Daffodils in Nottingham

Number Two Son has just been promoted, he is now a senior analyst in something I don’t understand. He doesn’t understand it either, so I don’t feel too bad. He’s hoping to pick it up once he starts . . .

Number One Son has been doing jobs I don’t understand for years.

This, I suppose, is the way of things in modern life. We didn’t have computers in my day. We barely had calculators. I used to keep track of millions of vaccinations and the necessary monitoring using a ledger and sheets of squared paper which we used to tape together to give us the required length. Today I suppose I would use a spread sheet and be done with it, though I suspect the accuracy might not be as good. Pressing a button has inbuilt hazards, making a mark on paper is a more thoughtful process.

Daffodils

On the poetry front, I have just been informed that my long-listed poems at Butcher’s Dog have failed to progress to the next stage. Unusually, the editor has written a note to explain the selection process. The main stumbling block is, it seems, that poems don’t always fit together to produce a harmonious whole with other poems within an issue. Seems fair enough, and it’s nice to have another excuse for failure. Not that I need another one, because I already have enough and, as previously mentioned, it tends not to worry me too much.

However, it was nice of them to do it, and it’s in distinct contrast to a couple of others that I deal with, who seem to go out of their way to be gruff, or even unpleasant. That of course, is wasted on me. I’m old enough, and gruff enough to take it in my stride. I think this is because I have a balanced outlook on life. Julia thinks it’s because I am ruder than most people who are rude to me.

Daffodils