Things

The end of my mother's life came in a residential home for the elderly in Beverley, East Yorkshire. She lived there for two years as her savings dwindled away to pay for her accommodation.

It was quite a nice residential home. She had her own first floor room and the staff - who mainly came from Bulgaria and The Philippines - were great. For some odd reason, Mum imagined that they all came from Kosovo.

If you are interested,  I blogged about the end of my dear Mum's life here and here and here. She was eighty six years old when she died. I still think of her as a warrior. She taught me so much that I would not know where to start. 

In the old folks' home, they sometimes sold off, at bargain basement prices,  the left behind belongings of those residents who had shuffled off their mortal coils. It was at one of those sales that Mum bought herself a "Winnie the Pooh" glass.

When in turn Mum vacated her room via the heavenly exit from whence none shall return, I brought the "Winnie the Pooh" glass back to our house.

It has been upstairs on our bathroom window sill for nineteen years now and hardly a night goes by without me drinking a few gulps of water from it. And I swear that every time I do that, I think fondly of my mother. It has become a constant reminder of her existence. Once she was here.

Mum with Ian and Frances on the East Yorkshire coast in 1990

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And here's another "thing" that has been in our house for a long time, sitting in the spice cupboard. I bought this green and white tub in Britanny, France in 1998. It is  "Sel de Guérande" or salt from the salt marshes of the Guérande peninsula in Britanny . The words at the top read, "Sel Marin Moulu Aux Aromates" which means "Ground Sea Salt With Herbs".

The sell by date on the tub is "31/12/2002" but it was only last week when the contents of the tub completely ran out. I only ever used it to season boiled eggs and even then I used it quite sparingly. So yes - it took twenty eight years to disappear.

Boiled eggs with ground pepper and salt is not quite the same - as I discovered yesterday morning. Consequently, one of my most immediate goals in life is to somehow acquire myself a replacement tub. In Britanny, the producers are still trading though the tub designs have been upgraded. If the worst comes to the worse I will ask my ex-pat brother Robin to source some "Sel Marin Moulu Aux Aromates" for me.

How can I live without it?

Quiztime

Hello quizzers! And welcome to another fantastic episode of "Quiztime" with your genial host Quizzy McQuizface! And the theme this time is...(drum roll) creatures of the deep - partly in honour of Sir David Attenborough who turned 100 years old on May 8th. That special man has done so much in his lifetime to encourage humans to cherish and protect the other creatures that share this planet with us and that includes the creatures of the deep. Answers will be given in the comments section as per usual. Good luck!

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1. The image below shows a whale but what kind of whale is it?

(a) a common minke (b) a Sowerby's beaked whale

(c) a beluga (d) a narwhal

2) This tropical reef-dwelling fish is widely considered to be the most colourful fish in the world but can you name it?

(a) Mandarinfish (b) Gaudyfish

(c) Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat Fish (d) Quietly Understated Fish

3) Washed up on a beach near Cape Town, South Africa four years ago but what is it?

(a) a giant shrimp (b) the stomach of a blue whale

(c) a giant squid (d) a giant jellyfish

4) This a less well-known shark resting on a sandy bottom but can you guess what it is?

(a) a cabbage shark (b) a lemon shark

(c) a strawberry shark (d) a blackberry shark

5) As far as we know, how many species of sea urchin may be found in the seas and oceans of the world?

(a) 9 (b) 95  (c) 950 (d) 9,500

6) What kind of sea creature is this?

(a) a sea centipede (b) a sea turd

(c) a sea sausage (d) a sea cucumber

7) Where in the oceans of the world are all freshwater  eels born?

(a) The Sargasso Sea (b) The Sea of Marmaris

(c) The Scotia Sea (d) The Sea of Japan 

8) What kind of sea turtle is this?

(a) a hammerhead turtle (b) a loggerhead turtle

(c) a sleepyhead turtle (d) a bullethead turtle

9) Which country catches the most fish from our oceans and seas?

(a) Japan (b) USA

(c) China (d) Russia

10) This is one of the rarest creatures in the oceans of our world. Though huge it has only been spotted a few times and photographed even less but what is it?

(a) Pink Incandescent Jellyfish (b) Bulbous Monster Jellyfish

(c) The Attenborough Jellyfish (d) Giant Phantom Jellyfish

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That's all seafarers! How did you do?

Zog

I try to publish a blogpost just about every day but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

This can be for a variety of reasons. First of all  I might be away somewhere without internet access. Secondly, I might be busy at home with something - family occasions etc.. Thirdly, I might simply forget to blog. Fourthly, I might not be able to think of anything to write. Fifthly, I might simply be feeling lazy. Sixthly, I might have been teleported to The Planet Zog by aliens. Fortunately or unfortunately, the last one has not happened...yet.

I may not be quite as prolific as blogging legends Mary Moon, Crozier Magnon, Steve Reed, John Gray or Bob Slatten but I am not far behind. This is my record for the first six years of this decade

2020 - 340 blogposts
2021 - 316 blogposts
2022 - 345 blogposts
2023 - 355 blogposts
2024  - 359 blogposts
2025 - 352 blogposts

These figures are much higher than when I first started blogging. My first full year in the blogosphere was 2006:-

2006 - 125 blogposts
2007 - 110  blogposts
2008 - 115 blogposts
2009 - 132 blogposts
2010 - 196 blogposts

After all these years, I still cannot quite believe that nowadays I find something to blog about almost every day.

Today, I could have bored you with a detailed account of my work up at the vegetable patch.

The weather forecast strongly suggests that we will not experience any more frosts as this Yorkshire  spring turns into summer. Besides, I had a feeling in my bones that today was the day to do my planting out.

I had grown sixteen runner bean plants from seed on a table in our sunny front bedroom along with five courgette plants (American: zucchini) so on this mild Monday afternoon, I was up there getting my hands dirty after filling our wheelbarrow with nutritious and well rotted homemade compost  to give the baby plants the best possible start.  I am just hoping the local wood pigeons do not get them.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to return to the vegetable patch with two filled watering cans. My babies will be thirsty after the trauma of being transplanted.

Innocence

 

Okay, I admit it. I did not compose this blogpost on Saturday May 16th. That proved impossible as we were at a birthday party for seventy year old Trevor. We have known him, his wife Jane and their children for thirty six years. They lived across the road from us here in Banner Cross. 

An additional but delightful obstacle to the usual rhythm of blogging has been grandchildren. Ian is up from London this weekend with little Zachary - our only grandson. He was born just a few days before Margot in the autumn of 2023.

There at the top the two cousins are in their dual control red sports car at Graves Park Animal Farm. Below Phoebe has donned one of my old Hull City shirts and is looking fierce - like a tiger. Hull City are The Tigers. I wore that shirt at The Championship Play Off Final in 2008 when we beat Bristol City to reach The Premier League for the very first time.

Below, the two year old cousins are still zooming down the motorway but not bothering to look at the road ahead.

And I love the next image from yesterday morning with big Phoebe leading the little ones down our street. Little do they know what the world has in store for them as they grow older and discover that it is not all as straightforward and sweet as they had once assumed. Never such innocence again.

Spanner

I know that a lot of you out there in  Blogworld are big football fans just like me.

John Gray in North Wales has "Wrexham" tattooed across his chest while down in Australia, Andrew and Marcellous are big fans of the London club Arsenal. often staying up late to watch live-streaming of their  games. Meike Riley in Ludwigsburg, Germany never misses a Stuttgart FC home match while over in Canada Keith Kline (aka Red) is a bigger fan of Liverpool F.C. than Nurse Pixie in Edmonton. And the only reason Steve Reed moved from America to London was to support his beloved Chelsea. Yes  - so many ardent football fans out there.

On Monday night, my team - Hull City A.F.C. beat Millwall by two goals to nil in the exciting second leg of their Championship Play-Off Semi-Final. That fantastic result meant we had booked a place in the final at Wembley Stadium. Oh joy upon joys! The final is scheduled to take place on Saturday May 23rd.

But something has happened to put a spanner in the works.

Just now the club, the players and the supporters should all be preparing for the big Wembley trip, buying train tickets, securing match tickets and in some cases arranging accommodation in London. There are loyal Hull City fans living in faraway places and some of them will want to attend the final in person.

On Tuesday night, we thought we knew who our opponents would be. In the second semi-final, Southampton beat Middlesbrough by two goals to one. And then news of "Spygate" began to surface.

It seems that before the other semi-final, an agent acting for Southampton visited the Middlesbrough training ground and secretly gathered live footage of some of Boro's training methods, planned set pieces and the like. He was challenged before running away. Southampton do not deny that this happened. According to the Football Association's rules, spying is verboten.

On Wednesday the issue was referred to The English Football Association for deliberation and judgement. As I write this blogpost, no decision has been made. We may have to wait until next Wednesday.

It is possible that Southampton will be barred from competing in the final but we just do not know.

The English Championship Final is one of the richest fixtures in world sport - said to be worth £200 million in extra income for the winners. That's $270 million US so this whole business is devilishly significant.

I have a ticket for the final but will I be going? We will have to wait and see.

In the meantime, let's hear a big ironic cheer for Southampton F.C.. If their final status is confirmed it will go to show that cheating can get you anywhere and if they are fined heavily it will be mere peanuts compared with the lucrative end prize.

None of this uncertainty and F.A. dillydallying is fair on anybody associated with Hull City Association Football Club.  We should be happily  focused on the final without distraction. Thanks Southampton! Thanks for nothing you lowdown cheats!

Tuesday

National Emergency Services Museum in Sheffield

On Tuesday of this week the weather was as  changeable as meteorologists had promised. Showers and sunshine. I decided to head back to The National Emergency Services Museum that we had visited with the grandchildren a month ago. The ticket was still valid and without the little ones  I would be able to take it all in. I even remembered a torch (American: flashlight) so that I could read display boards in  shadowy corners of the museum.

I spent two hours in there and then in the museum shop I encountered a typical meist. She was, she said, a retired teacher and as a regular museum volunteer she pretty much ran the shop. I was looking for little gifts for Phoebe and Margot but the meist woman had other ideas. Me, me, me, my son, my work, my daughter, me, me, me - what I think about this, what I think about that. AAAAARRRGGHHH!

I just wanted to say, "Shut the f*** up! I want to have a look round the shop!" Fortunately, after about ten minutes of the one-sided torture, a young father appeared with his little girl and the meist spotlight turned upon him. I grabbed a small police notebook for Phoebe and a little replica lifeboat that Margot could sail in her bath and then I scarpered before that silver-haired torturer could claw me again. 

World War II gas mask in The National Emergency Services Museum

By the way, it turned out she was never a teacher after all. She was a teaching assistant for a mere four years before she retired and yet that didn't stop her from spouting off about schools and education to a trapped listener who had been an actual teacher for thirty seven years - fifteen of those years as a hardworking Head of English. She did not want to know as this would have stalled her gushing meist narrative.

After leaving. Up through Paradise Square, across Campo Lane and along St James's Row, past the cathedral. I crossed High Street and cut through George Street before catching a Number 88 bus home.

It had been a good way to spend my Tuesday afternoon. I learnt more about the Victorian criminal Charles Peace who shot a man dead just fifty yards from this keyboard. Apparently, he is even referred to in The Beatles' 1964 film, "A Hard Day's Night". Late Victorians viewed him  as a kind of celebrity but he killed a young policeman in  Manchester and an outraged husband here in Banner Cross. Peace was no hero - far from it. Here's his actual mugshot from the 1870s...

Thirties

When my oldest brother Paul died in June 2010, it all seemed so very tragic and unfair. He was only sixty two years old. My father, Philip,  died at the age of sixty five in 1979 and my younger brother, Simon, was sixty six when he faded away in 2022. Three male members of my family gone before they had ticked off their three score years and ten. Gone too soon.

But let me tell you about three deaths that have occurred just this year concerning thirty somethings.

The first was Charlie - short for Charlotte. She was one our daughter Frances's closest friends at The University of Birmingham. Charlie lived a chaotic life but she was creative and interesting and in many ways back then she was still finding herself. She came to recognise that she was gay and married her long time partner in London just last year. She had just directed an avant garde film which I hope to see one day though it will never be watched by a wide audience. It was something she had always wanted to do. And then her body began to send out nasty signals. Fairly quickly she became the victim of aggressive breast cancer. Maybe Charlie had ignored the signals for too long. She died in March at the age of thirty six. Frances attended the funeral down in London.

It was down in London when Frances was working for a company called Source Breaker that a young Lebanese man joined the team. I am afraid I do not know his first name and Frances is not here to ask. He also got married in London and his wife gave birth to two boys. The oldest is five - just like our Phoebe. Apparently, the young man  was fit with no history of serious health issues. He was playing with his boys on the lounge carpet when he had a massive heart attack and was dead before ambulance personnel could reach him. He was thirty five years old. How will his young Lebanese wife cope? How will the boys fare in future years?

And then there's Carla. She was a Spanish pharmacist living in Sheffield. She had married the oldest son of one of Shirley's closest nursing colleagues. Carla was the mother of two young boys and she fought like hell to stay alive but the cancer was spreading everywhere and in the end - just a month ago she could fight no more.  She was thirty eight years old.

Three thirty somethings gone way before the whistle should have been blown on their lives. It makes my own losses - Dad, Paul and Simon seem a little less tragic because they were each granted almost thirty years more upon this field of life.

All of us - reading this blogpost - we have something terribly precious in the palms of our hands. Life itself. Let's live it with as much delight as we can muster in memory of those three thirty somethings and all of the others who departed far too early. They would have given the world for our good fortune

Picture credit © Grejak Dreamstime.com