It's all me (honest)

Following on from yesterday's blog, I would like to absolutely assure you that I have never, and will never, use any kind of available online AI bollocks to write anything on this blogsite.
But then, how would you know if I had??? That's the problem.
I'm closing in on 4,000 postings, and that's a hell of a lot of material for ChatFUK or whatever it's called to soak up and write in the style of.
I imagine someone with more talent, more time and less life than me could take over the running of this whole venture without anyone really noticing. Scary.

My, how things have changed in the 18 years since I started all this! You didn't have to worry about me being Deepfaked or Deepseeked back in 2008....

RC 28-7-25

Some Sunday musings

I did it then! A week of daily poems, which would not have been written had I not set myself the challenge of doing so. Creativity is bred from deadlines.

Later today we are watching the Women's Euros Final as Mathew seems to have developed an unexpected fascination with the England women's football team. We have flags, we have snacks and we are grateful it kicks off at 5pm so he can watch it all before bedtime. Philippa does like to keep things strict and regular with pre-sleep routines, and I can't imagine the conflict that would have ensued if she tried to drag him off to his bedroom halfway through the second half or something.

I'm worrying less and less about AI as time goes by. Yes, it is already taking jobs and destroying livelihoods, but the existential threat to human existence is something I'm not so concerned about. Well, not so much anyway. I keep panicking about it going past our level of intelligence and then creating its own power source and wiping us out, etc, but actually, it's still only a computer, that can only teach itself from human input, right? Yes, it has access to all human input ever created and can process it all in a millisecond, but it can't unlock secrets we haven't discovered yet because it's all based on what WE'VE done. Right? Right? I can start sleeping again and stop fretting about my children's future, right???

Back to less weighty stuff - my prediction is Spain 2 England 1.

RC 27-7-25

Week of Poems, attempt 7

YouTube have sold out so much to advertisers that every video now is almost unwatchable. So as my way of getting back at them, I hereby vow to NEVER purchase anything that comes up in an ad while I'm watching an online video.
Anyway, here's a poem....

A Short, Simple, Honest Ode to Love:

Love is a waterfall
Soaking your skin
Love is a cannonball
Breaking your shin

RC 26-7-25

Week of Poems, attempt 6

Today's effort is called 'Today's Effort'

An honourable man
Should never need to lie
If he bathes in untruths
Then somewhere, somehow, he is dirty
Trust not his words
Shy away from his friendship
Become not his ally
Get caught not in his sphere of despicable attitudes
Rise above his rottenness
Feed not his ego
Step away from dishonour and untruth and injustice
Surround yourself only with goodness, grace and gratitude
And those who display the same

RC 25-7-25

Week of Poems, attempt 5

These aren't very good at all, so I'll publish both and hope the two bad halves make some kind of a whole...

Poem A.

Turn to yourself
When the darkest days descend
Go to yourself
When you need a way to mend
Look inside
When you're desperate to flee
Stay inside
and discover you, and me

Poem B.

She called me 'The One'
then slept with many others
She opened my eyes
then closed her hands around my throat
She said I was 'Home'
and then left me
She became my world
and then destroyed it

RC 24-7-25

Week of Poems, attempt 4

I've decided to forego regular writings and just stick to the poems until the weekend. It feels like I'm overstretching myself, and it feels like I'm cheating my own system somewhat by falsely increasing the number of posts I'm providing.

So here's a poem called 'a prayer':

Help me make the most, lord,
of the days that I have left
Help me bring some happiness
to those that feel bereft
Help me be a guiding light
to others who are lost
Help me bear the weight of sin
and help me bear the cost
Help me to be truthful
in a world that lives in lies
Help me to enjoy the earth
and see with grateful eyes
Help me to be open
to the ones with guarded hearts
Help me to survive the ends
and relish in the starts
Help me to be helpful, lord,
and help me to see how
Help me to be present
in the moment that is now

RC 23-7-25

Week of Poems, attempt 3

I left it rather late today
Before I tried to write
and now I think it's probable
that this one will be shite
So sorry for my tardiness
and if you're unimpressed
I promise that tomorrow
I will try to give my best

Stupid 'Summer'

Yesterday's blog reads a bit like a crappy management report to shareholders (sorry about that) so today I will try to be more personal, personable and pleasing.
I may have bitten off more than I can chew with my 'week of poetry' mini-challenge. It just came to me as an idea, after I wrote that weird poem on Saturday night, so I decided to commit to it and use it as inspiration for these blog postings. Then I suddenly found things to talk about anyway, so now I'm having to double-up on my daily offerings and the strain is beginning to tell already. [insert 'tongue in cheek' emoji here]

Today I started to receive the expected complaints about the weather. It's hilarious really, but there's always one or two families that seem to think it's a vendetta against them when it's cloudy, and that I am the instigator of said vendetta and therefore the person who can reverse the rain and produce sunshine. It's normally a family from the North of England, with a dad that is overweight and unhealthy and a mum who looks like she's had no daylight in 8 years, and at least three children under the age of five that the parents believe they shouldn't have to supervise. And their moans always follow the same sort of pattern, to the point that I am convinced they are all just getting this stuff from a 'How To Get A Refund' app. So I shall type here online what I say to them onsite - "We can't control the weather, and I'm sorry if it's not to your liking, but you are still on holiday, and there are still lots and lots of ways for you to enjoy yourselves as a family, so please try and do that and stop telling my staff they are arseholes."

RC 22-7-25

Week of Wet

Things have changed a bit on the weather front, have they not? We've had to instigate our 'alternative activities' plan at work, so that there is still plenty for families to do, despite the downpours meaning that everything outside is unusable. This is why we spend the extra time in February and March making sure that we have contingencies for climate-based changes and catastrophes. It's all very well lining up sporting events and walks, and having enough play areas to deal with hundreds of people at once, but what do you do when a storm hits? Not wanting to give away secrets to our competitors, but we make sure that there are enough internal events to occupy all our occupants, and enough room available to accommodate them. So, yeah, our indoor areas have been rather popular today, and will be for the rest of the week, I would guess.

RC 21-7-25
1540 BST

Week of Poems, attempt 2

I'm getting hassle from my wife
She wants to add another life
She loves the way our children thrive
But wants to make our number five
I cannot disagree enough
Cos being dad is really tough
and though each child's a shining star
I want to keep us as we are

RC 21-7-25

the unbridled joy of the sea

I am so glad that Mathew has discovered the wonders of wading into waves. I don't know if it's something we, as parents, have instilled in him, or whether it's just learned behaviour from watching me, or whether it is just a natural urge that we all have as humans to return to the sea, but we spent some time at the beach today and he was charging in and out of the water like a labrador. And it wasn't even a particularly nice day. Overcast, breezy, with threatening showers, but even so he was dancing in the surf like his little life depended on it. He was in his comfy wetsuit (and a note for parents out there - if you, like us, decide that your children should always wear a wetsuit while bathing then you, like us, will have to be prepared to buy a new one every year. Children, it turns out, change in size as they get older! Who knew????)
It was a dull day with a bad forecast but we went for a beach walk anyway, and it wasn't cold so we could still enjoy the water, and Mathew has never looked happier, which makes us happier, and then tonight he has crashed into bed exhausted, which is also a very good thing! So my lessons for today are - do not let the weather change your plans, change your planning to suit the weather; and if you let your energetic son use up his energy instead of trying to suppress it, things work out better for everyone.

RC 20-7-25

Week of Poems, attempt 1

Poem started at 23:33 on 19/7/25

 

I cannot be myself

While the world around me begs me for performance

I cannot heal

While the paying crowd are baying for some laughter

I cannot walk tall

While the recent past is weighing down my shoulders

I cannot breathe

While my broken heart is struggling to mend

What can I do?

When everything I try results in carnage

What can I say?

When everybody thinks they know the story

What can I be?

When all I thought I knew about me vanished

What can I become?

When every forward thought becomes a burden

Stop the thoughts of pain

Start the process

Stop holding myself back

Start the journey

Stop dying of embarrassment or guilt

Start living

STOP...

and START....

Odes

I want to get back into poetry. There, I've said it. I don't consider myself to be a great rhymesmith, but when I occasionally chance upon verses I have written in the past, I look upon them with fondness and a small amount of pride. So I'd like to churn them out more often. It's not something I can force to happen, but actually when I take the time to sit there with pen and pad, or with fingers poised above a keyboard, I find myself coming up with ideas and images that weren't there even a few minutes beforehand. It's a bit like writing this blog - the days when I just start writing and see what comes out tend to be the days where I produce something more worthwhile. If I try to force it or MAKE myself write something, I seem to hit a wall and lose the ability to connect mind with hands. When I relax and just open my mouth (so to speak) the words tend to tumble out and make some sort of sense. So I might set myself a certain time each day, and I might buy myself a nice new notepad specifically for poems, and I might sit in the garden for an hour each night after the boys are in bed and see what I can come up with.
Obviously, this also has to fit in with my recent determination to cycle more, which I also wanted to do in the evenings, but this is why we need to live somewhere where it's still light at midnight, so I can fit all this stuff in.

RC 17-7-25

Shite thoughts

I can't believe July is half-gone already. Sorry to revisit an old theme, but it's hard for me not to watch the days ticking by without starting to think about it getting darker and becoming colder. It's a shame to waste the decent weather and longer amounts of daylight worrying about when we won't have them, but it always seems to pass us by so bloody quickly. We're now closer to the next spell of GMT than we are away from the last one (we changed the clocks 4 months ago, and will change them again in another 3) and now I've thought of that fact, it feels like it is punching me repeatedly in the back of the head and telling me I have wasted, and continue to waste, the Summer.
So what can I do about it?
Milk every second of goodness while it's here. Walk, cycle, swim, sit outside and read, have barbecues, play in the garden with my sons and sleep in a tent whenever possible. Get to October with so many memories and moments in my mind that I can get through the Winter months by replaying them whenever I need to.

RC 16-7-25

Making moves about making moves

Gavin has once again floated the idea of me moving permanently to the South-West. He said, "I can't get that bloody place right and the only time it ran anywhere near well was when you went down and took over."
I mean, it's nice to feel like I was useful, but I can't believe that in my brief spell in Devon (or Dorset, I'm still not sure which) I made that much of an impression and that much of a difference. The trouble is, this has coincided with Philippa going through a weird, unexpected spell of feeling restless and fancying a change, so I've got two different people throwing ideas at me about relocating, at a time when I have been feeling very settled and very content where I am. It's a gorgeous time of year to be in this area, with the beaches on hand, and the natural world around us looking resplendent. Everything is full and green and glorious and there are butterflies and bees and an abundance of birds of prey and everywhere I look there is beauty. Why would I want to move away from that?
Gavin's answer is, "For a bit more money" while Philippa would say it would do the boys good to experience different areas and not just see one house for their whole childhood. My argument to her would be that stability in your youth is a good thing and that the local school is a good one and why uproot unless absolutely necessary?
My worry, too, is that this might be an underhanded attempt to increase the size of our family. The 'third child' debate has been shelved for quite a while now, but I know it hasn't disappeared from her plans completely, and I can see a scenario where we get a slightly bigger house and then she says, "Well, now we have another bedroom...."
I remember reading a very old book where someone said that civilisations will grow to fit  their available surroundings. So, if you only have a small set of caves in a small valley, your village will maintain its size, but if you then move to an open area with space for more huts, you will automatically breed more to fill the gaps. And I imagine that can be true for families too, so if we suddenly have a house with room for another young 'un, the temptation will be to create that young 'un and push the Chesworth Brood number up to five. Which, as I have written quite often on this blogsite, I do NOT want to agree to. I'm not being selfish, I'm not being obstructive, I'm just being true to myself and my intentions.
And as for Gavin? I'm hoping this will be a passing fad, but it bothers me that he keeps bringing it up, even though I've clearly said I'm not interested. And being a paranoid, self-deprecating sort of cove, it makes me think that maybe the staff here are fed up with me and are trying to get me out of the door, and this is a way of removing Rory from the locale without sacking him....

RC 15-7-25

Stop Being British

This one has been written one line at a time throughout the day, so may be a bit bitty and disjointed...
I've been enjoying the heat, even if no-one else is!
I'm even enjoying the ridiculous ways that people want to blame me for it being too hot for them to travel comfortably in their car.
But I have to say I'm not enjoying seeing the sweaty, under-dressed bodies that ooze their way out of the cars that arrive in our car park. My God, there are some unhealthily shaped bodies in existence in Britain these days, and there seems to be a real reluctance to cover them up with anything more than a crop top.
Today I am enjoying something I would never have considered possible - having the cricket commentary on in the background while I am doing some work in the office. My radio was still set to BBC Sport Extra after Wimbledon, and I have just found myself getting drawn into the slow-moving drama that is the last day of an England versus India Test match.
Sea swimming is glorious, but there have been rather alarming amounts of jellyfish spotted at my nearest beach! And they're not the tiny little bubbly ones, they are the proper 'looks like it could give me a sting' ones that have a purple ring around the top. I have found myself too fearful to venture into the surf, lest I end up with welts and pain.

RC 14-7-25

Review of Wednesday night's bike ride...

It was hard.
My bicycle was making weird squeaky noises (probably because it has been sitting redundant in a shed for a long time and I didn't bother cleaning or servicing it) and my knees were making weird creaky noises. I got out of breath very quickly, and developed a very unpleasant aching sensation in my chest before I'd even completed a mile.
I am obviously, it must be said, a little bit out of shape right now.
But this can be the start of the journey, and I can stick at it and look forward to noticing improvements as the days and weeks roll by.
Or I can throw the bike back into storage and avoid any further pain...

RC 11-7-25

Happy

After a few days of rain, wind and cloud, it is delicious to be once again basking in glorious sunshine and feeling the true benefits of Summer in Suffolk. I have been in the sea again, and I have even retrieved the trusty old Rory Velociped from the darkest recesses of the garage with the intention of getting back into some cycling. I always used to love late evening Spring cycle rides and I fell out of the habit when I became a parent, which I have no issue with, but I do miss those lovely jaunts through the countryside when it is at its best, and that lovely feeling of fitness that comes after you've built up a bit of stamina and got a bit of power in the legs.  So my plan is to take myself off for a two-wheeled adventure sometime after tea tonight, and I shall report back tomorrow (or later tonight, if I feel so inspired...)

RC 9-7-25

Discombobulated and Baffled

I had an unexpected message from an ex this morning. It really surprised me. I won't say who, as I think I might have mentioned her in the annals of this blog, many years ago...
It feels weird even writing the phrase "an ex". Philippa and I have been together nearly 15 years now, so anyone that came before her is a sad and distant memory from a past that I would rather never revisit. I'm not exactly active on social media, so I'm not one of those that is in regular 'contact' with everyone I've ever encountered. I think I may have remarked in these writings before that I don't think it's good for anyone to have that horrible level of constant connection with all the people from your past. We drift into, and out of, each other's lives and we're not supposed to linger when there's no reason to. That's the way it used to be, and that's the way I think humanity works best, and yet the modern world has torn that away from us all. It's impossible to step away completely. People can always find you, and - as I've discovered today- they can always reach out and message you.
I'm not even sure what the point is. The young lady and I had a very brief and very unsatisfying relationship that died a very sudden death, and now nearly two decades letter she gets the urge to send me a missive? I don't get the motivation, or the intention, and it's left me feeling a little unsettled and weirdly unsafe. It was only a few lines, telling me that a colleague had mentioned me, and had mentioned that they read my blog (and it always amazes me that anyone would say that!) and that she had looked it up herself and had a read-through and just thought she'd say Hello. And then she said a lot more than Hello, filling me in on her current work situation and the fact that she is now a mum.
Why I would need to know this, and why she felt the need to tell me, I know not.
(The child is only three years old, by the way, in case you were thinking it might be mine and that might be my she was contacting me...)
Anyway, I have decided not to engage. I'm thinking it might be a sophisticated AI bot that has trawled my past writings and found her name and manufactured a fake profile for her; to contact me and try to extract my personal information. I am nothing if not cynical.
I suppose I can't moan too much. I do write lots of personal stuff in these postings, so readers may feel like we are friends to a level that I'm not really comfortable with, but can't really complain about.
But it did unsettle me.

RC 8-7-25

The Road to Calamity

Into another month, and another gap has appeared in the usually regular writing habit of Mr R. Chesworth, esq.
I am extraordinarily busy at work, that's my excuse. Even by our usual standards for this time of year, everything is a bit full on. We seem to be at maximum capacity everywhere already, even though the schools don't break up for a couple of weeks yet. One of our main issues at the moment is roadworks, believe it or not. Our local councils seem to have deemed it necessary to carry out four different major bits of road repairs at the same time, all within a couple of miles of our main site, causing massive disruptions and delays to anyone travelling here, as there are limited ways to get to us, and all of them have temporary traffic lights and lane closures. For some reason, this is all my fault, as the manager, and so people were arriving to check-in absolutely fuming because they've lost the first couple of hours of their holiday sitting in their vehicles, and my attempts to lighten their mood by remarking "at least you aren't trying to fly over France this weekend" didn't go down well.
[A bit of context for anyone reading this in the future - French air traffic control called a sudden 48-hour strike last week and loads of flights had to be cancelled or postponed]
So I spent a bit of time this morning on the phone to our County Council, and our local council, and the local water company (who are trying to fix leaks at the same time and in the same places as the roadworks, just to add to the fun) and my conclusion is - not only does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing, but they are hands on completely different bodies, the owners of which don't talk to each other, and each finger on each hand is an independent entity that seems to ignore the wishes and want of the others. For those of you who don't have to deal with local politics and bureaucracy, I can absolutely assure you that it is the same now as it ever was - a bunch of bungling amateurs with no communication skills who seem to have staffed their planning departments with people who have an average I.Q of 6.
I mean... obviously... if you work there, I mean no offence, but really....

RC 7-7-25