The Sunshine and Showers of Life

I was very tempted to re-use a title from some years ago, "A Curate's egg of a Week", but I've tried to be original.  In any case, this week has not been in two halves, nor specifically good in parts and not so good in others.  Rather the last few days have shown both sides of a number of different facets of my life.  You may have shared in the most noticeable aspect that has shown us both sides this week ... the weather.  Most mornings I was greeted by wall-to-wall sunshine - witness this beautiful tree outside my window;
sometimes this lasted until afternoon but, on other occasions, it has very quickly given way to rain.  On at least one evening, I found shine at the front of the flat, and a very threatening black cloud at the rear.  After going on my errand, just missing a heavy hailstorm and returning amazingly unscathed, I took my second picture.

Last week I was celebrating my first taste of door-knocking in the political sense; this week circumstances have made it more practical to walk around and push leaflets through letterboxes.  If the weather holds, I might revert to 'plan A' tomorrow.  The administrative procedures that lie behind the election are not seen by the average voter.  Three weeks ago I received notification that my nomination had been received and was valid; this morning I received two more letters from the Electoral Services Manager.  One told me that there would be an election (as if I hadn't realised this already) and, although it advised me where the polling station will be, it didn't say I would be welcome there!  By contrast, the other informed me of the place and time when the votes will be counted, and reminded me of my right to be present when that happens.

With the aggregated interruption in the last couple of months caused by telephone and then computer problems, it's some while since I applied myself to family history.  This, too, falls into two distinct sub-sections of life.  One is my own research where, some months ago - in fact sometime during the winter before last - I realised that there were two people who, in the early years of my research, had provided me with lots of details about distant relatives, some of which I had since found to be inaccurate.  I made a list of all the events for which the only evidence I had came from one or other of them, and I had started to research these, making use of resources now available which wouldn't have been in those distant days.  Other demands on my time have led to this pursuit being put on hold until the last couple of weeks, when time has allowed me to pick up the threads of what I was doing a year or more ago.

The other dimension to those activities is my ongoing transcriptions of the 1871 census for FreeCen.  I hadn't allowed this to be so disrupted as my own research but I went back to it this week after some weeks of not doing any, and so had to re-learn some of the routines that had been 'second nature' in the days of the previous laptop.

Readers who have loyally followed my blog for some while will recall that, some years ago our church began a routine of fasting and prayer on the last Friday of each month.  This involves three prayer sessions in church, at 7.0 morning and evening and at 1.0 as well.  Somewhat inevitably, the lunchtime gathering is the most popular because some people don't like getting up early in the morning while others prefer not to have an interrupted or delayed evening.  However, last month the last Friday was in fact Good Friday when there were other arrangements anyway, and not everyone was aware that the pattern had recommenced.  It was not a unique occurrence but today, for the first time at two out of the three meetings, attendance was confined to the curate and myself.  This didn't mean that the prayers were any less sincere, but the atmosphere was distinctly different and, in some ways, more rewarding.

The Ticker, the Book and the Knocker!

Quite apart from enjoying what have been the warmest April days for more than my lifetime - a welcome treat after Easter snow! - this has been a satisfying week that has included two firsts for me ... possibly three, depending on your definition of 'first'.

The questionable 'first' - debatable because it's really a one-off, so there is no multiple for it to be the first of - was the return to me last weekend of my father's pocket watch, now cleaned and serviced and once more in working order.  A friend had heard of a local watchmaker willing to undertake such work, and reported great satisfaction with the result.  Thus inspired, I recalled this item that had lain unused in my mother's drawer for her eighteen years of widowhood, and has now spent nearly as long in my possession, in a similar state of redundancy.  This is one of very few mementos that I have of dad; he wasn't a man to hoard possessions, but a man of hard work and little inclination to take things easy.  To have it 'alive' once more, ticking by my side and reminding me of the responsibility to keep it wound now it's working again, is somehow most satisfying.

I flagged up last week my intention of going to a conference on Saturday.  This was an afternoon of Bible study that took place near Reading.  I discovered that there is a National Trust property only two miles away, so I made a day of it, and visited Basildon Park first.  This is well worth a visit and was the home, after de-requisitioning by the Army following the end of WWII, of Lord and Lady Iliffe who, being both wealthy and caring, spent the next decades filling it with appropriate furniture and impedimenta, much of which stayed in the house when it was handed over to the Trust.

The study afternoon was run by an organisation with which I made contact some years ago, but of which I had been rather sceptical.  However, I'm glad I made the decision to explore them further, for I found a very warm welcome and a wealth of unbiased Biblical knowledge.  They have published a whole library of inexpensive study guides and booklets that I think will be both interesting and useful in coming years.  I began making use of this resource by placing an order as soon as I returned home and I shall almost certainly be going to more of their events in due course.

Some weeks ago, I succumbed to persuasion to become a candidate in the district council elections.  Initially, I had opposed the idea on the basis that my life is full enough already.  However, it was pointed out to me - and to many others, too - that if our party didn't field a candidate in every ward, then there would be any number of would-be supporters who would either have to vote for someone they didn't really support, or else be effectively disenfranchised.  So, although with little chance of winning against a very strong Labour councillor seeking re-election, I'm faced with the challenge of presenting a credible candidacy, with no help from other members, since the main thrust of our effort is going to assist the campaign in the target ward that we feel we have a chance of winning.

As a consequence of this, I found myself on Tuesday evening, knocking on a few doors to introduce myself as the local candidate for the Liberal Democrats.  This is a task that I've been putting off for a long while, and the longer I'd put it off, the more difficult it had seemed in my imagining.  However, when it came to the crunch, it was not so daunting an experience as I had feared.  I met several interesting people, some with opinions clearly not the same as mine, but equally, others who might well be supporting me on polling day.

A Waste of Time

Sometimes I wonder where my time goes.  If I've got a project on, or a crisis to face, like a new spreadsheet idea, or a computer that refuses even to start (both actual occurrences in recent weeks), I can grind away at them, and feel satisfied at the end of the day - or, at the very least, feel that I've tried to resolve something.

Then there are weeks like this one.  I declare a - probably unjustified - parallel with mums of children on holiday from school, whose first priority at times like this is to keep the young ones occupied, and preferably amused; meanwhile their own lives are put 'on hold'.  At the start of the week, I had only five 'engagements' on my calendar.  The first one, the prayer breakfast on Monday, evaporated at quite short notice because the leader was away; two others were 'regulars': bell-ringing practice and the midweek church service, and a fourth has now become a fortnightly regular, my turn to help with the drop-in for the homeless and vulnerable of our town.

That leaves only one 'event', which is an afternoon conference that I shall attend tomorrow.  The rest of the week was 'time to fill' and, if I'm honest, I can't see much of achievement that couldn't all be fitted into a single day.  That's not to say that the time has been completely wasted, merely that there's been no visible result.  Some effort has been put into housekeeping, for example, - an oft-neglected pursuit hereabouts - and half a morning was spent making a stew, three-quarters of which has now re-stocked my freezer.

One achievement - if it can be so-described - is to harangue by e-mail my local authority over the provision and maintaining of recycling facilities.  Almost a month ago, I advised them that there wasn't room in one of the bins for further contributions, because of a black bagful of 'the wrong category' of recycling that now filled the bin, and rendered it uncollectable by the regular emptying team.

With my domestic collecting arrangements almost at capacity, yesterday morning I looked round the corner to where stand the four bins - three for general recycling, i.e. tins, cardboard, plastic and glass, and one for paper (so long as it's not brown) - at the far side of the car park.  So far as I could see, the paper bin was exactly as I had described it previously.  Annoyed, I wrote to the Council again, to protest both at the situation I find myself in and at the inadequacy of their response to my earlier notice.

It seems clear to me that four bins such as I have described are inadequate for 27 flats.  I believe that this is the main reason for the bagful of 'other stuff' that had been dumped in the paper bin.  The other reason is that people fail to empty their recycling into the bins, but simply put the bagful in a bin ... any bin! ... or leave it beside the bins because the bins are full.  (The bags, of course, are not collected and simply pile up.)   It's an annoying vicious circle!

The Council's response was not to arrange for the offending black bags to be collected - even at a charge to the householders - nor provide more bins, which would help the problem not to recur.  Instead, a leaflet was delivered to each flat, explaining what items should be placed in which bin.  This is one that has been circulated in the past, and so contains nothing new; it certainly does nothing to relieve the present situation.

Their reply to me explaining what had been done suggested that this was the remedy; they had done what they could.  Their response to my renewed plea yesterday for real action was to point out that any request for collection of the bags has to come from the flats' management company, and meanwhile, I can take my recycling to the public recycling yard a half a mile away.

I pointed out that it's hardly my responsibility to take across the town the recycling for which there is a bin in the yard around the corner.  I've now placed the whole matter with my letting agent, and will await developments.  I fear there may be none, and that I may have to take matters into my own hands ... being very careful to wash them afterwards!

All in the Family

It's been an 'Ancient and Modern' week ... and nothing to do with hymn-singing!  It saw a fairly regular gathering of three 'ancients' who struggle to understand and live successfully in the modern world ... as I visited my cousin and her husband on the outskirts of Nottingham.

As usual, we chatted, watched lots of TV - a pleasure for me since I don't have one - and reminisced.  I appreciated the skilful script-writing behind episode after episode of 'Dad's Army', including some I hadn't seen before; enjoyed the larks and amusing situations in 'Last of the Summer Wine' and bemoaned the passing of Compo and his slack-stockinged heart-throb Nora Batty.

With some surprise, we compared the extent to which, as age advances, we've noticed behaviour traits we've inherited from our parents.  This shouldn't surprise us, of course, but since each of us considers that our lives have move on so far from those of the previous generation, it did come as something of a shock.

Naturally, we don't agree on everything, but we accept the differences as part of life and enjoy each other's company and support.  I've been persuaded to stand as a candidate in the coming local council election and during my break my agent called to enquire my stand on foxhunting.  I explained my views with an attempt at honesty, but they met with rejection, for they truly please neither adamant animal rights campaigners nor those who ride to hounds.  Reflecting later on this, I realised how each of these unconnected situations reflect the origins of my political allegiance.

Back in the seventies, when I was setting out in my adult life, I came to despair of politicians.  They seemed to spend far more time tearing each other apart, or dismantling what their opponents had put in place, than on moving the country forward or helping its people in their daily lives.  There was in their midst, however, a glimmer of commonsense.  This was displayed by the 'other' party, the Liberals, who were prepared to agree with any snippet from either side when it made sense and, unlike the bigger parties, had no obvious party axe to grind.  I joined then, but soon enthusiasm waned as family and business life demanded more attention, and my membership lapsed.

I was pleased when, in the first peacetime coalition for eighty years, the Liberals - now Liberal Democrats of course - once more had a voice in government.  I was heartened, but only in an armchair fashion.  However, after the dramatic setback of the 2015 general election, I decided that the time had come to stand up and be counted, and joined the party the very next day.  The sad thing for me is the limit to which I can now get involved owing to slight mobility problems, which are aggravated by excessive walking, but a name on a ballot paper is well within my compass.

Just as in visiting my true family, it's good at last to feel part of my political family, too.