Diamonds and Rust

“To Travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,
and the true success is to labour”
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894 Virginibus Puerisque 1881

We should be enjoying ourselves,for it’s time to take a summer break again.We pilgered to the Holiday Exhibition and came home with two bags full of books and brochures. (Heaven help the enviremont) Special offers had also fluttered into the house by post, which we should have taken them up on monthes ago.Too late now. I have scoured the internet to no avail and two days ago I was obliged to set foot in a Travel Agency.That is of course where the trouble really starts.

There are so many of them here, that’s because the Swiss are always on holiday somewhere. Each travel firm has it’s offices in every town. Upmarket and downmarket businesses,usually all controlled by a couple at the top,so the prices don’t really vary, we are just made to think we are getting a good deal.

On entering we are always greeted by a helpfull smiling assistant.Don’t be taken in by the smile,in actual fact the scenario is of the spider greeting the fly.

If you have studied the wonderfull coloured books full of carefully shot photos you will also have read the small print,and interpreted their language. “Original” well in need of new beds,paint,showers. “Quaint” on it’s last legs. “Within walking distance” anything between 10 meters and 10 miles. “Discotheque in Hotel” not for people who like ro go to bed early,especially if your room is near it. “Child friendly” be very carefull if you like to see young children but not hear them.” Side view of the sea” only if your partner holds you feet while you hang out of the balcony. The traps are endless.

I had already decided where and when. I just wanted a 5* Hotel there at 1* price. Can sometimes be done,but then there is always a snag with the flights. Just one place left when there are two of you.All seats booked on the return journey etc.

I wasn’t lucky of course with their “Last Minute” offers, is anyone ever? But then I would have had to have paid a 100 Dollar booking charge instead of 60.
Because I wanted to use my credit card to pay for the arrangement, which would save me the 45 Dollar obligatory insurence coverage they would have to ask for a further 1 1/2%.
Would I like to reserve a special seat on the three hour flight? For free,of course not, 50 Dollars more. No thanks I’ll stand.

I came out feeling liike a squeezed lemon,and vowing to do it all differently next time.

Not to worry I have a month to prepare myself for the real problems.
The Check in at the Charter Flight desk at 4.30 in the morning.
How to think positively and thus not draw anybody into the place in front of me on the plane who is going to put his seat right back the moment we are in the air, or beside me and glue their elbows onto both arm rests for the whole flight.

If we do take off and land without any mishaps,I only have the apprehension at the luggage belt.
and the elbowing of my fellow travellers at the hotel reception to overcome.

Then, usually after a bad first night in a new bed walking down to the beach at seven o’clock in the morning to find that all the sunbeds under umbrellas have already been reserved with draped towels and bags printed with “Neckermann machts möglich”. OK maybe “Kuoni” too.

“Veni,vidi,vici”

“I came,I saw,I conquered.”

She did it with bravour,and contempt has turned into admiration.

Carla mania has broken out,and she is now everyone’s darling.

The wife of this Frenchman, what was his name?

Soon it will be time to wear “The Green” again.

And as usual tears will come to my ears when I hear this song;

Oh, Danny boy,the pipes,the pipes are calling,

From glen to glen and down the mountain side.

The summers gone,and all the flowers are dying,

Tis you,Tis you must go and I must bide

But come you back when summers in the meadow,

And when the valley is hushed and white with snow.

Tis I’ll be there in sunshine or in shadow,

Oh, Danny boy,oh danny boy I love you so

And if you come when all the flowers are dying.

And I am dead as dead I well may be,

You’ll come and find the place where I am lying.

And kneel,and say an Ave there for me.

And I shall hear though soft you tread above me,

And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be,

If you’ll not fail to tell me that you love me,

I simply sleep in peace until you come to me

Frederic Weatherly-1848-1929. Words to the tune of Londonderry Air.

I wish my Irish friends far and wide   Slàinte, May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest of your past.

I have an old book that belonged to my Grandmother.

To Dearest Grace with Best Wishes from A.B.

It is called The Birthday Oracle or Whom shall I Marry . Guesses at the character or appearance of your future husband or wife. Arranged for every Day in the Year with Extracts to suit both sexes.

In it my Grandmother noted the names of family or friends opposite the date and the Birthday Oracle to the words of a well known writer.
Yesterday, March 12, my name had been entered in now faded ink and that of an 81 year old Uncle.

“He is more than six feet high,

And fortunate and wise ;

He has a voice of melody,

And beautiful black eyes. -Praed

How true that was about my Uncle.

Tell me a thing she cannot dress, _

Soups,hashes pickles and pies;

Nought comes amiss, she is so wise. -Lloyd

Me? Maybe.

For April 16, The Birthday of my eldest Daughter

Her dress was like the lillies,

And thy heart as pure as they.-Longfellow

How true

May 27. My youngest daughter.

I think there has rarely been a more admirable woman.- O.W.Holmes

And that of a very good friend

His face is fair as heaven,

When Springtime buds unfold.- Blake.

Mmm, probably.

May 3, my Son in Law.

He cannot even essay to walk sedate,

But in his very gait,one sees a jest,

That is ready to break out in spite of all his seeming.-Knowles.

August 14. My Father.

The proudest now is but my peer.

The highest not more high;

Today of all the weary year ,

A King of men am I. -Whittier

Oh,how true.

December31.My Husband.

My own ideal Knight,

Who reverenced his conscience as a King;

Whose glory was redressing human wrongs.- Tennyson.

You may smile,but for me the oracle rings true.

I am still struggling with my watercolour painting. After almost a year of weekly classes I don’t see a lot of improvement in my work,and I still seem to make the same silly mistakes. With watercolour it is difficult to amend them once the paint is on the paper and I don’t want to cheat and use white goache. So I thought I would go on a painting holiday where I could paint without interruption ,and have tuition too, once the weather improved.

So I contacted a very helpful lady at creArtive,Rhodes explaining what I wanted and that when considering different groups I fitted into what I think is known as a senior citizen, but my eyesight still enables me to paint and my hand doesn’t shake. I felt almost ashamed to admit that I wasn’t young any more, even though my generation of war babies had done more than many to alter the course of the world. But then I thought of the Rolling Stones and said what the hell.

Somehow the names given to people having reached the age of 55 seem to me discriminating, and does nothing to make us feel better on having reached retirement age in the first place. OLDIES, PENSIONERS even WRINKLIES. !!

Why can’t we introduce a more acceptable name for the old hippies, 68ers and war veterans.

I would suggest,

SEENAGERS

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”

Winston Churchill 1874-1965

The Club of Rome has indeed been rather quiet lately, they have been reshuffling ideas and goals, one of which I hope is to speak up a bit.They would also like to transfer their headquarters from Hamburg in Germany to Zürich.

On the 24th of February,we now have a referendum in Zürich as to whether the people want to give the Club of Rome 1,82 Million Francs and allow them to move here. The money would be used as a financial help until 2012. Who is paying the rent for the partial use of one of the historic buildings of the city direct on the Limmat River I do not know, it doesn’t really matter anyway 1,82 Million seems like peanuts to me for the possible prestige it could bring us. Think of Davos.!

Naturally they would be profiting from us too; our University with its renowned Environmental Science Department, our Banks, just down the road if they needed a little more support of that kind. An Airport that is an international hub and such a good public transport system so they could say they didn’t need their Mercedes.

On paper the work that the Club of Rome does reads very nicely. I hope that as an International think tank they will have success in Zürich.

I am going to vote yes,and I hope we hear more of them.

“Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new “

John Milton,1638.

I read this in a Swiss newspaper yesterday;

Adventszitate

“Regelmässig zum Fest der Liebe wächst meine Mordlust”

Agatha Christie.

I haven’t been able to find the actual quote in English,or when and in what context it was said or written, but roughly translated it is;

Advents Quotation
“Regularly to the Festival of Love (Christmas,Advent)

grows my urge to murder”

I would love to know what she really meant by it, but I think I understand her.

I love Poetry,but I can’t write it.

I might possibly be able to turn out some third rate crime or love story but lines like;

“The sedge has withered from the lake,

and no birds sing.”

Impossible.

I ask myself why I find prose so much easier?

The answer is, maybe one has to be a melancholy sort of person to write something moving,and I am not one of these.
It would be an explanation as to why Ireland has brought forth so many great writers.

Or maybe one has to be nursing a broken heart.

Looking through the paper this morning I saw together with the latest news on Russia a large head and shoulder picture of President Putin.

Nothing odd about that you might think.

No, except in that one Vladimir Vladimirowitsch was smiling.

And I wondered what significance it might have.

“Comrades,this man has a nice smile,but he’s got iron teeth”

Andrej Gromyko 1909-89 . On Mikhail Gorbachev; speech to the Soviet Communist Party Central Committe. 11 March 1985

There is a long interesting discussion going on between a few of my fellow Bloggers about ‘Belief’.

Thought you might like to know what some other great thinkers might have commented.

“A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism,but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion”

Francis Bacon 1561-1626

“By night an atheist half believes in God”

Edward Young 1683-1765

” There lives more faith in honest doubt,
believe me,than in half the creeds.”

Alfred,Lord Tennyson 1809-92

” Man is a credulous animal,and must believe in something:in the absence of good grounds for belief,he will be satisfied with bad ones”

Bertrand Russell 1872-1970

” She (my Grandmother) believed in nothing,only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist.”
Jean-Paul Sartre 1905-1980

“There is a lot to be said in the Decade of Evangelism for believing more and more in less and less”

Bishop John Yates 1925-

“Just when we are safest,there is a sunset touch,

A fancy from a flower bell, someones death,

A chorus ending from Euripedes-

And that’s enough for fifty hopes and fears

As old and new at once as Nature’s self…..

The grand Perhaps”

Robert Browning 1812-89