ONE FLEW OVER THE COCKOO'S NEST?

I didn't realise until this week that the Brig O'Doon is a real place, believing for years that it was a mystical place conjured up by Robert Burns. Not only that, my sister in law lives a few miles away from it. As they say, you live and learn. And I thought I knew everything. Just goes to show doesn't it?

It's a beautiful spot in a village called Alloway, a few miles from Ayr in Scotland. The village also has a Burns monument and a Burns Visitor Centre so I guess he must have had connections with the area. Mind you, this IS only a guess!

The trip to Scotland was great. Davy's sister Mary and niece Margaret Ann live near me and we thought it would be good to take the trip to visit his other sister Margaret and her family. We had a great time just mooching around, relaxing and swapping memories. It was just what I needed.

One way and another I've had a very traumatic time this year but last week was the final straw prompting my decision to "be good to myself", hence the trip to Scotland.

One funny thing happened to me this week though, at least I hope that it's funny. I was booked in for my booster vaccinations and because I forgot my first appointment I was paranoid about doing the same again. I shortened my trip to Scotland, set up several reminders to myself and even asked my colleagues to remind me. So there I was on Thursday morning, having got out my appointment card to remind myself, sitting in the office chatting away. I had completely forgotten again! Kimberley suddenly remembered and I just about made the appointment.

As I was laughing about this with the Practice Nurse I suddenly wondered what I had done with my car keys. I looked around and said "Oh well, I've probably left them in the car". As I got up to go she reminded me that I had forgotten to pick up my jacket. "Ah! that's where my keys are, in the pocket". She looked at me strangely and said "By the way, how IS your memory?" "Not great, but let's face it I'm getting on a bit now". "No seriously Ann, are you alright Do you think that I should refer you to the "Memory Clinic"? My fear is that "Memory Clinic" may be a euphanism for the dreaded "One Flew Over The Cockoo's Nest" type set up. I declined. I may be old but I'm not in my dotage yet (I hope).

PAYING THE PIPER

One last thing, then I'm done - but don't hold me to that because I may come back to visit this subject again. A couple a years ago when the "Credit Crunch" first hit we took a close look at our business. In the good years we had become bloated and now we needed to tighten our belts.

We went through our figures, worked out our current breakeven, spoke to the staff and reached an agreement to tackle this head on. We cut salaries and costs, reduced hours, implemented a recruitment freeze, worked smarter and survived. It wasn't easy for any of us. We had to make sacrifices and every other business that we spoke to was in the same situation.

What happened in the public sector? They carried on regardless. In fact spending and recruitment went up and everyone complained that they weren't getting big enough pay rises. Have you ever noticed that public sector workers have become more beligerant over the years? What happened to the "civil service"? Somewhere along the way it lost it's civility and stopped serving us.

Believe me, this ain't rocket science. Now is the time to pay the piper. The 500,000 public sector job losses predicted over the next 4 years will come from the 700,000 mickey mouse jobs created over the last 10 years.

Welcome to the real world folks!

HERE I GO AGAIN, SHOUTING MY MOUTH OFF

I wish that I could stop myself from banging on about things that I know f... all about, but I guess that I'm entitled to my own opinion so here goes.

Today's Spending Review.

What I would like to see is:-

The end of Department Budgets with their "use it or lose" mentality. Departments inflate their budgets in case it's needed and then proceed to spend like a drunk at happy hour to stop it being reduced next year due to over budgeting this year, creating a huge spiral of waste.

Stop the public sector early retirement age of 50 along with the one off massive lump sum payment and a pension that is inflation proofed. Which, I might add, is being paid for by the good citizens of this Country who will eventually see their pensionable age raised to 68.

Tighter regulations in public sector sick pay which is way higher than in the private sector.

The sacking of public sector procurement numpties that lock us into ridiculously over priced and ineffective contracts. In fact I think they should be charged with treason and locked up in the Tower of London.

In a word - waste. It is the root of all evil.

A COUPLE OF HEART STOPPING MOMENTS

Last week we sold Davy's pride and joy his Audi S6 Quattro with Lamborghini Gallardo 5.2 V10 engine. I had tried to sell it a couple of times before but something always went wrong which, at the time, was a relief because I couldn't seem to bring myself to sell it.

But, being pragmatic we told ourselves that it was only gathering dust and deteriorating in the garage, a car like that needed to be driven, and more to the point we had found a good use for the money. The time seemed right to sell it. Amazingly enough we found a buyer straight away and within a couple of days it was gone, leaving us all stunned and over emotional.

It was bought by a couple of "likely lad" dealers who "appreciated" the uniqueness of this beautiful car. One of them had even lost his father last Christmas after being taken ill with cancer in the October. De ja vu!

On Friday I opened the mail to find that I had been issued with a speeding ticket. This sent me into total meltdown because I am already maxed out, so goodbye licence until next March! I was a blubbering wreck until my granddaughter pointed out that at the time it was issued I was at the solicitors and the ticket was actually for Davy's car. It was clocked at 110 mph on our local by-pass. Phew.

So the car has gone from one rascal to another. Fitting.

MEMORIAL GARDEN UPDATE

When Davy built our office one of the planning conditions was that the surrounding acre of land should be landscaped. Our plan was submitted, agreed and we were delighted with the (expensive!) end result. The office was now enclosed in beautiful gardens and peaceful grassy areas.

Apart, that is, from a sizeable portion of land directly in front of the office. Davy said we were not to touch because it was to be his project and who were we to disagree with him when he was being this assertive? It was an eyesore and the planners and neighbours frequently complained about it.

So when Davy died last Christmas he left us with a huge dilema. What should we do with this area of waste ground? Dare we touch it? Dare we go against his wishes? We all loved him dearly and wanted to do the right thing, but we couldn't just leave this unsightly mess, especially as we sometimes have prestigious visitors.

So we mulled this over for several weeks and finally someone suggested we turn it into a Garden of Memorial. This felt right and work commenced.









I apologise, once again, for my appauling photography. These photographs don't actually portray how awful it was and how beautiful it is now.

We kept it simple with three trees, an Oak, a Copper Beech (Davy's favourite) and another tree which I can't remember the name of right now, but it has bright yellow foilage. We also planted shrubs along the back fence which will look beautiful in a couple of years time.

The tree in the far righthand corner is the Oak and it is under this that we quietly interred Davy's ashes early one sunny morning. It's visible from the office and the house so it seemed appropriate that this was to be his last resting place,close to the people that he loved and the business that he loved.

And here's the strange thing. Can you can just make out the the area surrounding the Oak tree is slightly raised? This was not planned.

VERSATILE BLOGGER? ME? THANKS.

I'm sorry about my rant yesterday. I know that it was very confusing but what I was trying to convey in my rage was that I know from talking to my immediate circle of family and friends there are massive savings to be made without touching front line services.


But today the sun is shining and I had a message from eddie bluelights that he had a little something for me to collect from his blog. It was "The Versatile Blogger" award. Thank you so much Eddie.

Now the challenge is to write 8 things about myself that are not generally known. This could present a problem because my life is pretty much an open book, but here goes.

1. I left school at the ages of 14 and 15! Yes, I know that's hard to believe because I have such a superior intellect, but I absolutely hated school. I like to say that the "school of life" was my training ground. Isn't that sick making?

I was living in the Channel Islands at the time where the school leaving age was 14. I harassed my parents until they agreed that I could leave. That was in July 1954. Unfortunately (for me) they then decided to move back to England where the school leaving age was 15 so I had to go back to school for another year. I should have reported them for child cruelty.

2. My first job at the age of 15 was in the City of London. I used to commute by train in my lovely new red high heeled shoes. I was a trainee typist with the Post Office near St Paul's Cathedral. It was good grounding. It taught me how to be independent, deal with extreme boredom doing the same damned thing day after day in a typing pool and the importance of presentation. It was drummed into us that we were funded out of taxes and as such were one of the public face of the Post Office. All our letters had to be perfect. If only public services had the same ethos today. This may be why I get so het up about the cavalier way our taxes are wasted now.

A point of interest is that at that time the City of London was one huge bomb site that wild cats had claimed as their home. The miracle was that in the middle of all this devastation the Cathedral stood out like a beacon of hope.

3. I met my first husband at the Post Office youth club. We used to go there after work to play dart, billiards and dance to the latest records. This is where I first heard Elvis and was blown away. A group of us that lived in South London would walk down the middle of the road from St Paul's to London Bridge Station. You could do that then because the City was deserted in the evening.

4. I went to the same school as Bill Wyman from the Rolling Stones, albeit that I was in the girls school and he was in the boys. At one of his booksigning sessions I was determined to renew our non-acquaintance but bottled out at the last minute. However, what I DID say was "hello Bill, how nice for you to meet me". How cringy is that? He looked at me as though I was a mad woman. He was right.

5. Since childhood I have been both very, very poor and moderately well off - several times. I prefer to be well off.

6. I believe in love at first sight because it happened to me twice. When I saw my first husband at the youth club I told my friend that I was going to marry him. We married 4 years later when I was 19 and he was 20. We were far too young and tried to make a go of it for 14 years but Vic was a great guy and a wonderful friend but a crap husband and father. Then I fell in love with Davy at first sight. He was lodging with my best friend, very drunk and making up quotes by Confucius. Madness!

He stopped drinking with the help of AA, was sober for 36 years and, being a great family man, was the complete the opposite of Vic. He died last Christmas and we all miss him so much. Tomorrow would have been his 68th birthday.

7. I hate fish apart from battered fish from the fish and chip shop, tuna with mayo and tinned salmon with vinegar.

8. And last but certainly not least. I am a born again Christian. I had been vocally agnostic, but after going to Al-Anon for several years I became a believer. I had a "Road to Damascas" conversion that would take a while to explain but one day I think that it would be good to put it all down in writing.

My next challenge is to pass this award on to 8 other worthy bloggers. After much thought I have selected the following:-

http://alcoholicdaze.blogspot.com/

http://www.wrestlingwithretirement.com/

http://rnsane.blogspot.com/

http://wwwsueann.blogspot.com/

http://gritsday.blogspot.com/

http://reluctantmemsahib.wordpress.com/

http://sandimcbride.blogspot.com/

http://mimiindublin.blogspot.com/

I won't say anything about these blogs apart from to say that I find them fascinating.

GRAVE CONSEQUENCES

The Ministry of Defence has been asked to reduce its £37bn budget by 10%. This morning Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, warned that "draconian" spending cuts while the UK is at war will result in "grave consequences" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11432620

No Mr Fox, MofD money wasted on the jobs redeployment pool is resulting in "grave consequences" http://network.civilservicelive.com/pg/pages/view/265595/ . This sounds like a good idea, but let me tell you that it is being grossly abused by people who deliberately relocate to rural areas where there is little or no chance of redeployment. Whilst waiting in the job pool they draw full pay and are entitled to take another job until something suitable is offered.

Another "grave consequence" is the unbalanced ratio of 85,700 civil servants in the MofD to 92,250 soldiers.

Yet another "grave consequence" is that highly experienced Defence Contractors are outmanoevring and overcharging inept, inefficient, inexperienced, nieve and ever changing MofD buyers.

I know people working in this sector and the waste is mind blowing. There is no need to cut the Armed Forces, just stop this scandalous misappropriation of the public purse.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1302711/Liam-Fox-rules-merging-forces-hints-Trident-funding-Treasury-row.html.

But the MofD is the tip of the iceberg. I know individuals in the public and local government sectors and who are being instructed by their line managers not to work so hard because it looks bad on the others. And then there is the police. Another can of worms http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1302580/Police-chiefs-axe-overtime-bid-slash-500m-bill.html. Again, I know this to be true from personal accounts. I could go on all day.

It simply has to stop. No wonder the Country has run out of money. It's not only greedy bankers that have caused the problem it's systemic greed throughout the whole population from benefit fraud to MP's inflated expenses and all the stops along the way.