14.45 hrs at Horderns Motor House, awaiting an M.O.T. certificate for my red car.
Actually, I have been here almost an hour, and I am expecting my car to be ready soon, with no issues which require immediate attention, or “advisories”. I always understood that in a public building, face masks were compulsory, and I am sitting here, like an idiot, face mask donned, while a few customers, not all of them, come in and out “maskless”.
On Saturday night, I made the common mistake of starting to watch a movie just before going to bed at around midnight. It was a compelling film, “The Railway Man”. Any movie with anything “trains-related” in the title gets my attention. Back in the 70s, I took my then girlfriend to see Midnight Express, nothing at all to with railways, the Midnight Express, for some reason, being the name bestowed on a tough Turkish jail! It was still a good movie!
(Continued writing, Tue. 18/8/20.)
I remember the posters for The Railway Man on the London Underground around 2013, and would eventually watch the film at home, far too late at night some seven years later. The plan was to view the first twenty minutes or so, and then “get my head down”. Needless to say, I watched to the end, making myself a bowl of porridge to stave of feeling hungry. I would recommend The Railway Man, even if a northbound express train of the 1980s was represented by (among other things) a Class 45 in green livery hauling a rake of maroon B.R. Mk 1 coaches, far from historically correct. But actually, who cares? Maybe the pedantic railway enthusiast, the film’s main character, Eric Lomax who forty years before from when the movie was set, ended up as a very ill-treated POW tasked in the construction of what is referred to as the Death Railway. It seems his interest in the Railway, even then in the worst of brutal conditions irritated his captors, resulting in ever more brutality. The story is more or less true, with lots of artistic license as far as the “love interest” is concerned (reading the plot on Google).
The following day, Sunday 16th August, was, understandably, a write-off. Going to bed at 2am doesn’t work these days! Nevertheless, I did catch Radio 4’s Sunday Worship at 8.10 that morning. Although half asleep, I did enjoy the service, this week from a wonderfully Methodist establishment in Cardiff. I had not heard the hymn “New Every Morning is the Love” since early childhood, but even so, could remember most of the words, clearly audible thanks to a very balanced group of singers. But being rather groggy, my “waking and uprising certainly did not prove!” In the afternoon, still with eyes like house-bricks, I remembered a “trick” from days when I didn’t have the luxury of post retirement freedom. I would lie on the sofa, curtains drawn and a C.D. of chanting monks from Ampleforth playing gently. I would drift in an out of “oblivion” until miraculously, I would then feel incredibly refreshed. I rooted out that same C.D. on Sunday, and thus rescued the rest of the day.
Yesterday (Monday) I had recovered from “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning”, and had not forgotten that my red car was due for M.O.T. examination in the afternoon, which impressively passed with minor “advisories” which I will deal with at its next service. Roger came over to repair a collapsed shelf in my bedroom, the contents lying having lain a heap below, unattended with since the end of March! While at the Garage in Chapel -En- Le-Frith, he installed support brackets, fixed under all remaining shelving to prevent further collapse. The endless reorganisation at home continues.
I never learn; I still went to bed at 1am this morning (Tuesday). But, I had spent most of last night straightening up my bedroom which until recently had all desk and table surfaces piled with miscellaneous paperwork and other junk. The house cleaners (as per my instruction, would leave well alone; there’s more for them to do now!) Fortunately, now, I am rejuvenated after a good sleep, punctuated by multiple encounters with the loo, and weird dreams. Roger has signed up for a week long geology course, which normally is residential. Lockdown dictates that this is now delivered via Zoom, and this year, there are around 40 partakers compared with a more normal 20, when held in e.g. an hotel. That doesn’t rule out the weekly trek out into the country. Rogers’s geology knowledge is fascinating. Take a random sample of chalk from the White Cliffs of Dover, put it under a very special powerful microscope, the flower-like images revealed are nothing short of beautiful and astonishing. We used to have micrarium in Buxton, a sadly short-lived attraction. Michael Carter whom I met on a World Voyage in 2018 was the brother of the creator of the Buxton Micrarium – it’s a small world – but big when going round it!
Thanks for reading, David. 12.12 hrs 18th August 2020.
David's Cruise 