In Flanders Field.......

I am a firm believer in the red poppy.

I could almost bring myself to wear a purple one for the animals who were killed in conflict.

But that's as far as I could go.

If people must wear a white poppy, either because they really don't understand what the red poppy symbolises or they feel a need to virtue signal, they do have the right, mainly thanks to the men for whom the red poppy is worn. I would however prefer them to choose one of the 364 other days in the year and leave the 11th for it's original remembrance.

I have been reading a book of David Mitchell's, comedy actor, writer and celebrity "quiz" contestant. He writes upon the subject of the Red Poppy and sums up how I see things but could never be as eloquent. I hope he won't mind me sharing part of it here.

The poppy is an incredibly moving symbol. This flower somehow flourished on battlefields smashed by the world's first experience of industrialised war - a war of unprecedented carnage which became almost as terrifying to the statesmen who had let it start as it was to the millions of soldiers who were killed or wounded by it.

Such was the international shock that, even after our side had won, no one could bring themselves to remember it with anything other than unalloyed sorrow. Not with victory arches or triumphal parades, but with the plain, mournful Cenotaph and a tradition of wearing paper versions of the flowers that had grown among the dead, the petals with which nature had rebuked the murderousness of men. That's why, whilst I understand the point they are trying to make, I disagree with those who eschew the red poppy but wear a white one for peace. To me, the poppy is already a pacifist rather than a martial symbol - a sign that war should be rejected at almost all costs.

The poppy represents the consensus that existed after the armistice - not a military or political consensus, but an emotional one: an overwhelming sense that the indiscriminate bloodletting of total war was too terrible ever to be forgotten, that only in solemn remembrance can any sense be made of those millions of deaths.

So, at the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, I will be remembering

My grandfather, Thomas Kenna, who ended the war with a metal plate in his head and invalided out of the war with mustard gas poisoning. He was never able to work. He died in 1964. I can only remember him visually through pictures but I can still hear his laboured breathing as though it was yesterday.

My Great Uncle, Samuel Longbottom, who died 24/8/16 and lies in the Peronne Road Cemetery, Maricourt, France.

William (Willie) Lacey. who died 27/11/17 and is commemorated at the Cambrai Memorial, Louveral, France, as his body was never recovered. He was not a relative but a friend of Thomas Kenna, above. He made Thomas promise that if he, Willie, was killed, that Thomas would take care of the girl he was courting, Kathleen Haycocks. Thomas kept his promise, not only looking after her but doing so by marrying her. Kathleen was my beloved Grandma Kenna.

I will remember also, all their comrades who fell or made it through from wherever in the world and also the German troops and their allies, who my grandfather looked on as the same as him, young lads who were sent to the slaughter by politicians.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning - We Will Remember Them.

Recollections 1

This is thrilling, in a not very sort of a way. By adding that 1 to the title you know there is to be a follow-up, suitably titled Recollection 2. The big question is whether I will get round to writing it.

First things first though.

We have just been visited by my brother, G and his wife A. Myself and A didn't get off to a good start. And not just because she is loud with a capital L O U D, likes to shock for the sake of it. (We were in the middle of a restaurant the other day when she decided to talk loudly about vaginas for some reason. The 14 year old who was with us nearly died of shame and she had to walk away. And that is now that A has calmed down from what she was like.

I may have said before the real reason I don't see eye to eye with A. It goes back to their wedding some 35 years back this last month. Prior to the day I think I had only met her a couple of times as I had been living in Birmingham and they in London so had only seen her at my Mum's for occasional family meals. My brother had decided to have his best mate O to be his best man even though G had been mine. There was a really good reason for it and I was totally happy that O performed that duty but was pleased that G asked me to be a witness at the signing of the register. Anyway, come the glorious day, we turned up at church and Amanda was being the big I am and organising things, not like a traditional bride at all and Graham came up to me and took me to one side. He told me Amanda had decided that as her brother had come all the way from Australia he should have something to do, and that something was sign the register. Not that she got on with her brother, she can't stand him. And not in place of the other signatory which was one of her friends but in place of me. So that was that. My Mum could see I was absolutely fuming. Partly for my own disappointment but more so that she should stop Graham having who he wanted in his wedding party. The only role someone from his close family was actually involved in.

And so for 35 years I have resented it. I am a Yorkshireman and we take these things hard.

So during their visit, and I can't remember why, the subject of their wedding came up. And A says to me, "were you at our wedding?" I was very restrained and just said yes. Why she thought G's own brother wouldn't be there, Lord knows, but she obviously didn't care too much whether I was or not. I could of course decide after all this time to let it go. On the other hand, I have decided I'll just put another chalk mark on the tally of things to resent her for.

Can you tell that was a full on vent?

Greetings from Bedlam

Hello.

It is August.

It is madness

But today is actually a day off. Or a morning off so far, you can never tell whether a guest will ring with a problem. 

It is full on work at the moment with the turn-rounds and the pools.

This is our first Sunday off so far in 6 weeks. Last week was clear until Saturday evening and then we ended up working until 9 in the evening, which is a busier Sunday than a normal busy Sunday.

Anyway, I haven't got anything interesting to say.

I'll try not to leave it two months again.

Au revoir as they say here in Franceland.

Banal Blogathon 4

 

Keys. 

We have loads of them. 

That's only one board. 

We have another. 

And that's before all our personal keys. 

And all the ones in various drawers to go with houses we lived in previously. 

Or cars owned 30 years ago.

Keys of every description.

Probably.

Now you can get doors that open with an app on your phone. 

How good is that going to be!?!?!

Until your battery goes flat.

And your charger is indoors.

Behind the keyless door.

Banal Blogathon 3

We have a cat.

A cat that does this.

It really isn't helpful when you are trying to work on a laptop.

She knows numerous shortcuts.

She knows how to turn the screen so it reads sideways. Or sometimes back to front.

This takes her a matter of seconds and me a matter of hours to fix it.

Sometimes she decides it is better if she decides to sit right in front of my face rather than on the keyboard. Usually with her backside towards me, which isn't the best view.

Which reminds me of the Kenn Dodd joke bout the man who invented cat's eyes.

So he is driving along one day and sees a cat in his headlights, he notices how reflective they are and he goes back to his workshop. He makes these cat's eyes for the ministry of transport and they take them on as a safety feature. It's funny how things work out. If the cat had been facing the other way he'd have invented the pencil sharpener!

Banal Blogathon 2

Wall art. What's all that about?

Of course we know what it is all about. There has been a trend of decorating the walls of ones house throughout the ages. The Romans had their murals, later we had wall hangings and tapestries. By the 16th and 17th centuries paintings were the big thing. Now for some reason we have decided to adorn our walls with bits of twisted metal.

This photo shows two panel that adorn our lounge wall. I have no idea what they are meant to represent. Are they planets? Perhaps they are the bubbles in a glass of our local tipple Blanquette de Limoux. Perhaps they aren't anything but discs for discs sake.

An Old Master can set you back millions, tapestries many thousands but I suspect, even in a couple of hundred years, people won't be queuing up in Antiques Roadshow 2218 with a rare piece of wall art. Assuming there is any left that hasn't rusted away.

Banal Blogathon 1

So here we are back at Bren's June Blogathon contribution - The Banal Blogathon. And I'm late. I suppose I should do a banal post as to my lateness but I wont.

The English word banal comes from the French word banel. Unfortunately, as an object, banal or banel don't exist, so instead I give you ........

BANANAS!

I like a banana, with custard, ice cream, perhaps in a sandwich. The problem is I like a slightly under ripe banana and I can't get them in France. In fact I can't get a decent banana for love nor money. The French prefer wherever possible to use home grown produce or something from a French colony. Unfortunately it would appear none of the French colonies were banana growing ones. Sometimes if we are really unlucky we have some grown in France. They shouldn't bother.

It drives me bananas!

It Pays to Check

I needed to go out and buy some grub screws today. My French may be improving but not to the standard that I can name all types of ironmongery available. So time to call in the help of an online translator.

English  -  Grub Screw
French  -  Vis a Ver

OK. Vis is often the basis of any type of screw so thought there was a good chance for once it might be right. Still, one can never be quite sure so when in doubt, reverse translate.

French  -  Vis a Ver
English  -  Fuck of Worm

Probably as well I didn't ask anyone!

Memory Lane

Tonight Mathew, I am watching the Old Grey Whistle Test.

Not a great lover of rock music or prog rock or anything much when I was a teenager but I used to watch this. Mainly I suspect so I knew what everyone else was talking about. Indeed, Danny Baker is saying much the same thing at this very minute.

Good old Whispering Bob Harris. He managed to make it exciting and secretive, being part of this special world of bands. Bands that weren't going to appear on TOTP, or very few of them.

I suspect many watching tonight wish they would bring it back.

But they won't. Who needs a program where people can actually play musical instruments, can sing in tune without autotune and don't have a "journey" with which to draw in the public. Just groups of musicians sitting around making music. How the hell is Simon Cowell going to make a fortune with that!

Good Vibrations

I have a strange disease. I don't know whether it is known to the medical community or not. I have decided to call it mobile leg.

I keep my mobiles in my right trouser pocket. I have for years. But I have noticed over the last year or so that sometimes it feels like my phone is vibrating for an incoming call. When my phone isn't in my pocket. Which is weird. And my left leg never does it.

Have my leg muscles learnt to vibrate? Should I accept things as they are but panic if it starts to play a ringtone? Is a leg vibrating whilst driving against the law? Do I have to give my leg back at the end of the contract?

Come on medical world. It's all very well curing the common cold etcetera but this is what people* are demanding a cure for!


* People may in fact just be one person in this instance.

Work Overload

It is of course our slow time of year. And it will continue to be so. But I am about to have 6 weeks of work to do at home.

My mother has come back with me from the UK to stay for 6 or so weeks. This spells trouble. Not because she is any trouble per se, You couldn't have a nicer house guest, but last year Marj discovered a secret. Having spent months trying to get me to put shelves up, curtain rails et al, she mentioned to my mum she was still waiting. My mother turned round every couple of days to ask if I'd done such and such. She then proceeded to suggest I get off my back side and do it. So I did.

Marj was astonished at how I just went and did things at her suggestion when she was hitting her head against a brick wall. As Mum said, "because I'm his mother". This year she has made a bit of a list so my mother can get me to do them during her stay.

Today we met a couple of friends and I was telling the husband the story and my mum was there, before we got to the very end he said "because it's your mum!".

Us boys are very well trained as far as our mothers are concerned!

You've let yourself down, the school down, and the blogosphere down!

Well, there we go. In a complete replay of my school years, by leaving my posts until the last minute each day, the moment something went wrong there was no chance to recover and therefore I have missed handing in yesterdays homework and have failed my February blogging course.

It should have all gone so smoothly. A trip out to Godfreys Fish & Chips at Harpenden, a post prandial drink, and then back to base with an hour to spare. But then things got a bit later and we all got chatting and then the chimes of midnight struck, I ran so that I could get to my computer to post and on the way I lost my glass slipper.

Tonight was going to be the problem as I have a party to go to and once I leave at 10am today I won't be back until the wee small hours of tomorrow morning. Instead however, I have fallen at the fence before by taking my eye off the ball and hitting my own wicket whilst mixing large numbers of metaphors.

Oh well, perhaps Feb 2019 will be the year when I get properly organised!

End of an Era

I was going through some of my old haunts today. Things change all the time and a couple of groups I belong to on Facebook often post pictures from the area many years back which are interesting to see or even remember but today I passed a place and realised an era had come to an end.

When I was a wee lad a friend of my mum used to cut my hair, and once he moved on to the big barber shop in the sky I used to visit a salon of hirsutedness over the road, but rather than cut my hair the way I wanted they would cut it too short. This was the 70s and short hair was very old hat. They would style your hair and indeed, it looked like a very old hat. Boom Boom as Basil Brush would say.

Come 1972 my Grandma got remarried and I needed my hair marginally cut but styled. My dad said "why not try my barber" so off we trotted to Dave the Barber. I was 16 and needed to have my hair tidy enough for parents to approve and long enough that I could get into trouble at school thereby maintaining some sort of street cred.

Whilst this was taken a few weeks later, here I am, resplendent with longish hair.

Whatever happened to that young lad about town! My mother insisted I should have some "portraits done" at a local photographers otherwise no evidence would exist.

Anyway, so lasted a relationship with Dave until last year. When I approached the age  where I could reverse the figures above and Dave decided to retire.

All through those years, although I occasionally had to use other barbers Dave was my number 1 man. He was the man who changed my styles for 40 years as hairlines receded and thinned.

The last time I went, around a year ago, resulted in the following.

A somewhat shorter, greyer, style than when he started. And yes, that is The Magnificent M!

Today I drove past the shop and, although still a barbers, it was modernised. No more pictures of 1950's styles with brylcreemed models looking wistfully into the distance. The old style red leather chairs with the board that went across for the kids to sit on. His Wanted Poster that his kids had bought him one Fathers Day. The bay rum, brylcreem, rubber puffer full of talc for the back of your neck, all gone.

I hope the retirement is going well and you've got a place in Italy to holiday in even if you aren't living there. After 40+ years I must have paid you enough money to at least enjoy a bit of your new found freedom! 

No Frills, No Problems

Greetings from England. Except you are already in England. So it only me who is abroad.

Once again I landed upon these shores thanks to Mr Ryanair. They get a lot of bad press but I have to say in my experience they have always been really good. Take this journey for instance. It cost me 12.99€. To fly the thick end of a thousand miles. You can't even by a large pizza for that, well not at Pizza Hut anyway.

The journey takes 2 hours and 5 minutes on the way here. It is 10 minutes less on the way back but that might be because it is downhill on a globe. I buy a can of drink airside at Carcassonne and ta
ke that on the plane with me. Even I can last for 2 hours without needing a meal so there is no need to spend any money on the plane itself.

There are of course the extras you can buy. I took priority booking which cost an extra 2€. Firstly, because I always have a window seat it means I can get on firstish and get to my seat without having to climb over anyone. Although today I excelled and was first on the plane! The baggage allowance has changed and you are only allowed a handbag, manbag, or laptop case in the cabin. Unless you have priority booking when you can still have your small case in the overhead locker. If you don't have priority your small case can go in the hold and it doesn't cost you anything. Larger cases are chargeable. And it also means you don't have to queue for your bags at Stanstead which can take quite a time.

The flight left on time and arrived 5 minutes early so the only downside was they played their fanfare but luckily nobody clapped which is often what happens. Actually the other downside was a bit of a bumpy landing but that wasn't their fault. That was God who arranged that. I think it possibly also got hit with a gust of wind just as we touched down because not only did it bump but it seemed to skid slightly which isn't surprising given the torrential rain that was pouring down at the time.

So hurrah for cheap air travel. All that for less than the price of a pizza. I would have taken some photos but we were either in cloud or it was dark. So to compensate, here is a picture of a grasshopper I took last Monday.

Can You Dig It?

Well, the local electrical company can. They are moving us from overhead lines to underground cables. Much has been done today and we've only just got wi-fi back so just a quick blog tonight. It'll be the same tomorrow but I will avoiding it, cos I'm on my travels. Back in dear Old Blightly tomorrow and on my Mums' fast and stable  broadband.

Hopefully when I get back our cat won't have got too curious and ended up buried under the tarmac!

Schadenfraude (or however you spell it).

We get on pretty well with our owners. They obviously pay our "wages" but in the end, we tend not to get every penny we can out of them, which is probably a mistake, but anyway that's how we are. We believe in a bit of give and take. We charge more for our complete property management service that if an owner sources all the separate components themselves as they are cutting out the middle man. And that is fine, you can't win 'em all.

So the other week we had an enquiry from a very large house not too far away from us to quote for a full management service. We did so and slightly under what we should have charged because there was a lot involved. They decided we were too expensive. No problem, we don't need any extra owners but we could have outed a couple of others with their replacement.

So earlier today, on a facebook group I follow, there was a request from someone for recommendations for a plumber as they had an emergency and needed to get it sorted out. Well, well, it was the same people. If they had gone with us there would have been a plumber in today. So now they know why what we offer might cost a little more. If everything goes right you have saved money, if it doesn't it costs more in money and more importantly, stress.

No, I didn't recommend anyone. I did however have a little sense of "satisfaction" that their decision had come back to bite them. It doesn't show me in the best of light but better than if I had replied on the page asking whether they had thought of getting a property management company.

Slipping into old age.

Following young Mashers post this morning, which in turn follows young Brennigs post the other day, I too am going to on breakfasts. Well not just breakfasts but all meals.

If I had kids we would be eating breakfast, lunch and our evening meal at a table, as a family. That alone will let any parents reading this know that I don't have kids as that's a fairyland scenario. Anyway I don't so we can be a little more relaxed. And since xmas our efforts to eat on our laps has been made easier.

We obviously had trays before but now we have......

To be fair, we didn't buy them ourselves. They were a present. Nor are they that design. We aren't so old as to actually buy them. They are, however, quite useful. Particularly when you use them with liquids in the bowl or on the plate.

It definitely feels like a heavy move towards older age but still realising they are a good idea and feeling a bit depressed about it.

Still, at least it isn't a zimmer frame yet. But who knows what we will get for Xmas next year!

Ziggy Played Guitar

46 years ago today in a London pub, David Bowie came on stage in a new persona. Nobody I know was there. In fact not many people were, it was a small pub. It was four months before the LP came out and it is the first musical event that seemed to unite virtually everyone in my class at school. Those more in the know than me started talking about it and enough excitement was generated that by the time we first saw Starman on Top of the Pops we were hooked on Bowie.

It isn't that we hadn't heard of him before. My brother had Hunky Dory. It did absolutely nothing for me. I listened to it again a couple of weeks back and it still just sounded like wallpaper to me.

Ziggy however was totally different.experience. We talked about every performance we saw. And when the album was out we discussed each track. Learnt them. Sang them. We were all our own Ziggys. There was much air guitar playing to Mick Ronson.

Bowie caught our attention like no one had before. Or possibly since.

Traffic News

There was a report this week on the UK's busiest roads. The winner was the A406, North Circular Hanger Lane to Chiswick Roundabout. A stretch of road I know well. And indeed the local website mentioned it here.

The website also gives you major roadworks in the area. For the next couple of weeks or so there is one here.

That's certainly going to help with the congestion. I know they have to do the work but it always takes so long in the UK.

I expect the tailback to be somewhere about Leicester.

It Never Rains In Southern California.

So sang Albert Hammond. Although I prefer his single Free Electric Band. Anyway, I digress. It never rains in Southern California sang Albert Hammond.

It does however snow in Southern France.

That was a surprise when we woke up.

And I'm not sure the vines at the bottom of the road are going to be happy about it.

This at least explains why it has been so bloody cold lately.

If we had this amount of snow, which is quite a bit for our village, I can't wait to see the mountains when the cloud lifts!