Thursday 23 May 2013

Segments

Sunny and warm this morning, so no ditto.
Having spent recent weeks getting increasingly frustrated at our lack of progress with Tardis Two and our travels I have decided life is divided into distinct segments. Long term plans do not or cannot be made or expected to reach fruition as events inevitably overtake them. For instance, Richard Branson (Virgin) started as an unconventional  record label owner and fulfilled his plan of being the best at it. I have no doubt at that time he even dreamed of owning an airline, a Telecommunications company or a Bank, each being a follow-on project/challenge from the previous one. My eldest son at a very early age planned to be a top footballer for Liverpool FC and a formula one racing driver. When I pointed out each was a separate full-time sport   his logical reply was along the lines of football being played on Saturdays and grand-prix races taking place on Sundays. He now sells computers. I stupidly decided to leave school at the first opportunity following the death of my mother, determined to become fully independent and no longer a financial drag on my father, who immediately found me a job as assistant gardener at a nearby management college, In earlier life if someone had suggested I would become a gardener they would have been dismissed as idiots. My ambition at the time was to become a journalist. However, in the event I decided to make a career as a horticulturist (posh word for a gardener), attending two colleges successfully, catching up with missed school qualifications in addition to horticultural certificates. I became a very young Head Gardener of a hospital group in London before moving on to Parks Superintendent posts in local government. By sheer chance Maggie Thatcher decided to privatise parts of local government but allow in-house competition to make councils "more efficient and cost effective".In short, a local government revolution. Parks staff were given the opportunity of forming a Direct Labour Organisation (DLO), run on commercial lines and bidding for contracts against commercial firms. This frightened the life out of the average local government employee who had limited ambitions of a job for life, no hassle and a well funded retirement. So, form a DLO I did, firstly in Lewisham and then,later, in Southwark. Both were successful.On the basis of this success I was offered the opportunity to form, bid for contracts and, if successful , run a council estates cleaning DLO and subsequently a refuse collection/recycling DLO. Almost overnight I morphed from a gardener to a glorified cleaner and dustman.
Planned or what?
The next short term plan was to retire and undertake self-employed garden maintenance work in our local area, prior to our current adventure. Recent unexpected events with Tardis Two and my health have ruined our plans to immediately disappear into the sunset so again only short-term plans can be made. Having thought through the above points I'm not going to work myself into a lather over it all, but take it as it comes, whatever.
UPDATE : Ditto.
I spent yesterday replacing a rickety old garden fence with a recycled slightly less rickety one. It looks good and now has a couple of clematis ready to further enhance its' beauty. Today will be spent ferrying the old fence remains to the local dump when and if it ever stops raining. Happy days.

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