The Diary of a Country Bumpkin

I don’t usually post any poems but was just reading one by a young lady who follows my blog and decided to put one up for a change. The original inspiration for the poem came when I read that Winston Churchill used to suffer with depression which he used to call his black dog.

IT WAS A BLACK DOG AFTERNOON

I woke this morning in a pool of vomit,

on standing I lost my footing,

cracking my head upon the table

and splitting my lip on the cold stone floor.

It was another black dog afternoon.

I crawled my way to the broken mirror,

to see myself with a cubist eye,

staring back all black and jagged,

someone looking, it wasn’t me.

It was another black dog afternoon.

I heard a voice say take your medication,

pink first, then blue and white.

Stop shouting with your megaphone,

too loud, too loud, turn it down.

It was another black dog afternoon.

Some days the noise won’t go away,

sharp ones and oblongs too,

banging in my semi consciousness,

flashes are worse, I hate that sound.

It was another black dog afternoon.

I’m scared to death of bloody voices,

I need to shelter in my youth,

the only place where I feel safe,

snuggled in my blanket, warm.

It was another black dog afternoon.

The only way to escape the screaming,

is the solace of a Prozac haze,

more and more and more and more,

until the terror fades away.

It was my last black dog afternoon.

Yesterday my wife accused me of being a grumpy old man and I have to admit she had a point but in my defence I cite the following.

The day before our internet stopped and I reported it to Vodafone who said they would run tests and get it fixed as soon as possible, suggesting that a huge gang of men would descend on the box down the road and fix it virtually as we spoke, which seemed like a reasonable solution to me. However the next day I awoke to find that the internet was not fixed and the phone too had given up the ghost which necessitated another call to Vodafone.

We had to go out to buy some school uniform and equipment for our grandchildren so left our daughter at home to deal with the second gang of men from Vodafone who may require entry to our premises in order to attempt to fix the phone for the second time.

Before leaving I tried to book the old Bentley into the garage for a quick job but had forgotten the chap who runs the garage was away in America which meant that it will not be done before Goodwood as I had planned.

When we left to go shopping we called in at our Doctors surgery to sign up to order our repeat prescriptions on line, having taken our driving licences as identification we were both issued with a user name and a password and duly left, so far, so good.

Passing the Co-op in the village I popped in to collect my classic car papers which usually come in on a Wednesday but unfortunately one of them had not arrived, causing me to wonder how with modern technology one could possibly mislay or miss order your papers as surely it would be a standing order on computer.

Moving swiftly on we then spent an inordinately long time purchasing clothing and pencils, rulers, calculators and other items, so much so that I was wondering if we were equipping the entire class but eventually we finished.

My plan to kill two birds with one stone and pay a cheque into the bank as we were passing was also thwarted as the bank was shut for the day.

A further visit to the supermarket for what seemed like an enormous quantity of food, enough to feed the five thousand I would have thought, one wonders how Jesus managed the same feat with just five loaves and three fishes. Upon leaving I was getting close to loosing the will to live.

When we returned home we were informed that the phone was working and had needed the fitment of a new wire which was fixed to a telegraph pole which was hidden in the foliage of the trees and that should the fault occur again we would have to pay as they assumed the tree branches had rubbed on the line causing the fault. I made a mental note to try to cut back the trees as soon as I had a chance.

Somewhat exhausted I sat down with a cup of tea and too many chocolate bars in the hope that the sugar rush gained would assist my flagging energy levels.

Duly refreshed I set about attempting to set up our on line accounts for our repeat prescriptions from the doctor. Having put in my details I was pleasantly surprised that they were accepted and set about putting in the details of my wife, unfortunately they wouldn’t work no matter how much I shouted at the computer which meant we would have to contact the surgery the next day.

My wife phoned up in the morning and was told that she would have to come in again and get a new password and try again but as she was busy I took her ID and the letter from yesterday and requested a new password for her. Unfortunately they were unable to give it to me as it was only possible to give it to my wife in person, one would have thought that having seen us together yesterday they would have been able to use their discretion and give me her password, but no.

I had been warned by my wife not to be too grumpy should there be a problem but by now I was getting so frustrated that I had to point out to the staff on reception, that the whole point of trying to sign up to do it on line was to stop having to make repeated visits to the surgery in person. I may have uttered a minor expletive and a comment that modern life is enough to drive you mad and left. Returning home I took my wife back and she was given a new password, I cannot tell you how relieved I was when it actually worked.

Having just written this tale of woe I am now feeling a little better, although not as much as I had hoped, the old adage that a problem shared is a problem halved is not true. As I pointed out to my wife, I would have no cause to be a grumpy old man were it not for all the people who seem to go out of their way to make things as difficult as they possibly can and there, your honour, I rest my case.

Just returned from taking the grandchildren to Honfleur and the D day beaches as part of an educational trip for them as they are doing World War Two in History at school and as a jolly up for myself and the wife.

It seems quite extraordinary that children are doing something in a history lesson which my father took part in and which seems to be too recent to be called history.

We took the Bentley Arnage, which is the most superb motor car for relaxed cruising across vast swathes of Europe, having a 6.75 litre engine and a turbocharger, very civilised.

I can also recommend getting the Sanef tolling tag, which is a small device which you mount in your car on the windscreen which automatically charges your bank account for the tolls on the motorway, which not only saves you the effort of leaning out the window to pay but opens the gate as you arrive at the toll, saving both time and effort.

https://www.saneftolling.co.uk/subscription?ref=RF-20180801-D1A5973

We based ourselves in Honfleur which is a beautiful town on the Normandy coast and ideally situated for visiting the D day beaches and other sites like Pegasus Bridge, which was the first place the allies landed on 6th June 1944.

At the Pegasus Bridge Museum they have the original bridge and a modern replica of the gliders which were towed in by planes to land as close as possible to the bridge, it being night when they landed the troops were issued with clickers which were called crickets so they could find each other in the darkness. The grandchildren purchased one each  in the museum shop and proceeded to drive us slightly barmy  until we pointed out, enough was enough.

Lunch was taken at the small cafe at the end of the new Pegasus bridge which is still owned by the same family who owned it during the war and we were served by an older lady who was the very young daughter at the time of the liberation.

Our next trip was to Arromanches which was the British Gold beach and where we built the Mullberry harbour, which was constructed from concrete and towed over from Britain, large parts of which are still visible just off the coast.

The next day we visited Juno beach where a large number of Canadians landed aided by the British, very large numbers of casualties occurred due to the late arrival of Allied tanks. We took the guided tour of a command bunker and a visit to the beach, the story of the landing was relayed by a Canadian girl as the entire museum is staffed by Canadians who come over and work for seven months before returning home.

On leaving we were caught in a storm and the car was bombarded by hailstones the size of large gobstoppers, I was very glad the paintwork wasn’t damaged.

To keep the grandchildren amused we had a quick trip to an amusement park and then a visit to Deauville which is rather splendid and well worth a visit although I would imagine it wouldn’t be the cheapest place to stay.

One never quite gets everything done when children are involved so our last day involved a fairly leisurely drive back to the Eurotunnel  at Calais via Le Touquet which used to be the place to fly over to for lunch and having visited I can see why, another splendid town, always a bit of a giveaway that it will be expensive when it has its own casino.

Finally back home after an extremely educational trip for the boys and a fairly pleasant, if expensive jolly up for the wife and myself and ready for our next little outing with the grandchildren to the Goodwood Revival. I shall be using this blog as evidence of our abilities to inform and educate when we request a day off school for the grandchildren when we take them to Goodwood, so if you happen to be their headmaster and you are reading this, please take note of the above.

I’m going to cheat today as I haven’t blogged for a couple of days and repeat this on my other blog  http://www.joewellsofwhomithasbeensaid.com

My excuse is that I have been far too busy and I stress I have been far too busy, as opposed to the modern version, way too busy which grates on my nerves every time I hear it.

Monday, the man came to fit a new electric meter as ours had broken, he took all day and did a splendid job and when finished went round to check that everything was working and with my assistance found the fuse box, of which we have many, which was playing up, I jiggled the offending fuse which then meant everything was working correctly and he left.

Tuesday, we realised we hadn’t checked whether the boiler was working and amazingly managed to get our plumber to come round and find the loose wire which was stopping it from working. You don’t realise how many possible things there are to go wrong until being asked by the plumber where is the, boiler, fuse boxes, timer, hot water cylinder etc, still I got a free work out, up and down the stairs for nothing.

Wednesday, the light in the kitchen finally gave up the ghost, so I went out and purchased a new one and some new bulbs to go with it. Upon completing the job I noticed on the instructions which were inside the box that you could only fit 35 watt bulbs which necessitated a return to the shop to replace the 55 watt bulbs I had originally purchased. I wondered why the maximum wattage for the bulbs was not written on the outside of the box, which might have saved me a trip. All well, except the modern bulbs are so dim we can hardly see the other side of the room.

Thursday, welded the arms on the other garage door which I hadn’t time for last week and swapped the better ones to the garage that gets used the most. Washed and vacuumed the 1947 Bentley.

Friday, took my wife to her meeting and went back later to pick her up. Went to the Vodafone shop to see if they could fix her phone as it seemed to have stopped working as it kept going to answerphone. The chap fixed it in two minutes as we had inadvertently set the phone to “do not disturb” mode, a common mistake apparently.

Saturday, went back to the phone shop as quite a lot of her contacts had gone missing as we had tried to fix the previous fault by inserting a new sim card. “All your contacts are stored in the cloud, they can’t get lost,” said the assistant. Some considerable time later when he finally gave up trying to find the contacts we left resigned as to having to reinstall them manually.

Sunday, you’ll never guess what we did today! Spent most of the day finding my wife’s contacts and inputting them to the phone, an extremely tedious task.

I have recently joined a networking group called POP Connect to promote the books that I write and most of the people in the group are business people who have full time jobs, which caused me to cast my mind back to before I “retired,” when I had a full time job and to wonder, how on earth I ever found the time to do it.

Went to the Festival of the Forties in March Cambridgeshire at the weekend and had a rather splendid time.

Met our friends Adrian and Rochelle Hodds who we haven’t seen for some time, nice to catch up with them.

Our original intention was to go just on the Saturday but when we arrived and had a look round we noticed dance classes in the marquee so went in to have a look. There were two classes a day and we had missed the first one so waited for the second and joined in with the foxtrot.

We enjoyed ourselves so much we changed our plans and came back on the Sunday where we did swing/jive and later the tango, damn good fun.

The teachers were Alan and Julie Axon and were great teachers and made the class great fun, shame they don’t live down the road from us or we would be doing their class all the time. Thank you Alan and Julie.

Interesting hotel in Weybridge in Surrey.

Our grandchildren are currently organising their prom night and have asked me if I would drive them in my 1947 Bentley Mk VI and I have agreed as I feel it might add an element of class to the occasion.

Sadly, it seems so many of the youth of today would rather go to one of these events in a stretched Hummer, which is an American military vehicle which is effectively an armour plated lorry. Perhaps to venture into London nowadays one does need the protection of armour plating, but I’m going to take a chance anyway and hope we shall return unscathed due to the protection of the fine walnut veneers on the interior, surely enough to stop any bullet.

I must say, the Hummer looks a damn sight more classy in military form than it does when some silly arse has stretched it to such a degree that it is unable to manoeuvre round the most basic corner or roundabout.

It was indeed the grandchildren themselves who knowing that some of their fellow pupils are travelling in a stretched Hummer and have become sufficiently adult to realise which of these two vehicles has more class and to request the Bentley.

At vast expense, Nanny has purchased complete outfits for both of the grandchildren and in all fairness they are very smart suits which they will be able to wear later in the year on our trip to Honfleur.

However and there is always, a however. In my youth we never used to have Proms, even when someone had actually graduated from University, as these events were an invention of the Americans, as I believe were baby showers and Halloween and it is only relatively recently that we seem to have followed suit, although God alone knows why.

As you can tell, I am not at all keen on following anything the Americans do, enormous buckets of Coke, super sizing, Disneyland, rap music, bad car design, famous for no reason celebrities, to name but a few off the top of my head.

The main reason for my reluctance to embrace fully this event is the fact that the grandchildren are only 11 years old, so quite what they have graduated from I have no idea. I have a nasty feeling this will be the first of many graduation events through their school and University career, although I think if you do have to have one, perhaps leave it until one has actually graduated and gained a degree and have finished your education.

I’m sure the grandkids will love it and at least I have the consolation of knowing they will arrive with style.

We went to the Chateau Impney Hillclimb at the weekend staying at the rather fabulous Stanbrook Abbey Hotel which as you can see from the photos used to be an Abbey.

A very interesting weekend for architecture as we then went to Chateau Impney another stunning building owned by a member of the Bentley Drivers Club, for the hillclimb.

Had VIP tickets which meant we had some good food and drink and the best view from the Chateau terrace.

Here is the view from the terrace of one of the corners, as you can see my camera skills are pretty useless, but I suppose if you choose to take a photograph with a telephone, what can you expect. Still, it’s a better result than trying to make a telephone call with a camera, however as I’m typing this little jokette I expect there is some clever spark either making or already selling a camera that makes phone calls. It’s a shame the photo doesn’t portray the experience of standing close to vintage motor cars travelling at speed protected only by a straw bale.

We have been away recently quite a lot so this blog has turned into a bit of a travelogue recently and will continue in a couple of weeks when we go to a Forties Weekend in March, Cambridgeshire, I hope the weather has cooled a little by then as I shall be wearing my 1940’s three piece tweed suit from Chester Cordite.

Now that I am firmly ensconced in the country I am beginning to understand why I feel at home here, for I do not wish to be in the city where technology can whizz information around at the speed of light and yet the traffic moves at such a slow pace that it leaves a silver trail in its wake.

I have the best of both worlds here in the country as I can drive about most of the time as if I’m competing in the British F1 Grand Prix and yet, should I wish to make use of modern technology it is here, literally at my fingertips.

As some of my readers may have noticed my computer skills are fairly limited, although I surpassed myself with the previous blog which contained photographs which I had taken on my phone and then uploaded to my computer and thence to the blog. This may sound confusing to the younger folk who at this very moment are shouting, “you silly old duffer, you could have just uploaded straight from your phone to the blog.” I have no idea if this is possible but just put it in as it feels as if there was one process I could have taken out of the equation.

If I were born at a later time when they taught computer stuff at school I think I would have taken to it like a duck to water, but to quote another well known saying, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Were it the case that you could teach ageing dogs new tricks all of my blogs would be peppered with photographs, illustrations and useful links.

The subject for today’s blog was triggered by the fact that I am going to a meeting of POP Connect which I understand is a business networking organisation, already I can feel my palms getting sweaty for I am reluctant to drag myself into the modern world of corporate business.

In my youth I was in business, but in those days you didn’t have to network, you merely went into the family business, a bakers in my case and followed on in the footsteps of your father and his father before him. One opened a bakers shop, made some attractive bread, buns and cakes etc and placed them in the shop whereupon by some miracle which had nothing to do with networking, passers bye would enter the shop and purchase said items, it was all very simple.

When my father retired and we sold the business and I took the money and ran, starting my new career as an actor, where very little networking was involved, one turned up at an audition did your piece and buggered off. Some time later, perhaps after a recall you would be lucky enough to receive the good news that you had the job, together with the bad news that it was a profit share and if you were lucky you would just about cover the cost of your petrol, all a very long way from corporate networking.

I’m quite looking forward to tomorrow when I shall embroil myself in the modern world of business networking, after all I do have a business. I have two regular blogs, this one and Joe Wells of whom it has been said, both with the potential to gain income from advertising, I have a radio play Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori, I have books for sale on Amazon, including The Plays Wot I Wrote, The Battle of Barking Creek, three children’s books, Nobby Brasso Football Star, Oliver the cat who went to the top of the world, Samantha’s fantastic space journey and three more in production.

Yes, I’m feeling quite positive about tomorrow and who knows, if in the future you find my blogs inundated with useful links to my websites, illustrations, photos and all the modern paraphernalia associated with a successful blog, it will all have been worthwhile.