My Dad

Sad sad news, I'm afraid.

My Dad passed away last Friday 27th, in bed, in the early hours. He'd had heart trouble for years. It wasn't going to be if or how, but when, and when turned out to be last Friday. My Mum, my brother and I have been making the necessary arrangements, quite busy, not too much time to dwell, but I know that there'll be plenty of time to dwell soon enough.

Feel OK at the moment but I am nervously suspicious of this tension I'm feeling; seemingly taking it in my stride and yet sensing a deep malaise that threatens to rise up and grab me, like a creature lurking in the deep.

We will see.

Rain, bring it on!

Played golf with my good friend Obr (not his real name but it is an anagram...) at the Rosebowl yesterday and the good Lord chose our round to make up for any recent paucity in rainfall in Hampshire. Oh yes indeed! It was heartening for me to find that, in my dotage, I have not become a "fair weather golfer" but retain the joy of playing even in weather like yesterday. My good friend Obr (have you got it yet?) stood with me on the 10th doing a convincing impression of a drowned rat and asked hopefully, "Are you sure you really want to do this?". "Oh yes!" I said, "I'm happy!" and indeed I was. Soaked to the skin but happy. Walking along the muddy wooded track to the 13th tee (I think it was the 13th...) I chuckled, "This is why the Romans went home..." When we got to the 13th tee we saw a golf buggy driving across the fairway loaded with flags. "They're taking the flags in" said Obr, not quite managing to hide his joyful relief, "Can't play without flags, can you?"

Robbed. Bunch of lightweights! I'd have carried on...

Another newspaper article

Saw in the paper today that three portions of greens a day can help prevent memory loss.

Another newspaper article

Saw in the paper today that three portions of greens a day can help prevent memory loss. Yeah right!

Joking right?

The previous post was not what we did. We were fresh out of flares...
Proper procedure can be found in The Highway Code rule 190.

Horse

It's bit country here and it's not uncommon to see horses being ridden along the lanes. We saw one today and we were careful to follow the correct procedure as we passed in the car. I sounded the horn repeatedly whilst revving the engine and swerving unnecessarily and as we passed Ali launched a flare out the window.

Pay online, "It's so simple"

Dad's upgraded to a new PC and the old scanner doesn't work with XP. No problem, he'll buy a new one. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. We look at a well known PC retailer (WKPCR) website and decide on a model. We go to the store. That model's not there. Right. Dad likes a Canon but there's no box under the display shelf. We ask. Sorry, out of stock. Right. We go home again. Dad looks in a catalogue of a well known high street retailer (WKHSR) and finds a similar Canon, almost identical. Good, we'll buy that one then. Dad phones and they're out of stock. Right. I Froogle the Canon we saw in WKPCR and find it online (now we're talking!) at WKPCR and it's much cheaper online than at the store. Why? Don't care. We'll buy this one online, then we don't even have to go out! Oh, we already did that...

So the actual subject of this post begins.
Select scanner and add to the basket we go to checkout and it says we need to register as new customers fine so it's username password address phone numbers inside leg measurement proceed oops typo retype all the above proceed check order yes fine proceed again for your security retype the password you just entered and we already accepted sorry wrong password well it can't even be the wrong password you just accepted it already oh well re enter already accepted password sorry wrong password it's NOT the wrong password YOU accepted it only a few minutes ago getting frustrated I know log out and in again loginlogoutshakeitallabout submit? yes we are about ready to do just that reselect scanner go through process again sorry wrong password NO IT'S NOT IS IT? right stuff WKPCR we'll buy from someone else re Froogle and it's just got cheaper somewhere else literally in the last few minutes!! right so it's create account somewhere else laughing now no literally out loud username password inside leg measurement create proceed for your convenience howoulduliketopay fine looking good tension building this could be IT cut the air with a knife and PAYMENT ACCEPTED!!! joint shout of hooray and it's over stop the clock.

An hour.

Pay online "It's so simple"...

Cheese and Butter

We're staying at my parents for a couple of nights. I notice they have a "Modern Cheese and Butter Cutter". Modern cheese? A Cheddar iPod? And if you're slicing your butter then it's too thick my friend...

Song link

Wahey! I worked out how to link to a song!!
If you click on the link on the left you can hear a song written from Matthew 25:31-45, it came up a couple of times in last Sunday's meeting...

Copied and hence a second chance

The 5 posts below are copied from my failed first attempt, if you commented on any of them please feel free to comment again :-)

Surely now I'm sorted???

Multitasking

Men can't multitask eh? Well I'm here sitting and typing. Count 'em.

Typo

In the last post I originally typed "Adagio for Stings" which was a mistake. This is an entirely separate piece of music which Barber wrote in a fit of pique after a nasty episode involving bees...

Suprised by beauty

Driving home listening to "Desert Island Discs" I was caught off guard by Barber's "Adagio for Strings". One of the most beautiful, tragic, gentle, intense pieces of music I've ever heard. Heard it lots before and have it on CD somewhere, but, I love being suprised by stuff like this. You're going about your normal routine and something amazing crashes in like a hammer through a pane of glass and you STOP. Not for long but long enough. It is a very rare occurence (even getting up on time happens more frequently...); the last time was about 7 years ago, doing the washing up in our previous house, looking out the window listening to the radio and being surprised by "Cavatina" played by John Williams. So incredibly moving. Notable that both pieces are used in films about war, "Platoon" and "The Deerhunter" - classic juxtaposition eh? I choose not listen to these pieces now - I reserve them for my next suprise...

School run exemplar

Today we cracked it! Left the house 0824, parked 0834, 3 kids in 0847-0852 via 3 different doors (which opened 0845), ready and waiting for 4th kid to enter preschool at 0900. In recognition of this great event, the terrific rain we've had all night (so Ali tells me, sleep like a log me...) cleared and as I walked away from the school glowing with a great sense of achievent the sun came out and made it a very beautiful day indeed :-)

Benefits of fish "outweigh the risks"

Just saw the above headline on the BBC news page on my phone. Jonah?

There's my heading space!!

Nice one. Although I didn't do that last time, they just appeared....

Where oh where have my headings gone???

Right. I seem to have rendered my fledgling blog inoperable by (I can only assume) mistyping both my email address and my password. How could it get MORE complicated?? So, I've resorted to starting a shiny new one and I'll write the password down this time. Email renotification didn't work either so I've had to give up and start again. Humph. Still don't think I got my email wrong.