An ending

Jim Cunningham 08.09.36 - 14.07.2018

Rest in peace

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was an important day, one of those days for looking back and recalling old memories and for wondering yet again at the swift passage of time. It was Elder Daughter’s birthday, but not just any old birthday, this was one of those ‘stand out’ numbers - forty, to be precise.

However much you like to think you are prepared for these red letter days, they always have a tendency to creep up on you and catch you unawares. They provide an unwelcome reminder of how swiftly life is racing by and there is nothing we can do to stop it. When I was forty, I was horrified, to say the least and by the time fifty came calling, I had decided that I was not prepared to acknowledge any more birthdays. It has taken a very long time to convince everyone that I was, and am, completely serious about this, even if it does mean missing out on presents, so I have resolutely remained fifty-ish ever since and people remind me of my birthdays at their peril. After all, it’s only a number and no-one is a different person the day after their birthday to the one they were the day before.

Still, we are all different and Kathy duly celebrated her imminent big day at the week end and then came to stay with us on Tuesday night, so she had her birthday morning with us, which was lovely and much appreciated. And of course, it led me to thoughts of that day, forty years ago, when I went off to the local hospital to be induced, as she was a bit late putting in an appearance. (This regrettably poor standard of time-keeping has never left her, by the way!) I have vivid memories of the euphoria of seeing her for the first time, holding her in my arms, coming to terms with the fact that now I was a mother and totally responsible for this new little being.

“Once you have a child, things are never the same again,” said one of my sisters in law, mother of three, and indeed she was right.

So, memories of the last forty years:
A tomboy who loved climbing (mainly up the built in shelves in the living room!) and playing with cars, who hated dresses and found playing with dolls supremely boring.
A clever, determined, motivated, hard worker who has a successful career in medicine and also loves gardening and collecting guitars.
Yep, she's turned out all right. It's all in the genes, of course ...

A trip to Liverpool

Yes, we country bumpkins, Keith and I, ventured up to 'that there Liverpool' last Friday to visit the Terracotta Warriors exhibition in the museum. (In my absence, Liverpool museum seems to have upgraded itself to World Museum, but it's still there in William Brown Street.) Not only that, but we went by train, which neither of us has done for some considerable time. Keith wasn't too enthusiastic about fighting his way through central Liverpool and we would also have needed to be sure of parking nearby, as his walking is somewhat limited these days.

So the train  was our choice of transport, starting off at the little station in Gwersyllt (facilities none, not even anywhere to sit on one of the two  platforms) and bowling along to Bidston, where we changed for the train to Liverpool. It was interesting to note how, the further north we went, the better equipped the stations were. Obviously, Lime Street and its neighbouring stations are important interchanges and far bigger and more important than our little local ones, but to anyone who doubts the lack of investment in the infrastructure of North Wales - Are you listening, politicians? - I strongly recommend an attempt to travel around the area using public transport. If this were a blog about such political themes, I would also suggest a glance at this article, but  perish the thought - it isn't, it's about our trip to Liverpool.

The weather was beautiful and we really enjoyed our journey. It's a long time since I have visited the museum and this trip made me remember what an amazing place it is. You could spend a week in there and still not have seen everything but we were there specifically for the Terracotta Warriors exhibition which was one of the best special exhibitions I have seen. From a total of 6000 life sized warriors guarding China's first emperor and only discovered in 1974, ten figures, including a cavalry horse, and other artefacts, some of which have never been displayed in Britain before are the focus of this exhibition and, while I couldn't hope to do it justice in this post, if you click on the link above, it will give you more information and some explanatory video.

In the meantime, I will punish you with a few of my own photos, which don't in any way do justice to what we saw on Friday, and if you are anywhere within reasonable travelling distance, do try and visit yourself. I believe tickets are selling out fast, although the exhibition is there until October, so hurry!

New look chairs

There are times when I succumb too easily to the 'attractions' of daytime viewing on BBC1. I make no excuses for the fact that sometimes, especially if the weather is bad, and let's face it, we'd have difficulty remembering when it was good over the past several months, I waste the time I should be spending on dog walking, Welsh learning etc and instead, take the easy road, the path of 'Homes under the Hammer', 'Doctors' or, my latest addiction, 'Money for Nothing.' (In my defence, I do also watch BBC2's 'The Daily Politics Show', with the delightfully acerbic Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn.)

'Money for Nothing' is about three presenters who descend on recycling centres, persuade people to surrender their rubbish and then take it to various colleagues who are in the business of transforming these offerings into wildly different objects, which are then sold to unsuspecting customers for exorbitant amounts of money. (I often wonder if some people should actually be trusted with money, when they can be parted from it so easily!)

Don't get me wrong, sometimes the transformations are skilled and imaginative, usually when the object is not to make a coat rack out of an armchair, for example.  One of the programmes recently, showed a pair of seventies dining chairs (think Ercol or Schreiber) which were sanded down and given new seat pads. I thought they looked marvellous and immediately decided that was what our equally seventies dining table and chairs also needed. Sand them down, get rid of that seventies orange hue and, hey presto, a new dining set!

This is where I ran into my first obstacle - Keith. Not literally, you understand, but verbally. Not a good idea, he said, as the top of the table is veneer and sanding that down would be very tricky as it would be all too easy to inadvertently sand a hole in it and ruin the effect totally. I could do the chairs, but then they would look too different from the table. Further investigation into going down the white chalk paint route, which I think would have looked great, met with an equally unenthusiastic response.

So, in the interests of domestic harmony, I limited myself to re-upholstering the chairs and now, they look like this:  

The Piper

T.K. steps up again ...

Very moving.....

I love this story.  Lay down whatever is bothering you, breathe in the fresh air and LISTEN to this story.

Time is like a river. You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again. Enjoy every moment of life.

 As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the Nova Scotia back country.  As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologised to the men for being late.

I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play. The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around.  I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before, for this homeless man.

And as I played "Amazing Grace", the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished, I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head was hung low, my heart was full. As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I never seen anything like that before, and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."

Apparently, I'm still lost … it's a man thing.

Nadolig Llawen

This year, I will let Keith wish you a happy Christmas on behalf of both of us, and look, you get to watch how he made his Christmas tree too!

A Merry Christmas from the Aspin Shed

Seenager

 It's a long time since I got any jokes forwarded to me from my friend T.K. but, just in time for Christmas, here's his latest ...

Seenager

I just discovered my age group!  I am a Seenager. (Senior teenager)

I have everything that I wanted as a teenager, only 50-60 years later.

I don't have to go to school or work.

I get an allowance every month.

I don't have a curfew.

I have a driver's licence and my own car.

I have ID that gets me into bars and the wine store.  I like the wine store best.

The people I hang around with are not scared of getting pregnant, they aren’t scared of anything, they have been blessed to live this long, why be scared?

And I don't have acne.

Life is Good!  Also, you will feel much more intelligent after reading this, if you are a Seenager.

Brains of older people are slow because they know so much.

People do not decline mentally with age, it just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information in their brains.

 Scientists believe this also makes you hard of hearing as it puts pressure on your inner ear.

 Also, older people often go to another room to get something and when they get there, they stand there wondering what they came for.

It is NOT a memory problem, it is nature's way of making older people do more exercise.

SO THERE!!

I have more friends I should send this to, but right now I can't remember their names.

So, please forward this to your friends; they may be my friends, too.