This is heartening

bigyetiman said:
I don't do those poncey fruit ciders, apart from pear ones which aren't too bad. It all sounds very tempting Hen-Gen. Do you need a bus driver up there ? Right now cold is far more appealing than this heat
Click to expand...
One of the four who are soon to be leaving is the Dial-a-Ride bus driver. There is also a vacancy for a retained Fire Person and a relief postie.
Just been out with my dog. Pleasant warm day, crofters shearing or cutting haylage, larks singing, starlings squabbling, seals in the bay. A rural idyll.
 
Well I could deliver letters as I drive around, and have a bucket of water in case of a fire.
Trouble is I have elderly parents who need looking after, and they would never move up there.

Went around to Tesco this am to get milk for the bus station office, it is on the retail park next to Lakeside shopping centre, to find it shut, they got hit by lightening, which blew up the generator and blew the roof off. People are standing there bemoaning the fact they can't get a sandwich for work. I said you could make one at home to which two women said " I have never made a sandwich in my life, is there a Costa anywhere"
Now you know why we want to move
 
bigyetiman said:
Well I could deliver letters as I drive around, and have a bucket of water in case of a fire.
Trouble is I have elderly parents who need looking after, and they would never move up there
Click to expand...

Yes. At the time I had friends of 20-30 years duration who were perplexed by what I was doing. I remember one guy in the village, Castleton, asking why I didn’t like them. Now I know it’s a cliche but “you’re a long time dead and a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do”.
Fortunately I was in the position that my parents had the good manners to snuff it and leave me some cash. It’s a funny thing life and the decisions we make. They effect everything and I would never criticise those who make different choices. All I can say is that the choices I made when I retired have been profound and mind expanding and I will never go back. I’ve come a long way from a tube train driver in London at 25 to a sheep breeder in Fetlar at 69.
But is it all good? No. My husband is in England. We meet up when we can. And is life here flawless? It’s isolated, dark in winter and sometimes people drive me to apoplexy (as I do them).
But I’m 70 this year and though I am generally healthy, not even had an epileptic fit for 19 months, death is on the distant horizon. I hope that my humour and my faith will allow me to approach this with equanimity. I can’t remember which poet it was who said “rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle in to that long good night.” The man was an idiot.
In fact I have too much to do and experience. Laos, more chicken breeding, cream tea at the Ritz!
PS
When you create a blue barred chicken with the slow feathering gene the blue bleeds into the barring and makes a chicken that is indistinguishable from a self blue. Is that my sole contribution to human knowledge? ??
 
Dylan Thomas, got that right.
Didn't realise you were a TFL (Transport for London) driver Hen-Gen, I used to work for TFL on the buses out of Barking garage.
Around this area especially Thurrock where I work it is just me, me, me no thought for anyone else, more and more housing being built and factories, a lovely little nature reserve is having 2000 "affordable" homes built on it £450,000 starting price for 1 bedroom, quite what is affordable about that. The new Thames crossing is taking out the last remaining fen land in the area, everywhere is just queues as the roads can't cope.
We just want a quieter life, where people do have time to stand and chat to you, and aren't obsessed with shopping or the latest fashion. North Wales would suit us.
Well done on no fits in a while Hen-Gen the relaxed life must be doing you good, and it was a brave move to make, and glad it is working well. How long until hubby retires, and you can go to Laos on a long break ?
Some things on our to do list will be ticked off in Sept when we visit Scotland, the Falkirk Wheel, Neptunes, Staircase, Ptarmigan, and hopefully a stray Capercaillie wandering about. OH also said " we will be able to see The Kelpies". I thought they were someone she knows living North of the Border. I know now they are huge horse statues, look quite impressive as it goes
 
Good luck with the North Wales dream. Snowdonia is stunning.
All those things on your holiday “to do” list are worthy objectives. Capercaillie can be hard to find which is surprising for something so big. Those Easter Ross conifer forests are sometimes impenetrable.
The Falkirk Wheel is a must. Design perfection!
 
We are hopeful of Capercaillie, but as they are endangered we certainly wont be crashing about hunting for them. If we see one it will be a bonus. A friend of ours so one perched on the top of a conifer which was an amazing site. it is a shame that the RSPB stopped their Capercaillie watch due to members of the public being unable to be quiet and patient in a hide for more than 10 seconds.
We are both looking forward to the Falkirk Wheel, having seen it on a canal programme. I am looking forward to real haggis, neaps and tatties. I have checked it's not the close season for haggis :lol: :lol:
 
Hen-Gen said:
I can’t remember which poet it was who said “rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle in to that long good night.” The man was an idiot.
Click to expand...

We'll have to agree to differ Hen-Gen, but my favourite quote is Anonymous:

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a attractive and well preserved body, but rather a skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, totally worn out and screaming ...

"Wooo Hoooo what a ride? I wanna go round again!

Although actually I'd prefer to try a different ride!
 
No hope for me arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body. A wild youth, a dissolute middle age and a self indulgent dotage put paid to that aspiration long ago ???. But I still hope to arrive with my mind intact.
One of my favourites is “better to have loved and lost than not have loved at all.”
In my less charitable moments I look at some other people and conclude that they’re just taking up space!??

But have you ever noticed that some people were born old?
 
And an add on. Yesterday in the scorching heat I laid down as best I could avoiding sheep shit, put a hanky over my face and closed my eyes listening to the gulls, the chomping of the sheep and the distant sound of a crofter cutting haylage. For ten minutes I was in a state of reverie/nirvana/bliss, call it what you will. This, I thought, is what life is all about.

(Apart from Brie Cheese, Ella Fitzgerald and Shiraz obviously).
 
Love that quote to Margaid.
I agree Hen-Gen as the poem goes "what is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare"
Hated poetry at school, yet now I truly appreciate it

Some people are definitely born old, I have an aunt that has always seemed 70. At least now she is 80 she looks younger
 
Talk about the islands and temperatures. here in TN we get to choose between 2 things: Hot and humid or hot and rain. Temperatures in the nineties or hundreds. (Usually 32C-37 C and sometimes 45C) My ancestors came from the Shetlands. Perhaps move back? Is it getting any warmer there? lol
Our chickens are hiding in the shade. Installing a small coop fan tomorrow. They don't like the big fan.
 
And whilst the rest of Europe has record breaking temperatures and excess rain in some places, in Portugal we are experiencing the coolest summer for many many years, and rain in July and August which isn't the norm at all, in fact it hasn't rained here in either month for the past 6 years that we have been here.

I have to say I am a strong believer in the DT quotation as well, possibly because I am also partly Welsh and it made a big impression on me when I first read the poem as a teenager, and possibly because my health is currently good, I might think differently if I was in a bad way. Like BYM my memory for most poetry is bad, the only thing which readily springs to mind is the first verse of Tyger, Tyger, which is slightly childlike I always think. But then we weren't taught it by rote, my mother can still quote all sorts of things from childhood, but then she is Welsh and her father was a quiet poet, she still reads poetry (particularly at times of death and memoriam) I think its bred in the bone.
 
"To be born Welsh is to be born privileged, not with a silver spoon in your mouth but with music in your heart and poetry in your soul."

Unknown quotation seen on a card.
 
Not to mention a most wonderful accent when you speak English. So melodic and calming.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top