The joys of being in BST

So here I am, firmly ensconced in the Easter Holidays and wondering how this has happened so soon. We're busy, but it's okay. No major malfunctions with anything, nothing that we missed during our over-Winter checks that have flared up and caused problems. Most people seem to be enjoying themselves and enjoying what we're providing for them. It could be warmer, but that's out of our control, and is just an annual truth of the British climate.
It's hard to believe we got here though. I swear it's only three days ago that I was packing away Halloween decorations and feeling relieved that I was going to get my Saturdays back. And now... here we go again... Six months or so of flat-out work where I feel about as in control of my time as a penguin with Parkinson's is in control of its flippers.

I got a great review of yesterday's poem, by the way. Someone told me, "Well it certainly had some words in it." 
Thanks for the encouragement, Daniel...

I'm going to stop using the phrase 'BST' in my blog titles from now on, I promise.

RC 31-3-26

First poem of BST

White light drifts across the heathland
An enigmatic star shines lonely
Clouds scutter their path westward
As a thousand soldiers march indifferent

Somewhere there will be sanctuary
A chance encounter may lead to venom
Treasured benevolence welcomes hope
Yet always, always there is sympathy

Nothing leads to nothingness
September skies are patterned perfect
Dancing nymphs await the pressing dawn
Thankless in their solitude.

RC 30-3-26

First day of BST! Yay!!!

I have some reflections on my own list from Friday:
It surprises me that there are no filmmakers or actors in there. I guess the process of movie-making is so collaborative that it's hard to single out individuals worthy of immense praise (although Billy Wilder was given a high score in my original long list).
The decision to preclude involvement from people who had a creative career as a consequence of fame in other fields made the list very different to what it might have been too. And it led to some inner battles over the likes of Cicero and Marcus Aurelius. The former was primarily a lawyer and politician, but is most known for his writings, the latter was an emperor and philosopher, but his written word has become hugely important. They did not, however, set out to be creative artists from the start, and so that was how I made the differentiation. And I know a similar swipe could be levelled at Arthur C. Clarke, whom I DID include, but his novels were a separate venture to his scientific ones, and were written deliberately as fiction to sell as fiction, so that seemed an important difference to me.
Other notable absentees have to be The Cure, (who, after all, inspired this list in the first place), the composer John Barry, and the likes of Clive James and Billy Connolly. I made some hard either/or choices that I imagine will be different on a different day, so WHEN I do this again and update it, it's possible that Tom Lehrer, Peter Cook and Peter Ustinov might also appear.
Now I have to stop thinking about it and get on with my life......

RC 29-3-26

Ok then - my All Time Top 10 Artists

The word 'Artist' in this case has been taken to include any practitioner of any art form. If they're creative, they're in. I have, however, discounted anyone for whom writing or performing is a secondary career that has stemmed from something non-art (so goodbye, Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman) I've written lists under different categories, then ranked each proponent within each category, then seen which have the highest ratings. Then I've put them against each other and seen which provide me with the most personal enjoyment, regardless of the medium they work in. Then I've typed it all out and seen if it passes the eye test; then I've left it a few hours and done that again, and made adjustments as deemed necessary. I imagine this list will be different if I revisit it later in the year, or at a future time, but I feel quite confident that this is an accurate representation of my feelings as I have them this week.
And if you're wondering whether I have thought about this too much, the answer is Yes, and if you're wondering whether this has kept me away from more important tasks that I should have been spending this time on, the answer is also Yes.
Anyway - the list.

10 - William Shakespeare
 9 - Henry David Thoreau
 8 - Ludovico Einaudi
 7 - Arthur Conan Doyle
 6 - Arthur C. Clarke
 5 - Kae Tempest
 4 - Dorothy Parker
 3 - Robert Harris
 2 - Bob Dylan
 1 - The Beatles

RC 27-3-26

A poem? Why not...

I look to the Heavens
for a sign of your smile
Your shadow is lost
You've been gone for a while.

I cuddle the pillow
that cushioned your head
The smell has now faded
The memory dead

I walk through the woodland
where love was our guide
I meet a new stranger
and threaten to hide

I know I am broken
I cannot heal yet
I can't ever hold you;
can't ever forget

Our passion was fleeting
Your ending, unfair
Some day I'll forgive you
But for now, I am... where?

RC 26-3-26

sounds good

I'm getting very heavily back into music again. Listening to it, I should add, not having one of my cack-handed attempts to learn to play it or write it.
Mostly, I'm listening in the car while I'm driving, which isn't ideal, as I don't really drive very far on my own. The journey to and from work is all I get really, and that's only long enough for a few songs. Longer trips normally involve the whole family together, and on those occasions we either put stuff on that Mathew likes, or play games like 'I Spy' together. So my listening options are limited.
But, when I get the chance, I am currently revisiting a lot of stuff by The Cure, who I think will always be in my All Time Top 10 Artists list, and are also a band I wish I could see live.
Now I am going to sit outside with a notepad, and have a go at actually writing my 'All Time Top 10 Artists List'. Honestly, it is so easy for me to get distracted by new ideas and obsessed with rating things arbitrarily....

RC 25-3-26

changing back...

Yesterday may have been one of my longest ever blog postings.
(Today won't be a similar length, just in case you were expecting it to become the norm.)
Everything seems to have turned very chilly again. After that lovely brief burst of late Spring/early Summer weather we have now been reminded that March is still pretty much a Winter month these days. I made the usual mistake of putting my warmer clothes away, only to be rendered uncomfortable by thin shirts and a lack of a big coat, so I think that box will be making its way out of the cupboard again this evening.
In other news, Gavin is looking to give our main indoor event rooms a major spruce-up. He's decided, for some reason, that the colours look 'dated' and he wants to 'give the ambience a refresh' which sounds lovely if it wasn't for the fact that it will take two weeks and involve a huge disruption to onsite activities. Maybe he made more money than expected last year and has to find a way to spend some profits, but it's a bit annoying and terrible timing. I'm going to try and convince him to put it off until the end of the year, as it's ridiculous to start upsetting everything onsite when we're about to explode into high occupancy again and will have visitors flooding around the place. I think if I paid for a family Easter holiday and turned up to find scaffolding and the smell of paint, my reaction might be, "Why the Hell didn't you do this over Winter?"
So I'm going to ask Gavin, "Why the Hell didn't you do this over Winter?"

RC 24-3-26

This time next week we'll be in BST!!!

Yesterday was an amazing day. Just one of those days where you're just ambling through it at a nice pace, doing things you enjoy, with people you love, and it seems to go on forever and it improves everything - your mental health, your view of the world and your general wellbeing. It was a really simple day too, and completely unplanned, which makes it all the more delicious and special. We were up early due to a Rian-related issue that thankfully settled down, so I threw together a bit of a cooked breakfast for us all. One of Mathew's favourite things at the moment is to find the most unusual food item with which to break into the yolk of a fried egg. It's like an ongoing experiment that he's running, with a steely determination to find the ultimate combination of tastes that work alongside a satisfying dunk. It's strange too, because he's not a huge fan of soft-boiled eggs and soldiers (or 'dippy eggs' as we refer to them). I remember having a whale of a time stuffing toasted bread fingers into the top of an egg and watching the innards ooze out over the side, but he's not really taken to that at all. But give him a couple of fried eggs and an assortment of hard foods to stab into them and he's in culinary heaven. He has also discovered an unexpected love for tinned tomatoes, which is great as they contain a lot of vitamins for his young, developing body. So yesterday he had an adult-sized plate with half a tin of tomatoes to himself, two fried eggs sitting on brown toast, and various accessories for dunking purposes. He had a great time, and also ate a hell of a lot of good food for a seven-year-old!
It does annoy me a bit when people try to get their children to 'eat properly' and 'not mess with their food'. Isn't the most important thing that they just end up eating what they need to eat? Who cares if you have to make a game of it, or it all gets a bit messy? They can learn to eat like reserved Victorians at any time in their lives; I'd rather just see them have the right intake of food when they're young, and enjoy it.
Anyway, back to The Story of Sunday:
After clearing away the messy breakfast stuff, we decided to take a drive to the coast. It was a lot chillier by the sea, so after a brief play on the sand, we ventured back inland and had a walk through a lovely wooded area that also contained a large play park next to a boating lake. There were men in their 50s there with remote-controlled boats of various types, and a few families enjoying the swings and slides and assorted obstacles. Mathew made a couple of new friends (isn't it great how kids of that age will just muck in and start talking and playing together with no social embarrassments getting in the way?) and we got chatting to some other parents who were really friendly and interesting to chat to.
Once the boys were exhausted and the temperature started dropping again we heading home and I did my second stint in the kitchen to rustle up a rather splendiferous Sunday roast, of sorts. Not a big joint, and not all the trimmings, but plenty of veg and pork chops that I grilled with a dusting of herbs.
After tea, we all did our own thing for an hour and then we had a couple of fun games before bathtime for the boys (which involved making up fun stories with a toy submarine and a Pokemon). Once they were settled, Philippa and I cuddled up on the sofa and watched an episode of some drama or other that I'm not really interested in, but was happy to sit through while my wife enjoyed it.
And that was my day, and it was beautiful.

RC 23-3-26

Probably a good job it's the weekend...

There are so many weird things that seem to be bothering me at the moment. The main one is customer service, and the fact that it has almost disappeared from most companies in Britain. I'm not going to rant on about it here, and I'm sure I don't need to, as I'm sure that all of you have encountered the same lack of care and concern from companies as myself. Especially the bigger ones. The national ones. The ones that have so many millions of customers, providing them with so many millions in profits, that they couldn't care less if a few hundred of them are being treating badly, or even illegally.
But, as I said, I don't want to rant on about it here. It's just indicative of a mindset I seem to have this week, where I am simultaneously enjoying the lovely moments and hating the general vibe of life.
I think I need to rest up and get some proper sleep, that would help. I have to admit that I've been settling down later and later, despite going to bed earlier and earlier. Not down to insomnia currently, but down to me getting into the daily habit of thinking, "I'll have a quick 10-minute game on my phone and then I'll go to sleep," despite knowing that I'm likely to still be indulging well after 1am. Whoever it was that invented the game 'Balatro' I think they need to be ashamed of themselves. That bloody thing is brilliant, and hateful, and the fact that they made a mobile version that I can play on my phone (in bed) is destroying me...

RC 20-3-26

What's Going On With Me?

I seem to be having a week of really appreciating people, as today I am feeling rather blessed to be working with the team that I have the pleasure to call my colleagues. Not all of them, obviously, there will always be a couple of bad apples in every barrel of beauty, but generally speaking, for the most part, I work with some lovely, genuine people and we all get on very well indeed. Again, as with my comments about Philippa earlier this week, there has been no particular catalyst for all this sentimentality, I'm just looking around me and seeing a surrounding cast of characters that I am delighted to have in my life.
And this feels really rather unlike me.
I'm starting to worry that I'm imminently about to suffer a brain haemorrhage or some kind of catastrophic cardiac incident, as I remember reading an article or two about people undergoing weird changes in personality or thought patterns shortly before their body is shocked by a huge medical incident. So that's something I can look forward to...

RC 19-3-26

Notes

I'm off to another open mic music night thingy tonight, this time with Gavin in tow. The plan to run our own similar event is still out there, awaiting his approval. Having shown a great deal of enthusiasm at the initial suggestion, he is now floundering in management mode and trying to find ways to torpedo it completely, or at least put his own spin on it, so he can claim it was his idea all along. I've persuaded him to come along and experience an evening for himself, so I can show him the lovely supportive atmosphere that can be created and the lovely sense of community that we might be able to recreate, therefore increasing our footfall of local punters into our venues.
The down side, of course, is that I have to spend some time with him away from work...

RC 18-3-26

corny

Is it pathetic to say that I feel like I have fallen in love all over again, even though I've been with my wife for well over a decade?
I'm not even sure why my feelings seem to have deepened; nothing in particular has happened. I just feel like I have a greater appreciation of her every time I look at her, and my heart swells with love and pride, and my tummy does little flips as if I've only just noticed her for the first time. Maybe it's the onset of Spring - animals all over the place are losing their minds and losing control of their bodies as the need to procreate takes precedence. We are, deep down, still simple creatures (especially men) so I suppose those natural urges still dwell within all of us and can be influenced by the seasons.
But I don't think it is that. I think I just landed with someone ridiculously out of my league and every so often I really appreciate it, and her.

RC 17-3-26

odd things

I realised this morning that the Winter Paralympics have gone by without me watching a single second of it. I don't know what that tells you about me, and the lack of broadcasting coverage, but I found it disappointing and so thought I would mention it.

For some reason, over the weekend, I dug out my harmonica and had a little play with it. I didn't sound good (not surprisingly after never really getting the hang of it, and then leaving it in a drawer for years) but Mathew became very, very interested very, very quickly. Cue an evening of loud blasts on a mouth organ from a 7-year-old with no real musical ability, whose enthusiasm far outweighed his ability, resulting in a rather unhappy Philippa and a lot of unpleasant words aimed in my direction. Personally, I think we should encourage musical expression in our children and allow them space and time in the home to practice; but maybe that should only be applied after a few lessons, and with a less grating instrument.

I have been watching an old 1990s drama called "State of Play" that is available to view on the Channel 4 website. A 6-part series, written by the marvellous Paul Abbott, and starring a cast featuring such acting luminaries as Bill Nighy, James McAvoy, Kelly MacDonald, John Simm and Philip Glenister - all huge, respected stars in later years, but all in their early careers at that point, I would think. It's just brilliant. Exploring the murky mixture of politics, media and law enforcement, it cracks along at a brilliant pace and catches you out several times each episode with twists and turns and unexpected developments. And it's only 6 episodes long! And they're all an hour in length! No stretching out of the story to fill more space on streaming sites, no unnecessary filler to appease advertisers or egotistical actors, and no CGI! A welcome look back at the way TV used to be, when Britain was good at it. And probably the last decent thing that Channel 4 produced, when you look at the shite they peddle on us these days.

I'm enjoying it immensely, and please don't tell me the end, because I haven't got there yet...

RC 16-3-26

FATE (a poem)

A pretty dancer, gliding, calm
beholds a waiter, cannot hide
Beguiled by unspoken charm
They drift together, as the tide

They do not know the outside force
that seems to drive them, one to one
but now their lives unfold on course
before they met, it had begun

Drawn beside him, lost in thought
a simple comment leaves her lips
A silent smile, a moment caught
they crash and cave like unmanned ships

Inside, a new connection made
eternal, certain, all entwined
No matter how the game was played
now both shall leave it all behind

In time, in love, in truth, it grows
though neither seems to guide nor steer
like water through the landscape flows
their paths, their lives, all led to here

RC 14-3-26

Pass me the ice

Philippa practised a 'new technique' on me last night, and as a result I'm feeling like both my shoulders have been dislocated and then tied back into the sockets using cable ties. And when I say 'a new technique' I'm talking about physiotherapy, you dirty dolts, so stop imagining whatever you were imagining.
Apparently, it's good for people with problematic joints (like what my shoulder is sometimes) but I'm not sure 'good' is the word I would use to describe the after-effects. My left shoulder currently feels like it's been replaced by a tennis ball that's full of cement and surrounded by barbed wire, and that side of my neck is so tender I can't really move my head comfortably. I remember her saying at some point that the shoulder is a weird joint because the bone at the top of your arm has a head that doesn't actually properly fit the socket it's sitting in, so it's a really bad design. Not sure whether you blame God, Nature or Evolution for that one, but all I know is that yesterday I was going about my work with no issues, and now after an evening session with My Beloved I feel like 30% of my body is at no.8 on The Pain Scale and climbing rapidly.

RC 12-3-26

Time, huh?

I really can't believe that the Easter Holidays are imminent. I barely seem to have felt the first sharp breath of Winter before I'm already close to giving up my Saturdays to work again.
And speaking of 'can't believe' and the passing of time, I received a very nice card and present from the company last week, to celebrate the fact that I have been here for five years now.
FIVE YEARS!!!!!
That really can't be true, can it? But the HR lady in our office (who is also many other things, not exclusively HR) insists it is so, and a quick glance at the past content of this blogsite does indeed confirm that I left my previous place of employment at the end of February 2021.
My God, that is scary.
The surreal nature of it might be down to the fact that I started during the latter stages of The Pesky Virus. I seem to remember I couldn't even enter the office for the first few weeks of employment, and when I did, I wasn't allowed to shake hands with anyone, or be shown around every part of the site on the same day, or be maskless. Such a weird thing to think about now, and such an insane decision to enter the world of tourism at the point it was under its strictest set of guidelines since Humankind first sought a Holiday! By comparison, 2026 should be a piece of piddle. Especially now I've been reminded I have five years-worth of experience.
FIVE YEARS!!!

RC 11-3-26

Reflective (overly so?)

I have fallen into a pattern of writing very personal poems, and then deciding that I shouldn't share them with you. It feels like it's a shame, because if I wasn't doing challenges for this blog then I probably wouldn't write anything at all, and now I find myself shying away from putting my creations on the very platform that prompted them in the first place. Maybe I'm writing these ones from a different, deeper place and I'm not ready to put them online for the world to see. Or maybe they're just not very good, and there's a subconscious self-protection thing that is stopping me from exposing myself to the possibility of being laughed at (although lack of quality has never stopped me letting you see my stuff before...)
Anyway, I shall keep writing them, and keep saving them, and I'll see if I have a shift in attitude enough to get the confidence to reveal them publicly, and if I do - well I have a good store of them that can use up quite a few days of blog postings sometime in the future!

RC 10-3-26

A quick poem

Every Correspondence You Ever Receive From Every Big Company:

You have to find
a way to pay
they tell me in the letter

no sympathy
for circumstance
just threats and 'must do better'

RC 7-3-26

I don't want to get court

Gavin, my boss, being ever the man to jump on every and all trends and bandwagons that might be rolling past at any given moment, is trying to arrange a 'Padel Day' for all the management at his Suffolk sites. He, like many men his age, has apparently taken to the sport like a bee to honey and wants to drag as many of us along with him as possible. He did threaten to force us all to rip up part of each holiday centre and put padel courts in, but thankfully we came together as a group and managed to dissuade him from the expense, but our delayed punishment seems to be to have to indulge his whims and play the stupid game with him.  We're trying to put up a united front again and tell him we simply can't spare the time, with the Easter Holidays screaming towards us like a muntjac on the highway, but he seems determined to book it for an evening, which is annoying everyone even further, as we'd have to give up our spare time for this rubbish.
I've never been a fan of this 'forced fun' stuff that companies try to get you all to do together as a workforce; I've always thought the money should just be handed over as a 'thank you' bonus rather than frittered away on some shite activity that 80% of you don't even want to partake in. When you're not happy at work, having to give up yet more of your valuable hours to be with the very people that bring you misery is soul-destroying and makes you even less appreciative of your position. I'm not saying that's what's happening to me in this instance, but I've been through it before and it's put me off this stuff for life.
If you enjoy padel, Dear Gavin, then please play to your hearts content, but please leave me to spend my evenings how I choose. I barely need a manager to tell me how to do my job, I certainly don't need one to tell me how to enjoy myself.

RC 6-3-26

Let's do this, then

Keep up with the cardistry, and learn some new tricks; that's the challenge I've decided on for March. Nothing to do with how this blog is written, but that's how I'm going to spend my month. That, and enjoying the onset of longer days, warmer weather, and general advancement of beauty and wellbeingness that March brings with it on its journey.
Glorious times, and I am determined to enjoy them.

RC 5-3-26

Midweek pessimism

I found this typed on my laptop at work. I can't remember when I wrote it, or what inspired it, but I thought I might as well post it. Why leave something on a hard drive when it could be used to up my word count on a blogsite? (he said, smiling)
I can only speculate that I was struggling with predictive text, or possibly trying to come to terms with a subtle technical change that had been made to blogger or a work system or something, that was rendering me completely inept and making me feel old, useless and frustrated. I stand by some of it, even though it was probably thrown down in a fit of rage with the intention of editing it later. Or maybe I felt better after writing it, and then decided not to pollute the internet with it, in which case I am now about to crap on my former self's intentions by publishing it. Anyway, this is what I found:

"Is there profit in human work avoidance? - a thought"
Why don't the makers of software make their programs the most amazing teachers ever?
Why instead are they designed to make us all lazy?
Instead of having it say, "I think I know what you're trying to do here, so let me teach you how to do it properly" they have them say "I know what you're trying to do here, so let me do it for you".
Why?
To make us all enslaved puppets, unable to perform rudimentary tasks without succumbing to the whims of our devices? To program us as compliant, reliant servants?
I wonder where it will lead... To the wonderfully realised future evident in the movie "Wall-E" probably...

RC 4-3-26

After poetry, what now?

The lure of a new challenge for a new month is battling with my middle-aged lethargy and lack of motivation. For every thought that says, 'let's set ourselves a new target' there is one that says, 'let's just play with your sons.' I am either lazy or enthusiastic, with very little sitting in between. I imagine the idleness will win out in the end. It's easier to wallow in the ennui than it is to rise above it, and I swear that constant battle gets harder to win with each passing year of my existence. So I am far more likely to fall back into a pattern of just waffling (see this posting, and countless others before it) than I am to make an effort to achieve something.
But maybe that's for the best. When I re-read things I've scribbled before, I'm almost certain that some of the most readable ones are those that involved the least mental exertion. There are monthly reports that I write for work, and I have to scroll through them occasionally for comparison purposes, and there are times I can remember absolutely loathing the process and finding it a real bind and a real ballache, and those are the ones that sparkle.
So what do I know?
Anyway, my point is, I haven't yet decided if I'll try and write in rhyming couplets continuously, or maybe do a daily rap, or work on my languages and translate each posting into French, but the likelihood is I shall do none of them.

RC 3-3-26

One of my favourite days of the year...

Happy New Month All! And welcome to March - my favourite month of the year.
It's not too late to say that, right? We're only 48 hours or so out of February, so I think it's ok to wish you all the best of the new season, being, as we are, into meteorological Spring now. I have my own thoughts on that, but I've probably moaned about it several years running in this blogsphere, so let's not re-tread old ground. The point is, the Met Office deem March 1st as the end of Winter, so it's ok to send you my best...

Spring or not, I always get a huge psychological boost when we turn the calendar over from February. I was determined to mark the occasion, so we had a nice family walk, followed by a little fire in the garden, followed by a rather splendid (if I do say so myself) Rory-prepared Roast Dinner. The walk was interesting. It was cloudy and a bit chilly, and feeling decidedly un-seasonal, and then the sun broke out for half an hour or so and the wind disappeared and the temperature improved dramatically, and then the sky was full of cloud again. Fortunately, the sunny spell coincided with us passing a play park, so I was able to push Mathew around in a flying saucer swing until he was nearly sick, and got to push him on a zip slide, causing much parental anguish in case he fell and banged his head. But it was a joyous afternoon. And it came with the sense of hope that, if the British climate plays along, we could have many, many more sun-filled Sundays over the coming months in which to do something similar...

RC 2-3-26

We Made It To March!!!

I THINK FEB 26 WAS MY MOST POST-FILLED FEB BY FAR! 26 posts in 28 days is something to be proud of, no? Especially when a lot of them were poems, which took time to write before posting...
And speaking of poems, here's the first one of the new month:

You arrive like a longed-for guest,
the returning soldier we have pined to welcome home.
You bring a gift of hope,
a promise that brighter, longer, warmer days await,
and we will prevail.

RC 1-3-26