Mission intermission intermission ...or what do you call a break between holidays? An intervacation?

Safely back from our long-distance odyssey to the north I now find myself in an odd place (not that MLPK isn't odd!) With one holiday down and Greenbelt coming up next weekend (when the tickets arrive!) there is a period of strange time. There are jobs to be done and services to happen (more fool me for not cancelling them!), people to see and so on and so forth... just no real desire, or will, to do so.

Despite the rigours of driving from Kent to Lancaster, via Balsall Common (this link proves an "alternative" and rather accurate view to the home of my youth) and Embsay, and return (via Harbourne) I am remarkably relaxed.

We saw nearly everyone we'd hoped, and several small friends of their off-spring. I've drunk rather a lot (no news there then), spent rather a lot, not just on Role-Playing Games, but on real books, after the first proper hour-long browse in a bookshop in the three years that LM (Lucy Moose/Little Monster) has been around! (Although whether four books looking at the "What-ifs" of history constitute being real is another matter entirely!)

It is hard to imagine that I've been away from Lancaster for 8 years - and yes, I would buy a retirement bolt-hole/investment up there apart from (a) lack of funds and (b) severe distance. That said, when you live and work in the same place and rarely travel more than 30 miles by car, your sense of relative distance might be somewhat out of kilter.

All said it was an interesting experience staying in the halls of residence at St. Martin's, where we met - and surprisingly refreshing to have single rooms each... GLW could get much needed sleep and Dr Moose could write late into the night. I didn't miss television, or the computers (yes, sorry, plural. I am a nerd). It was great to visit one of my favourite shops of all time (and yes, the website somehow catches the flavour of the place...)

Which explains my reluctance to work very hard at the minute and opens me to the accusation of laziness. My only response is Apocryphal - "A scholar's wisdom comes of ample leisure; to be wise he must be relieved of other tasks." (Ecclesiasticus 38: 24). So I'd better stop there for a while - except to recommend reading the verses that follow the quote, right through to 39: 11. (Preferably from a readable modern translation like the Revised English Bible!)  ¶ 12:12 pm 0 comments

  Gilbert with a twist... For those who like their humour on the black side.

Not everyone will appreciate this.... but I did!

:)  ¶ 9:23 am 4 comments

  With the benefit of hindsight... (In a brief break between holidays...)

Given the recent deaths of notable figures, such as Mo Mowlam, Brother Roger, a definite candidate for canonisation whatever his denominational origins (a good commentary about which can be found here) , Robin Cook, and even going far further back... why is it that we only seem able to recognise someone's abilities in the public arena once they're dead?

Is it because generous tributes cannot turn giddy human heads to pride if said human has left this mortal life behind?

Or am I being a little cynical to think of Shakespeare... "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him..." and these are all opportunities for the self-advancement of the speaker?  ¶ 8:04 am 0 comments