Taking a Tumble

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If you lived in our townhouse complex you may have been privy to a quite ridiculous situation a few days ago. Let me set the scene.

The child bride has bursitis in her left shoulder and has recently had a cortisone injection so her left arm may as well be made of wood, such is its uselessness.

And yesterday, after lunch at the excellent Birches restaurant, it started to rain. Being the chivalrous knight that I am, I went down the ramp to the carpark first and towards the bottom, turned to tell Mum and the CB to wait out of the rain while I went to get the car. As I turned, I put my foot halfway onto a small step, twisted my ankle and went down like Monica Lewinsky. Unfortunately there was no Clinton of any persuasion to break my fall, only a concrete path and it was not happy to see my right shoulder, right elbow and right hip so took to them like Mike Tyson to anybody.

Consequently, today I feel like I’ve just played the All Blacks….at my age.

So, there are industrial bins for our household rubbish. The lids are at about nipple level for me and top hat level for the rather diminutive CB. With both of us being appendage challenged, as in being unable to lift our respective right and left arms more than about 10 degrees we each had to take one small bag of rubbish to the big bins. I lifted the lid with my left hand and the CB threw the bags in with her right.

In the mining game we call this double handling. In our townhouse complex it’s called pathetic if you don’t know the circumstances.

Fortunately I don’t watch football with my hip and shoulder although they do together comprise a rather brutal function in the uniquely Australian version of football (or “footy” as it’s colloquially called). You can google “hip and shoulder” to see what I mean.

And I don’t need them to drink beer either as I have a perfectly normal functioning mirror image pair on the left side of my body, not that I need my hip to get a glass to my mouth, but it does get me to the fridge.The next challenge is to see if I can slide a guitar into that 10 degree gap.

Your boundless sympathy is much appreciated.

Do You Remember When…

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Back on 9/11 (this year) I intended writing one of those “do you remember where you were when….” essays but I forgot so I’m writing it now. I finished the (paying) work I do each week yesterday and the (non-paying) garden work half an hour ago and it’s raining so I thought I’d impose a bit of cancel-culture on procrastination to fill in a few minutes until beer time. Incidentally, that’s the only time you’ll see the words “cancel-culture” here other than as a target of disdain and ridicule.

There are very few events in human history that warrant remembering what you were doing when they occur because most of those memorable moments are the reasons you remember as in, I remember what I was doing the day I got married – I was getting married.

No we’re talking about disconnected events fusing together into an unforgettable nuclear marriage of inconvenience. For me, only three immediately spring to mind.

The first was when Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd 1963. I was a small boy getting on a ship in Southampton in the UK with my family to travel to Australia. A note was left on each table when we fronted for our first meal onboard advising us of what had happened. As master of ceremonies at one of my brothers’ wedding, also on November 22nd I was able to remind him that an event of earth-shattering infamy happened on that day, some 30 odd years before. Also, Kennedy got shot.

The second was the actual day of 9/11. I was in Seoul, Korea and had been out with a work colleague, our agent and some customers for dinner and drinks and on returning to our hotel our Korean agent received a phone call from his wife, advising him that a plane had flown into a building in New York – no other details. After a suitably shocked exchange of comments we retired to the bar. On returning to my room and turning on the TV, the full horror of the events that day were revealed.

Seoul is a garrison town for the US army and the hotel I was staying in is next door to the imposing Seoul World Trade Centre. It’s not uncommon to see military activity in Seoul both in the air and on the ground at the best of times. At the worst of times it was chaos. Organized chaos I’m sure but you can imagine the traffic when all but one entrance to the very large army base are shut. And there were more than the usual number of choppers in the air, many buzzing around the building next door, not to mention the troops on the ground. Seoul is after all, only about 50km from North Korea.

Incidentally, I’ve been to Korea over 60 times (I used to keep count) and have never been to the DMZ. The Child Bride has been to Korea once and when she went to the DMZ she brought me back a hat.

After doing what we had to do that day we made our way to the airport to catch our flight to Osaka to connect with our Ansett International flight to Brisbane. Ansett was doing it really tough right then and rumours were swirling that they were about to go under. As we flew into Kansai airport, I saw the big bird with the “A” on the tail – relief. After boarding (and getting upgraded to first class – some good things did happen on that trip) I was privy to a conversation between two flight attendants which filled me with, not so much dread considering what had happened the day before, but considerable disquiet. They weren’t sure whether the plane would actually leave Osaka. Fortunately, it did – relief.

Our flight was scheduled to fly from Kansai Airport to Brisbane and then on to Sydney. Bearing in mind that the airline was on its last legs (wings? wheels?), the announcements as we approached Brisbane went like this:

We’ll be landing in Brisbane soon. Please ensure your belongings are stowed….etc

A few minutes later…..

We’ll be landing in Brisbane soon. Would all connecting passengers please deplane and re-board when the announcement is made. We’ll be in Brisbane for approximately one hour.

A few minutes later…..

We’ll be landing in Brisbane soon. Would all connecting passengers deplane and wait for an announcement regarding your onward journey.

A few minutes later…..

This flight will now terminate in Brisbane. The ground staff will advise arrangements for your onward connection to Sydney.

A few minutes later…..

Please be advised that all of the passengers heading to Sydney will have to make your own onward arrangements. We don’t know how we’re getting there either.

The airline had expired while we were travelling between Japan and Australia.

And the third time was only recently so only time will tell whether it sticks with me but I’m betting it will. It was one of those occasions that will only happen once in your life – my father died.

My mother and one of my brothers and I had been to see Dad in the morning and it was not a pretty sight. He was in stage 7 of Alzheimer’s which means an inability to swallow, amongst other things. Mum struggled to even look at the handsome athletic man of her youth now a shriveled shell of a man struggling to breathe. We left after a few minutes and returned to her home about 10 minutes drive away from the nursing home Dad had resided in for the past few years.

We had been there for about twenty minutes when Mum’s phone rang. Now those of you who have frequented nursing homes will know that a lot of the staff are Asian, in this case many were from the Philippines. My Mum still speaks with a distinct Manchester accent but, ironically struggles with other accents. She hates ringing the phone company or the electricity company because she will generally find herself talking to someone in Manila or Bangalore. Anyway she could not understand what the lady who rang was saying. If I hadn’t been there to take the call maybe she still wouldn’t be aware that Dad died just after we left.

I cheated a bit with the third example. It wasn’t a disconnected (from my life) event that imposed  itself on me to the extent that it never leaves but, what can I say other than I won’t forget that day.

I just thought of another. The day Gough Whitlam was sacked as Australia’s Prime Minister on November 11th 1975, I was at university. There was a great rending of garments, wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the communist student union types. My lot, we did what we normally did – went to the pub.

St Crispin’s Day

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Apologies for the history lesson (and the recent paucity of posts – go back to the start for the reason why) but you may or may not know that today is St Crispin’s Day.

So what, I hear you ask?

Well, some rather famous things happened on this day.

So what I hear you ask again There are 365 days in a normal year and calendars of various descriptions have been around for thousands of years so it’s probable that something of note happened on every day of the years in human history. January 10th, for example was the anniversary of the CB and my nuptials, just shading the birthday of Pat Benatar for significance. But I digress.

St Crispin’s Day has religious significance obviously – the “St” bit gives that away. It commemorates the martyrdom of Crispin and his twin Crispinian in 286. They were beheaded by the Romans for preaching Christianity. Rather a severe consequence for something so seemingly insignificant but such were the times. But I digress (again) as that’s not the focus of today’s lecture.

Today in 1854 was the ill-fated but heroic Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava in Crimea. But more importantly it was the day the Battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415. And if you’ve read this far, you’ve got to the crux of the story.

If you haven’t already read it, I’m going to share with you one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches. How did we segue to that you are asking? Well in his play Henry V, King Henry (or Harry as he liked to be called) makes the famous Band of Brothers speech just before the vastly outnumbered British take on the French at Agincourt.

Harry’s would be one of the most inspirational pre-battle speeches (you can keep your “because no one can take away our freedom”, Mel Gibson) in history, if it wasn’t made up by Shakespeare. But fiction of non-fiction, it is said to have inspired Churchill’s famous “Never was so much owed by so many to so few” Battle of Britain speech and many others. So I am reproducing it here for your reading and edumacational pleasure. It starts with the King’s cousin lamenting the lack of numbers:

WESTMORLAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmorland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Be inspired!

Not Happy!!

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted because it’s a bit of a struggle at the moment. As you dear reader know, I try to lace my missives with the quirky and ridiculous and funny. While the second of these currently applies to world events in spades (am I still allowed to say that?) it’s the allowance of a piece of Seattle to be hived off into a new country type of ridiculous and not the frocks worn to the Oscars type of ridiculous that I’m talking about here. As a consequence I’m mad as hell as my previous post probably indicates although it has to be said the intransigence of the “authorities” has moved on from a mere virus to a threat to Western Civilization. And aren’t the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians and the North Koreans loving it.

I’m mad as hell because I cannot imagine a parallel universe where what is happening now around the world and especially in the USA would be tolerated by sane people. A very very small minority of morons is being allowed to dictate terms to the silent majority because left wing politicians (where they have jurisdiction) and a complicit traitorous media are supporting them and promoting them and level-headed law-makers are doing nothing about it. And you want me to kneel because of my white privilege? How about you just fuck off.

Yesterday Victor Davis Hanson said that the wind went out of the #MeToo sails when Joe Biden was accused of sexual assault. When it’s one of your team and that person can’t be jettisoned as collateral damage like Harvey Weinstein was, the hypocrites on the left are as toothless as a sock-puppet. Watching various A through F grade celebrities splutter and bluster when confronted with this inconvenient Biden truth (remind me again of the Kavanaugh fiasco) makes me laugh….with disgust. As a corollary it’s likely that the coalition of thrill-seeking middle-class teenagers, Antifa scum, perpetual student rent-a-crowds, gang members and lazy, good for nothing drug-addled chancers will only be forced to disperse the day after they are given Nancy Pelosi’s address. Then Democrat governors and mayors in cities that have been controlled by the Democrats for many decades will be ordered to re-take control. If Trump hasn’t already done so.

The irony of what is going on across the USA is that the people most affected by the riots in places like Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, St Louis and Washington DC – residents and small business owners, black, brown and white – are the people who regularly and monotonously vote for the clowns who are allowing this to happen. Nobody deserves to be innocently caught up in a self indulgent block-destruction party and see their life’s work go up in flames especially when Hollywood shit-bags are providing funding for the occasionally arrested arsonists, thieves and thugs who have taken your life’s work off you. But if you keep voting for them, my sympathy only stretches so far.

And where do you think all of that money that Hollywood and beneath contempt, virtue signalling corporates are donating is going? Into legal-aid funds? To feed the inhabitants of CHAZ or CHOP or CHUMP or whatever the hell name the “warlord” who runs the joint has dreamt up today? To pay for the removal of garbage? To house the homeless? To buy weapons (and drugs and attendant luxuries) for Antifa? If you chose the last option go to the top of the class (when the school reopens). If you think that’s too harsh tell me who has control of the bank accounts and who their auditor is.

I just hope for their sake, that all of the skipping and jumping, selfie taking, isn’t it all such a spiffing wheeze with all the like, chanting and like, marching and like, swearing (not too loudly), fresh faced (but masked), outer suburban teeny-boppers who just love, like, sticking it to the man as long as they can borrow daddy’s car, aren’t still hanging around after bed-time when patience runs out and the vigilantes arrive or the legally sanctioned shit really hits the fan because their new chums from CHUMP most definitely won’t have their backs – more likely their back-packs.

I Don’t Remember Voting For This?

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Let’s get one thing straight about this virus panic. The people making the decisions and the people enforcing the new “rules” have no skin in the game. Politicians, run-of-the-mill bureaucrats, health bureaucrats and police are not taking pay cuts (okay, there is an occasional example of tokenism) and are not in danger of losing their jobs. In fact their pay and the subsidisation of their jobs comes from the very people who they are destroying with their decisions and enforcement of “rules” which are not real laws because they have not been legislated. More on that later.

It makes my blood boil seeing state premiers parroting the old better safe than sorry clichés like a bunch of boof-head footballers after a game running through the phrases they have been told they are allowed to say (and the only ones they can remember) by the club PR machine while not actually saying anything of value.

People are getting mightily pissed off with the imposition of poorly explained and in some cases, useless restrictions like not being allowed to play golf. Don’t these clowns know how big a golf course is. Maybe they should restrict it to people with a handicap higher than 15 so they’ll know for certain that policing of social distancing rules will be totally unnecessary except at the tees after which balls will be sprayed all over the fairways and beyond.

The people who pay for everything – EVERYTHING – are being smashed through unemployment, business closures, both temporary and permanent and yes, domestic violence and suicide. Some of us in the payer category are willing to take the risk of getting life as we know it back underway, so back off those of you in the payee category. One more week, just to be doubly sure, is another business that is lost forever, another bout of depression and another smack in the mouth.

I repeat, we the ones who are taking all of the economic risks are willing to take the one in a million or three hundred thousand or whatever it is risk of catching a virus that may have no material impact on our health. So what if there’s a spike. We’re paying for the hospital and protective equipment. We’re paying the doctor’s and nurses’ salaries. You, governments all over the world, can print more money and completely fuck our economy and collectively the global economy for generations and put your hand on your heart and say “it was the virus what done it” because you are protected from the consequences.

The vast majority of these closet totalitarians have never run a business and on the left side of politics, most have never even worked in one. So we get these directives such as in stage 1 of the enlightenment, restaurants can allow 10 customers inside. The cost of opening and operating a business like a restaurant can only be covered if a majority (at least) of the seats and tables are occupied. It is cheaper to stay closed, as in the proprietor loses less than if the place opened for a small fraction of its capacity. But that is beyond the ken of our betters.

I’m reminded of the US constitution which begins with the words “We the people”. In more normal times, governments are elected by we the people based on their policies which we the people have approved through the ballot box. They then enact those policies and we the people have no excuses if we don’t like the unintended consequences which invariably occur when the actual policies begin with the words “Wouldn’t it be great if….”. Think of any green policy and that’s exactly what you get – unintended consequences. I should say that’s exactly what you would get if the electorate was collectively stupid enough to vote for those clowns. But never forget, half of the population has above average intelligence and half of the population has below average intelligence so also never forget the quote sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson – “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance”. Unfortunately we sometimes do forget and the current governments in Queensland and Victoria get elected. And the unintended consequences flow like a river.

I’m a bit of a student of American politics (the reference to their constitution may have given that away) and I never cease to be amazed at the standard of politician they elect, in many cases repeatedly. Fortunately the place is big enough to elect a majority of sensible people and the founding fathers inserted enough checks and balances in the constitution to ensure the more mutinous actions of a few (like what is happening now) are stepped on. But that doesn’t stop short term stupidity like electing Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or the governor of New York forcing nursing homes for the elderly to accept Covid-19 positive patients or giving booze and dope to the homeless as is now happening in California, all of which are being cheered on by the deranged main stream media and its cable and Hollywood lickspittles. People on the east coast and the left coast despise the people in flyover country and you can see why the feelings are mutual. And why there are now uprisings by the people against the ludicrous lockdowns in areas where the only virus is what you get on your computer from porn sites.

Speaking of Victoria, their government is the closest we have to a pack of rabid socialist totalitarians so as you can imagine, they are loving this virus. Governments of all stripes (especially the Victorian government) are ordering we the people around and fining us (and worse) if we don’t obey. I don’t remember voting for this shit. The ease with which the population has agreed to be confined to their homes by the imposition of threats must be a thing of wonder to those with dictatorial ambitions. A coup would be a piece of cake.

And I understand the three strikes rule will be implemented in Victoria in a couple of months if there is a second wave of infections. Three social distancing infractions and you will be executed. And all the infected will be banished like lepers to Philip Island, to live out their miserable lives in isolation where they can’t steal the oxygen from and pollute the bloodlines of the chosen ones. Godwin’s Law says that in an argument, whoever compares the other with Hitler first, loses. I wonder if the same applies to eugenics.

Corona Crazy

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The CB and I are into day 12 of our two week lock-down. We started to feel it after only two days. At that point we were starting to get desperate being down to our last internet, three laptops, one desktop, two smart TV’s, Netflix, Foxtel, Stan, free-to-air TV (whatever that is), 2 smart phones, 7 guitars and associated paraphernalia, a cupboard full of food, a fridge full of beer (and some food), a wine rack full of wine, countless toilet rolls, a house full of comfortable furniture and two children at our beck and call. It was touch and go whether we would survive the next 12 days.

But here we are with only two days left. To those who have been going stir crazy, I say harden up. It’s not that bad and if you prepared and have the mental capacity to withstand the range of deprivations dumped on us collectively by an over-zealous political sector (and I include politicians, bureaucrats and police in that over-reaching totalitarian collective), then you’ll be okay.

We aren’t in the least bit stir crazy and were perfectly okay until the two cats were returned from their “holiday” at the cattery which they endured while we were away. As usually happens, as soon as they got home they filed an eviction notice with the authorities as two people (us) had again squatted in their house. They do this every time we travel and it never works because the CB and I have more money than them and can therefore afford better lawyers. You’d think they’d learn.

But things will be back to normal in a couple of days except for the fact that stray people are now being rounded up and removed to five start hotel rooms I believe as well as being fined for exercising that sadly missed right to freedom of assembly. Compensation for this is coming in the form of money – our money being given back to us in advance because the government hasn’t taken it off us (and our kids and their kids and their kids etc) yet.

It must be great being the government. They can pump up the economy by injecting cash into it by buying back government bonds. But here’s the best bit. They just print more money to buy said bonds back. How brilliant is that. Imagine if we could all do that.

Tales from the Celtic Caravan -Part 9 – Random Thoughts to Wrap Up

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  1. When I hear someone speaking Italian or Korean or Liverpudlian, I know what language they are speaking even though I can’t understand a word of it. So does a non-Italian deaf person know if someone is signing in Italian or does it just look like random hand movements (as performed by all Italians) like that fraud was doing at the Mandela Memorial in 2013? Just wondering because every time you turn on the TV there’s a politician or a doctor giving a lecture so there’s a lot of signing going on all over the place.
  1. First we had social security then social justice then social media and now we have social distancing. Let’s hope this latest example of social engineering doesn’t become as permanent or ubiquitous as the others or social interactions at social gatherings and more intimate one-on-one social connections will be somewhat problematic and we won’t need a potent new virus to impose zero population growth on the populace.
  1. I never noticed because it was summer back home in recent months but it seems yoga pants are now all the rage in cold weather. I’m told this item of apparel is more correctly called leisure wear although I’m pretty sure some of the people who wear them haven’t leisured in years. For others I say leisure away because it can be quite a fetching look.As a corollary to this, yesterday morning here in the UK there was a debate program (with participants seated a healthy 2 metres apart and no studio audience) on whether fat shaming is hate speech. We didn’t watch it because this offence mining is getting ridiculous. I have red hair (actually I used to, but most of it has changed colour) and the child bride would like to be three inches taller but no one that I am aware of is taking offence by proxy on behalf of rangas and short-arses. So where do you draw the offence-taking line? Way back at the start before all of this virtue signalling, identity politics bullshit started – that’s where.
  1. The wedding we attended two days ago ducked BoJo’s ban on various public access hostelries by a matter of hours. The reception had just started when it was announced but news travels slowly in the backblocks of Lancashire and the Clitheroe pony express was lame so the festivities continued to a logical conclusion and when it’s a wedding in a brewery that conclusion should be obvious (everyone was suitably pissed, for those of you who don’t do obvious). Then yesterday, the hotel the CB and I are staying in prior to flying out today told us they had closed. But we could stay until check out time. So we were the only people in this grand hotel in Alderley Edge and a couple of days ago we were the only paying customers in the Swan and Royal in Clitheroe. And Qantas stops flying international at the end of the month. We were flying home on the 30th (on Cathay Pacific) originally but brought our return forward to tomorrow on Qantas. I can’t help but feel this virus has been snapping at our heels for the last week but we’re holding it at bay. If either of us eventually get this bloody thing I shall be extremely peeved.
  1. I didn’t think it could get any weirder in the short term but now Singapore won’t let Qantas land so our flight from here is London to Darwin – now there’s a first. I wasn’t able to confirm that immediately as they wanted me to call them and I was put in a queue which was between 3 ½ and 4 ½ hours long. The Qantas operator was very busy today! A few hours later Qantas called back and they wanted to know why I called them. Eh?
  1. I thought I’d seen it all but I hadn’t. Today, at Manchester airport the CB and I saw a lady in a full hazard suit – the white coverall type with head, face and mouth cover without even her feet outside. She wasn’t waiting to test a suspected virus carrier, she was a passenger waiting to get on a plane. Ours I think. It’s easy to say the world’s gone mad but I guess we all have different views on what are prudent precautions. Further to this, we are now sitting in Terminal 3 (the Qantas Lounge is closed – oh the privations) and there are hazard suits scattered across the main lounge area. I’m guessing most of them have Asians inside judging by the ones we’ve seen up close and personal. The cheaper versions appear to be those raincoat poncho things – there’s a few of them around. As previously reported we’re told that masks protect me from anything the mask-wearer may have. Hopefully on the plane we’ll be surrounded by a praetorian guard of hazard suits but unlikely. Japan Airlines or Air China will get them and we’ll get the gobby blokes in t-shirts.

And on that note, Tales from the Celtic Caravan comes to a close, unfortunately without a contribution from the Paddy Celts. Until next time.

Tales from the Celtic Caravan – Part 8

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Fortunately this little corner of the world the CB and I find ourselves in has a supermarket which may be bereft of bog rolls but has shelves stocked with Stella, Sav and Syrah. I think our home state of Queensland is the only political jurisdiction on the planet outside the muslim bit where you won’t find this. Since Boris announced yesterday that all bars, restaurants and pubs would close as of today, this has assumed life sustaining importance. So as I sit back in our hotel room contemplating the Alderley Edge Hotel’s empty carpark and the absence of any noise I am able to sip an ice cold beer and the CB can sip a Rosemount Chardie – a good value Aussie quaffer which costs as much in £’s as it does in $’s at home. Incidentally, that applies to just about everything here.

The family wedding the CB and I came over here to attend was completed in the nick of time yesterday. Today would have been a no-go. We were so happy for the bride and groom because the times were rapidly conspiring to make their big day a complete disaster. As it was, plenty of guests including two of the bridesmaids were unable to attend or didn’t want to attend. In less unusual times there would be severe recriminations for bailing out I am sure, but some people are following government directives to the letter so there isn’t really a case to prosecute. Notwithstanding, we have already encountered attitudes ranging from casual indifference to practical pragmatism to full-blown paranoia when it comes to avoiding COVID-19.

If you add the closure of most touristy places to closure of the pubs, bars and restaurants and the abandonment of everything sporting, this place has become instantly boring so it’s just as well we are heading home in two days rather than on our way to Ireland tomorrow. We can look forward to two weeks of isolation with logistics more akin to a spy swap than getting a cab when we land in Brisbane. Our kids have to avoid contact with us so our son will drive our car to the airport and our daughter will follow. Our car will be left for us to drive home and daughter and son will return to their respective homes in daughter’s car.

Bear in mind that we will have just spent 20+ hours in a crowded aeroplane so despite the best laid plans (of mice and men) and the imposition of restrictions the fun-police in Iran would be proud of, contact with other humans is unavoidable in some circumstances. And the people we encountered today in the above mentioned supermarket and in a coffee shop and at the hotel reception didn’t interrogate us as to whether we have participated in crowd forming activities recently. So it’s all a bit scatter-gun really.

Fortunately our son-in-law is manager of a supermarket so the fridge at home has been stocked this week and the local booze retailer home delivers. Netflix here we come.

Tales from the Celtic Caravan – Part 7

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Well the last couple of days has been frantic what with prime ministers and presidents banning some people but not others from visiting or leaving their countries and multiple airlines pulling flights and here’s the CB and I in the jolly UK. We cancelled our trip to Ireland and have been looking for a way to get home early before ScoMo slams the door. Fortunately, despite Qantas cancelling 90% of their flights, there were a few international seats available and we got two of them. The rest will be gone by the end of the month when the whole airline is grounded. Rather severe restrictions on movement are being imposed it seems.

I am hopeful I don’t encounter another problem because I caught a cold – understandable when considering the weather in Wales. It’s definitely a cold – I’ve had one or two before so am familiar with the signs. However I feel like I shall have to try to disguise the occasional cough and sniffle because I am sure there are members of the public out there taking it upon themselves to out those with devil signs – to the ducking stool with them. So my own version of 1984 (the book not the year) is underway as I try to avoid being revealed as a potential subversive or worse, mass murderer (the chief protagonist in 1984 wasn’t a mass murderer by the way – read the book).

We have a family wedding tomorrow – a cousin’s daughter – and the poor girl is watching as guests bail out and waiting for the dreaded call from the venue and/or the registrar, either of which could derail the whole thing. She’s holding up admirably (in public) so let’s hope we can make it to 2.00pm tomorrow after which the knot will be tied and all that remains is for the remaining guests to do their best with the pre-paid bar tab. Hopefully the pre-ceremony drinks will result in no one noticing my occasional cough into my coat.

But they have chosen an excellent venue – a brewery in a picturesque little town called Clitheroe in the north Lancashire countryside. The CB and I are staying at a local pub – The Swan and Royal. Great spot with a nice (and deserted) bar and big rooms looking out over a narrow main street. The owner was so pleased to see us last night that he gave us a tasty glass of coffee liqueur each. An 800 year old Norman castle in the centre of town dominates the scenery.

We’ve done a lot of castles on this trip, mostly in Wales. I love them and when you consider the engineering that went into them many centuries ago you have to wonder why a pile of cubed rocks arranged on top of one another in ever decreasing square layers until there is only one on the top is considered a wonder of the world and Conwy Castle isn’t.

Tales from the Celtic Caravan – Part 6

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Occasionally normal programming has to be suspended and this is one of those times. We’ll be visiting Cuz 1’s mother and father, my mum’s sister and brother-in-law and my aunt and uncle today. I haven’t seen them for many years and as they now reside in the cemetery, the last time I saw them will have to suffice as the enduring memory.

They were the most wonderful people who’d do anything for you. They had their foibles – amusing and occasionally annoying like everyone, but as time moves on and memories fade those idiosyncrasies become more endearing.

As parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles they revelled in the joy that their family provided. They lived the life they wanted to lead (with occasional diversions to accommodate cantankerous parents and accident-prone offspring) and apart from the very last phase when they didn’t have a lot of choice, carried it off with aplomb.

So RIP Mildred and Stan. Thanks for the memories (and the beer and the occasional scotch and the cooked breakfasts and the warm bed and the lifts to various places and for letting my old mates know when I was in town and for scolding me for not wearing a suit to a David Bowie concert when he was in his Ziggy Stardust phase and wore more make-up than clothing).