Happy Days

Fuad and I went to Friday Prayers at the big mosque in Alor Gajah today. On the way there we were talking about our general good luck in being able to enjoy our Friday here and, indeed, life in general - always helpful thoughts to have ahead of prayers. Indeed, I'd just enjoyed the annual exchange of cards with Noi marking the single best thing I've ever done in my life. Quite overwhelming in its way to consider all that has stemmed from that act, though that doesn't seem like the right word for something that seemed so natural and inevitable.

Back On The Road

Now making semi-frantic preparations for our journey north. We're staying over at Alor Gajah for a couple of days, then it's onwards to Maison KL for house repairs. I'm hoping for some rest and recuperation, but also suspecting that the next three weeks will turn out busy, busy, busy. Much like the last three weeks. So not much change there, despite the new location(s).

Expectations

Why do we expect people to behave in a sensible manner when we know it's an entirely unreasonable assumption that they will do so? Hope springs eternal, I suppose, but it's always likely to be disappointed. On the other hand, if we assume the worst and things turn out to be not quite so bad as they might well have been, then life seems distinctly sunnier.

With that in mind, I have decided to maintain low expectations for the foreseeable future.

Learning Something

I acquired a certificate in First Aid today. This is related to the on-line course I was moaning about not being able to access last Thursday. Eventually I was able to get in and do the necessary, and today I cleared the practical stuff in 'real life', like bandaging and using an AED. Unexpectedly I turned out to be a dab hand at CPR, getting it right the first time as if born to the manner. Since I'm normally more than a touch cack-handed when it comes to practical stuff that was quite a relief.

So the world is a very little bit safer than of old now I know a bit about what to do in a crisis. Mind you, it is definitely just a bit - and somewhat late in life for the knowledge, if you ask me, though I've never actually faced an out and out crisis in which I was left on my own. Luck, I suppose.

Something Fresh

Got going on a reread of Frank Herbert's Dune today. It's been some five decades since I got involved in Herbert's world building and it strikes me as just as fresh and imaginatively compelling. Fortunately I've pretty much forgotten every aspect of the plot so that helps considerably on the freshness front.

Maybe this time I'll delve further into the series. Not sure why it didn't occur to me to do so way back when. Probably a lack of time - a perennial problem. Though Herbert certainly carved out time somehow for all his imaginings.

Not sure how writers do this. Though the fact that I have no real imagination at all makes it a moot point in my case.

And Found Again

All day I've been trying to restrain myself from crowing over United's astonishing FA Cup victory over the noisy neighbours. But then I thought there was little point in not thoroughly enjoying this one glorious moment to relish after a miserable season. This time last year I honestly thought our name would be on the trophy. And this year I was close to certain it wouldn't be. But what do I (and pretty much the whole of the rest of the football world) know, eh?

Hah!!! 😁😁😁

Lost And Found

First day of the June vacation (ironically in May) and I've been doubly ironically busy. (And will continue to be so for quite a few days. Just saying.) But broke things up with a visit to my back doc this morning and a cuppa afterwards with the The Missus. The doc reckons my muscles are on the stiff side and I know he's right because that's exactly how they feel. Being hunched over getting stuff done doesn't help - but enough of this moaning.

Which is what I said to myself roughly half an hour ago when it struck me as a good idea to search out RVW's Concerto for Bass Tuba. It's been years since I listened to it, having once possessed a very fine recording by Andre Previn with the LSO and a fabulous soloist, John Fletcher. I sort of half-remembered it as a very fine piece and, playing it again just now, having found the same recording on YouTube, I realised that I'd underestimated just how very, very fine indeed it is.

The day has taken on an entirely fresh complexion. Helped also by a tasty chunk of Noi's patented shepherd's pie. But I must say the tuba concerto would have done the job on its own.

Drifting

Sometimes it's good to become unmoored. Three times today I drifted away into a friendly nowhere, nomatter, noworry space, only to come back down to earth abruptly. The few minutes of escape felt necessary.

And now I'm hoping to spend a few hours there before anchoring myself to the necessity of the time and space I'm forced to occupy to get things done. 

Getting Going

Recovered enough to get myself to work. Got some stuff done, but not as much as I would have liked, especially having been shut out of an on-line course I'm supposed to access. I seem to recall once being told (around the last decade of the previous century) that what was then new technology would make my life easier. Odd that it didn't exactly work out that way.

Still Flat

Have been feeling less than tickety-boo all day. Took a good hour and a half to shake off the grogginess once I emerged from my bed and since then I've been either marking scripts at the table or lying on the floor, recovering from the trauma of the marking. Well, at least I got something done.

Now about to prepare for a tomorrow I hope doesn't arrive too soon.