Always Something New!

Last week I described family history as 'an addictive, if enjoyable, pursuit'; this week saw the culmination - for the short term, at least - of a new, interesting if not actually enjoyable but equally addictive, competitor for my time.  Let me go back to the beginning.  A few weeks ago, I was approached by a lady at church who began cautiously, "Is it right, Brian, that your semi-retired state has now become permanent?"  (It was as word was getting around about the demise of my van, and the corresponding arrival of both car and more 'free' time.)

This lady was one of the churchwardens, people who have responsibility for the 'physical' rather than 'spiritual' running of the church.  She had come to me with a proposition.  "How would you like to take on the role of our Health and Safety Officer?"  I said I'd think about it, and get back to her within the week.  I had a little experience in this field some thirty years ago when, whilst working in the offices of a fairly large factory in the town, I served a term as the department's representative on the company's health and safety committee.  In the course of this, I'd acquired a number of snippets of information totally irrelevant to office work, but which might possibly be useful now.  The following week I gave her my response in the form of a Dickens quote, "Barkis is willin'."

As an aside, I confess to some hesitation about using these words.  The only other time I'd said that was after I'd been asked to deal with the outstanding VAT Return for a shopkeeper whose husband was ill.  He died soon afterwards, and the surprising outcome was that his widow became my girlfriend for several years thereafter.  I wasn't in the market for surprises now, however, ... especially as the churchwarden's husband is a friend of mine!  All was well though and, with Christmas out of the way, last week saw a formal handing over of the post.

As I've gradually thought around the responsibilities and discovered sources of 'independent' information, the last two weeks have brought me an alternative addiction to challenge the superiority of research into the parish registers of Norfolk and Suffolk, and scouring of the century of UK censuses available online, while I prepared an initial report of my findings.  With this done and submitted, I can now turn to other things again.  There's sunshine outside ... I might go and watch a football match this afternoon!

On the same day as that handover, I learned that my new spectacles were ready for collection.  It happened that a regular eye-test had almost coincided with the end of my driving career, and it seemed the sensible move to change the format of what have up to now been exclusively 'driving' specs.  These have now been modified with new lenses for more everyday use, removing the need to carry a separate reading pair around with me to church, and so on.  The old design provided a small close-up section at the bottom for reading the dashboard instruments, with the main area devoted to more distant vision.

I had tried using these for singing one day when I had forgotten the others and found myself totally unable to cope with changing from reading the music to looking at the conductor.  Their replacements have a much larger reading section, making this adjustment a lot easier, and I'm now getting used to wearing them all the time when outside.

The only significant problem - one I shall have to overcome with some priority! - is in noticing any unevenness in the pavement in front of me.  It would be an unacceptable embarrassment for the Health and Safety Officer to explain a plaster on his nose by confessing failure to negotiate a 'trip hazard'!