Monthly Archives: July 2023

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

Holiday Day 2 Failed Parcel Delivery

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Took Julia to work. Went to see friends at local jewellers. Got home, found that the delivery company dpd had been, left a card and gone. They could have left the parcel in the porch. They could have left it with a neighbour. But they didn’t. They did, however, leave a card. I used the code on the card to track the parcel and found out that they had tried but failed to deliver. I didn’t actually need a website to tell me that as all the evidence was pointing that way . . .

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

I also found they had taken a picture of my front door. This was also useless as I already know what my front door looks like. If they need to prove that they have been here, the fact that I have the card will do that.

dpd are very big on being green these days. They even asl me to   recycle the card. They tell me that allowing them to use my local pick up point will allow them to cut CO2 emissions by 63%.  MY local drop-off point is the Post Office – 0.2 miles away. I don’t see how dropping it within that distance helps reduce emissions. Due to my difficulty walking I will use the car to pick it up anyway. It will, of course, reduce the emissions from a second journey to deliver, but so would leaving it in the porch or with a neighbour.

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

I am currently on live chat with them. The first contact swiftly shoved me on to someone else – I suspect they were a robot. I am now in a queue and am currently Number 7. This has gone from 20 to 7 in two minutes so isn’t bad . . .

Another two minutes and I engaged in live chat with someone helpful and we got it all changed. For once everything went well, though not as well as if the delivery man had used his head.

The pictures of Sherwood Forest are by request. They are, unfortunately, not great photos, but it was a dull evening for a lot of the shots. I will look for some better ones.

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

As an aside, I have often found dpd drivers to be inconsiderate on the road, but as they delivered 1.9 billion parcels worldwide in 2020, it might just be that there a lot of them.

Sherwood Forest – Robin Hood and Little John – the old visitor centre

Sundown in Sherwood

Sunset at Sherwood

Sherwood Forest – carving

Owl carving – Sherwood Forest – it’s on the back of the carving of the head.

Acorn Sculpture – Sherwood Forest

 

Holiday Day 1

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Today I started with a lie in and followed up with a relaxed breakfast featuring bacon croissants. I have become very cosmopolitan in my later years.

In the after noon I went to the shop because, in the course of the morning I suddenly realised I had left my battery charger plugged in at the shop. I’d noticed it bleep yesterday to tell me the batteries were charged but had forgotten to disconnect it. Fortunately, the automatic cut off had worked and all was OK. This isn’t always the case as they sometimes get painfully hot. This is a reminder of why I was worried about fire.

In the evening we had a large salad, plus some quiche and a sliver of cheesecake. The salad was rocket, tomato, cucumber, spring onions, mushrooms, peppers, dried apricots, almonds, feta and watermelon. It’s partly an attempt to eat more salad, and partly an attempt to clear up a lot of  part packets of stuff.

Tomorrow I will make soup as we have a number of mushrooms and carrots coming to the end of their shelf life. It will be Mushroom Soup and Carrot and Lentil Soup, I’m not going to try to make Carrot and Mushroom Soup.  That would be a step too far.

I’ve also been reading posts, though I’m still struggling with time. My apologies to everyone I have been neglecting.

Finally, we watched The Great British Sewing Bee. It’s a harmless way to pass an hour in the evening, despite the slewed comments of the judges. They definitely have favourites. In the judging it’s quite common for judges to criticise the non-favourites for faults that they then ignore when telling their favorites that their creation is superb, even though one or more obvious faults are jumping out of the TV screen.

Bumble bee on bramble flowers – Sherwood Forest

n most TV  competitions.

Holiday and a Reality Check

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It ws decided a few weeks ago (not by me) that we would close the shop from Wednesday to Wednesday. The owner is on holiday and decided that it would be easier for staffing if he closed the shop. In other words, after the debacle at Christmas, and his solution (making us take one of the weeks off out of our holiday entitlement because one of his staff (again not me), had made a fuss about coming in for some of the time despite us being given time off as a bonus.

Stamps, stamps, stamps…

The result is that we are now being directed when to take holiday and I am no longer paid for working on Wednesdays (normally my day off). To be honest, I can’t be bothered to argue about it as I have less than a year to go. At that point my small works pension and my Old Age pension will combine to produce an income approximately equal to my current part-time shop job. That’s the advantage of my pitiful career trajectory – retirement will not see me any worse off than when I was working. If I can actually find a part-time job after I retire I will actually be better off as a retiree.

Meanwhile, we had the AGM of the Numismatic Society last night. Eighteen men of a certain age gathered together to mutter and raise hands as the Treasurer read his report and the Secretary read his report and the Chairman gave his annual address The age range is from 45-85, with more at the top end of the scale than at the bottom.

Display of old relics at Flintham Show

Fears about being in a dying hobby are well-founded. Cigarette card collecting used to be a big collecting area. These days, despite a large stock, we sell very few cards and the collectors are mainly in their eighties. Card collecting continues, with football and other gum cards (such  as Star Wars and Batman) still having a following. Pokemon cards have a strong following too, as do many other sorts of card that we don’t deal with. Old dogs and new tricks spring to mind, but as most of the young people do their business online they don’t need a shop.

There were, as I recall, ten collectors shops with coins and medals when I moved to Nottingham 35 years ago. Now there are two, one of which is mainly a jeweller these days.

That’s how it’s going. Collectors generally find eBay a great place to buy (as I do) and they just don’t bother coming into shops these days, a trend I saw starting over 20 years ago. I’m one of the last remnants from the old days, already halfway between dinosaur and fossil . . .

Silver Coin Set

Laurel & Hardy Reborn (or Another Senior Moment)

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What a day!

This morning, whilst packing parcels on my own, I dropped some medallions on the floor, cursed, picked them up and carried on. I packed a few other parcels first and then started on the medallions. There were only eight of them when there should have been nine.

I checked the floor, I checked more of the floor, looked under everything, including the fridge, looked in the drawer they had come out of, and the one above, and the one below . . .

My workmate double-checked, and so did the boss. Eventually, looking from a distance, he said: “Have you checked the pockets of your jacket?”

I have a waistcoat over the back of my chair as I sometimes use it to make a cushion to relieve pain on my legs. It’s months since I last moved it.

“No, ”  I said in my best long-suffering manner, “but I will.”

I checked the first pocket and there was, as I expected, nothing. I checked the second and, as you have probably already guessed, found the missing medallion.

My chair had been in a different place when I dropped the medallions and when I’d dropped four on the floor the fifth must have fallen straight into my pocket. I’m not sure if this is another senior moment or an interesting insight into life in the shop.

It was soon overshadowed by another farcical event, when the owner called through from the shop, asking for £300 out of the safe as he was buying some coins from a member of the public. My workmate duly obliged, opening a new pack and taking £300 out. So far, so good. He then decided to leave the balance – £700 – on the nearby work surface.

At that point the fan, which he had decided to switch on when he arrived, turns and, one by one, blew the notes across the room like something out of a Laurel & Hardy film.

 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Followed by Even Less Activity

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Last night, as I eventually drifted off to sleep after a day where nothing much happened, a brilliant idea for a post came to me. It really very good, and it justifies some research and a couple of well chosen category tags. This is the one, I feel sure is going to attract attention and make me rich and famous.

Just one snag. When I woke up this morning that was all I could remember. The actual subject and the brilliant opening sentence have all gone. This, as you may recall from previous posts, is typical of how it happens. I’m not, however, downhearted, as I have learnt to accept this as a fact of my writing life. Some of it may come back, but if not, something else will drift along to replace it.

The famous writer’s notebook? It was on the landing where I left it after coming upstairs. Not that it mattered as I can rarely read my nocturnal scribble anyway.

In my defence, it was very busy in my head last night and, like the famously overly full shelf, something must have fallen off the end.

I’ve been looking at the availability of short online courses. You may remember that I did a few several years ago. I got bogged down in one of them, and that was enough to stall my enthusiasm. It sounds pathetic, but sometimes that’s all it takes.It was, I see, February 2021, and the course was Exploring the English Language. It all got  little complicated, as I wasn’t taught formal grammar at school, and I ground to a halt.

I may go back to it, but I’m signed up for some Roman History at the moment, starting when I finish this post. If it goes OK I will look at doing further courses, even paying for them.

The ones I’m currently doing are Open University free courses.

The ones I’m looking at for later are Oxford University short courses. These are the distance learning ones where you have no specific study times and no live conversations.

None of it will lead anywhere, but as I’m 65 and have no long-term career goals, apart from living long enough to draw my pension, this will suit me.

My Orange Parker Pen

Not Much Happened Today

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Last night, despite my good intentions, I was tired, disorganised and lazy and failed to post. This is not unusual these days, and it’s something I need to address.  I’ll probably have a look at it tomorrow, but for now I will post something.

There’s quite  lot happening on the internet, but most of it is politics. I’m not keen on politics. For one thing, it doesn’t bring out the best in people. Second, no matter what you say, you can always find someone to disagree with you.  And third, the big one, you will never change anyone’s mind on politics or religion,  or global warming, immigration or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.  Christie definitely cheated the reader, despite what her apologists may say. All you end up with is an unproductive argument and

At this point in my first draft I wandered off into politics whilst discussing why I wasn’t going to discuss it. I was happy with the writing, the conclusions were sound but the overall effect was exactly what I was trying to avoid. That’s the trouble with politics. It’s so pervasive. Rather than start a number of arguments I just deleted 200m words and started again.

I’m happy to say that the book on Vikings is starting to improve. It’s taken a while to get going but I am now enjoying it and learning, which is the point of it. I knew, for instance, that Torksey in Lincolnshire (which I mainly think of in terms of being a caravan site and car boot sale venue) had been a Viking base in 872. Well, a Viking base, I had to look the date up. I also knew that Repton, in Derbyshire, had been the site of a Viking encampment in 873. What I didn’t realise until now wa that they had travelled from Torksey to Repton by sailing along the River Trent. It’s so simple once somebody tells you.  As both places are less than an hour’s drive away I really ought to have a trip out. I’ve been to Repton, and driven through Torksey more than once, but never really stopped and had a proper look. Having said that, I will probably be disappointed, but that’s life.

The photos are of a Newark Siege Shilling, which I’ve covered before. The Viking Fleet must have sailed through Newark on its way to Repton. Maybe I should write a post on the history of the River Trent.

 

The Sad Tale of a Downward Spiral

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Without realising it, I abandoned my writing system a while ago. It was a gradual process and I didn’t really notice. First the internal editor took over, trying to produce a finished piece without all the drafts I used to write. Then, as that happened, my enthusiasm started to fail, I wrote less and as a result I sparked fewer ideas, which, in turn, made me write less. And that was the story of my downward spiral.

I have only made 12 submissions this year, including two months with nothing submitted. I kept telling myself that I was gathering myself for a better quality of writing but all that did was encourage the internal editor and things just dried up.

The problem was simmering away, as I started to talk about quality over quantity, but really took hold when I was selected for the Contemporary Haibun 18 anthology. It features poetry “gleaned from the best practitioners from around the world” according to the publisher’s blurb.

Naturally, I was pleased to be selected. Then, as usual, I worried. I didn’t, as usual (Imposter Syndrome and all that) worry that I was there under false pretences. This time I worried that I wouldn’t be good enough to get back in next year. This was where the internal editor escaped from his box and started to squeeze the life out of me. At that point I should have relaxed and just carried on a normal, but I’m not that smart. It’s all part of the writing process, I suppose, and next time I meet with a degree of success I must allow for it.

The truth is that I was happy to be anthologised and grateful to be picked. Just because I’m not picked again doesn’t mean I will have become a bad writer. And I have plenty of years left to try again. I’m now going back to my old writing process. Instead of trying to achieve perfection on the first draft I’m going to start throwing 500 words at the page before chipping away to see what lies within. It has worked for sculptors through history and used to work for me. It will work again.

My new motto as I move forwards – Work hard. Write lots. Prune. Inspiration is for cissies.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to writing. I have a masterpiece waiting to be released.

Orange Parker Pen

A Tour of my Head

Just after I’ve been stuck for a subject, several come along in one go. There is actually a logical explanation of why this happens with buses, but I’m not sure it applies to thoughts.

For today, I thought I’d give you an idea of how my mind works. It came to me as I was putting on a blue and yellow check shirt. Subtlety and fashion are not really thing.

Blue and yellow is a favourite colour combination, and was even before the Ukrainian national colours became prominent. I used it as a colour scheme when I made an Airfix model of a Fokker Triplane. The colour scheme they recommended ws the all red colour of Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron. Frieda von Richthofen, a distant relative of Manfred was married to D H Lawrence. I had, at this point, a thought that I should read some more of Lawrence’s books, but I have read several (though not Lady Chatterley’s Lover) and the thought withered before becoming strong. My reading of The Canterbury Tales has ground to a halt as a lot of the tales seem to be much the same. It is, to be frank, a test of endurance rather than a literary delight. I wrote a poem about Lawrence once. I think I already posted it. I will look. I found it.

Lawrence and Albert Ball both went to Nottingham High School – Lawrence with a County Council scholarship. Albert Ball was killed flying in 1917, supposedly shot down by another von Richthofen, though this was later disproved.

 

Farmer Ted – one of our teaching assistants on the farm

The Finns have abolished private education, such as Nottingham High School. There is an argument for that, as the theory is that all educational standards will rise. There is an argument against it, as some people see it a dumbing down an entire nation. However, I don’t see that happening as the people who send their kids to the High School still pay for private tutors on top of that, and will continue to do so. The thing that worries me from the above article is that the British system has, for years, been moving towards the American system described in the article. What do you think?

Then, as I reached the ground floor I had a brief thought of Snoopy and his struggles with the Red Baron before going to see Julia in the kitchen.

My next thought was “Breakfast!” and my original train of thought ended abruptly. My thoughts ae like that, wide ranging and random, and easily diverted by thoughts of food.

However, despite the transfer of my energy from thought to eating, I now have a list of things to write about later in the day, and as a result of looking for references for links I have many other ideas for further projects. Thoughts are like that, once you start them they just keep going.

Buses, you say? Well, if you insist. The theory is that if the first bus along a route is late, it has extra passengers to pick up. This means that it takes a little longer to load and the second bus loads quicker as it has fewer passengers. Same for the subsequent buses. As  they progress along the route the first bus gets later and the following ones catch up. If you are waiting somewhere towards the end of the route it will seem that you waited a long time for your bus (which is late) and that several turn up at the same time (because the following ones have caught up. Not sure that is useful knowledge, but read the whole post – 600 words and very few of them useful. That is how my brain works.

Gingerbread Men

Stuck for a Subject

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I’m stuck for subjects to write about tonight. I had a head crammed full of subjects last night, but fell asleep in front of TV, When I woke up I was cold and stiff and in no mood for writing, so I crawled up to bed. Twenty four hours later they don’t seem as interesting.

We have had quite a lot of magpies this year and they seem to be more playful than usual, though I’m not sure that this is a scientific observation, as being playful through the whole year doesn’t seem li9ke it would have much survival value and I’m probably misreading their behaviour.

The Nigel Farage story continues to develop. His bank, which turns out to be Coutts, claims that it closed his account as he no longer had enough money to meet their parameters, and offered him n account with another bank in the group. Other customers with Coutts claim they have less than the required wealth and have been allowed to keep their accounts. The story becomes more murky as the days go on.

I was interested to notice that the bank was fined for failing in its duties to check for money-laundering in 2012. They have, I’m sure, tightened things up, but it is interesting to see that until quite recently major banks have been allowing large depositors to get away without the same checks I had to go through a couple of months ago.

I am tempted to move on to the evils of modern banking for a few paragraphs but I’ll not subject you to that. Time to move on and look for some new subjects. Anyway, it’s time for bed.

Magpie

The Great Ledger of Life

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If today were to have an entry in the Great Ledger of Life it would not, I suspect, be totally positive.

I had several interesting and reflective conversations with wife, which would be a positive.

Bacon and black pudding cobs for breakfast would be in the “iffy” column. They are definitely nice for a leisurely breakfast, but from a health point of view are almost certainly frowned on by thin people within the NHS.

Slept through and hour and a half of dull TV before spending a couple of hours awake in front of dull TV programmes. That would definitely be bed, and a waste of life.

“Read a Kindle book on the Vikings” should be a positive but as the entry continues “written with a 21st Century slant” you can probably guess what my thoughts are. The Vikings, it seems, are bad. I can go along with that, as it’s a point of view I’ve heard before. However, when I am  informed that they are bad on the grounds that they had slaves and influenced British Imperial thinking, I begin to recognise a touch of fashionable bias. Bias is OK in historical writing as we all have it, but I do dislike the taint of fashion or opportunism.

These are not, I confess, traits found only in this book, as virtually any TV historian you watch these days seems to be contractually obliged to mention the evils of slavery and Imperialism in relation to British history.

It’s very much like the popular view of the Great War – Lions led by Donkeys and all that, plus Blackadder Goes Forth and the famous drinks cabinet line. “Field Marshal Haig is about to make yet another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.” It’s a view that has been popular for around 60 years now, to the point where schools are showing Blackadder as a history resource, despite it being a comedy programme. You may as well rely on Oh! What a Lovely War as a source. However, if you say something often enough it becomes the accepted view, and is often accepted as fact, as you can see when reading many WP blogs.

That’s it for today. I’m going to look for some photos and go to bed now. I would say that I’ll see you tomorrow, but at my age you can’t always be certain of that. This is the problem with writing about unhealthy breakfasts and warfare – it encourages thoughts of mortality.

Olympic Breakfast