Dancing with Dustbins from a few years ago

Dancing with Dustbins©   from a few years ago

By

Michael Casey

I was taking our smallest to school the other day, a Wednesday which is our bin day. In the old days as my daughter calls them, nailing me into my coffin already, in the old days when I was her age we really did have bins. We had dustbins made of steel, they were heavy old things. The dustmen used to come up the entry and grab the bins and carry them away up the entry, then when they got to the dustcart they’d hurl the contents inside then return quickly, I can remember the crashing sounds as the lids came off the dustbins were moved about. The cart itself was a curved shape with sliding doors coming down to keep the smell in, there was no such thing as a compacter back in the 1960s. Progress was plastic bins replacing steel ones.

Moving away from Birmingham, just over the border so to speak, I had to buy plastic sacks for the dustbin which you have to buy yourself. The water tasted different too, culture shock so to speak, different water and put out your own bins. Where we live we have foxes too, so it was  a Nature Programme at night, you could see and hear the foxes raid the plastic sacks for food. Our dustbins were their fridges so to speak, an all you could eat buffet for foxes, and cats too.

Time moves on so now we all have wheelie bins, they are visual litter as some folks leave them in their front garden, it’s such a depressing sight, wheelie bins galore, save the planet and destroy the visuals. You have 3 wheelie bins, rubbish, recycle, and garden waste, not forgetting 2 smaller containers you get for food waste. God help us, bring back Garde de L’eau. 

When its dustbin day it’s like a swat team or an old fashioned gunfight at the OK Coral, the lads appear, the recycling dustcart moves slowly and menacingly along the streets, bin men to the front and bin men to the rear. One goes ahead and swings the wheelie bins into order so they can be trotted out and executed, or should I say lifted up and emptied before being swung back on the pavement. The lads are very fit, the way one lad moved the bins about convinced me he should be on Strictly Come Dancing, effortlessly he grabs and swings, swings and grabs. 

The fluidity of his movements is the key, I spent 3 years in a hotel, I know what he knows, you have to swing it,  otherwise things are as heavy as they are, but with a swing things are lighter. Just picture the scene dustbins changing into dancing girls, dancing with dustbins, dancing with dustmen, ballet dancers falling down like leaves around the compacter. I was positively vetted by a ballet dancer myself but that’s another story……

Music is God's Mood Music

Music is God’s Mood Music ©

By

Michael Casey

I was wondering what to write today, I had a 2^nd pain night in a row and this morning I had to go and have a fasting blood test. So my belly wasn’t happy, so I got the early bus to the doctors. Then as the sun was shining I thought I’d walk back, and do a bit of shopping on the way home before breaking my fast at breakfast. This is normal the world over, but for me my body says, GOTCHA, when I get home and then my shoulder decides to get in on the act. But at least my scan for my shoulder pain, arthritis hurts the most in that location, arrived from the hospital. I bore you with this information but its the price you pay for the stories.

Now to today, I’ve been trying Spotify out with Mood Music, my small daughter said I should follow her so I’ve picked up on a few of her tracks. I’ve been listening to Voilin stuff and its good, but now after an hour it begins to feel like a funeral so pardon me a moment while I switch back to Abba’s The Visitors. You can put Abba on while you read the rest of this and so you can feel what was in the air as I talk to you, but not too loud as I don’t want to shout over bell-bottomed trousered boys and girls.

Mood really is influenced by Music. I must dance to the kitchen for a bun, so you dance to Abba’s The Visitors on Spotify, while I try not to trip over Totoro our as I reach for the bread bin. Well the French croissants were very good, I also had a cup of tea too, you lot looked so happy Head over Heels with Abba so I left you too it. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi are Dad Dancing in the corner, they are a bit tired they were babysitting all night. Babysitting a Still, they are making Poteen in Warley Woods up the road. But stranger things have happened there, as Patrick and June can blush about. Or in the War American troops hid there, a local road was made bigger so tanks could come through.

Where was I, yes, drinking my tea, the phone rang too, it was the Witch with some news, it put me off my stride. See The Dark Night has Come Down on Us sings Gerry Rafferty, I had to change the music, I needed to change my mood, the arthritis is coming out to play right now. So let me continue with a different backing music. Yes if the music is too vibrant I may just do dad dancing with Lech, Boris and Gregorgi so I have to watch what I listen too. JM Jarre is very good for mood music in a story I have in my head, the chase and rescue sequence at the end of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker if ever I can sell it to a film person. However when I’m talking to you all, I prefer company while I write these talks, this goes back to 1974 when I was all alone in the homework room and Music was my company.

So as we all know Music does effect us, and we all have a favourite song, mine is Windmills of Your Mind from the Thomas Crown Affair, the one with Steve McQueen, no doubt you are not surprised, as I am forever tilting at windmills. I was in fact called Sancho Panza, the fat servant of Don Quixote by our priest, as I followed my tall brother around everywhere. The priest is now Bishop Brain, and I am still fat, but I do speak a bit of Spanish, and I am now a writer. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi are laughing now, I don’t know if its because of what I said, or maybe they just love Cervantes.

Music does augment our moods, just as a little wine relaxes us, or chocolate if you are a girl, girls prefer Cadburys to men, so if you are on a first date always bring chocolate, this is the key to Romance. Barry White is big, of course he is but his music does things that only Barry White can do. Now you can pick your own music, some of you may be Bee Gees fans, whatever gets you and your Lady in the mood. Some people prefer heavy metal, some love the drum beat, a friend of my daughter’s is in fact a drummer. So music leads to love.

Other music is favoured for studying, calming mood music perhaps, ambient music, music without words. So you are not lonely as I was back in 1974, as you do your last year before exams. As you pace the study room, our old middle room, and pluck your eyebrows as you learn French vocabulary. Music is a rhythm it’s like our mum’s heartbeat that we hear in the dark of the womb, it reassures, it give us confidence. We are not all alone in the dark.  

God was lonely that’s why he created us, he’ll tell you this in due course. So after he created us he was amused that we created Music, by beating the arm bone on the skull of dinner. While somebody watched, who later became a writer, but first a cave painter. And on it goes we create more music because it gives us a Buzz and makes us feel High, and closer to God, or maybe that was just the Far Out Hippies in the 60s. Music does heighten our senses, and if the Black Watch are approaching with the Piper playing it does put the Fear of God into the enemy.

So how does God feel about all this, he just wishes we’d just talk, Music is great, He has the greatest hifi in the universe after all, and he has Angels singing. All kinds of everything fill Heaven, Shona Choirs are a particular favourite of his, as is Mozart, Sinatra is there too. You could not possibly imagine the range of Music that is in High Heaven. And yes they are high because everybody is there, free of want and pain. They have taken the elevator to heaven, without the boring elevator music. Imagine all your best bands and styles of music, but maybe not Harry Styles, yet.

And what music does God prefer the most? It’s very simple really, its like a stream of life, it’s like fresh water itself. God loves the sound of laughter, that’s the most beautiful music in eternity.  

Readers today 16th April 2018 I'll write something new later see map

You are always better than yourself (2011)

You are always better than yourself, because you have the love that made you, so that’s 3 to start with, then there is the love that you gain as you create friendships, and find a partner too, so you are never alone, you are forever growing, add Faith too, so we are all Eternal. 

Michael Casey

*****

I'm pottering about before bedtime and I just found this from Dec 2011, so as France is looking right now Allo a tout la monde, vous pouvez visiter Birmingham aussi, moi je parle la Francais comme une vache parle Espagne.

et Macron fait la vaisselle avant de dormir.

its easier to speak than write...

  allo notres amis a Yvettot la Normandie

Welcome to Birmingham from USA to Russia and everybody else too

Hello world, I have not been feeling too hot today so I've not written anything new today

though there is loads on my sites + here

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC 

https://michaelgcaseyfrombirminghamengland.wordpress.com 

I spotted Russia tonight had passed by my  site.

So just in case its Putin, you could come and visit Birmingham

Kim from North Korea is welcome to visit too.

Just leave your guns in the freezer, I believe in Prohibition Time guns were left in the cooler.

You can ask Obama, he could come to Birmingham and earn his Nobel Prize too

A fool as a Peacemaker, me not him, then I inherit the Earth.

I'd settle for a house, a car and a puppy dog and a few quid too.

That's enough, though an end to pain is worth more than anything. 

Though while you are all visiting you could buy my house from me....

Stay Happy world, an if you hear any noises in the night, its just Lech, Boris and Gregorgi  they 

have  an all night still working in the woods, say no more...

Am I a girl (2012)

Am I a Girl? (2012)

By

Michael Casey

Am I a girl? I just bought some hand cream from Superdrug. I have cracked skin and its almost bleeding, eczema perhaps. The 3 girls in my house use lotions and potions on hands and faces, they said I should get some, I'd not bothered for years so finally I bought some. There's so much choice, I nearly bought baby oil stuff, finally I spotted  a product that boasted to work fast and was clinically proven and best of all was it was only 3quid for 400ml. It does smell a bit like woodwork glue. 

So I can call myself a carpenter and not a girl?

pain monster

well its 2am the pain monster is back so I had to get up , when i'm so tired i fall over i'll go back to bed then i'll sleep through the pain.

i'll delete this in am

but this is the other side of the coin of my life.

i get to spend lots of time with my kids these past years

i do loads of writing

but pain shadows me