aching old legs

took a road trip up to Glen Coe with a couple of pals.. We drove up in my little Yaris, which is a little snug but very gentle on fuel..
The upper slopes are full of icy compacted wind slab and the scenery was incredible. We spent all day boarding, finally getting the hang of it again after a cup of tea and some dried fruit for lunch..
It is a lovely feeling knowing that the mountains and slopes are just up the road a bit, if you are willing to make a bit of an effort..

absence of colour

We took a boat from Vathi around to the northernmost shore of Ithaka.. As we skirted the east coast, we were close enough to hear the billions of Cicadas in the thick forests that cover the slopes and shores...
We disembarked to a beach, and spent a hot couple of hours swimming and nervously dodging the rocks dislodged by the feral goats in the woods above...
When it was time to leave, the sea had become to frisky, and we had to swim out and board by a hastily gripped ladder as the boat rolled heavily in the ultramarine rollers..
The captain was a mildly belligerent scruff, and he smoked and gulped away at cans of lager throuought the day...
The slightly risky approach to health and safety added something to our experience. And in the middle of this chilly winter of uncertainty. The vibrant colours of a Greek summer still bring a whist full smile to my pasty English face...

collective nouns and iambic pentameters

Trying to speak my native tongue to the best of my ability is my hobby as much as a compulsion..I used to feel embarrassed when people at work would mock for " getting up yourself"..
A bit older now and I have no care for dull opinions. I suck as much marrow out of the spoken word as I can...
Phrases like; A charm of Goldfinches or A flight of locks always give me a flush of minor ecstasy..
I still feel like a gormless oaf ,way out of my depth when I try to read poetry.. Listening is easier although I couldn't quantify or categorise my pleasure...
Why for instance is "He bangs the drum and makes a dreadful noise" iambic as a pentameter..

Into Infinity

In the dog days of a hot and lazy French summer, my two sons and I liked to swim out to the middle of the river and drift down to the weir..We could observe the sea trout spawning in the spume below and sometimes we would slide down the canoe slipway in the centre on our airbed our our old battered dingy...
The drop was about eight feet, and was a little intimidating at first..
Occasionally we would help a bewildered kayak group to find the slipway, and we would aim them down the middle with a vigorous shove.
The Kayakers were usually grateful and glad to find the way down stream, from the river you can see only air at the rivers edge and an unknown drop...
It was a nice way to practice French, trying to assure novices that we knew what we were doing..
Votre guide de Ardeche toboggan..

David versus Goliath

The last week or so I have just been cooking drinking and eating, and I am a bit bored of it now.
I have been keeping half an eye on the news, watching Israel the ally of our greatest ally as it terrorises the Palestinians some more..
We have all been numbed by the images, but comforted by the fact that they are probably terrorists anyway...
I just wonder how powerful images like this are affecting the young Islamic youth of Britain..If I was an angry young man .."And I was angry about stuff like the Miners and the like"then I would be sure to admire the nerve and perhaps most importantly, the zeal of these two young Moslem's...

waiting for da chop

I am one of about twenty or so contractors working together.. Some of us are less "well in" than others, but all of us are feeling a little twitchy..We form little huddles and discuss the nuances of comments made by our supremos..
It is pathetic but we are only human, and it is probably a coping mechanism for our fragile little egos..I try and maintain a chipper air of indifference, and witter on about becoming a transvestite revolutionary artist or some such waffle..
The shame is that we have all been making models and patterns since we were sixteen or so, and we are all totally conditioned to be content when at work, productive and functioning as we were programmed..
We want these jobs , even though there have been no pay increases for ten years or so.. And we all fear the prospect of having to work in a German sweatshop, away from our families..Whinging and crying into our Weiss biers in the evenings..

Biased propoganda

The Government have been running a television campaign against evil benefit cheats. The advert features a hapless labourer getting a little cash in hand for some illicit work that he had done..The evil scrounger is then filmed walking back to his house and then watching a bit of telly..
The poor bloke looks as if he hasn't a pot to piss in..He looks close to tears throughout, and the image of him sat on his knackered old sofa in his basically furnished hovel only evoked my pity..
Then it evoked my anger, at a Labour government that wants me, to feel like dobbing the poor fella in to the Feds..
It is all about double standards..On the one hand we should hate the scroungers, yet on the other it is fine to give away Billions in future tax payments to the Banking system...
I hope the poor dole dodger Carry's on getting away with it..Maybe in the next campaign they can show him replacing his video cassettes for some DVDs..Or maybe show him getting a job in the city and then snorting some cocaine of a prozzies arse in the back of his Bentley...
Good Luck to him