Stupid Late Delivery

 Wednesday 21st October. 5.15 p.m. I am supposed to be having someone coming from Milton Keynes Council to help me possibly claim more benefits, to hopefully boost my income. I had a letter this morning in the post, but it gave me the time and date for the appointment, but it for last Monday. So, it was really not sensible to be sent a letter with an appointment which was PAST! It sees our wonderful (do you get a hint of irony in my words here?) Post Office is incapable of delivering mail, on time, so you don't miss an important appointment. Would have been better to send it by snail, tortoise of any other high-speed delivery system, bou your average Postie on a bicylce or on his flat feet.

Friday. 23rd October. 8.30 a.m. The usual routine here at Fun Central (I have called it Fogeyville, because of the oldsters who dwell here. I have just had my 76th birthday, but I certainly don't think of myself as old.) Anyway, the washing machine is doing my laundry and I will go back and put most of it in the tumble drier in around 30 minutes.

I was supposed to have flu vaccine last Saturday. I knew it was at around 1.30 p.m, or thereabouts. I had to go shopping in Sainsbury's and we'd had our monthly Prayer Triplet via WhatsApp. But I spent so long in Sainsburys, just daudling along, that I clean forget the vaccine appointment. I have since bookd another appointent for this Saturday, tomorrow, so I will have to keep an eye on the time and make sure I get to the medical centre for the appointment.

4.15 p.m. The weather has changed dramatically. There is a strong wind raging, and they have named the storm Austen. Why? Goodness knows. Is it an Austen Mini, a Metro or whatever type of car. I doubt it.

I have now managed to print the first play I wrote, called 'Hiding In The Smoke.' I thought it was going to take almost all of the morning, but it took a little over 30 minutes, which, considering it is over 60 pages, seems a reasonable length of time.

Tuesday 27th October. 7.55 a.m. I have been having problems with my laptop, a MacBookPro. I have never had any real problems with it, but this one was quite substantial. I managed to print the play, as I mentioned earlier. But his started when the confounded 'Beachball Of Death' struck. I am referring to every computer user's nightmare, which is a constant revolving golden ball, which shows up when there's some sort of issue. I could not remove it, or get into any folder on the laptop. The only answer would be to return to the Apple store and hopefully, someone there would be able to resolve the situation.

I drove into the shopping centre and parked where I usually do, next to the scrap-heap which used to be The Point and then walked into Midsummer Place and landed up at the Apple Store. Unfortunately, I could not have an appointment immediately and the next available slot was in around an hour, so I had to go away and fill up an hour or so, wandering around the shopping centre. So, I did just that. Not easy for me to waste time like that, but I managed. It turned out that the computer had little or no memory left and they suggested shifting most of the stuff onto iCloud, which I have a subscription to. So, I had to sit and stare at the MacBook's screen as a good deal, if not all, the data was moved to iCloud. Around an hour later it was done (probably a good deal longer, but does it really matter.) I had to drive to Sainsbury's for a few items and then returned to Dexter House. This morning I have been removing further stuff onto iCloud and I have to say, the desktop looks far tidier and less cluttered and the MacBook seems to be running far better.

I have now printed out the second play and it is safely stored in it's own folder. That must be the quickest I have produced a play, from the concept to writing and then printing. It's the one I mention a few posts back, inspired by the woman who came into our Wednesday afternoon tea party and similar to 'Abigail's Party, created by Mike Leigh. I say 'created' because most of his plays are created by the cast, improvised during rehearsal. 

Wednesday 28th October. 1.10 p.m. My pension has not gone into my bank account this morning. Which puts me in a very difficult position. I have never had this happen before, and if I checked my account just after midnight, I would have had the money there, ready for me to go to Sainsbury's, as I have done more or less every week since I retired. I cannot think what has caused this situation, but I need it to be resolved quickly, otherwise I will be up the preverbial river without a paddle, or any other suitable expression.

Thurdsay 29th October 1.15 p.m. The pension I mentioned above wasn't mine. It was from Carol's Teacher's pension. I have found a telephone number on the internet and rung and it would appear that these payments are transferring to a new provider and this should be completed at the beginning of next week, so I am hoping and trusting that I will get paid as soon as this is completed. It would have been great if they could have informed me that this was about to happen. Just a quick text message, letter or even a telephone call, but nothing.

Learming New Things

 Monday 19th October. 6.25 p.m. Oh dear. My MacBook has been playing up! I had intended printing out the latest play I had written (more about that later.) I had bought the required ink cartridge from Argos, along with some paper, although there was a considerable amount still left in the drawer under the printer, but I didn't think it was a good idea to be short of paper, once the printer started. This play runs to a little over 90 pagers, so to run out in the middle of printing might cause problems. Then the MacBook refused point blank to cooperate and wouldn't open and I was left staring at a blank screen. What to do? The only answer was to go into the Apple store in Midsummer Place and ask someone to help resolve this very tiresome issue. I went in, having checked that the roads weren't closed off because of resurfacing, which is why I had the issue the other morning when I attempt4ed to go to Sainsburys.

So, I walked into Midsummer Place and then foundmmyself in the Apple store. You have to book an appointment and then, around ten minutes later an assistant was looking at the lqptop. He took it away and returned around 10 minutes later, having looked qt the battery and told me that the problem was caused by the external hard drive, which was taking power from the MacBook. So, not a problem at all, so I returned home to hopefully print the play, using the Canon printer.

As for the play, I will explain where the idea came from. I have told you about the Wednesday afternoon tea party in the communal lounge at Dexter House, which has become something of a fixture. A chance to have s natter and share thoughts about living in Dexter House. Well, for the past few weeks, a member of staff has been coming in. I think she is an SHO at another sheltered housing unit in Milton Keynes. She put me in mind of a character in a Mike Leigh play, probably the most famous one 'Abigail's Party' which stars Alison Stedman. She not only vaguely looks like a Mike Leigh character, she SOUNDS like one. So, I csame up with the idea of this woman, married to a small business, a back-street motor repair shop, and they live in the middle flat of a block of flats, and it's new Year\s Eve and they've prepared for a party, inviting friends to come and celebrate the newYear, with things ro eqrt, a buffet, lots to eat and then people stqrt tqlking. Well, that's the starting point, and it has just more or less written itself.

Tuesday. 20th October. 6.25 a.m. I had intended to begin this blog post diffrerently, which explains the title.

You may recall in an earlier blog post, how I detest cricket and football. I think I can now work out why this might be. When I was at school we played these games, and would go to the games field up a hill in Manton Lane in Bedford (which is now where Bedford Modern School was relocated in aound the 1970s.) It was a real trudge up that hil, usually in thick mud which clung to your boots. Then, at the top, in the middle of winter particularly, with wind whistling up from the ton below, chilling your bones and it took all your effort to stand up streight, shivering and covered in mud. I suffered really badly from cold, so it made life worse. Then, we would be divided into two teams, if we were about to play football, and in summer, cricket. Becauee I was so bad at playing the game, I inevitably got selected last. This didn't exactly make me excited to play either game. I know I was a lousy footballer, but running around on a muddy, extremly chilly piece of grass, dressed in shorts and short-sleeved shirt (I don't remember if those shirts had shoirt or long sleeves, to be honest.) and not really having the faintest idea how the stupid game was played, didn't exactly help.

I have got it! The bit about not knowing how the game was played! We were expected to go out on the fotballl pitch and launch into aropund 90 minutes of football, and understand all the rules, which end was your end, which was the goal you were aiming to kick the ball into, how to tackle someone who had the ball. Now, I have hit the nail on the head, for cricket and football. Why weere we never coached in how to play the game, to even be given some sort of tqlk about the rules? It seems that this was typical of a lot of topics in the 1960's and possibly earlier. Things were not made any easier because of my inability to kick a ball straight or not hit the cricket ball when one was lobbed at me. I think it might be the fqct that I should have been left-handed and was made (forced, more likely) to write and use my right hand. This, I believe, was normal practice in the 1960' and earlier. I would say it was, to make life easier for the teachers. If you had a child who was different, say, left-haanded, it would be more complicated. They wanted everyone to be identical. Well, I wasn't. 

It was the same in other areas of my life.I'm thinking, when I worked in stage management. We had to do a variety of jobs, operate the sound deck, which included making up show tapes, editing recording tape, then playing sound effects into the show, given cues to foloow, actually running the prompt corner, taking rehearsals, marking out the floor of the rehearsal room with coloured tape, operating the fly floor, the list goes on and on. My worst job was tieing knots, which might not seem important, but it was. I could never tie ropes to fly-fqrs, which were used to hqul up scenery, curtains or lighting. I don't ever remember being shown how to do thqt job. It would have been fqr more sense to show someone new how to do these jobs.

Thinking about all this, particularly knowing how to play sport, such as cricket or football, the fact that I never got any coaching, puts me in mind of putting on a play. You would never expect an actor or a group of actors, to go out on stage without rehearsals. It would never work, for  start. You havee to learn lines, the moves around the stage, entrances and exits, who goes where. The sae with the stage crew, you need to know how the whole play works, have the props sourced, arranged in the correct place, along with the sound and lighting cues. It's surely the same with playing a game of football or cricket, if you don't know how it is played, all the rules and regulations, how are you expected to give your best?