Memories and Nostalgia

 

Sitting here writing this Blog reminded me of my school days. Oh the memories ... Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. In the old days nostalgia was thinking lovingly about the past. These days it is thinking about the cell-phone you had three months ago.  

Anyway, back to my school days. I remembered our English teacher Percy Veer. That's what we called him because of his patience with us. He once told me, "Your grammar stinks!" I told my dad about it. He asked, "Which grandma? Because my Mom smells of lavender!" 

We also had an English Literature teacher. He was called William after his namesake William Shatner from Star Trek. His name was William Mozart.

Our music teacher had an appropriate name too; Johann Sebastian Shakespeare. He had an authentic antique violin made by Rembrandt. He brought it to school and it sounded awful. Just like a pregnant cat vomiting an elephant. He also claimed to have a painting by Stradivarius. Unfortunately, Stradivarius could not paint; and Rembrandt was very bad at making violins.

We had a teacher called Athena who taught us Greek Mythology. I was not good at this subject. It was my Achilles Heel. All I remember is a poem we made as kids:  

There once was a goddess called Aphrodite

Who wore a pink see-through nightie

And the closer you looked

It was clear you were hooked

By her curves which were certainly all-righty.

I hated sports at school. There was a boy called Harry Bean who ran very fast and won all the races. We called him Haricot Bean, or Runner Bean. 

I also hated woodwork. My teacher said I was only good at turning wood into saw dust.

I did not excel at anything. I had failure written all over me from that early age. The other kids did it with their Biro pens. 

One teacher predicted that I'll go down in history. Also math, geography, science and artwork. He was wrong. I did not attend the artwork exam because I was not well that day. My absence increased the overall class average score by 30%.

I always wanted to be on stage performing something. Our drama teacher said that when I sing I disturb wildlife for miles around. He suggested I just mime the words. Once I missed rehearsals and everyone thought the piano had been tuned. 

All in all, not much of a success from early on in my life. True, nostalgia is not always a fond thing.

Now I am thinking of KFC.

À la recherche du temps perdu.

 

 

À la recherche du temps perdu. In Search of Lost Time 

by Marcel Proust

In his book, À la recherche du temps perdu, the writer invokes memories from the past by eating a Madeleine cake. Oddly enough, this happened to me the other day when I suddenly remembered Black Bun. It suddenly came to mind and took me back to my many visits to Scotland.

For those refined readers of mine who do not know what Black Bun is, let me explain. It is a rich Scottish fruitcake which is encased in pastry and then cooked. It is a particular delicacy up North on Hogmanay; and other celebratory occasions. You prepare the pastry first then fill it with the fruitcake ingredients and bake.

Normally the final product looks like a brick. I remember a nameless mother-in-law relative who made it so hard that I took my cake out and threw it at the ducks in the pond to eat. They threw it back at me. I threw it back in the water and eventually it broke up for them to eat. You should have heard them breaking wind all the way home. Have you ever seen a flying duck breaking wind? It leaves a trail of smoke behind it.

Anyway, such memories for some unconnected reason, took me to the day when my auntie's goldfish died. She was proud of that goldfish and always pointed it out to me when I visited her. She called him Rover. One day she went out to the shop nearby and left me at home alone. I accidentally dropped the side light into the fish tank and electrocuted Rover. I fixed the light OK and it worked properly; but Rover was never the same again. I quickly went to the kitchen where I knew she had some carrots. I sliced one all along its length and shaped it like a fish the size of Rover and put it in the tank leaning beside some water plant she had there. Then I flushed Rover down the toilet.

When she returned, I finished my tea and cake quickly and bid her goodbye. She never mentioned it to me. She probably thought he died a natural death. Drowned most probably!

Amazing how thinking of Proust led me to all these memories. I was quite well-read at school you know. The other children wrote all over me with their Biros. One day in Science lesson I meant to write on the blackboard that an octopus has eight tentacles. But I miss-spelt tentacles and the teacher was very upset and she sent me to the headmaster. He did not know how to write it either.

I remember when one day my English teacher said to me "Your grammar stinks!"

I was upset since my grandma always smelled of lavender.

I told my father what the teacher had said and he asked "Which grand-mother?"

He wrote a letter of complaint.

My teacher replied that she had never commented on, nor would she ever presume to comment on, my family's body odour!

On reading her letter my father gave me a clip round the ears and then wrote again to the teacher apologising for the misunderstanding.

On reading my father's letter the teacher gave me detention after school.

On the Saturday I went to Confession. Our church had an old fashioned confessional which was a wooden booth where the priest sat and the penitents would kneel on either side and confess through a small window.

I told the priest all that had happened. He said "Don't speak so loud I can smell your grandmother kneeling on my other side!" Although he did not specify which grandma he could smell.

Then he gave me an extra penance for speaking loudly and for drawing attention to old peoples' body odour. Which technically I had not done because it was not me who started all this; it was my English teacher who said "Your grammar stinks!"

I think the church got this whole question of confession and absolution wrong somehow. I got a penance for my teacher's sin!

Moral: So did Jesus.

Are you one of those people who click on blue links?

DISCLAIMER - No ducks or goldfish have been harmed in the writing of this Post. This article has been written to test whether you will click on the blue link above. Go on ... you know you want to.

That's the way it was ...

Before I was born my parents had a dog named Victor. Then some time later, when I was born I was named Victor too - that's Victor too not Victor 2. 

Whenever my parents called me the dog would bark. So I learnt to do the same. My first words as a baby were "Woof Woof".

I got all the attention, of course. The dog got very jealous. So my parents had to make a very difficult decision. They put me out for adoption.

The dog got all morose and sad with me not being there. He used to like playing with me in the garden fetching the ball. So my parents tried to get me back for the sake of the dog. But the people who adopted me did not want to let me go. They loved me so much. So my parents bought them a dog and got me back.

Once back home we used to eat together, my dog and I. I preferred the dry pellets to tinned dog food; even though it said on the tin "improved taste." I wonder who tests the food to ensure it is improved taste?

I just loved the dog pellets instead. Apparently they have all the necessary nutrients and vitamins one needs, and are cheaper than baby food. I had them until I was in my early twenties; by then the dog had long departed. But I liked the taste and carried on with the dog pellets for energy and a lovely shiny coat. 

Then suddenly, one day, the food intake landed me in hospital. I stepped off the curb to sniff a poodle's butt and a car hit me!

That's when I stopped eating dog food and changed my diet to cat food instead.

I think naming me after a dog has affected my life. People should be careful when naming a dog. 

I once named a dog of mine Shark. It was a bad idea when he ran off his lead on the beach.

An old neighbour I once knew must have had a dog. He named him "Help!" I think.

I remember him shouting in his back garden "Help! Help!" Eventually, he must have found him because he stopped calling. The next morning, whilst I was out buying a newspaper, I saw an ambulance outside the old man's house. I wondered why the ambulance was there but never found out.

So think carefully before naming your pet. We once had a dog called Sugar. It dissolved a little every time we washed him.

What is your pet called?

My childhood gifts

 

Often my memories drift back to my childhood and the many Christmases and birthdays we had with our family and siblings. The lovely memories come rushing back and I smile with nostalgia and a sigh or two.

Personally, I don't like Nostalgia, whoever she is. Never met her but old people around me always seem to mention her in conversation. The other day an old aunt of mine, sitting by the fire, said "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be!" So I took the bottle of whisky from her, and the blanket that covered her, and went to another room to watch TV. That'll give her something to remember!

Anyway, back to my memories ... this is my Blog after all. Let my aunt get her own Blog and nostalge on it as much as she wants.

I remember as a child I used to love playing hide-and-seek with my siblings and parents too who used to join in. We used to go out in the garden, I would lean against a tree and close my eyes and count to 100; and then I would look for my parents and siblings. I would search for them in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and even London. They were very good at hiding from me.

Sometimes I would get home from school and find out my parents had sold it. What fun that was. When I eventually found them I could see from the grin on their faces that my family loved seeing me again. They often suggested widening the area of search to the whole of Europe and beyond.

As a child, I was not a demanding kid at all. Apart from the odd piece of bread, I sometimes asked for presents to mark the occasion of Christmas or my birthday. As a joke my parents used to say that I was not born as such; but dropped from the clutches of a tired stork which had picked me up thinking I was a bundle of old clothing. One year, to avoid buying me presents, they told me that Santa died in a sleigh accident.
 
Because of their love for me my parents often bought me books for my birthdays and at Christmas. Books like how to maintain and fix a car, how to unblock the drains, clean the chimney and so on. Dad used to say that they were practical and would be useful should they need me to do these jobs around the house.

In my innocence I liked such educational books and knew that they could be very useful in life. For instance, the Encyclopaedia Britannica set I was given one year proved very valuable for many years. I soon discovered that by putting two volumes on top of each other I could easily reach the cookies jar. I then put the books back on their shelf and my parents never worked out how the jar of cookies got a little emptier day by day. 

I also used to read the books given to my siblings on their birthdays and Christmas. The thing is, I took the books I read quite seriously and quite literally. Take Jack and the Beanstalk for instance. I always worried what would have happened if Jack ate the magical beans and they grew big inside him. Would they grow so big that the beanstalk would come out of his bottom and raise him up to the sky like an elevator? And where did the giant live exactly? Up in the sky? Was it another world up there?

And how did the goose come to lay golden eggs? Did it happen all of a sudden or did she always lay golden eggs? What if you fed her chocolates? Would she lay chocolate eggs all year round or just at Easter?

And why did the three little pigs have to build a house of straw, and sticks and bricks? Could they not afford a good mortgage from the bank? And why did the surveyor and architect not warn them that a straw and a sticks house would not withstand the huffing and puffing of the wolf? They were probably badly advised by their accountants.

And was it the same wolf that ate Little Red Riding Hood's Grandma? Riding Hood must have been very short-sighted not to recognise the wolf in Grandma's clothing. Perhaps she should have visited an optician. 

As for Goldilocks! She should have been arrested for entering a house that does not belong to her.

So, as you can tell, I took all these stories seriously and believed what I read. I used to ask my parents all these questions that crossed my mind. They used to smile and suggest we go outside and play hide-and-seek.
 
One year I asked my parents for a real live unicorn for a birthday present. I'd read about it in a book, and now I wanted one. They tried to convince me that there are no such things as a real unicorn. I argued that if that was the case, then the writer of the book would not have written about them. Perhaps he should be prosecuted for misrepresentation of the facts. Anyway, I still insisted on having a unicorn.

To satisfy my young desires, a friend of my parents brought in a horse on which he had stuck a large carrot on his head. To me, this was a real unicorn. Oh, I was so happy to be the only one in the world with a real unicorn.

My parents had nowhere to keep him. So he was kept at a nearby farm and I visited him every day for a week.

Sadly, one day the other horses he was with ate the carrot off his head. 

When I saw this I was distraught to find my unicorn had lost his horn. I was beside myself with grief. Which is quite an act considering there was only one of me. Have you ever been beside yourself? If so, who else was beside you at the time?

My parents had no explanation to offer about the lack of horn on the unicorn - lack of imagination I suppose. The friend who had brought the horse in the first place explained that in modern times unicorns have edible horns. So it was quite normal for the other horses to eat my unicorn's horn. 

I think I almost quite believed this. But I'm not sure though. What do you think? Are unicorn's horns edible or not?

Memories

 

My Blogging friend Jack wrote the other day about memories from his past and things he had done. I suppose we all do this from time to time. We sit back and reminisce about the past, what we did or did not do, and whether we did the right thing.

I was thinking about my past the other day. I remember the first day I met my wife at a glue factory where we worked. We bonded immediately. I was at my desk and I made a pencil with two erasers. It was pointless. I wrote her a poem:

I dig

You dig

He digs

She digs

We dig 

They dig

It's not a long poem. But it's deep.

I then left the glue factory and got another job. I told her I work with animals. She was so happy because she loves animals. She asked me what I do, and I told her I was a butcher. This upset her for some unknown reason. I do actually love animals. I spent a fortune on sick animals over the years. Horses and dogs mainly. Mind you, I did not know they were sick before the race began. 

When we got married I bought her a fridge as a wedding present. I couldn't wait to see her face light up when she opened it.

Marriage has not always been plain sailing. I remember when she left me to go to her Mom because of my depression. That cheered me up. As I said ... not plain sailing. There was the time when the washing machine broke down; that was fifty shirts of grey!

Her father always used to say, "as one door closes another one opens!" He was a terrible cabinet maker. Another of his famous sayings was "take everything with a pinch of salt". Mind you, he made a horrible cup of tea. He was always inventing or repeating catchphrases, like "always fight fire with fire", which explains why he was thrown out from the fire brigade. 

One day he advised me, "never, ever take advice from anyone!" So I ignored him. He told me that in life there are two words which will open any doors for me - "PULL" and "PUSH". 

On his death bed he saw me eating the last cookie in the plate beside him. He called me closer to him with his finger and whispered in my ear "selfish". That's how I became a fishmonger.

I also remember years ago I had a lovely little dog. I had trained him to juggle and bounce a ball on his head. But he only did it on the radio program I presented at the time. He would not do it on TV because his agent forbade it on account that you could see the ball was suspended from the ceiling with a piece of string. That dog was also a ventriloquist. I would hold a little dog puppet in my hand and the dog would do all the noises when I spoke to it. Again, only on the radio. It was an old dog. Which goes to show that you are never too old to learn something stupid.

Oh memories ... I recall when I lived in London I had nice Italian neighbours. They were an elderly couple who, although they had been in the UK for many years, they had still to master the language. They spoke in broken English and had difficulty expressing themselves; even though their children and grandchildren were fluent in English and Italian. I did not tell this couple that I spoke Italian. I always conversed with them in English which of course took longer for us to understand each other.

One day, in sheer desperation, I spoke to them in Italian. They were astounded that I could speak their language. I said, "I waited so long for you to learn English I thought it would be quicker for me to learn Italian overnight!" 

Anyway, that's enough reminiscing for one day. What can you remember from your past?

The thoughts that come to mind.

 

I often sit down and just think. Better than thinking standing up. My thoughts fall down to my feet when I'm standing up.

I think about the good old days. They were neither good nor old. I was young at the time. I remember being raised in poverty. It was a town next to misery and despair.

Our house was always cold and damp. We had a permanent rainbow in the kitchen. The house was so small that even the mice were hunch-backed. There was no room to swing a cat. We had to do it outdoors. Despite our poverty we believed in nature and saving the environment. We used natural things where we could. For example, we tied a dead hedgehog to a stick and used it as a toilet brush.

My teacher at school told me once, "Some day you'll go far ... and I hope you stay there!" I was bad at Math. If I had 50 cents for every failed Math exam I would now have $4.27.

As a young man I was always ambitious. I once entered the world kleptomaniac championships. I took gold, silver and bronze.

I wanted to make it good in life. Never succeeded. I wanted to have a girl-friend and get married. I did not realise that marriage is a very expensive way to get your laundry done free.

My girl-friend at the time told me I should be more affectionate. So I got myself two girl-friends. Neither of them liked that!

Honestly ... women ... I'll never understand them. My girl-friend liked chocolates, like many women do. She also liked shoes. Always buying shoes. She dropped many hints for her birthday. So I bought her a pair of shoes made of chocolate.

Eventually I married Miss Right. I did not know at the time her first name was Always.

My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way. I was so hungry I ate a clock yesterday. It was time consuming. 

She has just called me pretentious about this last joke. I was so surprised that my monocle fell off. 

I hate it when people act so intellectual and talk knowledgeably about Mozart when they haven't seen even one of his paintings. 

For our honeymoon we went to Paris. I tried to climb a really tall tower; but Eiffel off! 

Good joke hein? Don't you hate it when people always answer their own questions? I do!

My wife and I laughed at this last joke. We often laugh at how competitive we both are. But I laughed more!

Memories ...

 

While on a road trip, an elderly couple stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant, and resumed their trip.

When leaving, the elderly woman unknowingly left her glasses on the table, and she didn't miss them until they had been driving for about forty minutes.

By then, to add to the aggravation, they had to travel quite a distance before they could find a place to turnaround, in order to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.

All the way back, the elderly husband became the classic grumpy old man. He fussed and complained, and scolded his wife relentlessly during the entire return drive.

The more he chided her, the more agitated he became. He just wouldn't let up for a single minute. To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant.

As the woman got out of the car, and hurried inside to retrieve her glasses, the old geezer yelled to her, "While you're in there, you might as well get my hat and the credit card".

*******

You don't have to be old to be forgetful. I remember years ago my wife and I went to France. It wasn't until I got back home that I realised I'd left her in Paris. I must admit, once or twice during the return journey I had wondered why it was unusually quiet.  

Memories

 

I don't know why sometimes our thoughts turn to times gone by when we were young and the world was a totally different place. 

I was lying in bed the other day thinking back to when I was younger. I used to like it so when my parents used to read to me before I got to sleep. Books like, "Algorithms and Logarithms", "Trigonometry for Beginners", "Teach Yourself Genealogy In Three Generations" and such other subjects. I remember I was 18 at the time, and this went on until I was 21.

Then my parents suggested it was time I left home. They said they needed my room to store dad's motorbike. It must have been difficult for him carrying the bike up and down the stairs every day; especially since my room was in the attic.

Anyway, by coincidence, that's when I found a job in London. So I moved out of home and lived in an apartment there. My first job was at a veterinary practice. I had to chew hay for a horse with no teeth. I also had to taste various dog foods for dogs on a special diet.

I then left that job and worked for one of those Vehicle Rescue Services - you know, if your car stops they come out to fix it. I was an assistant to one of their mechanics. One day as he was answering a call he started crying. I thought he was heading for a breakdown!

I then worked for a freelance scientist. He had his own lab and hoped to invent things and solve every day problems. For example: If buttered toast always lands butter side down, and cats always land on their feet; what would happen if you tie a buttered toast to a cat?

He also invented an instant laxative. But that did not sell either. 

I then worked at a Job Centre. I lasted a week and then got fired. I returned the next day to ask them for a job. They had a new manager and I got hired again.

I applied for a job as a statistician and told them I was willing to give 110%. They did not give me the job on account I could not count.

I then worked for an Australian psychiatrist who had just opened a practice in London. His chat with his patients was always the same, "Gday ..., Gday ... How ye doing? No worries. Too easy. Next!"

He always gave his patients a boomerang as they left to ensure they returned. 

My job at the practice was answering the phone; but it was never for me.

Then I got a job in a shipyard welding large pieces of sheet metal together. It was riveting.

A while later I quit my job at the helium gas factory because I didn't like being spoken to in that voice.

What are your memories of jobs you have done?

Memories

 

I was thinking the other night as I hung upside down from my hammock. I always do my thinking at that time, and then it dawned on me ... it was morning once again. I realised that although I was upside down, as I opened my eyes, I could see the door, the walls, and the room exactly as they are; not upside down. Why is that?

Then another thought struck me as I fell to the ground. 

When I'm sitting on the couch watching TV I see the picture perfectly - for example, a newsreader talking to me. 

If I were to lean sideways horizontal on the couch, the TV does not turn sideways too. The picture  remains the same and my eyes still see the newsreader straight way up. Why is that? 

If I were to take a photo with a camera and then move the camera horizontally (90 degrees) the second photo would be sideways; but this does not happen when I lean sideways myself. Maybe my eyes are turning sideways instead!

And then I thought some more. Do things happen as we see them, or do they happen one way and we see them differently?

For example, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to see it, does it remain upright?

When a chicken lays an egg, does it come out the pointy way out or the large way out?

I've always wondered which came first, so I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon ... I'll let you know!

Then my mind wandered a little further back to my childhood. We used to love playing hide-and-seek in the woods with friends. We used to tie a dead squirrel to someone's leg and then try to find him by smell alone.

I became very good at it. I could even smell round corners. I developed stereophonic 3D sense of smell. I could pin-point at someone in the elevator and say, "it was you!"

Breaking wind in an elevator is wrong on so many levels.

As a young man in my twenties I got involved in helping at Church. Every Saturday, in the big hall, we held Bingo games to raise money for charity. I used to call the numbers in Latin to make sure only the Catholics won. One day, I got this feeling in my soul that this was all wrong and Jesus would not be happy. So I had to learn Aramaic instead. Is that the language Jesus spoke?

Things must have been very different those days. Not like now. My wife brought me a cup of tea and I wondered. What did they drink in Jesus' time? They did not have tea, or coffee or hot chocolate. Maybe it was boiled fish water. Must have tasted awful; unless they added milk and honey. Or is that in the Old Testament?

By the way, did you know I met my wife on the net? We were both bad trapeze artists!

She liked spiders. She collected them like pets. So I went to a pet shop and tried to buy her one. It cost £50. Can you imagine? £50? So I got one cheaper from the web.

Anyway, enough thinking for now. I think I hurt my head when I fell off the hammock. My wife did not like us having a hammock in the bedroom. So I bought her a trampoline instead ... she hit the roof.

Memories of Edinburgh

 

PRINCES STREET - EDINBURGH

Princes Street is the main shopping street in Edinburgh. In the forefront you can see Princes Street Gardens and in the background, right up the hill overlooking the city, is Edinburgh Castle. 

There was a program about Edinburgh on TV and it set me thinking back to the times I was there. 

It's funny how sometimes, a photo, or a piece of music, a smell even, can take your mind back to times gone by, to your childhood even, and the memories come flooding by.

I was in the garden telling our tortoise about my childhood the other day. It sat there listening, or sleeping. I don't know which.

I had a happy childhood. We were not very rich. You know, we did well though. Do you remember hand-me-downs? Did you have that when you were young? Parents would pass on good clothing from their elder children to the younger ones. The old child would have grown out of the clothing and instead of giving them to charity you would pass them to a younger child.

I hated going to school in a dress. Worse still, having the name Helen embroidered on my blouses.

To stop being bullied I learnt self-defence. A cousin taught me karate. I got very good at breaking a brick by hitting it with my hand. You had to concentrate, shout "Hiiaaah!!!" and hit the brick hard with your hand in a chopping motion. 

One day on my way home from school the bully attacked me. He beat me up and did not give me a chance to use my karate skills. As I lay there on the ground bleeding from cuts in my face, I saw a brick. There was the opportunity to get my own back on the bully. He'd never expect that. I got up. Shouted "Hiiaaah!" and broke the brick in two.

I persevered with my karate lessons. Also, in the evenings I went to wood-working class. I wanted to be a carpenter.

I became very very good at karate. I was confident of being able to defend myself. One day on my way home I met the same bully. Now was my chance to really defeat him. I offered to build him some shelves. We became friends after that.

I also remembered, and told the tortoise, about my interest in magic as a child. I wanted to be a magician. A neighbour of ours was a part-time magician. He came to our house and taught me tricks. He tried to teach me how to make a rabbit appear out of a hat. We didn't have a rabbit, so he used one of the newly-born kittens instead. Unfortunately, he was allergic to cats and his hands swelled up. That was a trick in itself!

Days later, when he healed, he came back to teach me the same trick. He did not use any of the kittens.

Have you ever tried to get an Alsatian out of a hat? Our dog bit him!

He tried a ventriloquist act with a parrot on his shoulder. He would talk and the parrot would respond; not for real - ventriloquist like!

Unfortunately, the parrot bit his ear and would not let go!

I gave up learning magic. And karate. And wood-work.

But it was a very happy childhood. Great memories.

Which brings me back to Edinburgh. You often see bagpipers playing various Scottish tunes on Princes Street. They wear their full costume with kilt and so on and they play the bagpipes. People put money in a box by their feet.

I was in a hotel on Princes Street. Very expensive! I was really tired from the night before and wanted to just lay in bed. It was ten in the morning and the bagpiper in the street below started playing. Great as the sound of bagpipes is, you don't always welcome it. I tried to cover my head with the pillow. I could still hear him.

In sheer desperation, I got up, got dressed and went down to confront him.

"Tell me my good man," I said, "how much roughly do you make in an hour playing here?"

"On a good day," he replied, "about £15!"

"Here's £30. Can you now shut up and let me sleep?" I said.

As I was saying ...

 

As I was saying before I interrupted myself ... ah yes ... I remember now ... I was talking to a friend in the street and he said he has been very busy lately. He has been working non-stop for three weeks. Personally, I think exaggerations have gone up by a million percent lately. Everyone is exaggerating and telling fibs. Not me ... I have never lied in all of my life. He told me he is hoping to start on a new diet soon to lose weight; but right now he had too much on his plate.

I think people should be careful with what they say, don't you? Words can be so easily misunderstood, it seems. At a Wedding Party recently our priest said publicly, "Marriage is such a Holy institution. Let us bless all married couples. All married people here please stand next to the one who has made your life worth living."

The bartender was almost crushed to death! 

Yesterday I went to our local bookshop and asked the woman for a book about turtles. She said, "hardback?" I replied, "yes with a little head that pokes through!"

Whilst there I also bought a book about fixing things myself around the house. It's cheaper than calling in plumbers, painters, decorators and the like. My wife thinks that I am absolutely hopeless at fixing electrical appliances. Let me tell you, she is in for a shock!

I was reading in the newspapers about two thieves who stole a calendar from a bookshop. They both got six months. On a similar vein, a prison van collided with a lorry full of mixed concrete. The police are looking for some hardened criminals.

An odd thing happened this morning. I received an envelope full of rice. It was from uncle Ben. It said on the packet, "take one sachet and stand in boiling water for two minutes". I did that and burnt my feet.

He means well, my uncle Ben. He is an amateur philosopher. He is very old and has spent his life searching for the meaning of life. Now he is searching for his car keys.

He asked me if I could interpret dreams. He dreamt that he was cutting carrots with the Grim Reaper. I told him he was dicing with death. 

A colleague at work is very annoyed with his Insurance Company. He is an atheist and the Insurance Company will not insure him against "acts of God!"

There isn't much good on TV these days. Only dust. The other day I watched a program about how they kept ships together. Riveting!

Last night my wife and I watched three DVDs back to back. Luckily I was the one facing the TV.

CLICK HERE

 

 

À la recherche du temps perdu

À la recherche du temps perdu. In Search of Lost Time 

by Marcel Proust

 

I guess this is a much abbreviated version by yours truly, which is much more personal and poignant. Although I must admit I don't know what poignant means. I just use such words sometimes to give my writings a certain je ne sais quoi. I don't know what that means either. Let me look both up in the dictionary.

 

As I was saying, there are times when our thoughts take us back to times gone by when we were young, and foolish perhaps, and life was so different and simpler than it is now. Such an occasion occurred recently when I was alone at home and I had lost a goldfish. I counted the ones in the pond in the garden and realised that one was missing - I think it was the gold and white one. 

 

How did that happen? I hear you ask. Oddly enough, I asked the same question to no one there. And no one heard at all. Not even the chair. Or Neil Diamond for that matter. (Guess the name of the song!)

 

After a search all over the house for the missing goldfish I eventually gave up and sat down totally exhausted. They say when you lose something it is always in the last place you look. Obvious really. Because when you find it in the last place, you just stop looking. Unless you decide to start looking for something else. A bit like hide-and-seek really.

I used to like playing hide-and-seek with my parents as a child. I used to close my eyes and count to 100 then look for them all over Europe. On one occasion they went to Australia to run away from me.

 

Whilst searching for the missing goldfish; the last place I looked was in the fridge, and he was not there. So I took a few cans of beer and sat down thinking.

 

My eyes caught an article in an open magazine on the table beside me. It read, "10 Things You Must Do before You Die". Oddly enough, "Yell for help!" wasn't one of them. I did nine of these things and then stopped because I did not want to tempt fate.

 

As we get older we must look after our health more. Last week when I visited the doctor he told me my sugar was too high; so I brought it down to a lower shelf. When I was in the doctor's insulting room I found a pen on the floor. I picked it up and asked him, "is this pen yours?" He said, "I don't know," then he took it and wrote a few words and said, "yes, it is definitely mine!"

 

"How do you know?" I asked.

 

He replied, "this is my handwriting!"

 

Whilst I was there, he tried to test my mental acuity. I did not know what "acuity" meant so I looked it up in my pocket dictionary. That didn't help. It was an Italian dictionary.

 

He asked me, "What do Alexander The Great and Winnie The Pooh have in common?" 

 

I answered, "their middle name!"

 

He wrote that down and then asked, "What do you get if you're in the North Pole and you sit on the ice for too long?"

 

I replied, "Polaroids!"

 

He wrote some more and asked, "do you ever wake up grumpy in the morning?"

 

I said, "not really ... I just let her sleep!"

 

He scribbled something in his notebook and then asked, "what would you do if a small child swallowed your front door key?"

 

I replied, "climb through the window!"

 

He scribbled something again and said nothing. I became concerned. I mumbled, "Doctor ... do you have any books on paranoia?"

 

He smiled and said, "they're right behind you!!!"

 

That made me feel worse. Was I being followed?

 

Whilst I was at the doctor's my wife rang. She said the car was not working because there was water in the engine. I was surprised she knew so much about technical matters, and said I'd pick her up. I asked her, "where is the car?"

 

She said, "in the river!"

 

She was very sad because that very day her sister rang her to say her husband left her. Apparently, he said he was going out to buy some milk and never returned. I asked my wife, "how is your sister coping?" 

 

She replied, "she's using powdered milk!"

 

Anyway, I sat there at home with my cans of beer reminiscing. I remembered that we were very poor in my childhood. I used to lie back in my bed at night and look at the stars and think to myself, "one day, I'll get that hole in the roof fixed when I can afford it."

We were very poor indeed. But even in our poverty we helped others. I recall once a beggar knocked on our door and my mom gave him some of our food to eat. The next day he gave her a book on how to cook!

 

Lots of people were poor in those days. I remember once at the shops an old lady at the till had all her shopping accounted for and it totalled £35.72

 

She did not have enough money to pay for her shopping. Although I was poor too I helped her out. She didn't want my help but I insisted and in no time we had put all her shopping back on the shelves. 

 

I remembered that day well. Because on my way back home I saw my neighbour walking two dogs. I said, "I didn't know you had dogs!" She replied, "they are not my dogs, they are my sisters'." 

 

I said, "your sisters are very ugly!" She slapped my face.

 

I liked music when I was young. Most people do, I suppose. I loved the song "Non, Je ne regrette rien" sung originally by Edith Piaf, and later by Mireille Mathieu. I wanted a tattoo of the lyrics but the tattooist declined because he could not speak French. 

 

So I got a tattoo of a potato smoking a pipe instead. He did it with a Biro pen and it washed off after a week.   

 

Anyway, back to where I started. À la recherche du temps perdu. In Search of Lost Time. 

 

Often, we spend time searching back into our memories for times gone by. But the real work starts now. 

 

Today.

 

Make yourself happy memories every day. They will sustain you in future when you look back and you go for a recherche du temps perdu. 

Memories.

I visited an elderly lady today.

She said: “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be … when I was young we used to think back about holidays by the sea, walks in the countryside, and all the simple clean fun we had when we were kids. Now it’s all computer games, DVDs, and confounded gadgets which people don’t really need. Pretty soon they’ll need a satellite navigation system to find the toilet in their own homes!”

The elderly can sometimes dispense wisdom which escapes most of us most of the time. But I suppose there’s a hidden message in what that lady said.

How we live and what we do today, will soon become our memories as we grow older and look back on our youth.

Just imagine a few years from now. As you look back on today, will you remember a happy or a sad time?

So you also now have sorrow; but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be glad, and your gladness no one will take away from you. John 16:22.

Enjoy Life.

Today I took the car for its annual maintenance service. As it was a beautiful, warm sunny day, I decided to leave the car at the service garage and walk the couple of miles or so home. They’d phone me later when the car is ready for collection.

As I walked slowly down the hill I took time to gaze at the many houses in the street on my way home.

Some were big and modern, others more compact and a few years older. I stopped every so often and looked pensively at the gardens and mentally gave each garden points on how it was maintained and looked after.

There was a garden full of lavender which attracted several bees – it smelled wonderful. In another garden I saw a bird with a small twig in its beak – no doubt building a nest somewhere. I really enjoyed myself on my way back home.

I realized that although I had driven up and down this hill for years I never noticed the beautiful houses and their gardens. You miss so much when you’re in a hurry and concentrating on something else.

Just like life really. We’re so busy these days just to keep up with living that perhaps we forget to live.

There’s so much that God has placed on this earth for us to enjoy and we just ignore them in pursuit of our individual lifestyles.