Happy Memories

John Glover
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glover_%28artist%29
 

Well today is the same weather as over the Easter weekend, how typical that the weather was so shitty.

It reminded me, of when, we get just moved to Reading, and friends visited us from Germany, they were very excited to be visiting us in England.

Sadly, the visit was at Easter, an early Easter at the beginning of April, just like this weekend.

On Easter Sunday 1965, we had every sort of weather that was possible, we had rain, hail, sleet, snow, thunderstorm with plenty of lightning.

Our visitors, really hated it, they thought the weather would be just as nice as it had been in Germany.

I remember it well, at our visitors request, we went to Windsor Castle, which would have been much nicer at the weather been pleasant.

What really made matters worse, was when we got to the castle, our visitors discovered to their horror, that there was no cafe available.

No coffee or cake was the last straw, after the horrible weather, they just couldn't believe, that Windsor Castle did not have cafe.

It was very funny, a memory that was so funny, I will never forget it, to this day whenever I see an old ruined building, I wonder if they have a cafe.

Happy memories of the past.  

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As Much Fun As Possible.

 
Abstract Digital Art.

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Spike.

Did not sleep well last night did too much thinking, about Spike every time I heard him moving around with difficulty.

But also thought about nice things like talking to Richie about our next party, after the party on September 17, he had suggested we have one on the 19 December, our 9 wedding anniversary.

Think it is a great idea, we still have 9 bottles of proseccio from September, plenty enough for December.

Will ask the same people to join us again this time, be good fun for me organising the party, getting everyone to bring something delicious to share.

September was great fun everyone enjoyed themselves enormously; it was nice to have a group of friends here for a change.

Years ago I used to organise a get together of a group of friends every Saturday, everyone brought something to eat and drink and we had a pleasant time together.

Generally I would make a big lasagne or quiches and rely on other people bringing salads, bread and deserts and wine or beer.

When I lived in Reading, England we always had such bring a plate parties, a few of us would also eat together every week, always at a different house so everyone took a turn cooking.  

Additionally I usually had a few friends over for dinner once a week, really missed all of that when I was here first, and so decided to start the ‘tradition’ here.

That was also when I was the chef at a vegetarian café, enjoyed the job very much, loved thinking up the new menus, a new dish of the day, soup and salad daily.

Miss being able to cook these days, it has been a long time since I cooked anything; the last thing was a curry in early 2006 and scrambled eggs in early 2007.

Being disabled has robbed me of so much in the last 5 years, feel that I need to do everything possible to have as much fun as I can while I can.

Life is Full of Ups and Downs.

Highdown School, Emmer Green, Reading, Berkshire, England.

It is amazing that it is Friday again so quickly, guess it has always been this quick, just sometimes it seems slower.

When I was at school and things were not going so well the week seemed to be endless, especially when we had classes with an unpopular teacher.

Maths lessons took three times as long as an art class and music classes seemed to be finished before they started.

Except when the horrid boys decided to tease the teacher, he was such a nice shy man, he would blush bright red which made them persist in teasing him time and again.

All so they could see him turn puce and start to get extremely nervous that he would be seen by his colleagues.

They would carry on until he got so worried and nervous he would start to stutter and drip with sweat.

Really did not like the boys that did this, they did stop it when they realised how unpopular they had become with the rest of the class.

I think if they had picked on the teacher who bullied the class it would have been supported by the majority.

The music teacher was liked by most of the pupils as he allowed them to play pieces they liked and he was fun.

Soon the tormentors found they were isolated which was not what they liked so they stopped and faded into obscurity.

I recently looked up my old school and discovered that it is a very good school these days, it is not called The Grove anymore, it is called Highdown School and is linked to Microsoft and other computer companies based in Reading.

Really good to discover this, nice to see that my old school is no longer the worse school in town, as it was when my parents placed me there.

This was the school where the class teacher greeted us on the first day by telling us he did not expect any of us to achieve anything in life.

According to him we would be doing very well if we got managed to get jobs with Courage’s (local brewery).

Or Huntley & Palmers (biscuit factory) or Sutton Seeds (seed and bulb company).

These were the local companies, Reading was known for its beer, bulbs and biscuits, by the eighties the brewery moved to the outskirts of town.

And Sutton Seeds and Huntley & Palmers were both taken over by other companies, and both moved to other locations with different names.

In the eighties Microsoft and other computer companies moved into Reading and by the sound of it not only changed schools like Highdown but changed Reading from a county town into Silicone Valley England.

Think the pupils at Highdown School will be doing work experience at Microsoft and will be able to pick and choose where they will work.

The days of pupils being treated like we were at the Grove seem to be long gone now and Highdown School is a wonderful community school.

Life is full of ups and downs.

Quite a morning.

Had a reasonable nights sleep sadly woke up really early hot and bothered and damp.

Flapped the duvet open and cooled off enough to drift back off to sleep which was really lovely and very welcome.

At 11.30 a very pleasant woman came round from Arjo Huntleigh, the company who we got the air pressure mattress from.

She wanted to check that the pump is working well, had hoped to get an upgrade but she told me that I have their best mattress the Nimbus 3.

She did put it on a softer setting and I felt the difference quite quickly which is better than it was.

Now I do not feel so much pressure on my back so quite a useful visit.

Plus now know that if the pump starts to get too loud we need to call the company and they will come and replace the filter in the pump.

After the vcisit received an email fro-m a friend in England with bad news about a friend of his who had just got 9 months in prison for a few cannabis plants.

His first offence!

No wonder the prisons are full, and not of scary prisoners as we are led to believe but with people like my friend's friend Dusty.

Many years ago I had a job working for the Probation Service in Reading, my job was to sit in court and take noted for the Probation officers to make their reports.

Regularly saw sad people at their wits end trying desperately to make ends meet and failing.

They would often break open the electric meter and steal a small ammount and end up in prison leaving partner and kids in an even worse position.

Never made sense to me which is why I did my degree in Criminology purely out of interest and not for the career opportunities.