provide them with any ammunition to solve the problem or have it used against you.  

I think it is Sun Tzu or Bonaparte who said something like "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" and for good reason.  Your position is made far stronger as they make mistakes, they cannot support their allegations, their arguments fall apart on cross examination. Never give up your own high ground, have all the answers, the documents and evidence to hand and know what you are going to do but don't let on. 

I find it particularly strange that they don't give up and potentially you can destroy their arguments time after time.  

For me it's such a waste of time and energy defending but if you know how they are thinking and what "Gotchas" they might have planned you can easily run rings around them and deliver the coup de grâce and yet still some fight on for some reason, vanity, too thick to realise their case has been destroyed very often by their own attitude and ineptitude too. 

I suppose we have to put up with this pathetic, ill advised, unthinking nonsense.  One of my favourite sayings I used to use a lot in meetings after fending off another ill thought through attack from these was to get the decision in my favour and ask the now failed opponent - looking seriously at them as they realised their case was dismissed "Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?"  If nothing else it made ME feel better after all the grief they had fired at me.  

Why Do People Act Like Complete Dictators

 Can't say what's happening at the moment but I have to question what the hell goes through people's minds?   I've got enough trouble as it is going on which I don't need and should not have to deal with without getting another crazy giving me a hard time which just eats into my time and into my schedule.

I cannot understand why someone who I have known for some time has turned into the Dark Lord of Mordor?  But there you go, I have to deal with this complete nonsense and waste more time and effort on it that it truly deserves.  

People - I'll never comprehend stupid decisions, making things more complicated and the like.

Ho hum. 

And the Chair Is Repaired Again

 Antique chairs hold many repairs and bumps, scratches, patina, patches and now my glued efforts.  So I'll leave it for 24 hours and hopefully that will fix it but I'm not confident as the wood felt very light and dried out to me but hey ho we kept these and sold mine!

It's the Spring Statement apparently - mini budget more like. As predicted it's everyone else's fault not our esteemed Chancellor.  The socialist experiment is collapsing and accelerating as we go.  Someone said some time ago that "you can't Tax your way out of the financial hole you are in" and this is so and perhaps will prove to be such,  When you are working from an ideological point of view and not an economic one you soon find your nose bloodied and blink wondering where that blow arrived from.

We pay the highest energy costs (electric) in the world.  We've gone all in on some stooopid promise that the faster we get to Net Zero the better off we will be.  At times like this I then like to remind myself of the following:

One million seconds is 11 Days.
One billion seconds is 31 Years.
One trillion seconds is 31 thousand, 710 years.

We bandy Billions and Trillions around without really thinking what these represent.  If just we were to go to Net Zero the expected costs are around £3 to £4 trillion.  

Socialism seems to promise great things but I do not know of one place where it has truly worked.  To make it work you need to oppress the masses and that's started here now and I'm hoping the whole thing crashes around them and that we won't go too far in blaming the population for it, it will be of their own making.

They are correcting things and in doing so making it worse.  If you only address the symptoms and not the root cause it will always be so.  Back to my days in business and not tackling the failures with a box of band aid and some iodine cream but getting to the root cause most often bad management and bad direction.  It was often the case that the way they managed brought out the opposite behaviour in their staff that they wanted.  These course corrections incoming start to swing the vehicle until it gets out of control and crashes.

I see some placards in the demonstrator's hands saying "Tax the Rich don't reduce our benefits".  The problem is that "the Rich" are no longer in this country.  As they are rich and are generally mobile you need to go and track them down to <enter favoured tax haven here> because they are unable to work in this country for fear of being punished and having their money taken from them.  If I were in that bracket, I think I'd be looking to do that.

I think we are mortally wounded financially and blaming Trump, Putin etc etc doesn't actually fix things it kicks the can down the road and as I've often said, you now own the problem and you have to get out of it.  I used to be thrown into the brown and smelly stuff all the time and had to make the best of it.  Very occasionally I'd have to tell management that it wasn't able to be fixed and they'd need to shut it down or get rid of it or whatever.  If you could rescue a situation then you'd have to demand the power and the authority needed to go and do it.  Once you had that, you could go and implement you plan and bring things back under control.  No excuses, no procrastination, no pampering to the Nay Sayers, just get in there and fix it.  Of course there'd be collateral damage but in the long term there would be benefit but potentially a lot of pain to get there.

If only our politicians had spines and brains.  They are downright dangerous unsupervised as they are at present. 

The Race To The Bottom

 We are on our way and when we get to the bottom we are going to dig to go further.  I was reading a report about my favourite pet peeve subject.  Climate Change and CO2 reduction blah blah blah etc ad infinitum.

It was about how the whole world is connected and how in general terms what ever we do in this country doesn't change a thing except make us poorer.  If no one else is doing what we are doing we are wilfully destroying our country in pursuit of the unreachable.  We contribute less than 1% and if CO2 was actually the temperature knob then it is barely noticeable almost trace background.  One good volcano and all your work is gone.  I like that people think that any benefit would only work here, in the UK!  The 99.1% from the rest of the world needs to do something?

So a bit like cleaner air zones.  It's flawed because like earlier this week Saharan dust was again present around the country and paying £12.50 for a car in a clean air zone did sweet fanny Adams to make it clean.  I recall a lamp post with a sign on in Lewisham (A South East London suburb) that said a Nuclear Free Zone.  Which was impressive, I imagine the war hungry nuclear powers making their bombs drop in the neighbouring borough so as to comply and not damage it!

There's this strange lack of understanding about science and how people grasp facts and figures too.  It is as if they think that things only exist within a country's borders.  They don't seem to appreciate that we can't change the temperature only in our own country, it doesn't work like that.  A bit like me proposing that double glazing window units be filled with CO2.  If it's that powerful then it should be able to assist heating your home right? (I know it doesn't) but that's the fragility of the argument surely?  CO2 is heavier than Oxygen and Nitrogen so unless it gets stirred around a lot can it really be higher up in the atmosphere to heat up etc.  I am over simplifying it for sure but the impact on our lives of doubling or tripling our energy bills and taxing us at the highest since WW2 is only destroying our way of life and no one seems to be looking elsewhere whilst we punish ourselves with this self harm.  We are all but in recession.  Rachel from Accounts will say and do something tomorrow apparently.

Our economy is getting smashed at the altar of the golden idols of public services and climate change and now talk of war again.  Does no one learn from the past, are we going to repeat the failures of the past which are well documented and available to see?  

I like that Pensioners like myself are potentially to be means tested for our pensions.  Something I have paid into the system for over 50 years!  These clowns are now looking at the private pension that I also put aside and wanting to do something about it?  They already tax it and want more.  Thieving bastards the lot of them.

The whole lot of them are pathetic and are just spunking money away on virtue signalling causes.  If they stopped and thought about it, they could make the country great again with a few subtle changes but no, they cannot think outside of the ideology and their blinkered philistine pig ignorance.  They should consider what the Laffer Curve is and think about the resistance that will come about by more un-audited, unhinged, crazy, no ROI analysed spending. It's a shame to see it all collapsing at the hands of these amateurs but maybe that's what is needed to jerk the country back onto the straight and narrow.

Antique Chair NOT Repaired It Seems

 A bit strange I have to say, the glue I've used on many other things just didn't seem to set and so this morning I've been left with a mess of old glue and part of the chair not glued up.  Perhaps the frost got to it or it's seen better days.  I suppose the last time I used it was about a year ago.

It just adds to my list of failures this past year.   Yet again, the driveway gates aren't quite opening up properly - some limit switch gremlin by the looks of it.  I can fix it but it is so fiddly and quirky.  Oh well, it's just the way it is I suppose.  I don't recall being bad at DIY in the past but recently everything I touch turns to poo!

Add to that I woke up deaf in my left ear and today is turning out to be a bit miserable.  I imagine it is a sinus issue and so I will attempt to sort that out too.

A few days away might fix things.  Anyway, I am out for a meeting tonight and hope that will cheer me up a bit.  Something needs to.  I am feeling pretty cheesed off.  Plus a friend died yesterday and I am "getting that age" where it appears to be happening more often.

I also have the "joy" of going to the Dentist and Hygienist in a few weeks and on this occasion I am not overly looking forward to it. I hate being pulled about and I know my Hygienist will be making my mouth bleed again! 

I'm a bit concerned that I am slipping back into a bit of a depression.  Hope that the sun comes along to cheer things up. 

Antique Chair Repaired

 Apparently it was a Jackdaw that came down our chimney!  Huge thing!

I managed to really hurt my hand as I tried to help myself up resting on a chair back.  I also managed to break the chair.  Today I have been repairing it and I don't mind but the constant attention and fussing I can do without especially as I am using very sharp chisels and knives in an attempt to take off decades of glued repairs.  The chair was pretty badly split too so I've tried to repair that as well.  I'm not hopeful but we shall see if my very strong glue has done its best.

As I said yesterday, it seems to be never ending and in repairing one chair I've found another that needs attention.  In fact they all do as they are very old and the joints are dried and cracked - much like myself!

I am still having real problems with motivation and getting things done.  It's a constant struggle for me these days.  At least the App is in late testing so that's something but yet again there's some weird change in the development that could set me back again!  It's ever easy is it?

I am annoyed just how much weight I've put on and I know I've been eating all the wrong things.  It's just difficult to keep discipline.  I need to get stuck in but I have meetings to go to and all that and it's just difficult not to hit too many carbs etc.  At least the spring blossom and greenery are beginning to lift my mood so I hope that I will start to lighten my dark mood.

Painting the Forth Bridge

 The expression "Painting the Forth Bridge" is a British idiom meaning a never-ending task, stemming from the fact that the Forth Bridge's original paint technology required continuous repainting, but now, with modern paints, it only needs repainting every 20-25 years. 

So once again, I've had to fix my driveway gates.  One of the posts suffered a lot during the gales and is ever so slightly loose in the ground.  I'd fixed that by driving metal stakes into the ground and also by tying back to a local tree and using a system of small pulleys.  Anyway, it's worked OK for a few months (the cold weather also affects the wood) and I've just had to go and put a new stake in as I can see where there was a gap through the recent high winds.  So that's fixed..... For Now!

Down the week I had to fix one of the WCs which had started to leak but instead of an easy fix I had to buy all new components and fix it.  Then the auto cupboard light needed fixing too!  The light fitting was fixed on and so the heat was ridiculous so I also changed the lamp for an LED one too.

Blow me down if yesterday, my partner said she could hear scratching from the chimney!  Yes there was scratching and I could work out roughly where so I opened the windows and doors blackened one half the room with the curtains and took out the baffle plate in the log fire and left the door open.  You then need to shine a light upwards (it's not the first time this has happened).  All that happened was the bird pooped on my torch!

Giving it an hour we realised that we may need to help things along so I started to undo the inspection hatch but I'm old and not as slim as I used to be so partner's son came over and loosened the screws.  Still nothing, we could hear it but nothing so I once again shone my working light up the hole.  I also started to cook some food thinking the smell might help.

I was suddenly aware of a dark shape coming out of the darkened area of the room (we have a doubled sided chimney).  Then on one of our ceiling rafters we saw.....  A huge Crow.  It flew across to another rafter/beam and then shot out of the window!  Greeting all his Avian friends in a chorus in the field at the back! 

I've managed to partially put back the inspection cover and baffle plate but will need the long tall assistance to put the rest back!  

So that's my week.  How has yours been? 

Another Funeral To Go To

 I dislike funerals and have never really got on with them fully.  I am not sure why but I didn't like graveyards as a child and had an over active imagination.  I was singing at Rye Church and we stopped the Church clock from ticking and the huge pendulum which was putting us off our A cappella singing of Faure's Requiem in Latin.  Just before we started and were getting changed into our Choir Cassocks and Ruffs there was a massive Thunder and Lightning storm and the rain lashed down.  Opening the door I always remember the rain had pooled around the grave opposite the door and the water was bubbling.  My nine year old mind was well and truly disturbed.

 I always remember my mother and I going to the graveyard where her father was buried and a gravestone fell over and hit her leg!  So I never liked them.  My mother always said that "They can't hurt you, they're all dead!"  Tell that to her bruised leg I thought.

And to this day, I never quite feel right at these things, so much so that I am thinking of getting an unattended funeral/cremation for myself.  My mother has arrangements to do that and I need to check whether anyone objects to it in my close family.  I think they may want to do something and it won't actually matter to me what they do really.  So in the course of writing this I may be changing my mind and seeing what others want to do.

Today, a member of my Lodge, I don't know how many of us will be there in total, definitely two from our Lodge will be there.  Then afterwards to a pub I haven't been to for about 40 years or more maybe.  It was always a nightmare drive to get to down very narrow country lanes but since they built the M25 access has been made a lot easier by the looks of it and just a few hundred yards off of a roundabout! 

Quite often you find out things about someone you never knew but that's not helping the fact that I dislike funerals.  I think it is probably mortality thoughts that affect me.  Having seen that prospect and being reminded of it quite often, it's probably that.

Anyway, being there, despite my dislike is the thing.  But how is this, I knew him and I know his wife but I have never met his children until today.  So that in itself is strange I often feel.  I don't think that is always common in these situations but you feel you know someone quite well and yet perhaps not that well at all , you were only part of the person's life story.