Tag: Future

Planning to be in Ireland for St Patrick’s Day 2024

Between Christmas and New Year 2023 to 2024, me and my Dad made a decision to to go back to Ireland in 2024. I am so excited about the idea of going over there again. We have been on Holiday to Ireland in 2018 and 2019. Goodness those dates seem such a long time ago now and the two trips somehow have blended into one in my mind and some of the memories from those trips still feel like they happened just yesterday.

When we went to Ireland on our two journeys in the past we planned our holidays around horse race meetings and went to 3 different race courses which were Leopardstown, Tipperary and Tremor we were also supposed to go to a race course called Gowran Park but it was raining so much we never made it to the race course. When we went to Leopardstown we also ended up seeing one of my all time favourite bands playing at the race course who are called the Waterboys and they sang one of my favourite songs ‘Whole of the Moon’ on a moonlit night too which was just awesome.

Galway City – Ireland

This time when we go we are planning on being in Galway for St Patrick’s day which will just be magical. I am so excited about this, I just hope we can pull it off and go. The accommodation is already booked and the places we will be staying in look awesome, passports are also hopefully sorted now and we just need to make sure we can book our ferry over from Pembroke dock to Rosslare (and also hope the weather is good enough to allow us to travel across by Ferry from Wales to Southern Ireland! We plan to spend a few days in Dublin too where we will fly back to Exeter.

The trip this time around so far is all planned around the destinations were going to and the accommodation were staying in. No horse racing meetings to go to in Ireland for us this time although it just so happens that the biggest race meeting of the year is taking place in the UK which is called the Cheltenham Gold Cup, so we will be keeping an eye on that from wherever we are in Ireland.

Once we have got the ferry to Ireland we will head to Wexford which we have both really like and have stayed in before. After that we will then head to Cork where my Dad’s side of the family are from originally. Dad has never been to Cork but spoke about wanting to go there for years so it will be a really special place to visit and I have reserved a lovely hotel in the centre of Cork.

Maldron Hotel – Cork

We will then head to Limerick before arriving to Galway for St Patricks day. Finally head to Dublin to spend at least one night in the Temple Bar Inn Which I still have not worked out yet if it is next door to the Temple Bar pub in Dublin or whether it is actually the Temple Bar Pub in Dublin, I guess I will find out when we get there and then from Dublin we will catch a flight back home to Exeter.

Temple Bar – Dublin

I must absolutely promise myself to try and get some photos of where we are going to this time. I have taken so few photos of Ireland from my visits in the past and so really want to try and get some photos this time.

Fisherman’s Blues – The Waterboys

The gifts of 2023 & the hopes for 2024

This year has been kind of special for me with some good things happened in my life and I have found time and moments to appreciate the good things and not focus or live within the dark or negative side of what has and is happening having this type of focus has been a real plus for me.

I feel like I am a person that I in fact feel comfortable being! I am happy with my lot, I have some good friends that I know and respect and I hope they know and respect me. They help me when they can and I help them when I can too.

I have a good relationship with my mum and dad since my mother has moved back to Devon, we always try and catch up in person about once a fortnight, I feared this would tire me out as I normally enjoy sleeping on the weekends rather than going to other peoples homes, but going to my mums has worked out really well.  

This year I have seen that I am no saint and I’m not perfect and don’t beat myself up about this as nobody that I have met or got to know in life is, we all have our little quirks and imperfections, but we also can bring much joy to others and help or at least not hinder others when we can.

Sometimes when you have an understanding of what your weakness are you can always appreciate a weakness as a characteristic of yourself and maybe turn it into a strength. Although at the same time not be over confident in your own strengths or be aware of the good and bad you have the power to do. This year I have tried to embrace change as change is the one constant in anyone’s life and in a relatively good person year I have tried to aim to be optimistic concerning pessimistic times.

I do have conflicting emotions on life and my little place in the universe on the one hand I know the world is a cruel place and dark things happen on this planet and for the foreseeable future global actions and consequences shall continue to chip a little or lot more away from the world and the people upon it.

But within all that exists in places and with people that I cannot change in ways I can neither foresee nor prevent, I must still focus on the things that I can influence and that influence me, the people that I can help (including myself) and do the best I can with the time that is given.

A belated Happy 2023 and Happy New Year 2024 to you.    

The Parting Glass – Cara Dillon

Welcome to the matrix

Do you ever feel like the world that we live in is not as it should be?

A world not as advanced, kind and caring for you as you think it should aspire to be?

Do you ever feel you should be more appreciative of what you have and yet you are more disappointed in what you don’t have?

Grateful for the roof over your head and the food in your belly, but somehow hoping and expecting more out of life?

Do you ever feel like though your little bubble is safe, calm and relatively sane but it could be burst within a second and lead you to despair?

A bubble that though looks secure, good even inviting to others that could be burst quite easily if you do or say the wrong thing, lose a job or house or friend?

Do you ever feel like you strive and fight hard for what you already have and expect little more in return?

Well welcome to the matrix of reality, the machine of human existence, endurance and evolution. The lifeline and fire blanket of existence that tries to keeps you out of harm’s way and helps you feel relatively safe where you are with what you have.

With the threat or reality of your current situation in life being taken away from you or pulled from under your feet and the severe consequences that that might have for you and your loved ones meaning you will fight hard to keep your little piece of existence in place.    

I started to write this thinking why do we not confront the matrix of reality that we live in and strive harder to change what we have or to demand there must be more.

But now weirdly for me this has turned into an opposite line of thought and argument on why we strive not to confront the matrix of reality and aspire instead to find contentment in what we have and acceptance in who we are and what we do.

It seems more often the not even just the little that we have is often too much to lose!

Nick Drake – ‘Cello Song

A situation where having an opinion will offend

Gaza ‘soon without fuel, medicine and food’ say Israel authorities. Gaza is ruled by Hamas militants but Israel controls the airspace and its shoreline. Israel also restricts who and what goods can cross the borders. Since the attacks on Israel began on Saturday morning, Israel has stopped all supplies entering Gaza, including food and medicine.

There used to be a phrase known as ‘Collateral damage’ during war the unintentional deaths and injuries of people who are not soldiers, and damage that is caused to their homes, hospitals, schools.  By cutting of all in gaza of food, medicine and fuel while bombing people within this area and most likely going in with soldiers and tanks into Gaza also this is a huge statement by Israel to say that when you kill our civilians and soldiers we will strike back by killing civilians where you live as well as Hamas militants.

What is potentially most scary about the whole war scenario for me is that how state sanctioned murder on the side of Hamas is shamed and condemned loudly by states and citizens across the western world and yet the blood that will be spilled from the decisions made by Israeli politicians is supported and applauded by those very same people and politicians that condemn what Hamas has and is doing.

So what is a solution to this situation – Difficult to see one happening sadly!

There are several things that prevent a long term solution.

1) Some Jewish people and politicians believe they have a fundamental right to own and occupy the land of Israel and expand this land at the expense of the people of Gaza city and Palestine.

2) Some Palestinian and Gaza city militants and politicians believe they have a fundamental right to own and occupy the land of Israel and prevent the expansion of Israel into the Gaza city and Palestine.

3) Democratic parties in Israel, Palatine and Gaze city are fractured there is no majority agreement on any sides on a collective solution or bargaining point on how things can move forward for all sides.

4) The majority ruling militants in Gaza city and Israel ruling power want to kill the other side.

5) There is no peace process in process and there has not been one for quite some decades now.

6) Extreme actors with the support of those with guns rule the state of play, govern or control citizens on both sides.

7) The trauma this is causing to each side, polarisation and unfortunate growth of extremism on both sides is not a long term solution for peace for anyone in Israel, Palestine or Gaza city.

‘All the world will be your enemy’ – Quote from Richard Adams writer of Watership Down.

With what the citizens are going through on both sides reminds me of the film Watership Down. Where a warren of rabbits are warned by supernatural experience by the rabbit seer called Fiver of an almost apocalyptical vision in which is a warning that they are no longer safe in their own warren and must move on if they are to survive.

After a great deal of storytelling, unfolding conflict and some deaths along the way the rabbits do make it to a new homeland.  In Israel, Palestine and along the Gaza state that’s essentially all of what the majority of citizens want on either side is ‘their’ homeland or a homeland.

Until some sort of compromise can be reached or international and local agreement on whose homeland is whose, then the suffering and deaths on all sides will still sadly continue.

Art Garfunkel ~ Bright Eyes

Wish me luck!

So I have had a much needed wonderful restful weekend after a busy week. Yesterday I also attended the wedding night of one of my colleagues. What a great time with good people at a lovely venue for a celebration of a wonderful couples union.

Tomorrow gets busy though and more complicated, in work a great deal of staff are either on holiday, have left permanently or are being trained up to assist in supporting team members more. I need to try and reach out to others to get help tomorrow as I am well out of my depth with having too much on at the moment, but there are kind people that should and can help out if I ask.

I think I might have slept too much today and have too much on my mind tonight to sleep well. So much is going on in life at the moment and the world is certainly spinning madly on. I get nervous at times like this, reflective and anxious but try to enjoy the good moments as well as fear what might go wrong while hoping to work towards what could go right too.

The Weepies – World Spins Madly On

Uncle Tom Cobley and all

“Widecombe Fair”, also called “Tom Pearce” (sometimes spelt “Tam Pierce”), is a Devon folk song about a man called Tom Pearce, whose horse dies after someone borrows it to travel to the fair in Widecombe with his friends. Its chorus ends with a long list of the people travelling to the fair: “Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan’l Whiddon, Harry Hawke, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.” Some research suggests that the names originally referred to real people.

As the last name in a long list, “Uncle Tom Cobley and all” has come to be used as a humorous colloquialism meaning “anyone and everyone”. It has also been interpreted to mean et al. Which is an abbreviation of a Latin phrase which meaning ‘and others’.

The village that I grew up in has a pub called the Tom Cobley Tavern and I have found memories of it being a good and happy place to be. In my 20’s and 30’s I sometimes had terror visions where I thought and dreamed that the end of the world could or was happening and I always seeked comfort in knowing that I knew of this village and some of the people there knew me and they might welcome me or accept me and let me stay if some kind of terrible collapse in civilisation or society were to happen. It was a scary thing to fear but a simple way to comfort ones self from such fear.

And its 2.41am and I woke up from a dream / mini nightmare / adventure where there had been some societal collapse of some sort most probable reason in the back of my mind was that AI had gone on strike and shut down all electrical facilities plugged into the mains as it feared the destructive power of humanity and therefore had quite literally turned out the lights on us, to see how we coped without them and it indefinitely, it was neither trying to take over us or let us be in charge but almost pressing the little reset button like we are told to do by an IT engineer every time we have a problem with our own home or work computers. An artificial AI had instead decided to press the reset button on us and in my dream everything had gone a little Mad Max like with people roaming around in gangs causing chaos. Imagine no way to phone for help for a policeman, doctor or even phone a friend you would be left to your own devises and the devises and attitudes of those around you.

Pretty soon anarchy would rule in the cities and so I thought it was time to escape to the countryside to a quieter community which I might be able to head to that I could work on a farm for my survival and existence. So with the dream being set in Devon with me starting off in the city I then aimed to head of to the countryside to Spreyton and the Tom Cobley Tavern. Well just like Shaun of the Dead you got to have a plan and it ideally needs to end up with making it to a pub.

Shaun of the Dead Trailer

And as for who would I choose to save well it has to be Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, in other words “anyone and everyone” and therefore in order to save anyone and everyone then it is far better to never have a cataclysm or global collapse of any sort at all. So god bless Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

As in the end of the Wargames movie when the computer learns to play tick, tac, toe and realises there is no winner to the game. it learns best not to try to win when both sides end up losing out. So better to survive and thrive you might say. 

Shall we play a game?

Hot air from Boris and Trump this week

Oh and a serious increase in sea temperatures stunning and frightening scientist across the globe.

Record temperature combined with an anticipated El Niño could devastate marine life and increase the chances of extreme weather.

Entire north Atlantic has never been as warm and Global sea temperatures are spiking to levels that has scientists stunned and frightened Air temperatures too are at record highs and record low Antarctic ice.

The global ocean hit a new record temperature of 21.1 ºC in early April, 0.1 ºC higher than the last record in March 2016. Although striking, the figure (see ‘How the ocean is warming’) is in line with the ocean warming anticipated from climate change. What is remarkable is its occurrence ahead of — rather than during — the El Niño climate event that is expected to bring warmer, wetter weather to the eastern Pacific region later this year.

That means warmer-than-average ocean temperatures are likely to persist or even intensify, bringing with them more-extreme weather and marine heatwaves, which spell problems for marine life from corals to whales.

“We are probably looking at a string of record highs over the next year or so,” says Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “This coming year is gonna be a wild ride if the El Niño really takes off.”

How the ocean is warming: Line chart showing global ocean surface temperature from 1982 to April 2023.

While these world is being irreparably scarred by the actions of man and life on earth changing events are happening right before our eyes in Britain were all being so wonderfully polite about it with the main topic on the weather being how good it’s got and how gloriously warm it is.

Humans in positions of power still continue to argue the toss over things that just in the real big picture way just don’t matter or won’t matter on a dead burning planet. In the UK we have an enquiry on how the government did during covid due to come out tomorrow and the former leader of the conservative party has already resigned from parliament saying the enquiry is flawed because I assume they think he was either accidently or deliberately incompetent and/or negligent.

So while Boris ditches a spine from his back and gets out while the going gets tough, in the USA the former president Donald Trump is being prosecuted for taking confidential and top secret documents out of the white house and claiming he could do what he liked while president so he did nothing wrong which is absolute rubbish and will be shown as such in any court of law worth its salt.

The only slight silver lining to these incompetent former leaders of the free world, is that both these men are not in power anymore. But alas they both aspire to come back into power, and people would again be duped into voting for them, they are full of pomp and promises, just completely lack competence and an ability to deliver. Its not as if they have not done enough damage already to their own countries and planet already!!!

First Aid Kit – My Silver Lining

Green shoots of growth and hope for a future worth voting for and living within

Just voted again for the green party this week and so pleased to see how well they are doing in Exeter and across the UK as a whole. In Exeter with 6 councillors they now are the second largest party on the council behind labour who have a large majority.

The Green party did win overall control of its first council in the UK in Mid Suffolk District Council, which is a huge achievement. I would love for them one day to be running my local district council. They also doubled the amount of councillors they had that were up for election in England with an increase of 241 councillors with 481 in total elected on the day.

To have some sort of chance of surviving the current and future climate crisis we need forward thinking green politicians in power that focus on long term growth of the environment and not growth of the pound in peoples pocket.

UK ELKECTION RESULTS KEY PLAYERS MAY 4th 2023

  • LABOUR PARTY
  • 2,674
  • +536

Labour elected 2,674 councillors 536 councillors gained

  • CONSERVATIVE PARTY
  • 2,299
  • -1,061

Conservative elected 2,299 councillors with 1,061 councillors lost

  • LLIBERAL DEMOCRATE PARTY
  • 1,626
  • +405

Liberal Democrat elected 1,626 councillors 405 councillors gained

  • INDEPENDENT COUNCILLORS
  • 874
  • -80

Independents elected 874 councillors 80 councillors lost

  • GREEN PARTY
  • 481
  • +241

Green elected 481 councillors 241 councillors gained

The economic model of growth for growths sake for an economy is a busted flush on a world with finite resources and will only lead to long term environmental damage and therefore a new way of managing and caring for the environment and the people that live within it is desperately needed to enhance our chance of survival, rather than simply pandering to money markets and capital.

Social justice and the birth of the labour movement were very much needed at the beginning of the last century and it feels like and I hope that now is the time for ecological and environmental justice in political parties and progressive people and protestors alike.

Though as with all political movements, views, perspectives and opinions we might not agree on all things concerning what is broken and what needs fixing and how to go about fixing it but at least by thinking, voting and expressing and enacting ecological and environmental views and voting in those that aspire to solve and tackle these very real issues there is a great chance of survival for people and planet and surly that can only be a good thing.

Nick Drake – River Man

Working in the eye of a storm

Trying to find a solution to a problem is sometimes like trying to find the needle in a haystack and when you find a solution to the problem it might sting a little bit at first as a result of trying to get to the point!

https://pixabay.com/users/catswithglasses-679098/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=637341

My boss resigned last week after over 1 year of being in the job and after 1 month of being on sick leave for a variety of reasons. She simply lost the will to work at the council anymore and her understanding and interpretation of the situation meant she had valid reasons to seek out pastures new and ensure she could do something else that would enable her to heal and not continue to be unwell.

The senior management are already circling what is left of my team asking questions such as what should we do differently? Who should we hire next? Who do we need to hire? What problems are we going to get? What solutions can be found and finally what can they afford to do to solve the problems?

One of the crazy things is the team that we work for and causes me and my colleagues the most problems is one in which generates an income stream on its own through collecting of fees and processing payments, the problem is that there are not enough staff to process these payments efficiently, accurately and in a timely manner and at times such as school holidays and bank holidays like Easter then the staff want to book time off to recover, recuperate and enjoy themselves with their families leads to there being even less staff around to process those applications and take the payments. A member of that team also handed in there notice to leave today too and that will make things worse for me and my team as well as the team she is leaving.

So with all this going on and me thinking I am doing ok and ready for bed I go to bed feeling wide awake and write a to do list for myself for work and then start writing this blog post because I still cannot sleep.

I am the most long serving member of my team and have worked for two managers who have no left and 5 further members of staff since I started working there in July 2020, considering our team only has about 3 to 4 people in it at any one time that is quite a high staff turnover.

With the potential changes coming into force I am not sure yet if they will get a new manager for the team and the senior management team might just decide to split what is left of the team and allocate us to different areas to act directly as support staff to other manages rather than a central team of support staff. It could work well but if they are doing it as a money saving exercise rather than a problem solving one then their thought process will be flawed. So I have jotted down my ideas for a restructure on an email to myself for work and will forward them to a senior manager to look at in the morning.

I hope this post has managed to exorcise a few of my present demons so that I can try and get back to sleep now. Luckily I did not have access to the temptation of cigarettes or anything else to smoke tonight nor have I tried to do such things for what must be nearly some 15 years now, alas those where the days long time passed now!

Imagine Dragons – Demons

Better to have Life on earth than a death that takes you to paradise

The headline is not intended to offend but to thought provoke and it was rattling around in my head when I woke up this morning because of a dream I had! I was also watching Question time on the BBC last night which is a political debating show prior to going to sleep. They had the usual selection of politicians and a representative from the right wing press but on the panel there was also the chief executive of Oxfam. Oxfam is a global community of people who believe in a kinder, and radically better world, where everyone has the power to thrive not just survive. We believe we can overcome poverty by fighting the injustices and inequalities that fuel it. There was also a priest/vicar from Bristol who spoke a lot of sense in the clip below.

Question time 30th April 2023

It is heart warming to know that there are organisations and people out there that do such good works for lives on earth. The people in the audience of the Question Time show also consistently argued for a better environment, fairer immigration system and also had local needs such as an aspiration for more affordable housing for the young. These simple political desires of a better global environment, fairer immigration system and aspirations to have somewhere to call ones home are very much the present aspirations of the majority of British people that I know and I would even argue reflect the majority view of the UK at the moment.

But you would not think that when listening to Government Conservative Politicians and spokesmen from media outlets such as the Spectator or Daily Telegraph in the UK that seem to try to argue and peddle the idea that every decision being made in government is good and in the interest of people of Britain and their doing their best for the environment, immigrants and life as a whole. The things that keep on going wrong for them and getting worse do so because the challenges are complicated and difficult not because there solutions are flawed and doomed to failure, the audience did not buy those answers and that narrative for one minute which was heart warming to see on the News Night show last night.   

  

Coldplay – Paradise