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Showing posts from March, 2020

Walking Dynamite...

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Sonny tell me  When you were young you had to fight  Became the champion  And you were walkin' dynamite … I’m of the thinking that everyone needs to pull together a bit and help out where they can so with this in mind I contacted the local resilience group to see if anyone needed a hand with owt. It wasn’t long before I got a urgent call to help out walking a dog for a local resident that had unfortunately to stay indoors.  Great!...I thought, chance to do my civic duty and get out and about in the fresh air with a legitimate excuse. I lost no time banging the mud off a sturdy pair of winter walking boots, stuffed my compass in a rucksack and quickly studied the topography of the local rural area on a 25000:1 hiking map. I then hurriedly left the house grabbing a sturdy stick and set off for the address with an idea that for this first hike I’d head off up towards the forest, crossing the river over the bridge and exercising the hound up the muddy tr...

Won’t get fooled again...

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Looking through the local jobs being advertised this week there seems to be a dramatic change in requests and offers of employment. Up until the last few weeks they seem to have generally only needing an odd tyre fitter, a joiners mate or a few part time gas readers on zero hours contracts. Now, indeed, I’v noticed a massive upsurge in, shall we say, ‘alternative’ employment!  It would appear that adverts are now crying out for staff to be urgently needed to cover shortages in medical 🧪 laboratories; permanent positions are available right now for needle wielding phlebotomists in many overworked health centres and a little more alarming and somewhat macabre were the desperately required ‘Casual funeral staff’ and ‘Crematorium Assistants’ on 12 week contracts!!....has someone seen the light?....maybe the future?....the vision?...the bit at the end of the film? What next?, Morrison’s advertising for burly staff, male/gender fluid/female, that are familiar with the ...

Connected...

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During this time when it’s quiet and there isn’t much going on it’s lovely when someone who feels very close to you takes the time to write. So you can imagine my delight when a lovely personal letter dropped on the e-door-mat from my very good and trusted friend, Nick Jeffrey... ...I haven’t heard from him for ages and hadn’t realised that he was such a caring, personal friend but he started his thoughtful missive with ‘Hello’ and ended it with a warm ‘Take Care’ and in it kindly thanked me for being such a great friend at this worrying time. He assured me that all will be fine and that we will get through this together. It has given me great peace of mind to know that someone really cares and is doing all he can to make not only my but also my families lives so much better...well probably a lot better than they would have been had I not bought a Pay-as-you-Go SIM card from him a few years back! So thankyou Nick, CEO of Vodafone...you really are the best friend Iv ever ha...

Panic...

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As our luxury cruise ship got permission to finally dock in the empty, sterile port of St.Ellen we were relieved to be back on terra-firma once again following our harrowing 2 hour maiden voyage of discovery, battling through the blustery high-winds and rainy, rolling swells on the nautical high seas of southern Scotland. There had been dark times indeed throughout the voyage when it seemed that Caledonian McBrae would be lost at sea as the unhappy crew were close to mutiny as the frozen chips in the canteen had to be rationed, the gravy and grog ran out and then the WiFi finally gave up and went down with all hands. The ships log reported a shortage of sick bags to the coast guard as the charts slid about under the turbulent swell....but made it to port we did! The onward journey in the hire car was just as bad, as we sped along the wild windswept narrow highway in near zero degree temperatures, the wipers on full speed battling the icy rain offering only occasional glimp...