The day has come. My birthday.

I’m taking the day off

Musical Computer Chairs

So, I bought a 14″ Chromebook. I bought it ’cause I liked it. But my relative liked it better than the one I bought her, which we called ‘Bells and Whistles’. ‘Bells and Whistles’ is a thing of beauty, but not practical, especially for old persons.

I swapped my 14″ Chromebook for ‘Bells and Whistles’ because I realised it was inappropriate for a computer ignoramus. I altered its beauty by adding black and white key stickers so I could actually see the keys on the keyboard, and Mr Furlong added a screen guard onto the screen to stop it from being a mirror.

But I still didn’t like it.

So I bought an 11.5″ Chromebook of my favourite make. We fell in love immediately. I set it up for myself, installing Linux and Libre Office, and my game which won’t run in a Chromebook.

I liked it.

But when my relative saw it, she liked it better than the one she had swapped with me. So we swapped again.

Now if you are confused – wait – it gets worse!

Mr Furlong’s ultra robust Windows laptop is aged and almost obsolete and I realised that the 14″ originally-purchased-Chromebook would be a perfect replacement, especially with Linux and Libre Office and the game installed. So the old ultra robust laptop has been cleansed by me and Windows re-installed for the grandchild who keeps on trashing the family laptop. (That is actually ironic to me because that family are Apple people, but what the hell.)

Are you still with me?

So this is how it is at the moment. I have lost my original 14″ Chromebook to Mr Furlong, my baby 11″ Chromebook to the relative. And now I am left using “Bells and Whistles” which I originally purchased for relative who was deeply disappointed in it.

I believe in Karma!

Oh, what a horrible job to be a Royal

Yesterday I watched the march behind the coffin of Queenie to St James’ Palace.

I wondered if all the pomp and ceremony overkill by ‘old people’ meant anything to Generation Z. What do they think? Everyone is an ‘old person to them. The ‘old people’ have hogged all the money, the assets, the privileges. Gen Z has inherited a world of extreme comfort and safety – a world of plenty, even if they are poor. They haven’t a clue about hardship. They know nothing of deprivation, war, tradition. If they endure any suffering at all, the modern thinking is it’s because someone else is at fault for it.

So I watched the pageant yesterday with great sympathy for the Royals marching slowly behind the gun carriage, The King and Princess Anne in their true old age, and many others also in their seventies. It was long. And then they had to stand in the Chapel for another long time, while the Clergy did their show.

I wondered what GenZ made of that, having probably hardly heard of Christianity, let alone the Anglican Church.

And at last the coffin-followers were free to go home, to a nice cuppa, or a stiff drink, and slippers!

Poor things.

Kings and Queens

When I was a child, in a (then) Colony, I remember the King.

He was shown on Movietone news played before every film in the cinemas. He was in the papers as well. He had beautiful daughters whose clothes we admired, and we’d want to be princesses too.

The Royal Family was the top of our pops when we were children.

After every film, or concert, no one belted out of the auditorium, everyone stood and sang the National Anthem, God Save the King. And after that, we went home.

‘God Save our Gracious King’ stirred emotions of inner pride. It was magical.

And then the King died. There was mourning, lying in state, a funeral, and the women in black veils. And a train station somewhere, waiting. I remember the black veils. I’d never seen black veils before, or any veils, except on brides.

All this on Movietone News and the newspapers.

So then we switched to singing ‘God save the Queen’.

And then, our country became something else, that wasn’t Royal, and we stopped doing all that.

But our family was very British, so we followed the Royal Family. They were important to us. We were proudly British. We sang ‘God save the Queen for the rest of our lives. Until now.

The Furlong children only know ‘God save the Queen’.

But these old Furlongs will have lived through three monarchs.

The Queen is dead.

God Save the King!

Once upon a time in the sixties

I remember a book I read way back in the sixties whilst I lived in warmest Africa.

I can’t remember the name of the book, but it was written in the UK, about how to save money, in the UK.

It was full of tips and tricks to live a good life on very little money. And it worked for us living in darkest Africa too.

It was about baked beans and bedding, cleaning tips, upstairs and downstairs and baskets to fill so in house tidying, one went up once or down once with your basket in tow. We only ever lived in upstairs, downstairs houses and I did that for the rest of my life. I followed many tips from that book.

But not the ones on cold weather, seeing we didn’t have any.

However, I remember them.

In those days, the houses of ordinary people in the UK had no central heating. So how did those poor people keep warm in winter?

Well, they wore vests, long john’s, jumpers, jerseys, scarves and even gloves inside, in the winter.

Many houses then, had tiny fireplaces, so I learned from the book, not to leave a grate clean of ashes because the ashes make it easier to light the next fire. That was in the days when coal fires were allowed.

So here, we have this terrible Winter approaching with predictions of doom , gloom, death and damnation. UK has an energy crisis.

We have to use less to afford the costs.

The Furlongs have a plan taken directly from the book.

These old Furlongs will be wearing our outdoor clothing, inside, this Winter.

The pongiest pong you ever ponged

Up here in the Lake District we have pongs.

The farmers are spreading so we know it’s going to rain.

The farmers are spreading so we know it’s going to snow.

There is cow poo, sheep poo, and “slurry”. I dont know what the hell “slurry” is. It’s all of that I think. The farmers seem to like it. They spread it so we can all enjoy the pong.

The pong wafts into car windows if you pass a spreaded field, and occasionally, a whiff is whiffed in the garden here. It’ll be raining or snowing in a few days. The pong is out there, somewhere else, not too close.

But yesterday, it arrived on my bed in the form of an over excited dog coming home from his walk. He rolled on my duvet, my pillows and sheets. The Furlongs leapt into action. We evacuated. Well, perhaps that’s not quite the right term.

We came back armed.

Mr Furlong ushered the pong into the shower where it got shampoo’ed.

Mrs Furlong stripped the bed completely with great moaning and gnashing of teeth.

The pong enjoyed it all. And the dog walker never indicated where she’d been yesterday morning with her dog team, but we knew.

As the bedding dried in the sun, a very faint whiff coming from the fields assailed our nostrils……slurry. The farmers are spreading. Its going to rain. Or maybe snow? You never know what to expect nowadays with Climate change and all.

But we already knew that. We got slurry first hand,

in our house.

Yesterday was the last day of Summer

Or rather, today is the first day of Autumn.

There is a change, noticeable from a few days ago.

It’s cooler. I had to use a blanket on my bed. I sleep under a permanently open window. I can feel Summer has ended.

I’ve been trying to dry petals on a mesh tray, outside in the sun, but for two days, there has been very little sun. Weak and feeble sunshine I would describe it.. The petals are the last pick of the really nice stuff that dries well for my annual pot porri. So, this morning, I placed the mesh tray optimistically in the sunshine I expected, but there isn’t any at all.

I forgot about the Autumn winds.

They are HERE!

They have blown all my precious petals away.

Dang!