Post 455. ONLY A FEW DAYS

 SINCE I LAST SAT HERE.

BUT IT WAS A SHORT MONTH.
November, as usual, has been dark and uncertain and seemed to be over before it started. My customary winter gloom has not been helped by the ghastly cold and cough which I now seem to have shaken off (though the cough still lingers with Mo). I don't want anyone, not even Chris Packham, to regale me with the wonders of the season.
And don't tell me Christmas is coming. If the latest statistics are to be believed, there are now fewer Christians in Britain than there have been at any time since the dearth of paganism. I still believe there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, but as a C of E educated boy who, over many years, has concluded that most of the ills in the world are caused by politics and religion, I can understand how belief in Christianity will have faded. Britain now has far  more religious varieties resident within it, too. Our society has gone bonkers. Not always for the better, but there you go.
Today I learn that a doctor in a West Sussex practice is living over two hundred and fifty miles away in Cornwall, and dealing with her patients online. Took me back to my NHS employee days over here when a doctor from a Cowes practice set up home in Freshwater, a 30 minutes (14/15 miles on winding roads) drive from the practice. Questions were asked loudly and angrily, not least by his practice partners. What did the fellow think he was doing? There was hell to pay.
I can't recall the outcome, but I don't think it was a happy one
We used to say 'nothing changes.' Now everything does.

Back next month if you're one of those nice people who still looks in.

Post 454. TALKING TO OLD FRIENDS

BRAVELY BATTLING FRAILTY.

WHAT CAN YOU SAY? 
Last Thursday I was on the phone to two old friends, one in England the other in Scotland,
In England, Jean's husband, old buddy Ian, recently had a fall at home, broke a leg, and has been shuffled from one hospital to another while the overstretched NHS tries to optimize the problem of the future for a brain cancer patient who walks with a frame and, if allowed back home now will, without the constant medical support he undoubtedly needs, be in dire risk of further falls and yet another round of hospital/hospital/where next?
Trouble seems to be, there is virtually no facility beyond that of a temporary recuperation unit. On Friday the family and Ian's medics met to discuss the situation: Ian (who had by then agreed with Jean and daughter Kerry that he really did need the full time ministrations of a care home) was present, and when asked where he wanted to go predictably replied: 'Home.' 
But home is not in any way suitable for him now. What can you say? It's a quandary.
From Scotland, Bill Harrison, a friend for seventy years, talked at me for about half an hour.
I know what to expect when I ring him. He is totally deaf in one ear and has about forty percent hearing in the other so you don't hold a conversation with him, you listen. He talks well about himself - always has - apart from national service in the Royal Signals he spent his entire working life in the police where, for some years, he was sergeant in charge of fingerprints, photographs, and scenes of crime for the whole of Lincolnshire. He was also a top class cricketer and played for the county force right up until. as an acting inspector, he finished up being medically discharged due to overwork. His wife died five years ago. Cancer. She didn't tell him until very late on. Again, what can you say? Nothing except how sad you were then and still are now.
Kath was a lovely person.
Well, he is managing. Has some good neighbours and, currently, a reliable lady who keeps a kindly eye on him. One can only hope his hearing impairment does not worsen to the point where he needs full time care.
Oh, I was going to print a picture of the young Bill in cricket gear, but I can't find it.
Getting older can sometimes be better imagined than experienced.

Post 453. THE DREADED LURGI.

 WE'VE ALL HAD IT

STARTING WITH OUR GRANDSON.
Platform One sent Ellis home. He was fine when he left in the morning. I think it must have been about lunchtime when somebody at the college realised he was coming down with the lurgi. He was home early afternoon: pale. feeling like crap, straight to bed. He wanted nothing to eat and no visitors. Mo and I gamely soldiered on until the inevitable: then we all had it. It was not Covid, so that was one blessing, but it is the father and mother of all coughs and colds and it hangs on like a native American tracker. So we still have it. Getting better though. Or so we tell ourselves.
TELEVISION.
Stuck inside I have watched more than my normal helping of television. Fortunately this has included two splendid series: a ten and a six parter, The ten parter was Series 5 of The Crown, a further reminder that the 'top people' in this country and throughout the world are mostly self-serving, lying bastards. There's a surprise!
The six parter was The English (still showing on BBC2), an intriguing western filmed in Spain. Wonderful acting by all concerned.

I no longer bother with chat shows. Not even Yasmin Alibhai-Brown or Owen Jones can rescue Vine from the fat, failed, right-wing hacks who appear every week calling themselves broadcasters. or the pointless ex politicians who now purport to be reality television stars.
They're on - I'm off!
BUT IT'S NOT ALL BAD.

GUTTERING SORTED.
Yesterday Stuart Boyd-Kerr and his cheerful team did a fine job replacing the guttering on the kitchen window side of the house. It will be quite a change not to be standing behind Niagara Falls when the next cloud bursts overhead. Thanks, lads.
Cheers everybody. 

Post 452. THE DRY SUMMER THAT WAS

 BECAME THE DIRE AUTUMN THAT IS

COLD, WET, AND WINTRY.
It isn't my time of year or my kind of weather, but it does give me the opportunity to indulge in the Englishman's top topic of conversation other than his dog and the shit state the country is in.
Yep. it's the weather again. Only a citizen of this daft kingdom can understand it, but the weather has always been an obsession with us, probably because we are a very small island and we get an awful lot of it: right now the sun is trying to peel the paint off the car outside; when I started writing it was pitch black and peeing down, and I switched on the desk lamp to see the keyboard.
That's only at Wootton Bridge. Family and friends living but a few miles from us can experience different weather from us and from each other. Rain. Shine. Wind. There's no sense to it.
And there's no sense to today's Britain, either. C'est la vie.
But it's not the country I was brought up in.
FINISHED READING

A COMPELLING INSIGHT into an actor's life.
A plane here, a boat there, a train elsewhere. If Alan Rickman's diaries had done nothing more they would at least have convinced me - stage fright apart - that I'd never have made it in the acting profession. It takes unflagging dedication, immense courage, and the patience to be tactful with any colleague of irksome ego. It takes a lot of wisdom and dependable gut instinct. He had it all. He also travelled a lot and seldom ate at home: a lot of restaurant owners and chefs will have missed him when he went. So will his bevy of lifelong friends. I only briefly saw him in person once (at Anthony Minghella's farewell service on the IW), but I liked him as did the many million others who enjoyed his varied acting performances. I don't think he'd want a lot of grief. I think he'd have tutted at that. RIP Mr Rickman. Your diaries are a welcome addition to my library.