1 Yes, a day to be remembered. The day had begun with a SSAFA visit to a early-elderly woman, wife to an elderly man who is in need of her constant care. Long ago, the man was in Malaya as a National Service private soldier. When I asked him for his number, he gave it to me. Yet, according to his wife, he can go to bed at 2030 and return downstairs an hour later all ready to walk to the nearby shop for his morning newspaper. He forgets. He is subject to urgent imperatives to go to the lavatory. Meanwhile, his wife wants to take a three-week holiday. Where can her husband be accommodated whilst she is away - that was the question which brought me to the house. I e-mailed the answers shortly after returning home. Job done in an hour or two. Memorable? Could be a contender.
2 Making my way through the four sets of options in order to talk to someone at a local Comer store and then waiting for nearly ten minutes - before I put down the handset - at 10p a minute - perhaps that experience also qualifies as a memorable one. A low-level memorable experience.
3 What qualified unambiguously was the 40 or so minutes as I admired the new bicycle which was to be mine, as I rode it for a short while, and as I paid for it and, in conclusion, wheeled it out of the shop. I have a new road-bike, a new one which is just the right height, just the right length, on which the gears work smoothly and easily, a new bike which took me easily up the nearby steep hill on my way home. The memorable event.
Monday, 21 May 2012
Friday, 18 May 2012
Bemused of Podgorica
1. I have just posted a comment on Eureka as I could not access a new posting on the Home and Away Site, but when I published, up came the opportunity to create a new posting.
2. Blogging is sent to try my patience more than I can say. I think the expression is tearing one's hair out and that when one has not got much is not a good idea.
3. Rather alarmed about the downgrading of Spanish Banks. Should I pull my money out of Santander or should I sit tight.
Well there's a thing.
2. Blogging is sent to try my patience more than I can say. I think the expression is tearing one's hair out and that when one has not got much is not a good idea.
3. Rather alarmed about the downgrading of Spanish Banks. Should I pull my money out of Santander or should I sit tight.
Well there's a thing.
Grapple lives on!
1 It does, it does. Indeed, the signs were positive from the time of my arrival - almost the first. Immediate recognitions, immediate conversations. As others arrived there were further, easy conversations. When lunch was signalled, we moved to the President's room, the room next to the bar at the top of the stairs, where four tables had been set out. We sat to lunch, which was served. Steak pudding. The conversations continued.
2 After lunch, the room was re-arranged for the showing of films. One of our number, a quiet, lovely man who worked at the AWE, has access to old films. So we watched the preparations for one of the tests at Maralinga. As an encore, as it were, we watched for a further fifteen minutes a film about a (small) ship-based test off the Monte Bello Islands.
2.1 Both films were black and white, both were old. Yet we watched. It was interesting to see the preparations for the test at Maralinga. The film was about longago (nearly 60 years) events, yet it was an expression of what we had in common. We had all been occupied with the nuclear and thermo-nuclear tests. We had all been some 50 or more years younger. We had just had lunch. We were in good shape.
2.2 The reunion is one of elderly men, and some guests, who assemble in a familiar place for what I sense is an entirely familiar event. I sat next to a chum who travels from Newport. Others travel from further away. The dominant dress is blazer and Grapple tie. There is talk, of course, about the Island. Yet the conversation embraces the topics which might feature at other lunch tables. I have an idea that there is a sense of commonality, a sense that one is in the company of someone else who served on the Island (or elsewhere in the Grapple programme). Accordingly, the conversation just flows.
3 Of course, there was a Vote of Thanks to the man who keeps it all together, (no longer) young David Brockett and his wife. They live in the New Forest. For years I have been saying that I will visit them on a bicycle. I have promised that I will do so next month, 'in June'. So we had better to put one or two possible dates in our diaries. Bikes on train. Bottoms on bikes.
4 Jim and Sheila have invited us to their fiftieth wedding anniversary lunch in the RAF Club on Sunday 17 June.
Keep the news coming
Stayathome
2 After lunch, the room was re-arranged for the showing of films. One of our number, a quiet, lovely man who worked at the AWE, has access to old films. So we watched the preparations for one of the tests at Maralinga. As an encore, as it were, we watched for a further fifteen minutes a film about a (small) ship-based test off the Monte Bello Islands.
2.1 Both films were black and white, both were old. Yet we watched. It was interesting to see the preparations for the test at Maralinga. The film was about longago (nearly 60 years) events, yet it was an expression of what we had in common. We had all been occupied with the nuclear and thermo-nuclear tests. We had all been some 50 or more years younger. We had just had lunch. We were in good shape.
2.2 The reunion is one of elderly men, and some guests, who assemble in a familiar place for what I sense is an entirely familiar event. I sat next to a chum who travels from Newport. Others travel from further away. The dominant dress is blazer and Grapple tie. There is talk, of course, about the Island. Yet the conversation embraces the topics which might feature at other lunch tables. I have an idea that there is a sense of commonality, a sense that one is in the company of someone else who served on the Island (or elsewhere in the Grapple programme). Accordingly, the conversation just flows.
3 Of course, there was a Vote of Thanks to the man who keeps it all together, (no longer) young David Brockett and his wife. They live in the New Forest. For years I have been saying that I will visit them on a bicycle. I have promised that I will do so next month, 'in June'. So we had better to put one or two possible dates in our diaries. Bikes on train. Bottoms on bikes.
4 Jim and Sheila have invited us to their fiftieth wedding anniversary lunch in the RAF Club on Sunday 17 June.
Keep the news coming
Stayathome
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Eureka
1. Three cheers after one week, and numerous attempts and a fresh invitation, the blog has opened and I can type. The computer is sorted, the language is English and not Thai, Norwegian or Serbo-Croat.
2. Trouble is there is not much to say!!!! No seriously. I am pleased you had a good visit with Jacubus. As I said in the posting, perhaps he is interested in the here and now and not concerned with an previous relationship with a GDWG volunteer. I sensed that when he did not really bother trying to contact his previous girlfriend etc. As you say he is easy to chat to and the hour passes quickly.
3. I had a lovely long email from Helen telling me about Sam's pre-school and Ben's attendance at Nursery. Sam is still disappointed he is not in Germany. Helen is busy working on her MSc and is going to start work in Halifax three days a week. She commented on the lack of work in the NHS, but fortunately for her there is a need for Women's Health in the Halifax area. She commented that her Uncle Charlie had recently died aged 92. The whole village will attend the funeral.
4. Montenegrans are not backward in coming forward and sensitivity is not actually a strong point. The maid wants monopoly over Noah, grabs him and walks off to play in another room. Whilst I do not want to spend the whole day looking after him, it is sometimes good to let him hear English, as Norwegian is what he is more used to. I explained that I do not see much of him, so it is lovely for me to play a while etc. Interesting behaviour, psyhcology - working out what makes people tick.
5. I gather Hannah is going off to Greece with Chrissie, and Frances. She needed some persuading. It sounded as though Liam was not going. So what is he doing?
6. The reading has been good. The Help was a thought provoking book. I spent a little time on google looking up the events leading up to the Civil Rights Act. The infamous woman who was asked to give up her seat for a white person and she refused. Good on her. She was exhausted after a day's work. The silent marches and shooting of 'name' in the back on his return home. I am just about ready to read something about terrorism. That will keep me going.
7. The days are still full of rain and the confinement is testing. However, on the plus side, I am sleeping for England. The rest must surely be therapeutic.
8. Today is the Norwegian National Day so later in the day we will be stomping round the garden waving the flag, calling out hurrah, hurrah for 17 May. We will eat Lumpa, sausages and ice cream.
Traditional. Another Norwegian family will be joining us.
Well it's time to sign off this success!
2. Trouble is there is not much to say!!!! No seriously. I am pleased you had a good visit with Jacubus. As I said in the posting, perhaps he is interested in the here and now and not concerned with an previous relationship with a GDWG volunteer. I sensed that when he did not really bother trying to contact his previous girlfriend etc. As you say he is easy to chat to and the hour passes quickly.
3. I had a lovely long email from Helen telling me about Sam's pre-school and Ben's attendance at Nursery. Sam is still disappointed he is not in Germany. Helen is busy working on her MSc and is going to start work in Halifax three days a week. She commented on the lack of work in the NHS, but fortunately for her there is a need for Women's Health in the Halifax area. She commented that her Uncle Charlie had recently died aged 92. The whole village will attend the funeral.
4. Montenegrans are not backward in coming forward and sensitivity is not actually a strong point. The maid wants monopoly over Noah, grabs him and walks off to play in another room. Whilst I do not want to spend the whole day looking after him, it is sometimes good to let him hear English, as Norwegian is what he is more used to. I explained that I do not see much of him, so it is lovely for me to play a while etc. Interesting behaviour, psyhcology - working out what makes people tick.
5. I gather Hannah is going off to Greece with Chrissie, and Frances. She needed some persuading. It sounded as though Liam was not going. So what is he doing?
6. The reading has been good. The Help was a thought provoking book. I spent a little time on google looking up the events leading up to the Civil Rights Act. The infamous woman who was asked to give up her seat for a white person and she refused. Good on her. She was exhausted after a day's work. The silent marches and shooting of 'name' in the back on his return home. I am just about ready to read something about terrorism. That will keep me going.
7. The days are still full of rain and the confinement is testing. However, on the plus side, I am sleeping for England. The rest must surely be therapeutic.
8. Today is the Norwegian National Day so later in the day we will be stomping round the garden waving the flag, calling out hurrah, hurrah for 17 May. We will eat Lumpa, sausages and ice cream.
Traditional. Another Norwegian family will be joining us.
Well it's time to sign off this success!
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
First post
1 The new blog will provide a new route for continuing communications between the Master of the Hall and the Mistress of the Haulcon
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