Zuma

I received a heart-warming tale in my comments box this morning. It was from a lady called Blue Mona. Although I have never had any previous contact with Mona, I was pleased to receive her uplifting message. It proved that even when life seems as shitty as it could possibly be, there is still hope and the possibility of a new beginning - just around the corner.

Personally, I do not require the services of the great Dr Zuma at this point in my life. However, it occurred to me that one or two troubled readers - out there on the murky edges of the blogosphere - might relish the assistance that Dr Zuma would undoubtedly bring to magically heal their relationship problems.

And so I have copied and pasted Mona's kind message below. My advice is to steel yourself, swallow hard and contact Dr Zuma using the e-mail address at the end. It could be the best thing you ever did. After all, look at what Dr Zuma did for Mona!

Hi My name is Mona. I just want to share my experience with the world on how I got my love back and saved my marriage… I was married for 7 years with 4 kids and we lived happily until things started getting ugly and we had fights and arguments almost every time… it got worse at a point that he filed for divorce… I tried my best to make him change his mind & stay with me cause I loved him with all my heart and didn’t want to lose him but everything just didn’t work out… he moved out of the house and still went ahead to file for divorce… I pleaded and tried everything but still nothing worked. The breakthrough came when someone introduced me to this wonderful, great spell caster Dr Zuma, who eventually helped me out… I have never been a fan of things like this but just decided to try reluctantly cause I was desperate and left with no choice… He did special prayers and cast a love spell on him. Within 24hours he called me and was sorry for all the emotional trauma he had cost me, he moved back to the house and we continue to live happily, the kids are happy too and we are expecting our fourth child… I have introduced him to a lot of couples with relationship problems across the world and they have had good news… Just thought I should share my experience cause I strongly believe someone out there needs it… You can contact him on spiritualherbalisthealing@gmail.com

And please remember that today is the first day of the rest of your life. You might regret not making that first step into a better, happier future. Final thought: I wonder if Dr Zuma charges for his services?

Rotherham

The Chapel of Our Lady, Rotherham

Rotherham is Sheffield's little brother. The two places are very close. The population of the borough of Rotherham is around 275,000 though the town itself is home to 110,000. It has an ancient heart as evidenced by Rotherham Bridge Chapel, shown above. This dates from the fifteenth century.

From the late eighteenth century, through to the start of the twentieth century, Rotherham became a significant industrial town with steelworks and factories transforming its original character. Later, there was painful decline and the town became a shadow of its former self. It didn't help that Yorkshire's biggest shopping centre - Meadowhall - was built on Rotherham's doorstep.

I travelled there on a "Supertram" tram-train from Sheffield Cathedral. It took me all the way to the Parkgate shopping centre - another reason why the centre of Rotherham feels like a neglected ghost town.

At Parkgate, there's a big Boots store - Boots being  this country's  biggest health and beauty products retailer. I popped in to buy some sunglasses for our trip to Egypt. Oh bejus! Some of those sunglasses cost between £100 and £200! I settled for a Boots home brand pair for £10 complete with a soft case. Nobody would know the difference.

Then it was on to the Cancer Research store I mentioned yesterday before making my way over footbridges that crossed the railway track, The River Don and The South Yorkshire Navigation Canal.

Soon I was in the suburb of Eastwood which is deprived and contains a large pocket of Muslim households with roots back in Pakistan and Bangladesh. This community was home to some very bad men who were guilty of the sexual abuse and exploitation of hundreds of vulnerable young girls and women between the 1980s and 2013. A number of those vile men are now locked up but there are probably others who still stalk the streets of Eastwood because the law never caught up with them. 

Crocuses in Clifton Park

I walked up Cottenham Road to Clifton Park which is spacious and well-kept in its maturity. There I paused at the cenotaph to pay my respects to Rotherham's war dead, noting the surname Jackson - my mother's maiden name. She was raised in the borough.

Then on to the sad "High Street" but beyond that the magnificence of Rotherham Minster - a Grade One listed church on the national register. It was built between 1480 and 1512 though the site had church buildings on it throughout the previous six hundred years.

I went inside hoping to view interior details but there was an event on. It was just about to begin and a hundred people were sitting in the wooden pews with a big screen in front of them. With a free coffee in hand, I decided to join them - just for the first half hour.

We watched a short Netflix documentary film called "The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone", set in Melbourne, Australia concerning a young trans woman's fight for the life she wanted to live. I take my hat off to her and to her supportive family. The film taught me some things and made me think better about trans people and trans rights.

Soon after that I was down at Rotherham Central Station ready for the tram-train home. It had been a very pleasant day out during which I conversed with half a dozen townsfolk. I will return before too long when hopefully I can peruse the minster's interior properly.

£8

Today, I did not carry the world on my shoulders. Instead, I carried it in a bag.

The world cost me just £8. I thought it was a bargain but I suppose in buying the world I have also purchased all of its troubles. From desertification to starvation and from exploitation to deforestation. Yes - now I come to think of it, maybe it wasn't such a bargain after all.

To clarify for Ellen D and Mary M and Bruce T and David and James and Bob and Jennifer in South Carolina and all the other Yankee-Doodle-Dandies who call by this humble green blog, £8 is the equivalent of $11 US. For Marcellous, Andrew, Elsie and Kylie on that big southern island that is apparently not an island, £8 is the equivalent of  $15.3 AUS. For Young Meike in continental Europe, £8 is the equivalent of 9.18 euros. For Lovely Monica in Sweden, £8 is about the same as 98 krona. For Canadian visitors like Arctic Monkey Red, Nurse Pixie, Debra ("She Who Squeaks")  and Jenny in Nova Scotia, £8 is like $14.8 CAN.

You might be wondering where I found the world.

It was in a battered cardboard box in the Cancer Research shop at Rotherham's Parkgate Shopping Centre.

When I spotted it, an elderly lady with silvery hair and silver-rimmed spectacles said to me, "Oh, I was looking at that but I have got no room for it in my house."

I told her that I was tempted but I had come to Rotherham to take a long walk and I did not really wish to be burdened by the world. I wanted my hands free.

"It won't weigh much," she advised. "A big, strong bloke like you. It'll not trouble you. Get a bag with handles!"

Holding up the world like Atlas in tales of yore, I asked the nice lady where she had been. She told me that the furthest she had been was to the Caribbean Sea on a cruise: "when my husband was alive". I showed her where it was. She remembered Barbados.

So I bought the world and a big bag with a suitable floral design to carry the world therein.

And as I left with the world peeping over the rim of the bag, I jested to her, "I am sure you are an agent for Cancer Research... persuading innocent visitors like me to spend our money here!"

She laughed and so did the ginger-bearded shop volunteer who completed the transaction. I suspect he was a man.

Then I set off on my Rotherham walk, now slightly encumbered by the world in a flowery bag. It was certainly not what I had been planning - but to tell you the truth, the inconvenience wasn't too bad. The nice old lady was right. The world with all of its troubles didn't weigh too much at all.

Loyalty

Loyalty is one of my character traits and I admire it in others. However, when the term is applied to supermarkets, it immediately loses most of its appeal.

I remember when Shirley and I were in Victoria, Canada back in 2014. We had a hotel room on the waterfront - complete with cooking facilities. One night, rather than going out to eat, we decided to purchase some provisions from a nearby, moderately-sized supermarket.

When we reached the checkout, it immediately became clear that the various prices we had spotted around the store were only available to customers with loyalty cards. Of course, being tourists, we did not have a loyalty card and so our bill more or less doubled. Thankfully, there was a nice Canadian lady behind us in the checkout queue and she  offered to buy our items using her loyalty card and then we could reimburse her at the ATM. It saved us a substantial amount of money.

In 2014, such loyalty schemes were not that advanced in England. However, during the past ten years the age of the loyalty card has truly arrived and without loyalty cards you effectively end up paying penalties.

My favoured budget supermarket was Lidl. I shopped there twice a week - spending thousands of pounds in the course of a decade. However, they brought in a loyalty scheme called "Lidl Plus" which has gradually increased its customer benefits. Unfortunately, no physical loyalty cards were ever issued. The only way you could access the scheme was through having the "Lidl Plus" app on a smartphone.

In spite of protests, letters and critical reviews, I was ostracized. Clearly, Lidl didn't give a fig about me - nor other genuinely loyal customers who do not possess smartphones. Yes folks - I am not the only one!

Finally, I decided that enough was enough and so a month ago I stopped shopping at Lidl. Nowadays, I instead go to Aldi which does not have a loyalty scheme and I very much hope that that remains the case in future months and years. 

After all, nobody likes to be a victim of discriminatory business practice. 

Ultimately, I think  it would be better if all loyalty schemes were scrapped. They are just crude devices to entrap customers so that they feel obliged to shop in particular stores. It's all about profit margins and customers are mere pawns in their loyalty games.

Sister

My friend - Mike

Okay, so what can I blog about tonight?

I know.

Owing to a change in management, Mick, Mike and I have not been quizzing at "The Hammer and Pincers" in recent weeks on Sunday nights. Instead, we have been going down to "The Robin Hood" at Millhouses. This involves the assistance of two spouses. Shirley takes us down there and Mike's wife - Jill brings us home. It's very kind of them.

Tonight we won the Sunday quiz at "The Robin Hood" and as per usual the three of us got to chat like old fish wives mending nets. We know each other so well and feel very comfortable in each other's company. There's no points scoring and no need for masks. You can say what you want without fear of judgement. Plus - we like each other.

We happened to be talking about care homes and dementia. I happened to ask Mike a question.

"Did your mum die in a care home Mike?"

It was like igniting a pile of firewood.

Mike revealed that on her deathbed, his mother's last words had been, "I'm sorry Michael".

She was an Irish nurse who left County Roscommon just after World War II. She arrived in North Manchester and soon fell in with Mike's father, George. Nature ran its course and quite quickly she was pregnant.

A few months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl who they named Susan. But George was not into the idea of becoming a father or getting married so Susan was put out for adoption.

Later, Mike's mother and father married and set up home together in the town of Oldham. There they raised three children - Mike and his two known sisters. He only learnt about Susan when he was in his mid-sixties.

He told his two other sisters about Susan following their mother's funeral back in Ireland. They had no idea.

The three siblings agreed that they would leave Susan in peace. There was no need to disturb her equilibrium with news about a family from which she had been excluded soon after birth.

However, one of the sisters - the annoying one - soon broke that agreement and off her own bat contacted Susan.

Susan replied that she was on her own in retirement, living a contented life and she had no wish at this late stage in her life to start playing happy families. It might prove too disturbing, too upsetting. Apparently, she lives over in Southport on the Lancashire coast.

And so eight years on from the day Mike's younger sister made contact with Susan, no further communication has happened.

But tonight I couldn't help feeling that the right thing to do would be to reach out to Susan with sensitivity, kindness and love - to bring her back into a family web from which she had been cast off. The woman will be approximately seventy eight years old now. Am I being too damned romantic to feel that it is never too late? Perhaps proper contact would help her to feel truly whole. What do you think?

Fulham

 

Amazing bookshop in Fulham (see below)

We have just got back from London after a quick thirty six hour break.

Sadly, Ian and his girlfriend Sarah broke up just before Christmas. She is the mother of our precious grandson - Zachary. They have sold the £1.2 million house they bought together and now Ian lives in a rental flat in the  Fulham area with Sarah occupying a nearby house that belongs to one of her brothers. He has been posted abroad on military service.

I have not asked many questions about why the split occurred. Maybe they do not really know themselves. Sometimes these things are about feelings and instincts - things you cannot entirely pin down. Both of them want to do their best for Zach and it seems that the parting has been pretty amicable. I have my ideas about what gradually happened to bring about the separation but no other people were involved.

As Zach was staying with Ian for the weekend we booked a hotel room at The Premier Inn near Putney Bridge. It was just a twenty minute walk from Ian's new place.

"Premier Inns" are a well-known hotel chain in Great Britain. They all boast that they are non-smoking establishments. I don't know about you but I detest any odour of stale cigarette smoke in a hotel room. As soon as I walked in Room 405, I could smell the fug - not gross but enough for me to notice.

On the way out, I stopped at reception to let them know. I said we didn't want to swap rooms but I would appreciate a canister of air freshener I could spray  to suppress the foul aroma. The woman on reception ignored my specific request and instead said she would send somebody up to the room.

When we returned to the room at 11pm on Friday night, the smoky smell was still there and the only difference was that a member of housekeeping had cracked open a window. This now ensures that The Great Yorkshire Pudding Hotel Inspector will be composing a scathing written review.

It was nice to see both Zach and Ian. When the little man was in bed on Friday night, we ordered in a scrumptious Vietnamese meal and this morning we met the two of them in Bishops Park where Zach fed the ducks and then we had a pleasant breakfast together in the park cafe.

Zach is really into his little toy cars and even takes them to bed with him. He loves to zoom them around Ian's wooden floors. In contrast, Margot likes to comfort her dollies, changing their nappies and patting their backs. None of the parents consciously encouraged this gender-typical behaviour. Somehow, it just grew.

⦿

Our hotel was near this amazing bookshop in Fulham. I have never been in a bookshop like it. If you love books, Hurlingham Books was a veritable Aladdin's cave. Inside, the secondhand books were stacked from floor to ceiling. I might be wrong but there seemed to be no method or reasoning to the disorganisation, no categories, no alphabetical order just thousands of books piled up on each other. Most of them had their prices written in pencil inside the front cover but many didn't. The little corridor that had formed between the stacks of books was so narrow that two people could not physically pass each other. For entirely successful book perusal I would have required stilts and a torch (American: flashlight).

Scheduled

On Tuesday, I took a walking detour into Sheffield's Botanical Gardens - mostly to see if any spring flowers had burst out of winter. Surprisingly, the carpets of colourful crocuses were still dormant and so only clumps of snowdrops and primroses were evident.

I also took a few close-up photos of the splendid "Pan: Spirit of the Woods" statue that stands in the rose garden area. By the way, the middle picture is not my own. I just inserted it so that you would have some idea of what the statue as a whole looks like.

Below, snowdrops gather around a memorial tree planted in 1993 in memory of  Sheffield resident, William Sutton. Below that some primroses I spotted.

Though I know that I have previously shared pictures of the magnificent Victorian glasshouse designed by Joseph Paxton, here's another one....

Soon after this I walked down Brocco Bank to Endcliffe Park where I took a picture of  The Endcliffe Park Toad by Jason Thomson. It was installed in December 2024 and is made from steel  - replacing an earlier version that was carved from dead wood. Hopefully, the new one will last a lot longer...