India

Journal

Wed 23 Feb 2011

It wasn't until 3-30 ish in the morning that I finally figured how upsetting such long flights were to both my body & spirit. Fortuitously we were in the right place at the right time & with the right guy to ask & got the right bus, air conditioned, that was luck too, . . . to get to Fort Cochin, where we wanted to go.

And the bus journey was a beautiful overload on my eyes, on our eyes . . . What's a good word for describing beautiful overload?

The road we took was a main road but not a main road as we know it in the UK. It was alive, a boiling mass of humanity, beautiful humanity, on every available square inch of land along the sides of this road seemingly turning a buck, absolutely anything to earn a bit of money.

Later, when we'd settled in at the second homestay, therein lies another tale, but that later, I reflected on how in the UK we'd standardized & regulated effort to the point where as a nation we were not entrepreneurial anymore, certainly not in the sense that I witnessed on the road from the airport to Fort Cochin..

This road was a main road, a serious of shorter stretches none more than a couple of hundred yards leading on one from another, both sides alive with every possible commercial activity at any achievable level of the entrepreneur . . . Mostly small & makeshift moving up to the more serious attempt at a business activity to the odd corporate Samsung store our Mercedes dealer, not many of the latter though.

We've strangled the entrepreneurial spirit with ' civilized' culture with standards & regulation . . . Gotta be more on that!

26th July 08 17-52

cor, what a day today, thinking I'd failed as a man when the shower solution didn't work out for Kate and family. Then to Argos and the only plastic shower that you stuck on the taps in the south of England, well, Brighton and Hove, appeared on the shelf.

A man again, went up a treat, suprisingly actually, no hitches, riser on the wall with wall plugs and screws, no problemo. Superb pressure on hot water and mixing it to right temperature a dream.

. . . then nothing, anticlimax. Oh no, not again.

Then had a chat with Kate about the trees in the garden and how they restricted the light in the garden . . . started small scale . . . on her beautiful corner of the garden that was planted with a growing collection of lovely flowers but which was being impinged upon because of an over hanging tree. Well bush. Cut that down and the holly tree above it got a little pruning attention on the lower branches. . . hey, lightened the whole of that corner. The flowers will appreciate the extra light, I'm sure.

The moved onto the big elderberry tree at the bottom of the garden which wathe host to a very active ivy which was actually killing it.

Well, by the time time I'd finished light was blasting onto an elderberry that had been totall deprived of it for years. I can imagine saying that's a bit sudden but what a relief . . . hope so anyway.

Only problem . . . gardens absoutely full of cut-down branches. Have to work hard on them tonight and tomorrow to get them manageable and round the front garden ready the wrap and bung into the car and off to the recycling yard . . . and that'll be that.

good day. Rode into Brightie to get the shower and rode out again to look for a better ironmongers than the one on Blatchington Road. Found it on Portland Road

A very good day, lots of exercise and tired.