Personal Blogs

Doing one blog a year does not make me a Blogger unfortunately, but I do use it as a log of my changes in thoughts and priorities.  Looking over the past few years a lot has happened in my life, and it helps me reflect on my progress.

So, I got here at last.  The final year, or is it?  People often talk about their final year at university and I understand what they mean, but there is nothing final about it.  Even at my age of 70, I see it as a start point.  For those much younger it is the start of the beginning of their life’s journey.  The stuff I have done, the people I have met, the questions raised over the past 5 years and no doubt more for the next one, all make a new beginning not and end. The fun is trying to decide what to do and how to do it.

The current Covid crisis will close some doors to us, but others will be opened.  It is no use denying all the evidence of the problems of the world as so many do. 'Coronavirus is a con,' 'environmental catastrophe is a con,' 'immunisation is a con,' etc, etc.  Good luck to the dinosaurs who have their heads stuck up their backsides with those views.  The future is with those who grasp what is happening and prepare for the future realities.  My plans are still vague, but I think I am on track.

My Daughters and my Grandson are my priorities and their struggles my daily concern, but they are doing well in their chosen paths and am proud of all of them.  Especially my 5yr 11mth-old adopted Grandson who started life knowing more emotional and physical pain in his first three years than many of us will encounter in a lifetime.  He has come on so well.  Large for his age, clumsy, funny, caring and very aware of his environment.  He has had incredibly good reports from school, and he loves it.  

I am Studying Creative Writing A363 this year and already enjoying it.  I found the philosophy difficult last year I must admit.  I do not think the ideas and arguments, in themselves are too difficult to understand, but some philosophers talk and write in such convoluted ways that they are difficult to follow.  They should all do a course in ‘Communicating Ideas’ as a prior requirement of gaining any qualification on the subject.  I watched a video of one eminent philosopher give a talk to a room full of his peers.  Death by ‘Power Point’ and if that did not get you, his monotone, head down reading of the paper everyone had a copy of was the worst form of torture any academic could inflict. No wonder Philosophy is a shrinking subject area in universities today.  This is unfortunate, as it is a rich and powerful tool. I believe it is essential to help formulate strategies for an ever more complex world.

This year, Creative Writing will let my creative juices flow and I can develop my own style.  I have already had some critiques of short passages I have written and am so proud of myself for not breaking down in tears or punching the computer screen.  I have taken the criticism as a mature adult and taken it all on board.  My critics are doing their best.  Bless them.

If I do another Blog next year, it is because I have failed and am trying again or am doing a Masters.  I am not sure what to do.  I need time to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

No point coming on here if you want to read a Blog.  I never write them.  Well, I say never but of course, that is not true.  I am writing this now.  However, this is only to tell you I either never remember, during the fraught days of study and imminent Assignment closing dates, to write one.  Or when I do remember, cannot think of anything to say that will add to the world's rich source of wisdom.  This is a particularly worrying trait as I want to be a writer.  Not a Booker Prize type of writer, but more a magazine, short story sort of writer.  To do this I need to have loads of stuff to write about and the ability to keep pouring the stuff out in interesting prose that magazine editors will love.  Drawing in thousands of new readers with each new publication.  The evidence, sadly, is that it is not going to happen.  So I better revert to plan 'B.'  Whatever that is.  

Failure is not a new thing for me.  A magazine short story writer is just another step down the slippery slope of failed ambition.  It all started with my ambition to be '008' working along with 007 James Bond stopping very rich bad guys.  My failure to convince MI6 that I was the right material has resulted in the loss of a potentially great assassin.  For example, Trump would have been stopped well before his drive for world domination.  I see him now, sitting on the toilet, his wig on his knees, stroking it with one small pudgy hand as he Twitters obscenities with the other. He does not know how lucky he is to have been saved from my planned horrible death.  He would have fallen into a pit of ravenous Rednecks and KKK acolytes wearing a pink jumpsuit with 'Nazcar Sucks' emblazoned on his back and tattoos of  Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King on his floppy biceps. (Please don't tell anyone of this plan, as I think and hope it may still happen.  I am afraid it will not be my failed hand but by some other saviour of humanity.  I suspect that due to the recent MI6 policy of reverse discrimination, it will be Jean Bond, James' secret twin sister. Jean, if you read my plan for Trump in the TOP SECRET file you are handed,  I am here to help.  We can meet up in a plush room at the Dorchester.  I will keep the champers on ice.)

Now I am studying Philosophy (A222).  The idea here is that when I get my degree, I can write philosophical books and earn loads of money giving lectures.  I have been watching Philosophers on YouTube.  Nobody understands a word they are saying, but they say it with such confidence people think they are hearing great words of wisdom.  I can do that.  I have been in politics for 40 years.  I just have to memorise the names of emminent and historical Philosophers, with a bit about what they said and throw them randomly into my writing and speeches and nobody will be the wiser.  

Well, back next year for another Blog.  Good luck with your studies.  

P.S. I was not joking Jean.

Guilt, lots of guilt.  That's what I have been feeling.  How can I have a new life without Nancy, my wife?  Its not fair, she should be here with me. Cancer has destroyed so many lives.  We had plans for after my retirement.  We were going to travel together in our new caravan.  See the whole of the UK then Europe. 

All we had was a year. We did manage some of our plans.  We traveled to Australia and some of the UK but still lots to do.  So I travel alone.  My daughters join me from time to time but mainly on my own.

I have to create a new norm for myself,  My daughters are also finding it hard.  Nancy was the family anchor.  The vacuum she left is huge.  I have to make decisions on my own without having to take into consideration Nancy's point of view.  Now this may seem to others a good thing, but after 48 years together it only emphasises the vacuum.

She taught me to live for today and not tomorrow, she always knew, somehow, she would die young as her father and mother did.  However she did manage to get to 63 rather than 50 like her Father.  Live for today with the past behind me and tomorrow yet to come. 

I never know what today is going to be like.  Will I have a bad day feeling the guilt that I am here and she is not?  Utter sadness from missing her so much?  Or will today be positive and I will enjoy meeting people and doing my Open University studies?  Every day is different but she is always in my mind.  She talks to me.  I hear her telling me to "clean the bath properly this time!"  I could never clean to her satisfaction.  I respond and clean the whole bloody bathroom.  She tells me to be happy and it only makes me want to cry. She was the one who made friends I was not as good as her at reaching out to people but I try to live up to her example.  I am a bad student.

Surrounded by her things and her photographs I know I have to clear it all away.  Tomorrow though, not today.  Today I am writing about us and my continuing relationship with her, my anchor.  What will I do without my anchor?

Don't get the wrong impression when I say she was an anchor.  It does not mean we were stuck in the same place all the time.  Rather the opposite. We lived life on the edge.  Working for myself, trying to earn money from whatever opportunities came up.  We took risks and failed because we had made a wrong decision or failed because others were greedy and stole what we had worked for.  Three times we lost our homes because of fraud and or greed.  One of them we had built ourselves and that was the toughest to lose.  Despite this, Nancy never lost her faith in humanity and would make friends with strangers as easily as saying hello.  Her smile an ice breaker through the deepest ice.

We never saved money for a rainy day as Nancy always said "we might not be here tomorrow."  So 'live for today' is my new mantra.  I am off now to have coffee with a new friend I have made and when I get back I will get on with my Open University Studies.  Today is one of the more positive ones.

I have not used the Blog much at all doing AA100 but then I was traveling much of the time and busy being a retired 'gentleman' of the road. I may use it a bit more for this course, we shall see.

Although I am a bit shy of working with others, having always been a bit of a loner, the people on the forums are quite pleasant and friendly.  I do believe that Life starts at the edge of your comfort zone so let’s just see how it all happens.

Still recovering from the death of my wife after our 48 years together (42 married) I am find it difficult to focus on the studies.  However, I do find the exercise therapeutic.  Having no one to attend to after 5 years is a bit weird.  It was first my father and mother, Dad with Parkinson’s and Mum Dementia then latterly my wife Nancy who had cancer.  Dad died in December 2014 and my Mum went into a Care Home.  Nancy died in April 2016 but we did manage to travel to Australia and then around the UK before during 2015 and into January 2016.  You would never have known Nancy was ill for most of the time.  She was a very strong character and much loved by everyone.  450 people came to her funeral.

My two daughter are finding it difficult without their Mum but both work hard and I am sure they will eventually get used to the new normality.  Wendy, my oldest is married and lives close by.  Lynsey my youngest works for a prominent MP and lives in London. 

Politics are a big thing in my family and I tend to rant on Facebook at times.  I do however have friends from all the different wings of politics (apart from the extreme idiots on both wings) and I don’t let politics get in the way of a good friendship.

I did not intend to write a biography here but it happened so I will not delete it.  At least you know a little bit more about me.  I suppose more will come out over the weeks. 

Please, if you do read this make some comments and perhaps a link to your blog if you have one.