Uncategorized

One of the things I was thinking of writing about this week was the seemingly relentless rain and how much I am getting fed up with it.

Then I thought about it a bit more and soon dismissed the idea – given that where I live, the roads are a little like shallow ponds or very large, deep puddles – depending on how dramatic you want to imagine them.

What they are not is at all deadly, unlike many other parts of the country. I read recently that the Government is now warning residents that they can no longer expect to receive much help from them – financial or otherwise – whenever it floods in their area. This is because apparently, the sheer volume and regularity of floodings taking place is on a scale they cannot cope with, due to climate change.

That is extremely harsh by the sound of it but I am not here to argue one way or the other.

Then I read about news story today that really got me thinking about my whining about excessive water everywhere and realised it’s all in the attitude.

Water into wine: Lambrusco pours from taps in Italian village after pipe fault

That is not your average, daily newspaper headline now is it?

To give you a brief synopsis of the story, the residents in the northern Italian village of Settacani got a welcome surprise when instead of their normal, unlimited supply of water flowing  from their taps, it had been mysteriously turned into red wine!

And not just any old plonk. It was the famous, local Lambrusco, sparkling variety – long derided by connoisseurs but more recently, enjoying a bit of a renaissance.

The next bit of the story is what made me realise it is all in the attitude.

One man described how he was about to get in the shower but instead of water flowing down, he noticed it was a ‘reddy’ colour. after smelling it, he realised it was the local Lambrusco.

The report didn’t state this but I’m guessing he then proceeded to do what many of the residents did. They grabbed buckets and bottles and started stocking up!

Apparently, they are describing the whole incident as the ‘Miracle of Settecani’ and comparing it to the first miracle of Jesus, when he famously turned the water into wine at a wedding in the Galilean village of Cana.

In fact, in contrast to that first miracle of 2,000 years ago, this incident was triggered by a fault in the local water pipe network. The pressure of the wine was more than that of the water and enabled the wine to flood into the local network.

A nice story but so what you may well ask?

Well, whether it was the man in the shower, (I don’t know about you but once I’m about to get in the shower, I could very easily get highly irritated if for whatever reason, said shower is suddenly not going to happen!) or the various residents rushing around trying to harvest as much as possible, I was simply reminded that we should be thankful for everything that we so easily take for granted.

Be that passable roads – even if they do have a good few inches of water swishing all over them – our gas and electricity. Our good health (increasingly valued in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that is affecting all of us in one way or another).

And yes, our relatively clean water supply.

I wonder what we Brits would really be like if our water was temporarily turned into wine?

Would we be reaching for whatever we could grab a hold of to drink it later?

This is the only wine in our house right now. It comes from a place in Australia that used to be a jam factory – hence the name!

Or would we be whining (I couldn’t resist, sorry) because we are suddenly not getting what we should be getting?

It is as ever, just a thought.

 

 

I had a ride in a very nice taxi in Edinburgh yesterday. It was an Audi A8 with extremely comfortable leather seats with teak dash trimmings. When I pulled down the armrest in the back seat, there were options for the air-conditioning and a variety of other buttons. I was half expecting a mini bar to appear from somewhere!

The taxi was driven by an equally pleasant young man who moved to Scotland several years ago from Poland.

He asked what I did for a living and when I told him, his playful response was, “Aha, you are in the brain-washing business then!”

To my shame, I failed initially to get the positive drift of where he was going and meekly replied, “Well, I don’t do too much talking actually – it’s mainly asking questions and then listening.”

He then proceeded to explain how he listens to lots of positive things that help him to keep moving in the right direction – a sentiment I share of course. He confessed with great gusto how much he loves brain-washing!

Sometimes, (correction: much of the time!) especially in this highly charged world of exaggeration, exacerbation and polarisation, we need to swim against the seemingly relentless tide of negativity, and be like the wild salmon that defy all the odds, in the uphill battle to be optimistic.

In seven days time, we will all be waking up to a new era of government – one that is very likely to be comprised of individuals you don’t have much time for – depending on your political persuasion – and even if they do turn out to be who you voted for, there is no such thing as a perfect government.

The challenge will be – perhaps more than ever before – to keep going forwards, like my friendly taxi driver and make the most of your time here on earth.

Even if that boils down to something very simple but potentially awe-inspiring like a beautiful sunrise…

I have a confession to make…

I’m really not very good at anything that constitutes DIY. I really wish I was for all the obvious reasons. I mean I can put up a shelf, construct flat-pack furniture sometimes and just about change a plug.

So, with the simplest of tasks, I can do it myself but it will take time. Otherwise, I invariably make mistakes. I would amuse you with a catalogue of stupid errors but the truth is, my memory very kindly deletes them pretty regularly.

The example I am about to provide you with is not even truly a DIY task – I don’t think. You don’t call in an expert to bleed your radiators do you? Our radiators have been playing up of late – not good, given the sub zero temperatures we’ve been experiencing in our part of the world.

My son’s radiator was the worst culprit and we had already bled the radiator once but it was not functioning properly again. Time for me to step up and deal with this on a day when I had the spare time to do so.

I grabbed a flat head screwdriver (I do know what one of those is).

The last time we had bled this particular radiator – there had been some water involved… I remembered this, and so I prepared carefully and brought a small, glass dish. I moved a couple of bits of furniture out of the way in order to have a clear view as well as provide a specific space in case the water tried to repeat this act of escape. I felt rather pleased that I was taking precautions and not recklessly rushing in to this task.

Satisfied that everything was in place, and having taken the time required for me to avoid making any mistakes, I proceeded to unscrew the valve. Air soon began to hiss outwards, which I knew was a good sign. For some reason however, I wasn’t convinced this was enough and vaguely recalled that the presence of a dribble of water would be an indication that the radiator was probably working properly again.

I loosened the valve further. Then a bit further again. Another revolution with the screwdriver and then…

Whoosh! The valve flew out with the same force of water that occurs when you put your finger over the end of a hosepipe (I have had that experience too).

Fortunately, the valve landed straight into the glass dish I had expertly positioned with my free hand to catch any excess water.

“No problem, it’s all under control,” I thought to myself.

I fished around for the valve and attempted to put it back into the tiny hole – and get the screwdriver on the end of it as quickly as possible.

At the same time, I had been using one of my fingers to plug the hole – for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, I could not keep this up for more than a few seconds due to the high temperature of the water. It was at this point that I feared that my fingers would get irreparably scalded… what was I to do?

The valve did not stay in the hole long enough for me to get a fix with the screwdriver and shot straight back into the dish.

Whilst all of this was going on and any kind of control was slipping from my grasp, the glass dish was filling up to capacity – rapidly.

Now what?

For a split second, I thought of those traumatic scenes in Titanic where the water is relentlessly pursuing Jack & Rose as they desperately try to escape. I pulled myself together – gave myself an internal talking to and reached up to open my son’s bedroom window.

The dish was literally about to overflow – but I had seen the light… I took the dish and threw the water out on to our drive. And onto my car.  I congratulated and comforted myself that at least it wasn’t going to land on anyone.

As the splash reached my ears, I realised what I had actually done. What an absolute idiot!

The valve had still been in the glass dish!

Now my fingers really were going to need medical attention! Either that or I had to find something, anything to plug the hole at least for as long as it would take me to run downstairs, out on to the drive and hopefully, find the valve and pray it hadn’t somehow bounced off the exterior wall and crept in through the front grill of the car.

First, I ran to the bathroom to get a towel. Then I ran downstairs to get a bucket; might as well get two things while I had left the room. I used the bucket to capture the water while I tried to figure out if the towel would work.

In between trying to position the bucket in order to capture the water (I challenge any DIY expert to do this easily) and shoving the towel over the hole, I had to empty the bucket out of the window at least twice before I was ready to make my move to retrieve the valve.  The whole time, aware that I could be washing the valve further and further into the outer reaches of the drive.

Eventually, I was at least partially satisfied that the towel would indeed stem the relentless mini-tsunami for another few seconds. I made a dash for it and ran outside, ensuring I put the front door on the latch, lest I lock myself out and slowly watch the house become a real-life disaster zone.

Miraculously (I did pray on the way!), I spotted the valve on the drive within seconds and raced back upstairs, clutching it in my hand.

Even more miraculously, I was able this time, to push the valve inside the hole and screw it back on in record time. I say record time but of course, as I explained at the beginning of this confession, a normal person would have fixed the radiator, run a bath and be halfway through Lawrence of Arabia in the amount of time it had taken me to get this far; or so it seemed.

Crisis finally over, I began the clean up operation in my son’s room, all the while wondering whether I should tell him anything at all about this. I figured it would make a pretty funny story and good job too, because by the time I had almost finished, save for a couple of dirty towels and a bucket and mop at the bottom of the stairs, he walked in through the front door and asked what had been going on.

The life lesson for anyone who needs it (I freely admit, I am probably the only one who needs the lesson),,,

Wait ’til your wife gets home.

Just so there’s an extra pair of hands you understand…

Nothing to do with who knows the most about ‘bleeding radiators’…

Blessed are the arrogant, for theirs is the kingdom of their own company;

Blessed are the superstars, for the magnificence in their light, we understand better, our own insignificance;

Blessed are the filthy rich, for you can only truly own that which you give away, like your pain;

Blessed are the bullies for one day they will have to stand up to themselves;

Blessed are the liars, for the truth can be awkward.

The words above are written by Kendrick Lamar, the American rapper and are sandwiched between two tracks on the new U2 album Songs of Experience.

When I first heard them, I loved the way that a small part of Jesus Christ’s famous Sermon on the Mount – known as the Beatitudes – had been adapted for our times and in such a way that you cannot possibly listen to the words and not be challenged; just as the original message was a challenge, as well as an encouragement, to the people 2,000 years ago…

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Reading these verses again now makes me think of how relevant this message is today – irrespective of what you believe or think about Jesus. And irrespective of what you believe or think about Kendrick Lamar, the man has delivered an extremely insightful, dare I say, prophetic perspective on so much of how the world we live in today is controlled.

Me, myself and I are usually the only ‘three-in-one’ people we often consider in our daily push for prominence. Like so many things in life, we all too easily miss the good stuff because we are too consumed with possessing what we think will make us happy.

Which leads me nicely to the original Greek meaning of the word blessed. The Greek word makarios means to be blessed, to be happy to the degree that you are so completely content, that you do not need anything else at all. The island of Cyprus was once referred to as ‘Makarios’ because it was believed that if you were fortunate enough to live there, you would never want or need to leave its shores.

So, my question is this: Where do you currently stand in relation to the MeAttitudes… or the Beatitudes? And are you happy?  Is there anything from either list that you aspire to?  Why not take a few minutes to contemplate these powerful verses?

P.S. If you want to listen to Kendrick’s words, they come at the end of the track Get Out of Your Own Way and then go into the intro to American Soul from the album Songs of Experience by U2.