Tag Archives: family life

Fish & Chips – with a Side of Sprouts

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I’m trying to get a few posts done while I have access to the internet. As my last post indicates, I have no reason to be optimistic that I will be connected to the internet any time soon. It is amazing how much we now use the internet for.

I need it to do my weekly shopping and I need it to renew my house insurance. I also need it to shop for odds and ends. And because I’m not good at technology and passwords, I need it for WP. I could, I suppose, blog using a tiny touch screen, but if I do, it keeps warning me about data usage.

It strikes me that we are being forced to use the internet more and more – all my insurance documents will be sent by email – and if we don’t have it huge chunks of our life will disappear. I was reading about how people merge into each other as time goes by, and the problems this causes when one dies. This specifically relates to married couples, where the partners take on different responsibilities. It is certainly true for us. Julia does all the social, empathetic family stuff. I do the . . .

Deep fried Brussels

Actually, I’m not sure what I do. The last time I was actually necessary was when maps needed reading. Since satnav that has become a redundant skill.

Yesterday, travelling up from Peterborough, we stopped at the Cod’s Scallops again. This is becoming a habit. Unfortunately it’s a habit we will have to break in a couple of months when the move is complete. We had our customary pensioners’ special (though they call it something more upbeat on the menu) with a side order of deep fried Brussels. They were in a light tempura style batter and they were very good, though a little hot. They are, I suppose, full of water, and that had heated to boiling point in the fryer. I burnt my mouth. The pictures feature the meal.

More Serious Stuff – Deep Thought, Castration and the Importance of Parents

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I started doing more thinking after writing yesterday’s post. There was a lot to think about, mostly about murdered teenagers. After bringing two kids up in a city that had a poor reputation at one time, you can get quite thoughtful.

Interestingly, the writers blame the Labour government for the various problems, where most of the people these days blame the Conservatives. That is probably a sign that we should leave politics out of the discussion.

Youth clubs, youth sports and such things are, at best, distractions rather than a cure. If you are keeping kids off the street they can’t get into trouble. When looking at funding possibilities I’ve often seen the terms “distraction” or “displacement activity”.

We had quite a few difficult kids at the various rugby clubs we attended. Some were the typical sort of inner city kid you’d expect to be in trouble (who we used to work with in Rugby League) and others, in Rugby Union, were much more affluent and better educated.

One of the things I noticed was that you could put a lot of effort in and make no discernible difference. I also noticed that if the parents weren’t engaged nothing seemed to work. That held good for all the kids – parents who were at work all the time were just as bad as parents who deserted their family.

So my solution to the problem is to put the family back at the centre of things. I’d also be prepared to think about castrating absent fathers who didn’t live up to their responsibilities, though it’s likely that this would be a last resort.

It’s about the basics – decent places to live, education, jobs, reducing teenage pregnancies…

I’m starting to sound like a beauty queen here, but I’ll stop short of advocating world peace and an end to famine. It is, however, a matter of some regret that I didn’t start thinking forty years ago – it might actually have made a difference at that point.

Does anyone have any good ideas?