Electric Shocks this Week

Unusually, I'm starting and ending this post with quotations.

"There are two ways of seeing the world.  The first is to travel.  The second is to stand still, having so organised your life that you have time 'to stand and stare'.  I suspect that this latter is the more thorough way; but you need to be something of a saint, mystic or philosopher to be able to command the necessary patience and humility."

I found this in a book I was reading on Wednesday afternoon.  It's from an article called 'Standing by the Gate', one of a collection by Richard Church, published under the title 'A Country Window' way back in 1958.  No one would disagree, I'm sure, that life is lived at a much faster pace nearly sixty years later!

Now, I'm no saint or mystic, nor a philosopher in any accepted sense of the word, although I do sometimes find myself reflecting about life and its meaning.  One thing, though, that I'm beginning to learn from this present semi-retired status, is that there can be times when it is quite permissible to do almost nothing: in Mr Church's words, 'to stand and stare'.  In this case, the occasion was prompted, albeit accidentally, by nothing more significant than a couple of screws.  I will explain.

A few weeks ago, I had just plugged in the electric hook-up to my motor-home, ready to do a little job that needed power inside the vehicle.  Before leaving it for a while, I decided to tidy the lead neatly underneath, rather than leave it untidily across the lawn.  As I did so, my arm happened to nudge part of the trim beside the rear wheel-arch, revealing that this was loose.  Closer inspection showed that, at some time in the past, it had been knocked, and what should have been a firm joint was in fact quite loose.  It was nothing really serious, but I felt it ought to be attended to and, since the motorhome is still within its warranty, I made the journey back to its supplier for the purpose.  However satisfying, however much it might boost my confidence, a 40-mile round trip seemed a bit over-the-top just to have two small screws expertly fitted.  I decided, therefore to make a day of it, and visit nearby Grafham Water as well.

A gull stands bravely
before the threatening waves

The day wasn't ideal.  There was rain from time to time between the sunny intervals, and the wind ... well, that's best not spoken of!  I have to admit that the power of the waves on what is, after all, just a small inland lake, was certainly humbling. Apart from a brief stroll by the waterside, I contented myself with typing and reading and eating my picnic snugly inside the saloon.  It was interesting just to watch the birds trying to make headway against the air currents, or finding scraps to eat on the side of the dam in the face of quite a strong tidal wash.  It wasn't until I got home again, and prepared to go out in the evening, that I realised just how relaxed and satisfied I was feeling ... in an ideal frame of mind, in fact, to take part in a Bible study group.

Then came election day.  I was so taken by the sunshine to which I awoke, that I decided to walk round to the polling station before breakfast.  It took no more than twenty minutes, but it set me up for a day poring over figures at the desk, setting up my accounts for the new financial year, and wondering - but no more, at this stage - about my tax return.

Yesterday, by contrast, seemed a non-day.  Like many, I suspect, I was overcome by curiosity when I awoke during the night, and couldn't resist switching on the computer to learn of some of the early results.  I returned to bed around 4.15 am, thinking no more than 'oh, the nationalists are doing well', only to return to wakefulness a few hours later to discover the full extent to which post-election shock-waves had hit.  I confess to - as I described it to one of my fellow bell-ringers in the evening - 'wasting the day' working on a spreadsheet to explore the possibilities of re-arranging the results of the constituencies nearest me in some form of Proportional Representation.

Yes, bell-ringing on a Friday!  Being 8th May, we were ringing to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the end of the european war, and Mr. Churchill's radio broadcast at 3.0 pm that day, during which he announced that, 'Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, but in the interests of saving lives the "Cease fire" began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today.'