Feathering My New Empty Nest

Revelation 13:1-18   And I saw a beast rising out of the swamp of Florida, with tangerine skin and hair like spun sugar, a brain damaged baboon of a braggard . And the foul-mouthed beast that I saw was like a lizard; a greasy pork balloon filled with chauvinistic batshit . And to it, the jibbering populous gave its power and throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed like a sebacious cyst oozing with the infected puss of propoganda , and all the people marveled as they followed this beast and they worshiped the beast, saying, Make America Great Again for they had been brain-washed by this slug unfit for public office. 

 Who writes these strap lines ? You know you’ve reached rock bottom ( no pun intended ) when that pops up in your email feed. Is this something I need to worry about ? In the scheme of things a cleaner toilet was not top of my priorities list.

 What does that even mean ? Whatever it means, I'm finding that I'm unable to do any rolling let alone with punches. Life has become a series of frustrations. Nothing new there. But somehow the frustrations have accumulated and now resemble a Clusterfuck of Fucking Frustrations ( or CFF) which are no longer manageable. Currently trying to apply for something called a Freedom Pass. Its name is clearly ironic. Apparently my old 60+ Oyster pass aka scrounging pensioners free travel pass is defunct and I sat on a train the other day waiting to be fined £100 for not knowing that it was no longer valid because I'd reached the magic age of 66 and had not yet died. I've wasted a few hours trying to re-apply with a clutch of documents which I had to photocopy and send by snail mail to an office somewhere in Arbroath. My application was declined. The list of acceptable documents had to be in my name and of course all of our household utilities, council tax bills, TV licence etc a...

 So , I’m sitting in a Sainsbury’s Starbucks waiting for a cold drink that cost nearly £5 which I didn’t really want but it will kill 2 hours until my physio appointment . Funny how you can be surrounded by people yet feel so lonely . 

 I'd forgotten that the whole world goes on holiday at the end of July or so it seems. I don't want to go on holiday. In fact I think I may hate holidays judging by the last two we've taken - covid, then out of date passport. Enough said. Other people seem to love taking holidays which may explain why they keep going on them. I may need to go on a course on how to overcome fear of holidays like the ones people go on who hate flying. This would involve advice on the following: How to pack without taking up two whole all-consuming weeks of your life Exposure to extreme heatwave conditions to encourage acclimatisation of the inevitable hell hole of a heatwave your about to encounter Examination of statistical evidence to prove that he likelihood of contracting a potentially fatal tropical disease is less than 1% How to accept that you will be sitting next to a screaming infant on the plane , or worse, a pack of drunken tarts singing karaoke for the entire duration of the 4 hou...

They arrive in a blur. Four of them, pacing the flooring, all beanie-hatted, sucking on their e-cigarettes. Justin, Jamie, Kyle and Freddie. Meet the gang - our builders. No skip , no portable loo, no clue as to what they're going to do for the next few hours. At least it's sunny. Things start getting ripped out , stopcocks dribble water and the kettle's on for tea. The junk piles up on the patio, the floor comes out next. Justin doesn't seem to have a plan. The Jaffa Cakes are going down a storm though so that's something  and suddenly  he's gone. The lads clear off a couple of hours later and everything  goes quiet.  He asks to look at the plans from Howdens. Two days later he's going to ask for the Surveyor's report for the steels. This is not promising. We hunker down in our sealed off bunker that evening with an air-fryer, a toaster and a pile of boxes filled with useful things like a an 82 piece china dinner service and a crate full of unusual spic...

It feels that way right now. Thirty-one years ago we bought our slice of heaven. A 17th-century thatched Northamptonshire cottage at the foot of a hill, on the edge of an ancient forest. We were newly married and smitten with our life in the country; a long-held dream of mine since I was a child. Sundays were taken up with long walks in the forest followed by a pint in the next-door pub. We furnished it simply but beautifully, adding a few antiques and the odd stuffed owl when funds permitted. Then along came children and they learned how to appreciate the English countryside with their own version of the road safety code whilst looking right and left "No moo cows no horsies". Seasons came and went, Easter egg hunts in the garden, harvest suppers in the village hall, the annual Summer Village show where the boys would show off their vegetable animals, and egg-cup flower arrangements. Flowers and foliage for the church would be gathered from the hedgerows and of course our Chr...