Dave's Daily Diary - Wednesday 30th March 2022

In 2020 at the start of lock down I began a diary which I called Escape From Armageddon. In 2021 I wrote a diary page every single day which I turned into a time capsule for people to be read in the year 2121. Now in 2022 I began with a daily diary which I called Life Is A Novel So Start Writing. By sharing my writing and what was happening around me I hoped to inspire other people to write but it was not really working. I am changing the style now to make it DAVID’S DAILY DIARY. Let’s try sharing the first page on Google (Failing) Blogger !

WEDNESDAY 30^th MARCH 2022

2.26am We live in a rubbish world where technology and the nasty people behind it every day seek to destroy individuality and turn us all into mindless zombies. We live in a world where politics daily vomits over its rotting society but before politicians puke their vile it is collected by the media with its twenty-four hour rolling news, collected in one giant bucket then thrown over us all to help speed the rot !

Have I caught your attention ? If I have ponder the above paragraph and decide if I am speaking the truth. If I am read on. If not then destroy this diary and burry yourself in the technological, political and media excrement it will produce today.

3.49am Having been ill all day yesterday and unable to sleep I got up at stupid o’clock and came to my laptop to write my photo diary entry for our visit to Canons Ashby National Trust on Monday. Having been attacked by the evil technology of Microsoft and its semi-intelligence refusing to properly format my photographs in the text I have just sworn violently at the screen and am going back to bed.

5.54am Doggie Jake wanted to get up for the toilet and to have his breakfast. I will finish my National Trust entry then sort some breakfast for myself.

Microsoft, wouldn’t that be a better name for a brand of toilet paper rather than a crappy computer operating system ? Microsoft, we deal with more crap every day than any other system.

Finishing my National Trust diary entry I have written 1,459 words and shared 16 photographs. I will go and get dressed now then share this on Google Blogger. Condemning technology Google Blogger is a perfect example. I first started using it in December 2016 when my entries never fell short of one hundred readers, sometimes the number exceeded one thousand. Sharing the beauty of Canons Ashby on my previous visit I achieved 18 views which for this now failing platform is above normal. I wonder how many hits this entry will achieve.

8.14am Breakfast done and finished. I have started writing a bit for the chapter IN SEARCH OF THE HOLY GRAIL within my whodunit book but am going to break off now and sort out today’s postings from my Amazon Bookshelf in the faint hope that I may sell something !

Promo e-books:

THE EVACUEE – published on 13^th August 2021 77p I have been a member of The National Trust for more than forty years. It is the parklands and gardens I like, not particularly the houses. When my son suggested I should visit Coleton Fishacre near Kingswear in Devon I had mixed feelings. I am a great fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, what I call giggle-opera so with the property’s connection to the D’Oyly Carte Family I visited in May 2021. I immediately fell in love with the place, not only the rather unusual gardens but also the warmth and friendliness of the home. Walking round the property I knew I would have to set a story there. Standing on the lawn in front of the house I came up with a title: THE EVACUEE. I had the title but I did not have the plot ! I have also done something a bit different at the end of the story. Instead of just signing off with THE END I have picked out some significant characters, events and lifted them out of the fiction of my story to explain to my readers their real lives and situations. Is this a good story ? That is up to you to decide so read on.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09CLHQJ54

Promo Paperback:

NOT THE CONCRETE COWS – Published 20^th September 2020 £3.99 This is a collection of newspaper articles I wrote in the early 1990’s and originally published in 1994. It is a kaleidoscope through the then adolescent new city of Milton Keynes. It has now become a bit of a history book and something I would hope everyone in Milton Keynes may like to read.  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08HKFQMTG

9.40am 1,292 words written to complete IN SEARCH OF THE HOLY GRAIL in my current book writing project. A bit short but I will go back later and pad it out a bit.

Five people have read my blog on Google so far.

What next  in my day ?

12.40pm I am having a productive day.

I have sent a lengthy text to Milton Keynes Citizen newspaper which I hope it can use to write an article on knife crime. I have headed this STAB CITY.

Blogger still stands at only 5 readers !  Damn technology.

I am going to take a bit of a break from the laptop.

1.50pm I have finished the VOO THE DOLL chapter in my whodunit RICHARD HEADINGTON PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR adding 517 words. Time now to stop, I have a doctor’s appointment in an hour.

3.40pm: Back from the doctor. What a wonderful doctor I saw. I am suffering from clinical depression but I know the NHS is going to love me out of this.

The Milton Keynes Citizen has grabbed hold of my submission. WOW.

I am going to sign off for the day so….

Canons Ashby The National Trust - Monday 28th March 2022

 

I ended my last visit to a National Trust Property which just happened to be Canons Ashby with these words: A lovely, lovely day. THANK YOU Canons Ashby. THANK YOU The National Trust. See you again soon.

Well here I am again just three days later. This is my twenty-second visit this year to a National Trust property and my sixth visit to Canons Ashby. I need this to be a special visit. I have been unwell since the end of last year with my physical sickness causing mental illness, I need to bring into my life today something lovely which will push away my sadness so here In am saying hello to nature and within it some of my special friends.

Bees are some of the most wonderful creatures within this world. They are possibly the most hard working creatures on Planet Earth. They do their work tirelessly to pollinate flowers, without that work there would be no flowers whose beauty we can enjoy in our lives and yet mankind would seek to destroy these beautiful creatures. I have seen in the media a report explaining the government has allowed a previously banned crop insecticide to be used which will harm our bees.

 

Our National Trust not only preserves the country’s heritage but also the wildlife within it.

I think they are rooks but my avian knowledge may be failing and they may be crows but who cares ?  I don’t !  I care about my friends who nest high in the trees above the courtyard café at Canons Ashby and every visit I make I point my camera with its zoom lens extended to capture their beauty. A photograph can not share the sound of its image but please as you look at this picture keep your physical eyes focussed upon my friends in the tree and mentally close your eyes so you can listen to them speaking.

 Listen carefully.

 

William Wordsworth eat your heart out !

 

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
   That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
   A host of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
   And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
   Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
   Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:—
A Poet could not but be gay
   In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the shew to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
   In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
   Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

 

Wordsworth wrote that poem in 1804 remembering a walk with his sister two years earlier when they did indeed come across a field of daffodils.

 I took these pictures in 2022 some two hundred and eighteen years later.

The beauty of the daffodil has not changed has it ?  Providing man does not destroy this planet which we have to accept as a real possibility there will be beautiful yellow daffodils in March 2238.

The sapling trees The National Trust is planting within its present ambition for twenty million new trees by the year 2030 will be grand mature trees.

The garden at Canons Ashby was designed and created by William Dryden between the years 1707 and 1718 although the estate dates was back to Tudor times.

Another friend I like to say hello to when I visit Canons Ashby is Robin. I have given him the name Robin although I do not know what his name really was. Robin was a shepherd boy who lost his life when parliamentarians on the estate were attacked by troops loyal to the king.

Robin’s statue was erected by the lady of the manor to preserve his memory.

 

Walking through the ancient gateway from The Mulberry Lawn to where Robin’s statue can be found I looked into his eyes and tried to feel within my heart his character. I then put my hand on his foot and felt a very strange sensation as Robin said hello to me.

 

I wrote a little story about Robin and his dog I called Snowdrop and published it on Amazon as an e-book 28^th February this year ROBIN AND SNOWDROP A LIFE TOO SHORT TO BE LIVED.  

I will be taking that story, together with some others I have written set in different National Trust properties and publish them in paperback form later this year.

Robin the shepherd boy.

I have very mixed feelings about the sheep I find in the fields when I visit canons Ashby which is set in the heart of Northamptonshire’s sheep famring community.

I am currently writing a whodunit book within which there is a chapter entitled THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. With my notebook always close to hand I scribbled the final fifteen hundred words to conclude that chapter. Notebook in hand and sheep within my view.

I am a passionate vegetarian. I have not been so all of my life but for four of my soon to be seventy-two years. It pains me so deeply to look at the beautiful Spring Lambs who excite people and are the subject of joy offered to children. Those lambs will have such a short life before they are slaughtered, murdered in their youth to be eaten my people. 

The illness I am currently enduring is an eating disorder brought on by my becoming a vegetarian. These are not empty words when In say I would rather die than eat the flesh of that baby lamb here suckling up to its mother. A mother soon to have her child taken from her to be butchered for no other reason than to make lamb chops and shepherd’s pie.

When those meals are prepared and put on someone’s dinner plate how much will be eaten and how much left on that plate to be thrown into the rubbish bin ?

 

Yes I am approaching my seventy-second birthday. I hate being old ! As a teenager I attended Boldmere High School for Boys in the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield. The school badge was a bear whose name was Ursus.

When you visit Canon’s Ashby go down into the kitchen garden, right down to the lion gates and you will find this gardener’s sculpture.

It is, of course, a hedge image of a lion but when I fist saw it my old school badge came to mind so it will always to be known as Ursus. Still with a lot of grown yet to come it is fantastic isn’t it ?

Also in the kitchen garden you will find Lazy Lennie. 

I always drop by to say HI to him. Today I gave him a hearty congratulation. He has thrown away his silly commercial paper coffee cup and in its place have a proper cup from Canon Ashby’s café. Nice one Lennie.

The National Trust is the biggest charity in the country but it is not a commercial charity, such I despise. It is not always in you face screaming donate, donate, donate – money, money, money ! I have been a member of Then National Trust for forty years and I can assure you the subscription offers incredible value for money. Support does not only mean money, I am doing my best to support our National Trust through my own tree planting project supporting the Trust’s ambition, I am up to thirty-six trees right now, and through my writing this diary with its little stories.

More friends.

 

I was wandering along, returning to The Mulberry Lawn when this lady met my eye. She really did look me in the eye and said Point your camera my way.

How could I not oblige ? I clicked the camera then off she went with her little one.

The Mulberry Lawn. It was on 27^th February last year that Amazon published my e-book THE MULBERRY LAWN set in Canons Ashby. It is one of the stories in my paperback book PLANT A TREE ‘TIL SEVENTY-THREE published on 3^rd October 2021 to launch my tree planting support for The National Trust.

 Not the best image but I can not leave out this friend from today’s diary.

I came to Canons Ashby feeling unwell and needing some love from my friends. This has been a warm sunny day but the warmth has come not only from the sun but from my many friends.

 

 

Escape From Armageddon -, DAY ONE 27th March 2020

When the pandemic first became a society-changing issue I started to write a diary recording my feelings. In 2021 and I am now in 2022, I wrote a poage every day. In 2020 I wrote just one hundred entries under the heading of ESCAPE FROM ARMAGEDDON - THE FIRST ONE HUNDRED DAYS. I wrote those diary entries to out in a time capsule which I intended would be opened in one hundred yars time. However, opening it now just two years later this is page one.

27th March 2020 – Day One

How are you coping in this present situation ?  How many days is it since Britain went into the present lock down ? You know I am not sure: two, three, four days ? Are you coping ? I am not sure if I am.

 

I have gone from working 12+ hours a day to doing nothing. Last night I slept for eleven hours, when was the last time I slept for that long ?  Probably when I was a small baby.

 

I am a councillor but the council has closed down. I am chairman of the local police community forum but the police as too busy with operations to be concerned with meetings.  All of my community projects have closed. Music is at the centre of my life but now the radio studio is closed for the duration so The Geriatric DJ is on a sabbatical.  All I have left is my writing, writing to help maintain my sanity.

 

I boast that I am not a wimp so David aka The Geriatric DJ aka Max Robinson stop being a wimp ! Stop feeling sorry for yourself !  It was in December 2016 that I first started writing a blog, this is my 999th edition. Originally my intention was to collect something like 100 editions then publish it as The Diary Of A Silly Old Man. That never happened. Perhaps when we come out of this global crisis I may publish my current blog writing under the title ESCAPE FROM ARMAGEDDON. Perhaps. The important thing is that by writing a page each day it will help preserve my sanity. Perhaps as I publish it each day s a blog it will help others to preserve their sanity. It may even inspire some to write their own blogs.

 

So........................

 

The UK death toll now stands at 578, it went up from 475 yesterday. Within that number is the first person to die in prison. He was an 84 year old. For goodness sake what is an 84 year old doing in prison ?  OK, his identity has not been released so he could be a major criminal serving an extended sentence or could he be someone who has popped in and out of gaol all his life. Of all the broken systems in pre-virus society the justice system with a 85% re-offending rate this has to be the biggest failure.

 

Our Saturday lunch for the homeless rough-sleepers has been forced to close I keep wondering about my friends: Richard, Barry and so many others who had nothing more than a sleeping bag on the floor for their homes. Where are they now ?  How are they coping ?  Milton Keynes Council could not help them in normal times so what chance do they have  in this situation ?  The more vulnerable you were the less help was available. The council's homeless prevention team should be re-named homeless encouragement and adult social care renamed adult social couldn't care less.

 

We used to live in a society where FAILURE was the norm.  I trust we do not return to that when this is all over, wouldn't it be great if society adopted the motto FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION. 

 

I don't do religion, god and all that stuff, but I do believe in Destiny, I have had Madam Destiny tap me on my shoulder so many times in my life. Several of my books feature destiny steering the reader through the plot. What do you think ?  Has Destiny put Boris Johnson in charge of our nation ?  Isn't he doing a great job ?  Just imagine where we would be if Jeremy Corbyn had won last November's general election or that gobby cow who was the shortlived leader of the Liberal Democratic Party !  Rishi Sunak, isn't he doing a good job ?  He was only thrown into the job a few weeks ago, Did you know he is an Amazon Author ?  Yes, he is.

 

He is in good company, I am an Amazon Author. I have fifteen titles currently available.  I write for pleasure, not to make money although before this crisis I was trying hard to promote my books in order to fund our projects working with vulnerable people. Promoting my books is also on hold for the duration of the crisis. That said I sold 17 yesterday, my best day this year was 19th March with 124. 

 

Primarily I write for personal pleasure, if someone reads what I have written then that is a bonus, if they enjoy what I have written then that is a double bonus. I have been writing since I was a teenager. In recent years there has been a motive within my writing, to encourage others to write. If what I write could inspire one person to write then that would be a bigger achievement than selling one thousand of my own books.

 

During World War One so many soldiers serving in the trenches wrote diaries and poems. You rereading this 999th edition of my blog, could I invite you to write a diary or blog and share how you are coping in this global pandemic, something the like of which the world has never before experienced ?  World War One ended one hundred and two years ago yet those writings from the trenches are still read today. Go on, start writing today. I am looking to my writing to help preserve my sanity and who knows, what I have written here and what you write today may be read in one hundred and two years time as history tries to imagine what we are all living through. 

Ahead of those one hundred entries I put these words together as an introduction.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I am not expecting anyone to read this book. Well not in this millennium anyway. If mankind does survive perhaps far into the future the text may be discovered and become an academic study for scientists, historians and sociologists to understand what I and my fellow human beings have been going through in the Corona Virus Pandemic sweeping the world.

 

Day by day I have expressed how I have been feeling. I have attacked the prime minister, journalists and the government but that was how I was feeling on any day of writing. I am not going to go back and edit the text, to calm down my ranting and raving, to do so would give a false account. I think that history within the next hundred or so years  will agree with me but it is history in a thousand or so years I hope will profit reading my account.

 

That is if there are human beings on the planet in a thousand years time. If the pandemic has its way that will not be the case.

 

The hardest part of writing a book is editing once the last full stop has been punched in. Checking for typo’s and changing the way something is drafted to put it into a better style is a long and tedious task. I am not going to do that with this book. I certainly do not want to change the way in which I have said anything, to do so would change the way I was feeling. Perhaps in one thousand years time someone will sit down and record how many typo’s there on each page then try to read into those figures something of my mind. Yeh, do that if you want but at the end of the day a typo is a typo is a typo. Life is a bit like a typo you know, if you do not make any then you are not living it fast enough !

 

On that subject can I explain that I have been using something called Google Blogger to write my daily pages. I try my best to negotiate its geeky system. Then I transfer the text to Microsoft Word, how I hate Microsoft. Trust me those of you reading this in the future, think of the most hated thing in your life then multiply it by ten million to the power of sixty-three and a quarter then you will have a figure which equates to how much I hate Microsoft. Finally I have to upload my text using Amazon – fingers crossed. I guess if I have not included enough Typo’s these will help. Now here’s a task for you deep into the future, work out which are genuine typo’s and which are geek generated.

 

As I publish this book we have not escaped from Armageddon, far from it. I am publishing the first one hundred days of my blog writing, I did not actually start writing on the day of lock down. You know Wikipedia does not record the day the government imposed lock down restrictions but it does record the day China gave us the virus, 31^st January 2020.  Will we escape from the virus ?  Will we escape from Armageddon ? I honestly do not know. Only those who will read these words perhaps in the year 3020 will know the answer. To you all in that year can I say hello, wish you well and say I hope you are living in a better world than the one I am.

 

Max Robinson

www.maxrobinsonwriter.com

Canons Ashby The National Trust 25th March 2022

 FRIDAY 25^th   MARCH 2022 – Canons Ashby

This is my twenty-first visit this year to a National Trust property and my fifth visit to Canons Ashby. Compared to many locations Canons Ashby is quite small, quite small but very special. But are not ALL National Trust properties special ?

Before setting off on the fifty minute drive we took Doggie Jake for a quick walk in our local park.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing in the trees, what a wonderful day Mother Nature was offering. Then round the corner came a woman with her silly, stupid smart-phone pushed up against her face. From this wires plugged into her ears. This hideous example of technology was completely shutting out from this unfortunate lady from Nature. At that moment I decided my visit to Canons Ashby would see my camera focusing on Nature. No, I do not use a silly, stupid self-phone ! By camera is perfect when it comes to taking a selfie !

One of the first things I do every time I visit Canons Ashby is to check up on my friends the rooks who are nesting adjacent to the courtyard café.

 

I always say they are Rooks, they could be Crows. I am not clever enough to be able to tell the difference between the two avian species. But that does not matter, these birds are friends of Nature and they are friends of mine. 

Sadly, away in the distance outside the National Trust property I could hear the random bang, bang of a scare crow machine.

If it is a scarecrow you are looking for let me introduce you to Lazy Lennie who lives in the kitchen garden.

Lennie, today is a bit warm to be wearing such a heavy coat my friend. Yes, this is still March but Spring is here and with it a flight of butterflies.

Last year, taking inspiration from the National Trust, we made an effort in our garden at home to plant flowers butterflies would be attracted to. Lazy Lennie I think you would approve.

Walking around I saw many a small, downy feather on the grass. These have not come from adult birds but new born babies. I could hear  one of these new members of Canons Ashby chirping and looked very carefully at the tree above my head hoping to point my camera at the bird. I could not find it. I did, however, spot this nest where inside a bird was singing.

I wonder what that sad little woman I encountered earlier was listening to on her silly, stupid smart-phone. For certain it was not as beautiful as the bird song nature was playing for me to enjoy.

Sitting in the courtyard café I always have my camera ready as I wait for birds to drop by for their bit of refreshment.

In my opinion birds have to be highly intelligent creatures. They know just how, where and when to engage with we mere semi-intelligent humans in order to ask for food. How many birds are there living here in Canons Ashby ?  Do you know that mot one of them uses a silly, stupid smart-phone.

Writing this photo diary gives me a lot of enjoyment but I also use it to help promote The National Trust’s tree planting ambition, an ambition to plant twenty million new saplings by the year 2030.

Within my story writing, again something promoting the tree planting, I have written and published two stories on Amazon. THE MULBERRY LAWN and ROBIN AND SNOWDROP ALIFE TOO SHORT TO BE LIVED.

During the English Civil War Canons Ashby was Parliamentarian. A troop of Royalists was attacked and a shepherd boy killed. There is a statue within the grounds to his memory.

I have myself given this young man the name of Robin and his dog I call Snowdrop.

All of the royalties from my National Trust stories I use to fund the planting of trees within the project. I began my support in November last year and have now funded thirty-six trees. Thirty-six trees which when grown will make homes for birds to live and where birds can sing.

I wonder what Robin would make of the sheep and their new born lambs living in the fields around Canons Ashby. As a passionate vegetarian I am saddened to see baby lambs which will never grow old. Their lifespan is measured in a few short months before they are cruelly killed, butchered then turned into chops and pies for semi-intelligent stupid smart-phone users to eat !

I saw so many bees buzzing about the spring flowers but not one of them remained still in one place for my camera ! No so this friend of Nature who was happy to pose for his photograph to be taken.

 

A lovely, lovely day. THANK YOU Canons Ashby. THANK YOU The National Trust. See you again soon.

Are you a member of THE NATIONAL TRUST ? CLICK HERE to find out more about Canons Ashby.

Check my Amazon Bookshelf at www.maxrobinsonwriter.com