Away day or two

Sorry folks but I will be out of town for a day or two down in the big city doing my bit to champion the cause for older people. Nothing to revolutionary but don’t expect I will have time to blog. I don’t know how our MPs and councillors can keep up their busy schedules and find time to blog. BTBCBrummie

Litta re-cycling

I was sitting in my bedroom office looking out at the green space in front of my house. My neighbours and I had cut the grass, the trees were starting to come into blossom and after weeding and planting our little bed of bushes I was well pleased. Dog mess is a thing of the past and there was not a jot of litter anywhere to be seen. I then got to thinking about some of the other green sites locally that the council are supposed to maintain. One is constantly littered with beer cans and bottles and some of the others rarely get cut and when they are the mess left is a disgrace. We get the occasional crisp packet or chocolate wrapper and sometimes a drink can. When we do get litter it comes from the green boxes when they are emptied every Friday morning. I can guarantee it, they turn upside down the green box and anything left inside is left on the grass. This in itself is annoying but they leave all the green boxes from my neighbours in the same spot. Can recycling operatives be given fixed penalty notices? and if so do they get one for each piece of litter?

Neighbour hood watch, you’ll cop it.

For many years I have run a neighbourhood watch scheme in my street, helped form a neighbourhood watch association in our ward and been involved with Sandwell’s crime prevention panel. Most of this voluntary work is thankless and I often think our members just humour me. NHW has a good relationship with our local PCSOs and neighbourhood police officers but I often think that the police senior managers think we are just a bunch of do gooders to be tolerated. This attitude varies dependent on the regime and over the years we have had Commanders who were very pro NHW. Recently, mostly because of what I see as senior police indifference I have felt that perhaps it was time for me to pass on the role of coordinator to a younger person(if we can get one). Yesterday I decided to canvass all the membership in my street to sign a petition NHW are promoting to get improvements to safety measures on the duel carriage way which borders our ward. I was very surprised at the result. Almost all of the membership was totally behind the petition and most were very appreciative of what my wife and I have been doing and said so. It is nice sometimes to be appreciated and I thank you all for your support. Even though senior police may not be comfortable with what we are doing my neighbours certainly appreciate it.

The movement is growing

I have posted on this theme before but I make no apologies for repeating it because it is a major issue that the Labour party will have to deal with and that of course is Gordon Brown. My opposition to him stems back to his blatant bribe of pensioners at the last election and the subsequent removal of the £200 council tax allowance, his policies which have decimated pension funds and his appalling attitude to the Pension Protection Fund and the Financial Assistance Scheme for pensioners who have lost pensions through no fault of their own. I was with some pensioners again yesterday who were affected by the pensions crisis. That’s maybe not such a surprise to my regular reader. I use the singular because if you judge the blog by its comments count I’m mostly talking to myself. The pensioners I refer too were part of my team before retirement and ill health curtailed my economic activities. They were in the main life long trade union members and traditional labour voters. We don’t usually talk politics at our reunions but yesterday was an exception and I never started it (honest). In fact Gordon’s treatment of pensioners and the rising cost of living was the main topic of conversation. I’m not going to labour the point (if you’ll pardon the pun) but dear old Gordon came in for a lot of stick. So you heard it on my blog first if you’re a pensioner join Pensioners against Brown. You know it makes sense. Our consensus was that Labour will never win an election with him in charge.

yummy mummy

Youngest grandson is just like his granddad in that he has a sweet tooth. Ask him what he would like to eat and he will invariably say chocolate cake. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever, he’s always up for cake. He is a tall lad for his age I mention that because it explains what happened next. I think it was his third birthday and we were over in the states to help him celebrate. I told you I’m up for cake anytime. His Mum had made him a splendid cake and left it on the kitchen unit during the evening before his birthday and after he had been put to bed. The following morning I’m lying in bed thinking it’s time to get up when I hear a bump. I get up to investigate and find grandson sitting on the floor surrounded by his birthday cake and eating furiously. He could just reach the counter top and had pulled the cake down on top of him. As I said I’m up a piece of cake and I’m sitting on the floor just about to join the impromptu feast when big sister walks in. She looks at us two and exclaims “you two are so grounded I’m telling mum” Mum enters, with not a lot of cake left to salvage she had to see the funny side of it. Granddad however was in trouble for aiding and abetting. Well you’re only old once! But don’t you just hate it when the grandkids rat on you. Grrr.

Easter day

Easter Sunday, with American granddaughter and her brother who were drawing in their playroom. The picture looked like Jesus on the cross. Wishing to encourage her in this masterpiece of creativity and not being really sure what it was she was trying to draw. Feeling confident now that the picture was developing I ventured the opinion. “Is that Jesus on the cross?” “No” she tutted, “He wouldn’t look happy would he?” She later explained that it was Jesus but when he turned into an Angel. Serves me right for asking.

original picture curtesy of http://www.onlineweddingessentials.com/

General Knowledge

We used to do creative stuff when we looked after our grandkids and sometimes we would have little general knowledge quizzes. We would compile the quiz and make sure we had all the correct answers before they came. During one such quiz I asked the eldest granddaughter “where does tea come from?” without hesitation she replied “ASDA” She was only 8 at the time.