Nothing like a free bus pass to kick start the economy. I'm hoping it kick starts my recovery too. If it doesn't I at least have the consolation I've enjoyed the journey. The most important thing I've realised in this journey is how much I have appreciated it and how inevitable death is. I'll be happy to cheat it for now but I'm pretty chilled that I have lived and loved. I hope those words will always provide consolation and love rent free in their heads.
This morning's breakfast while generally being poor had enough highlights to be superb. Rescuing victory from the jaws of disaster. First The victory, then the chuckling whines. I had tea with honey. Superb it was. The tea bags drop exactly where it needed to be, next to the hot water. Likewise the Weetabix wrapper bin. Bread and pastries was bread, so I had a slice of white and toasted it, coated it in butter and stuffed it full of crushed avocado. Juices were few and fruit even less. Water works best so I plumped for a glass of agua and a carton of yoghurt with more honey. I'm fairly restricted on the cooked breakfast to eggs and beans. I figured the Stornoway black pudding might finish me off and a spicy haggis definitely would have.
Smashed avocado and poached eggs were delicious. I had several cups of tea and water. It finished me perfectly even if it wasn't off to a good start.
The coffee machine was clearly neither cleaned nor supplied with decent beans. The result was a brutal combination tasting like Nescafé but a year old when the granules almost look mouldy. It was my first taste and I could hear others shouting you can't call that coffee, but that was just voices in my head. As I looked at my toast I thought grab another cup, stop moaning and drink tea. The waiter took my order for breakfast and I thought there would be link sausage but no, only Lorne. Remember where you are all. I scoured the menu again and said yes just eggs and beans. Bacon can be so disappointing. It's 90% miss as if it's too salty, burnt, crispy call it what you like, I start moaning internally. Choose winners, choose poached eggs.
After getting the tea I realised it was a couple that I'd get the Crail special from Mark of crushed avocado and poached egg. Yes from the jaws of defeat at 7:32am, we were now in a happy place. At 8:34am I realised it was time to leave.
At 8:54 I did finally leave and then started rushing around. Need to go to Tesco, to shower, flush, oh and find a hearing aid now.
All was achieved and I insisted on leaving 10 mins to walk 100m.
Today's discussion with myself was common sense and when I finally get it. I mentioned wearing my cashmere jersey whenever I was getting my blood taken, receiving chemo or fluids. It's just common sense that the nurses get a line first time if you give them decent material to work with. A warm arm is much preferred.
Similarly it's common sense you need to keep your calories up. Cancer is feasting on them so if you don't it'll just eat your muscle. It's going to get it's energy anyway it can so best you feed it or it will steal your best stuff. I likened it to the unwanted guest at new year. It likes to party but it doesn't pay. Best you feed it the cheap whisky or it'll help itself and pour your expensive stuff.
My muscle wasting is quite significant. In a way I'm astounded I had so much to lose. I've always considered fat Al to be largely fat. It seems I had a bulk of muscle in my legs carrying it.
I first noticed it when my knee got sore. It's fine for a couple of miles and then it just is sore. Identical to 2007 when I was walking our first Camino from St Given pied du Porte. 30 days later and for the last 18 years I've never had the knee pain which had been intermittent for about 20 years.
I looked at my legs and realised there was a lot of muscle around my scrawny knees that hitherto had not been there. It's common sense, of course, if you have muscle around a dodgy knee it'll support the knee and largely camouflage of be the perfect solution for the issue.
In short I need to build all the muscle up again. The same thing happened two weeks ago when I didn't have the purchase to open a jar or my stove top coffee maker. It was exhausting and I gave up. It was exhausting because I hadn't the strength, because, slow as ever, it's common sense, you don't have muscle you have bingo wings.
I looked again and realised, yes, that's why a 5kg weight weighs 20kg when you lift it. Try a 60L bag of compost, you won't be lifting or dragging one in each hand. You'll empty half out or better still 10% at a time.
It's common sense that building it up again is what's required but it's not what the brain thinks. You might've been through treatment but losing so much weight make you feel you can stand up or even run. You can but for 100m then you really are tired.
You need to fuel up again. Then run another 100m. Yes, full on interval training.
Is it an excuse to eat apple pie and custard in the famous Lochinver pie shop?
Why of course it is.
You don't need an excuse but it's one that works for me and falls under the common sense banner. I'm on this Camino north to learn and already my head's spinning with it all.
There's so many lights being turned on and dots being joined. It's maybe opening your eyes, being receptive and aware. It's also a lack of interest which is like my common sense issues, total.
If I'm interested and someone explains something until I understand it I get it. I remember during treatment in week 4 having 3 pints of Guinness the night before weigh in. I had managed to put weight on and they were delighted. I'm not sure Guinness provided the calories to protect my muscles. Maybe a few more complex carbohydrates like the ones Jackie put in the soups she was making for me through treatment.
The whole process is so wearisome you start to forget what to do and then you just lose interest. People say, stay strong but unless they're feeding you, they're wasting their breath.
I was taken by the fallen tree behind the statue of the soldier and the fallen women and men of the 1914-19 war. We know we all fall at some stage but when you read the inscription you really are reminded of the full or is it fool feudal right of king and country. I agree we should never forget because that was our attrocity to our people.
We should always know that those who rule us are in control and never forget it. Universal suffrage when men and women could vote changed nothing as it was important only to allow votes on certain things. Firstly choosing a representative which will be placed in front of you. What a ludicrous situation, the end of which results in Rishi representing a party so tarnished by bullingdon 1, Abba, Bullingdon 2, the lettuce weeks v some Nimrod flying low. Look around the world at the choices allegedly offered by democracy, Trump v Clinton, Biden v Trump then Trump v Harris in the USA. Stop Al we can't take democracy anymore, not like this.
Our world took the bay of pigs seriously and the motif, "Never again", this time. We became nuclear. All our slogans, would have words, would have three, three words only. "Never again", only had two.
We went nuclear, built our society, friends segregated enemies, friends became enemies, Hutus hated Tutsi.
Someone took a semblance of a grievance and hacked a divide, literally.
Are you getting the game now. We've been manipulated. It was easy. Our attention span.
Never again, was too short, never again I say, was too long.
In short, not only did the unions in the UK get demolished during the 1980's, societies globally and the whole political circus dramatically changed as well.
Remember Sarajevo.
What about Bosnia.
This cancer fed through all levels and led to the inevitable eating of the muscles.
There is only one cure and that is fuel.
The public have to find the fuel but we no longer have the strength. It's easy to see in the USA. Nobody can cope with the Firestarters. The Chief fire starter is choosing the game to play and the rules. You can't win that, the only way to win is to change the rules.
We know the outcome as we saw the Holocaust unfold under the Nazi's. We watched Bosnia and Rwanda. We occasionally saw broadcasts from Asia, but generally we didn't. Certain bad news is not shared.
In 2007 I started thinking independence gave Scotland a chance, it was slim. It needed a lot of coming together. We proved conclusively we are as divided as we were that day on the Culloden battlefield. It's as if James and William are still battling it out on the Boyne.
Glasgow football may be divided over religious history but our country is divided over a far more insidious thing. Can I switch on long enough to become one of the, "I'm alright Jacks". Should I just relax into the quandary that it's the next generation that'll have to find the strength to fix it. Should I even bother telling them or let the house of cards do what it inevitably will very soon.
Scottish issues seem such microcosm of a greater malaise. Up here I'm feeling quite dwarfed by it all.
I got a lot of different views across the loch and it's quite mesmirising.
Like the politics turn your back on the weather in Scotland at your peril. The politicians are about as reliable as a traditional day on Assynt.
There are numerous small reasons why the generally incompetent SNP also fail but their competitors in competence are equally bad.
Labours Scottish leader doing a you turn on backing the bill that MSPs of all party passed sums it up.
Hot potato, it wisnae me. It wisnae me. I know it's four words correctly phrased but he hides behind the three.
Anas Arwar slipped up when he said as first minister would
cut the NHS waiting lists
Ban mobile phones in schools
That's 5 pal and that's no gonna work. We know we can't afford to cut waiting lists because
We had COVID.
That created a backlog and there is no way to catch up on a back log when you don't have the resources. Using the private sector is pointless as we have no immigration and the private sector can't recruit either, except from the NHS. Do you really think it's wise to create demand in the private sector for the NHS' most limited resource. Will someone please turn off the lights.
We can't recruit.
I say again.
Pay the nurses.
Pay their loans.
Give them homes.
Then you might just influence behaviour andake it looks like a career not rely on it being a vocation.
While I've been getting treated I've been getting buses. Bus drivers are getting older and older. So are nursing trainees. I've been driven to the western by people older than me and I've met a few trainee nurses in their 50's and 60's.
We know they'll be working in their 70's if they want to afford heating bills, never mind holidays. I've enjoyed their chat and I've admitted to being humbled by their fortitude in stepping up.
Meantime politicians humiliation of the NHS staff is continuing. Please call out your local representative next time they slag it off. Please also call out every would be representative for spreading the poison when these hard working individuals deserve our love appreciation and cash. They shouldn't have to go private or abroad to pay off loans or afford deposits for houses.
The MSPs showed themselves to be hopeless at scrutiny of bills in even attempting to resolve an issue that they were ill equipped to understand when they passed their gender bill. The result is many fragile individuals still going through turmoil, not least, every time they put the TV on, go to the toilet or lift a paper. We still don't have enough psychological support and yet we pass a bill that purports to support vulnerable people and to these eyes leaves significant numbers of them in a new limbo.
I haven't capacity to assess the damage all of the carnage causes when people create a war of division. I only know the loudest and most powerful get heard and they are clearly rarely qualified. They start fires, set off fire alarms where there are no fires and keep everyone busy with hypothetical scenarios.
It broke my heart seeing it play out a year or so ago when a trans person was sentenced and sent to a women's jail. I knew they'd be segregated because the inmates would have seen to the first half of the operation willingly. The idea that there was a threat was true. The press chatter had it the wrong way around. Such a predator wouldn't have lasted long. Prisons apparently can be violent places.
So my stroll today was most enjoyable and now I have a bottle of schiehallion that I bought in the post office. Cheaper than at home which is good because generally prices here in cafes or bars are why I go on Camino in Spain.
I'm an economic migrant but it is perfectly reasonable to expect high prices as the costs associated with opening a cafe or a pub in Edinburgh are ridiculous too.
Add in the new tax for employment of the poor and you really get a picture of how bad that budget was. I was served today by some people who may only do 24 hours each week. Their employer previously didn't pay NI. Now they will.
Now they will.
So with the minimum wage going up it seems the zero hours contract is being encouraged even more. You need to have 6 jobs earning £4800 a year. If you're an employer your lowest paid staff can't be given £8000 anymore as it's costing you a lot more. This money isn't going to help the cafe, the bookshop, the charity shop, the pub, the hospital. This money is getting sucked into London to pay for more advisors to come up with whizz bang solutions for our futures. Except they'll be out of government by the time these great ideas are supposed bear fruition.
I worked at the Tote before the cancer. It's a 5-6 hour gig at a race track, taking bets. I pay tax on it because I'm drawing down my pension. It was sufficiently small that there was no NI. It won't be now.
So, we have a minimum wage and a low paid earnings limit. Labour being ironic. Even the Tories wouldn't be this bad and they froze the tax free allowance to make sure the low paid got even less of their money. It also ensured they could do the triple lock pension as for many they took it right back again.
I keep mentioning it, as I'm really irritated that the freezing of that limit was retained by labour. Essential workers get to pay for COVID twice. It is disgusting.
Politicians deserve jail.
Nurses deserve more.
Oncologists deserve more.
Radiographers deserve more.
They got less.
Pay more tax.
Unicorns make sense.
I liked our group business model at Stocktrade. The group ethos generally was profits got split one third each. Staff, shareholders and tax. It was a pretty simple model.
Each unit was fairly independent and generated it's own revenue, managed it's own costs and handed over 2/3 of its profit.
The individuals then paid income tax or buried it into their pensions to pay tax later when they drew it down. It was a gamble on future tax laws on pension drawdown but generally I thought the model fair.
Whenever I dry my hands in a pub on an air dryer from Dyson I think it's good they had the same principles.
They earnt money in our society and they paid tax here. That's how the economy works. Money is taxed as often as possible as it moves through the system. When it moves offshore there is no tax and no contribution. This means the residents who spend end up bearing an increasingly large part of the tax burden. When I say tax the rich I'm actually just referring to tax the money that is taken out of circulation. There should be a 20% tax for money taken offshore. Taxed and collected by the banks who occasion the transfer. That would either encourage making it stay here and invested in the UK or like money laundering be an acceptable conversion rate for Michelle Mone, the Royal Family and everyone who takes it safely offshore to store. I'm aoney man I know they'll try and find ways around it and put job is quite simply to mark the bills.
If they buy assets, like houses, then it's fair play to expect to be taxed on these investments and their income. Houses are homes. When you have 3+ they become investments and deserve full tax.
I was in the Lochinver Larder, home of the famous pies.
I opted for Apple pie with lashings of moisture, aka custard. My mouth doesn't produce much saliva and the dry mouth is just another consequence of treatment.
It's not a disaster, but it does make eating a challenge. I need moist food that slides down the throat. As a diet it's a bit restricted but not that bad.
When it comes to spice I'll just pour a pot on yoghurt on it.
Moisture is good.
Cooling is good.
Spice is nippy.
Politicians deserve jail.
Bankers deserve jail.
Pensioners deserve more.
On arrival into Lochinver I spotted a pub next door.
I was met by a man who asked if I played
Scrabble.
I replied no and entered to the sound of tumbleweed.
He followed me in a in short order asked me a question.
What's One half plus two thirds
So many ways to do it but finally I elected for cake portions.
We need both sides to talk a common language and 2*3=6 so that will work.
Playful ways include a clock face. So we could double the sixths and make them twelves.
We could do a range of different things. We could even convert it to decimals and reply in decimals explaining I was taught differently. Or even I thought differently but clearly not from him.
So I just said, one and a sixth.
No comments:
Post a Comment