15th May: Ten Things of Thankful

Things for which I give thanks this week…

It has been almost two weeks since my last gratitudes – for the first half of this week, I had a dreadful cold which kept me in bed for a couple of days – colds never used to be like this but I was knocked out, however I am recovering now and went to work yesterday morning.

I had to go into work early for a Teams meeting between my boss, an energy company and myself. My boss and his brother were in Guangzhou, China where, amongst other things, they were making a deal with a Chinese “whole house customising manufactuer” the multi-millionaire 82 year-old CEO of which was right beside my boss who not only introduced us, but showed us around the vast showroom of everything you could want to kit out a house or apartment fron cladding to furniture to accessories. We then began our meeting with a company which is nearly operational with a building-sized air pump heat exchanger which will supply district-heating all over Bradford, including, we hope, some of my bosses’ apartment developments. They will also take the cooling heat from a Data Centre which is being built next door and add it into the mix. I am glad to see that joined-up planning is finally coming of age…

On the Saturday before going down with the cold, we drove south to Barbara’s ex’s 80th birthday party – a round trip of 8 hours motorway driving and saw some people we haven’t seen for many years. On the way back, I suggested we listen to an audio-book and chose John Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday”. It is a sequel to “Cannery Row” and like that book, paints a picture of the extraordinary warmth of community in the real suburb of Cannery Row, site of redundant canning plants after all the sardines were fished out during the war. (An early lesson in environmental abuse consequences) I don’t know how many of the characters are based on real people, but for sure, ‘Doc’ – the central character, was a real friend of Steinbeck’s with whom he later wrote “The Log from the Sea of Cortez”. The affectionate portrait of this marginal community is a tonic in these times of divisive politics and I urge anyone who is not familiar with them, to read these two books. I think many children may have been put off by having to study “Of Mice and Men”, and “The Grapes of Wrath” is a heavy book to read, even though there are many equally or more inequitable things happening in the world today, so it is that these two slim volumes of pure delight have been overlooked…

Two things I read in tabloid pop-psychology articles. Firstly, that women, when asked what they have read, will quote recent reads, whilst men will cite books they read as teenagers, even if they have continued to read novels since. I confess I worked my way through Steinbeck as a teenager… Secondly, research apparently suggested that (back in the days when young people read rather than watched screen dramas) everyone would have unconsciously picked a character on which they subsequently modelled themselves – intrigued, I searched my soul and eventually it clicked – it was ‘Doc’ from Cannery Row, for me! A man of science and phiolosophical questioning, at home talking with anyone from a hobo to a President, who everybody in his community loved and respected – whether I have fulfilled this role-model it is not for me to say… What about y’all – do you think you embody unconscious role models from your early reading?

And in the office, the three container gardens I took in are not only thriving (we don’t have enough windowsill space here at home) but in one of them, a succulent which I did not even know to be flowering has sent forth pretty little pink flowers…

I am not sure how many grats there are here but that’s what I got for this week and have your best week everybody…