Tag: Challenge

Weddings and weather

Yes, they probably the most unlikely of pairings, but so much of one depends so much on the other.

So, in the days leading up to the wedding, the weather was kind.

But all of us were glued to our smartphones, forever studying the forthcoming weather, often with bated breath and with a measure of trepidation.

All the forecasts were for terrible weather on the wedding day.

And what was worse, the day before was perfect with blue skies and a temperature that hovered between 27 and 30 degrees Celcius.

Even then the forecast was for overcast conditions and with a 40 percent chance of rain.

Late at night the day before, still no clouds.

We go to sleep.

Yes, you guessed it, next morning we wake and, outside, it’s overcast and drizzling.  Further rain was on the horizon, and I think some time during the morning there was thunder.

But, it stayed away for the tea ceremony in the morning.  Everyone was crossing their fingers the fine weather would hold for the wedding later in the day.

Even so, the prospects were ominous.

And, just to add a touch of drama to the occasion, the wedding ceremony was going to be held outside on the lawns.

When we were driving to the wedding venue, it was raining.

When the ceremony was about to start, the rain died away to a few spots.  It stayed away for the duration of the ceremony.  It was as if someone up there had decided to help out.

In fact, despite the fact it was overcast, the rain came and went when it didn’t matter, end even if it hadn’t it had no effect of the occasion, there was nothing that could possibly take away the happiness of the occasion, or the wide smiles on both the bride and groom.

Not even when we lost power for two hours at the reception.

My opinions are my own

It’s always a good thing to get that across especially if you work for an organization that could misinterpret what that opinion is, or generally have an opposing opinion. Of course, by saying your opinions are your own, you’re covering yourself from becoming unemployed, but is this a futile act?

Perhaps its better to not say anything because everything you say and do eventually find its way to those you want most not to hear about it, perhaps one of the big negatives of the internet and social media.

And…

It seems odd to me that you can’t have an opinion of your own, even if it is contrary to that of the organization you work for, and especially if their opinion has changed over time. An opposing opinion, not delivered in a derogatory manner, would have the expectation of sparking healthy debate, but it doesn’t always end up like that.

I’m sure there are others out there that will disagree, and use the overused word, loyalty’. Perhaps their mantra will be ‘keep your opinions to yourself’.

This, too, often crops up in personal relationships, and adds weight to the statement, ‘you can pick your friends but not your relatives’.

I’m told I have an opinion on everything, a statement delivered in a manner that suggests sarcasm. Whether it’s true or not, isn’t the essence of free speech, working within the parameters of not inciting hate, bigotry, racism or sexism, a fundamental right of anyone in a democracy?

Seems not.

There’s always someone out there, higher up the food chain, with an opinion of their own, obviously the right one, and who will not hesitate to silence yours. But, isn’t it strange that in order to silence you, they have to use leverage, like your job, to get theirs across.

Well, my opinions are in my writing, and whether or not you agree with them or not, I’m sure you will let me know. In a robust but respectful manner.

Unlike some, my door is always open.

Past conversations with my cat – 46

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This is Chester. I just told him it’s Dog Appreciation Day.

And it got the expected response, you don’t have a dog.

Ahh.

Then I tell him that a neighbour had a dog just like the one we’re thinking of getting, and they’re going to lend him to us for a few hours.

You can’t do that. This is not a dog-friendly environment. Remember the last time you had a dog. Fleas in the carpet, stains on the wall, and as for toilet training…

Yes, he has a point. The last dog we had was almost a disaster, besides the fact it was ten times larger than Chester. Friendly though, when Chester didn’t hiss at him.

This dog, I say, is smaller, not much bigger than you. A jovial chap who doesn’t bark much, just when recalcitrant cats annoy him, so I’m told.

Who are you calling recalcitrant?

No mistaking that distinct look of displeasure, almost recalcitrant I thought.

It’s going to happen, get over it.

Was that a cat shrug I saw? Another icy stare just to chill the atmosphere in the room, and he leaves.

Yes, I do like stirring the pot. You think he’d know by now.

Another day and, yes, another sad flight.

For those who believe that airlines can actually take off on time, we have a departure time 4:25, and boarding time, 3:40

Yep, and pigs really do fly. Not

We are still on the ground at 4:25, and the excuse is the late inbound flight but that’s as tired as I feel about airlines who just cannot give their customers the truth.

There is more likely a plethora of problems with this aircraft, and there isn’t enough duck tape to fix them.

I chose Qantas because of their safety record, but first impressions of the Airbus A330-200 is that it was the last plane built by the Wright Brothers.

Yes, it is that old.

The screens in the seatbacks are 5 x 5 inches in size and activated by a hand unit I haven’t seen since the early eighties.

And that unbelievable statistic is compounded by the fact mine is broken and it takes an engineer a few minutes to realize that it needs duck tape to temporarily fix it.

The truth of the matter is that this relic of the past should be at the Qantas museum in outback Queensland, than flying passengers.

I thought Qantas had a youngish fleet, but apparently not. It seems the lack of pilots on Boeing types has forced them to drag these Airbus relics out of mothballs.

I guess it’s our turn to roll the dice.

We are pushing back 1 hour and 8 minutes late. 15 minutes later we take off.

It’s rather unsettling but otherwise normal takeoff, so it’s now going to be interesting how much time we can make up. The flight time as originally quoted by the Captain was 3 hours and 39 minutes.

About an hour into the flight the Captain is obviously either trying hard to make up time or more to the point find a level where the headwinds are not as severe, because for the last ten minutes the engines have been given a real work out.

Usually in flight at this time is quiet, but at the moment we can hardly hear ourselves think. Memo to self must get noise-canceling headphones.

In between all the flight level changes, it’s time for dinner service, or more to the point what’s left service.

There is a choice of three items, beef, pork slop with rice, or chicken, a large cold lump of aforementioned meat with salad, very little salad.

The key choice here is the beef in gravy but by the time the trolley reaches row 50 the beef is all gone.

Surprise, surprise.

Ok, so most of the plane agreed with me on what was the best meal, and the 70 odd passengers down the back of the plane are deprived of a first choice and forced basically to eat leftovers.

I get the pork to prove a point, and it is every bit the garbage I expected and definitely not fit for human consumption.

God help the person who created that ‘dish’ but if it was the winning dish on a Masterchef episode, then I guess we got what we deserved.

Another memo to self, remind me to bring my dog next time. It seems Qantas is able to cater to animals better than they can humans.

Having expressed my opinion, I am reminded that to others the pork and rice dish might have been very good and that I should temper my remarks with the proviso the comments are my own opinion and do not represent that of others who may have enjoyed it.

And after dinner, it didn’t matter if we made up time or not. Leaving late, missing the preferred meal, and enduring no onboard entertainment, no, the engineer decided it needed more than duct tape to fix it, there was nothing left short of crashing that make this flight more enjoyable.

On a scale of one to ten, this was a minus six.

It’s the little things…

The difference between what you want to do and what really happens can be as wide as the Rio Grande River

Not that I’ve tried to cross it, but you get my drift.

Shopping, any sort of shopping, can be a nightmare. Certainly, when you decide to go shopping always leave enough time for the vagaries of serving staff and fellow customers.

And then there’s Murphy’s law

Like, for instance, you’re in a hurry to get to a lunch appointment and need money. The ATM is broken or refilling, and inside the bank the queue is long and there’s only one teller serving

Of course, its lunch time!

Or you’ve decided to get a pre theater dinner and drink and get to the restaurant early, order, and then have to wait and wait and, well you know how it is.

Of course, there’s always late staff, missing cooks.

Or you draw a number and sit down to wait only to discover that somehow your number got lost in the system. Or worse, you go to the doctor for an appointment, sit down, and get forgotten.

When you ask, oh, he had to go home for an emergency.

No doubt late for golf.

It’s happened to me, more than once.

But the worst thing that can happen to you. Going clothes shopping with your partner, sit down near the counter knowing she will eventually come back for you.

Only….

You get a phone call three hours later from her asking where you are.

One day…

That rather odd world of customer complaints

I was going to write more about the waiting game, where it is the peak hour for shoppers and there’s only two cash registers open, or the bank tellers at lunchtime …

On and on. Nothing will change except for some of us, an increase in grey hair.

Time to move on, and get off my soapbox.

Perhaps we could delve into the online world of customer complaints.

It’s an interesting place, when I want to buy something, or see something that is too good to be true, I hit the computer, dial-up google, and go into investigative mode.

But, here’s the thing,

The only people who go online, by and large, are there to complain. Yes, there are a few positives, like five out of five stars, then the numbers show up for four stars, three stars, etc.

You get the impression that the owner of the product or service had written several 5-star good reports to counterbalance the negativity, which sometimes all belabor the same point.

For a long time when I saw the bad reports and very few good reports I thought the product was no good, but recently, when talking to someone whose product was for sale, and had a few bad reviews, they said if a customer is satisfied, why did they need to file a report. People had expressed their good opinion but had not added a review.

That might well be the case.

As an example, I looked at several river cruises in Europe and their operators. I then went online to check the customer ratings, because these river cruises are very expensive, so you need to know you’re getting value for money.

Nearly all of the reviews were bad and lacked any credible numbers. Those that were on the site were critical of the food the hygiene of the staff, the inability to get more than 1 ‘free’ drink with lunch or dinner, and substitute boats that were terrible.

Food and wine were the heart of this cruise, as well as cabin comfort, and the last thing you need is to be sick for the duration of the cruise.

I have to say I’m put off.

Perhaps I might revise my policy of looking for information on the internet. If the bad customer feedback continues we may never go anywhere ever again

The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

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An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

© Charles Heath 2019

Writing instead of insomnia – 3

Back to the explosion at what was first thought to be at a takeaway.  Certainly, it had been leveled, but so had several other buildings in the near vicinity, but we haven’t got to that part yet.

The boredom of the flight is still giving me an opportunity to explore the opening sequence a little further, where we left our man on the scene under tight police guard.

 

In five minutes, perhaps less, the whole scene had turned into countless vehicles with red and blue flashing lights, screams from the victims, and yelling from the rescuers.

I was still under police guard, but coming from the other side of the scene, a rather battered and bleeding street policeman came running towards us, stopping short of the man standing back, the one I assumed was in charge.

Tell me you’ve got them, he gasped, then looking from the man in charge to me then back again, looking very concerned.

We have.  He looked very calm and pleased with himself.

What? Him? He nodded in my direction. He was blown up in the blast and from what I saw was chasing the real culprits, two men covered in dust, one of whom was carrying a large duffel bag.

This guy was caught running from the scene.

I decided to add my bit to the discussion. Your car drove straight past them. I can’t see how you missed them.

He was starting to look worried. We were given your exact description from an anonymous tip.

The battered policeman bent over and collapsed to the ground. Two of my captors went towards him, but he motioned them away. Of course, you did, by the two men escaping. Get after them, before it’s too late. And free this guy. He’s got nothing to do with the blast.

After removing the cuffs they jumped back in their car and headed back in the direction they came. Too late now, the two men would be long gone.

I went over to the policeman on the ground just as another ambulance pulled up and as the paramedics got out, I motioned to them to come and attend him.

What happened, I asked him

A bank robbery, the clowns used far too much explosive and almost brought the building down on them. Not so lucky for the neighbors.

He was looking around, then stopped, looking at the place where I’d just been held down. I followed his gaze and then saw what he saw. The cuffs were still on the ground where the man who removed them had obviously dropped them.

His expression changed, and for a moment I thought he was going to explode.

What’s wrong.  Obviously, something was but I couldn’t see it.

The cuffs. We haven’t used those for years now. They weren’t real police.

My mind clicked into gear at the same time as he uttered the words.

They were there to help the others escape whilst holding us both up with a phony arrest. I wonder what they would do if they hadn’t been sent after their fellow robbers.

The battered policeman just sighed and lay down on the pavement and let the paramedics work on him.

Only then did we notice he had a piece of an iron bar sticking out of his side.

 

Then, of course, people just don’t happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or do they?

 

© Charles Heath 2020

The vissictitudes of life

I’m currently sitting in my car waiting to pick the grandchildren up from school wondering where that dream of the glamorous life of an author went.

Can it be said that any author leads a glamorous life, except for maybe J K Rowling, James Patterson and a handful of others?

That dream is of course only a dream. I did not start this writing caper to become rich and famous or live a glamorous life. I started It, and it continues in the same vein, that I have a lot of stories in my head that I want to get on paper.

If anyone else wants to read them, then that’s a bonus. If I happen to make enough money, rather than live high on the hog, an expression my father often used to describe the rich, I would happily invest in programs that get young people reading more.

It also strikes me that it would be difficult to write a literary novel in the vein of Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters, to name a few because modern day life has no real meaning like it did then.

Instant news, instant communications, and the rest of the country, as well as the world, do close, we can go anywhere, and communicate instantly. In the days of classic literature, they survived on periodic letters, and traveling to another part of the same country was very arduous. Just the receipt of a letter could give a chapter, the trip to and the visit to a relative could give several.

But those tales of life were always about people of means, not the ordinary people. Stories that have the minutiae of daily life do not appeal. No one wants to read about their lives, they want to be transported to another world where there is no such inanity like cooking, cleaning, washing and picking up children.

I’m using this time to write another episode or chapter, or, in this case, a blog post.

As any parent will tell you, it is the calm before the storm.

Writing instead of insomnia – 1

There’s nothing like being on an airplane and suddenly getting annoyed.

If it’s not the confined space, it’s generally because most people before a flight are usually stressed or on edge.  At least until the plane takes off.

Then it can be any number of things that can set you off

One might be the propensity for the liquid to spill.  Those tray tables are hardly stable or level at the best of times, and the plastic they serve meals on and pour drinks into, is very slippery and it doesn’t take much to spill.

I know, it just happened to me.

Of course, if its water, you can suffer the cold for as long as it takes to dry, but when it’s beer or wine, then there’s that ever pervading aroma the lingers long after it’s dried.

Yes, I had to spill beer, and yes, it does smell.

Annoyed am I, yes.

But that isn’t the biggest bugbear, that’s bothering me right now.  Its one the affects a lot of air travelers and it’s that 31 inches between seats and the person in front who decides to fully recline their seat, right into your face. 

I mean, it’s not that bad if everyone decides to recline, or it’s not mealtime, but on top of the spill, I’m not going to be in a good mood anytime soon.

So, while I’m at it, the next problem is airline food.  Ok, I get it, I’m in economy and I’m getting what I pay for, but seriously, I’m not really sure what it was I got, other than the rice, and, since we’re leaving Australia and one of our signature fast foods is the humble meat pie, why not one of those, a pleasant reminder of home, or the place you may have visited.

Air New Zealand has the right idea and serves you venison as a menu choice.

I guess bring a Chinese airline we’d be served Chinese food, but a menu describing what it was would be a help instead of being tossed on a slippery plastic tray and dumped in front of you.

Maybe I’m expecting too much from airlines who seem to consider that transporting you from one place to another in a seat that has a modicum of comfort more important than the trimmings.  Well, I guess that what you get for paying a rock bottom fare.

Maybe I could work this into a plotline if I can’t get to sleep.

Our next airline will be Air Canada.  I wonder if moose is on the menu?