One year on - RIP

Thursday was the first anniversary of father's death. My younger sister Christine is still taking it bad but she lives in America and was always daddy's little girl. What did surprise me a bit was how well mother took it so I had a chat with her about how she felt and while missing him terribly she is happy that his personal fight with multiple sclerosis is over, that he is no longer in constant pain nor confined 24/7 to a bed in a small room in a nursing home. That was no life for a man who lived out in the open, working the land until he passed his HGV test and got a job driving waste skip lorries for the local council (still keeping his own company most of the time).

So mother and I still celebrate a live lived. Yes, we miss him but his final years were nothing but physical torment for a man who lived to be free and do things his way in his own time. All his working life he worked with his hands, but in the latter years, following medical retirement, he couldn't control them so could do nothing. I know my parents planned retirement as a perpetual road trip, they saved for a motor-home and wanted to just drive where the whim or fancy took them but they never got to do that. As a man who lived so honestly and who would do anything to help anybody, his final years were cruel and painful. Those that knew and loved him will never forget him. RIP Arthur James Cooper 31-08-1932 to 19-12-2012.

Proposed increase in MPs pay is immoral

An 11% increase cannot be justified on any grounds. Local Government workers have had their pay frozen, been made redundant and had to reapply for their own jobs. That is 5 years of seeing their pay eroded while inflation has exceeded the governments own targets and basics like electricity, gas, petrol, diesel and food have seen price rises ahead of inflation.

Apparently the justification is making good losses of perks and benefits - things that were taken away because they weren't justified and MPs were abusing the system in claiming them. So why do IPSA feel that MPs should now be compensated for something they shouldn't be paid, isn't earned and are not due?

IPSA is supposed to be independent in order to stand up to the greed of the MPs and set realistic pay rates, but instead they abuse their position to suck up to the MPs and value their mediocre efforts with £74k p.a. salary (plus expenses and perks) that few others could ever hope to receive. It stinks!

Nelson Mandela dies

While many are acclaimed to be 'great people' with the strength of conviction, power and humility to influence others in reality few people really are worthy of that accolade.

Nelson Mandela is not and was not one of them. He should forever more be remembered as one of those uniquely gifted and influential people of our time. The fact that he survived to 95 years of age is a miracle based on the treatment he received prior to and during his time in prison. What he achieved after his release, and his influence not only in his native South Africa but across the globe will be a long and lasting legacy that all other politicians should strive to follow and emulate.

Nelson Mandela, I salute and will always remember you!

Strong winds

Yesterday was a bit blustery, to put it mildly. Loads of stuff was blowing about and some of it (mostly litter) made it into our back garden, including this trampoline. It normally lives the other side of the fence in the background but at some point in the afternoon the winds lifted in over the fence and deposited it in our garden. Chris (it's owner) couldn't believe it when I went round to tell him simply because it is no light weight.


So Saturday it will be going back so his 2 girls can play on it, but in the meantime it sits where it landed.