Category: collisions

Upon my soul

When did you last see your father?

Wallop is a word with multiple meanings

In the chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty.

We certainly live in uncertain times but has it not ever been thus? 

Some people pray before hitting the hay. Pray before hay!  In my mind we should perhaps give thanks whenever we wake up as opposed to before we go to sleep although I guess there is no particular rule on what people pray for at any time of day. It’s either thanks for making it through the day or thanks for making it through the night.

The exception to this is if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep in which the phrase “thank you very much” may not be considered a genuine expression of gratitude.

I’ve never prayed for anything. It’s a personal thang. If praying is your thang then that’s fine. I do religiously listen to the wireless in bed, both at night and in the morning. Actually I don’t really listen to it. At night it’s there for soporific effect. In the morning it’s more about habit than listening.

Have you ever considered how the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has affected your life? If you are uncertain as to the answer that is probably part of it.

Weird dream about anne at LHR

A fair bit of my grey cell usage recently has been devoted to travel arrangements for next year’s East Coast and Caribbean (maan) trip. The main issue is how to use the BA companion voucher to best effect. The ideal solution would be a direct flight to Tobago from LHR T5 with a first class cabin. This would give us max value for the Avios, a night before in the Sofitel plus use of the Concorde lounge before the flight.

Unfortunately not only do BA now not do a direct flight (did they ever?) as it goes via Antigua but also they don’t operate a First Class cabin. This is a covid casualty I’m sure. The same is true for Trinidad (via Saint Lucia) which is a short 20 mins hop from Tobago and therefore an acceptable alternative. Moreover both flights originate from Gatwick which is very much a poor cousin without the quality of overnight accommodation for the night before.

A BA 4 cabin flight to Barbados out of LHR is an alternative as could be Miami although the latter is less desirable as we are routing through there to the Big Apple and thence Boston on the way home. The other issue is the dearth of reward flight availability. This is likely because there will be a lot of folk like me working from home sat on a load of Avios and desperate to book a trip somewhere.

My strategy is to have an order of flight option preference and begin the process of midnight vigils nearer the time the bookings need to be done which is 355 days before the date of travel. The reward flights are there. They just get snapped up quickly. The late bird gets the reward flight, as the saying goes (yes it does). Truly first world problems.

Now all this is just the preamble to the dream I had last night. I rarely remember dreams but this one was persistent so I did. Anne and I were for some reason at the airport with the kids off to I know not where. Could have been Tobago I guess. The point was we got separated early on and in looking for her I kept finding myself on some obscure high street somewhere having to go back and find the somewhat obscure entrance to the terminal. I did at some point find myself at the door of the 1st class check in and weirdly they handed me a dressing gown on a coat hanger even before check in telling me I’d have to wait. There was no point in staying there without Anne so I went back out to look for her. At some stage I decided to call her but found that I had her phone. Der! The dream ended without conclusion other than when I looked at the departures board to check the gate number (she might have gone to the gate) I saw that the flight was departing two hours earlier than I had thought which could well be a problem. 

No idea.

Caveman hair

It may have been noticed that I have been growing a moustache and beard. Other than a previous attempt during the first lockdown I have never had facial hair. It’s a bit of an art experiment. I quite like the image. Long hair with hippylike stuff on the face. Totally suitable for someone who runs a vintage vw campervan rental business and a festival. The only thing missing is a garland of flowers. I have all the necessary shirts and jackets.

Now facial hair does bring with it practical considerations. First or all some schools of thought consider that you need to occasionally trim it and keep it tidy. This I have never had to do and am unskilled in the art. On this basis it hasn’t been done. The alternative is to just not bother trimming it. However it starts to have an impact when, for example, taking a drink of water. I find that the moustache gets in the way of things entering my mouth. It is not yet long enough to train to the sides.

It made me think about cavemen. They presumably didn’t cut their hair? Did they tie it back in a bun or ponytail? Quite fetching I’d imagine and also practical. What about the moustache though?

Everything is blurred without my glasses

When I got up this morning I sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. I saw a jumbled blurr of shapes. I knew what every shape was but it lacked definition. Think of going through life like this. I was around 10 years old when I got my first pair of specs. Brown plastic HNS jobs. They were a revelation. When I walked out of the shop I saw things I never knew existed. Like signs above the shops! I remember the day as clearly as my vision was improved.

Before the glasses were invented people used to have to live without. Maybe they died young, killed off by the ferocious wild animal they didn’t spot hiding behind the bush or being run over by a horse and cart when crossing the road. 

It’s a good job old Salvino D’Armate and Allesandro della Spina rocked up. What a team. Inventor Sal came up with the idea for specs and monk Al spread the word. Probably helped a lot with bible reading back in the day. Those books were far too heavy to lift closer to your face so that you could read them even though the font was a bit bigger than today’s standard. Latin dingbats script is really difficult to read at the best of times.

Nowadays had the glasses have only recently been invented they would be marketed heavily in embedded Google widgets placed strategically in the wide margins of said Bibles (or Koran etc depending on your brand preference). “Consign Latin dingbats script into history. Free up your inner Arial 10”.

This post was typed unseen using google dictation without wearing eye glasses.

Do you really want to know the direction of your life?

I was listening to the Archbishop of Wales this morning, as one does. He mentioned that before entering the clergy he was a solicitor with his life notionally mapped out in front of him. He made the break. 

It’s probably a lot easier to do this if you have a calling such as the church. I suspect it isn’t quite the same when society pressurises you in a certain direction. Career, progression, ladder, money, more money, mortgage. Notionally it is about long term security.

You can’t really criticise this. You can dislike it. In fact for a lot of people it isn’t about any of the above. It’s about keeping a roof over their head, feeding the kids and having enough money for a TV with sky and netflix.

Life is one big surf party. Waves come along. You have to be able to catch them. Catch the excitement. The thrill of the game. Adrenaline. Difficult I know but you got to do it.

Leisurely sunday brunch

Added some small banana pancakes with maple syrup to breakfast this morning. It’s a winning combo. Chopped chillies with my fried egg, smoked bacon and sausage on the side.