Life as we know it

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Lessons learned?

August 30, 2013 in Life as we know it | 3 comments

I cannot let pass without comment the momentous and unprecedented sequence of events that unfolded last night in the parliament of the United Kingdom. British Prime Minister, David Cameron, had – in response to the apparent use of chemical weapons against its own population by the Syrian government – recalled parliament early following the summer recess in order that it might debate and subsequently vote on a motion seeking approval in principal for a limited armed intervention.

To the obvious surprise of all concerned the motion – on being put to the vote in the Commons – was decisively rejected. The UK will thus not be involved in any armed response to the events in Syria. The repercussions of this startling development (in the UK the Prime Minister pretty much has carte-blanche to go to war on his own initiative without consulting parliament) are awaited with interest.

One fact that is abundantly clear – sufficiently so that it now comes as a shock that it was not more widely anticipated – is that the outcome of the vote was heavily influenced by the events of a decade since that saw this country committed to an ill-starred invasion of Iraq based on what turned out to be faulty intelligence. The deeply flawed nature of that process – not to mention the hideous and tragic consequences of the entire enterprise – has left a sufficiently vivid scar on the psyche of the nation that even our normally bellicose parliamentary representatives shied away from a repeat experience.

During the debate it became clear that following questions would have to be answered satisfactorily before any agreement could be reached:

Had chemical weapons actually been used? The evidence – though circumstantial – suggests that they had, though the UN Inspectors’ report – and thus a definitive answer – has yet to be delivered.
If they have indeed been used, was the Syrian government the culprit? Cameron admitted that it was not possible to state categorically that this was the case, but stated that – in his judgement – the weight of the (circumstantial) evidence pointed to its complicity.
Assuming that a clear evidence trail could be established what would then be the exact aim of any armed intervention? Any action would need to be clearly defined in terms of intent and extent, and would be required to improve demonstrably the situation in Syria.
What would be the exit strategy from any action taken? How would the international community prevent any action escalating into something even more tragic than the current situation.

Parliament clearly felt that these questions had not been adequately answered and thus withheld their consent. Given my views on violence you will not be surprised to hear that Parliament – in this case – gains my approbation.

To those who would argue:

that we should take action to prevent the Syrian government from further use of these weapons – I would point out that no action has yet been proposed that would actually have this effect. Indeed, there is no armed response – other than invasion – that could be guaranteed so to do.
that not to take action would be to send a signal to Assad that he can get away with such crimes against innocent civilians – I would say that we are not dealing here with a child that is testing the limits of acceptable behaviour. History – recent history – informs us that a dictator who is prepared to use such weapons against his own population will not be persuaded to stop so doing by the ingress of a few cruise missiles. It is possible to effect such an aim – as the allies did in the case of Saddam Hussein – by invasion… but look at the consequences of that course of action.
that we should send a clear signal to the Syrian government – I would point out that a signal is only clear if the consequences of ignoring it are made evident – and if there is the credible will to enforce such consequences. Vague threats do not a clear signal make.
that we have a moral obligation to intervene – I would ask how it is that of the many atrocities that have been perpetrated across the globe in recent decades by other dictators and other regimes we have an ‘obligation’ in this case, though apparently not in others? If it is an obligation then it must apply in all cases – and not just those that suit. If the obligation is in fact relative then the moral case is surely dubious at best.
that not to take action would be cowardly – I would suggest that actually the opposite is true. To admit that there is no clear course of action that can be taken that would improve the situation actually requires more courage than the inverse.
that not to take action would leave us ‘sitting on the sidelines wringing our hands’ whilst leaving the US and others take on the role of global policeman – I don’t know where to start with this one!

The suffering that we are seeing in Syria is truly shocking and terrible. The acts that are being perpetrated – as far as one can tell by both sides – are criminal and those responsible must eventually be prosecuted through the international courts. We must – however – be rigorous in the analysis of our motives for any proposed response. If our desire to pursue a course of armed retaliation is rooted in the pained belief that ‘we must do something‘, then the danger is that our true motivation is the assuaging of our own feelings of guilt and helplessness, rather than any realistic ambition to produce the most beneficial effect on the ground… which latter might in this case simply mean just doing the least possible harm!

It is a truism to state that there are no easy answers. I state it nonetheless… The one positive that I can myself draw from this perilous affair is that maybe – just maybe – we might be starting to learn some lessons from our history.

Tags: Politics, United Kingdom

Mr Grumpy Pants

August 23, 2013 in Life as we know it | 2 comments

Now – I know that regular readers may find this difficult to comprehend, given my normal sweet nature – but throughout this last week my mood has been distinctly – how shall I put it – tetchy!

Looking back to this time last year – as illustrated by this less than temperate post – it should be apparent that this is, to an extent, an annual phenomenon. Granted that last August was in many ways exceptional (the Kickass Canada Girl had just gone back to Canada and I was feeling abandoned and overwhelmed) it has to be said these last few days before the start of the new academic year are always fraught with difficulty. The teaching staff – having disappeared for the entire summer – pitch up again with all manner of last minute demands and requests just at our busiest time of the year. This time around we have also suffered from an apparent lack of planning and forethought (on the part of others!) which caused us to sit twiddling our thumbs (metaphorically at least) for the first part of the summer, followed latterly by a mad dash to execute a variety of complex projects for which it is far too late for there to be any reasonable hope of completion before the new term starts.

This makes me grumpy – which in turn leads to my behaviour towards others falling short of the standards to which I normally aspire. This culminated yesterday in what might be considered a mild incidence of ‘road rage’.

There is a point on my weary journey home at which a bottleneck on the motorway that I use – two lanes merging into one – inevitably causes the traffic to bunch and to slow down. The queue of vehicles shuffles forward sluggishly at this point – merging in turn in the accepted fashion (accepted in the UK at any rate!).

Or at least – that is what usually happens. Yesterday I was in the outside of the two lanes and I duly let the inside car go first and then moved to follow. The next driver in the inner lane – half a car-length behind me – had other ideas and proceeded to muscle his way forward preventing me from completing my maneuver. Forced to stop unexpectedly I glared at this inconsiderate automobilist, throwing my hands heavenwards in that time honoured gesture that is recognised the world over as meaning – “What the f*ck?”!

Normal behaviour on the part of the offender at this point is to make a show of not even being aware of one’s presence. In this case – to the contrary – the aggressor wound down his window and glared back – making gestures of his own and mouthing what I can only imagine to have been language of an ultramarine hue. He then proceeded to drive in what can only be described as a menacing manner – sometimes hovering in front of me, sometimes rather too close behind – in a fashion that suggested he was just waiting for me to come to a halt so that he might have an opportunity to leap from his motor to beat the cr*p out of me. Fortunately he had to turn off the motorway before I did, and I did not see him again.

Not pleasant – and not my doing, though I have no doubt that my mood probably exacerbated the situation.

The truth is that I do know – deep down – at least part of the reason for my present petulant frame of mind. Had our original scheme come to fruition as intended I would by now be retired and we would be busy establishing our new life in Victoria. Instead of which I find myself dragging my weary bones towards the start of another arduous academic year.

The Girl was sympathetic. “Go to work – ya hippie!”, she explained.

She had a point…

Tags: Retirement, school, work

A good motive

August 16, 2013 in Life as we know it | Permalink

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

Lord Byron

At the roughly equivalent point last year – shortly after the Kickass Canada Girl and I had returned from Provence and before she flew back to Victoria to face the as yet unanticipated storm – we met some very old friends of ours (and – in terms of longevity – of mine in particular) for a drink at a very pleasant pub in the Surrey hills. I posted concerning that rendezvous here – the subject of which being elicited by Oldest Friend’s wife’s then recent retirement.

It is a sad side-effect of busy modern lives that – although we met our friends subsequently once more before Christmas – we realised recently that we had not done so since. Indeed – we had not even spoken to them! We rectified this sorry omission at the weekend by meeting for a drink at an altogether different – but equally pleasant – pub in the Surrey hills. Much catching up was done but one major topic of our conversation was not dissimilar to that of the previous encounter, we being – quite naturally – most keen to learn how their first year of mutual retirement had gone.

This whole question is once again at the forefront of our minds and I will be posting further on the subject shortly. Given the current climate it is no surprise that many of us of advancing years find ourselves preoccupied with thoughts as to how we will live once we are no longer ‘economically active’. Being baby-boomers we are nowadays assailed routinely by (or more accurately ‘on behalf of’) those less fortunate than ourselves (for which – in this case – read ‘younger’) and lambasted by complaints (of increasing ferocity) that we are somehow stealing their birthrights and plundering their futures.

The irony is that what many of those of us with a particularly late-sixties upbringing (if not actually hippies then certainly empathisers!) thought we were doing was our bit to save the planet. We are a gentle people with left of centre persuasions. We care about the environment. We care about inequality. We care about injustice. We still want to know what’s so funny ’bout peace, love & understanding… Accusations of selfishness thus wound us deeply.

And yet…

Whereas it has always been in my nature to feel vaguely guilty that I earn a pretty decent salary for what doesn’t exactly seem like rocket science (to me, at any rate!) and that I have been hugely fortunate to have found myself – quite accidentally – a member of some really rather good pension schemes – and whereas on the rare occasions that I have been obliged to seek better terms and conditions the experience has left me feeling as though I had just been accused of indecent intrusion upon some innocent instance of ovis aries…

…I can’t help but observe that – of late – my demeanor in such circumstances has shifted somewhat – and I am become considerably more single minded when it comes to maximising my possible returns. I am uncomfortably aware that this is the inevitable result of the realisation that time is running out – and that once the deed is done and I am no longer gainfully employed then the opportunities to influence my standard of living become negligible.

But that don’t mean that I like it!

Tags: Friends, Pension, Retirement

Ancient arts

August 1, 2013 in Life as we know it | Permalink

One of our reasons for choosing the Dordogne for this brief break from our daily grind in the UK is that the Kickass Canada Girl has an enthusiasm for pre-historic cave art. I found myself wanting to write ‘Neolithic’ then rather than ‘pre-historic’ because it just somehow felt right, but the period in question is actually the Magdalenian, of which – I must confess – I had no previous knowledge at all. This is – however – from the man who complained after sitting his physical geography ‘A’ level paper that there had been no question on glaciation – a subject on which he had particularly ‘mugged up’. Sadly that mugging up had not included the key phrase ‘Pleistocene Era’. Doh! My, how the other kids laughed!

Anyway – the Girl came to the subject through the works of the American authoress – Jean M. Auel – who wrote the ‘Earth’s Children’ series of books, of which ‘The Clan of the Cave Bear’ is the first and – possibly – the best known. Now – I must admit to not having read any of these titles but – as those who know me will be only too aware – I have always been drawn to those who have an enthusiasm for pretty much anything and in this case the Girl’s avidity was infectious. Hence, the Dordogne… hence, trips to a number of cro-magnon sites.

We have in the last few days visited cave sites at Rouffignac, Lascaux and Peche Merl. All were fascinating in equal measure, whilst all being at the same time completely different.

Rouffignac is an extensive ‘dead’ limestone cave system. In other words, though the caves were formed by the action of acid-laden water they are now completely dry. The system is sufficiently extensive that visitors travel to a depth of approximately a kilometer underground on a small electric railway that winds its way through the subterranean passageways. The caves feature both engravings – many of which are of mammoths – and drawings of horses, bison, ibexes and rhinoceroses. One of the many mysteries of this cave art is that there are no representations of the animal with which Magdalanian Man was most familiar (it comprising the better part of his diet) – the reindeer.

Several days later we paid an unexpected visit to Lascaux. The reason I say ‘unexpected’ was that all of the Girl’s research prior to our journey south suggested that getting to see any of the cave systems might prove difficult. The numbers allowed into the caves on any given day are extremely small since preservation of the fragile drawings is the imperative and they can be damaged by an excess of carbon dioxide in the air. Visits to most sites – according to the literature at least – cannot be booked before the day concerned and thus queues form very early in the morning to ensure entry.

Our hosts in the Dordogne – of whom more in a later post – advised us that this was a gross exaggeration, and indeed we arrived at the ticket office for Lascaux (in the neighbouring village of Montignac) at 10:30am and acquired tickets for an English tour at 11:00am. Not much of a wait there! A similar story could be told concerning Peche Merl. The website advised that tickets could be reserved in advance, but that to do so one had to book a week or more ahead. Ploughing ahead regardless I was able to book tickets just a couple of days in advance – and for the time of our choice. The lesson is – don’t at believe everything that you read on the InterWebNet – though I expect that you knew that already.

At Lascaux – of course – one cannot see the original cave itself, it now having been sealed safely away from heavy-breathing visitors. The clever French have – however – created a complete underground replica of the cave which they call Lascaux II. This millimetre exact copy of the original is made of concrete and is thus not prone to the decay that is endemic to the limestone equivalent. Even in copy form Lascaux was exquisite.

However beautiful it may have been, however, we had clearly saved the best until last – with Peche Merl. This cave is in the valley of the Lot, rather than that of the Dordogne, and was a two hour trip from where we are staying. It was – as you will see if you follow the link above – completely worth the trip, with fabulous and moving drawings of horses, mammoths and outlines of the human hand, but also with a dazzling display of stalactites and stalagmites. Those of you who remember the works of Roger Dean will recognise clearly the organic forms built up over the millenia in the rock formations. Perhaps the most moving details of all were the footprints of a cro-magnon adolescent which had been preserved at the bottom of a dried out pool. Really quite spooky.

There are many strange and unexplained phenomena in these eerie grottos in the limestone hills of the Perigord. I may revisit the subject in a future post – or perhaps even persuade the Girl herself so to do.

Tags: Art, France, Holiday

Sent packing!

July 24, 2013 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Tomorrow the Kickass Canada Girl and I head for France. As mentioned previously we intend to meander slowly down to the Dordogne over a period of some three days in the Girl’s spanking new convertible (well – new to her… You know what I mean!).

Now – the boot (Canadian – trunk!) of the Mazda (Canadian – Miata!) is the cutest wee thing going. It is good to see that the Japanese made no concessions whatsoever to utility when designing the ultimate ‘British’ sports car and that they wasted no efforts either there or in the strictly two-seater cabin on such fripperies as storage. As a result packing for the trip presents an interesting challenge.

I have discoursed briefly before on the Girl’s packing habits. She has – naturally – been working on the problem already for the best part of a week. It might appear – to the uninitiated – that her method consists of emptying out her entire wardrobe and then successively dismissing items ‘not required on voyage’ until such time as she can shoehorn the remainder into whichever trunks, valises and other items of baggage have been selected for the journey. To suggest that this were indeed the case would be a scandalous calumny and a terrible mistake, which I – for one – do not intend to make. However, given that the sum total of her travelling wardrobe must fit into two small soft bags I sense that this time her skills may be tested to the limit.

Being a chap – of course – I will simply toss a couple of t-shirts into a bag at the last possible moment and call it good. Well – there have to be some advantages to chapdom!

And if – by chance – I find that I have forgotten something, then the odds are good that the Girl will have packed said item instead – and I can simply borrow it!

Good luck with that one – as they say…

Tags: Cars, Convertible, France, Holiday, Travel

Dry run

July 17, 2013 in Life as we know it | Permalink

It occurred to me – in the days leading up to my recent furlough from the world of work subsequent to the culmination of the summer term – that I might take the opportunity to conduct a small and not altogether scientific experiment. To whit – I would treat my time at home as an analogue for my eventual retirement. In this I was abetted by the fact that the Kickass Canada Girl had – somewhat to her chagrin – to go to work whilst I enjoyed my days at ‘leisure’.

I duly spent the week imagining that my time was my own – not just for the duration – but in perpetuity….

…and I have to say – I loved it!

OK – now I know that this was not a serious test and that my actual retirement – when it finally comes – will indubitably prove to be a very different experience. However, this experiment felt particularly good to me – and what I loved most was having the time to do things properly. So much of modern life seems to me these days to consist of rushing from pillar to post – squeezing ever more effort into a limited period and in return being rewarded with ever increased stress. I know that this is all about ‘efficiency’ and ‘productivity’ and that these are undeniably ‘good things’… except that as I grow older I find myself more and more doubting that they truly are so.

My one serious gripe with this leave of absence was that the days were quite simply not long enough! I have met all too many retired folks who complain that they don’t know what to do with themselves – that their lives have no structure and that they miss the motivation of having to work. I don’t get that at all! I read. I pottered about. I did some chores. I ran some errands. Sometimes I sat and thought. Sometimes I just sat!

I had time to do some work on a long-uncompleted song. The piece needed some serious thought and care lavished on it so that it could find its true form. I was able to devote such time to finding suitable sounds and to gaining a clearer picture of what it wanted – what it needed – to be. It is not yet finished, but I am already particularly pleased with the way that it is progressing.

I lunched with the Girl. Lunch at work is a rushed 10 or 15 minutes spent grabbing some sustenance before heading back to the desk. Lunch when one’s time is one’s own becomes what it really should be – the reward for a morning’s attention to detail and an opportunity to share all the delights of the day with those whom one loves.

Will I miss work when I do retire? You know – I truly don’t believe that I will.

When the time is right – it’s time to go.

Tags: Retirement

One year on…

June 28, 2013 in Life as we know it | 2 comments

Today is the last day of the year – in academic terms at least. At this time last year I was on the verge of flying off to Victoria (leaving for the airport straight from the School just as soon as the boys had departed) for what turned out to be my last (to date!) visit to BC.

Time to take stock…

A great deal has changed over the course of the year. My visit to Victoria last June/July was not to have been the only trip of the year. I was also expecting to join the Kickass Canada Girl and our lovely friends in Saanichton for Christmas – which would have been my first such in Canada and to which I was looking forward immensely. When I left BC in mid July I was thus expecting to be back before the year end and made my farewells accordingly. By the time I do visit next – this coming Christmas – eighteen months will have elapsed and many things will inevitably have changed. If nothing else, our beloved friends’ young boys will have grown (almost) beyond recognition.

The other significance of this particular day is that – had things gone to plan – this would have been my last day of term before retirement. Though I had intended to work until the end of July the serious business of education would have come to an end. Throughout these last two weeks I have been attending the farewell presentations and speeches to the Common Room of those who are moving on or retiring. I must admit to the odd twinge of envy for some of those who are hanging up their gowns and preparing for their post-School, post-work lives. It has not been easy adjourning this particular dream, though of course the presence by my side of the KACG makes up for pretty much everything. More than anything we are both eternally grateful that we no longer have to live on different continents.

The Girl herself is thriving. She loves her new job and now has the bit firmly between her teeth, already starting to build the role into something significant and substantial. She loves her rag-top roadster – in which we are intending to meander down to the Dorgdogne for a break in the sun (hopefully!) towards the end of July. She loves being able to go the the theatre and galleries in London – and she would be loving the bucolic English summer were we ever to get one!

All is good – all is good! Our lives are so blessed when compared with the travails of so many others in these uncertain times – and it is good for us to remember this.

These blessings we count daily!

Tags: British Columbia, Canada, Friends, school, Victoria

CO

June 6, 2013 in Life as we know it | Permalink

May 15th was International Conscientious Objectors Day.

I had not realised – until I read this article in my regular Saturday newspaper, the Independent – that there even was such a thing. This is remiss of me, particularly given that the subject is of considerable personal interest.

It is sobering – given the appalling treatment meted out to those who sought to be to be regarded as conscientious objectors during the First World War – that they are now viewed with increasing respect – their courage and fortitude in making a stand for what they believed being at last recognised as such. One can only hope that the same emendation is eventually extended to all those who make such commitments – regardless of origin or circumstance.

Growing up – as I did – during the late 60s my youthful ideals were strongly slanted in the direction of pacifism. Decades later I find myself grateful that – in spite of the inevitable realignments that occur with age and in the light of experience – my position has not changed as much as it might have done. I still believe that violence – if it can be justified at all – must only ever be used as a last desperate act of defence, when all other avenues have failed. War is always an admission of defeat – of failure to resolve a situation by more civilised means.

Lest my comments here be misconstrued it should be understood that I have the greatest respect for our armed forces – for what they do and the way that they do it. They should not however – in my view – be placed in such positions as those in which they frequently find now themselves.

I was horrified – for example – in the early 80s to learn that the Argentinian Junta had sent its brigades of teenage conscripts to occupy those godforsaken disputed islands off the Argentine coast. That this had been done for purely political reasons – to prop up an ailing regime – was abundantly clear. My horror increased a thousandfold when it became apparent that our own government intended sending our young men thousands of miles to kill other young men – and to be themselves killed. No desperate acts of defence here – but a call on the young men of two nations to sacrifice the most precious gift that they would ever possess for reasons that primarily amounted to the saving of political face!

Lest this anachronistic war be considered in some way exceptional I surely need only draw attention to the farce that was the justification for the war in Iraq – not to mention the shameful political maneuverings that have led to the current stalemate in Afghanistan… and if there ever was country that has suffered enough over the past few centuries this must be it!

The Great War itself – of course – epitomised of the hypocrisy of modern warfare – as a brace of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren and their cousin oversaw the laying waste of a continent and the destruction of a generation. If we as a race are truly incapable of conducting our affairs without recourse to violence then at least let our kings and barons – or their contemporary equivalents, our leaders and generals – lead their troops into battle personally – as once they did.

And if they will not do so then there can be no surprise when some amongst us also decline to participate.

Tags: England, Politics

Credit and character

May 28, 2013 in Life as we know it | Permalink

There is a defined gulf
Between credit and character
If you doubt this, ask any banker;
He will advise that character is nice
But it is not collateral.

Evan Rhys, Poems from the Ledge

I am mindful of the fact that I promised a brief note on the… challenge – shall we say… of recovering monies from Canada to the UK once thence transferred. I am aware that in the normal run of things this would not pose any particular difficulty. Our case – as you might expect – does not entirely fall within that disposition.

Last year – whilst the Kickass Canada Girl was living in Victoria – we evolved a stratagem in service of which we would transfer to Canada such of our savings as could be spared, preparatory to the purchase at the appropriate point of a property there. To this end we opened a joint bank account and transferred funds to it using an online currency exchange – both of which operations were accomplished with encouraging ease.

When the situation deteriorated and the Girl was forced – immediately before Christmas – to return to the UK we agreed that – since our long term plans remained essentially unchanged – we would leave our funds in BC. Shortly thereafter – however – it became apparent that we would need to recover a small percentage of the monies to the UK to cover immediate expenses. At this point things became messy.

A little research indicated that we would need to initiate the funds transfer from our bank in Canada. A call to their telephone banking line was not particularly helpful. I learned that – whereas small transfers could easily be made – anything above a few hundred dollars would rapidly fall foul of the limits imposed on daily, weekly and monthly total transfers. The telephone banking operative suggested that I should speak directly to the branch in Saanichton.

The call to the branch was not much more help. I was told that I could certainly transfer the funds required – by making an ‘arrangement’ so to do. Unfortunately this could only be done by visiting the branch in person. We had not made any such arrangement before leaving – of course – because we didn’t know at the time that we were going to need so to do.

Given that a personal visit was clearly not possible I was advised instead to consult my bank in the UK, the implication being that they might be able to effect something by themselves calling Canada in my presence. I duly paid a visit, queued for an advisor and was told in no uncertain terms that they could do nothing to assist and that the onus was on the Canadian end to instigate the transfer.

I called the branch in Saanichton again – this time speaking to the lady in charge of our account. She was sympathetic – but ultimately unhelpful.

At this point – rapidly losing patience with a system seemingly designed to render impossible that which should have been a relatively simple operation – I called Canada again, this time to the bank’s customer service line. I finally encountered someone helpful – an eager and charming young lady. Why – she said brightly – did I not simply write myself a cheque?!

I pointed out that I didn’t actually have a chequebook for this account.

No problem. I could order one online…

It is – apparently – quite impossible to arrange for funds to be transferred from Canada to the UK – either online or by telephone – unless one is actually in Canada at the time or has had the prescience to make the necessary arrangement. It is – however – a trivial matter to order a chequebook online – have it delivered to a Canadian address (our dear friends in Saanichton, who forwarded it on to the UK) – and then to write myself a cheque for any amount that I please.

My attempt to pay in this cheque-to-myself at my bank in the UK caused only momentary confusion for the front of house assistant, the resolution of which involved my being whisked peremptorily to the front of a long and somewhat irritable queue of other customers to obtain the necessary advice. I beat a hasty retreat before the murmuring behind me turned nasty – content that I had finally been able to get my hands on my own money!

Tags: Canada, Money

On the other hand…

May 20, 2013 in Life as we know it, Photos | Permalink

OK – so there are two possible explanations for the preceding and somewhat grouchy post on the subject of the current state of the British weather… The first is that my natural optimism had temporarily deserted me – prompted in no small part by the dogged insistence of our forecasters that the immediate future – in meteorological terms if no other – looked grim. The second is that I was actually practicing a subtle form of climatic voodoo – the intention being to goad the weather gods into an antithetical response. If this latter were indeed the case… well, it worked like a charm!

Contrary to all of the forecasts – including those on the day itself – the clouds cleared from the sky, the wind dropped to a balmy breeze and the temperature soared by a good five degrees. The ground – previously unknown to me – was pretty as a picture. Our opponents were good-natured and sportsmanlike – and we contrived not to lose. To be entirely fair we managed only what might be considered a losing draw – a concept almost certainly completely alien to anyone not conversant with the arcane nature of the game. I will happily explain should anyone so desire…

Today – naturally – it is once again grey and cold!

Anyway – here are a few snaps…