There is an issue in my life, Dear Friends! Like every issue it needs a solution. But, sadly, I don’t believe there is one.

Many, many years ago, I spent 5 years as a pupil at a boarding school. It was an interesting, challenging period. I wouldn’t say it was a fun-filled frolic but close proximity to 79 boys in a boarding house taught me a great deal about what to do, how to act, how to accept and how to mix. I suppose that can be summarised as “Life.” I wouldn’t say that I have great social skills but I do know how to fade into a background in a group and be happy and contented so doing. I have the ability to be a part, yet simultaneously apart. But this wee tale is not about teenage angst.

British boarding schools in the 1960s prided themselves on creating fine upstanding moral paragons. There were some successes but there was also a cadre of privileged chinless wonders. These few believed that glittering prizes were a right. They made their way in the world by riding roughshod over the feelings and hopes of the great unwashed. Class based arrogance, inferiority masquerading as superiority.  They did not think there was anything malicious or wrong about this ethos, they just thought that it was the way things were. If you, friends, think I am being too hard on such institutions then take a look at a recent British Prime Minister who went to Eton. But, this tale is not about any aristocrat remittance man who was paid by the family to stay away.

There was much at boarding school that was enlightened but, Friends, the food was not it. I remember standing out the back of the boarding house when the butcher’s van arrived. We witnessed the meat being unloaded and drooled because it looked so wonderful and we were always hungry. Amidst the salivation, there came a moment when we collectively sighed, shook our heads and turned our backs because we knew that the next time we saw it, it would be swimming in a sea of fat with all the goodness and taste beaten out of it. It would, however, in a vain attempt to keep us healthy, be accompanied by vegetables, green growth, that had had all the goodness boiled out of them due to the cook’s tendency to bring to the boil and let simmer and simmer and……… Green became pale and unattractive, a beige boredom of brutish banality. ( Strewth, Davidson, just ‘cos it alliterates, there is no need, no need at all. Ho hum!) Had the vegetables been people the cook would have been convicted of cruelty. There is that saying that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’. There was only one of him and he spoiled everything. He had retired from the army some years before. We all believed that he had done so before he was shot at dawn, a treasonable saboteur planted by the Soviets attempting to win the Cold War.

I remember one morning being sat at the table with 7 other 13 year olds waiting for the prefect, Nick Hawkins, a 17 year old despot, to serve up the bacon and eggs that were on a metal tray in front of him. Nick was not good in the mornings, he stared into space, tongue hanging out, in a catatonic trance. We were not allowed to speak, forbidden to help ourselves, we had to wait for him to serve us. On this morning we waited and waited. Finally he blinked and reached for the spatula. The greasy mess was, by this time, cold. There was a collective shudder as we guzzled it. The fried bread was at least manageable.   

I ‘graduated’ from Millfield School at the age of 18, Dear Friends. And whatever I may think of my schooling I have had an extremely happy and lucky life thereafter so maybe it gave me something of use. On my last day, waiting for my parents to pick me up for the last time I did not realise that another part of me had also graduated that day. My taste buds, battered and bruised by five years of spotted dick, treacle tart and custard with a skin, and a terrible modern invention called cholesterol, had had enough. They breathed a collective sigh of relief, waited for their moment and flew off never to be seen again. I imagined them stopping on a branch of a nearby tree, looking back down on me, shaking their heads sadly, before making the short trip over the English Channel to France  where boiled cabbage and bland potatoes and tortured meat would never make it past the patrol boats of the French Coastguard. To this day I miss my treacherous wee taste buds.

So here I am today at the age of 72 years blessed with the ability to eat and drink anything and think it to be good. I will buy a bottle of red wine and share it with a good friend. I will ask him what he thinks. He will always smack his lips and say, “Good”, which always pleases me because I have no real idea whether it is good or bad. Not for us is there a bouquet to smell, no gentle sip revealing an hint of the Italian coast, no sense of blackberry with a touch of smoky peat, it doesn’t assault our mouths like an Olympic wrestler’s jock strap, nor hit us with the clear Ricola yodel of a Swiss Alp. It is, Dear Reader, just a glass of red wine. After a couple of glasses, it will be the nectar of the gods, a couple more, we will conquer the world. Yes, friends, I may have my pretentions but taste is not one of them. But now in my latter years, my boarding school experience has come back to haunt me. And, whether or not you want to hear how, the following is it.

My favourite coffee shop is “Bean around the World” a 15 minute stroll away. During Covid my friends and I were allowed to sit outside. We did so religiously through all weathers. When we were finally allowed to sit inside there is a lovely wee corner with just enough room to give us space to chat and do the crossword. It had a wonderful balance between private and public. Occasionally people whom we knew would wander over and spend a short time, a vignette of an experience which was inevitably pleasant. Only problem was that two of my friends did not like the coffee. So we agreed to meet  at Tim Hortons. This is a Canadian chain named after a famous hockey player. Its prices are cheaper and it is a more convenient stopping place for people on the way to work. It is always busy. Like everywhere else I don’t know whether the coffee is bad or good. But it is a more roomy place with no real corner to sit in. There are a number of passing acquaintances there with whom we always enjoy a chat but…..! (Here I am going to ‘but’ you many ‘buts’). Do I really need to know at 6.45 a.m. that our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is the love child of Fidel Castro? Is it important to hear that so and so has 5 children by 5 different mothers? What do we do when homeless Patrick signals us through the window asking us to keep an eye on his large bag of cans while he heads somewhere on his bike? (I cannot see any of us standing up, dashing through the door and giving chase because someone is stealing Patrick’s recyclables. There would only be the slightest hope of us catching any thief and in the unlikely event of us so doing, what would we then do!!?) Soo, Dear Friends, Tim Hortons became too much of an early morning challenge. So now we are at Vomero, a bit further away but more relaxed of a morning. But to me, the victim of a childhood tastebudectomy, all coffee is the same.

If one was to pour the three different coffees into anonymous cups and ask me to place them in the correct café, I feel that I would fail because they would all taste umm, like coffee. Meanwhile somewhere in France there is a convivial group of taste buds, now in their early 70s.They sit at a street side bistro reminiscing about their time at a British boarding school and laughing at what they had to tolerate back in those days. They sip their hand-made coffee, use a fork to cut the light, fluffy croissant in front of them, still hot out of the oven, and they thank their lucky stars that they abandoned Davidson all those long years before. Then it was not too late to seek a newer world and, having done so, they were never going back.

Thanks for reading but suddenly, Dear Friends, we are back at Tim Hortons and Vomero and Bean!? Davidson and his friends now have a pendulous existence, swinging from one hang-out to another. Coffee, shmoffee, nobody cares about the coffee, I think and hope.

“Those whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.”

Classical scholars are unsure whether to attribute this quotation to Euripedes or Sophocles,  Dear Reader. But we know it is of ancient origin and from many perspectives the wisdom of the ancients seems to be a cut above some of the stuff spewed forth through social media these days.

It seems to me that the bulk of humanity tries very hard to do the right thing but, occasionally, we dive off the deep end and make an unwelcome splash. There are so many differing reasons which make us do this such as grief, lack of sleep, a family argument, a bad bio-rhythm, a piece of spinach stuck in our front teeth. We have all seen examples of road rage; anger flaring in unexpected places for unexpected reasons; rushes of blood to the head and such like. We all know that sometimes we take a wrong turning and later beat ourselves up for so doing.

He was so proud of his little group of hikers. They were all kitted out in their new orange anoraks, their footwear was appropriate. He was confident that they would be dry and warm if the rains and wind came. They had all been given a smattering of basic teaching in how to read a map so they had OS maps folded at the appropriate place in their new waterproof map holders which hung professionally about their necks. The wind was a breeze as they made the gentle ascent of Mam Tor in Derbyshire. It was hardly a world beater of a peak, in fact so rounded and whale like on its top that it was hard to call it a peak at all. Yet, it was Mam Tor on the map so it was there, it was the little man with a chip on his shoulder so the hiking world sighed, put on its boots, shrugged its shoulders and said, “I suppose so” and “If we have to” and summited. The teachers knew that the breeze on the way up would be a vicious and cold gale when they reached the summit and the subsequent ridge walk. Yet here was a group of teenagers being led by a group of committed teachers on an expedition which was a part of their week’s camp at Edale Outdoor Centre. At the top the wind was everything that they expected it to be so they urged the group to stuff their maps beneath their coats and marched off along the ridge. Sean announced that he had to stop for a pee. So the teacher turned his back and gave him some privacy. All too soon the boy was at his side, aghast and drenched in his own urine. Worse it had seeped through the new map-holder and drenched the map beneath. The teacher lost the plot and tore into the boy,  annoyed that the lad had not thought of the consequences of pissing into the wind but more annoyed that the new outdoor equipment had had an unwanted and unnecessary christening. Having given his  excessive blast the band of hikers continued on their way but now the mood was not the happy, bantering joy that it had once been. Eventually the teacher was surprised when one of his colleagues appeared at his side and asked him to wait behind. They stopped.

“Pete, let me ask you something. Did anybody die?”

I have thought about this lesson frequently since and thought about it as one of the best of my on the job lessons that I had over my 40+ years in teaching. My perspective was all wrong. I should have laughed it off and waited until we were back at the Outdoor Centre and joked about the fact that the lad was never going to pee into the wind again. Patted him on the back for completing an arduous walk and sent him off to get a shower. I have never really understood why I lost the plot that day. I could now seek excuses, plead all kinds of nuanced reasons, none of which could justify my poor behaviour. You will see the presence of me, I and myself in this paragraph, the presence of an ego was the real sin. Sean and his peers should have been the VIPs then. The hike was not mine, it was theirs and I had made it mine in the worst possible way.

Definitely worse happened a few years earlier when I was in charge of the Unit Group at a big London Comprehensive School. This group of teenage children were Special Needs. They came every day to the mobile classroom which was separate from the main body of the school. They were troubled children from troubled backgrounds. One day 16 year old Christine arrived at school at lunchtime, obviously very, very late.  I mounted my high horse and proceeded to lecture her about punctuality, homework and other irrelevancies. I missed every obvious clue about this child’s demeanour. I missed the fact that she was exhausted. I failed to note that one of the buckles on her shoe had fallen away making it hard for her to walk. I missed the fact that she was, at least, wearing her school uniform. I was annoyed that no explanation was forthcoming. A few days later the truth was revealed. She had been called to her sister’s place to babysit. The sister had returned home drunk at 2.00 a.m. and flung her out of the house. Christine had walked the few miles home through the streets of the London Borough of Hounslow, arrived home after 9.00 a.m. changed into her school uniform and walked the further distance to school.

Dear reader, one of the beauties of retirement is having so much time on one’s hands. But one of the curses is that one has so much time on one’s hands. Rarely but occasionally I cannot sleep because something of my past has crept into that space between wakefulness and slumber. So the Sean story has caused probably one toss and one turn and then I am asleep. But if, Friends, I am unfortunate to go down the Christine disgrace then I am condemned to some hours of sleeplessness. And, Friends, I know that this is no more than I deserve.

So looking back at the title of this blog I realise that losing the plot is part of our humanity. I also know that if we possess a modicum of humility we can admit fault. We can learn from our mistakes, resolve not to let them happen again and if also we have a smattering of wisdom allied to knowledge we can become better people.

But the reason I have picked this topic at this time is because we can recognise in our lives that we all have somebody whom we have loved and respected but that person has changed. Something has made them into something that they never were in the past. That’s fine. We all age, we all reach a peak in our lives, our own peak be it ever so humble, and then come down from the summit, trying not to slip on the way down, trying to be the same  person we were on the way up but fighting physical and mental tiredness all the way down. I think, however, there is a huge difference in selecting somebody to do a job when they are young, fit, capable and alert and then asking them to step aside when those qualities have dimmed. There is, however, no excuse for choosing somebody for a post when they have so obviously lost the plot before they have been selected. Joe Biden has become old and frail very quickly and rightly has stepped aside, his Republican counterpart, in my opinion, lost the plot long before he first painted his face orange, first donned the POTUS mantle in 2016. Reading Mary Trump’s book shows a terrible childhood built around conditional love and family values which are anything but. Her uncle never stood a chance regarding the acquisition of empathy, sympathy, gentleness, kindness, duty, patriotism, respect for women, respect for anybody, ideas of conviction. His understanding of ordinary people was never going to be based on down to earth practical experience. He was never going to ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ as George Orwell so famously was. He was condemned to lose the plot from an early age and there is nothing in his current performance to suggest he has ever found it.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

And that, friends, is what I feel about the American electorate if they should elect the Republican candidate for the second time.

Thanks for reading.

Lytton was a wee village in British Columbia. It was in the dry belt. It was peopled by a variety of peoples including a First Nations clan. Three years ago it was burnt to the ground in one of the many fires that plague our province every summer. It has yet to be rebuilt. This is a bureaucratic travesty. Phoenix rose from the ashes, Lytton didn’t.

In my weird way I think Lytton should enter the language here in Canada. To be ‘lyttoned’ should be ‘a file bound up in red tape, something that is rediscovered a century from now, dusted off and pondered with bemused benevolence before being returned to the archives’. “Lytton’ should be a synonym for ‘forgotten’.

“I lytton my cell phone at home”.  ‘I am becoming so lytton in my old age”. Replace the word with ‘forgot’ because that is what I think has happened to the village of the same name.

A ‘Lytton’ could become a type of government. A ‘Lyttonese’ government could be one that talks a good line, puts forward a wonderful message but then does nothing. Hmmm, actually we might have one of those already!!

A ‘Lyttonade’ could become a period of time when nothing is done.

OK, Dear Reader, I think I have belaboured my point. To me the bigger picture is a failure of democracy and a reason why the dictatorships of the world laugh at us, accuse us of decadence, realise that our indecision becomes their strength. Don’t get me wrong I love democracy. I love the fact that I can speak freely; that I can hold and voice my opinions; that I can walk the streets without persecution or threat. Let’s go further. I love the fact that my daughter is able to become an educated, individual, career woman. Democracy is important to me and my family. Winston Churchill gave democracy two cheers, he couldn’t quite manage three because no system of government is perfect.

Most working people whom I have talked to who attend meetings in their working lives want a meeting to result in a decision. As a teacher who has attended a great number of meetings in my professional time I can attest to the fact that most meetings were cosy and comfortable. Many times I would arrive with my cuppa coffee, reach into the box of doughnuts provided and sit back and munch myself into my own dreamy world. The glaze, Dear Reader, was more often over my eyes than on the doughnut. Then as the meeting came to a close it was often discovered that we were agreeing to meet again 6 weeks down the road to revisit the agenda about which we had decided nothing. At which point I would raise an objection because 6 weeks was far, far too long between free doughnuts and gratis cups of coffee.  We had all been ‘lyttonised’, seduced by a doughnut-induced dozy droning.

 This may seem to be a counter argument, Dear Friends, but I do not entirely despair of our systeml. I was mostly impressed about how democratic governments handled themselves in the pandemic. In fact the speed with which a vaccination was developed was outstandingly impressive. It proved that in a crisis western democracies, by and large, can step up. I am also impressed with our local democracy. Bushes in Alderwood Park two houses along from us had become havens for drug users with all the dangers of used needles and the debris of evacuated bowels. One of our neighbours got in touch with the District and asked that the laurel bushes be pollarded with vigour so that they are no longer niches for users. Result is that local day cares can now play again with impunity in the park. Local monitory democracy, Friends, can step up to the plate and act promptly. 

Dear Reader I had reached this point in the blog when an article by Doug Mason came out on 14^th August in ‘The Globe and Mail’ drawing a comparison between Lytton and the recent burning of the town of Jasper in Alberta. He does not believe that Jasper will still be waiting to be rebuilt in three years time. He talks long and hard about the various reasons for the Lytton debacle none of which I will enter into here. I do hope Jasper is rebuilt soon but I hope that Lytton is rebuilt sooner.

I love living in Canada. The country has done wonderful things for me and my family. I am proud that I can spout off my opinion with impunity. I am delighted that our girl child received an education; has not been married off as a chattel; does not have to kow tow to a male; can maintain independence in thought and deed; can be respected in her personal and professional life.  ‘Canada’ gave her that and she has been able to practice it in the UK for the last 8 years. But, Dear Reader, I am starting to despair over our governments, both provincial and federal. There is too much twiddling of thumbs, sitting and nodding. Smug indecision masquerading as glorious outcome. 

Hmmmm, maybe a ‘lytton’ can be a word for a national disgrace. Maybe it can be the Canadian equivalent of a ‘Watergate’ for a scandal or the Norwegian ‘Quisling’ which entered the lexicon for somebody who had committed a treasonable act.

We are not yet at that stage where our Prime Minister is making his horse a consul and ordering his army to attack the sea a la Emperor Caligula, nor are we quite at the point where the PM plays the fiddle while Rome burns although some fighting wild fires might suggest that he is.  We are not about to elect a clown, a Monty Pythonesque weirdo to the White House. I like the humour of Monty Python but I don’t think it should be running the most powerful country in the world. Maybe Ms. Harris will have something to say about that in November. (I should perhaps let you know that I am delighted that I am not living in the United States at this time, although it is 25 years since I have visited that benighted country so I shouldn’t pontificate from inexperience).

So there is hope. We just need to realise that we should be a ‘can do’ Canada and not a ‘Can’tada’.(Hmm, that’s a wee bit clumsy, Davidson, trying to be too clever by half) Sure and all we need to consider consequences before making a decision but we only need to reconsider them when something goes obviously awry. The expertise to rebuild Lytton and Jasper is here and waiting and waiting and…….. ‘Action this day’ to invoke Churchill again.

I believe, Dear Friends, that Jasper will be the Phoenix that rises from the ashes. My hope is that the Albertan government will put the ‘can’ back into Canada and embarrass  BC into action so that Lytton becomes the quaint wee village it once was.

Thanks for reading.

When I was a student both at school and Teacher’s Training College, I achieved mastery at prevarication and procrastination. This, Dear Reader, is not something of which I am proud. It is true of my life that I do not get bored. But it is also true that I drift in different directions. I am unable to focus on the point of a project without flying off on a tangent. Those of you who are good enough to read my blogs will realise what a meandering maze they are. I am not at all surprised if you become frustrated and give up on them because the point is far too wordy and distant.

I remember going through security at Manchester Airport and finding myself stuck in a sort of international limbo for 12 hours because the plane was late. It was a Sunday, Friends, so there was a plethora of newspapers to read as well as my book. And when I needed to stretch my legs I could do so. I was never bored. Before I knew it, it was time to board.

My excuse for my poor educational performance is that I love tangents. Well, that’s better than admitting to laziness isn’t it, Friends!! One of the facets of the Davidson mind which should be a frustration but actually is not, is that I remember things that are not important and forget things that are. I remember offering to buy lunch for poor Jennifer and her husband, Jamie, at Sun Peaks ski hill . What could I get her? Anything but clam chowder because she does not like fish. I heard ‘clam chowder’ and bought her ‘clam chowder’!! I am not the first man to fall victim to the last thing heard, methinks.

Does an Aussie cab driver really need to know that the emu and the kangaroo appear on his country’s emblem because neither animal can go backwards, thus, I suppose the origin of their national anthem “Advance Australia Fair”?  Well he didn’t know that but he does know it now and he had to be polite and that must have been hard ‘cos I was very evidently a Brit with all the connotations that that had in Oz back in the day.

I have a friend (a major achievement in itself considering my success at managing often to do the wrong thing) who can read a newspaper article and immediately glean from it not only 5 crucial facts but important things which are not written. His analytical brain has been disciplined over the years to get to the heart of something very quickly. It is no accident that he has a Masters degree and has written his own history book. I am in awe of this ability and slightly envious. I shouldn’t be. I am old enough to understand that people who are a success in life are there because they have worked hard at it. They may have a natural talent but talent is worth nothing without hard work. There are numerous pithy sayings about this subject out there which I am not going to explore here because most of you will have heard them before. But as a teacher I loved this one from that long dead, learning disabled guy, Albert Einstein:-

‘We are all geniuses. Judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree and he will think himself stupid for life.”

I spent thirty years of my life playing rugby on most winter Saturdays. It is true to say that I love rugby clubs, I miss playing but I still love watching it. I suffered a lot of abuse from my team-mates because I was supposed to be a monosyllabic Neanderthal who grunted or pointed my approval or disapproval. Certainly no big glaikit lug  was supposed to do the crossword on the team bus or to love poetry like I do, was supposed to love words and literature like I do. So if I had the confidence to spout a couple of lines of poetry over a pint after the game, a shake of the head and silence was the greeting. Nor was it wise to suddenly spout to the opposition as we went into a lineout or a scrum such Shakespearean sonnets as:-

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, thou art more lovely and more temperate”.

‘Cos they were mud covered and sodden and not lovely and wouldn’t know ‘temperate’ if they found it in their pint. That would have been deserving of a sending off or at least a penalty against. It would not have been in the spirit of the game at all. Burns would have been worse:-

“Wee sleekit cowerin’ timorous beastie, O what a panic’s in thy breastie.”

They so obviously weren’t, panicked that is and any further such outbursts would have been curtailed by a skelp on the lug. Saturday afternoons in the mud and rain were not times to indulge in my love of poetry. Maybe John Evans or Paul Hollis would have appreciated my lyrical thrusts, but the former is Welsh and therefore full of Eisteddfodian grace, the latter was insane and nobody understood him.

Yet here am I writing about these two facets of character because I was recently reminded of an A.E.Housman poem which I will quote in full at blog’s end. Since retirement I have taken an interest in how people write, trying to learn how to better my own scribbles. I am conscious of the fact that much of what I write is of little interest to most people. Indeed 40 years ago I would have written it but would have been so self-conscious and embarrassed that I would never have placed it in the public, or even private, domain. But now I think that one of the benefits of old age is that I can afford to be free of such constraints. I won’t say that I don’t care but I do say that if I don’t say what I really feel I may not get the opportunity again because of the fickleness of life’s thread.

Irene married me, she says, because she felt ‘I would help her relax’. Poor woman. She really could have done with somebody who was a bit more handy around the house. There are minima I can do but as to painting or wall papering or plastering, she is married to Einstein’s fish trying to climb that tree. I can’t help thinking that Irene would have been more relaxed if she had married a DIY person. But we are still happily together after 40 years. But she married into prevarication and procrastination, poor woman!

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Here be the A.E. Housman poem, the proof that these two faults of mine are not a modern shortcoming but are for the ages:-

How clear, how lovely bright,

How beautiful to sight

Those beams of morning play,

How heaven laughs out with glee,

Where, like a bird set free,

Up from the eastern sea,

Soars the delightful day.

                   ————

Today I shall be strong

No more shall yield to wrong,

Shall squander life no more,

Days lost, I know not how,

I shall retrieve them now,

Now I shall keep the vow,

I never kept before.

               ————-

Ensanguining the skies,

How heavily it dies,

Into the west away,

Past touch and sight and sound,

Not further to be found,

How hopeless under ground,

Falls the remorseful day.

And if that does not persuade us to make the most of every day, Friends, I know not what may. Thanks for reading.

“We have seen the enemy and he is us.”

Everything somehow came together in that split second. The football arrived at his feet. He hit it on the volley and it sailed into the topmost corner of the net. The goalkeeper barely moved. It was over in an instant but the memory remains.

The West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island is stunning, majestic, beautiful and arduous. It is a 6 day hike from Port Renfrew to Bamfield. There are beach walks along the sands, trail walks through forest within earshot of the breaking waves; banks above beaches; there are river crossings. There are migrating whales wending their ways up the coast, 100 yards off the shoreline. There are steep stairs on sheer rock. There are sunsets to witness; wild campsites to experience; the generosities of strangers; camp fires to savour. There is that final gentle stroll through that pine forest on that last day when approaching are three young Italians beginning their hike from the Northern end. After the brief greeting, they waft past leaving the unmistakeable aroma of clothing fresh from the drier. Finally there is the open café and the welcome breakfast which, incidentally, just has to be eaten twice.

Over the years there have been many hikes in different places and varied climates. There are the weighty backpacks, the leg muscles which ascend and scream and burn. There is the gulping thirst, the voracious appetite. There is the reaching of the trail’s end and the sitting on a rock and the removal of boots and the calm tranquillity that only comes when an hike is achieved, a summit is reached, and grueling exercise is completed. The tired smile is there. The satisfaction is immense. Every step, every bead of sweat, every muscle ache, all are a part of an whole experience, whole in its gratitude, whole in its sense of worth, whole in its joy of achievement, whole in the knowledge that it will be a memory. These are but days but as time has passed they have become years and they sit with me still.

Dear Friends, it is important to live one’s life and not dream about living it, is it not? Things, of course, change as we get older. For me, with age, comes more appreciation and interest in the achievements of others. I still live my life happily; I still do things. But, Dear Reader, I make no apology for living some of my experiences vicariously through the lives of others. I do not want to live my life leaping excitedly and grinning inanely at the mundane. Amazing that the toast is browned on both sides. Yawn! Oh look, there’s a Tim Horton’s coffee cup stuck in my gutter, I wonder who put that there. Snore! The price of gas has gone down by 5 cents per litre. Must go on a long drive so I can fill up. Yippee! No, no, no. I will not soap opera my life into some snore fest of pedantic pettiness. I want to see Jim Packer’s magnificent photographs; Walentyna’s European trips. Erin’s time in Iceland. Kelly’s Australia, Katie’s concerts,  Bruce in Scotland, Rob and Carol at the British Library. I could go on. I am very happy to be a fly on the wall watching the exploits of others. But, Dear Friends, I can still fly .Mind you, these days,  It’s just a bit more of a precarious glider seeking an uncertain thermal  than a jet plane, a bull midst china booming its carefree way through a glen. Head down and charge is now more head up and knee creak.

So, Dear reader, if somebody whom I once taught scores the winning goal in the Stanley Cup Final, if my son shows me pictures of the outstanding piece of concrete or woodwork he has done. If our daughter, Alison, is running one of her long races. If Bill shows me a picture of a salmon he has caught If my brother, George, is walking a long distance hike in the North-West of Scotland then I want details. I want to pull out a map, I want to see his photographs, I want to know what he carried in his pack and, most of all, I want to hear his stories. If my friend, Anne, is in France or Scotland or both then I want details of her holiday, I want her perspectives and thoughts. I want to hear her excitement, know about her frustrations, I want to know that I feel that I have seen what she has seen.

I cannot play rugby any more but I can watch it. I can see it with an analytical eye. I can discuss it. Most of all I have some minuscule muscle memory of the sport. I still enjoy it, just not in the way I used to. I can still walk some distance. I can walk uphill but coming down is painful. I am curtailed. But I can remember the feelings and I can hear of the treks of others, their trials, trails and tribulations. I can be with them being eaten by the West Highland midge, the most vicious creature on the planet. I can hear the rain pattering on their tent, the wind driving an horizontal soaking. The slog upwards, the fatigue at the end of a long day. I can see the heather, smell the heather, touch the bark on a Scots pine in the Cairngorms, or a Douglas Fir in Lighthouse Park. I can feel the thrill of turning the corner and seeing a grizzly bear in the Rockies, watching a brown bear in the berry patch at Red Heather, watching a cougar leap across the road in front of Keith and me, pause in the undergrowth to look back at us and to show off its muscled magnificence before disappearing into the bush. I have been a little bit there and done a smidge that. And now I can sit and hear about others who are going there and doing that and know that some part of me is there with them. And that, Dear Friends, is really, truly fine. It is almost enough.

“And now you have come in my awakening which is my deeper dream.”  Khalil Gibran

I guess, Dear Friends, that I am an old snake who has shed his skin for a new one. You will think that I ‘doth protest too much” but I am very happy where I am at 72 years of age. My youth and middle age were truly lucky, fortunate and wonderful. My old age is a time of appreciation of what was and, indeed, of deep appreciation of each new day and each new experience. I can still get up when I fall over although I creak in the process, (although going into school on the one day there was an earthquake drill is a time under a desk I could have done without!) I can still lift and move things from one place to another, though there are aches in places where I used to play. I can still walk at a brisk pace but it has to be when the little man is flashing on the pedestrian crossing. I think I still have wit and banter although many will scoff and quibble at that claim! I certainly am a mine of useless information which I find fascinating but nobody else does!

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is a beginning.” T.S. Eliot.

And as you can see, Dear Reader, I can still produce a boring, long winded blog and be grateful that you have stuck with it until the end.

Thanks for reading.

Dear Reader, this blog is about numbers but I hope that you will find it more interesting than that. I recently read In a British Newspaper that the 20^th Century lasted 36,525 days. Apart from the shock that 100 years is merely that number and the implications that that has on our own mortality, I found this interesting in the much wider context of several centuries. It occurs to me that we are not really that far removed from so many of the people who made history at what we thought was an age ago but, apparently, is not. Sometimes what happens in an instant has an impact for a long, long time.

During my recent visit to Scotland I took the opportunity yet again to visit the battlefield of Culloden.  It took place in 1746 and was the last land battle fought on British soil. The implications of the defeat of the Jacobites were major. There are still repercussions to this day with depopulation and on the Gaelic language. With every repeat visit to a place one learns something new. This time I learned for the first time that the actual battle lasted less than an hour! It really struck home to me that something that lasted less than many sporting events should have such long lasting implications.

Back to the number of days in the century.  I won’t  go into what the Daily Express considered the most important day of the 20^th Century otherwise I will test the patience of you, the reader, too much. And I would never get to the point.  But it did set me thinking about how split seconds can impact lives; and, indeed, how seemingly interminable events progress for years with very little consequence.

At the time of writing I have been back home from my 5 week sojourn in the UK for over a month.  During my time away I moved around a great deal, sometimes to familiar places, sometimes not. I did not have a roving plan on my phone so had to wait until I was ensconced for the night or in a place that offered Free Wi-Fi to check my messages. In the cities, I walked a great deal, travelled by bus or train a large amount. In my hired cars I visited hills and moors, bays and lochs, villages and glens, people I knew, people I didn’t know. I listened to the car radio on local stations, I became fascinated by the politics, re-immersed in the humour of my birthright. I soaked up the cultures which were mine for the first 39 years of my life. In the evenings I reflected on my day and checked my phone for messages.

Of course there were messages from friends and family in the UK and, of course, messages from Irene and Grant back in North Vancouver. And when I had satisfied myself that I had read them all and replied where I needed and shared photos and videos that I had taken, I would always return to the same place. That place was the Stanley Cup play-offs which this year lasted for something between 64 and 66 days. The Stanley Cup represents the pinnacle of ice hockey. Not every team reaches the play offs. Those that do, step into a competition that requires a team to play 4 rounds of the best of 7 games in each round. The winner has to grind and grasp 16 victories to lift the cup. The National Hockey League boasts that it is the hardest trophy in professional sports to win. Like every such competition there have been some truly great players who have never won it, as there have been some journeyman players who have somehow been in the right place at the right time. Everything has to come together in an amazing feat of synchronicity for the Cup to be won.  To get one’s name on the Stanley Cup represents the pinnacle of a player’s career. Individual sports have the Olympics, the Tour de France and tennis for example. There are World Cups out there for the likes of football, rugby and cricket. There is the Superbowl for the NFL, the NBA championship in basketball. I have never played ice hockey but find it hard to disagree that the Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy to win.

During our 30+ years living in North Vancouver. our local team, the Canucks, have been in two finals but have never won it. The Canucks were in the play-offs this year so I was eager to catch the highlights of their games on my phone while I was travelling. (Brother George was appalled because he knew that I couldn’t see the puck on a screen so small but, I explained, there is always a slow motion replay!)  I also was keen to follow the Florida Panthers. OK, Dear Reader, you are not alone in wondering what an ice hockey team is doing in the hot, sweaty climate of Florida where snow is a novelty and ice an alien from another world. But set aside your amazement and just accept that it is so and that this ancient blogger was very interested in their team.

Approximately two decades ago, give or take a year, I was managing my Grade IV classroom. You, who know children, understand that 9 and 10 year olds have a joy and enthusiastic energy which is infectious. I used to enter my classroom sometimes with a ‘morning mood’ which was less than upbeat and verged on grumpiness. But I prided myself that I pocketed such selfishness and mustered my professional face before the wee takkers came through the door. It was not difficult to be carried into their joyous world when the first little character appeared, hung up a coat, rummaged in their locker and stood at my desk with an early morning tale to tell. Of course, amongst 20 children I taught all sorts. There were extroverts and introverts, timidity and bravado, clumsiness and athleticism, organisation and disorganisation, bantering humour and reticent nerviness. Those many years ago, there was a little boy in my class. He was the youngest brother of three, the eldest of whom my close friend had taught. The middle boy had also been in my class. The youngest lad was unassuming but confident. He was not demonstrative in any way. He seemed to prefer the hinterland of the room, the background of being. Yet he was popular with his classmates. He was well balanced and personable. From his early days in the classroom one could tell that he was the product of loving, down to earth parents as, of course, were his two brothers.

It is, Dear Reader, Monday June 24^th. The Florida Panthers have led the Edmonton Oilers by winning the first 3 games in the best of 7 Stanley Cup Final. Since 1942 and the Toronto Maple Leafs no team has come back to win this championship after being 3 games down. But, Connor McDavid, the best player in the world, puts the Oilers on his shoulders and drags them back into the series so that they tie it up 3-3-. Jamie, an ex-colleague and friend of mine, and I sit glued to TV for the final game 7 of the tournament. We are both naturalised Canadians. We know that we should be supporting the Oilers, after all a Canadian team has not won the Stanley Cup for 30 years; it would be the patriotic, nay jingoistic, thing to do. But we don’t. Instead we are firmly in the Panther camp. After the 1^st Period the game is tied. The Panthers have taken the lead but the Oilers have come back almost immediately. It is rare for a team to come back and win in the final after the other team has scored first. Then late in the 2^nd period, the Panthers score their second goal. The third period is tense. But the Panthers hang on. History is made. The Florida Panthers win their first Stanley Cup. Jamie and I hoot and holler. A 28 year old called Sam Reinhart scored the winning goal, his 67^th of the season. It has taken 64 days of play-off hockey, playing every other day, flying colossal distances, to get to that point.

As a teacher of young children one should never discourage them. If they are kind enough to share their dreams, one should never say how difficult it is to become an actor or there is no money in art or it is many years before you will qualify to become a doctor. Shaking one’s head at a child’s dreams is a terrible thing to do. So, Friends, I can’t remember if quiet reserved Samson Reinhart ever came up to me in class all those 20 years ago and told me that he wanted to be an hockey player. And, if he had, I would probably not have remembered and if I had remembered, I would have probably smiled, nodded and moved onto the task of explaining the improper fraction or the use of the semi-colon.

Congratulations, Samson Reinhart, Collingwood Alumnus and Stanley Cup Winner.

Sometimes, Dear Reader, it is important to listen to the quietly spoken voice at the back of the room. It is true that the person at the front, the groomed suit with the polished shoes and purpose built haircut, the extrovert, the orator-come-demagogue, the populist with mellifluous effluent, his plunge into the pool does make impressive waves. He is the person who will tell us that this is so and that is thus. He will convince us that he will lead us into a sunny upland where the lions frolic with the lambs in joyous harmony. But hold the farm! There is a tentative hand, slowly rising. There is a shrinking violet who wants to burst into bloom. And we wait with bated breath and we hope that the MC will give him his opportunity. And we know that what he has to say, will be based on formidable understanding; that he will be able to point out how failings can become successes; that he will show us that he has an equal handle on pros as well as cons; that his quiet confidence will set about the roguish arguments of the front and centre and flatten them on the canvas until wisdom and common sense count them out and a gloved hand is raised in humble victory. But, Dear Friends, so often the ears have walls and we listen only to cocksure confidence and lambent loudness and he, who really knows his stuff, voices it in the wilderness.

As I write there have been at least 35 instances of trucks which have run into bridges here in British Columbia. Their loads are too high. How can this be? A professional driver should know the height of his vehicle. She should be required to measure it before every trip. He then should plan his route so that it takes him where he will hit no bridges. The true professional drivers, the ones who are proud of their punctilious prowess, will tell us that there are too many ‘cowboys’ in the industry; that companies are cutting corners to get their goods to market more cheaply. And then the people have listened; the law makers have conferred; an expensive committee has met; an expansive judgement has become law. And all is now right with the world. Except! No, it isn’t. The following day a large truck takes a concrete chunk out of a bridge and here we are again. And then, yet again, the ears have walls and suddenly there’s a truck blocking a highway because some clown hasn’t used a tape measure. Dear Reader, there is no need for the added expense of analysing this situation. The laws are there. Get out the book and throw it at the culprits. But as Lord Justice Brown once said:-

“The rain it raineth on the just,

And also on the unjust fella,

But chiefly on the just, because,

The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.”

Recently I renewed my British Passport. Doing things on line is something that I dread. But I fear procrastination more. So I sucked at my teeth, drew deep breaths, and ‘screwed my courage to the sticking post’ and went about things with calculated calm and manufactured patience. Of course I needed passport photographs so Irene and I rang up Shoppers Drug Mart and asked if they did such things for British Passports. And did they do them so that they could appear on my online application form as there was no other way to renew? Yes they do. So we trekked off to the store. The young man took my photographs and then explained that he would have to put them on an USB stick which I would have to buy. (Hmm! I would have brought one along, had I known.) Did they submit them to my form? No they did not. So without paying for them but with explaining why, we walked away. We had to seek satisfaction elsewhere. I found a place on Lonsdale. I went downstairs. Young fellow directed me to a seat, told me to remove my glasses, took the picture, brought up the UK passport website, showed me my picture on the form and charged me ten bucks less than ‘Shoppers’. He asked me if I would be good enough to return to him when my Canadian passport is due for renewal. Yes I shall.

If I can be bothered I will contact the High Heidyin of SDM and explain the problem with his system. Without a bit of research, however, I will not be able to find anybody accountable. And if I do, the cynic within will tell me, you’ve guessed it, the ears have walls.

“You may not be interested in politics but politics is interested in you”. Leon Trotsky

There is a lot that I agree with in this statement made some years ago before Trotsky was assassinated by agents of the USSR wielding an ice axe. Politics certainly were interested in him. People have busy lives and oftentimes the ‘world is too much with them late and soon’ so I understand that the political machinations locally, nationally and internationally may only be of passing interest. But, Dear Reader, the sad truth is that if one doesn’t take an interest, decisions are made that impact us all. Politicians are adept at the Friday afternoon announcement; producing a card from up their sleeve with a magical sleight of hand when the rest of us have gone fishin’. Our family subscribes to a newspaper and watches the News once per day. Does that account for a proper engagement in politics? Not really. Certainly it provides food for thought, points for discussion. Does it empower us to make a difference? That’s debatable. Indeed, as it should be! If we are retired and have time on our hands, it should encourage us to read more, to inform ourselves more, to allow ourselves to be sucked into a vortex of untruths and be spewed out the other side with some form of reasoned understanding. And if, in a sound-byte world, our views are still Cyclopean, and our ears still have walls, then at least we can claim to have tried, I think.

I suspect that this current example from the Kingdom of Blog has been spawned from a dusty corner in the Davidson brain because we are about to witness another U.S. presidential term from an atrocious Attila, who is not satisfied with sacking Rome once but is determined to do so for a second time; a man possessed with all the subtle diplomacy of the blitzkrieg. It looks like all the States that still sell leaded petrol will elect him while the unleaded ones are functioning with reasoned logic and careful analysis. All those good people who have become addled by too much processed food and have chronically scraped their knuckles by constantly dragging them along the gravel behind them, will make their mark on the voting slip. They will vote for simple solutions, rambling rambunctious rubbish, mauling monstrous misogyny, lawless lies, energised egomania, amoebic amorality, excruciating xenophobia. They will herald a second coming of a pathetic, puerile, spoiled brat  who conned people for four years, and who, having stamped on one foot, shall be given the opportunity to stamp on the other. People get the government they deserve but I am not sure, Friends, whether the poor American people deserve that. Sadly, the ears of so many have walls. Is this the second coming that W.B. Yeats predicted over 100 years ago?

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold,

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned,

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

Thanks for reading.

“No man is an island,

Entire of itself

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.”                                  John Donne

 The road wound out of the town. There seemed to be no reason for the sharp left other than the fact that there was a long well established wall. Soon the driver found himself in a narrow winding valley, green hilly farmland, a shorter drive than he had remembered. The ascent was gentle, the descent over the other side more extreme. He reached the ancient road bridge where the River Findhorn tumbled underneath. He was over quickly but not without memories of stopping there when he worked as a van boy for the Nairnshire Laundry. Donald Mathieson, the driver, was not a man given to effusive expressions of joy. His dour silence was often the only accompaniment on their long drives. But he had stopped on that day because the river was in spate, its normal, gentle tinklings, now a raging torrent from the Spring thaw and the exceptional rain, a bridge threatening deluge.

Upwards the drive continued, soon amongst pine trees, beyond amongst moorland. The heather was not yet ready to bloom, the spectacular, purple blanket was still guarding itself with virginal coyness. But the driver knew it was only weeks away.

He almost missed the turning such was his reverie. There was nothing behind him as the narrow entryway indicated a road with passing places only. It was a pot-holed, pock-marked apology of tarmac, no doubt on an old list for improvement, long since mislaid by an ancient bureaucrat somewhere in a cob-webbed file. 3 miles along, he pulled into a gap at the side of the road and parked. He trekked back for a couple of hundred yards and turned left onto a gated farm track. He could see the croft on the hill and beneath it the boat house on the loch beneath. The waters were choppy but the breeze was from the south and warm. It caused the waves to lap on the banks. The man noticed the difference. They had not the violence of the sea, there were no significant coastal rocks or cliffs, no powerful ocean’s shoulders to the wheel. But the man remembered such days from his youth with his two brothers and his father and knew and could hear the rowlocks on the boat as they strove towards the boathouse and home, aware that no self-respecting trout was going to take a fly in such turbulence. He strolled further towards the boathouse. Coming across occasional dotted tree growths he recognised that the water did not have a monopoly over the sound of the wind. The heather was familiar underfoot as he spotted a bank on which to sit for a while. He left the track. He rested his feet on the sand beneath, sat and looked out on the scene.

Some miles away on the west coast and some days previously in the village of Gairloch, the man had sought out a rock on the sea front. He knew that it was in the middle of the side road; that the road builders had decided to go around it. After all it was the end of a cul de sac, a natural turning spot for the boarding houses adjacent. It was only about 6 feet high, an incline on one side made it an easy climb. There were cine films of the man as a boy, pretending bravery by climbing the rock when little bravery was required, showing off to all who would look, an unimpressive display of childish bravado. It was just a rock. He had looked at those films recently and cringed at the child he was. The rock was still there, the beach where they paddled still had the same sheltered rock face. It was still as unoccupied as it appeared in the films.

I am just returned from five weeks in the UK, traveling in familiar and unfamiliar places. Sometimes, Dear Friends, when one steps apart from the madding crowd, one can find things that seem just as they were. It hasn’t taken me 72 years to realise that the heather still scuffles the same underfoot, that the rustle of leaves, waves at sea, waves on a loch, wind in a stand of firs, a quiver in a copse of birches; all are unique; numinous nuances. We are some of us, Dear Reader, so far removed from our past that it seems like another country; things were done differently there. And yet, and yet, finding the place, finding the moment, mustering the wherewithal, one can still feel where one was and be a part yet again even though life’s adventure has taken us away and apart.

I had so many of those glorious moments on my recent holiday. Words and pictures can never do them justice. But I remain a part of all that I have met.

Then sometime late in my time away, I received a short Whatsapp video from my good friend and ex-colleague, Benoit. He is a wonderful man, a courageous man, an empathetic man, a man who deserves the absolute best that life can offer. It is a life that has not always been kind to him. But he thought enough of the pictures that I was sending that he sent me a short video back. He was doing a supervision duty on a playground with which I am familiar. It was only 20 seconds long but the sound of young children at play was all too familiar to me. Friends, childish laughter, childish joy, childish excitement are sounds which are familiar to us all.

Somewhere on a country road, quite suddenly I had to pull over. I reached in my back pack for the pen and notebook which are always with me. It had come to me as one of the many slow dawns throughout my long life, suddenly a realisation, a sense, a feeling, a light bulb moment. I have always tried to let the sounds of nature express themselves without interruption, particularly those that I know were present thousands of years ago before our modern world interfered. This recent awakening was caused by Benoit’s short interlude. The sounds that he produced on his short video were not of one time or place, they are universal. They are as recognisable in Myanmar as in Nigeria; as evident on a rough housing estate as on a frozen lake in the Yukon when the dog sleds arrive to give an experience to children never to be forgotten. Humankind would have known them millennia ago. Like the waves, the trees, the winds, the rain, the sound of children at play has a universality which comes into our lives and reassures us, takes us away from so much that is wrong on our troubled planet and tells us that that which has been, can still be. We can draw strength from that.  The flurry and fluster of modern life keeps us apart from the natural strengths of our world, whom we really were and whom we really are. But if we wander just a few steps off the beaten track, we shall find that we can still reconnect. We may now be apart but, for some short interlude, we can still be a part.

Thanks for reading.

It is true that I don’t understand economics or business. So the idea that ‘zero growth’ in a firm, country  or continent as a negative is unfathomable to me. ‘Zero growth’ means room to breathe, space to step back. But hard- nosed business will have none of that. According to an article in the ‘Globe and Mail’  there is a crisis in Canada’s fertility rates;  we as a nation are not breeding like we used to and therefore our population could decline. This type of ‘zero growth’ is perceived as a bad thing?!  I don’t understand why this is so.  There are more people living on our planet now than have ever lived. Surely this too is a bad thing. Am I, Dear Reader, being naïve here? Is there something that I am missing?

Here on Vancouver’s North Shore we are striving towards population density which may be a good thing as it keeps wilderness wild. But, of course, it has to be matched by infrastructure such as transit and such like. I have seen the 10 minute journey that I used to make back from work in the evening become 30 minutes, which is inconvenient but more important than that it means my gas powered vehicle is polluting the atmosphere for longer. That surely is not good.  So on the occasions when there is gridlock locally, people are idling in traffic. This certainly negates our green  ambitions.

I was thinking recently about the number of stadia I have visited in my long life.  I am not a football fan but I can never forget the roar of the crowd at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow when I attended an European Quarter Final there.  Hockey games at Rogers Arena, concerts at Rogers Arena, a wet night at Sheffield Wednesday football ground where Bruce Springsteen made us forget it was raining, England v Scotland games at Twickenham and Wembley; 100,000 people with an awesome roar, an unforgettable uplift. So I can be a part of a mass of people and feel at home in a tribal atmosphere. But, of course, when the crowd has dispersed, the stadia are filled only with the quiet litter of what once was, then reason must return. One must recognise that blinkered, one-eyed passion  and jingoism are not an healthy state of being. I feel that I know what it is like to be amongst crowds and, for a short time, I enjoy the character of such events.  We have seen the absence of people at empty stadia during Covid and it is such a loss for the players who are giving their all so now that the crowds are back, then in this case, Dear Friends, bigger is better. But I do want the choice of the smaller.

The longer that I live the more I realise that I am extremely privileged and lucky. Among all of my many benefits has been the ability to walk somewhere unfettered and unmolested. I am always able to discover a lone, quiet spot  The particular richness and wealth I am talking about here is the ability to find solitude and peace when I choose. I realise more and more that for most of the world’s population that simple requirement is impossible. I am not talking about starvation or war or poverty here although these are immense factors obviously leading towards a paucity of choice. I am talking about the ability to find a solitary tree on a sunny day, to discover that the mossy bank is a soft spot upon which to lie, to hear the tinkling stream that is nearby. I am talking about the freedom to sit under a cloudless sky, to lie back and close one’s eyes and hear the birds and the water and the ruffling of the branches, the quivering of the leaves in a breeze. And to do nothing but think and dream and give the greatest of blessings to oneself so that one is ready to be recreated enough to take up one’s place in the wider world again. What would the peoples of Gaza, Israel, Ukraine give to find that solitary tree right now, to be far from the madding crowd?  You and I know some of them are never going to experience such peace.

It is sad for me to say this because I do like my fellow human beings but, to me, encouraging  larger birth rates in a world where human beings are already too many is not the way to go. Cramming people cheek by jowl, gridlocking traffic, accompanying unnatural noises, squealing trains, two toned sirens; forcing people to compete at work, compete for space on buses and trains, compete for living space, compete against time.  These are more  quantities than qualities of life.  Easy for me to say. I have had my two children, have benefitted in my teaching career from thousands of young curious minds, have had ready access to nature and wilderness. But I think, like many of you, it is a wish for all the people in the world to be able to step outside their front doors and step aside to find a quiet nook in a natural niche.

I have mentioned before ‘the stream that stays yet still departs’. We are, in the northern hemisphere, settling into Spring. Early mornings bring joyous birdsong. Daylight shows us so much natural growth from snowdrops to daffodils, to buds in the trees and warmth in the air. The greening is ubiquitous.  I suppose that I want to have my cake and eat it too. I cannot be Swedish Greta and refuse to fly; my car will continue to guzzle gas because I am not ready to go electric[i]; ( ① See Footnote) I will not buy bottled water nor drink my coffee from a disposable cup; our grocery bags are reusable. But my clothing will continue to be oil based; my food will be a mixture of home grown and grocery bought. I will use a bus whenever possible but I will also rent a car on holiday. I could easily give up meat but likely won’t.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I do follow the news and have some guilt over my full stomach, my lack of war, my safety outdoors, my access to nature. My bigger self wants all of these good things for all of humankind. I will voice my opinions and concerns about what is happening in the wider world. At some point my bigger and better being will try to make a difference in some small way. However more often than not I find these situations so overwhelming and hopeless that I throw my arms in the air, shrug my shoulders and seek out the next pleasurable thing. I am solipsistic, I have to live my life. I cannot be a Navalneyesque hero, I cannot throw myself into the fire as a burnt martyr. I can, however, be informed, participate locally and democratically, try to see both sides of every argument. I can greet people with a smile and a welcome. I discovered this quotation from Leon Trotsky the other day:-

“You may not be interested in politics but politics is interested in you.”

I do feel that it is incumbent on us to stay informed but whether we can influence events is another matter.

And if all of these rantings are self-indulgent claptrap, Dear Reader, if I have stated the bleeding obvious to you all, then I apologise for wasting your time. I am heading off to the UK for a month or so. This shalll give you a much needed break from my meanderings.

Hope you are enjoying your Spring or Autumn, Dear Friends.

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[i]① [i] Partly because of the expense but more about the slave trade for our battery parts in the Congo. See my previous blog , “Orwell and Beyond”  dated 15^th April, 2023