Category: General

Big World of WordPress

I’m off to bed in a sec, but I was just wondering if anyone has had as comment here from someone else on WordPress as opposed to people we already knew from MyT.

When I first posted on MyT I didn’t know a soul. Pretty soon I began to recognise other bloggers, look out for the ones I enjoyed, made comments, got comments back and so on and so forth.

By clicking on the latest blogs bit at the bottom of the dashboard (it moves jolly quickly) I’ve found a few blogs that interest me. I’ve left some comments, but that’s been it. I’m missing the interaction of the old place, but each time I go back there I hate it!

Home

I know that The Cave is mentioned frequently in my posts and comments, but there is a reason for this.  In my life I have had only four homes – the home in which I grew up, the home where Zangada and I spent most of our married life, our home in Australia and, finally, The Cave.

Each of the first three homes was very special to me, especially now in terms of memories, because I left none of them without a tugging of the heart strings.  This must have been preying on my mind of late for I woke early one morning not so long ago with a waking dream and the phrase “Home, the house you can walk around in the dark”  bouncing round in my head, the point being that anyone can live in a house for a while, but what makes a home?

For me, in each of these four homes, I could wake up in the middle of the night and, for example, make a cup of tea in total darkness, being able to put my hand on every ingredient, teaspoon and cup knowing instinctively on which shelf and in which drawer each sat. But much more than that, Home represents safety. Security. Home is not Heimat – “The Homeland” in whichever language and a totally different concept.  Home is much more specific than that, so I asked an artistic friend to interpret the phrase.  The above frame was the result and I think it sums it up perfectly, much more so than my inadequate photography.  At some point they will carry me off the hill paws upwards, and bring my ashes back to be buried here.

What does home mean to you?

OZ

Am I missing something, again?

Another one I put up on MyT, which seems to be going reasonably well there – perhaps the trolls haven’t woken up, yet.

We are informed that a tax on the food we eat is being ‘considered.’  This at the same time as a rise in the rate of VAT to 20% is also mooted.  We are also informed that members of parliament have voted themselves an increase in pay while millions of the people who pay for that increase are suffering pay cuts, or cuts in working hours that reduce their income significantly.  Oh, Yes, and the same members of parliament are demanding that they travel, free, in First Class on the trains because, among other reasons, ‘there is not enough leg-room in standard class’ and, in standard class,  ‘ it is not safe for a woman travelling alone at night.’ Still interested?

Am I missing something?

School admissions: more parents facing ‘fraud’ investigations

In a report, Ian Craig, the Chief Schools Adjudicator, said many parents were employing “quite bizarre” tactics to cheat the system.

Some councils already carry out their own doorstep inspections of parents to ensure information on application forms is accurate.

But they claim that attempts to crackdown on cheating is being undermined by the lack of proper sanctions, other than taking away the place.

Dr Craig was asked by Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, to draw up a list of suggested new powers to clampdown on the problem.

So, let me get this straight.

  • In the brave new world of new labour, some schools are failing pupils.
  • Parents want their children to go to schools which will not fail them, so they game the system.
  • We are going to ‘give new powers’ to the bureaucrats to hunt these parents out, then disrupt their childrens’ lives by taking them out of schools that are not failing and sending them to schools that are failing – along with those children already condemned ro the failing schools.

Am I being obtuse, here, or is the solution not staring these dogma and bureacracy-driven apparatchiks in the face?

Fix the freakin’ schools!

Problem solved.

Ride the wave, baby.

Minus three degrees, a single track road and frosted grass verges disappearing into thick early morning mist; it wasn’t looking promising.

“We’re not going to see anything.”

“If we’re lucky we’ll just hear it go by.”

“To think we got up at 5.45am for this…”

The discontented curmudgeonly mutterings came one after the other from my fellow travellers.

“Ah, no worries,” I said. “It’s going to be clear. The sun will burn away the mist. It’ll be fine.”

I always say stuff like that, believing it as I say it but also knowing that it’s 50-50 whether my prediction will be correct or not.

When I used to walk my dog at this time of the morning, the shapes of solitary, sleeping cattle would materialise out of the mist.

This time, as we neared our destination, different objects emerged – cars, camper vans and the pale flesh of half naked men pulling on neoprene wetsuits. Continue reading “Ride the wave, baby.”

Mother Anxiety

I just called my mother. She sounded okay, but wanted to pass me onto her visitors pretty sharpish as though, as my uncle says, the phone were a hot brick.

I was very worried when one of them told me they had had been greeted by staff saying Mother had had several accidents yesterday and had had to have four showers, so they were not to give her anything to eat.

There was no mention of a doctor, or any medical attention at all. The acting manager is not about. I’ve received no information about this. So I’m writing this post partly to distract myself while I wait for an answer to my flagged email or for Mother’s visitors to get more information from staff on duty.

Generally my mother is fairly hungry. She should eat little and often. She enjoys the scrambled egg her visitors make her every Saturday for elevenses and I really want to know if there’s a medical reason why she shouldn’t have it, or if it’s a high-handed decision made by one of the staff.

The Dancing Captain

Jazz might enjoy this one – seeing as how he sailed with this particular Captain!

One of the jobs we had with the company’s ‘big’ tugs was the towing around the UK of various high end specialist marine equipment, such as a floating sheerleg type crane which had an enormous lifting capability.

Aboard the ‘Afon Goch’ in them days we had a Master and a Towing Master – I think it was a nod to the Dutch, who had some influence with the company at the time.- and they could not have been further removed from each other. One (Towing Master) was a young bloke who was well liked by the crews as he was also a Master in his own right and apart from being a superb ship handler, was also a really nice guy. The Master, on the other hand, was an ancient Scotsman who had done all of his time in towage and salvage – firstly in the Royal Navy and then later out in the Far East with Hong Kong Towage and Salvage and Selco. Knew his stuff – but was a real old curmudgeon. Continue reading “The Dancing Captain”