I thought you might like to see where I sit and go to sleep after lunch - and other times too!

Probably you all have lovely gardens so just add mine to yours.

Two are on the balcony:two are looking towards Poole Bay: the other is next door but one's gateway.

This is a  rollator.  With my luck when I push it the three wheels  turn in different directions at the same time. If I am carrying a cup of tea the rollator always collides with the door frame and my flat has decorative tea stains and coffee stains on the carpets at the entrance to each room.I also have decorative paintwork where the wheels collide with doors and skirting boards.

The rollator has a carrying bag  on the frame with a very dark interior. This is useful for carrying items like telephones that hide in the dark, especially if you are  also carrying tea cups. It is fitted with a profane language gimmick for  use when you can't remember where you put the telephone.

I am 94 and relativley slow when it comes to finding the phone when it rings: most people think i am a champion sprinter and expect me to find and pick up the instrument the moment it rings. Most have never heard my language when I answer and ring back because by then they are talking to someone else which stops them talking to me. I imagine they are saying "old Phil Goodwin gets about for an old man; never at home whenyou ring! "

I am very lucky. I have beautiful carers come to put me to be each night at 9.30 pm
If I rewrite that truthfully it says: " I have beautiful carers come to put me to bed every night!
I am 94 and very unlucky!!



This card with Boris's statue was sent to me from Chile by Tony Cram, an old colleague. He writes:
"This is the remotest place we have ever been"

Never got to Trowbridge inWiltshire then?

I thought you would like to see how rich he is with a postage stamp costing 1000 dollars!!

You may wonder why I am writing this blog. It is just that in these strange days more people use the internet and telephone to make contact and I like thinking I am in the real world and can talk about things that have little relevance to anything else that is going on outside.

Send me a reply if you like; tell me how you are coping. Love to hear from you.

Democracy

In the nature of things most golfers would prefer to find themselves in a fourball rather than a two or threeball. Thus, when twelve or sixteen are gathered together the dawn chorus takes on a new meaning should a thirteenth or seventeenth arrive at the the last minute.  But, such is  the bonhomie within the Society that none is refused a game even though in the cirumstances the welcome may be slightly less than joyful.

There are players some would rather play with than against - those perhaps with perceived 'advanageous' handicaps.
Incapacitated players with heart, hips, knees, prostate, arthritic and other age-related problems, of whom there are a growing number and who know what ails them; and even just healthy slow players of whom there are a growing number but remain in blissful ignorance of their problem, are preferred to be seen in some other fourball, as are the 'ramblers' who talk unceasingly about everything and anything; and the single-minded 'didItellyouers' who speak to friends and strangers alike of their every stroke - especially when they have recently won or even lost in the unfortunate circumstances of a run of lost balls, ever the fault of partners who didn't follow the flight of the ball. That the ball flew off in an unintended direction, as was the missed putt, is just as likely to be down to the noise of a butterfly's wings as the golfer took his stroke.

I had a cartoon years ago of a man lying dead on a putting green while the disturbed golfer complained:
"I know he's had a heart attack, but it was a bit inconsiderate to do it when I was about to putt!"

You think that's a joke?

The founder of the Society is the self appointed Chairman.
His close friend is the self appointed Secretary.
The current treasurer recently succeeded the original self appointed Treasurer who retired in apparent comfortable circumstances  after declining to pay out large sums of money for questionable holes in one!
These posts are thought to be honorary, but as no accounts have ever been produced the members
are slightly in the dark on this subject - as they are on almost every matter to do with the Society
management, including the question of who gets to play with who in the annual competitions.

However, the history of democratically elected golf club committees, governments and political parties where you can end up with a Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn et al leads most members to believe the Society has an acceptable and even likeable form of control. No-one has to stand for election and face the ignominy of not being elected.

Occasionally an over ambitious member attempts to become involved in the early morning draw for partners.Such people, often recently retired and with nothing better to do, tend to receive fairly forthright advice from other members. Nevertheless they continue to turn up, reinforcing the Society's philosophy "anyone may play".

joy of teaching

A good proportion of my family is, or has been, involved in teaching.
As a result I have come to realise that in this day and age teaching has many problems.
But has this not always been the case?

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain, and gathering them around him he taught them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are they that search for justice.
Blessed are you when persecuted.
Blessed are you when you suffer,  for your reward is great in heaven.

The Simon Peter said:   "Are we supposed to know all this?"
And Andrew said:         "Do we have to write this down?"
And James said:            "Will we have a test on this?"
And Philip said:             "I don't have any paper."
And Bartholomew said: "Do we have to hand this in?"
And John said:               "The other disciples didn't didn't have to learn this." 
And Matthew said:         "May I go to the toilet?"

Then one of the Pharisees who was present asked to see his lesson plan and enquired  of Jesus:
  "Where are your lesson objectives and medium term planning?"

And Jesus wept.   


Thanks to all who have replied to previous blog posts in writing or  by phone.
Greatly appreciated.


                                                                                         

Keeping going

John Wilkes and I played golf together for three years.
Bearing in mind our ages and state of health it would be more truthful to say "we played at it!".

The owners sold our first and favourite course so that it could be turned into an academy for Bournemouth Football Club.  No comment other than look for them in the Premier League

                               
Many clubs have problems these days!



For a really happy time we found a second heaven every Tuesday at Wareham Golf Club.
However, health, age and other problems that hit both equally hard overcame us.
Surprisingly,  heaven can disappear in a very short period of time.

But now, working hard at putting aside our troubles, we are learning to live again: Tuesday is now "going out to eat day". 
Why Tuesday?  Well firstly it was our golf day. Secondly it is getting on towards the weekend which means it is not too long until Tuesday again. Sound Irish? Try it - you'll be surprised.

Each of us has own fancies when it comes to eating, but occasionally you may be lucky enough to come across a restaurant that almost everyone thinks is the best or very close to it.

Seafood there is in abundance in Poole, although like all foods some is better than others. The Poole Arms, on Poole Quay is among the very best. It  has the background to prove this - it has been there getting on for 400 years.

This picture of me, grandson Jack, daughter Alison and Jack's partner Sammy may offer an idea of the Poole Arms character.

If you ever come to Poole you now have somewhere to aim for.

Many thanks to all who replied to my last blog. Fantastic replies and some telephone calls.
Keep it up please; something good to which I can look forward.

Easy Rider

You need to look carefully here. Could be a picture of a midget with a blue face and blue cap.But it's not: it is my latest transport machine to take the place of a car I cannot drive following Christmas heart attack!

Following my recent blog, this is another attempt to put me on a par with other sane people. I received a few replies to my first message  but need more to enable me to stay with you in a hard world    -   please?

I am still a learner scooter driver, having collided with fully stocked shelves in
Boots the Chemist on my first outing. The lady assistant who helped me re-enact this accident for this blog was very kind.
Her first comment when I entered the shop to stage the collision was:


" I remember you!"




This was after I had backed into the display - again!



I am not sure that I am getting better yet.
Notice in today's picture below that the streets are fairly empty and the pedestrians are the ones wearing bright jackets and safety helmets!





I thought I would try my arm at volunteering to help people and went off to a local venue where I discovered elderly ladies in general settling down to a sausage and mash and trifle lunch before bingo.  The lunch was very good especially after cooking for myself - with the help of  M&S.
I didn't stay for the bingo but have an offer to be the caller on any afternoon I care to return.
Not quite sure this is my cup of tea.

As you can see, I am still trying hard - but I badly need your help.

To those friends to whom I sent blogs a year and more ago, you may be surprised at receiving one now.

Most of you know that Doreen my wife died in December. A week later I found myself in hospital, the victim of a heart attack was the diagnosis.
It was not a Merry Christmas!

My friend John Wilkes with whom I played golf would have been the ideal companion at such a time, but John has been going through times as bad as mine and golf is no longer our salvation.


What do you do when you are lonely?

Get and do something is one suggestion: get back to painting.
There are many things that fully fit can do. Not me unfortunately.

Being with other people is another answer and I have the pleasure of a very attentive family, but there are still long periods alone.
Could watch the television but have you really seen what's on? I could watch sport, but have you seen where Bournemouth are in the Premier League and can you imagine where they might be next season. Talk about lonely.

And then I thought; when I wrote my blog years ago I often received nice replies.
And so I am taking the plunge. Some of you I haven't seen for years, although old workmates Trevor Jones and John Beaty Pownall came all the way down from Cheddar and Devizes to join me for lunch this week.

This then is a trial blog to see if you will write  to me and bring me news of how you and you families are. Write about anything - except your football team if it is the level of mine.
If you live or worked where I did, write and tell me what's going on in Welton for example.

I have had one piece of good news today: John Wilkes is coming to collect me next Tuesday for lunch.
Coupled with what you can do for me, perhaps things are changing.

Are people getting more thoughtful?

All true

Did you know that most roadside speed cameras are situated on relatively steep declines?
Well, they are down here as I now know to my misfortune.
Over the limit by the smallest margin: little bits over the limit are not forgiven.
I only wish I had a name similar to that in this cartoon.

With a number of alternatives to face up to, I have chosen to attend a Driver Awareness Course.
Although the rules are fairly strict about turning up late and not having the essential documents, I was delighted to see that my course is to be held at a Brewery.
Honestly!
Not only that but;
" Free tea/coffee is available at the break during your course. In addition the Brewey Tap bar/restaurant ia open between 8.30am -5.00pm, serving drinks, snacks and lunches".

Not making this up and I am hazy as to whether not their beer is as good as the brewery companies I worked for many years ago, nevertheless still a nice gesture don't you think?


I suppose the following is thoughtful, but it in a different sort of way.

Today I visited the doctor's surgery where we have a chemist attached.
Parked my car and met an elderly gentleman I had not met before who was about to enter the shop.

"Son is coming home from Jamaica today" he told me.

"The wife said, 'I hope she will not be having any more family'.
Go down to the chemist and get some you know what."

I'm 86 and having to ask for them at my age is a bit embarrassing".

But he went in.

I just thought if I had been in the same position I would have been quite proud.

I think he was really!

The world was never perfect

Hey! You!

Where's the water gone?

How do you expect me to stand here on tip toe trying to get somebody to turn the tap on?


(Seen in Poole Park today)

And what about me?

Talk about child labour.

I didn't ask to move house.





















My friend John forwarded this newspaper cutting.






And the swan and Harrison think they have troubles!

What's in a name?

Having recently moved to what some of us would regard as an out-of-the-way place to live, Cheddar, my friend Trevor Jones asked me if I had deleted his name from recipients of this blog, not having received any news for some time.
The truth is that I have 'unblogged' myself over the winter because of age and level of frailty.
It is hard enough to walk half a mile down to M&S to buy a ready-made dinner and a newspaper without attempting excursions into Dorset's  winter wonderland.

The other day while walking from the Tesco car park to their store, a gale of some force blew shopping bags from a lady's trolley straight past me. I forgot I could not walk well, let alone move with any pace, and immediately ran after one of the bags and speared it with the end of my walking stick for which I was rewarded with cheers and great votes of thanks - and sly remarks from a fellow sufferer who was clearly jealous of my athleticism!

Why, when only at February's start, have I picked up keyboard and mouse again?
I have mentioned previously, springtime arrives early in Dorset and today has been a bright sunshine filled awakening.
For me, Springtime is here and, with Doreen my ever faithful companion, we set off to record its beginning in Winterborne Zelston. Lovely name isn't it. The river Winterborne runs overground through Zelston only in winter, hence the name: Zelston having been the home a million years back by somebody with a similar name.
Trevor, it could have been Winterborne Jones!

Here are the snowdrops in the churchyard and here is the way in to them which is clearly not made for fat people. As you can see from the trees, this second picture was not taken by me today.

Although this one was!

You must admit it is different from a Greek statue of a lady with an urn!

Memories of Morecambe and Wise.       

"What's a Greek Urn Eric?"

"About 30 bob a week Ern!"

Lovely old cottages here.

and you can walk along the river bank if you so wish.

As written on the first faint line of this notice at the church entrance:

"This is none other but the house of God  and this is the Gate of Heaven"

Could have been written about Winterborne Zelston!

Should have known!

Getting old with a great grandson,
it is wise to know your limits.

I had a stick so he had a stick.

















Lesson 1:

do not give big sticks to small boys, especially if they are well trained in unarmed combat.
His great grandmother seems to think it amusing!











I was unaware that he had been out teaching his grandmother yoga!

Lesson 2:  Learn to live with it; after all he is two years old this week.

 

We get on quite well really.

Here is my portrait of us walking into the sunset - or the fog

He's quite kind; holding my hand to make sure I don't get lost"!

He does keep his options open!

From farming to lumberjacking;

now to roadbuilding.

Notice he has acquired a girlfriend! 

Farmer Harrison !

Hello Readers,

Since I wrote to you yesterday, I have heard that Harrison has changed direction with his career;

or is going in for multi-tasking. 

Now seems he is interested in lumberjacking!

Thank you to the kind lady who wrote and said he looks like me.

Leave you to be the judge of that. 

I was a little younger when this picture was taken.

Trips out for seaside dwellers!

We live by the seaside where there are no motorways.
How do we avoid holiday traffic in the summer?



Not very busy round here: quite a peaceful spot to wait for something or someone to turn up.






Even the buildings are almost hidden in the lush countryside.

It's a school; clearly not a 'secondary modern'.
Quiet too, most of the pupils are on holiday.







There is water, but not the salt type.

Placid but picturesque, unless you feel like a bit more activity and wild life.









No sharks nor wales.  A pair of swans and their cygnets casually gliding about doing nothing in particular;
but that's what swans do isn't it.

If you like your water a little livelier, here it is.
I can hear you saying: "we've been here before".

This is the way we came.
Quiet isn't it?

This picture has got nothing to do with this blog.

Just thought you would like to see Harrison my great grandson learning to be a farmer.

Best place in the world to live?

Chris Downer on the wonderful internet programme Geograph, says of his picture shown here:

"One of the most expensive places in the world to live, a feature of Sandbanks is large, luxury houses such as these along Banks Road which have outlooks to the harbour on one side and the beach on the other.

Diane Sambrook, on the same programme,
has close-up view of some of the homes.

This is the ferry terminal taken this morning. The traffic, double banked,  goes back  for a mile on the road in and out of one of the most expensive places in the world to live.









Peter Timming, on Geograph, has an even more colourful view of the ferry.


I live 4 miles away, much preferred by me to the traffic ridden chaos that is the first day of the summer school holidays!

A hot day when you can't walk far

If you have no garden, a small balcony, some flower pots and an enterprising wife, just look at what beauty there is to share.

At an age when walking means going down the road to the shops or the recreation ground, I can still enjoy a summer's day sitting here with a book - bottom left hand corner of picture - enjoying our county as described in 1906 by Sir Frederick Treves in his Highways and Byways of Dorset.

I soon discovered early in his interesting book, there other things to read about apart from the joys of the countryside.  For example, The 'Me Too' movement is not a recent phenomenon by any means, as witness this excerpt from page 5.

  

"... the Archbishop of Canterbury, on his visit to Shaftesbury in 1285, excommunicated Sir Osbert Gifford for stealing two nuns, not unwillingly on their part and assumed to be the two prettiest nuns, out of his nunnery at Wilton". 

The described punishment is better left out of this blog.

Treves started his journey at Shaftesbury. Of the steep-sided solitary ridge of the chalk hill on which it stands he writes:

"On the southermost edge of the ridge is a delightful wooded walk, called Park Walk from which extends a view unsurpassed by few in England".

Here is Park Walk today






and the view he describes, as produced by Jonathan Hutchins on the Geograph website.

Sir Frederick Treves seems to have been quite a nice man to go by some of his writing.
Writing of Sturminster Newton which is not far from Shaftesbury he remarked of the town pump:
"On it is a notice spitefully warning the passer-by that he will be prosecuted if he does it hurt, and adding further that no children must use the exclusive structure. There is a sourness in this, for all children delight to play with pumps".

A bundle of Tarrants

This signpost will give you an idea of how many Tarrants there are - seven on here for a start; although they have saved a bit of cash with not repeating the Tarrant too often.

And they all form part of glorious Dorset and England at its best.

You may need to navigate a ford for some of them, but the River Tarrant is easy on the eye as you can see from the  ford here - unless you are unlucky















You are unlikely to see the second one here unless you go up the wrong country road like us.








When you get round the corner of the first the view is worth the trouble.







The Langton Arms is not entirely your typical village pub but - as you may discover by going to their web site - it's worth a call.

The church up in the top left hand corner is also worth a visit, especially to see the elegant stained glass windows.







But a stroll round the village in June brings the best sites of all.

I thought you might fancy this one on the right Jack:



your name is already on it, as you may see if you click the close-up below!