By Scott Bailey © 2017
This car is coasting
Familiar road ahead
Time to go off-road
Coasting
Car
Green Fingers
By Scott Bailey © 2013
Green fingers
Rip open the rusty shell
Slow tendrils with irresistible grasp.
Dealt with by a blade or a chemical wash
They will be back.
In time victory will be theirs.
Poem a day challenge #353 (Steel Grin)
Steel Grin
By Scott Bailey © 2014
Shining steel
A grill like a grin
Of the shark that killed you
Get the previous ones here
http://wp.me/P3kG6h-bb and get my début novel Mankind Limited
Poem a day challenge #203 (My Car)
My Car
By Scott Bailey © 2013
One light out
A film of grime
Kicked up from the road
Travelled on
Switches broken
Things won’t turn on
Or off
Squeals and grinds
And groans
Deflation
Thirsty
Dim
My car
And me
Get the previous ones here
http://wp.me/P3kG6h-bb and get my début novel Mankind Limited
Poem a day challenge #55 (Green Fingers)
Green Fingers
By Scott Bailey © 2013
Green fingers
Rip open the rusty shell
Slow tendrils with irresistible grasp.
Dealt with by a blade or a chemical wash
They will be back.
In time victory will be theirs.
Get the previous ones here
http://wp.me/P3kG6h-bb
Poem a day challenge #53 (Silver)
Silver
By Scott Bailey © 2013
Shining argent in sunlight or silver sheen in the rain
Letter, rings, lions.
Phoenix or tiny names
Even flying angels and leaping fluid cats.
Bright, alluring but for many
The last thing they will see.
Get the previous ones here
http://wp.me/P3kG6h-bb
Holiday Relaxation – Not!
Well that’s another holiday week done and dusted. And I will be returning more stressed than when I left.
So the up and downs – let’s do the downs first and leave it on a positive.
There were tons of jobs to be done and this was one of the reasons to take some time off. For one reason or another – hardly any were done. So no achievement there!
The holiday started with we sitting up late at night trying to prepare for my one on one home visit from the social worker. This was due Tuesday morning. Monday afternoon – we got a phone call to say it had been cancelled due to ill-health. Frustrating! But the upside is we have more time to prepare. (The stress is we should have already been prepared. Life always has other ideas.)
The car has continued to be a source of stress, not only the check engine light coming on and setting into limp mode but also there is now a mysterious knocking sound. It has now been in three garages and no one can work out what it is. We the finally found out what the check engine light fault code was after four garages had failed. The turbo! Upwards of a £1000 to fix. Grrrr! Stress!
But then our regular garage suggested that changing a valve on the turbo may fix it – a lot less money (£75). This has been done and so far so good. Drive a lot better now too.
Just the knocking noise now.
And then money! The source of all stress and evil! We are trying to get ourselves on an even keel to help our chances n the adoption game. On top of that our fixed rate is coming to an end – and these extremely low rates cannot last much longer. So we wanted to borrow more and fix the rate again. We had meetings et up – our last bank being the last one we could get.
We got turned down. Not just for the extra money but even just re-mortgaging t all. The we came to our own bank. No problem they said! Phew we said. Until we actually did the application over the phone. After three hours of jumping though hoops and tweaking we finally got what we needed. We thanked the guy who helped us profusely as he had done a sterling job. But it struck me as odd and inspired one of my daily poems. Why were we thanking him for basically tying us up in debt for longer and even more. He was tightening our wage slaves bonds tighter.
I suppose it’s just me seeing it that way. He was just doing his job.
But we are now better off financially on a monthly basis so that will help our mission.
And finally – Behaviour! Alexander’s – bad! Well not all and on balance more good than bad but he has had a few really bad turns. Refusing to go to bed – but having tantrums like you would expect. Instead he just has it in his mind he is doing something else and it seems inconceivable that any alternative can be comprehended. He suddenly seems to be a four years old acting like a teenager. He even told us he was moving out to live on his own with his toy puppy!
He is not so much pushing boundaries as reusing to acknowledge the existence of such a concept.
I don’t know if it’s the reason but he has had the loss of his brother on his mind a lot – maybe stirred up by our visit to the baby memorial garden. He even asked us if Lucas was better than him! Maybe there’s some kind of sibling rivalry going on with his perception of a perfect brother?
BUT
It hasn’t been a total waste of a holiday. There have been plenty of upsides. For one – the weather has been glorious. Playing havoc with my eyes and my hay fever but we have enjoyed the sun while we can.
Alexander has displayed some amazingly god behaviour as well. He is talking even more now – sometimes hard to get him to stop. He is also making up some brilliant songs. He was sitting in the car the other day singing
“The thing, thing, thing thingys. The thing, thing, thingys are the moles!”
I asked him what it was all about. He answered in exasperated tones.
“It about thingys that are moles!” And gave me a look as if to say – wasn’t that clear in the words?
We have been to zoos and the seaside for fish and chips and to the cinema. Took Alexander to see Despicable Me 2 which I can highly recommend.
So here’s a few images from the week.
Baby Memorial Garden, Car Trouble and Adoption Homework
Holiday has started.
Not entirely well.
So much for relaxing. Started with a quick trip to the garage as my wheel is making all sorts of noises. (I am thinking now the bearings are going). The garage (the second I have taken it to in as many days) could find nothing wrong. They could however finally diagnose the check engine light – which it turns out could be the turbo going. Great! To fix that is nearly half as much as I paid for the car!
We tried to put that to the back of our minds and took Alexander to Whitstable castle as we had promised him. He had a great time there and at the beach throwing stones.
We came home to try to relax, this was not helped by the fact that our burglar alarm kept going off all by itself for no reason at random times during the night. It never rains…
Sunday. After a slow time getting up as we were tired out from kept being woken up! We went to Ashford. Today was the official opening of the SANDS baby memorial garden. Lucas has a stone there.
We picked up my Aunty Kath on the way. Alexander’s first words were – “She looks nice!” Compliments from a four-year-old. We were glad she could come as she was there for us on the night Lucas died.
We met my Mum and Dad at the garden.
This was a lovely service with readings, doves being released and balloons being let off. (Environmentally friendly ones I understand)
It was all very emotional and hit Rachel harder than she expected. There were tears and Alexander came to the rescue with a cuddle. (after everyone else had gone he also got very tearful as he said his own goodbyes)
Alexander missed most of the service though as he was off with a little girl called Charlotte that he befriended. They were inseparable all afternoon – I even caught them whispering about marriage!
We came home and had a relaxed tea.
After getting a tired Alexander to bed, I spent the rest of the evening working on our adoption homework – hence the late hour of this post 1am!
Tonight was filling out forms about our relationship, family upbringing and how we deal with children.
So another up and down weekend but hey – no work tomorrow!
And Andy Murray won Wimbledon!
Walls and Nakedness!
Well its been a stressful few days. Work had been full on (but nothing wrong with that!). Life has been equally full on, rushing to the doctors or the garage! My car is feeling as creaky as me – but as with me – nothing apparently appears to be wrong.
Alexander has been very demanding these past few days – not particularly naughty (well no more so) but aside from issue with listening to what he has been told, he has for some reason needed more attention than usual. Particularly from me.
Anyway – it has all meant that writing time has been in very short supply. Yesterday was the closest I have come to failing this challenge so far – just squeezing in a haiku just before midnight. Today I had a little more leeway but was finding it really hard to get inspired. Hitting the writer’s equivalent of a wall – and still a long way to go!
Couldn’t really think so instead tried to get my head around the final part of my book – literally a few more pages to do. This was equally unproductive but out it today’s poem formed slowly. It’s probably my least successful I think so far but at least I am getting words down on (virtual) paper. It all helps.
On a more surreal note. We witnessed a mass naked bike ride through Canterbury today.
Am I a grown up now?
Collected our new “family” car today. Makes me feel grown up….
Drove it Westwood Cross to get used to it.
Not much else to report today.
Crawling back to life
Well, after returning to work last Tuesday I promptly had to take the rest of the week off due to feeling very ill. Alexander joined me in this and was too ill to go back to nursery.
It was still an eventful week. A warning light had come on my engine over the last few days. I was going to take into the garage near me on Wednesday. However ended up ill in bed or being sick in the loo! Still it did not worry me as I was not going to be driving it until I was better – and then I would get it fixed. Other people had other ideas and being helpful got it booked into the garage for me! Where it still is being fixed.
I decided that enough was enough and that we had spent too much time and energy on this car, along with struggling with the lack of space in it. Something that was only going to get worse when we are successful in our adoption mission. (See – being positive there!)
The upshot of all this is I have a hire car for the week and will have a new one by the end of the week – by new I mean new – used – quite old actually but it the best we can do. It’s a triumph of function over form by which I mean it won’t be winning any beauty contests but will win our hearts by doing what we need it to. (6 Seats! Three of them in the front! It’s a Fiat Multipla for those who are interested.)
Anyway – this was all stress, stress, stress. There were better things going on.
This weekend was to be about Alexander’s 4th Birthday.
Friday night we received some good news – Alexander got offered a place in out first choice school – the local village one so that makes life easier.
Saturday, after picking up the car we went to get the fish for Alexander’s fish tank. However after they tested our sample of water it’s not quire ready for fish yet. Need to do some more preparation.
Then my parents, my Brother Adrian – his girlfriend Charlie and her son Sean came around for a birthday tea. Alexander had a great time opening some of his presents but most of all playing with Sean who he totally worshipped all afternoon/ He told him
“I really want a brother just like you.”
Much fun was had (despite being slowly sapped by the flu.)
The fun continued next day – we met up with My other brother Daniel and his fiancée Carol. We had lunch with them at the play gym and again Alexander had a great time.
Then we took Alexander to a kids show at the gulbenkian -“Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus”.
He had a great time – it was kind of like a mini panto.
All this feeling ill was put into stark contrast as on this Sunday two of my oldest friend are both doing Marathons.
Liz was running in the Paris Marathon which she completed – we were all very proud of her.
David – who is just mad – was running the first of his six marathons (in seven days) in the Sahara desert! The Marathon Desables. Mad Mad Mad. He is still going and doing well. Finger crossed for him!
Returned to work today which was a real struggle as I felt like I had regressed a bit this morning. Did a lot a resetting devices and upgrading them in the field.
Came home and after a quick bite to eat Rachel and I headed out to our SANDS meeting
This was quite hard as one of the regular people was quite heavily pregnant – we didn’t know as we hadn’t been able to go for the last few sessions. Rachel was quite upset but bravely stayed. She said for my sake but I am glad she did as I believe it helps her quite a bit as well.
There were more new people and some more hard stores to hear. Some cases that really sounded like negligence too. At least we aren’t faced with that – I think that would make it worse.
We paid for our memorial stone now so that will be added to the SANDS Memorial garden in Ashford in time for the grand opening in July.
Also during the last week Rachel has done extremely well in her course. She has achieved her first target early and got really high scores all round. Very proud of her.
So an up and down week summarised quickly there. Will try and do better this week and keep updated.
Oh.. and Maggie Thatcher Died
Back to work
Woke up with a stinking cold. So did Alexander and I think Rachel is heading that way.
After four days together Alexander was disappointed I had to go to work. He asked what I would do at work. I told him I would be working on a computer.
“And what else?” he asked.
“Er… that’s about it.”
He frowned and thought about this.
“Is your boss called Tim?’ That was very well remembered! He then said.
“Tell Tim that you have to do activities. You have to do exercise, play in the garden, have a drink at break time, dress up as pirates and play with cars!”
Tim agreed.
However work was hectic as we try to keep on top of failing units.
The car was also I’ll today so another trip to the garage due!
In other news – David was good to his word and cut off his hair. Well he didn’t shave it as expected but for him its very very short. He will be off to the Sahara very soon for his six marathons!
Mad.
Back to reading about XML…
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 