It’s traditional for people to be too hard on themselves. As a look at my career trajectory (which reached its stuttering height around 1988, faltered and commenced a steady decline which lasted for 38 years) will show, I’m not one of those people. I had everything I wanted and I didn’t try. Laziness and lack of ambition were all I needed, and as a result I coasted into retirement with very little to show for it but a finely honed ability for world class procrastination.
When the book is closed on my life, it will be with the phrase that often adorned my school reports – “could do better”.
Still, there’s no point worrying now.
However, I must do better in one respect. I took Julia to wood turning this morning, and, as last week, came back by a slightly circuitous route that avoided the queues. As with last week I had a number of thoughts of subjects for poems (including some of the same ones I had had last week) and realised that I had done nothing about it. I’ve written about Air Sea Rescue in WW2 and about the fate of Cromwell’s head after his posthumous execution, but no actual creative writing has been done. This is not good.
At the moment I can pass it off as a change of pace, or relaxation. I have plenty of material in hand and October is a slow month for submissions, but I really have to get a grip after that.
Does anybody want to know what happened to Cromwell’s head, by the way? There’s been a lot written about him while he was alive, but not much about him after he died. To be fair, he did do a lot more while he was alive.
I’d be interested in what happened to Cromwell’s head. Especially if it was circulated to others as a deterrent. I presently have a squirrel in the loft so deterrent ideas would be welcome 😂
I’d call in a professional to trap it before the noise drove me mad or it chewed something important. They will also take it away and destroy it humanely as required by law.
Or, if I wasn’t putting this in writings, and was thin enough to access the loft space, I might hypothetically consider buying a £25 trap off the internet which I might bait with peanut butter. Then I might decide that execution was a high penalty for a spot of trespassing and let it go (without being spotted) a few miles from home.
Then, if you know a practical thin person who owns his own hammer, you should really get him to block all the access points.
Haha, yeah i’ve had someone come and put traps down £80 a visit! but it seems to be in a void above our bedroom so he can’t get the traps in there. I find it strange they can’t poison them but the trap breaks their back! Apparently they are vermin and it’s illegal to release them into the wild. Oh! and I can shoot them with an airifle strange ols world
At £80 a pop regardless of whether they catch anything it’s not a bad job. One of the neighbours in Nottingham had to have multiple visits before they caught it. To be fair, once they set it they have to check it regularly in case they cause suffering to a trapped animal.
If you want a guaranteed, permanent rat free home, all done in a Vegan manner (no rats being harmed) it will, according to an advert I just read, cost you £2797 + mileage charge (plus ULEZ charge if in London or clean air zone charge if in a chargeable city) plus VAT. Who would ever have thought that Vegan rat control would be an option?
😂😂 I wonder what they do with the rats if they aren’t harmed? I guess they go next door, so a very self serving career 😂
As more people become vegan, and gullible, it a business model worth exploring. If I ever go into pest control I’m definitely going to slap a “Dolphin Friendly” logo on the car. And after your recent experience you can definitely state that no squirrels were harmed by your pest control people. 🙂
Only your wallet was harmed.
Now that’s a plan 😂😂
The good dunnock picture is more interesting to me than Cromwell’s head. I lack your consuming interest in history, but I am completely at home with the verdict, ‘could have done better’, it was tailor-made for me.
🙂 It is, if I’m honest, the only good dunnock picture I have ever taken. When you read the evidence of their DNA and infidelity, it is little wonder that they skulk around.
I lke them all the same.
🙂
Yes, I would like to know what happened to Cromwell’s head. In truth, I didn’t know there was any mystery surrounding his head.
I will get right onto it! It does, however, as they say on TV, contain 1660s social attitudes which modern viewers may find upsetting. Particularly the one where they thought it was acceptable to display body parts as a warning to others.
The good old days!
🙂
I had big plans for all I was going to accomplish in retirement, especially with my two volunteer gardens (small ones at two buildings in town). Instead, I have delegated almost all of that to Allan and for the last six weeks have barely looked at them. This is the first year of full retirement so I’m hoping at some point I can kick myself back into productivity?! It is worse to just laze around when living things (plants) depend on you. (As you know, I have a protest rally schedule, but that is partly seeing a couple of good friends and listening to music I like, not exactly arduous.) I read a book called The Sixty Something Crisis about the experience of retirement after a productive career. The author was well moneyed. Even she drifted along for awhile. Anyway, thanks for making me laugh as always. “Laziness and lack of ambition were all I needed.” In my gardening career, people were full of advice how we could be more important. Jackets with our business name on them, a business placard on our vehicle. None of that ever happened, so I probably never made as much dosh as I could have with a higher profile, but on the other hand it was kind of nice to just drift along.
Was it reshaped into a cube?
Nothing as interesting as that I’m afraid. 🙂