Yes, who else would it be, why didn’t you answer before?
When?
Half an hour ago and several times before that.
I did get some caller unknown calls so of course I ignored them. I only answered this time accidentally. Why aren’t you calling from your phone?
Because I lost my phone, didn’t you get my text messages?
Was that really you, I thought it was one of those scams, I’m not daft. I’m certainly not going to be like those old people on You and Yours who lose all their money.
I wasn’t asking you for any money.
Good, because I’m certainly not sending any money to Morrocco. So are you enjoying your holiday?
I was till I Iost my phone.
Where did you lose it?
If I knew that I would probably have found it by now.
Where are you calling from?
I’m borrowing someone else’s phone so I can’t be long.
Whose?
A new friend.
Where’s Caroline?
Gone off on a trip with some bloke.
What, so you’re all on your own?
Mother, I’m 39, you don’t have to worry about me.
I obviously do if you’ve managed to lose your phone.
I just need you to go on line and get hold of my bank.
Can’t you phone them?
No, all that security stuff is on my phone.
I told you it’s not safe to do all your banking on your phone. How am I going to contact your bank, they closed my branch.
You just go on line.
But I don’t do on line banking for myself, let alone for anyone else and they would be suspicious. Come to think of it, how do I know this is you?
Of course it’s me, I’m your daughter.
But it could be one of those AI thingys cloning your voice…
The ice rink and the Santa Express have gone, the trees are bare, even the artificial flowers are depressed, but the Bourne Stream is happy with the rain as it flows off to top up the sea…
Time to brighten up the house while you wait for spring.
The scent of the wood smoke brought back a memory. We were having a wood burner installed, my mother’s latest idea, all the rage then. No chopping wood as we do now, neatly bound stacks of suitable timber, factory sawn into identical chunks. They were delivered straight into the new designer wood store which provided enough cover to keep it dry, but still visible to impress the neighbours. It was my twelfth birthday and I took for granted our nice house, loving parents, good school and a host of activities. I was not spoilt, just happy, with everything to look forward to. Life was led at a frantic pace, but my friends’ families were just as frenetic. Our parents took turns ferrying us around to ballet classes, riding lessons, sleepovers. Several of us had auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent and were busy rehearsing, making our parents’ lives even busier. I felt a mixture of excitement and frustration that rehearsals were impinging on my precious riding lessons and the chance to go to the jumping competition. All that was missing was a pony of my own. Would I get one for my birthday?
Was I to blame for not caring about the rest of the world? My parents did not either. Later on, my mother would claim they were too busy working and looking after us. Chloe my sixteen year old sister did enough worrying for all of us, Eco Warrior Dad called her. She would inspect the Waitrose delivery to check if the food was healthy and correctly sourced. That week she was insisting she no longer flew and would not be coming on the plane with us for our Easter holiday. Dad retorted that the plane was going anyway so what difference would her absence make to the environment.
The camp fire crackled and I looked at my twelve year old granddaughter in the firelight. A love of horses was all we had in common, but she jumped raging streams and thorny hedges, not painted poles in a show ring. When she was little she adored stories of my childhood, now my memories bored her. I suppose they were always just fairy tales to her.
I didn’t get a pony for my birthday, unless they were keeping it as a surprise, but I did get lots of gifts, gaudy colourful teen stuff that I can’t recall now. Chloe had donated her pocket money to the children of Gaza instead. I knew about Gaza, but I did not see how her money would get there or help them. For my eleventh birthday she had given on my behalf to the children of Ukraine and that hadn’t stopped the war.
Those places were far away and my Piza party was what my friends were thinking about. Wood fired pizza, another smoky irony; tonight my seventieth birthday treat was on a spit, the young deer my grandson had shot.
I felt laughter suddenly well up. Chloe had not remained a vegetarian for long after it all happened. She was gone now of course. I was the only one left to remember those times. Dad had come home early; the only thing that was useful about his job in the media was that he was aware sooner than most of what was about to happen.
‘We’re leaving in half an hour, up to Cheshire, meet up with Uncle Alex, he’s found a salt mine.’
‘What the hell are you talking about’ said my mother.
‘What about Britain’s Got Talent’ I said.
Dad’s brother Alex was a scientist, Chloe’s favourite relative. Dad gabbled a few curt explanations in between his exhortations to get ready.
‘Shelter, safety, get out while we can.’
Chloe cheered and hugged Dad. ‘At last, one of my parents is going to break out of this smug middle class life and break into reality.’
She had her rucksack ready, packed a year ago to prepare for any and every emergency, war, pandemic, wild fires, floods…
Reality was far worse than Chloe could ever have bargained for, but she toughed it out and survived. My riding skills turned out to be invaluable. I got my pony, but not in the way I had dreamed of.
All I have are memories now. It has been a harsh life, but not all bad and I have been very lucky to survive till the agreed limit. Lucky to survive at all, there weren’t many of us. The human race always finds a way, but individuals have not been important for most of our history. Tomorrow they will break camp again, but this time I will not be going with them.
How long is a moment? Perhaps as long as the BBC time pips which are celebrating their centenary this very day.
‘The pips have been broadcast daily since 5 February 1924 and were the idea of the Astronomer Royal and the head of the BBC.
Originally they would have helped people set their watches and clocks to the exact time, now our phones, radios and many of our clocks are connected by magic to the beating heart of the universe. Though some say the National Physical Laboratory is responsible.
The pips for national radio stations are timed from an atomic clock in the basement of BBC Broadcasting House synchronised with the National Physical Laboratory.
There are six pips which occur on each of the 5 seconds leading up to the hour and on the hour itself. The first five last a tenth of a second each, while the final pip lasts half a second. The actual moment when the hour changes is at the very beginning of the last pip. I checked the clock on my radio and sure enough the clock changed to the hour exactly on the last pip. Looking up more facts surrounding our precious pips and how the whole world keeps time can lead you down a rabbit hole, perhaps you will even meet Alice in Wonderland’s White Rabbit with his pocket watch. But do we still need the pips? Yes, they are a precious few moments when broadcasters actually stop talking, a moment of peace before we are weighed down by the latest round of news.
One often learns something new from Facebook. APRICITY is the comforting warmth of the winter sun. Sunlight comes about 93 million miles and then gets blocked out by one little cloud or a building. If you find a sunny spot it is bliss.
Most of our local buses have a running commentary to tell you which stop is coming up next, very handy if it’s dark, torrential rain or torrential rain on a dark night. Especially useful if you are blind. I wonder who the anonymous voice is, perhaps an out of work actor. On an unfamiliar route recently a very jolly voice announced a stop then added ‘Alight here for the crematorium.’ Two stops further on he cheerfully announced ‘The next stop is Cemetery Junction, Cemetery Junction.’ Even dead passengers are assisted.
Fact is stranger than fiction. Since I wrote Tuesday’s tiny tale ‘Whatever the Weather’ we have had Storm Ingunn, named by the Norwegians. Apparently the Faroe Islands may have been hit by winds up to 155 miles an hour. I bet Gail Macleod is there reporting.
If your closest contact with wildlife is watching Mr. Fox trotting down the road in broad daylight or Roland Rat scurrying across the back lawn you will enjoy blogs from the African continent.
Robbie Cheadle shares some beautiful photos and we learn a lot.
Scuba Hank NYC is usually underwater, but has been on safari lately and his latest clip of a lovely Zebra set me thinking. Other members of the horse family were domesticated millennia ago. As far as we know Zebras never have been. It’s like the elephant conundrum. Asian elephants have been dragging logs and dressing up in beautiful garments to carry royalty for a very long time and more recently entertaining in circuses, while African elephants seem to have remained independent, or have they? Hannibal took 37 North African elephants over the Alps to give The Romans a fright. They had never seen elephants before so no doubt they did get a surprise. His plan worked, but sadly most of the elephants died of the cold that winter. African elephants no doubt decided to avoid ever getting involved with humans again.
And in tonight’s news Storm Zelda has arrived. Red warnings remain in place for the whole of the British Isles. Experts say it is unprecedented to have had twenty six named storms in the first month of the year. Travel plans have already been thrown into chaos. All flights are being diverted to Reykjavik and many train journeys have been cancelled after landslides on several mainlines. The M1, M3, M6 and other motorways have experienced flooding and the RAC is advising drivers not to travel, even if it is absolutely necessary.
The RNLI is warning people to stay away from coastal areas. Mandy Mariner is speaking to us from Cornwall.
‘We are a volunteer organisation and no crew will be volunteering to go out tonight in this weather. People don’t realise that you can be sucked out to sea in seconds by wind and waves, so please do not go sightseeing, Instagram and Facebook are not worth risking your life for.’
His Majesty’s Coastguard has reinforced this warning, especially as all their helicopters are now grounded. In an emergency call 999 Coastguard, better still, avoid emergencies.
And in a dramatic move Deliveroo have suspended all deliveries.
For more details on tonight’s weather we go over to Gail Macleod who is on the end of the pier at Easton-super-Mare.
‘Wind speeds of up to 150 miles an hour have been recorded here this a…ft..er…noon an~~ emr~~~gen~~ ser~~~ ha~~ wa~~~
We seem to have lost Gail for a moment and we apologise for the sound quality of that report. So let’s go back to Sonny Dai in the studio and take a closer look at the weather map.
Welcome to Point of View and we start with your views on coverage of Storm Zelda. Delia Baxter sent us this email
‘How reckless of the BBC to send reporters out in Storm Zelda. Gail Macleod was out in the elements and not even wearing a hat, what sort of example is that?’
We managed to contact Gail, at present sheltering on an oil rig in the North Sea. She sent us this message.
‘I was wearing a nice warm hat, but unfortunately it blew away, along with my umbrella.’
‘A customer I presume, we find them sometimes in the morning, can’t find their way out and settle in for the night.’
‘But surely security do the rounds at closing time?’
‘Well it’s a very big store and five floors… ‘
The new young manager of LIKE stared at the customer care assistant, he was beginning to get an inkling why his predecessor may have resigned.
‘And when you find live customers in bed what do you do?’
‘Wake them up and give them a voucher for breakfast in the restaurant.’
‘That sounds fair enough.’
Live customers were so much easier to deal with. The manager wondered what the protocol for dead customers was, probably too late to try out the new defibrillator. He looked at the time, the store had been open for five minutes already. Sweet Dreams was on the top floor, but unfortunately so was the customer entrance from the car park.
‘Does anyone else know about this?’
‘No, only Val the cleaner, she skedaddled up to the staff canteen to have a cup of tea and get over the shock.’
‘Er, um ‘ Dean isn’t it,’ he tried to surreptitiously read the chap’s badge ‘get yourself right back there and head off any customers while I call security… Oh what did the bo…the customer look like?’
‘Very peaceful, with the LIKE swan down king sized duvet tucked up round his chin, could even have been part of the display.’
‘Security? Benson here… Jeremy Benson, no I’m your new manager, who’s in charge today? Suspended, so who is in temporary charge?… Brian? Jeremy Benson here, get up to Sweet Dreams immediately, we have a problem, I’ll meet you there. How many bedroom displays? Twenty seven, well look for the one with an occupied bed.’
It was Saturday morning and the store was buzzing already, just how he had imagined his dream job, but now a busy store was a nightmare. If news got out of this in the town or to their competitors it didn’t bear thinking of.
Two security women confronted him, he flashed his ID card and they looked vaguely embarrassed and very amused.
‘Is Brian here? Good, show me where the incident took place.’
Benson vowed to get to grips with the store layout as one of the women led him through a maze of three walled bedrooms and voluptuous bedding.
‘Good morning Brian, thanks for being so prompt.’
‘I presume you have called the police?’
‘NO! … I mean let’s assess the situation first.’
He stared at the luxury faux bedroom, which was much nicer than his own humble abode; who wouldn’t want to stay the night. He had never actually seen a dead body, perhaps this was a joke, a dummy from the Love Living show rooms.
‘Are we sure he is actually dead Brian?
‘Of course he’s bloody dead, I was with the ambulance service for twenty years, I thought this job would be nice and peaceful.’
‘So what is your normal security procedure?’
‘Usually the customers are not actually dead; they drop with exhaustion or have a panic attack when they can’t find the way out. Though we did have a heart attack victim the other week, first aid officer attended, paramedics came promptly and worked on him, that was when it was decided to get defibrillators.’
‘And did the customer survive?’
‘No, but luckily LIKE were cleared of any blame, natural causes.’
Benson looked around for inspiration as to what should be done. He spotted an assistant pushing a large trolley full of duvets and pillows.
‘Well Brian I think our first priority is removal. We don’t want to spoil our customer’s day by suggesting anything is amiss.’
When your neighbour’s greenhouse is bigger than yours.
When Dracula’s roof needs repairing.
A seat in the sun.
Or perhaps you would prefer to linger with a beach view.
But don’t linger too long.
Or you could sit in the warm in an American diner…
…and still be by the English seaside.
When you order a game on Amazon and get the German version. At least it comes mit 2 mini-erweiterungen. If you haven’t played Qwirkle it’s good fun and you can probably guess it can be played in any language! The rules come in several languages, none of them English; well we shouldn’t smugly assume there is always an English translation. The omission of English is probably due to Brexit, another annoyance for we Remainers! Luckily I found a good YouTube video ( American ) on how to play when friends came over to be introduced to the game.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 