small signs

Well, hasn't it been an utterly glorious week so far, weather-wise?
I am getting to enjoy the changing scenery around the sites, and to enjoy them without the crazy hustle and bustle of thousands of people milling about like what we had over Easter. Don't get me wrong, we're still very busy, but we're not crammed to the rafters and there aren't so many youngsters scurrying around underfoot and giving me heart attacks every time I walk past the play area, or an open bit of water. So it's been most pleasant.
We had quite a discussion in the office this week about when Spring really starts. It seems to be an annual thing - this debate about where March 1st, or March 21st, or Easter Monday, or some other arbitrary date should count. Our conclusion was that it can be a personal thing. James the gardener said it's when the first bluebells start to show, Jessica who helps with the marketing stuff said it's when she first eats tea at 6pm in daylight, and several old Suffolk folk agreed that it should be when you hear your first cuckoo.
And I'm delighted to say that, when Philippa and I were out walking with the boys in a lovely part of the county on Sunday, we very clearly heard a cuckoo! So, whichever way you look at it, and whichever classification you use, Spring has well and truly Sprung.

Meanwhile, thank God, my golfing date with Gavin is cancelled. I cannot express my relief in words.

RC 30-4-25

small balls

For better or worse, I have found myself watching quite a bit of the snooker late at night over the past few days. It may be that this happens every year during the World Championships and you've heard it all before and I've just forgotten, but it's come as a surprise to me quite how much I've been enjoying it. I'm finding it strangely meditative, and I'm convinced the slow pace and quiet atmosphere have helped with my recent improvements in sleep patterns. Although I have to say - watching Mark Selby play snooker is like watching my son move when I tell him to get to bed - it all takes soooooo loooonnnnngggg...

In other news, I am playing golf with Gavin later this week, which I cannot imagine going well. My sporting prowess is limited to being good at Madden NFL and maybe the occasional good day on Wii Sports Bowling. I think he's been getting business coaching from some expensive online guru and he's been told that a good bonding exercise with management is to take them out on the golf course, where you can effectively have a meeting in the open air while walking around enjoying a shared activity. Personally, I can't imagine anything worse, and I hinted as much, suggesting that if we need to have any kind of discussion, maybe it would be better suited to an office, or a stroll around one of the holiday venues that he owns.  But no, for some reason that is lost on me, we are off to some snooty, snotty, overpriced club for wankers and middle-aged white men, to ruin our spines by swinging heavy bits of metal around while trying to get a small round object into a mousehole.
He did say he'd buy me breakfast before we started though, so I'm clinging to that as the one and only positive.

RC 27-4-25

As promised... Easter explanations, with a Rory twist

So here's my 'Ways that the date of Easter is calculated each year' bullshit:

There are two giant dice with all the possible dates in March and April, and every so often the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury get together and throw one each and they set the dates for the next few years.

There's a secret book that was edited out of the Bible. 'The Book of Bunnies'. It is held in storage at the Vatican and is only accessible by three select bishops per generation. That book contains a code that randomises the date each year, so no enemies of the church can pinpoint a good day to attack.

Turtles. Trained turtles...

God, in the form of a hungover Jewish bus driver in New York, appears once a decade to dictate the dates to a special group of nuns - 'The Sisters of Silliness' - who write the dates down using a special ink made of camel's blood and rat's urine.

It is, quite simply, the third weekend after the anniversary of the day when Cleopatra had her shoe stolen by a passing hawk when she was sunning herself after a particularly taxing meeting with some Persians. As the original manuscript naming that day has been lost, it is now calculated as being the third weekend after the first goshawk hatches from a designated nest on the banks of the Nile. The nest in question is chosen by being the first one built using a twig from a particular acacia tree that is next to a hidden monastery, deep within a secluded wood. The particular tree is picked by the monk who that year has been granted the title "Keeper of the Sacred Walnut' (normally whichever monk is closest in height to five feet ten, and closest in age to 24.)

And here's the real one, just to remind you, and to show that my own 'ideas' weren't so far-fetched...

Easter is set as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox.

That's a very simplified explanation, and if you want to really have a laugh, look up 'computus paschalis' (which is the church's method of working it all out), and read the lengthy history and complicated details...It really is ridiculous.

RC 26-4-25

St George's Day oddness

My dreams continue to be plentiful and baffling. Last night I had one where I woke up on Ted and Beryl's sofa, and realised it was the end of August. I sank into a depression thinking, "oh, my God, I'm sure it was only April last night! What the Hell happened to Summer? I'm not ready for another Autumn yet..."
I guess the message I should take from that is to make the most of every day we have over the next few months before I drift back towards the dark nights again.
(And that may be the earliest in the year I have ever mentioned looking ahead to Winter and SAD again!)

RC 23-4-25

random thoughts on Bank Holidays

I think we should have an Easter-style long weekend at least once a month. People just look happier when they know they're getting extra time off work, and it makes the world a better place. And I think it's ok to make plans to change the layout of Easter, and make it more regular. The whole occasion is a bit ridiculous anyway - it moves around the calendar like a Roomba moving around an office - so why not celebrate it every four weeks instead of (roughly) every year? I don't think the church would mind. It would keep them at the forefront of people's minds, and the power of repetitive behaviour may also see more people turn themselves towards religion. If you're hearing words like 'Easter', 'crucifixion' and 'resurrection' often enough, you may end up taking an interest in them and joining a congregation somewhere.
I'm trying to remember what the official wording is for the designation of Easter, and why it falls on a different date each year, but it's so weird and seemingly arbitrary that you could almost make up any old shite and it would make more sense than the actual explanation. (which I think I'll do as a blog later this week, actually!)
But my point is that everyone is nicer when they're working less. The lockdowns proved that, I think. And wasn't there going to be a big post-pandemic push for 4-day weeks, and less stress, and better conditions for all? I guess that fell by the wayside like all the other positive impacts we were hoping to see after we left the shadow of the Covid cloud.

I overheard one of those 'painful parenting' moments that we all face; where your children hit you with a question that is almost unanswerable, and you find yourself floundering as you flap about trying to find a suitable answer. During our egg-painting fun and games onsite on Saturday, a particularly sunnily-disposed cherub turned to her dad and asked, "Why do we call it Good Friday? It doesn't sound like anything good happened to Jesus that day..." I'm guessing by the looks on all the faces, none of us in the room knew the answer, but none of us had been asked, so the rest of us got to smile and enjoy the embarrassed expression on dad's face as he desperately tried to remember his R.E. lessons from school.

I hope this isn't insensitive to say, and I type it with all due respect, but you have to admire the gumption of Pope Francis to steal away the limelight from Jesus by dying on Easter Monday.
And I bet the producers of 'Conclave' are gutted that this didn't happen last year. Imagine how many extra bums on cinema seats they would have had if an actual conclave was happening at the same time that the film was showing? If I was them, I'd be thinking of rereleasing it.

RC 22-4-25

dream caused by too much chocolate?

I had ANOTHER one of my incredibly vivid dreams last night, and it was an odd one.
I was in hospital, with problematic pains in my hand and back. After hours and hours of tests and wandering around aimlessly asking for answers, it turned out that I had been misdiagnosed and that I actually had TB. The only hope was for me to be admitted and given an experimental treatment.
David Attenborough turned up - David Attenborough - and was having a go at my consultant, trying to get him to take responsibility for the mistake and warning him how dangerous the next steps were and that my wellbeing needed to be considered before any decisions were made.
And for some reason, I called my mum.
Weird.

RC 21-4-25

random paragraphs

I have just realised that I have yet to give you my final thoughts on the marvellous experience that was "Arcane - League of Legends" (the TV show, rather than the game).
I'm sad that it's over, but delighted to have experienced it, and I genuinely cannot wait to rewatch it, and marvel in its beauty without the distraction of trying to follow the storyline for the first time. Beyond that, words fail me, even now. Just pick any superlatives you care to throw together, exaggerate them to the point of embarrassment, and throw in some extra made-up words like 'Glorificated' and 'Spectungular' and it still wouldn't come close to describing how good it was.

I have started taking multivitamins again. I don't like filling my body with unnecessary tablets, especially when I have my doubts about this whole 'supplements' moneyspinner, but I also don't like having to work a very busy week at work with a head cold, and I'd really like to avoid that happening again at any time this year. So I have popped to the chemist for a chat and come away with a couple of boxes of large pills that are purple and will - I have been assured - keep my body working at an optimum level without the need for expensive purchases or trips to the gym.
I still have to eat 'a proper, balanced diet' which I was already doing, and which didn't prevent me from feeling ill, so not sure what that advice is about.

I had a strange dream last night in which Philippa was working as Donald Trump's physiotherapist and was struggling to resist the urge to strangle him. I kept seeing her on television, massaging his shoulders while he was in a conference with officials from China, and feeling a mixture of pride and jealousy. I also kept finding reasons for her NOT to take advantage of her close proximity to him by killing him. My main reasons being a) he was a democratically elected leader and we must be respectful of the democratic process, and b) he pays well. REALLY well. And we need the money.
Even in my dreams, it seems, I will place financial gain over my wife's morals and safety.

RC 19-4-25

Happy Easter!

Hello, and welcome to my Good Friday blog effort.
I'm not entirely sure, even at my age, when Easter actually is. Christmas week has very well defined parameters, but the Easter Bank Holiday Weekend confuses me. Is today the real start of it all, or just a precursor? Should I be saving my salutations for Sunday, which I know some people now refer to as 'Easter Day'? I know that today is the anniversary of Jesus being crucified (I mean -it isn't, not exactly, because the date changes every year, but you see what I mean) while Sunday is a celebration of His resurrection, so maybe that should be the biggie?
Well... anyway... Happy Easter to you, and may the long weekend fill you with chocolate, love and Springlike joy in abundance.

RC 18-4-25

out in the Sun

I think my employers might go bankrupt this year, based solely on the increase in postal charges. I can't believe how expensive it is just to send a sodding letter these days, and we have thousands of brochures to distribute around the country when it gets to Autumn. I might try and persuade Gavin to do it all digitally. He likes the fact that our customers, and potential customers, get to hold a glossy magazine that they can flick through rather than scroll through online, but I like the idea of still being paid next year, and I can see us culling staff or reducing wages if we have to keep shelling out to send needlessly extravagant literature to all corners of the British Isles.
Anyway, onto happier things, lest I sound like one of the people I was moaning about in yesterday's blog...
Today has been rather glorious and I have felt more like myself again, rather than a balloon full of snot. I had my lunch outside, I have been walking around talking to punters and I have even joined in with an activity or two. I still have hay fever attacking me mercilessly, but at least it's not now battling with a cold and other associated problems, it just has free rein to abuse my system as it sees fit, so it's much happier. So apart from a few sniffles and the occasional nose-wipe, I am more human now, and less a list of symptoms.

RC 17-4-25

slightly better

I feel, thank God, as if the worst of the 'mini-Covid' is behind me and my body is starting to recover.
In other news, the ability of human beings to find huge things to criticise in even the smallest of circumstances continues to astound me. I'm starting to believe that a lot of people these days are just spending their entire lives constantly looking for fault and imperfections. They only seem to enjoy themselves when they're pointing something out to someone, and it's normally something trivial, and yet they expect to be rewarded as if they've just solved the Collatz conjecture. My case in point today is the gentleman from Grimsby who decided to berate one of our lifeguards because the depth of the family swimming pool is two inches too deep for his daughter to be able to wade across it without armbands. What sort of reaction he was expecting from young Jeremy, I cannot imagine. Did he expect him to drain the pool slightly, just so the Princess of Grimsby was more comfortable? I think he probably had no clue what outcome there might be, he just wanted to open his mouth and spew some bile at someone, because the world wasn't perfectly set up for him and his family. And isn't that the way of it these days? People have this horrible sense of selfish entitlement and they think everything should be bent to suit them and their needs. But that can't work, can it? If it's perfect for YOU then it can't be perfect for those around you, so where do we set the boundaries, and who gets preferential treatment?
The other issue wrapped up in all this is the "If I Moan I'll Get Something Free" approach, that is also prevalent among modern individuals. We get it a lot at work, and I know it happens to almost every company and institution that has the misfortune of dealing with the general public on a regular basis. People know that we're scared of bad reviews so they think we'll bow down and kiss their feet and offer them everything including Granny's teapot just to stop them putting nasty words on TripAdvisor.
Well, f**k 'em, that's my attitude.

RC 16-4-25

Symptoms and Sufferings

There are strange things that happen to my body when I have a bad cold, and I'm wondering whether it's just me, or does everyone get affected this way?
For example - I constantly feel like I need to sniff, or blow my nose, even if there is nothing in my nostrils. It's like there's some kind of irritant permanently lodged in my snout and it's like having a very thin feather constantly tickling the inside of my nose.
Also, my knees ache like I've been running a marathon on uneven ground in high heels.
And my brain seems incapable of connecting neurons at the speed it does on a normal day, under normal physical circumstances. A task that might have taken thirty seconds and involve very little thought seems to require a monumental Herculean effort just to get started.
My eyes hurt too. The backs of them, where I'm guessing the orb of the eye meets the optic nerve. Why does that happen? What possible help is that to a body wracked with the woes of an upper respiratory tract infection?
It feels like the whole inside of my head has been rearranged and clogged up with some kind of jelly.
This is not fun.

RC 15-4-25

Sniffs (repeatedly)

Halfway through April, and halfway through the Easter Holidays.
And I have a cold.
On top of hay fever, I have a cold.
What I have done to deserve this, I know not; maybe some past-life shit that has picked now to leap up in a karmic frenzy and unleash itself upon my senses.
Anyway, at the most inconvenient time, when we are lashed to the hilts with visitors, I feel like there is mud in my head and my nostrils are as inflamed as a rugby player's earlobes.
This is not fun.

RC 14-4-25

Wonderments and Wistfulness

I have noticed another lovely benefit of it being British Summer Time now - I have a smile on my face continuously from 5pm until it gets dark. The joy of having daylight well into the evening is something that I do not expect to wear off for months yet; if it will even happen at all. I start shutting things down in my office at work and I just get this glowing feeling in my chest, as I know I will be walking to my car feeling warm, that I will be driving home through changing countryside that is bathed in sunshine, and that I can play outside with the boys, even if we wait until we've eaten.  Those awful days of 4pm darkness already seem forgotten and there is a calm, content disportment to me as I meander through life and enjoy the air around me.
I really do think my long-term plan might have to be emigration. I imagine it's testicle-twistingly difficult now in these post-Brexit, wagon-circling, 'America (or other appropriate country name) First' times, but I'd still like to have it dangling out there as an option for Future Rory. The thought that I might have these almost-20-Celsius days as the norm, rather than a rare treat, is one that fills me with great hope and ambition. And I work in an industry that might make it possible. I am, after all, a manager in the tourism trade. It might only be for a small holiday company in Suffolk, but I'm doing it. And surely those skills can be transferred to any location around the world where people like to go on holiday? Is it really against the realms of possibility that I could relocate to somewhere popular with British visitors and be successful work-wise? I think not, and I will be taking active steps to look into it....

RC 11-4-25

self-ish

We are only a few days into the first busy week of the year and I am already at the point of wanting to punch someone. Not just anyone, I should point out - this isn't blind rage that is looking for a random outlet - but a particular person who upset me at work today. We get these sort of people regularly throughout the year and I have an affectionate term I like to use for them - 'tossers'. They're the ones who turn up as if it's the end of their holiday, rather than the start, with a furrowed brow and a foul mood. They're the ones who start finding fault with things the second their tyres hit the boundary of the site, and they're the ones who are deliberately oblivious to the fact that there are hundreds of other families around and want everything to be perfect for THEM.
I didn't expect to encounter one so soon into the season, but there we are.
This particular incarnation of tosserdom was a below-average-height (almost certianly relevant) Liverpudlian gentleman with flushed cheeks and bushy eyebrows. His main complaint today was that our Easter Egg hunt doesn't involve real Easter eggs. We have some beautifully painted character statues that are hidden around the site, and the kidlings have to solve some simple clues that will lead them to where the statuettes are. Show us a photo of you with each one, and you get your Easter Egg from the shop. Now, to be fair, these are decent size eggs, and there's very little work or walking involved, and it builds exercise into a fun family activity, and everyone has a camera phone these days, so it really is as simple as it can be, but Mr Potato-Brain wasn't having any of it. "Why don't you just have the eggs themselves dotted about so the kids can find them? Isn't that a better idea than this complicated treasure quest you've set up?"
I tried valiantly to explain the scientific reasons why having chocolate sitting around in the sun on a warm day wasn't a good idea, but he wouldn't listen. I think his main complaint, if he was being truthful, was that he actually had to spend some time with his offspring and make a bit of an effort with them, rather than just being able to send them off out of the caravan with a small bag to collect things in, while he sat on his arse with a can of beer watching darts or something.
I got rid of him by saying we'd pass it all on to our Customer Care Team at Head Office (which doesn't exist) and that he'd receive a voucher from me for a reduction on his next holiday (which he won't).
Prick.

RC 10-4-25

self-sabotage

The problem with me setting myself a Blog Challenge is that it then plays on my mind and I feel the world will collapse if I don't achieve it. Silly, I know, but that's me. So I'm already fretting about the fact that I might not succeed in posting 21 different blog entries in April, like what I planned to. There are 30 days in the month, so there can only be 9 days where I fail to write; and I've already used up 4 of those. Things are not boding well, I keep telling myself. However, there have been many times in the past when I have posted multiple entries on the same day, so I can always do that to make up the shortfall. I wouldn't want to just churn out any old shit just to reach a certain number, but there's no harm in a morning and evening update on the odd occasion, if events warrant.
This is supposed to be a 'fun' thing to do, and I've just spent about an hour worrying about it. You have to wonder why I do these things. It's as if I have an inherent urge to deliberately put myself into situations that I know will cause me stress. As if I cannot allow myself to have a calm, serene life and keep having to find ways to set myself up for punishment.
Silly, I know, but that's me.

RC 9-4-25

self-acknowledged

Yes, I am well aware that I still haven't done that poetry thing that I said I would do (the one with 10 different kinds of poem, and me writing an example of each one...) Rory having an idea for something for this blog and then not following up with it? Have you ever seen the like???
In fact, there's been a general lack of effort and production on the poetry front all round in the past couple of months. Which seems to be a pattern with me - I seem to hit a rich vein of form every so often where I churn out several in a short space of time, then go completely silent for weeks. As The Mandalorian might say "This is the Way". Maybe it's some kind of seasonal writer's block. Or maybe I'm a boom-or-bust, all-or-nothing, in-it-fully-or-out-of-it-completely sort of guy.
Some form of self-analysis and critical reflection might help.
Maybe I should write a poem about it...

RC 8-4-25

rant about... something... TV perhaps?

I'm not a huge fan of television, as you know, but every so often something catches my eye that catches my attention and either makes me have a rethink about my views, or reinforces how I feel about this particular medium. And I've been rather startled, although not entirely surprised, by the appearance on Channel 4 of the show "Open House" which seems to be an anything-goes environment where members of the public go to stay with other strangers and indulge in sexual encounters with others who also just happen to be there for the same reason.
Now I have to say at this point that I haven't watched it. I can't think of any possible reason why I might. So it may be that it's a very safe space for everyone and they are highlighting all the ramifications that may manifest, including the psychological ones, and that everyone is very well-guided in the whole processes and well aware of what they're getting into; but it sounds to me like soft pornography disguised as a social experiment.
I'm not a prude, I assure you, but I do believe that when things are shown more regularly in public forums, then they become more easily acceptable, and then they become normalised, and then they begin to become expected.
And that, I think, has helped lead to the situation a friend of ours find herself in. Her new beau, whom she met about three months ago and has been really rather enamoured with, has started pressuring her to attend a swingers night. Now, I don't have a problem with anything that anyone does to themselves or others in their 'quiet time', as long as all involved are happy and consenting and comfortable, so the fact that this guy is a fan of that stuff isn't an issue. But having told our friend that it's behaviour from his past and that he is strictly a one-woman man now, he then started dropping hints about it being a fun thing for them to try together, and has now got to the stage of suggesting that if she doesn't agree, then she doesn't really like him. And she is confused about what's right and wrong and is slowly convincing herself she has no choice.
I'm not saying that a programme on Channel 4 has led to our friend being treated so disrespectfully, (in fact, I would say personally that the online world - where this is even more prevalent and even less controlled - is far more to blame), but I am saying that the recent and increasing trend with broadcasters to produce this kind of stuff has certainly contributed to the societal situation that has made her partner think he is in the right.
And I think programme makers and schedulers should take some responsibility for that.

On the other end of the TV scale, though, season 2 of 'Arcane - League of Legends' certainly hasn't seen a drop in standards.

RC 7-4-25

Well, that was fun...

I actually wrote this last night, but then realised this morning I hadn't posted it. So, as you read, please pretend it is 9pm last night...

Is there a gene that children have, I wonder, that kicks in on the day they break up from school? It's a subtle gene, but it instigates huge changes. They get a boost of energy levels akin to giving cocaine to a hyperactive greyhound. They need less sleep than an elephant that has just awoken from a coma, and they can somehow survive on less food intake than that ingested by algae. Day 1 of any holiday seems to bring about a startling metamorphosis akin to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, especially in children under the age of 10. Looking around in the foyer this afternoon was like gazing into an ants' nest that was being viewed on fast-forward - there were countless scallywags charging around, bouncing into each other and screaming like they were extras in the battle scenes in 'Braveheart'. Parents, of course, are content to let them just get on with what they're getting on with, and just stand there vaping and complaining about having to wait five minutes to be spoken to by someone, despite having turned up three hours earlier than they said they would. It has been, to be fair, a very trying day, and we all looked at each other this evening, when the madness had finally calmed down a bit, with a shared expression that seemed to say, "Jesus, we've got another six months of this to come!"
But we all survived it, and it will get easier as the weeks go on (he said, hopefully) as we get more and more into the swing of it and the Winter rustiness depletes somewhat.
And now it is time for a well-earned glass of cold fizzy pop, and our first in-garden barbecue of April.

RC 6-4-25

(Belated) Welcome to April!

I can't believe how much better I feel now we are back in British Summer Time. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised really - I know how much I hate Winter and I know how my mood improves at this time of year every year, and yet still it seems to have hit me as a surprise.

I've noticed that I may have accidentally stumbled onto a blog challenge that I can try and sustain throughout 2025. So far, my number of postings month to month have been 21, then 19, then 21. So I'm thinking that maybe I can keep that going and just alternate the number of writings that I do each month. If I maintain it right through until December that'll be a grand total of 240 postings in the year, which is a nice number to aim for. And there'll be the lovely sense of achievement, too, which will hopefully override the monthly pain and anguish of trying to write an exact number of posts rather than just doing it when I feel like it.

In other news, most of the schools break up today for their Easter Holidays. So today is the day that I like to call 'Onslaught Eve'. The number of people we have onsite will have quadrupled by this time on Sunday. We go from an occupancy rate of about 25% (mostly permanent residents) to about 85% this weekend, with almost full capacity being achieved over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. As usual, there are a long list of things that it seems we just haven't had time to get round to, but as usual, I am sure, all will be well and it will all happen without too much heartbreak or injury.
It is scary, though, that it is suddenly upon us. I swear it's only two days ago that I was sending an e-mail that said, 'the good thing is we still have six weeks to get this sorted...'
And part of me wishes I'd taken more advantage of the Saturdays I've had off, because that won't be happening again now until the Autumn.

RC 4-4-25