We were walking to the Bailgate on New Year’s Eve. This was an achievement in itself but that’s not the focus of this story. On the way we passed a family group with a little girl holding her blind grandfather’s hand. I assumed it was her grandfather. He was slim with white hair, a small pointed white beard and in his free hand carried a white stick. It really grabbed my attention. She can’t have been more than six and it made me think what confidence she must have to walk with him along the pavement like that. A real responsibility.
I made a note on my phone after they had gone by. I did go through a phase of carrying a small notebook to scribble down such observations but the stylus in my phone is a good enough replacement, albeit ethereal. A notebook is a more permanent record. Our lives are moving into the aether anyway. You can choose to embrace this or not adapt to changes in our world. This does occasionally make me ponder.
I write a lot of stuff. Nowadays it is mostly online but I do have diaries going back to my childhood. These days the diary is online but that early record of me exists and will be there if ever the kids want to look at it when I am gone. Assuming they can read my handwriting!
Philosopherontap has over two thousand eight hundred published posts, mostly by me although there have been a few guest poets over the years. I did publish a book of poetry from pot years ago (still have some copies if anyone wants one) but once the site is no longer supported/hosted it won’t be available. OK there’s the wayback machine but you can’t guarantee that will last forever. trefor.net had more than three thousand posts but that site is now very much archived as read only.
Does any of this matter? Probably not but I do like to think that I will have left some kind of footprint on the planet even if that will fade and eventually disappear under the sands of time. Printing all the posts might add a bit of longevity but that would be v expensive and constrain the viewing content to whoever held the copy. I doubt the British Library would want it.
I suspect that it does matter a little more than we really think. In conducting my family tree research I occasionally come across (very) old newspaper articles that refer to documents seen by the writer that would be of great interest to me. Church records, diaries, stuff like that. My 2 great grandfather William Davies was a poet who went by the handle of Y Bardd Coch or the Red Bard. I’ve found references in newspapers discussing his stuff but very little of the writing is to be found. It may be there at the bottom of some distant relative’s cupboard but I can’t tell. It would be quite nice to be able to read his poetry. He did write the elegy on his gravestone in Abergorlech churchyard which I have seen and copied and I may have a snippet from elsewhere.
Ah well. Once the earth is demolished to make way for the interplanetary superhighway nothing will matter anyway (I maintain stocks of beer and nuts in anticipation of the day – if you know you know).
This morning’s problem is to see if I can find logs of a suitable size in order to light the fire again. We have lit it most days over the holiday and today we have our last batch of guests coming for lunch. Some of THG’s family who happen to be staying in the area for a few days. I’m going to have to sort through the logs and see what’s lower down in the pile.
THG herself is off out weight lifting this morning. How many people can do one handed pressups with a clap in between? Not THG actually but I thought I’d ask the question anyway – see who salutes etc 🙂
Unless you are in the retail or hospitality industries most people will not be at work today even though it is a Friday. Doesn’t seem much point in going in for just one day does there? I guess some folk are v keen, or essential workers. I will be doing some actual work work next week meself – shock horror probe. I won’t trouble you with the deets. Don’t worry, I won’t overdo it. Be assured. Britain needs ssureds. Another new word!
Fox: 9:35pm.
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Talking about things being demolished to make way for a bypass I note that the Mint Leaf Indian restaurant on the A46 near the A1 roundabout at Newark is set to be demolished to make way for road improvements. That roundabout does need something doing to it as it is quite dodgy negotiating the right lanes. However the demolition of the restaurant saddens me a little.
Yonks ago when we started Timico the business was based out of the stable block at Langford Hall, just a few hundred yards down from the Mint Leaf. At the time it was a Little Chef but when they closed down that chain the property was taken over the curry house that we now know as the Mint Leaf opened. Dean Bruce and I decided we would check it out for lunch – see if they had any lunch deals to offer.
The waiter who greeted us outlined a lunch deal. Don’t recall the details. I do remember ordering a meat madras. When another waiter returned, who turned out to be the owner, he asked us if we were happy with what we had ordered. I said yes but if it wasn’t too late could a chicken tikka masala be doable instead of the madras as part of the deal. The owner looked bewildered and said they didn’t have a deal and that it was the waiter’s first day on the job! Hey ho 🙂 Hopefully he didn’t get into too much trouble.
We didn’t go again. Not because it was bad food. It’s just that I wouldn’t normally have an Indian meal for lunch and living in Lincoln it didn’t make sense to go all the way to Newark in order to get a curry fix.