Flaming June!

Well, here it is - and more or less on time. May has been a wash-out, and the weeds have never had it so good. But the new bushes have taken, and we have gooseberries on the stems, which I shall have to take off so that the roots develop. The same with the new red currant plants. Fortunately I have a couple of large old bushes, which will keep us going until the new ones are properly settled in.

Swimming has gone to pot, I am afraid. I have developed a pinched nerve in my neck, which makes it agony to swim backstroke as you have to tuck your chin in a bit while you are doing it, and that is a movement that hurts. So its been off to the osteopath, which is a profession that I really do not understand. Somehow, by tucking her hands under my shoulder blades while I am lying on my back and gently twitching her fingertips once every ten seconds or so she achieves results. One of these was to make me feel very queasy, but I am assured that this can happen, and it does not matter.

Actually, I am a bit fragile today because Leon (no. 2 son) had his 40th birthday party last night, and today we were invited to a Coronation Commemorative lunch, and I seem to have got outside quite a lot of bubbly. But it is all in a good cause.

Last week we had the 2 grand-daughters to stay for the week because Leon and wife went to Singapore on business. We gave them some contacts, but they were not given the chance to do their own thing, so we will have to write to our friends and explain why nothing happened. But at least I now know where Singapore is. The two girls, in the meantime, went on a 3-day adventure course not far from where we live, and it poured with rain every day while they did everything from skiing to Archery, with rock climbing and bush craft thrown in. A good time was had by all, but I think they now will have webbed feet.

During May we went to the theatre to see the Pitmen Painters - a play based on fact about some miners during the war that discovered that they had artistic talents for which people were prepared to pay, and the social upsets that that produced. Very enjoyable. Also to an Old School reunion for people living in the south-east. The numbers at these things get fewer and fewer, so I suppose that today's forty year olds have found better things to do with their spare time than to keep up old acquaintance. Pity, really. But we hope to make up for it on the 1 July when we get to meet an old school friend from Canada who is calling in to London.

We also managed a week in Scotland with all travel more or less free, including the hire car, courtesy of Avios, etc. Got to Inverness to see an old friend who still rides his motor cycle combination. A fearsome beast - the bike I mean, but very impressive. Then back to the borders to see the in-laws, Sonia's sister & family. Lovely part of the world. Very interesting to see how the anti-Englishnass of the Scots is being whipped up. We have friends who are rugby union enthusiasts with debenture seats at Twickers and they go to all the international matches in all parts of the world. But they have stopped going to Murrayfield because of the unpleasantness displayed to the English supporters. We do not need that!

About all for the time being. parting shots delivered to me by friends include:

A couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and inform the other if there is sex after death.

Their biggest fear was that there was no after life at all.

After a long life together,the husband was the first to die. True to his word, he made the first contact:

" Marion ....Marion "

"Is that you, Bob?"

"Yes, I've come back like we agreed."

"That's wonderful! What's it like?"

"Well, I get up in the morning, I have sex. I have breakfast and then it's off to the golf course.  I have sex again, bathe in the warm sun and then have sex a couple of more times.  Then I have lunch (you'd be proud - lots of greens). Another romp around the golf course, then pretty much have sex the rest of the afternoon.  After supper, it's back to golf course again. Then it's more sex until late at night. I catch some much needed sleep and then the next day it starts all over again"

"Oh, Bob! Are you in Heaven?"

"No -- I'm a rabbit in Somerset

***

Working people frequently ask retired people what  they do to make their days interesting.

Well, for example, the other day, Mary my wife and I went into town and visited a shop.

When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.

We went up to him and I said, 'Come on, man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?'

He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him an "a**h0le" . He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn-out tyres.

So Mary called him a "sh1t head". He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing more tickets. This went on for about 20 minutes.

The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote.

Just then our bus arrived, and we got on it and went home.

We try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired.

It's important at our age.

  

***

About all for now. Pip Pip

The Sun Has Got His Hat On

Warmth at last! I have put away the long-sleeved shirts and the pullovers, and got out the short sleeved shirts and the light-weight trousers. The allotment is growing fast - trying to catch up with where it should have been a month ago. I have never seen so many dandelions as there were this morning. I took up my little battery strimmer and cut the heads off the lot, but there will be just as many next week. The fruit bushes that I planted a few weeks ago needed watering, too. I did not think I would have to do that so soon, but newly planted bushes need more water than established ones.

April has been quite full of action of various sorts. I had a meeting of the Law Society's Charity - I have been a trustee for years. Money has got a bit tight recently, but we still have some to dish out, supporting various specific charitable bodies in the legal field, such as Book Aid International, which supplies legal text books to third world countries, and Fair Trials Abroad, which sends lawyers to represent Brits on capital charges in foreign countries. With the serious, and wrong-minded, curtailment of legal aid, there are more and more litigants in person, some of whom really do need professional help to achieve justice, The Personal Support Unit, run by volunteers in the main hall of the Law Courts in the Strand and at the larger courts round the country, who provide some of this, but in the end, there are expenses, and sometimes a barrister really does have to be used, and they have to have some sort of financial support.

Later in the month we went to Aldeburgh  with friends Derek and Jackie. Very pleasant time. Visited Kessingland, just inland from Lowestoft, where some of my father's relatives used to live. Great Aunt Agatha (Truly!) and Great Aunt Martha were too elderly ladies who lived in a cottage with an end wall coated in tar to keep out the wind-blown rain from making the wall too wet, it was that exposed. Agatha was just like Giles' Grandma, and taught me,at age 9 or thereabouts, how to mull Guinness by making the poker red hot in the fire and then plunging it into the glass full. Martha only had one eye, but was a very gentle lady. The water supply was one tap, and the loo was a privy at the bottom of the back garden. Remember 'The Specialist'? A splendid book about a privy builder in the back end of the wild west. He would have built something like the great aunts had.

Back home in time for the Investment Club dinner, and then to Derbyshire/Staffordshire to see friend David who I first met in Cayman many years age and who has been kind enough to keep in contact. He celebrated his birthday by buying us lunch. Thank you David - my turn next time!

Back home for the village Dramatic Society play - Life and Beth by Alan Ayckbourn. It was the first play he wrote after his stroke in 2006, and was very good indeed. It's been a theatrical month as we went to Eastbourne last week to see The Pitmen Painters. Very funny indeed. Just as good as a London theatre, but half the price which is only a saving of you do not first have tea and buns in the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, but you have to eat somewhere....

All for this month. Having bought a Sat Nav, I leave you with this thought:

I have a little SatNav

I have a little SatNav.

It sits there in my car.

A SatNav is a driver's friend,

It tells you where you are.

I have a little SatNav.

I've had it all my life.

It’s better than the normal ones.

My SatNav is my wife.

It gives me full instructions,

Especially how to drive

"It's thirty miles an hour," it says,

"You're doing thirty-five."

It tells me when to stop and start

And when to use the brake,

And tells me that it's never, ever

Safe to overtake.

It tells me when a light is red

And when it goes to green.

It seems to know instinctively,

Just when to intervene.

It lists the vehicles just in front

And all those to the rear

And taking this into account,

It specifies my gear.

I'm sure no other driver

Has so helpful a device,

For when we leave and lock the car,

It still gives its advice

It fills me up with counselling

Each journey's pretty fraught,

So why don't I exchange it

And get a quieter sort?

Ah well, you see, it cleans the house,

Makes sure I'm properly fed.

It washes all my shirts and things

And keeps me warm in bed!

Despite all these advantages

And my tendency to scoff,

I really wish that just for once,

I could ******* turn it off.

April Showers - of More Snow!

I have been called to order for being late! It has been a busier month than of late, and we have been away - to Cornwall, which was nice, and to Mid Wales, which was also nice, but pretty snow-bound, and then to Derbyshire, which was pretty much the same.

March started unpromisingly with our going to an alleged comic called Al Murray, who was consistently unfunny, and we walked out after the first half. He puts on some sort of an act as an inn-keeper, but there was a lot of audience interaction, which did not make us laugh, and a fair amount of language which I personally do not object to if it is amusing, but this, frankly was not. Avoid the man like the plague. Pity, really because we had seen him on 'Breakfast' on BBC 1 and he has very funny then.

Rotary does mock interviews for some of the local school-leavers, and I took part for the second time. One of the more useful things that we do. It was interesting, because although the pupils have - or say they have - classes in leaving school and getting a job, none of the ones we saw seemed to understand that when an employer advertises a job he will have two or three hundred applications, and the first weed-out will take all out except the 20 best. To avoid being discarded at this stage the applicant needs to have something that will make him stand out from the rest. They all seemed to understand the need to emphasise their team playing abilities, but we had a girl who was into extreme sports, and she did not understand that this would be of interest to employers with whom she hoped to get a job - the police. And so on. I think it may be pone of the more useful things that our Club does, but there are not a lot of volunteer interviewers.

I ran the bowls club quiz again this year. Copy question sheets for those who are interested, with answers to follow. People seemed to enjoy it, but you do get some awkward characters, so I am careful to make sure that we only have questions that only have one answer.

The a week away - see above - with halts at Bristol to have lunch with my sister-in-law, and then to the New Inn at Coleford. Nice place with good dinners. Then on to see an old school friend at Wadebridge, and then 3 nights at Marazion. Our bedroom faced the end of the causeway to St Michael's Mount, with absolutely nothing between us and the beach. Met another old school friend who lives at Gweek - - and managed to go to the Telegraph Museum at Porthcurnow. Very interesting, with a lot of stuff that I imagined had been forgotten. Then to Montgomery to see my cousin. Lots of snow there - it is the land of frozen sheep, and I do feel sorry for the farmers ho have to put up with all that is going on. Finally to Derbyshire to check on the grandchildren. They still like stories being read to them, and I was pleased that they like Just So Stories, because you can really spread yourself.

Finally to Horseguards in London last Tuesday to see parts that Other Beers Cannot Reach. A friend of mine used to work there, so we went to places that are never open, and saw things like Hitler's desk, - and Wellington's desk too. Down in the basement there is a cockpit that was in use, illegally for long after the practice was banned. They had to turn over the floorboards some time ago because they were too stained with blood for visitors to stomach.

About all this month, although you should read the following. One of the best for many months.

Hasta la vista

I have a little SatNav

I have a little SatNav.

It sits there in my car.

A SatNav is a driver's friend,

It tells you where you are.

I have a little SatNav.

I've had it all my life.

It’s better than the normal ones.

My SatNav is my wife.

It gives me full instructions,

Especially how to drive

"It's thirty miles an hour," it says,

"You're doing thirty-five."

It tells me when to stop and start

And when to use the brake,

And tells me that it's never, ever

Safe to overtake.

It tells me when a light is red

And when it goes to green.

It seems to know instinctively,

Just when to intervene.

It lists the vehicles just in front

And all those to the rear

And taking this into account,

It specifies my gear.

I'm sure no other driver

Has so helpful a device,

For when we leave and lock the car,

It still gives its advice

It fills me up with counselling

Each journey's pretty fraught,

So why don't I exchange it

And get a quieter sort?

Ah well, you see, it cleans the house,

Makes sure I'm properly fed.

It washes all my shirts and things

And keeps me warm in bed!

Despite all these advantages

And my tendency to scoff,

I really wish that just for once,

I could ******* turn it off.