E addio il mio amico

Middle Aged Gapper left work for the last time today, handed in his keys and mosied off into the sunset leaving behind him a trail of good feelings, well being and affection. Thanks for a great lunch. Enjoy Italy. Blog often. Good for him of course but sad for his colleagues who have lost a valued person.

They've just bought out new fun flavoured condoms for the over 60s. The latest flavour - Werther's Original.
Malcolm LordI was very lucky to have attended a sportsman's dinner last night in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Hull Boys Sunday Football League and to have listened to an after dinner speech by the 1966 England World Cup Final winner, the Manchester United legend, Norbert 'Nobby' Peter Stiles MBE - a great night full of laughs and entertainment from a great wrinkly.

I have been very lucky today to visit my good friend Barry at his place of work this afternoon and as he took me on a tour, I realised how lucky he was having a job in the open air with beautiful vistas of the countryside and the Humber basin accompanied by the wildlife and what we spotted today in just one hour while he worked was exceptional - flitting and darting among the stubble of newly mown grasses and wild flowers and trees and bushes: birds of every size, butterflies, bees, insects and although we didn't spot any today, deer sometimes stalk him on his days toil. All the time, Skylarks, unseen singing to their hearts content above us. Of course there is a down side in that during bad weather, he can't hide away, his site still needs to be managed, nurtured and made to work and he has to walk when his 4 x 4 can't cope with the wet and steep slopes. He gets wet, tired and dirty when the weather is unkind.

So we take the good with the bad; the happy with the sad; positives and negatives; two sides to every coin.

It's like us human beings, light and dark moods, helpful or destructive (whether we mean it or not). Is that Yin and Yang? The way it's been explained to me is that there are opposites. If you drop a pebble in the water, it cause ripples and there are both peaks and troughs of water making up the ripple when you think about it. But the opposites are also rooted together, with only men or only women for example, life would only exist in one generation and that would be it.

There are also transformations. A seed grows into a plant, grows, flowers, withers and dies and decays and provides nutrients for the next seed. Yin and Yang also provide balance - without one there is not the other. You can't have light without dark. There we are. If you have good there will be times things may not be so good, but if you know things can be okay at other times, then look forward to the positives - sideline the negatives out of your head. Savour the good.

Dave Allen, the exceptional and sadly missed Irish born comedian once commented, "We spend our lives on the run. We get up by the clock, eat and sleep by the clock, get up again and go to work and watch the clock all day. Then when we retire, what do they do? Give us a bloody clock."

Have a great weekend.

Chat soon

Ta-ra