Saturday 3^rd November 2018
Much has taken place since Friday 26^th October requiring extensive editing, so I am closing October and will write the rest opening November.

Friday 26^th October 2018
Started writing this late morning yesterday and pushed it into today as I thought “enough was enough” for then but wow! The weather has turned and it is a dull, slightly misty morning, starting at 07:00 almost pitch black, making me understand Scotland’s reluctance to be permanently one hour ahead. Will be glad for the clocks to go back Sunday. Now the morning has moved on and the weather is as I projected when writing yesterday: what have I done? How did I get here?
      The sun blazes through my living room window and I have opened the window to enjoy the fresh breeze before northern winds blast me to kingdom come [winds not yet arrived!]. The enormity of what I have just done, accumulated with what I had already started and have yet to do, brings a rush of rational thinking. Cool, calm, collectedness. Take stock and pro actively slow down. Rarely do we like ‘switching out’ but cool, collected rationality best manages resources cost effectively. Resource is not just funds available but funds managed, bearing in mind potential problems and planning allowance for them ahead of them happening. One such resource is health. Grab the moment but bear in mind potential sudden deterioration.
       Yesterday [Wednesday] started on Monday! A glorious day, lovely sunshine as of today, little or no wind and I thought I would dip a toe in the sea, something a late friend and I always made a point of doing at least once every year. Discussion with my cousin led me opposite to my intentions, so I headed north as I had originally intended, prepared to stay over a night by taking a full northern route. Short of King’s Lynn lay Sandringham, so I dropped in there and had a wander in the nearby woods, the estate and house having just been closed for the season but the church of course was open and what a church! The altar is solid silver (a gift from John Wanamaker as a token of respect for Edward VII), set in a chancel the collective whole of which gives the impression of silver, silver and more silver. I enjoyed Sandringham’s forest grounds and made a mental note I had to visit in season.
        Then came as lovely a run round the northern edge as I had enjoyed coming down my normal route. Traffic not too heavy, some new roads of which I had been unaware with major road works of which I had also been unaware, related to East Midlands developments but traffic generally running well and maintaining a high speed until home. Off load, make do supper and crash out—a long day!
       Tuesday, crashed out from Monday's excess of exuberance, essential domestic doodling then contact garage for Wednesday: scratch requires their spray operative (been on holiday this past fortnight). He was in on Wednesday. Want to liaise his availability with my annual service and sort out with another operative for wheel trim replacement. Suddenly, garage very happy to run round me, organising everything and lending me a car for the period, as well as sending out a driver to deliver it, collect mine and return three or four days later—coach work requires body shop, not just a simple spray job, my brilliant orange colour being rather special.
        Suddenly, I find myself examining one of their show room models, which I had previously seen and liked its deep blue, causing me to consider a change but decided “no”. I had then chosen my current brilliant orange. Its acquisition was making a statement: P Such Esq was alive and kicking and the neighbours duly noted!
        I looked it over again and mulled changes since my present model. Crunch time, bearing in mind a possible sale within eighteen months was why I was prepared to fork out the money for current repairs (entirely my own stupidity), rather than make an insurance claim but new model had the option of an in built fitted camera, which I was thinking of purchasing for my model but did not like the idea of it being fitted by someone else. Toyota had woken up to the relevance and now provided a camera fitted in by them under Toyota management and warranty.
         Gradually, my world perspective changed. I couldn’t change cars just then and there but had to plan a week or two ahead, so suddenly I have a new car, almost exactly two years after I bought my present one, without the need to fork out for repairs or a new camera and acquire other additional refinements, such as automatic partial braking before any potential collision and something the absence of which had caused me concern, a parking sensor showing my front at kerb level which otherwise disappears completely out of the driver's view due to the steeply curved bonnet.
          I would once more be up-to-date with current road thinking. This must certainly be my last car. I was loath to lose my brilliant orange and disappointed at not being able to drive out with my preferred blue but I chose a mottled deeper red, bordering upon maroon that required three coats of paint to achieve (so going to be expensive to repair!) that made a quieter statement of distinction. When I had previously been employed I had been used to a brand new car being changed every three years because of my high business mileage. Retired I had bought my first brand new car, my orange sensation and was now changing it for another brand new car two years later! I sensed a joi de vivre!

Thursday 25^th October 2018
[Facebook, in response to proposed arms demonstrations] and what about the anguish caused to commuters with the present south western trains strike action? Are not such resistance actions a wilful, selfish confrontation of other people's livelihoods and family responsibilities?

Good morning world, one P Such Esq reporting in after a marvellous weekend away, grabbing the last of summer; a summer I have missed with the too great a heat we actually had, crashing me out completely. Family, on my mother’s side, all in fine fettle, revelling in good health and enjoying the last of summer. Yes, there are of course problems, not one of us is getting younger but the future is being met with confidence and resilience. The weekend weather was the summer I had missed through being too hot, yet now it was supposed to be autumn and that tinge was drawn out through the weekend.
          This weekend the clocks go back while the continent is going to slip into continual “summer time”, in which context how does Scotland feel about that? Our mornings will be brighter and evenings darker earlier, more noticeable for them, which is why they did not take kindly to ideas of staying permanently in summer time and thus holding us back from taking advantage of potential benefits but what of such benefits?
           London is thinking of matching New York in being a twenty-four hour city but at what price to its inhabitants? I have never worked a shift system. Some seem to adapt without problems others find difficulty in daytime sleeping but what about the rest of us? Should we not be adapting to realising that people around us may need unbroken sleep during daylight hours while we razzamatazz around, unaware of their needs, while gaining benefits from their endeavours?

Tuesday 23^rd October 2018
Like All Saints, Christmas was deliberately subverted because they could not sell Christianity, anymore than the perverseness of some of them now try to sell can sell male domination.

Nothing to smile about as there never is with cheap hacks lacking depth of knowledge of their subject. Both Labour and Conservatives have wilfully betrayed the electorate, side-tracking the electorate's ire to the EU, so their egos can pursue their wilful failure to address our own parliamentary failings, to maintain our unrepresentative voting system and maintain the "integrity' of their party labels.

Those worth reading will remember it was the British public who created the parliamentary system, which scares the EU rigid. Parliament controls the executive, not with the EU that has made certain the executive controls the people. We, the public, determine what costs will be incurred and then how money will be raised. Not with the EU, the electorate is the last to be told, never to be asked. In the UK the electorate has been making its voice known and felt for 800 years and the EU simply has not grasped that reality, or is panic-stricken by such facts.

I very much dislike Theresa May, but I do not think she is wilfully failing. I think she was given the impossible task. What should she do about the Northern Ireland boarder? It is a fundamental question of identity, economics and security at the heart of Brexit which cannot be removed.

Friday 19^th October 2018
’Morning all. last night I was afraid I was going down hill but all augurs well for this weekend this morning. The sun is blazing through my living room window, which has condensation at the bottom and the kitchen window has steamed up. For the first time I have realised the meaning of double-glazing but it is also my first inclination that the weather has indeed moved on to a new season. On the other hand, I have just switched off my under window heater, will I actually lose the benefit of strong sun light through double-glazing?
      Surveyor arrived yesterday with sample and I have changed my specification to rosewood cill for the door. Cill? OED only lists cill as a (later) variant of sill. Interesting. I had always thought cill derived architecturally and had assumed it was the earlier version. Anyway, I have been stirred. Surveyor’s arrival meant clearing window sills, pulling down net curtains, extraordinarily dusty and dirty. I am really falling into a disreputable state of which I am only becoming aware but there is no point in calling in professional cleaners until I start clearing the accumulated chaos around me, currently awaiting further progress on my writing.
      Changing habits. Have increasingly disliked weekends. I’m used to the companionship of Victoria Derbyshire and my day has been programmed from the TV schedules, perhaps why I have not got much done but then is that not caused by lack of energy, possibly leading to light depression? Yesterday accountant failed to turn up with my files, despite expecting them in March and I have not been concerned in the interim. Now I am and I am invigorated with preparations prior to complete refurbishment of my hallway and stairs, which is going to entail major upheaval! Things are happening but I do not enjoy spending money but in the longer term it is family money and family will be rallying round. I can give away £3,000 a year without tax problems but that one has to bear in mind how many agencies might claim to have an interest, not just in what I leave but in how that was reduced, during the immediate preceding years. This month’s Which? points out that taxation can be more arduous retired than employed and I have a duty to ensure my death causes as little inconvenience as possible to the remaining members of my family, all of whom have busy schedules of their own.
      On Victoria Wood, as I write, there is a discussion about the nature of Trans persons in social matters, such as public toilet arrangements. No mention to my knowledge about spiritual aspects. In my experience there have only been one or two spirits who had experienced physical life in both sexes. I have been male in all three of the previous existences of which I have been made aware, in two of which some friends in this life had also known each other. A point to bear in mind when writing on my family history.
      Writing, solely casually, it seems to me that most concepts of God have derived from male dominated societies for the purpose of maintaining male dominance. Sex is a physicality of this life, it is not relevant in the state of pure spirituality, yet I do not recall, in the séances I attended years back, meeting with a dual or composite entity. Visiting spirits had retained the clarity of their last physical lives.
      On another issue there is pressure to bring forward banning all diesel and petrol cars. That throws my recent thoughts on replacing my current car but presumably 2032 would be the start of a phase over? Cheers for now.
 

Thursday 18^th October 2018
A very lovely introduction to a problem more awesome than we seem able to take in. Perhaps it is my age, not dropped out but slowly dropping and aware of people dashing around, seemingly ever faster and to no seeming purpose, yet I have been one of them in my younger days, dashing around unconcerned for who else was around me.

Hello all! Totally out of the blue I just had to share on the immediacy. BBC News, weather forecast showed a clip from Colorado where it has snowed heavily. CCTV camera observed a foraging bear opening the driver's door of a parked and snowed over car to have a sniff around. Exited, can't remember if he closed the door but then he had a sniff inside from the other side, back and front. Lovely interaction of nature.

Wednesday 17^th October 2018
I hope I am not writing too soon but things seem to be coming together, not without frustrations but seemingly resolving. Fingers crossed!

Canada legalises regulated Cannabis. Interesting that so many "minor" countries banned cannabis a century earlier than the UK (1928, an addition to the 1920 Dangerous Drugs Act), several being Commonwealth countries somewhat ahead of the UK in their thinking.
          So, why did we regulate tobacco: for health reasons, sociability? Why regulate alcohol? Some religious states ban both absolutely. Is the wheel of the moral code approaching its zenith before descending into the morass of moral absolutism?
          What is freedom of choice but burdened with responsibility for the consequences, hence we start with responsibility before we presume to claim rights.
          On Facebook. "Why should we move on when it's clear what a shit show it is, that it was an advisory referendum win by an illegal campaign. No thanks."
          I agree the EU is a mess and its continuing to argue proves the folly of our joining when it twice told us they did not want us. Now we are leaving they don't want to let go! Pure perversity. Indecisive as usual. Decision's been made, move on.

Tuesday 16^th October 2018
Good after-noon world. My stars augur well for this week, I hope this will continue through until after the weekend.
           Since nearly 60 per cent of people do not even write a Will, despite much more open public talk on such matters, many still have difficulty in facing the reality of death and making appropriate provision for their own demise. I made my first Will in my late twenties, prompted by an extended trip to America and wanting to make everything simplest for my parents. My father, well into his retirement from a long civilian life could not throw off his army days and it is on his basis of detailed direction for his own funeral I make my preparation.
           It is a good experience to think through all that entails and see oneself not as oneself but in the context of life's realities, as a nuisance to those suddenly having their schedules thrown into disarray. Simplicity throughout, defining principles by which detail may be resolved, according to the reality of circumstance one can only vaguely envisage.

One should review one's life periodically and take an up-to-date assessment in a wider context than just oneself, in the "today" of that moment. Is my contentment (despite diverse health issues) bordering upon complacency, or have I not stretched myself sufficiently? Much undone but no reason to leave things be, so one ploughs on.

I spent over an hour in detailed discussion on plastic and I am now wondering if I should have gone for a rosewood doorstep. Surveyor will ring shortly and I'll have him discuss with the assessor's quote the pros and cons before he arrives to take the technical detail.

Car service chap still on holiday; annual service to organise with minor body repair to tie together, to keep things simple; Companies House system changed but even easier, done; they've already agreed, move on a year; Road Tax done, free; change car, will I be driving in ten years regretting a fourteen years old car, or if I change will I be fit to drive next year? Decisions, decisions, decisions. I love my brilliant orange and black Toyota, many people apparently wanting it and I am reluctant to lose it, P Such Esq. is without doubt alive and kicking. TV switch in for the evening, good night.

The apology is due for the stupidity of agreeing so much and failing to ask us at the time if we accepted MPs wilful folly involving us in the EU without asking us!

Sunday 14^th October 2018
It is nothing to do with religion: it is a point of law!

After-noon world, one P Such Esq. reporting in! A lovely hour observing wild life in the Rockies, concentrating on a mother moose educating her two weeks old calf, preceded with 'Songs of Praise'. Outside, it might be termed 'dreer' but there is a clear, bright light above the low cloud which brightens the day, lifting the after-noon into a pleasant pause, holding further back summer's reluctance to let go. It poured visiting Waitrose late morning and cleared whilst inside, irritated by the handset system failure and having to encounter the manual check out for the first time for some time, causing me to be confused! No end, apparently, to my two day close-down with total exhaustion. Hopefully it will clear in time for next weekend! Miscellaneous admin bits to handle which somehow seem to stick around, very dispiriting, the price of still being involved and not cast adrift!

How interesting, I'm a Brexiteer but voted 'remain' because I did not believe they would persevere with their twaddle and not make an attempt to put right their serious structural failings but they really are that daft and arrogant. So, if we were to vote again, which I oppose, I would vote Brexit! We all knew (those of us that take our responsibilities as a voter seriously) ALL that was relevant to know two years ago. The EU is intent on proving how right Brexit is and how asinine are they: rejected us twice and now we're leaving, desire us to stay, our own politicians taking forty years to decide to ask us which should have happened at the time, which is why we don't have half-century years' planning. Small time little people looking only to their next election!

Thursday 11th October 2018
Was I down/depressed without realising it, or just normal life? Yesterday I was exhausted having enjoyed a trip around the Overground and having basically enjoyed my day. As a much younger man I had toyed with thoughts of why there was not an overground circle line. Surely all these lines feeding into London needed to communicate with one another and at the goods level I guess they probably did. It would appear that is basically what London Overground is, it runs in and out of sections of incoming lines. My trip was most enjoyable, air-conditioned carriages, enjoying an otherwise over hot environment with brilliant sunshine and some superb views across rooftops. Sideways sitting does not help the contented enjoyment of the views but being able to see the full length of the train was interesting.

Astonishingly there is no bus route equivalent to the tube map, only by app... must sort out the mess of my mobile and master it but this way was most enjoyable and there are several variations I would like to try out with specific purposes in mind. More wandering days ahead!

Today, caught up from yesterday's exhaustion. Got over sudden feeling of being famished due to not eating or drinking since breakfast. In fact so famished I couldn't face cooking and grabbed bread with bits to sort out stomach's upset but all normal this morning.

Much to do and much happily done plus reminders of events suddenly crowding in. Weekend away (not this weekend Lindsey Ilsley), Martin preaching and family lunch and seeing Fred. Downstairs have just replaced their front door just as I have organised an estimate for my own replacement, as an essential first job before redecorating hall and, following Francis Beuttler's suggestion, perhaps upping the carpet for clearing skirting board for ease of painting. Run in with including bathroom redecoration and things will appear to be happening! Perhaps they actually will!

From https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wolf-pack-photo/
“A wolf pack: the first 3 are the old or sick, they give the pace to the entire pack. If it was the other way round, they would be left behind, losing contact with the pack. In case of an ambush they would be sacrificed. Then come 5 strong ones, the front line. In the centre are the rest of the pack members, then the 5 strongest following. Last is alone, the alpha. He controls everything from the rear. In that position he can see everything, decide the direction. He sees all of the pack. The pack moves according to the elders pace and help each other, watch each other.”

Like some British generals! G&S "He led his regiment from behind, he found it less exciting!"

Good evening world. I'm all over the place, like the weather and maybe that's the cause, even the tv has a fluctuating signal. Anyway, ploughing on regardless can often have positive results.
           Geed up with lunch on Sunday with one aspect of family, excellent meal, companionship and chat. Felt uplifted, not that I was down but further boosted in trying to catch back with work undone due to being crashed out by the summer's heat. 
           Positive looking at practicalities, a surveyor booked and trying to decide on front door design, locks etc, replacement windows and determining colours for inside decorating. Mail reminds annual service due, need to book an estimate for coach work and try and tie both services in together to save effort.   
           Mundane housework and then perhaps I can get on with my main objectives. Do I give myself the day off tomorrow and wander London?
           Good evening world. I'm all over the place, like the weather and maybe that's the cause, even the tv has a fluctuating signal. Anyway, ploughing on regardless can often have positive results.

Frightening indeed, even so simple a matter as changing the header on an email can be done so an email appears to have come from you, when it hasn't. 1. always run a virus scanner, 2. Always keep virus scanner updated with latest scams, 3.Regularly do a clean up scan for odd bits and bobs and never click on any hyperlink unless first checking the origin and sureness of email received. Let's face it, you do look right and left before crossing the road, check your house keys are on you before shutting the door and check all windows are closed? It’s just basics.

 [To a Facebook friend suffering dyspraxia]. Love you all the way through and I apologise if I forget all these things I am supposed to know, or feel I was once told (like now) but have forgotten... and that is partly your fault! In my presence (which hasn't so far been much) you give none of these symptoms. Perhaps I was just lucky that in those times we have been involved things happened to be on an "up". I know too those phases of being more "with it" [or less "with it" than usual]. A good reminder, don't feel bad about repeating such important insights, I'm guilty of forgetting I've been told and you are so normally perfectly normal I forget. Never feel embarrassed at telling me so.

Was I down/depressed without realising it, or just normal life? Yesterday I was exhausted having enjoyed a trip around the Overground and having basically enjoyed my day. As a much younger man I had toyed with thoughts of why there was not an above ground circle line. Surely all these lines feeding into London needed to communicate with one another and at the goods level I guess they probably did. It would appear that is basically what London Overground is, it runs in and out of sections of incoming lines. My trip was most enjoyable, air conditioned carriages, enjoying an otherwise over hot environment with brilliant sunshine and some superb views across rooftops. Sideways sitting does not help the contented enjoyment of the views but being able to see the full length of the train was interesting.

Astonishingly there is no bus route equivalent to the tube map, only by app... must sort out the mess of my mobile and master it but this way was most enjoyable and there are several variations I would like to try out with specific purposes in mind. More wandering days ahead!

Today, caught up from yesterday's exhaustion. Got over sudden feeling of being famished due to not eating or drinking since breakfast. In fact so famished I couldn't face cooking and grabbed bread with bits to sort out stomach's upset but all normal this morning.

Much to do and much happily done plus reminders of events suddenly crowding in. Weekend away (not this weekend Lindsey Ilsley), Martin preaching and family lunch and seeing Fred. Downstairs have just replaced their front door just as I have organised an estimate for my own replacement as an essential first job before redecorating hall and following Francis Beuttler's suggestion perhaps upping the carpet for clearing skirting board for ease of painting. Run in with including bathroom redecoration and things will appear to be happening! Perhaps they actually will!

Monday 8^th September 2018
As I shall be posting on my Weekly web in response to the latest upset on Brexit, when I get round to it, "What is being missed is the high handed arrogance of the EU since it has never ever had moral authority over us. The situation arises because our own parliament failed to ask the question "do we want the EU?" at the beginning, forty years ago, as we were promised.
         The present Brexit chaos is entirely due to our own parliament's failing, under both Labour and Tory governments, to ask the question we were promised from the beginning! The mess is our parliament's wilfulness and it must get us out of the mess our own politicians wilfully created as best it can. There is no need for any further voting. The damage has been evident for forty years and even now they are philandering over doing their job. The EU does not understand that WE, the taxpayers, run this country and direct parliament NOT them!
            We set the model for parliamentary democracy over 800 years ago! The EU is determined to go backwards, hence two locations, just as pre-democracy absolute rulers ran things, from different palaces. The EU apes archaicness! It is the EU that wants to go backwards and is frightened of forward progression and therefore is being wilfully obdurate as its inbuilt structural failings fly home to roost. We, the people, direct them, not they directing us and they don't get it! Our desire has always been to go forward.

[wolf pack] This is superb. Too often the human leader is pursuing his arrogance instead of rendering service. Disconcertingly the leader is referred to as male, does the reporter know this as a a fact or is the human reporter once more wilfully misrepresenting the fact?

Saturday 6^th October 2018
A dull grey day and I am in a dull grey mood. No, not affected by the weather but for the first time ever I can understand the mechanism than can make people, who consider themselves affected by the weather, feel down in such circumstances.
            We have had a superb run of sunshine and adjusting to “normality” is depressing, something of a shock to the system, like last night. On impulse I decided to eat out, forgetting  
It was Friday when more likely to be full. It was my easily preferred Crow’s Nest, looking out over Aylesbury Vale but I was on an inside room table and in any case night was already falling, so nothing lost. Instead, I whiled my time observing a group of young men at a table across the way, recalling how I had spent evenings with college friends in the same way. Apparently it was a time when OAPs treated their offspring’s young to a meal out, perhaps while their parents were doing the weekly shop?
      I chose a simple meal and it was a very nice half of chicken and chips I ate. An Elderflower soft drink accompanied (never drive with my condition on any alcoholic drink). Days when, as a young man, I would drop off on a long journey at a local pub, mostly preferring the A roads and quaff a pint of Guinness with a fulsome lunch were long gone by. I would still have a full evening meal when I arrived for the night. Now, I was sixty years on from the young men opposite me and I noted with some surprise there was no female accompaniment. Not that there was in my day but times have moved on, I had thought.
      No dessert or coffee. Outside it was night. I had driven lazily in enjoying the falling dusk and late summer warmth. Many trees only just turning, the view still late summer, very early autumn across the fields. I thought of Dorian, his manner (I was passing beside his Pendley estate) and recalled how he had shared his mods in The Field. I’m not a reader myself and cannot recall the name under which he wrote, or whether they have continued with it. It was one of the magazines ‘house’ names, possibly so it did not conflict with his BBC broadcasting work, or he preferred anonymity.
      Now, I need car lights. Oh God! Haven’t used them for six months, where are the switches and which one does what? May need to demist the screen, how does that work? Gear control has no lights to show the position of the stick but the instrument panel tells me, save that the steering wheel is in a position where the thickest part of the “Y” blocks my view, so I have to peer round the steering wheel! Now for the open road, oh God, am I safe?

Sunday 30^th September 2018
Yesterday was a gentle run in to Saturday evening when Susan and Francis were holding a celebration and I am glad to say I held my own, feeling quite normal for a full day and sustaining a late evening, although glad I had the car and not a one mile walk home, which I would normally enjoy. Definitely autumn. There was a distinct chill in the air but I could just about do without a coat, although the inside radiators had had to be turned on for the start of the meal to challenge an invading chill.

PARLIAMENTARY WORK AHEAD

Boundary clarification. How many seats and what preferred size of constituency population?

Proportional representation. Which system?

House of Lords? Should it be elected or appointed and upon what classification? Originally based on the realities of the day: Spiritual; Legal; Defence; land ownership; hereditary entitlement.

Today? Spiritual but across the faiths (define), including pure secularism/humanitarianism (all appointed/elected by their respective churches); Legal, as is; Political (variable by proven worth, such as past ministers or retired professional senior civil servants and limited party nominations); representatives of Capital, Financial Services, Labour (all either retired or active, appointed or elected by their respective accredited bodies); Education (ditto precedents stated); Health (ditto); Other?

The whole re-viewable by a statutory committee reporting with recommendations to parliament on a ten yearly basis to cover relevance of classifications in the then current world. Modus operandi as at present.