Waiting In

Waiting IN ©

By

Michael Casey

We all wait in for workmen or gas man to come and read the meter or whatever, and one thing can be certain, they never but never turn up on time. Waiting for a parcel or a home purchase delivery can also mean waiting forever.

You wait and you wait, you will the man to arrive, you hope and you hope that it will arrive, you may even pray, the first time in years. Dear God make the DHL, the UPS or the Royal Mail man arrive, I really am looking forward to enjoying my latest lump of plastic gismo which will make my life worthwhile. How I lived without it I’ll never know, I’m holding in my pee so I don’t have to go, I don’t want to miss the delivery man again. Once I was in the bathroom and I missed him and then it was 3 more days before I got my stuff.

This week we had a deliveryman convention, the van stopped and my wife was so happy jumping for joy, only it wasn’t for us it was for a neighbour. A huge big thing, the delivery man was just wanting to offload it, any house would do, so long as he gets a scribble on the form or the  new electronic machine they all now use. So reluctantly my wife was palmed off with somebody else’s rubbish and not her own.

My wife was waiting for a Sat Nav, she’d looked everywhere online, and they were sold out, Tom Tom had gone gone gone. So finally she found Best Buy and they were the only place with stock and 10quid less than anywhere else, and a  10quid voucher too. So she was using tom toms to tell the world where to shop. As for me I spotted a Clarks online sale, so while she waited for a Tom Tom I was waiting for a pair of ½ price G fitting size 10 shoes. We were taking bets on whose stuff would arrive first.

I won the bet and danced around the living room with my ever so light and comfy shoes. My wife just heckled from a settee. I told her that the Sat Nav was delayed because the courier could not find our house.  The next day, very late in the afternoon her treasure arrived, she had her Tom Tom, and why is Tom Tom called Tom Tom, did the inventor have a stutter, or was the product so good it was named twice the same as New York New York.

I was given a 2 hour lecture or is it a joyful nag on the joys of Sat Navs, our kids thought it was a good toy too, it even talks to you, turn left, turn right. Almost as good as a mother-in-law in the back of a car.

I decided to take refuge in another room and wait for another pair of shoes. I hadn’t ordered any more, I was just making an excuse to avoid the wife’s advertising for Tom Tom.  My waiting in was really waiting for her joy to end. I did ask her though could the Tom Tom give a route to Ma in Shanghai. 

Move On

Move On

By michaelgcasey

Move On. That’s what we need to do. The economy is crawling forward like an 80year old man, and what are we doing. We had a two week holiday, yes Hacking needs to be sorted, but while that has been going on nobody has been minding the store, nobody has been steering the ship, nobody has watched the kettle boiling dry.

WE do need to sell stuff, GB needs to sell stuff, we need to do busines, we need goodwill ambassadors, we need salesmen to sell GB. Tonight on TV we watched John Sargent enjoy time with tourists, tourism is a big big thing, we need to sell GB, make them come and when they come make them spend. We also need our salesmen to sell icecream to Eskimos, we need to sell sand to the Arabs, and to sell rice to the Chinese. We do have so much to sell, we are a Nation Of Shopkeepers as Napoleon said before he got a kicking. WE should have pride in ourselves and GB, what we should not be doing is to stop dead in the water because of all the Hacking, yes it was wrong and evil.

But now is the time to set things right, now is the time not for fear and flight, now the darkness of the night is over, now is the time to dance in the light, the morning light is here and all things are now clear. We have to begin again and sing again, we have to whistle while we work, we have to realise what we are worth. We are Great Britain, all people great and small, all of us have to stand tall and remember we can do it, we can do it. Motivate ourselves, have pride again, stride again, back to work. Its time to move on, its the future that matters, we have to move on.

Sherlock plays Badminton

Sherlock plays Badminton

By michaelgcasey

Well the school  hols are upon us, our kids break up tomorrow, I broke up myself 2 weeks ago.  So on the way back home we decided to get a bit of treasure. You see I missed the chance to get a badminton set for my girls, they had a gret set in Aldi for a tenner, I mentioned it to the girls but it was gone when we went to find it. So they were sad about that, but I was happy as I found a cheap pair of sunglasses only 2 quid, brown and spotty.

So today on the way home I suggested we try another shop, and my  smallest with a hawk’s eyes found a badminton set for 4quid, it had 2 rackets and 2 shuttlecocks.  So we  were all happy, I treated myself to cream soda, do any of you remember the taste from childhood? Or adulthood in my case. So for a couple of hours my girls were teaching themselves to play. The 2 shuttlecocks went over our neighbours fence several times. I improvised by scrunching up some paper. We have a tone of paper in our house, so no need to wait for our neighbour to return the shuttlecocks, paper will do.  I showed them how to bounce the shuttlecock 6 or 7 times on the mesh, then with that practice done then it should help them play.

My wife returned from helping her friend get her lost property back,  a large suitcase that her friend uses as a shopping trolley, only she left it on the bus. So when my wife returned she wanted to play badminton, and yes she was good and quick. She is good at ping pong, her Chinese genes helping no doubt, it turns out she’s good at badminton too. So I’m hoping our girls will have some of those good genes too. So the Summer will be full of badminton, even if we use paper shuttlecocks, I am google where I can get some cheap shuttlecocks, I like the idea of multicoloured shuttlecocks, and 4quid on Amazon is the best result so far.

I nearly forgot Sherlock was on tv again and I really loved it, the repeat was even more fun that the original. So with that I’ll say goognight, but DO buy some badminton kids for your kids, the silence will be golden.

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7 year's old Prom

7 year's old Prom©

 By 

Michael Casey

Well tonight was the 7year olds Prom. Year2 in modern parlance.

My small daughter put on her party dress with a borrowed bit of glitter and play makeup.

Our ten year old put on her own party dress and walked her smaller sister to the ballroom door, really it’s the school hall where the infants  have their school dinners. Our small daughter had 2 hours of music and dancing, interrupted by fish and chips.

Me and my big daughter played on the computer for a bit before watching Stardust, we’d recorded it on Sky+ the night before. Then when it was time to collect her little sister, we climbed up the hill to the infants school, only 3 more days and she’ll be an infant no more. In September the small daughter will cross the main road and join her big sister’s school, the juniors.  They’ll be together for one year, then the big sister will be off to grammar school we hope.

Proms weren’t invented when I was at school 40 years ago. It was too working class then, black and white tv and 2 channels, that’s what we had and no Proms. Its an American import, just as Halloween is. The question is though, do the kids enjoy them? Yes, is the answer. Here are the photos to prove it, on www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com  So I’ll let the pictures be my 1000 words. Happy Proms everybody at this time of year. 

A Quiet Night In

A Quiet Night In  © 

By

Michael Casey

A quiet night in, now that’ what we all need from time to time. The wife and the girls are at Nancy’s Mum’s, Nancy’s mum does have a name but my wife knows I couldn’t possibly pronounce the Chinese, so remains Nancy’s mum. While they are there the girls will go to an upper room and do some painting with Nancy, Nancy is 17 and an A* everything, with the help of God and 2 policemen she’ll go to Oxford.

In the lower room is a Jesus evening, everybody gets fed by Nancy’s mum then there are Bible readings and “Sharing” where the friends talk about Jesus at work in their lives. Me I’m here, listening to Genesis and Genesis are singing “Jesus he knows Me.” I’m a Catholic from the nipple, with added an added inheritance of my mother’s faith when she died. Doesn’t make me special, just makes me me. “Can you hear Me, Can you see” sing Genesis, it all seems on cue, but that’s how my writing comes out. A mixture of luck and hard work and a pinch of salt or angel dust, then I’ve got a piece to put on my blog www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and in MyTelegraph.co.uk were I am the dunce in the class.

Back to my girls, they are no doubt painting with Nancy and she is good enough to sell her paintings at a car boot sale or wherever is the place they should be sold. They are picking up some great tips, I want them to experience as many things as possible, then they may find things they can keep with them throughout their lives. My wife has no doubt had a good old gossip and is now boasting how God had helped us this week. Other families are sharing their experiences too. I did travel to Nancy’s mum’s a few weeks ago, just to show my face, but their path is not my path. So while they pray I’ve been trying to find some way of getting somebody, anybody to go to Amazon Kindle and sample my 4 wares on sale. Traffic is the word they use nowadays, if only I were a corrupt journalist, or a hacker then I’d make a few bob, or is it just a prison sentence. There would be a full stop to my works.

I have found a few folks via Linkedin and Facebook but are they interested in a fat Charles Dickens, with 1000th of the ability of good old Charlie. Strange things do happen on the Internet, if only I were allowed to blog for a Sunday newspaper, then I’d have a profile, though my profile at the moment is more like Falstaff, full of sack and a hapworth of bread, you’ll have to find my photo and judge for yourselves, well I do hope more than 1 person IS reading this.

I did have time to look at www.rightmove.co.uk and dream of where I’d like to live IF I made it as a writer. I have only moved a mile and a half from where I was born and IF I had money I’d only move a mile and a half more. Near the woods for me and Subway the dog is my dream, though my daughters would rather have a gerbil. It is so quiet here while they are praying and painting, that does give me a picture of God as Banksy, would God use lightning bolts and rainbows to leave his art?

Well its after 10pm now so I’ll love you and leave you, Genesis are still playing on the computer, “Dreaming in my sleep”  they sing, which we all will be soon. So off to beddie bybys as my mother used to say.

Daddy. I want to be a Hairdresser

Sampling Pop

Sampling Pop © 

By

Michael Casey

The thing about children is that they like POP, yes POP with a capital P. I have to say or even admit that POP is part of my life too. Yes I did talk about booze a day or two ago, but today I’ll talk about pop.

I’ve just rushed back from Aldi so I can rush out again to pick the kids up, school run ends next week. So today I’ve picked up a pack of snacks for them, as well as bananas and grapes. I’ve got  4 litres of apple juice too, and some more milk for my coffee and cereals, though I never mix coffee with my cereals. So that’s an ordinary shopping basket, though I can remember my own mum with leather shopping  bags before plastic bags were invented, and then condemned decades later. 

Where was I? Forgive me my small daughter has just feeding me small seedless grapes, I’m sure all daughters do it. Anyway today the big decision was should I try Pink Lemonade, it looked very strange, very pink. So I bought one, only 40p for 2 litres, an Aldi bargain. I tried a bit but it tasted strange, I waited for it to get cold in the fridge, only it had a strange taste when I tried it, then my big daughter sampled it, her verdict, too fizzy.

We’ll wait an hour for it to  get really cold then we’ll try it again, you have  to be like a scientist when you sample pop. If you don’t believe me just go ask your kids, and I mean those under 11; children over 11 are too sophisticated they are Dr Pepper drinkers after all. Once correct temperature  is reached then the sampling can begin, and don’t forget the straws. And if you drink alcohol make sure you hide it while sampling pop, otherwise your kids may sample that instead.

A few packs of crisps should also be available, this clears the children’s pallet while sampling Pink Lemonade, then when all done a bowl of freshly diced fruit. I can hear the wife chopping and dicing behind me, her knife skills are quite something, I think she used to be in a circus or something, though to be honest I don’t labour the point.

So that’s it for today, another look inside the Chinese/Irish Adam’s family, I’m heading for the fridge now, Mr Pink is waiting for me.

the 3 girls in my life