Thursday/Friday 7th and 8th

But I don't know what happened to Wednesday.

 

Anyway, yesterday a busload of us from Emmanuel went to this event in the City and enjoyed it very much.

We did two sessions and I opted for making a memory collage, and the last one called 'sharing your story' which was about communicating.

 

I liked the idea of the memory collage but have handed over all the family photographs, so looked online and found  a painting of a German aircraft flying over and bombing Croydon airport in 1940, and as I spent my early childhood in my Grandma's air raid shelter - a mile from the airport - I took that as my theme.  All the Battle of Britain aircraft of the 15 August 1940 took off from Croydon airport.  Most children were evacuated to places of safety, school children were evacuated with their teachers to safe rural areas.  I reflected on the fact that I couldn't have been anywhere more dangerous, but my aunties always said that when the sirens went off getting me to the air raid shelter was their first priority.  When I was a baby I was put into something like a gas mask, but then as I grew older I got a Mickey Mouse gas mask. 

 

To my memory collage I added another couple of online pictures of bomb sites with children hanging round them, and a picture of the clock tower in Croydon, a familiar landmark. We just had a sheet of A4 paper, so there really wasn't room for much more.  I did put in a couple of little pictures of Tim and Jeremy and the grand daughters, to show how life  works out 'happily ever after' in the end.

 

Last night was the BIG DEBATE with all the Republican Presidential candidates.  As the politics don't have anything to do with me I just noted that the candidates are all good, decent people - mostly senators and governors, and being the news addict I am I knew them all.   The only one I don't like is the insufferable, bombastic Donald Trump, but it has to be said that he seems a basically decent guy who loves his family.

 

Dr Ben Carson - my favourite - and a highly respected paediatric neurosurgeon, closed with a little bit of humour that went down well.  He said that most of the other candidates had pointed out some accomplishment they had that no rival could match, and he said he wanted to try that as well.

 

"I'm the only one to separate Siamese twins, the only one to operate on babies while they're still in their mother's womb," he said. "The only one to take out half of a brain, although you would think if you go to Washington that someone had beat me to it."

Today, Friday, was the inquest with experts analysing the body language, and the pundits deciding who put up the best performance.  It seems to be generally agreed that Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida did well, and was applauded at the end for saying he would not take any lectures from Hilary Clinton on living paycheck to paycheck, he was raised by parents living paycheck to paycheck. 

Hilary Clinton is running on working for the middle classes, and it has been said that is not very convincing with a $600 hairdo.

I wondered if this was the $600 hairdo.   I also wondered how any hairdresser could justify charging that much for a hairdo, never mind her affording it.

There was also a debate earlier in the evening of the "also rans" those who didn't make the top tier in the opinion polls, and Carly Fiorina - the former CEO of Hewlett Packard - seemed to come out top in that. But I didn't see that debate, I needed to sort myself out after my day in the City.

Today, Friday I did my chaplaincy round at the hospital and had lunch with Bill.  In the afternoon my lovely neighbour, Dale, over the road came in for a cup of tea and a natter.   Then in the evening I went to a cheese and wine do at the Art Gallery promoting the current Exhibition, that was very pleasant, I saw lots of people there that I knew.  I didn't care very much for the modern art though.

After leaving the Art Gallery I went to Walmart for my goats' milk......

These are the buggies that the fat people have to use because they are too obese to walk round.  I can imagine someone suggesting that to Waitrose or Sainsburys, I'm sure they'd get very short shrift and be told to lose weight.  I thought at first they were for the disabled, but they're all used by the fat people, the clinically obese.