Walls

Over at the Geograph site, I have contributed  393  images in which the principal subject is tagged as "wall" or "walls". Mostly, the walls in question  are drystone walls which are an integral feature of upland landscapes in England and Wales.

Historically, wherever stones were easily available, our forbears would build walls - rather than planting hedges. The walls were to delineate ownership and to enclose animals or crops. It is estimated that there are over 170,000 miles of drystone wall in Britain - enough to circle the globe seven times over.

I am a sucker for these walls. Many are hundreds of years old and if you pause to look closely at them you find a certain rustic beauty. I suspect that the wall builders of yore never imagined for one minute that they were producing a kind of accidental art that would endure through the centuries as testament to their hard labour and craftsmanship.

On YouTube a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the ramblings of a young Yorkshireman called Jack Roscoe. His  vlogging name is "Northern Introvert". He is a very pleasant guide to follow on his various jaunts. His most recent video sees him learning about drystone walling from a group of enthusiasts who are busy repairing a couple of walls on a North Yorkshire farm.

The video is over 23 minutes long so you might not have time to watch it all. Mind you, I suspect there will be some visitors who are already thinking, "A video about building drystone walls? I would rather watch grass growing!" Each to their own.

Remembering

Okay, I am back from "The Hammer and Pincers" quiz with four pints of "Stones" in my belly. Though we did not win the overall prize this week, we were still first to a line of five correct answers. I have just stripped tonight's roasted chicken of any remaining meat and I have put the resultant carcass out on the lawn for a passing fox to sniff before guzzling down.

And so what are we left with when it comes to blogging?

I thought I might use this opportunity to capture a memory from long ago in written words. Arguably, memories are the means by which we mark our presence upon this spinning planet. Here we go.

I am sixteen years old and I have been chosen to represent East Yorkshire youth clubs  at a special reception in St James's Palace in London. It is to mark sixty years of youth clubs in England and Wales - under the auspices of The National Association of Youth Clubs.

Before the main event, I get to meet the pop singer Lulu, Lord John Hunt who led the successful Mount Everest expedition in 1953 and the famous DJ and TV presenter Jimmy Savile. He jokes that it is nice to have another Yorkshire lad down there in London and we shake hands. Retrospectively, it seems most distasteful that he was a patron of The National Association of Youth Clubs but back in 1971 nobody realised the true nature of that self-obsessed sex monster.

I visit a lavatory in St James's Palace and it is like no lavatory I have ever been in before. The Victorian toilet bowl is like a throne on a kind of platform and there are lotions and potions and soft white towels for hand cleaning.

On to the main event where there is a finger buffet with china teacups and strict instructions about where we should all stand before The Queen Mother drifts into the room with her little entourage.

She was Queen Elizabeth II's mother and formerly the wife of King George VI who came to the throne by default when King Edward VIII abdicated.

She reaches me and puts out a gloved hand, smiling with her little brown teeth on display. She would have been my current age (71) that afternoon but she seemed older. She asks me where I am from and then she asks me if I know Hotham Hall where she enjoyed some happy times when she was a child but I don't know the place. She is most charming and soon moves on to the next youth club member - representing a different county.

I find my way back to Kings Cross Station and catch an evening train back to Hull. Looking back, I think I must have had some balls back then to negotiate the London transport system at the age of sixteen when I was a country bumpkin. Stuff like that did not faze me at all.

"Ratrex"

Really I wanted to produce a spoof ad using Microsoft Image Creator (AI)  but certain words are vetoed by that system, including Trump, Republican Party and condom. I suspect that the current but very occasional resident of The White House would find a discreet private use for "RATREX" condoms or maybe he already uses these:-

or these:-

Haircut

"Monks" barbershop, Abbey Lane

This morning, I had the idea of walking to my favoured barbershop in the Woodseats suburb of the city. Normally I drive over there. It's more than two miles and there are a couple of hills to contend with. I gave myself plenty of time - setting off a full hour and twenty minutes before my appointment slot.

Down Carterknowle Road, along Bannerdale Road to Archer Road and then up Fraser Road to Holmhirst Road. I arrived on the main drag at Woodseats well ahead of time and marched into the KFC outlet where I ordered a Diet Pepsi to quench my thirst. Then it was on to the barbershop. The same fellow has been cutting my hair for twelve years.

"Usual Neil?" he always says and I confirm that I do not want a perm, highlights or a crewcut. I probably have my mop of hair cut every two months. Since schooldays, I have never worn my hair short. Blame The Beatles!

The barber is called Danny. He's 48 years old and happily married with two children. I guess I have got to know him pretty well through our conversations at the barber's chair. He is a very experienced hairdresser  and takes real pride in his work even though he himself is as bald as a coot. He always does a good job.

After the haircut, I walked along the main drag to a food outlet called "Urban Pitta". Their freshly made filled pittas are very scrumptious. I ate mine while sitting in the window with a can of Diet Coke, watching the world go by outside.

Then I checked out the book sections in a couple of charity shops but no luck! I was seeking a particular novel by one of the Brontë sisters - "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Brontë, written in 1848 in The Parsonage at Haworth when Anne was just twenty eight.

I decided to catch a No.75 bus into the centre of the city and headed straight for the "Waterstones" bookshop in Orchard Square. Fortunately, they had one remaining paperback copy of the novel I was after.

At around two thirty, I caught a No.88 bus back home.

Later I was in the B&Q D.I.Y. superstore looking for a galvanised bucket in which to place our repotted aspidistra. There I met up again with a man who has worked in the store for twenty two years. Our main conversation topic is always rats.

They target bird food and grass seed and it is an ongoing battle to suppress them. It was nice to hear my "friend" say that he does not like killing any animals - even rats  and wished B&Q would use rat contraception methods. I joked that I would not volunteer to be the one to put the rat-sized condoms on the little blighters!

Self-Assessment

WARNING In this blogpost, your friendly correspondent drones on about personal health matters. If you find such subject matter tedious then I suggest that you depart immediately. Don't say I didn't warn you.

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Till last October, I was quite proud to declare to anybody who cared to listen that I had never needed any regular medication and I felt as fit as a fiddle.  Not bad for a seventy one year old. Then - almost by chance - it was discovered that my blood pressure was too high - high enough to threaten me with a potential  stroke or heart issue. This is why I went along with the idea of trying to reduce my blood pressure with anti-hypertensive drugs.

I have had more doctor's appointments in the past nine months than I previously had in the rest of my life. Different doctors working at my local health centre have played around with my cocktail that includes the following - doxazosin, indapamide, ramipril, amlodopine and atorvastatin. Different strengths and different combinations.

Along the way I have had half a dozen blood tests and I have also been monitoring my own blood pressure with my "Omiron" machine that I bought from "Boots" last autumn. It has been quite a journey I can tell you.

On Tuesday of this week I had another doctor's appointment and at last my blood pressure readings had reached an average score that was within the NHS target zone for my age and gender -  136/69. Hurrah! However, there was a new problem to contend with - namely oedema in both my feet - undoubtedly caused by one of the medications but which one?

When I wake in the morning my feet are almost back to normal but as the day progresses, the swelling and fluid build-up in my legs has become so noticeable that I struggle to put on my most comfortable boots and shoes. I am not in pain as I write this blogpost but I can feel the tightness  and bulging in my lower legs.

As a consequence of this, the doctor wanted to investigate what might happen if I removed amlodopine from my anti-hypertensive cocktail. Well  ironically, one of things that is bound to happen is that my blood pressure will rise again but will I also see the oedema disappear? It's not something I have ever suffered from before - apart from stepping off long distance flights when not wearing pressure stockings.

Another issue that is of concern is my weight. Frankly, I weigh too much and it would be good for me in several ways if I could lose about three stones (42 pounds/ 19 kilograms). This has made me start thinking about weight-reducing medication. I am not entitled to receive it freely via the NHS because my BMI does not qualify for that kind of intervention.

The doctor checked my current medications and said that in principle there would be no problem with me also taking a weight reducing drug like tirzepatide (Mounjaro). I am thinking about it and of course googling it.

A bright spot on Tuesday was the discovery that my blood sugar score in relation to Type 2 diabetes has fallen - probably due to me cutting out sugar from hot drinks. Now I am almost embarrassed to admit that I have come to enjoy mint tea!

Husbandry

How long have we had this aspidistra? Certainly more than twenty years. It has suffered a lot of neglect and has had to endure long periods without being watered. If there was an organisation that worked against cruelty to houseplants, I would have been prosecuted long ago and shamed in local newspapers. "Guilty your honour!"

Aspidistras were very popular in English drawing rooms in the late Victorian era. The plant's natural homeland is  South East Asia and southern China. There it is and was mostly found in shady areas of sub-tropical forests. It is not fond of bright sunlight.

Aspidistras are great survivors and to be truthful they easily endure the kind of neglect that I have subjected our old plant to.

On Monday, for the first time ever, I brought it downstairs and into the daylight where I repotted it using fresh compost mixed with good quality top soil. I also watered the leaves with a watering can - not something it has ever enjoyed before.

In this balmy summertime, I will leave the plant outside for a few days longer - protected from direct sunlight. Last night we had a rain shower and that won't have done the aspidistra any harm at all.

I dealt with another plant on Monday. The bay tree outside our kitchen had simply grown too tall over the years so I reduced it by two feet using clippers and a saw. It was obscuring our view up the garden from our main kitchen window. Now the top of the little tree looks rough but it won't be too long before new shoots and leaves begin to appear.

We bought that tree twenty one years ago from a school fayre at my kids' old secondary school (American: high school). Then it stood about  twelve inches tall in a little pot. It clearly loves the position where I planted  it but I sometimes fret about possible root-related  damage - another good reason for giving it a severe haircut.

Funtime

 

Over at "Shadows and Light", Tasker Dunham made this assertion: "I bet you've never seen a boat named Tasker." This rang a bell in my head so I looked back through my extensive photo archives and found the picture shown above. I took it at Cayton Bay on the Yorkshire coast several years ago. It was little more than a rotting hulk then and I am sure that by now it has - to use a Trumpian term - been "obliterated" by North Sea waves.

Another "Tasker" boat was spotted on the lake at Roundhay Park in Leeds. This sturdy red pleasure craft may be hired out for £12 per hour and was once rented by former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, nine months before their first son, Taska, was born.

Meantime, entering the port of Immingham on The River Humber, I once spotted this huge oil tanker that had arrived on our shores from Nigeria. Can you see the name on the bow? It's "King Tasker" usually known as King Tasker the Munificent who was, I believe, the leader of  the Igbo people with fourteen wives and 64 children. He also ran a worldwide e-mail scam, harvesting money from the gullible and unwary.

Over the years, I have seen several other boats named "Tasker" - including a battered aluminium canoe on Derwentwater in The Lake District and a grey, homemade inflatable packed with desperate migrants on the beach at Pevensey in  East Sussex. They were being helped ashore by two elderly American migrants who were squatting in a beachfront property at the time with their "land shark" - Fido.

"Butter"

The book cover is the colour of butter and just for good measure there's a cow there too. I was partly drawn to this novel by Asako Yuzuki because it is Japanese and I know so little about Japan. However, I had previously read three novels in translation by Haruki Murakami which I very much enjoyed.

At the core of this work of fiction is a seed pod from reality - the strange case of  Kanae Kijima, the Konkatsu Killer who was sentenced to death in 2010 for the killing of at least four men. By the way, she still languishes in a Tokyo jail as appeals follow appeals. There is little hard evidence to condemn her but a lot of intelligent supposition.

The main protagonist in "Butter" is Rika Machita, a young journalist on a Tokyo lifestyle and news magazine. She manages to get an interview with Manako Kajii - the man killer - and this interest becomes increasingly obsessive.

Asako Yuzuki

Kajii had prepared fine meals for her alleged victims and food starts to play a much bigger part in Rika's life than it had ever done before. For example, she discovers how delightful good quality butter can prove to be in a range of recipes - including a simple bowl of rice.

I reached the last page (page 452) out in our sunny garden just this afternoon. Shirley asked me if I had enjoyed it and I said that "enjoyed" would not be the right word. I had appreciated it and it was good to spend time in Japanese culture with the author. Really, it was a pretty weird story and at times the references to Japanese foodstuffs was confusing. There were no footnotes to explain.

Finally, a big shout out to Polly Barton who translated "Butter" from Japanese into English. A good translator does much more than telling us what the words mean. He or she is also a creator, honing what is literal into something with shape and body and oodles of butter...

Polly Barton

Summer

                                                                                                                                    ©Bernadine Richey

Summer. What a joy it is to be alive when a real summer is happening.

Up at "The Hammer Pincers" car park, Mike and I waited for his wife Jill to arrive in their silver Honda car. It was almost ten thirty but the western skies were still so filled with summer light that nighttime was again struggling to take command.

I was wearing my navy blue "Yorkshire Pudding" T-shirt, faded blue shorts and walking sandals. The  temperature was so balmy that I did not feel any kind of chill.

Once again, we had won the pub quiz with knowledge and cunning. Though Mike and I had no idea, our friend Mick - back from a week in Skegness - knew that Luke Skywalker piloted an X-wing fighter plane in "Starwars" (1977).

Earlier, I made Sunday dinner for the family. It was leg of pork this time with new potatoes, roasted carrots, purple-sprouting broccoli, mixed vegetables, Yorkshire puddings and gravy. This was followed by a superb raspberry cheesecake that Shirley had made from scratch. The slices stood four inches tall and were most delicious and summery.

Afterwards, I lay on the lawn looking up at winging swallows, the cumulus clouds and the blue sky beyond. Little Margot and Phoebe came to join me for a while, riding upon the chest of  The Grandpa Beast at the very end of June and laughing like monkeys under that summer sky.

Summer - easing, placating, kindly smoothing out as though there might be no tomorrow. And it feels very good to be alive, hardly bothering to count the days until the first frost of autumn along our unstoppable journey to wintertime.

Report

Neil Young at Glastonbury tonight

By the magic of television, I have just watched Neil Young performing live at Glastonbury with his band - The Chrome Hearts. He was the Saturday night headline act on The Pyramid Stage.

The guy will be eighty in November but he's still got it - still as committed to his music as ever. Over the years, he has become a consummate lead guitar player - not just a fellow who crafts catchy original songs with the aid of an acoustic guitar.

There's no enhancement with an expensive stage set, big screen videos and dancers - just that old grungy Canadian bloke - a born survivor, sending his plaintive words and his guitar riffs up into the starry summer skies over Somerset. 

I have only ever seen him live in concert the once - in Liverpool. Hell, was that really eleven years ago? Go here.

One of the numbers on tonight's set list was "Old Man"...

Love lost, such a cost
Give me things that don't get lost
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you

I love that song and many others too. The encore included a loud and proud version of "Keep on Rockin' in The Free World". The Chrome Hearts were so tight and with Neil Young all the way. One hour and fifty minutes of a living legend. He also performed  "Keep on Rockin' in The Free World" at Glastonbury back in 2009:-

"Dominique"

Who is that? Why, it's the Belgian recording artist Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers - frequently remembered as The Singing Nun. She had a self-penned worldwide hit single in late 1963. It was titled "Dominique" and it was sung in French in honour of Saint Dominic who founded the Dominican Order of Catholicism in The Middle Ages.

Mme Deckers was indeed a nun but not for very long. In 1966 she left her convent and her holy orders but continued to live a pious life, opening a school for autistic children in her home town in Belgium. Financially, she was ripped off both by the Catholic church and by her recording company - Philips. That led to overwhelming financial worries that played a big part in her early death.

Though at one time she vehemently denied it, she was probably homosexual for she lived with her friend Annie Pécher in a shared apartment for many years. Tragically, on March 29th 1985, they committed suicide together in Wavre, Belgium where they were later buried together. The Singing Nun was only fifty one years old. The inscription on their shared headstone might be translated thus: "I saw her soul fly through the clouds".

People of my generation will recall the haunting simplicity of "Dominique" in a musical landscape that in 1963 was becoming increasingly populated by wannabe stars and electric guitars. Please listen:- 

Domi-nic-nic-nic went about simply,

a poor singing traveller.

On every road, in every place,

He talks only of the Good Lord,

He talks only of the Good Lord.

Accident

The news spread like wildfire this morning. There had been a road accident on nearby Ecclesall Road at the junction that leads to our local Co-op supermarket and to Phoebe and Margot's nursery school. Twenty minutes before the accident, Frances had dropped Phoebe off at our house before taking Margot to the nursery school for her last day session of the week.

At first there was some confusion about what had happened but as the day advanced, the information became clearer. A sixteen year old cyclist on his way to school had collided with a car and had then been jettisoned into the path of an oncoming lorry.

At one point, there were four police vehicles at the scene and three ambulances. A helicopter landed in nearby Endcliffe Park but it proved unnecessary for the boy was soon sped to hospital in a regular road ambulance. He remains in hospital in what a spokesperson has called "a critical condition".

The busy A road was sealed off until 4pm. Shirley passed by the scene an hour later to pick up Margot and reported that there was still blood on the tarmac.

The whole thing is naturally a nightmare for the car driver, the lorry driver, the teenage lad's family and of course the injured victim himself who may or may not survive. 

There but for the grace of God go any of us.

I am reminded of the time that my late brother Paul killed a teenage boy in rural Ireland. He was overtaking a school bus that had just pulled in at the kerb when a fifteen year old schoolboy shot out from round the front of the bus without looking. There was nothing that Paul could do. The boy died at the scene.

I don't know the name of today's accident victim but I wish him well and hope that he survives this day of horror without great physical impairment. Life is such a precious gift and he ought to have most of his life ahead of him. If I were a praying person, I would pray for him. 

Transition

Where did those years go? It seems like only yesterday when I announced the birth of our first granddaughter here on this blog. For illustration, I included a picture of a stork carrying a new baby in its beak. Now that baby girl is four and a half years old and on the verge of going to primary school. She will be joining her reception class in September at our local primary school.

It was certainly not always the case but nowadays schools pay a lot of attention to the business of transition. There are meetings and visits - even home visits. It's all about helping children to overcome their anxieties and get off to a good start.

Today Phoebe spent the morning in her new school, including time in her assigned classroom. Frances took a couple of hours off work so that she could be there with her. Father Stewart is currently away in Stockholm, Sweden on a work-related trip.

Phoebe can be very shy with strangers - often clamming up like a mute but today all went well and she was happy as the accompanying photograph perhaps reveals.

Having been enrolled at a nearby nursery school when she was eighteen months old, Phoebe is already quite familiar with classrooms and the way that educational institutions operate so I expect that her transition to the primary school will be quite painless. However, sadly, she will no longer be coming to Grandma and Grandpa's house every Thursday. I freely admit that we will miss those days and the special influx of joy she has always brought us.

Time marches on.

Quiztime

Backtrack to Sunday evening. One member of The Great Quiz Trio is on holiday in Skegness - on the Lincolnshire coast but I am up at "The Hammer and Pincers" with a pint of "Stones" waiting for Mike to arrive. I have already paid for his pint of "Moonshine" - brewed in Sheffield at The Abbeydale Brewery.

Mike is a lovely man to know and a good friend. By the way - that's him in the header picture. In recent years, he has been battling the various consequences of a fairly rare condition called myasthenia gravis. He has faced it with admirable fortitude and good humour, fighting to maintain his happy, "normal" life and interests instead of allowing the erosive condition to enslave and define him.

It was nice to spend some one-on-one time with him as we tackled the weekly quiz which, by the way, we narrowly won. Me and him, we know some stuff - and if we don't know things for sure, we often have great hunches. Our other team member - Mick - helps us out with pop music, dates and  film knowledge - specialising in James Bond and "Starwars" which I know almost nothing about. We make a great team with my speciality being geographical knowledge and Mike being particularly good with history questions and anagrams.

Anyway, I brought my winning quiz sheet home on Sunday with the full intention of putting ten of the questions to you and others who both inhabit the blogosphere and quite like quizzing. Here we go...

⦿

1. Which airline's first transatlantic service began in June 1984 connecting London Gatwick with Newark NJ?

2. What is the job title of someone who shoes horses?

3. Which T.O.V. marked the formal end of World War One?

4. The Beach Boys only had two number one hit singles in Great Britain. Name one of them.

5. In home brewing what is the other common name for the large glass container often called a "carboy"?

6. What is the bulbous fruit that Greek cooks slice and layer when they are preparing  dishes of moussaka?

7. Which cartoon character had nephews called Huey, Dewey and Louie?

8. ANAGRAM. This is a well-known newspaper:-

HETERO VERBS

9. Which fast food chain now has more outlets across the world than McDonalds?

10. In 1940, the evacuation of which French seaside town was being referred to when using the codename "Operation Dynamo"?

Answers in "Comments"

How did you do?

Mere

The biggest natural lake in Yorkshire is Hornsea Mere. It is a geological reminder of Britain's last Ice Age that  reached its peak 22,000 years and is now known as the late Devensian glaciation.

Boat jetty at Hornsea Mere

Hornsea Mere sits just west of the little seaside town of Hornsea. It is two miles long and has a maximum depth of twelve feet. When I was young, I rowed upon it for it was in the orbit of my teenage landscape just six miles east of the inland village where I  was raised.

Once a lakeside homeowner ran down to the bottom of his garden and yelled, "You can't row here! It's private property!"

"How can it be private property?" I yelled back. "It's a lake!"

Anyway, I was back at Hornsea Mere today with my old friend Tony. I picked him up in Beverley. We planned a walk around the lake even though there's no defined lakeside path which is in my view a crying shame.

Tony has been recuperating from a serious health blow - namely a mild but significant stroke. It has knocked the wind out of his sails and he sleeps more than usual, suffers from a degree of memory loss and is so nervous about his mobility that he now carries a walking stick (see above). However, his prospects are good.

His phone measured our step count - 23,000 steps in total for the entire walk - apparently around eleven miles according to an online calculator but neither of us could believe that figure for a moment. More like seven miles maximum.

Afterwards we visited one of my old haunts on the seafront - "The Marine Hotel" where we enjoyed a late lunch of burgers with chips and cold non-alcoholic drinks with ice. From our table by a picture window, we looked east across Bridlington Bay and dreamt of Holland - another 230 miles away.

An old shipping container on a farm near Hornsea Mere.

"Siggy" is the local pet name for the village of Sigglesthorne.

Mums

Yesterday's blogpost was all about dad jokes so in the interests of gender balance, this post is concerned with mum jokes. Actually, I am thinking about jokes about mums rather than the kind of jokes that mums might habitually deliver. At the risk of offending any mums who visit this strange corner of the blogosphere, here we go...

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Being a mother of a teenager is finally understanding why some animals eat their young.

The fastest way to spread news isn’t on the internet. It’s by telling your mum.

Ever heard of a job that requires no experience, gives no training, pays nothing, and you can’t quit? That’s motherhood. Oh, and people’s lives are on the line too.

A mother walks up to her only son and says "John, am I a bad mother?"

And her son replies... "My name is Paul!"

What do mother spiders complain about the most? ...How much time their kids spend on the web.

I asked a police recruit during an exam, “What would you do if you had to arrest your own mother?”
He said, “Call for backup.”

⦿

As you can tell, I was struggling to find genuinely funny jokes about mums. Maybe you can help out with a funny mum joke of your own?

Button

 

It was Father's Day last weekend but what do you give a father who has everything he needs? My thoughtful daughter, Frances, found something new that would enrich my life - "the little button of big laughs" as shown above. Press it 135 times and you will hear 135 different jokes - more specifically "dad jokes". I asked Google what a "dad joke" actually was and received this answer - "an unoriginal or predictable joke, especially a pun, of a type supposedly told by fathers."

Okay, I can go along with that. I admit that I have told some pretty corny jokes in my time but what I will say in my defence and in defence of fathers everywhere is that dad jokes are generally much funnier than mum jokes. Do mums even tell jokes?

These are the kind of jokes you hear when you press my "Dad Jokes" button...

How did I know my girlfriend thought I was invading her privacy? ...She wrote about it in her diary.

I went to the aquarium this weekend, but I didn’t stay long.... There’s something fishy about that place.

Two windmills were sitting on a hill. One asks the other, "Do you have a favourite song?" The other replies, "Well... all my life I have been a heavy metal fan."

Today at the bank, an old lady asked me to check her balance... So I pushed her over.

Can a frog jump higher than a house?... Of course, a house can't jump.

I was going to try an all almond diet... but that's just nuts.

I only know 25 letters of the alphabet... I don't know y.

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I realise that at this moment you are probably in such a state of side-splitting merriment that you have had to pick yourself up off the floor. However, if you have got a good dad joke up your sleeve - why not share it in the comments?

77

YouTube can lead us down unexpected avenues. Sometimes there are tailored algorithms at play that determine which channel suggestions will appear in our right-hand columns. Frequently, this is our route to previously unexplored sites.

This is how I happened to come across a 77 year old American fellow called Robert. Over at his channel called "Robert's Active Retirement"  there are currently 82 videos that mostly address issues around retirement and old age.

This is a pretty short video that Robert posted three days ago...

As you can see, Robert has a friendly, folksy style. He is not a medical person or a trained counsellor. His thoughts and bits of advice are very much based on lived experience. He's not trying to ram ideas down our necks - he is just telling us how he sees things in a pleasant, genial manner

In years gone by,  I would never have imagined myself displaying the slightest interest in videos about old age and retirement but we all move on. To every time there is a season. 

Aging can be a pretty lonesome and fretful phase so it's quite nice to have someone like Robert confirming that we are in fact not alone. The worries and doubts older people might be going through will not be entirely unique. Somebody else has been there before.

And as for being 77 - I am just over five years short of that line - a little way behind Robert... assuming I make it of course. Limited time to realise a few more dreams, walk some more paths, weave more golden threads into the tapestry of my life before I exit this stage.

Unveiled

 

At the main Nissan dealership, I picked up our new car today. Bizarrely, it had been covered with a big red cloth sheet and  I had no idea it was ours until the car salesman, Andrew, unveiled it when all the paperwork had been done. "It's not every day you buy a new car!" he explained.

Minus the red cloth, our vehicle looked very handsome in his metallic gun metal grey livery. He was spotless and manufactured in England too - up in the north east near Sunderland. 

Like Old Andrew in Melbourne, Young Andrew was a nice guy and I was happy to deal with him. He talked me through most of the car's main features without boggling my mind. The new motor is a different kettle of fish from Clint entirely. 

To begin with, there isn't a key and there's no traditional handbrake either. There's a touchscreen with satnav and  camera functions. There are switches for heating the seats and the steering wheel though today in northern England such facilities were most unnecessary as it has been sweltering with temperatures into the thirties.

Driving the new car home through rush hour traffic was a little stressful but I only stalled him once and managed to park him on the paved area at the front of our house without incident or damage.

He is sitting there now, looking elegant and well-designed - just like his new owner! I may not drive him again for a few weeks now while I familiarise myself with the manual which seems to require the kind of technical knowledge and natural car fascination which poets and former English teachers just do not possess.

When I drove away from the showroom, I noticed that there were just eight miles on the mileometer. Being in a position to buy this fine car, I appreciate that we are very lucky compared with most other humans on this planet. Below, you can see our new car's identical twin - David. Ours will also have a name soon - I am mulling over a few ideas.

Law

 

The law should state that...

...every worker is entitled to an extra day off on his or her birthday.

...every person qualified to vote must do so in local and national elections.

...every citizen is entitled to an annual carbon footprint allowance that must not be exceeded. (Size of allowance to be determined by a committee of climate and environmental experts).

...the sale,  purchase and use of tobacco products is prohibited along with all vapes and vaping products.

...politicians must not work beyond the age of seventy - retirement being compulsory at that age.

...road surfacing contractors must have their work inspected after two years. If there is significant deterioration then they must fully reimburse the authorities who paid them.

...use of smartphones while driving will prohibit offenders from owning or using another smartphone for twelve months.

...those spammers who advertise products or services via blog comments should be hunted down and jailed for a minimum of six months.

...the wearing of red "MAGA" caps is illegal.

...anyone driving a brand new Nissan Juke is entitled to receive free petrol for life.

...when apprehended, Boris Johnson is to be be given a compulsory vasectomy.

...anyone caught deliberately dropping litter  must work as an unpaid  refuse collector for one full week under the instructions of their local council.

...all privately owned guns in America's fifty states must be surrendered to the authorities for disposal as gun ownership is phased out.

... reality TV programmes are hereby banned.

... in wealthy, western countries homelessness is illegal  with the guilty parties being not the homeless themselves but the authorities who fail to ensure that every human in their orbit has a roof over their head and somewhere safe to sleep.

Can you think of any other laws 

you would like to add to my list?

Poem

Clint in his youth

Ode to Clint

Farewell Dear Clint -

Thou wert my trusted friend

Loyal and true to the very end

We travelled far and journeyed wide,

Courage grew with you on my side.

I parked you in villages far away

And polished your bonnet every day

But now dear chap the end is nigh -

I'll remember you sweetly till I die.

Clint and The Pudding - a dynamic pair

You drove me just about everywhere.

Now another driver will turn your key

Someone else - who isn't me.

Tube

Down in London, the underground railway network is commonly known as "The Tube". Of course, half the people who visit this corner of the blogosphere will have direct personal experience of "The Tube". However, the other half may never have been to London and will therefore have only a dim awareness of  what "The Tube" is like in reality.

It is the world's oldest underground railway system and with eleven tracks and 272 stations, it remains one of the largest networks even though it has been overtaken by a dozen Chinese cities and Moscow too.

But my purpose in making this blogpost is not to spew out facts and figures about "The Tube" and how it compares with other underground railways. No, I wanted to focus on the people who ride "The Tube".

Every journey is different with an ever changing cast of actors and actresses boarding the train and leaving it. You never know who will come together. Different people with different stories to tell if you could only corral them in order to record their varied tales.

If you are lucky enough to have a seat, you look across at the people facing you. You note the different ethnicities - travellers from every corner of the world... Africans, Asians, Scandinavians, people from the south of Europe, North Americans, South Americans, Arabs, Jews, Australians. There are even people from The British Isles! And there are old people, young people, children, disabled people, poor people, wealthy people, people who have been to football matches, tennis players, students, hippies, Goths, tattooed people and the unadorned too. Some carry bags from "Harrods" while others carry musical instruments, flowers or huge suitcases.

Almost always. there is a calm,  unwritten respect between passengers. They police themselves as they move between stations. The atmosphere is rarely intimidating even during busy times when the carriages are packed - with standing room only. We are all social beings and "The Tube" is a great leveller. Briefly - while riding on those subterranean trains - everybody is equal. 

The others are strangers that we will probably never see ever again. This is what it means to be in a city of ten million humans. Nowadays, many lone travellers  can be seen inspecting the screens on their smartphones - secret worlds where they can briefly hide away and avert their eyes as the tube train thunders onward to Pimlico or Putney Bridge, Sloane Square or Stepney Green, Holborn or Hornchurch.

Weekend

 

"Core Femme" by Jill Berelowitz (2011)

Friday, the 1pm train to St Pancras is cancelled so we have to catch a local train to Doncaster, then take an East Coast Mainland train to King's Cross. We get there in  less than two hours and London is even warmer than Sheffield... Into the underground rail system... Hammersmith and City Line to Edgware Road... An American woman drops her Oyster Travel Card as she leaves the train and it drops onto the track. She tells me she had paid £200 for it that very day. We wait till she has found a member of staff to help her... Then on to The District Line to West Brompton... We walk along Lillie Road and stop at a toy shop... Buy Zachary a wooden spinning top, a "Playmobil" human figure with a dinosaur and an inflatable banana... Ian is bringing Zach along their street in his pushchair... He has been at nursery school all day...Ian makes us a wonderful vegan Caesar salad with mushrooms, tofu and homemade wholewheat croutons followed by Sarah's lovely rhubarb crumble...  I visit the nearby "Bedford Arms" for the first time... two pints of "London Pride" then back... 

(Take a breath)

Saturday - Shirley and I walk to "The Half Moon Cafe" on Fulham Palace Road for brunch while Zach is having his midday nap...We spot "Core Femme" outside Charing Cross Hospital...Later 74 bus to Bishop's Park... There's a sandy beach there and children's playgrounds. Local people having outdoor time with their kids... Nearby The River Thames flows and we go up the bank to see it. There's a nice breeze as a team of eight rowers go by on their way to Putney Bridge... We buy some supplies from "Costcutter" then it's back to Ian's house... Evening meal for Zach, then bathtime and bed... All weekend Zach  has been saying "pider" - pider, pider, pider because he has been shown one and it really interests him but also "moth" for two or three moths are resting on the ceiling... Maybe he will be an entomologist... Ian orders a Lebanese meal which is delivered after half an hour...  Lovely wraps and tabbouleh with hummus, babu ganesh and flatbreads... I watch Trump on television saluting his birthday parade - a guy who dodged the draft for heaven's sake and his sidekick Angry Hegseth looking like a clown who is out of his depth... 

(Take a breath)

Sunday morning toast and coffee... I opt to remain out back in the sunshine reading my book while they hot foot it to the Waitrose in Chelsea for more vital supplies... I doze and when I open my eyes they are back... It's Father's Day and Ian makes  a lovely vegan brunch with roasted tomatoes and chick peas plus a tofu version of scrambled egg with sourdough toast... Goodbyes then bus back to West Brompton... Tube back to St Pancras where it is chaotic getting on the 15.32  train back to the land we call Up North... Delighted to bag two seats in Coach B and we rattle along home - Shirley knitting and me reading... Kettering, Leicester, Loughborough and Derby... Sheffield buses along Ecclesall Road are in short supply so we spot a taxi and climb aboard...£10...then cheese on toast before I catch my bus to "The Hammer and Pincers" quiz... The word of the weekend is definitely "pider" (Adult English: spider)...