Thinking Out Loud

    I'm usually at a loss as to what my next post will be about. I remember the time, being a total novice I asked of fellow bloggers 'What's it all about, Alfie'. Several helped me out and my 'Grumpy Old Ken' blog flourished in my own haphazard way. And one thing I learnt (how ignorant I was in those days a mere four years ago) is that a blog is whatever you want it to be. A 'diary' if you like, YOUR thoughts etc, but on the internet, not paper. So no attempt this week at creating a masterpiece of wit and wisdom.  No doubt all the better for it! Just a mere musing of what the weeks been for me!

     I'm still struggling along, the knee refuses to show any real progress, the rigures of physiotherapy continues to dominate, life is not easy; but there are so many worse off and every situation in life teaches us something if we allow it to do so. For instance, I had no idea as to the trials and tribulations associated with disability. Steps are everywhere, there are few concessions offered. Lifts in the public arena are few and far between and frequently out of order. The world out there is a survival of the fittest. Welcome to the real world, Grumpy.

    My wife and I visited Wollaton Hall, a magnificent structure built between 1580 and1588.       . Except that the lift, you've guessed, was out of order and the steps at the front of the building were almost impossible for someone in my condition. Plus disabled parking was available, yet very poorly advertised Mind you, an attendant had the sense to find me a wheelchair to make my visit enjoyable. Well done that man! (I got the impression that 'cuts' had made staffing a joke, but not a 'funny ha ha' joke.)

    Everyone ought to have a session in a wheelchair, be they fit or otherwise to get some insight into the world out there offered to the disabled. But lets not get too negative, life is still good in the main. Two individuals I met in a week in which Jamie Oliver suggested the British young are feckless, work shy and lazy.

    Seeking advice on kitchens we visited B and Q (they found me a wheelchair, rather battered but usable). A young employee, mid twenties, gave us time and advice in our quest for the kitchen of our dreams. He was civil, dedicated to kitchens, knowledgeable, ambitious. I wouldn't mind selling kitchens, but only for a morning. My shortest 'career move', selling Betterware lasted four hours! He had been employed by B and Q for ten years. Again, well done that man.

    At Wollaton Hall we found a cafe. I have seldom seen a cafe so busy; particularly with young mothers and their offspring. To put a not too delicate slant on it, Nottingham and district certainly knows how to breed! A young man around nineteen years of age (he reminded me of a young Elvis Presley) appeared to be in charge. He fetched tray after tray after tray of used cups, empty bottles etc from the tables in the courtyard. He also swept up and delivered black bags of rubbish to bins provided. He even responded at one stage to a message that a child was locked in a toilet and couldn't get out! When he eventually paused for a moment I commented on his frenzied work rate. His answer was interesting.

He basically suggested that he was paid to work and that is what he did. Eat your heart out, Jamie Oliver!

     Concerning disability provision we attended the Derby County v Burnley football match on Saturday afternoon. The parking is good, an electric buggy picks us up at my car door and deposits us at the entrance to the main foyer. A lift ride, a few steps, stewards to hand and hey presto, in my front row seat. Big business can be disability aware  when it tries. (Now all we need is a winning team!)

    Limping around, 'big time' is not to be recommended. But one thing it does, is slow you down and give you time to think. I sat in front of the magnificent old building and do you know what was going through my mind. I've no doubt a little chap with five or six children, possibly called Percy or Montmorency worked on the building of Wollaton Hall all those years ago. Where are his mortal remains now, I wonder. Life is short with an inevitability that catches up with us all.

     Enough of my geriatric ramblings. One final thought. How many of you, not from this area, recognise Wollaton Hall. It does of course feature in the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, Wollaton Hall was of course Wayne Manor. Grumpy's blog may well be boring but it's often educational!

Waste not, Want not.

We have been moving since Saturday 26th July; day after day after day after day. Friends have helped on occasion for which I am eternally grateful. But in the main it has been Paulette and myself. I can remember only two days that we have not made the trip between the two houses. My motorhome of six months is now filthy, scratched and sadly dented. The bill apparently estimated at £440.

Today meant another trip to the local tip. I find myself going through black bin bags just to check exactly what my wife has bagged up whilst I was out of sight. I retrieve several items. I am one of many who throws little away. Is it a remnant of a poor childhood? Is it reminiscent of my age group? You tell me.

I find myself taking the wheels off a bed prior to its disposal: don't ask why. I take a portable clothesline to our new home. I check in at the local B and Q and, horror of horrors, a new insert into the ground to support it is nearly £8. I hastily return to the old house complete with chisels and with some difficulty prise the old one, concreted in out of the ground. Who wouldn't have done the same!

My grandmother never threw away sour milk. Instead it was forced through a gauze cloth (or a stocking) to make cottage cheese. The first milk from a cow after it had calved (called beastings), normally thrown away was a favourite of hers. (She died six months short of her hundredth birthday.) Peg rugs covered the floor and mould on food was carefully scraped off and the rest retained. It was only penicillin after all, was it not. My butcher friend never ever threw away meat that had gone black; the public would not accept it but he maintained it never did him any harm. Who has never collected bits of string or rubber bands until you had the largest of balls? More important I suppose, who ever found a use for such treasures. My aunt never threw away the last of the soap, instead placing it in a jam jar in the kitchen. Where it stood right through my formative years, an horrific, gooey mess, enough to give one nightmares. Mind you, my aunt was especially eccentric. She even turned the refrigerator off when she went out. She refused to have carpets on the floor, maintaining that 'people only walked on them' whatever that meant!

Her husband Roland, a favourite of mine had the largest contact lens I ever saw, not many years after the war. He cleaned it with Brasso an astounding choice but not medically proven!

I covered my kitchen floor with carpet tiles of varying colours, no choice available but enterprisingly matched in an ingenious pattern unique to my abode. And making briquettes from concrete and coal dust was both satisfying and cheap.

I hope the word 'tight' refers to others. We all know the type who is always last in the pub so he doesn't have to buy the first (and most expensive) round. I knew a couple who could make a small chicken last all week. (Dinner, sandwiches, stock, soup.) Which begs the question, when does thrift become meanness. Or are they one and the same?