Grace Under Pressure 2

If you asked most people to pin point what has been the best day of the year, many would struggle to offer an answer. I can narrow in down quite easily. In 2001 it was 26th March, in 2009 it was 30th March, in 2016 it was the 28th March and in 2019 it was 1st April. This year it has been today, the 31st March. And I know you are trying to work out what momumental event reoccured in my life on those dates to make it the best day of the year. So I'll put you all our of your misery. It's simply the day after the clocks go forward and I am able to enjoy that extra hour of daylight on the first working day after we have all sprung into spring.   Do I mind losing an hour in bed. Nope. Do I mind that it's a little bit darker in the morning. Not in the slightest. Do I 'love' the fact that I can do 'something' in the light after I have finished work. You bet your bottom dollar I do.  And so tonight at 6pm I celebrated by 'enjoying' a lovely 6 mile jolly, almo...

  As if Mums don't have it hard enough as it is, which clever individual decided that the way to reward them for simply being magnificent was to remove an hours precious sleep from them by moving the clocks forward on the same day as we celebrated Mother's Day. No doubt it was a man, and probably a man who has never heard of Oedipus, never mind had his complex. Up and down the land Mums barely hanging on to their sanity as a result of the constant 24/7 demands of children and partners, were woken after an hours less sleep and expected to look pleased with a last minute card and present bought at the last minute by family members who had forgotten what day it actually was.  Then said mums were expected to prepare a fabulous all singing all dancing multi item meal so that their loving children / partners will be able to enjoy their special day in style. After which its simply back to 364 days of the year being under appreciated and taken for granted.  

So how to find an entire morning has disappeared in the blink of an eye. Simple just feet first in the rabbit hole that is everything about Marella on Youtube, and believe me there was lots to see.  Whether it was peoples general experiences on the ship, in depth tours of cabins, entertainment venues, dining options or exaples of what folks got upto when they went a shore, the more I looked the more I seemed to find. TOM meanwhile just found the Daily Mail interesting. We certainly won't be short of places to eat or venues to visit onboard the ship (TOM keeps reminding me its not a boat), in fact I have already booked one immersive experience  for whilst we are on board. I might also need to be ordering some elasticated trousers for what will undoubtedly be an expanded waistline and have some more excuses ready for my next blood sugars test.  And thats just the time on board ship but with 12 ports in 14 days we will have to be careful that we don't try to do too much and ...

It seemed a very simple question at the time. And it didn't even have to be Scarborough. just somewhere to have a few days away at the start of my sabbatical to act as a break away from work, away from home, away from Hucknall. 48 hours later and a long weekend to Scarborough has been replaced by a 2 week all inclusive cruise around Spain, France, Corsica and Italy on Marella Voyager. I blame TOM but to be honest I was a very willing conspirator in this spontaneous splurge.  It's a different company (Tui) and ship than we we have been on before but I think its a really good thing before we become too comfortable with P&O. I won't mention that his first credit card bounced due to the cost of the cruise exceeding hs credit limit (oh the shame) but when someone else is paying it all feels relatively painless. The ship seems 'lively' with loads of different places to eat and the itinerary only has two sea days and lots of ports where we will just be able to walk off...

 

  Sometimes its the little things in life that can give us the most pleasure. Today it has been the discovery that the roundabout at Linby has been resurfaced. holes, ruts and craters that would not be out f place on the Ukranian frontline, it was a traffic scenarioa guaranteed to jolt joints out of place and put tryes and wheel rims on full alert.  This afternoon driving back from the second bible study of the day, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven as my little Aygo slid across the former nightmare stretch of road as effortlessly as an egg across the surface of a teflon coated frying pan. It was a joy. But just how long that joy will last is another matter altogether.    

So today was the first annual review since tsudden and surprising diagnosis with type 2 Diabetes last year as a result of a 'Well Man' MOT showing I wasn't quite as well as I thought. I've had various mini checks during the year but this one is the one that would give me an overall idea of how things are going after a year of being on medication. The good news is that on the whole things are much better than they were a year ago. My sugar levels are down, my weight is stable, my BP is fine, the oxygenation on my blood is great, my feet have no issues with sensitivity or wounds failing to heal and my other organs appear to be in fine fettle. The only slight blip has been an increased in my bad cholesterol. On receiving this slight setback I did manage to play my joker card by explaining to the diabetic nurse that having my blood takes 24 hours after returning from a two week caribbean cruise was perhaps not the ideal time and that I would have been a well behaved boy whi...

  In breaking news street smart entrepeneur Barry Beckles has siezed the day and used the millions of bin bags discarded in the streets of Birmingham to launch his latests business adventure.  For those a bit tired of touring around the houses of A list celebrities in Hollywood, Barry is offering people a chance to take a walk, or to be accurate an open top bus tour, around the best street side refuse sites, in what he himself describes as a 's&%thole' of a city. Speaking to Grace Under Pressure's very own rubbish reported,  Barry revealed, "Yeah the city has some real celebrities living here, mainly C & B list although we do have the odd A lister. Alison Hammond, now she always comes across as warm and inviting whenever she appears on This Morning or that one about dogging that she does, but you wouldn't beleve just how many empty bottles are in her glass bin. And as for that Joe Lycett's recycling bin, well it makes most people weep. It was frightenin...

  Thirty eight days to go. Not that I am counting. Off course I am counting and they can't go quick enough. I feel like I am running on fumes at the moment. And I am pretty sure that the remaining 38 days are going to filled with trying to do all the things I need to do before I 'disappear' for a little while. But at the moment the enthusiasm to do any of those things is sadly lacking.

 

Some things just aren't meant to be. Today was one of those days. If things had gone to plan I should have been running the Chicken Run, a 10 or 14km trail run over in Hayfield, one that I have run and 'enjoyed' before. But I'm not.  Instead I am still at TOM's just as the B of the bang would have been sounding in Hayfield.  A few niggles, the thought of driving alost 50 miles to run a mere 6 miles, the hour there and back plus 90 mins to complete the run, a dismal weather forcast and just a general sense of 'couldn't be arsed' meant that by the time I got up and dressed, my enthusiasm had got up and gone.  Hey ho it's one those things and as it didn't cost a fortune to enter I don't really feel I have lost out on a great deal. Instead I had a little 4 mile jolly from TOM's along a familiar route literally on his doorstep. And on the way back managed to pick up what appeared to be a large plastic storage box left disgarded by the side of ...

If my memory serves me correctly, and there is no guarantee that it does, the last live concert I attended was almost exactly two years ago to the day when I went to Rock City in Nottingham to see what are arguably the best / second best / band from Wigan.  And before you all shout out, yes I know that there are not a lot to chose from and that George Formby wasn't a band. I am off course talking about The Lathums who for some unknown reason are not as well known as they should be. Fresh on the release of their 3rd album, Matter does not define' the boys from the capital of the Promised Land, produce a fabulous mix of energetic, infectious, toe tapping indie pop which despite bein upbeat is often quite dark in its lyrical content and subject matter.  With a mix of old favourites and new material, many of the songs include great sing along choruses which the crowd at sell out venue joined in with word for word, very loudly. Apart from the group of four behind me who seemed to s...

4.5 miles under our belts and in our legs and it wasn't even 7am yet.

The music shere almost went into meltdown in March  last year when Beyonce announced that she was jumping on the bandwagon, sorry I meant to say channelling her creative juices and  releasing a country album.  And to tease her fans with what the album might sound like she 'dropped' the track 'Texas Hold Em' onto unspsupecting listeners, in what proved to be a radical departure from her usual 'Put a Ring on it and 'Crazy in love' style. A few weeks ago the pop group Deacon Blue were guests in Radio 2' The Piano Room and as part of a three song set that included their biggest hit 'Dignity' plus the obligatory new song from their soon to be released CD, they also played a cover version of Texas Hold 'Em.  A cover that is just so joyful I dare you not to tap your toes, Doesy Doe and have a right old Hoe Down whilst listening along with it. Perfect for a Tuesday or indeed any day.  

Tonight was a chance to finally get back to running with the Stonehill Runners after what must be a month or so of dates not aligning. And so with a slight niggle in the calves following the Pommie Panter recce on Sunday we met up in the car park at Thieves Wood a little after 6pm.  The car park was busy, a sure sign that the nights are getting longer and more people are managing to squeeze in a run, walk, stroll with their dogs before darkness falls. We didn't have any canine companions this evening, just Laura, Simon, Jo, Vicky and me for an 8km jolly along the trails and fire roads.  And it was lovely to be able to run almost half the route without having to resort to using our head torches. I have no doubts that in the next couple of weeks and certainly by April, said torches will be confined to the cupboard for six months and our runs will become a little more off road and into the depths of the woods themselves. As it ws a half and half run was a lovely way to round off...

Over the past few weeks I have had a couple of occasions of stumbling across a song and being left in limbo by not knowing what it was.  The first is associated with an advert on TV for Amazon Prime. You might have seen it, its the one where the skateboard riding teenager moves away from his inner city life to the coast, only to discover that his beloved skateboard doesn't work on the sand filled paths near his new home.  Enter his mum who via the use of everyone's favourite South American based next day delivery service transforms his life by get him a mini wave riser surfboard. This is what was the unknown soundtrack to the advert. From the soundtrack of the film 'The secret life of Walter Mitty', this is Jose Gonzales with the beautiful 'Still Alive' The second was a song that caught my ear on the radio and then being frustrated because the DJ (is that what they are still called) failed to actually say who / what the artist and song actually was. In days of ...

This morning I had the chance to go and run with one of the groups I join occasionally join if I am in this part of the world and that is the Youlgrave Harriers.  And today was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone; to join in with the 4th birthday celebration and also to trace the route of a run they organise each year but which I have not been able to enter before due to it being run on a Sunday, the Pommie Panter. So on a beautiful spring day I gathered alongside 14 other runners, plus Arnold, our one canine companion, to cover the 5.8 mile jaunt up hill, down dale and through very boggy fields. The uphills, especially the starting lung burster, which after a few weeks of minimal running, soon explained why the race was called the 'panter, as I was panting for breath after the first couple of hundred yards.  I also learned as I ran, why its called the 'Pommie' panter. One explanation suggests its o rigin is musical. The village has its own band – originally br...

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has spent all of today trying to convince anyone who is the least bit interested that a 0.1% change in the UK economy can be both good and bad depending on when it happens and who is in power at the time. Speaking to the BBC's fashion icon and part time political correspondent Chris Mason, the chancellor of the Exchequer revealed that a 0.1% increase in the UK economy when the Conservatives were in power was a reflection of their hopeless stagnant economic strategies whereas the same increase since the recent election is a stunning affirmation of Labour's revolutionary policies.  Similarly a 0.1% decrease under the Tories could only be seen as a national catastrophy and a call for sack cloth and ashes whereas an identical decrease under her stewardship is  absolutely no cause for concern, move along please, nothing to see hear . At the time of going to press Grace Under Pressure in unable to comment on whch way the economy will go but would simply be ...

Brazil sets out new road to achieve net zero Boris Johnson celebrates 5th anniversary of Covid with an impromptu office party USA's partial cease fire explained by the fact that Ukraine gets it and Russia doesn't Donatella steps down from Versace upon rumours of Ninja Mutant Turtles reunion Noise pollution officer to make whistle stop tour The Royal Flush wins toilet magazine of the year Could new Russian attacks be in the pipeline? New Wimbeldon rules mean first come first served  Is Liz Truss the power behind JD Vance?

Sometimes accidents produce the best results. Trying to put together a soundtrack for the current discussion group on hymns / worship songs that I am leading at five different churches I uploaded what I thought was a vocal version of 10,000 reasons ( bless my soul). Except it wasn't. Instead what I had uploaded was an instrumental version of the song. And not just a run of the mill, karaoke standard version but THIS version. And the question that I have been trying to answer is quite simply...is this the best saxaphone that I have ever heard. Probably. Sit back and enjoy because its simply gorgeous.  

Today was presbyteral synod when probationers, ordained and retired ministers gathered for a day of worship and reflection. It is not my favourite thing to attend but as part of my covenant relationship with the church and discipline of being an ordained minister I go...reluctantly. And although most of them are as dull as ditch water, I usually come away with 'something' useful. Today's session was loooking in part at well being and what things we do / should do to ensure we have some safety mechanisms in place to protect out well being. And I came was with the self diagnosis of suffering from burnout as I appear to be 'suffering' from a whole host of symptoms associated with such a condition. And in some ways it's probably true.  I just put it down to being the age I am plus the recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes. But then if i stop and think about it, which I probably haven't done, it's been pretty much full on for the past few years with Covid, movin...

So after 61 years of never really wanting or finding the need to have one, I now have a mobile phone.  Having discovered an unused but soon to expire gift voucher in my wallet I've been really strugging to decide what I should spend it on before it expires in a months time. I was going to use it to buy some walking shoes for the trip to Spain later in the year but discovered that the store where I had seen the shoes didn't accept the card. So Plan A was out of the window And so having pondered various other options I have splashed the cash on a Samsung Galaxy A16 mobile, which will have more than enough bells and whistles for my basic need, especially as I will not be using this a great deal and so will not now have to begin the process of having my hand moulded into the particular Mobile holding shape.  But I hope it will prove useful in emergencies, for finding directions / places especially when walking the Camino Del Norte later on in the year, and also for taking photogr...

Having previously blamed everything under the sun for Arsenals poor run of form, Gunners manager Mikel Arteta's litany of excuses reached a new low this evening when he blamed the ball for dropping points against Manchester United. Havign previously blamed injuries, suspensions,  too many games, too few games, players fitness, players form, player distractions, the pitch was too big, the pitch was too small, the grass was too long, the grass was too short, the grass was too green, the grass was not green enough, too much travel, too little travel, the sun, the rain, the wind, the referee, the linesman, VAR, oposition fans, their own fans, TV pundts, the media and Barry down the Frog and Trumpet, today Arteta claimed it was the ball. Speaking in an exclusive to Grace Under Pressure's very own armchair pundit, Mikel Arteta revealed that is was the size, shape, colour, surface texture, air content and overall roundness of the ball that was now at fault.  When revelaed that Manch...

  Still struggling to find any sort of rhythm since going on my Caribbean jolly, life feels rather messy at the moment. And the question is with only 7 weeks to go before my sabbatical starts will there be the time or desire to try to sort it out before I drop out for three months. Possibly not. Hence my choice of tune this morning. With echoes of various other artists and yet managing to be distinctive in its own right, this is Lola Young with the appropriatly titled 'Messy'.Enjoy    

    I think I managed all of these and more on Wednesday night