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The Girl is slowly getting over her sinus infection. I am fighting off a mild attack of the sniffles (no comparison!). Let us cheer ourselves up with a quick miscellany of jolly images of sun-drenched Zihuatanejo (where the maximum temperature varies by less than 5 degrees C – across the whole year!)…
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Newton’s third law of motion
There are some – particularly amongst those who feel compelled to seek correspondence between their understanding of science (such as it maybe) and their religious beliefs – to seize upon the encapsulation of scientific principles and – by treating them as apothegms – to claim that therein lies the justification/basis for some scarcely connected spiritual practice.
Such folk take – for example – Newton’s third law of motion (“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”) and find a parallel with the Hindu and Buddhist concepts of ‘karma’ – and in particular the idea that one’s fate or destiny is shaped by one’s previous actions.
Now – I have no truck with such notions… except where they afford me with a cheap headline for a blog post.
Such as the one above…
Naturally I also vigorously reject any suggestion that – in The Girl’s case – our cheeky week in sunny Zihuatanejo was repaid by the universe by her going down with a sinus infection the very second that our feet hit the ground back at Victoria International (YJJ). I am sure that all gentle readers out there in InterWebNetLand will join me in saying a heartfelt “There, there” and sending empathetic and positive vibes for a speedy recovery.
Falling ill on immediate return from a holiday is a double edged sword. Not only does one feel terrible – with the contrast to the recent relaxing and sun-drenched delights only rendering the agony yet more palpable – but being off work the moment that one has returned tends to increase the antipathy of one’s colleagues – particularly those that did not themselves recently get away somewhere lovely and warm. Hardly fair given the fact that one is not simply swanning around at home having a gay old time of it!
Of course, the fact that spring has not yet fully sprung here in BC and that this particularly wet start to the year shows no signs of being any less so in the immediate future does little to help.
It is frankly about time that things perked up here!
“ANDY: Think you’ll ever get out of here?
RED: Sure. When I got a long white beard and about three marbles left rolling around upstairs.
ANDY: Tell you where I’d go. Zihuatanejo.
RED: Zihuatanejo?
ANDY: Mexico. Little place right on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That’s where I’d like to finish out my life, Red. A warm place with no memory. Open a little hotel right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat and fix it up like new. Take my guests out charter fishing.”
The Shawshank Redemption – by Frank Darabont
Based upon the story – ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’ – by Stephen King
“I’m Mexican. I eat salsa with everything.”
Anjelah Johnson
I believe that I have mentioned previously within these musings that The Girl and I were going to take advantage of the College having a ‘reading week’ this February to run away to Mexico for a little R & R – not to mention some much needed sunshine and warmth.
And here we are – in a rather lovely and luxuriously verdant resort near Xtapa – which is itself but a stone’s throw from Zihuatenajo. As ever I cannot travel without taking pictures. Herewith a random introductory selection:
“Absence weakens mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and kindles fires.
Rochefoucauld
Those gentle readers who pay attention to such things will be wondering why this journal has not thus far this season featured its usual pithy observations on the great sport of Rugby Union – this, after all, being the time of year that the fabulous Six Nations tournament takes place in Europe.
Of course, those who not only subscribe to these musings but also follow the sport themselves will be very aware of one of the reasons for my silence on the subject – that being the abject performance – both on and off the field – of the Scots.
Actually – that is unfair. To be certain the Finn Russell affair shows everyone involved in a poor light and to lose one’s star player in such a manner goes way beyond careless, but on the field the Scots have actually looked considerably more competitive than they sometimes do. There is no getting round the fact that, however unluckily, they lost to the Irish in Dublin and then had the misfortune of coming up against both the English and storm Ciara at Murrayfield. The English handled the atrocious conditions marginally better than did the Scots and deserved to win, but it was not the game that either side – nor the partisan crowd – wanted to see.
The Scots absolutely must win well in Rome against the Azzuri next time out or things will look really grim. The French seem to have been re-invigorated this year and the final game against a smarting Wales at the Principality is no-one’s idea of a stroll in the park.
The other reason for the relative quiet on the Rugby front this year is that the Americas Rugby Championship – the North and South American loose equivalent of the Six Nations – has been moved from its now customary berth in February to the summer months. This year the tournament will be played in August and September. It will certainly be good not to have to sit on the cold aluminium bench seating at Westhills, nor to have to watch the players struggling with the snow covered pitch, but it remains to be seen how this traditionally winter sport transfers to the summer months.
I will let you know.
Tags: Canada, England, Rugby, Scotland, Six Nations
Five years (nearly) down the line and we visit a local beauty spot (within a couple of miles of us) for the first time (well – first time for me anyway).
To be fair I have visited this particular Shangri La before – from the water-side – and have even posted photos thereof to this very journal. It is also immediately adjacent to Butchart’s Gardens, the which is a regular hunting ground, but this was my first time exploring the approach from the east – along Tod Creek.
Any-which-way… here be ‘phurthur’ photographs!
‘Aging’ has been bad ever since we figured out it led to dying.
Erin McKean
Yup – growing old is no fun at all… as the saying goes.
Actually – it doesn’t, since if you sell your soul to Google in (pretty poor) exchange for some gobbets of insight all you will find on the subject are remorselessly positive platitudes… as though the ‘quoterati’ run scared of being seen to be ageing anything other than gracefully and with an abundance of hard-earned wisdom – rather than having the tough time of it that some of them undoubtedly are…
…but I really mustn’t sound bitter – because I am not. I am in fact surfing the age-wave like a… like a… surfer ‘dude’!
Hmmm! That didn’t turn out so well, did it?
Anyway – ageing does actually have much to recommend it and I am not complaining… except for the physical aspects. There is sadly no denying that – whatever one does – as the body ages bits of it work less well than once they did.
This is currently foremost in my mind because I have just restarted the fitness class that I have been attending pretty much ever since we came to Canada some four and a half years ago. The class is very popular and I could not get a place for the December or January sessions. What with the Christmas celebrations falling in the interim it has been a while since I put the old ‘bod’ under this degree of stress… and it shows. I have – if I am being honest – never much enjoyed the business of exercise itself – not being one of those odd folk that relishes pain – but I do like the feeling of being reasonably fit. It will take a good few weeks to get back to that point.
There is no avoiding the fact that my body now has a few weaknesses. My right knee starts to complain under repeated stress; my doctor thinking that arthritis is the most likely cause. My right shoulder gives up earlier than my left when working with weights; I know from previous explorations that the shoulder joint does have some bone impingement, which doesn’t help.
I am fortunate in that my hands are not too bad. In the winter I do wake up to find them uncomfortably stiff and it takes a while for things to loosen up, but I guess that just comes with age. I need to be able to continue playing both bass and keyboards for as long as possible, so I am keeping my fingers (ever so slightly painfully) crossed.
No grumbles though. This is just the way the cookie crumbles as one maneuvers oneself into the second half of one’s seventh decade.
There are many far worse off than am I – and I am most grateful not to be in their shoes.
I find myself taken aback by just how upset I am at the point of the UK leaving the EU.
I am not going to say anything more (just now) as to the rights/wrongs/inadvisability/sheer stupidity of this particular turn of events – feeling it appropriate to let things take their course for now and to try to keep just the tiniest bit of an open mind as to the likelihood of the current administration actually managing to make a decent fist of things… or at least to not cock things up so badly as to render them un-fixable. I must admit, however, that on their track record thus far the portents are not propitious.
I am quite capable of keeping my sadness and gloom to myself and not burdening others with them and I reluctantly accept that a certain amount of triumphalism by those who are never going to know better is inevitable. There are some things that are, however, simply unacceptable – and this is one of them:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/norwich-anti-racism-protest-brexit-day-poster
I cannot begin to get my mind around the sort of thinking that would persuade a fellow member of my nation that it was in any way at all acceptable to even entertain such thoughts, let alone to try to advertise them to or to force them upon other human beings. The sort of crude exceptionalism that this represents can sadly be once again found in other parts of the western world and all such examples carry most regrettable resonances of a regime from darker and more dangerous times.
So – in the interests of keeping the tone appropriately light – I leave the gentle reader with an extract from J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter and Wendy‘. The current UK Prime Minister in particular should have good reason for bearing its relevance in mind.
“But above all he retained the passion for good form.
Good form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this is all that really matters.
From far within him he heard a creaking as of rusty portals, and through them came a stern tap-tap-tap, like hammering in the night when one cannot sleep. ‘Have you been good form to-day?’ was their eternal question.
‘Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine,’ he cried.
‘Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything?’ the tap-tap from his school replied.
‘I am the only man whom Barbecue feared,’ he urged; ‘and Flint himself feared Barbecue.’
‘Barbecue, Flint—what house?’ came the cutting retort.
Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?”
.
.
.
“If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him so? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself: ‘Good form?’
Had the bo’sun good form without knowing it, which is the best form of all?
He remembered that you have to prove you don’t know you have it before you are eligible for Pop.”
Tags: Loss, Politics, United Kingdom
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