Tag Archives: family

A Wee at Three

My little dog had too big a drink of water before he went to bed as he woke up at 3.00am in the morning wanting to be let out.

Dutifully my partner in crime got up and put his jacket over his pyjamas and tried to put the harness and lead on the dog, who never stays still when you are trying to put these things on.

I got up to see them go out and they disappeared out the front door. It was ghostly quiet and there was frost on the ground. The LED street lights gave the street a strange glow and there were some lights on in the house opposite us.

I went into the the kitchen for a glass of water and as I came back out.

I heard the most horrible barking. I knew it was my dog and in the silence of the night it was awful.

I opened up the front curtains, I could see nothing, the barking had stopped and then it started again . I couldn’t see anything.

It stopped again and I thought was it two dogs, did they give each other a fright?

All I could do was wait to see when they got back what had happened.

They were at least ten minutes, which seemed like an eternity, but eventually I heard the click of the back door key.

They were back .

My little dog came running towards me and my partner was laughing.

“What happened ?” I asked him.

“He was in the middle of his wee and a fox ran by him at speed being chased by a cat, the fox nearly ran into him , the fox was inches away.

The fox and the cat disappeared down the alleyway ; but of course muggins here had to do a “pawtrol” and follow them slowly. They had long gone.”

My little dog was all hyped up after his experience and took a while to settle down, but eventually we all went back to bed and settled down in the warmth again.

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#HeadlineTherapy Rudolph reindeer Christmas drone show at Ardingly labelled “disaster” and “shambles”

Thank you to ITV News for the Headline

Sad to say we have moved on from mud ridden Santa’s Grottos and overly thin reindeers needing a good worming treatment wandering around waiting to be petted with no hand washing facilities and the risk of e-coli infections ever present.

Ah yes, Commercial Christmas’s answer to making a quick buck has moved on. We now have what could be , if well orchestrated a wonderful show that would make everyone’s eyes light up in the glow of LED’s . Ginormous reindeers filling the sky with red noses , followed by Giant Snowman floating across the stratosphere and a soundtrack bellowing out the story to bring it all together. How wondrous, what could go wrong in a field in Sussex?

Well quite a lot actually, basically a lot of the drones failed to work, so the light display looked like few LED’s randomly moving through the sky; the display was like nothing really ;and so detached from the deep masculine voice generating the obviously digitised soundtrack, as to make no sense at all to the parents , never mind the poor freezing children standing in the mud and wondering why they hadn’t stayed at home and watched “Frozen” on their bedroom television.

Guilt ridden parents headed for the food outlets , only to find that they were vastly over priced and of inferior quality to what they could make at home.

Anyway by that time the children were demonstrating their lack of faith in their parents choices and screaming to go home.

Even the promised visit to Santa at his Grotto was a disappointment. Santa didn’t seem very enthusiastic to be associated with this bunch of amateurs and actually seemed quite curt. The presents he gave out, for the £20 cost of the ticket , were left unopened and given to their mothers to carry. Santa had said it couldn’t be opened until Christmas Day.

Understandably the parents were suspicious and sneakily checked what it was, a £5 bit of cheap plastic in the guise of a tractor, made in China .It would be best thrown out as the paint(probably lead) was peeling off and those bolts were a choking hazard. The parents thought about which rubbish bin it would go in, plastics or metals and if disposing of lead paint was allowed. Perhaps they would have to ring the Council.

The promised Christmas Market had been cancelled and for that the Parents were incredibly grateful, but the children kicked off as they had been given “pennies” to spend by their Grandparents and there was nowhere to spend them and they were never doing this again and what a waste of time it was. The Parents had to agree, but were very hurt when they said that “Johnny and Maggie’s parents had taken them on a trip to Lapland to see the real Santa, ride on a horse and play in the snow”. Thanks Mum and Dad.

And so everyone went home and hoped they could claim a refund for the” Christmas Disaster.” The older children retreated to their bedrooms, and the younger ones did the usual of getting their nappies changed or sitting on their potties and once ready for bed having a story read to them. Tomorrow the baby would have a slight cough which would turn into a full blown cold which would last a week and would make preparing for Christmas relatives “difficult”. The thought of chasing a refund for the “Disaster ” was paling into insignificance.

Such is the expectations and disappointments of Christmas. Still it is the make or break time for “Seasonal Business”, don’t worry it will soon be January.

Namaste and Thank You for reading. 🙏

NB If you haven’t guessed already I use the images generated by AI, and I must admit this one is a little bit scary , but obviously a poorly lit drone show is not yet in AI’s digital memory bank.

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#HeadlineTherapy “How a Diwali cracker device in India went from social media craze to blinding children.

Thanks to BBC Online News for the inspiration from their slightly modified Headline.

Here we are, so close to the 5th of November so this Headline about the danger of handmade fireworks is very poignant. There is however a much bigger picture and that is about caring about the Health and Safety of people in populous countries like India and also the ever present danger of using cheap labour , in this instance Child Labour.

The story is about a young 14 year old boy who has suffered serious eye injuries from a home made, rudimentary device . Unfortunately during the Diwali celebrations the young lad was injured as the device did not go off as expected. He is waiting to hear how much his eyesight has been damaged.

He is worried as his parents depend on the income he brings into the household from his job repairing televisions. The young man sounds a budding electronic engineer, but he no longer goes to school and the Law now in India states that as long as the work is non-hazardous, he can work and does not need to attend school.

I wonder if the Law was the same in the UK , how many 14 year olds would elect to do non-hazardous jobs. Our Health and Safety Laws would definitely say that doing any form of work is potentially hazardous. Some would say it is overkill. I do hope that we never arrive at a position that 14 year olds are allowed to work, no matter what the Law says.

Meanwhile, like any 14 year old he wanted to have some fun and was out and about enjoying Diwali. I hope he recovers and I hope he gets a chance to learn as a young 14 year old should. Sounds as if he could be very good at Electronics.

AI Generated Image of young boy from India repairing Television

Headlines or articles aren’t always read as the writer intended. On this particular ocassion I have used device as it was more appropriate to do so . What I was left thinking about from this headline was just hoping the boy’s eyesight would recover and also that he got a chance to learn. I wasn’t interested in the actual device itself or the descriptions of how to make it or why it was impressive or dangerous. Yes it may be a Social Media Craze, but given the dangers it’s probably better not to disseminate it , again through any Media. No I don’t not need to know the ingredients or how to make it and I hope no silly idiots start throwing them around on the 5th November.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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