Yes I know it has been some time since my last post, however I can assure you that I am not dead! Indeed I have either been too busy or so overwhelmed that I have not found the time to write which really defeats the object of this blog. The clocks went forward a few weeks ago and spring is finally in the air with the temperatures on the way up and the sun is shining at long last. It is all so different from the last time I made an entry on these pages.
Over the years there have been so many revelations and changes that have just changed the way I view everything I ever used to know and believe in. For example I took two weeks holiday to make some repairs and improvements on the outside of the house and it rained every single day. Not a single job was completed although some were started and called off when the rains fell. As the Traveller remarked, “the clocks may have gone forward but all it means is another hour of grey skies in the evenings”. During periods of sitting there feeling down and growing ever more depressed, only those who suffer from SAD or live with some one who has it can truly appreciate how much the last few weeks have got to me, The traveller and myself attempted to put the world to rights over a few beers. This is when he dropped the bombshell.
It would appear that Her Majesties Warships no longer carry a ships cat. Now I have always understood since I was a little boy that ships had cats to keep the rats down. It was always an essential part of the ships crew and second in importance only to the Captain himself, but it seems they have not been around since Nelsons day. I knew that the rum ration had been phased out and I can sort of understand that. I mean you really don’t want a boatload of pissed up Matelots playing around with nuclear warheads. Oh no! But for Gods sake come on, the ships cat? It is PC and elf’n’safety gone mad.
I discovered just how much the world has changed when I recently went swimming with the Prince Of Darkness. When I first went swimming many years ago the men went into one room to get changed and the ladies went into another. Roll forward 40 years and we now have communal changing rooms. All well and good you may think but no one told me. Neither did they tell me that the showers are also communal.
I only discovered this when standing in the shower and rinsing my trunks out, as me and everyone else did all those years ago when the showers were single sex, when a woman walked into the showers. I do not know who was more shocked her or me. Fortunately she did not scream she put her hand over her mouth and walked out. For a split second I panicked and visions of a long stretch inside a sex offenders unit sharing a cell with Mr Big the bottom burster and bull buggering Mad Jack ran through my head. I quickly left the sports centre and have not been back to that one.
We have all learned that politicians, bankers and estate agents cannot be trusted. It takes some time to become cynical but when the truth finally sinks in it hurts none the less. It is a bit like discovering the truth about the tooth fairy and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. So discovering that I could be arrested for getting a shower in my local sports centre and the truth that ships no longer have cats has been an eye opener and possibly a revelation too far.