by
Frank Hatton

Have you ever tried to put up ceiling paper? I mean, actually lay the paper out on a paste table, smother it in paste, and attempt to cover an overhead area of ceiling with it? I suppose in thinking about the problem in retrospect, if I were allowed to stick the paper up in 6" squares, then I feel fairly confident I could achieve a reasonable measure of success, but, the length of roll that my dear wife expected me to deal with was an enormous span of eleven feet. The whole thing started with my scoffing the assertion by my wife that putting up ceiling paper was an extremely difficult job. Now, while I will agree that I had never actually aspired to undertake the operation before, I looked back on the many other brave attempts I have made on the uncharted waters of practical jobs, and with the modest degree of mastery over most of them, I felt that here was an art that was grossly overrated in its complexity, and in looking at the job purely in a theoretical light, I felt sure that I was more than capable of managing it. It would be very unfair of me to burden and bore you with the details of the difficulties I ran into, so, suffice it to say, that among the various snags I encountered, such as, putting my hand through the wet paper, and making massive great holes in it, also, being unable to maintain the edges of the seams in anything near like a straight line, and finally finishing up with the length of wet ceiling paper draped around my head and shoulders, simply because it refused to adhere to the ceiling in anyway shape or form.... I finally gave up in despair, and found I was using swear words that even I had not heard of before.

In fact, the whole exercise reminded me of a piece of advice that was given to me as a young man, when I first started out in business. The giver of this chunk of philosophy suggested that I look upon the advancement of my business career in the same light as climbing a tree. When you reach the branches that will be suspect in bearing your weight, then you should be able to recognise the fact, and stop climbing, otherwise, you are liable to come crashing down to the ground. In the same way, you should be able to realise your limitations in bearing responsibility and decision making, and not bite off more than you can comfortably chew. Now, whilst accepting that this has to carefully balanced with ambition, and confidence, it never the less stood me in very good stead over the years.

To further this thought, I feel sure, that like myself, many of you readers will agree that a great number of our so called world leaders would do well to try to act along these lines. They so often land their country, and their people in situations, and problems, that far outweigh their original intentions. In fact, I am reminded of another great piece of philosophy I read: "When you're up to your arse in alligators, it's very difficult to remember that your original intention was to drain the swamp."

Change of subject, .....just this morning, I was looking through my newspaper, when I came across this story of a bloke who was asked how he felt about death, and was he afraid of dying. He answered, "No, I have no fear,..... if I could go quietly and peacefully in my sleep, like my father,..... but, I would not like to go like those screaming yelling passengers he had."

With the advent of spring, and the merry month of May being upon us, and aside from the usual advantages of every piece of greenery bursting into bloom, plus a general air of well-being which pervades all and sundry, I am always pleased with the increase in the number of visitors to our humble abode at this time of year. Although our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson moved to our locality just before Christmas, we sadly did leave quite a few friends behind when we made our move some seven years ago, but, fortunately, they keep in touch and come to stay with us quite regularly. A couple of weeks back, we had an extra special surprise,.... my daughter telephoned one Thursday morning to ask if we were at home, and could she come over for a coffee. We of course said yes, we would love to see her, and put the coffee pot on,..... however, about ten minutes or so afterwards, a car drew up outside the door, and lo and behold, my son, his lady love, and her little girl stepped out. Now, my son lives in Amsterdam, Holland, Susanne, (his girlfriend) and little Innes live in Aachen in Germany..... They had decided, in collusion with my daughter, to come across to England and pay us a surprise visit for the weekend. I tell you folks, it truly was a lovely experience. Then just today, which is a couple of weeks on from that visit, we have been asked if we could look after my grandson, Jack (aged five), while his parents go out for a meal. We had a really wonderful day with him. We went down to our marina and fed the swans and ducks with bread, then on to the grounds of our 900 year old Priory to feed the squirrels with nuts, then back to our bungalow to feed Jack up on chicken nuggets and French fries, followed by ice cream and chocolate sauce. After which, he went into a nice hot bath, with water splashed all over the bathroom floor, and then to bed for a story, (by yours truly), containing Snow White, the wicked Queen, Peter Pan, and Superman. I tell you folks, he is a very demanding soul in his choice of bedtime stories. He is now fast asleep, so, I have brought a bottle of red wine down to my computor room/shed, and am contentedly letting you know what I meant by my earlier statement about 'happiness' being the bottom line on my balance sheet of life. I do appreciate that I have said this many times before, but, I say again, that with the amount of violence, cruelty, and general nastiness of life in general, we do need the happier aspects to be balanced against the 'Baddies' to keep a sense of perspective. Sooooo, having hopefully cheered you all up a little, I will now sign off

'til next time,
Frank Hatton

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