Building resilience.

All during the pandemic I heard talk of resilience groups, but did not know what they were or where to find them. I wrote several times to the council for more information and have just been sent a link for the Hertfordshire Resilience Group. At last. I will be interested to learn more.

Farewell to Joy.

Family and friends arriving at Mortlake for the funeral of Joy. 

When someone is over 90 years old the news of their death may not seem surprising, but in fact all of us in the family were both saddened and shocked by her sudden death as we all thought she would be around for many more years.     People came from Croatia and Singapore and family were watching in Australia too.  It was an honour to stand with my brothers and niece to be part of the eulogy.  The relationship with the woman who suddenly married my Dad was always going to be complex, as a child it was bewildering and painful, as an adult too, and yet it was never spoken of but as a person I always enjoyed Joy's company and never more so after the death of my father as she helped keep his memory alive.  Joy was a very good academic in her own right, a very knowledgeable woman.  (see 

Connexions: His and Hers - An Examination of Masculinity and Femininity)

  I am very grateful for all she has done to keep the blended families together.    She will be missed by all of us.  

A joyful meal. 

Times are changing in Wormley.  Years ago when Nathan started school, he was one of only two black boys and then the other child left. Nathan was the subject of bullying and there was no value placed on his culture at all.    Luckily he formed friendships with friends from Turkish and Bangladeshi families who lived locally.  Now a very large proportion of his old senior school are from West Indian or African families as well as Turkish and British.  He would not feel so alone here now.    This was reflected in the community meal held at the local community centre and echoed up at the local museum by an exhibition on West Indian food and at this time of economic crisis it was also just a good value jolly.   get together. 

  
   
 

In Battalions.

Friday we had the Tories mini financial that was not mini, but which was a budget. A budget for the rich, the very rich, the super rich, but left people like me with scarcely a cent more in my pocket. I do to pay National Insurance, in fact I would have been happy to as in the end it is people like me who are heating towards are dotage that would have benefitted from this benefit, but I do not pay National Insurance, but it does mean my company has made a small saving, which they will not pass onto me as this year our pay has been frozen.   Meanwhile the value of my pension has gone down another £200 and it has already lost over £1000 in value since the energy crisis.    And yet the Kwasi Karteng claims we will all be better off.  It is great that the Tories have such a diverse group of leaders, but if only any of them had common sense or decent values and felt it was more important to look after those on limited means rather than those on top.  Things just get darker and darker here. But abroad the pictureis darker still. The Italians have just voted in another right winger and the climate crisis has impacted several nations recently - Canada, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Japan, now the Phillipines and yet Rees Mogg wants to ignore professional advice and climate science and pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.  

I have personally had potentially some good news, but whether the world will survive long enough for me to benefit, who knows. I write this very limited blog just in case history wants the trivia of the ordinary person, but maybe none of us will be left this time next week as Putin and Biden are in getting the very very very big guns out.  Thousands are trying to leave Russia, now they are being forced to stay, will that help topple Putin or just make things worse.   Dark times indeed.   

It is the start of the Big Green Week, and we have a special event at the garden, so let's hope that at least will be cheerful.  

A good deal.

 Had such a brilliant trip away,  learned a lot more about Henry 8th castles in Deal and absolutely loved Sandwich with is quaint buildings and fascinating medieval history.     Top off with a very brief trip to Canterbury.  

Unhinged

 My friend and I walked up towards the Royal Albert Hall, sharing school day memories, when we heard mournful music and was told the prom had been cancelled following the announcement of the death of the Queen.   Despite this we continued up to the Royal Albert Hall along with the large majority of the rest of the audience as we told that the National Anthem would be performed by the Orchestra who were due to appear.  A minutes almost silence, - several phones interrupted the proceeding - followed by Nimrod.  Neither of us are particularly monarchists, but we wandered about the Hall, not knowing what had happened or what to do with ourselves, but this kind gesture by the staff at the Royal Albert Hall allowed us to process the information. 

It has been one of the most extraordinary weeks in politics, presumably a day with Boris and Truss, our new PM, was enough to finish her off.   I am worried Truss might finish the whole country off, but today is just time for mourning, what ever one's politics. 

It has been such a lovely summer and I have had such a lovely time up north. I have seen animals and bike rides and runners, and Shakespeare family and friends up north but today the rain has just poured down,  the end of summer and the end of an era or error as I once wrote in my history book. 

Fun and disasters.

On a personal note have been enjoying making the most of "Have bus pass will travel" and the lovely sunshire, so visited Capel Manor where a friend was exhibiting her pictures and then went to see the gardens and for the first time got beyond the Abbey to see the High Street in Waltham Abbey where the National Photographic Exhibition had taken up residence.   

Also managed to travel home much of the way by bus from Kentish Town where I had lunch with a friend and also caught up with another friend in town and went to see South Pacific, which was terrific.    And The Broxbourne Green Party joined in with the Harlow Green Party quiz night and our team won! So that was a bit of fun. 

On a much more worrying note, I looked up from teaching the other day only to see a huge plume of big black smoke.  I tried alerting next door and my tenant so that they could phone the fire brigade as it looked so serious, but neither responded.   Luckily, or so it seemed by the end of the lesson it had died down, but that therefore means that actually it only took about 40 minutes for a house to be destroyed and its neighbours fire damaged.     

About an hour of rain only 4 days later were enough to flood my street.  So we have gone from blazing sunshine and burned out houses to flooding.  Climate change is well and truly happening locally. I think I need to increase my insurance if nothing else.  

Brum is glum

 Readers of these pages - all one of them - will know I get very upset when things do not go right.  I think systems will and should work and then I go into a pout when they do not and then I beg the organisations concerned to do the right thing and they consistently and repeatedly do the wrong thing. 

I have had many holidays with Booking.com like most of their customers I am at Genius Three level to thank me for the custom I have sent in their direction. I cannot claim, with the small amount I usually pay, to have lined the pockets of all those involved, too much, but the company is doing something "right" as in theory its CEO G Fogel earned $54 million in 2021. despite many of us being unable to travel    On the whole I have been satisfied with their services.  There was that time in France, when our booking did not exist,  but luckily my then  87 year old step-father had efficiently brought all the evidence required and the hotel backed down and accommodated us, so we never had to push booking. com to resolve the issue.  And there was that time in India, where I was staying in a place, that was a fire hazard.  Booking.com operatives handled that so badly it made the rest of my stay in the place very unpleasant.  But given that all of the dealings are dealt with automatically online and I have been to loads of places with them, on the whole, one could say things have been okay with them.  

But it is when the shit hits the fan, that you can judge a business, do they help you or do they complicate things so much they hope you will go away?  Do they promise you good service, apologise when it fails to arrive and then make sure that everything they do is up to the mark, or do they aggravate an already difficult situation?   Based on these two comments,  Booking.com is failing to deliver.  in fact it has added to the stress and distress of a balls up holiday.  

 My health, my phone and booking.com have conspired to give me either really the worse holiday
experience ever, but one that has been very cheap, or they have conspired to give me a horrid holiday and charged me a fortune in the process.    At the moment it is the latter, as all attempts to get some money they promised me has failed to appear.  

It is a shame as the holiday started so nicely.  I had a brilliant day at Cambridge Folk Festival catching up with music and friends. I successfully navigated my way back into town at the end and had a really enjoyable stay at Christ's Cambridge. I felt it was worth pushing the boat out to experience staying there.  It was a pleasure,  and cost £50, plus £12 for breakfast.  I state the amounts as they will offer a contrast for later.    

Christ's vegetable garden in the courtyard. 

On the train I did not rest as much as I could or should have,  I also failed to find anywhere to plug in my phone.    By the time I had got lost on my way to my accommodation, I was desperate to have a sleep.    I could already feel my health and stamina slipping away, and I just knew I needed to lay down.  So imagine my despair, when I was informed by the pub I was staying in, that my accommodation had been cancelled. 

Originally,  I had booked to stay in Birmingham back in October 21 and was delighted to see the prices hadn't been hiked, so then fixed my weekend around that.  Because of my M.E I had built in rest times and travel times, and I felt I could handle the mix of Cambridge for the Festival, Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games and Worcester for a catch up with my friend.  But by the time I hit Birmingham I was already shattered and having to manage a situation where the accommodation had been cancelled, my phone was out of power and the staff at the bar,  without a bed, did not know how to access the internet was very difficult  With my dying power,  I was surprised when the man at Booking.com said that if I paid to stay for three nights at a sports bar for the price of £324,  I could get the balance back afterwards from Booking.com. I was amazed, we had a whole conversation about gosh, Booking.com takes the hit, and so although I was uncomfortable, both with the idea of another sports bar and that price, as I would never spend that money,  at the time that seemed the only choice, so I asked him to hold the bed for me, whilst I tried to find a place to power up my phone and get the internet, and double check the place or decide whether to just go back home.   So I headed back into Birmingham, where in theory I could get power and the internet at the station, but I just could not get anything to work, I just felt more and more ill and could not decide what to do.  So in the end I felt I had no choice but to navigate my way through Birmingham and up to the pub as that was the only thing that had been fixed.  People en route were very kind, so about 10 I found myself wondering down a desolate road, past wasteland, an industrial estate and then into a Peaky Blinders pub on the corner, where I was greeted by a very friendly woman who told me that Booking.com had not been in touch and that they did not have any bed for me. 

To make a long story short, they eventually moved people around and I was put into a room with three beds, a TV that did not work and where the toilet seemed likely to fall of the wall imminently.

The toilet that felt like it might fall off the wall any minute. 

  I was shattered but sleep eluded me, as the late night drinkers outside chatted and smoked the night away, outside my window and up above heaven knows what was happening as it sounded like people moving furniture and drumming and bouncing about.   As I said the next day, if I had known there were having a party I would have joined them.  Eventually I did sleep but I was awake again before 6 as the refuse van seemed to be round. I decided to get up in time for the 7 start to the marathon.  Wending my way round Brum, only getting lost a couple of times, I eventually found the starting point at 7.17, so I had missed the start, but a chance word from one of the officials revealed I had missed the start of the wheelchair race but the men's was starting at 9 and the women's at 9.30.    I headed back to the market open around the corner and got myself a cup of tea and enjoyed the build up to the race. I stood next to David Weir as he manoeuvred his punctured wheelchair round the course,  I chatted to photographers, and even spotted Hugh Jones, the marathon runner and embarrassed myself by talking to him, because years before his wife and sometimes he would come to the community centre I used to run.  He did not remember of course, but I had recognised him some 25 years later.  I stupidly asked if he was still interested in sport as he was there, only to be told he was the course measurer!    Anyhow for about an hour it was fine and it was fun, but as soon as the men had started exhaustion hit me and I toddled back to the pub, and again tried to sleep, but kept getting woken up by what turned out to be the scrapyard next door.  When I feel ill I just do not know what to do with myself and I usually toss and turn sleep and listen to the radio and just potter, so that is what I did as best as possible within this b and b. 

By late afternoon, I felt okay enough to at least try and go to get a coffee and some food or go the art gallery, but the art gallery was shut and I did not feel well enough for a restaurant so just came back to the b and b and fell into a deep sleep, until awoken by the rain outside my window, and then by the rain dripping onto the other bed in the room.  It was 5 am when I contacted Booking.com to let them know.  Only for them to reply we are sorry to hear you feel it is raining in your room, I was not feeling, it was raining IN my room..  Luckily nothing fazes the staff at this B and B,  they are used to rain coming in - only when it is heavy - and moved me to their prize suite, with a built in motion sensor, that came on every time I moved in the bed, but which turned off when I needed it on, whilst in the shower or on the toilet. It was like Fawlty Towers meets Peaky Blinders.    And all of that would have been fine, it they had charged the normal say £40 a night rent and we had had a nice laugh.  And all of that would have been fine, if I had not felt so ill, but of course I had to spend another morning sleeping so did not get to do the things I had hoped to in Birmingham, but I did at least get to the Badminton and onto Worcester the next day. 

Collecting rain water in the bin so that it was quiet enough for me to sleep and to protect the facilities. 

  I have survived is how it felt, but now Booking. com are saying the paper work I have sent them is not correct so they will not consider refunding me the money. At this point I am still hoping that this can be resolved but it is not looking good.  That room cost me half a month's salary. In the long run, it is only money, only 29 hours work, but it is more than that it is the lost trust in a system that had been working well.  I never want to go to Birmingham again. These games were supposed to show the world an exciting place, well, it showed the world poverty, broken bottles and dirt but jolly people.  The people in the end are probably the most important,  and if it had not been for them I do not think I would have coped, but it is unnecessary for pubs to be that broken down,  or that greedy.   It could and should have been a fun weekend but between the cancellee and booking.com and my phone, it was not.  In the long run that might save me money as I might stop going on holiday, so sod my Genius 3 status.  

In the reviews I notice that the staff at the B and B have promised to deal with the things raised immediately, but they were still an issue by the time I came - so lovely though the staff are there is an attitude of we takes your money and the piss.  The pub that first cancelled is also charging three times more for people to stay there.  I would have preferred to stay in another town and popped into Birmingham to see an event, had I had the full information to hand.  And my insurers will not cough up either for the difference in the two bookings so what is the point in having All Clear Insurance if they too will not help in an emergency.