Looking up and out

Beyond the clouds

I could write a long rant about so many things but that is just energy-sapping and depressing, I need to focus on other more wholesome things that dwell on the future and great expectations.

Indeed, this pandemic has messed up so many things, but you begin to work towards how things are easing up. For instance, South Africa was removed from the red list on Monday morning meaning we, the fully vaccinated do not have to undergo mandatory hotel quarantine on returning to the UK.

Towards these things

Obviously, this means we can begin to plan for another rendezvous in Cape Town, though not until I have fulfilled a few things. My biannual check-up is at the end of the month and the 6-month duration after which I qualify for the booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine is in the first week of the next.

Altogether, I guess we are looking at a December meeting and that means a lot to Brian and I. We can eventually get married and catch up with all that time of being apart since the middle of January. My mind is out there, my heart is there too and my life, I hope to set up out there.

A future beckons

It informs any prospect for my expertise that I am looking for a fully remote working opportunity that would allow me to work out of Cape Town. If I have learnt anything from my father, it is not to embark on sudden changes but to manage transition gradually as one deemphasises UK residence to creating a hybrid existence between the UK and South Africa.

There is a lot to plan for, but we have to take it a step at a time. Yesterday was the twelfth anniversary of Chris’ passing, I am so glad that Brian has taken me beyond the grief and sorrow of a love lost to the expectation and future love anew and a love like I have never experienced before. Miracles happen, though rarely in ways we expect.

Thought Picnic: Understanding my greater good

Fencing around the greater good

In a conversation on the train on Saturday, my friend related a story to me about a man relating his commitment to the greater good, to which is wife retorted, “I am your greater good.” In context, one needs to reflect on what occupies the mind and the activities that direct from such.

I have my concerns about family, obligations are many, demands are consequent, responsibilities are mount that you wonder about how much more of that burden you can carry before the strain begins to tell. I find I am trying to banish the thoughts, but I worry at times, even though I know that worry would nothing to address the issues.

Seeing yourself in the plan

My friend noticed that in setting out a number of things I had hoped to do, I wanted to have that conversation because there were things I could not immediately see a resolution of, she opined that in everything I had said, none pertained to me, my wellbeing, my comfort, or my happiness, it was about other people who might or might not be appreciative of whatever I am doing.

It does bother me that I used an analogy yesterday of the fact that when a car cannot start, you give it a push to kickstart it, you do not push it all the way. There is an extent to which pushing might help the car start after which you have to call in the mechanic and if that does not resolve the issue, the cost of comprehensive repairs to the possible replacement of the vehicle begins to loom.

Understanding my greater good

The same applies to people, you want to help them, give them that support to get them going. Encouragement, advice, teaching, mentoring, and guidance. The need not to have to order about or instruct too forcefully, that half a word that seeds sentences and prose when heard and heed to. You should not have to think for them and eventually, they should move on from being both your responsibility and your problem to standing comfortably on their own two feet and running their own race with excellence.

It is not happening in some of the engagements, and I am at a point of disengagement because I need to gather up and begin to do things for myself, my life, and my sense of wellbeing. I need to understand my greater good. That greater good is Brian, that is the priority, the future, and the project. All other investments not appearing to take are on the path to divestment, you can only push a car to start for so long.

Of the plans and the times

Signposts of the Passion

Two Easter weekends ago, I had arrived in South Africa, met up with Brian in Johannesburg, and we both travelled to Cape Town where we spent 12 days, the blossoming of a new relationship and probably one of the most exciting times in my life. It was an opportunity to get to know each other better, after the sudden opportunity to meet in Johannesburg in late February 2019.

The Easter meeting had been planned from mid-January, I just knew I wanted to see him again and find out if there was a prospect of something between us. After that April meeting, the plans to meet over the summer were thwarted that it was not until September and then December that we met again.

By then, I was sure I was ready for a lifelong relationship with all the formalities that would establish us as a couple and married. My projection was for last year’s Easter, but the pandemic had taken hold, I was out of work and we were in lockdown. Every prospect of meeting up just looked ever so distant, opportunities quickly fizzling out as our host country was not accepting guests and England ended up in a second lockdown.

The plan waits for its time

Surely, when we next meet, I thought again, we could get it done, tie the knot and finalise the formalities. That is what I thought we would do when we met up in December after 11 months apart, but things did not go our way. Bureaucracy, officialdom, and an absence of waivers even in the midst of a pandemic meant we had to schedule it for another time. However, we now knew what to do.

I cannot say we would have been able to consider it this Easter weekend, much as I would have loved to get or steal away. There is an international travel ban from England and our countries are in various forms of lockdown that militates against our plans. We are hopeful and looking forward, and even if our apparently well-laid plans have been tossed by circumstances beyond our control, I have the feeling that by the next Easter weekend, we would be telling a different and amazing story. 

The atrocity of bloviation in futility

They lower your horizon

I learnt to be wary of people limiting your horizon by their vision of you or your circumstances. They speak with a sense of concern, but it is more for their own benefit than it is for yours. If your fortunes are elsewhere, pursue it with vigour. The apparent patriotism of one even more successful than you at home that does not facilitate the achievement of yours is detrimental to you whichever way you look at it.

My experience with this was on an encounter over 30 years ago with an old schoolmate who had done quite well academically just when I was nursing ambitions of going abroad. He, without hesitation challenged the premise then posited that there was much more in Nigeria for me to exploit and achieve than to apparently escape to The United Kingdom to waste my time.

Let the wind blow through

I did not challenge any of his assertions because it was not necessary, this was someone I had not seen in years who suddenly arrogated to himself a knowledge of my situation and circumstances with the view from his apparently more settled and successful status he could dictate and design my trajectory for life and purpose.

Fleeting moments at times should be fleeting rather than life-changing, the power to make it so remains primarily yours and you should refuse to cede it without a bruising fight where you should emerge to the victor. You are in the market of persuasion, but also, the kind of persuasion that should come with commensurate and effective action.

It is comment without commitment

My friend was not offering to take on any responsibility for facilitation in any direction he was projecting, rather, the inadvertent dampening of my vision which effectively was at play if I allowed it was a vain effort to maintain hierarchies where good advice and mentoring would have given me wings to fly and the wind beneath those wings to soar. You come to realise that just because a path has served someone well, it is not the universal roadmap to success.

Invariably, there will always be people who will thrive and prosper in Nigeria just as there are others who need to exit the country to other lands to find their own path and opportunities that seemed to elude them in Nigeria. Ultimately, neither the stayer nor the leaver is more patriotic, we all have an affinity for Nigeria regardless of how long we have been away and our passion for its peace and prosperity is rarely diminished because whether at home or abroad, we are affected.

Chart your own course and except if the alternate view is ready to invest fully in time and resources to alter that course, it is at best the atrocity of bloviation in futility, do not give it or the person any heed and move on. 

Thought Picnic: A bag of life to pack

In the mind in a swirl

In visualisations and vivid imagination my daily thoughts are consumed by proposals and plans, the prospect of emigration, the destination being South Africa.

Thinking of the major to minor of what it entails, first for me and then critically and crucially for the lives I will be responsible for as they begin to thrive in their own aims, goals, and careers.

Much of if seems like the stuff of dreams, then dreams do come true, and in a sense as apprehensive as I sometimes feel, I am not afraid the possible is quite possible indeed.

I have emigrated a number of times and in some ways, I must be a bit more experienced whilst I try to recapture that sense of youthful adventure that drives you to things that give life every chance to become both testimony and story.

Hearts do leap

Plans in cans

One can view the year 2020 as a veritable tale of the completely unexpected and completely unanticipated. You can only wonder if any of the resolutions made for the year by those wont to such activities even found the opportunity to kick off.

Even so, consider plans to marry, plans to travel, desires to see, do, get, give or transact some business, event, or any kind of endeavour, literally hamstrung by situations outside our control. Such is the effect this pandemic has had on most of the world. There is some return to normalcy in places where the leaders, the people, and the policies worked to contain and manage the Coronavirus, but we are nowhere near seeing the back of this plague.

Consider the disorder

Yet, we must find ways to live our lives and go about our business with a precautionary inclination to protect ourselves and our communities from being ravaged. Whatever people might believe, and some have sniffed and scoffed about this pandemic, 1,570,333 people as of today who saw in 2020 are no more due to COVID-19 disease. If that does not evince a pause for thought, probably nothing else will.

My tender heart over the years has loved and lost, there were times when I was at the point of acceptance that this thing called love happened to other people until I was unwittingly swept off my feet by an Adonis who in my wildest dreams would not have reckoned a fleeting glance of sight, talk less of being noticed.

Alert my heart

He became the prime mover, out of interest and daring he observed me for a while before approaching me and saying hello. A conversation, a lunch date, a meeting of hearts and minds, a burgeoning relationship and 2019 was livened with his company and companionship, I convinced myself beyond any doubt that this is the one. I found love in a hopeless place that gave life to hope I could never have had the courage to entertain.

My heart races, a feeling of expectation and anticipation, the preparation for a rendezvous is apace, we have many hurdles to surmount as things we did on a whim now requires planning, scheduling, deliberate consideration, and strategy, all of which we hope to breeze through to the point of our loving embrace. I am buoyed, love is beautiful, life is good, and God is on our side, for which we are all extremely thankful. 

Always and Forever

Just the warmth in my heart

My heart bubbles with expectation and the warmth of love indescribable that I feel from the most special person in my life. The many times I have fallen in and out of love, cannot compare to what has come to represent what we have and want for each other.

The separation of distance and time with its difficulties and strains have only made it too obvious to us that this thing called love that we have expressed towards each other is real, is true, is pure and is to be made even more perfect in a union of hearts, minds, and lives.

We can begin to plan ahead; the horizons are visible, and dates are coming into view with something to look forward to and the quality time we have promised to spend with each other to make the best of every single moment we spend together. As I yearn for your warm embrace and long for the warmth of your touch, know that I will forever love you, always and forever, my Brian With An I.

Things that make you think of tomorrows

In the scheme of things

As we anticipated and waited with great expectation, we found laid before us possibilities with prospects of dreams coming true. Yet, we must be aware of considerations, the plans coming together in ways quite unpredictable as the picture begins to take form and show a masterpiece of the work of providence.

Excitement drenches us like a summer rain in which we have willingly run out to play like children without a care in the world. Hearts racing towards a day when they would be so close that they will beat together in syncopation. Even as the world has changed, the changes it has wrought in us means there is a future before us that is beckoning for the joy of living.

 

Brilliantly Remembering Inspiring Amorous Necking - VIII

A wordplay for effect

Early today, I thought about the past week, all that I wrote on falling in love. I would not know if anyone noticed a characteristic of the blog titles. When I started, I was not sure I would find enough inspiration to complete the task.

As it happened, I did get the words to carry the context of the blogs into the titles using BRIAN as an acronym. Words beginning with N to fit the context are not easy to come by, it is a good thing, this brainwave did not come to be as a countdown of 30 days to his birthday or worse, a count up to his youthful age.

We relive and believe

However, as we share messages in the morning and find time for one or more video calls later in the day until bedtime. We get to talk about many things and that is how I was proposed to on Saturday night. Everything on our minds now points to the next opportunity to meet up in Cape Town where indeed we would get married and begin charting the course of our new life together.

It goes without saying, that our memories are tinged with the moments we had together and the expectation of even better times ahead. It is exactly 6 months ago that we parted company in Johannesburg. Our thoughts are almost overwhelmed with feeling, but we must temper our anxiety with patience and constant reassurance. We are a beautiful work in progress and if no one can see the love, the smiles, the good, the story, well. I hope they can be happy for themselves if they cannot be happy for others.

We bear no ill; we are living our own lives and hope others can get to live freely in the beauty of their dreams coming true. So there.

The 7 days of falling in love with Brian

Blog - Birthday Renewal Invitation Anniversary Nativity - VII

Blog - Beaus Residing in Accommodating Nirvana - VI

Blog - Beautiful Romantic Intimacy Attractive Nascent - V

Blog - Brian Really Is Adorably Nice - IV

Blog - Bashful Reticent Introverted Amusing Naughty - III

Blog - Beginning Reaction Indication Affinity Notable - II

Blog - Belief Review Interest Anticipation New - I

Brian Really Is Adorably Nice - IV

Daring to step up

With just under two weeks in South Africa when we parted ways, but I was not parting company, I was a bit forward in maintaining communication with him, and I initiated without asking our first long-distance interaction using WhatsApp on video.

If I had not planned to spend the New Year in Cape Town, I might have done something crazy like make an unannounced visit to Bulawayo, maybe I shouldn’t be too eager, but I knew where my heart was heading to. Every day, we exchanged messages and nightly calls, whilst I was not that inquisitive, I was learning a lot about him that heightening my admiration and respect for him.

The chance meeting we had seemed to have another touch of providence, he asked if I knew of a computer company, a very close friend and mentor who died five years before had owned it and with that came other interesting and troubling revelations that we hope will be resolved eventually in the estate and bequest of my friend to him and other parties that we have assembled to work in concert.

Again, we met up

I had decided we will meet again for Easter, the rendezvous being Johannesburg and us flying out together to Cape Town for a longer break, all tickets were booked by the end of January. The green shoots of love were growing fast, we seemed to have decided we both had something going. When Valentine’s Day came, I received the most beautiful bouquet of flowers.

How was I to know that an issue with my schedule of work would free me to pursue a passionate affair in late February? As good fortune would have it, he could take time off too and we met in Johannesburg for 10 nights. This thing called love is too beautiful for words, dreams and fantasy became my new reality.

Thought Picnic: A present absence in an absent presence

Swirls of turbulence abound

One thing I have attempted to keep away from is the torrent of cable television news and the opinions that feed the news cycle engendering anxiety, turbulence, and stress.

Obviously, one cannot completely be oblivious of current affairs, my Twitter feed can be a Roman candle of excitability that you have to filter, one way or the other.

Some interesting things you might retweet, others will elicit comments that could end up a thread and some could induce an utterly infuriating feeling that you best exercise restraint than exercise yourself.

Having a choice

Now, what cannot be ignored is the madness of Brexit that I have decidedly limited my blogging about, though I await the opportunity to cast my vote for the leadership of the Labour Party that I joined in January. It is unfortunate that the wisdom of previous Prime Ministers was ignored in favour of ideological mendaciousness, the result is a hurtling down a political ravine to a precipitous cliff edge. Where nationalism and patriotism have been conflated into an agenda of denial, obfuscation and absence of accountability predicated on a contrived ‘will of the people’.

We need an effective opposition that I fear has failed to exist in the last few years, for as principled as the Leader of the Opposition might be, it takes a lot more to win elections, the Labour Party needs to chart another course back to winning ways, the examples are many and having lost 4 elections in the row, continuity is not the desired future, no matter how Utopian it seems.

Of viral impact

The other issue is the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a certain type of pneumonia of unknown provenance, highly infectious with a moderate mortality rate that appeared to originate in Wuhan, China in December and is spreading around the world with unintended consequences of socio-political and economic import.

Invisible, yet deadly, it might presage a global recession especially where the health emergency is becoming a victim of the propaganda machinery of governments of all colours, revealing to damning effect incompetence and ineptitude except in the uniquely quasi-democratic city-state of Singapore of all places. I had my concerns when I visited the hospital on Monday for an ultrasound scan of kidneys, but I did not allow it to upset me.

That apart of the misinformation and the postulations of people with opinions given greater platforms than people with expertise, we are caught in a dystopian vortex of easy fables over facts, talking rather than listening, a departure from learning and a rewriting of history for the convenience of expediency. [Keeping with the Coronavirus - WHO]

A crippled democracy

Our itching ears seek the comfort from being afflicted with the truth and there is where the dishonest, the unprincipled, the unscrupulous, the politicians, and those without integrity have found an audience that Voltaire did say would believe absurdities and go on to commit atrocities.

I hate to say that the exercise of democracy and universal suffrage in recent times has become seething atrocity because I am left askance at what absurdities have persuaded the people to vote the way they have in some countries and certain elections.

This made me conclude in a tweet yesterday that, “Democracy is a herd for which a wily politician can cause a stampede of votes in their direction where reason demands an orderly procession in any other direction but that.” How our basest instincts and our irrational fears have been exploited to such political advantage to our detriment that people who should never be in public office rise to heights of leadership out of leading us to believe the absurd.

Democracy is a herd for which a wily politician can cause a stampede of votes in their direction where reason demands an orderly procession in any other direction but that.

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ 🏳️‍🌈 #FBPE (@forakin) March 3, 2020

I sit in my apartment learning innovative technologies, absenting myself from these things, whilst wondering about a future where my heart and mind is at one in purpose and companionship, very far from here. It is possible, for that is where there is renewal and newness of life. For me and for him.

Thought Picnic: The dissolution of resolution

Absolution from resolution

Long ago I learnt that I am not cut out for resolutions, I stopped making them well over a decade ago and committed more to complete things that were in progress and doing things I felt needed doing.

In terms of horizons, I have near and far horizons, in the near-term, my health and well-being are critical, I give a lot of consideration to that because it underpins my ability to do other things. I am not fixated on fitness or dietary goals though I do constantly have some angst about my weight, the desire to get it down to a range goes against the extra bulk my consultants preferred I be at when I had cancer a decade ago.

For relationship goals

In the medium term, I need to work on the unfocused issues of my relationship and what we intend to do with regards to our long-term place of single or multiple residences. This is my priority and it would feature prominently in the longer-term plans for life and career ahead of us.

Generally, I enjoy what I am doing now, I hope to continue doing and improving the prospects and opportunities ahead. I think I have a good year ahead; I think we both have a good year ahead of us. The pursuit of happiness remains one of attaining, retaining and enduring in it, through all circumstances.

Trivial things matter

Some things I would like to work on for my personal development, taking both piano and swimming lessons. In managing milestones and continuity, I acknowledge without living for the landmarks and for each day that comes, I feel blessed and fortunate to have another reason to tell a story.

I offer no motivational spiel, rather than be a better version of yourself, accepting yourself, accepting your faults, giving no space to nonsense from anyone or any situation, and living your best life regardless of whether you’re liked or not.

Happy New Year! Where that gives you the opportunity to start something anew, go for it, where it simply ushers in another day, never let the ordinary and mundane take away from making every moment one to cherish alone, with someone, or by doing something exciting.

Thought Picnic: I was sodden too sudden

To prophesy, I did not

Suddenly, is not a word I use that often, though I do sometimes pretend I rarely act on impulse but on slow determined and considered thought and reflection before I do anything.

However, what I cannot account for is how casual commentary becomes prescient as if one has been gifted a power of benign prognostication that has hardly developed beyond reviewing issues in hindsight.

The decision to go to Cape Town at Easter was made in early January and in deciding that, there was a throwaway comment that South Africa might again see a visitor sooner than planned. We were already counting down the days towards the meeting in Johannesburg for our onward flight together to Cape Town.

To manifest, I sure did

Then suddenly, a furlough and an uncertainty intervened in a situation where time became available to consider possibilities and opportunities. This all got clarity yesterday evening and with it comes a trip to the southern hemisphere. Now, who would not jump at a business trip to South Africa?

The execution was sudden, but the thought process had been sown, watered and tended over weeks of flux, wherein, the indeterminate follows on to the definite. With ticket in hand, board on high, affections in overdrive and meetings planned for the eruptions of ideas, goals, aims and hopefully more than one ever desired. We face life as a journey of people, hearts, and minds.

Providence shines on me and I am grateful for all that gives me a story to tell, eventually.

Shortening time with longing

Time is a measure,
In which we find the pleasure,
Wandering for leisure,
With a heart full of treasure.

There comes a time,
For which there is no chime,
We come into our prime,
With the hopes of a lifetime.

Counting down the days,
The weeks you dare set ablaze,
The months you want to raze,
Till when you face their gaze.

If time will gallop on,
To finish the marathon,
No more to wait upon,
The wish to liaison.

The heart is full of love,
Like a blessing from above,
Time is like a dove,
Freed and better off.

We wonder what to do,
With what we never knew,
As sure as we come to,
The day to meet anew.

Dublin: A Wedding Invitation

An invitation

Almost two months ago I was intimated with the plans for a wedding and at the same time invited. I accepted the invitation, noting the date and kept it at the back of my mind.

Then a month ago, we had another conversation where I got a better idea of the plans and at that time I decided to book both my flight and hotel as we were chatting.

Now, I have to be quite attentive to my booking regime because I cannot count the number of times I have had a hotel and flight booking mismatch or just got my return dates wrong because of the way calendar months are presented when booking.

At times, I’ll spend extra to have the option to review, reschedule, rebook or cancel, and that came in handy for when I booked my hotel.

Irelands

I have never been to Ireland, in fact, I have never been to any of the Irelands, those being Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

However, I do remember when I was about to be sent to solve a problem in Belfast in the 1990s and I just refused to go. The office was above a police station and this was during the troubles.

I said to them, there are places where being in close proximity to a police station would present a sense of safety, but I was not going to risk that in Belfast. No sooner had I refused to travel to Belfast did I experience the IRA bombing in Manchester where not even 10 yards from where I stood, shards of glass fell on a man. Those were crazy times.

Last year when I was working in North Wales, I could have taken the opportunity to travel from Holyhead to Dublin by ferry, I considered it many times but never found time to plan it. Dublin, here I come.

Eerie bookings

I booked my hotel, it looked like a bargain; in the centre of town and easy to get around until I had another look at the map and saw it backed unto a garden of remembrance.

Memorials are great and I celebrate them, but I know how my imagination can run away with such vividness that I could begin to see things. There are some things I do not want to see either by error or by commission; that realisation had me cancelling that booking almost before the confirmation email settled in my email inbox. Good thing I chose the cancellation option.

Besides, I need to follow my deepest premonitions more, because there have been times when something has suggested I take a particular action that later on I regret I have not done. Yet, I cannot beat myself up, I just hope that next time I am more sensitive.

Listlessly wireless

My usual booking site did not present any betters deals for the weekend I wanted to visit Dublin, so I tried LateRooms and that came up with a really good deal, I stayed at Wynn’s Hotel for 3 nights, the staff were friendly, the room was good, though the complimentary wireless internet service almost left me wanting to do the unconventional.

In the end, it was 3 nights in Dublin, but I must return because I did not get to see much of this amazing city which at only time in its history was second only to London in the British Isles.

Flight from fright

There are two airlines I would not board if they were the last escape from a dying earth, EasyJet and RyanAir, they have both for the no-frills and cheap flights they offer to places that would never appear on a decent map of civilisation taken the fun out of flying and in the process dragged everyone else down with them.

Gone are the days when not even 20 years ago you got a decent silver service for an hour’s flight in economy class. Now, one just makes do with a drink and sometimes you have to pay for that drink.

I’ll rather have stop-overs than take a direct flight, thankfully, Aer Lingus flies direct to Dublin from Manchester, though when I departed on Thursday evening, my flight lingered in late and left 45 minutes behind schedule.

The service was good enough and as I await boarding for my return to Manchester, the experience has been fun.

Thought Picnic: Hands of favour

Bless my soul

The favours I have obtained I can only be so grateful for, from those who open their hands to those offered their time, it is like a time of blessing for which I must be very thankful.

For the end of the last day at my accommodation did start in darkness, darkness for work was being done on the pylons. In fact, that was twice experience for the morning had a cut-out too when a new generator was being installed.

There wasn’t much to do in the dark than to snuggle under the duvet until the lights returned just about an hour later.

Peaceful the night was as ensconced in the room one did nothing else but for the pill time. Sleep was restful for the day to come which started as early as just after six.

No small town

As I prepared, a message came offering a lift to work; not one I could refuse and one I gladly accepted as we met at the tail end of my breakfast.

Traffic in this small town in the morning is close on horrendous whilst parking at the grounds of the stately home that represents the campus of offices was almost fraught, a sea of cars as far as the eye could see in the almost 15 car parks littering the place – it was hardly 5 minutes past 9.

Getting a scope

We met with our manager and then made for our new desks where we covered a number of agenda issues we would be discussing on a telephone conference with the antipodeans of Africa on Thursday.

The much it appears we have to do is obscured by the lack of clarity as to who, what and how the people we would service will be affected. So many bridges we would have to cross but we cannot cross those bridges until we reach those rivers.

Yet, as introductions go, we are getting the feel of how far technology would go but the bigger issue would be with people, process, procedure and politics.

The important thing is to know what to engage and when to escalate, striking a balance of compromise and coercion. In my view, this would be quite interesting and great fun.

Useful conversation

Over cups of Starbucks lattes we talked and considered, assumed and then debunked those assumptions, we should be weary of crystal balling the issues when we should ask direct questions and only be satisfied with clear answers.

My new place, smaller than the last was a comforting welcome and then the offer to take me to the shops to get things I might need, very generous and affable, you then realise that travel is the source of knowledge to share in making really wonderful conversation.

Pleasant, it was and yet, this is only the second day. With thanks I look forward to the next.

Thought Picnic: God's Grand Plan of Fixing my Slashed Tyre

The plans I made

Despite all I have seen, if I had to be told I live a wonderful life and not realise it myself, I would have failed to count the many blessings, small and large that waylay me at every turn and bring me such happiness, fun, joy and encouragement.

I planned to attend prayer meeting at church this evening and had arranged to meet up with a friend two stations further on to journey together to church.

Usually, I cut it fine with just enough time to ride my bicycle to the station, lock it up and catch the train, but I also needed to get tickets so I made much more allowances for that and just some time.

The plans overturned

I got ready, unchained my bicycle and one look at the front tyre showed that someone had found the bizarrely twisted pleasure to dig in the tyre and slashed the inner tube – that this should happen in front of my house was just cutting, I had never in my 12 years of living in the Netherlands and many times of securing my bicycle outside had my tyres slashed and it is only in my first year that I ever and only once had my bicycle stolen.

I reported the event on Twitter, got sympathy and I never thought it could ever have been a hate crime; my street does have quite an international feel to it.

New plans working fine

Putting my cane together, I walked up to the bus stop informing my friend that I might not catch the pre-arranged train, but I was just in time for the bus, to get my ticket and catch the train. The clouds were looming ready to belch their store of rain and I did not think I was that prepared but my trusty umbrella was in my bag. We met up and travelled to church, my umbrella saving us from getting drenched to the skin.

We were on time to help set up the meeting room and the meeting started as I thought about how to get the bicycle to the repair shop just about 2 kilometres away and how long it would take to repair the bicycle before I could use it again – all sorts of permutations of solutions tried to take away my concentration but I persevered in prayer all the same. The prayer sessions were exciting, different and really edifying before we had a break.

My friend returned home and then I asked another friend residing in my city if I could have a lift back home. That was arranged when I saw that my neighbour arrive for the leadership and volunteers training session.

Altering the plan

After the session, I asked if I could have a ride back home and he obliged, I cancelled the other arrangement, we got in the car where I told him the tale of my slashed bicycle tyre.

He just about encouraged me enough to get my hands dirty after he shared with me how he learnt to be a handyman having known nothing about maintaining and repairing motorbikes just two years before.

I was not sure but I was willing to try, I really did not have to wheel my bicycle to the repair shop or remove the wheel and hump that by bus to the repair shop, I just needed to find out what size of tube I needed, get that from the shop, remove the old tube, take out the wheel, put in the new tube in the tyre, let in some air to set it on the wheel, then put the tyre back on, fix the wheel and then pump the tyre to the right pressure.

The part about letting some air into the tube was quite useful information borne from experience; I was somewhat ready to try something very different.

An unexpected plan

When we got home, I showed him my bicycle as he concluded it was a slashing rather than a mere puncture. He read the measurements for the tyre and then it suddenly occurred to him that he might have a spare tube in his car.

Apparently, a few weeks before, he bought two different sizes of inner tube for his bicycle being unsure of which size will fit and on fitting the right one he had lost the receipt he needed to return the other tube for a refund.

That tube just happened to be the right size for my tyre as I planned that I would fit it on the morrow only wondering about where I might have put my bicycle pump. The lights were down and the dark of the night had come as he offered that we do it there and then.

So I wheeled the bicycle into his backyard and he set up the lights, got out his tool box and disconnecting the brakes, he got out the old tube, loosened the wheel and put in the new tube, applied manly grease to the nuts and threading and basically put my bicycle back together again.

You cannot make up such as story if you wanted to, Buddy who might not have known for sure why he obtained two tubes and that he will have a passenger in his car on his ride back home, but he was the answer to the incongruous, the improbable and literally uncanny – maybe God does move in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, but at the end, it all came together in a grand plan none of us could have contrived.

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

I know that I was distraught, probably annoyed and at a time confused as to why anyone would find any pleasure in the wilful destruction of another man’s property but I was never bitter. There was going to be a solution eventually but it never went according to my plan and it was solved long before the day was over without me having to worry much and spend anything apart from the wheeling of the bicycle to the backyard and lifting the wheel ignorantly off the frame before checking where the washers were.

My friend, Buddy was a God-send beyond anything I could have imagined and I was grinning from ear-to-ear after it was all done with care, consideration, charity and kindness in an expression of unconditional love. "Buddy, you've been a great buddy," I said. Yes, that is his wonderful name lived out to reality.

In the last two months, goodness, mercy, kindness, favour and goodwill has chased me down and overtaken me so many times, as a man of faith, I can only say God has my back and has my concerns to mind – it is just amazing that God had already set in motion the plan to fix my slashed tyres long before it happened and it is a wonder how many times we have missed latching onto the good things He has planned for us long before we reached the difficult paths, situations and circumstances we come up against in our daily lives. 

What a day it was

All laid most failed

Home, a place to be, especially after a long interesting day, I had basically been out for 13 hours and there was never a dull moment.

We had great plans for the day, a whole raft of changes we confidently put together and researched to infinity only to find the whole scheme decimated by others who until it became obvious they needed to be seriously involved had been at best indifferent.

Meanwhile as the day matured, the realities of the other decimations became evident, beyond the quip of Iceland being able to affect us economically and environmentally people who needed to fly found they were grounded.

The nature beyond us

UK airports were closing and it was only a matter of time before Amsterdam Schiphol airspace was closed, looking at the boards, literally everything had been cancelled and no arrivals expected earlier than 05:00 hours.

The disruption is spreading south but the volcano seems to be in an emetic abandon, not a sight to beyond.

At work, each milestone we planned to reach was being removed by sudden exaggerated concerns; hopefully some lessons have been learnt because things cannot continue like this at all.

Some hope for many escapes

Not all transport suffered, the buses still ran, the trains were on time with additional services to Belgium, and the Amsterdam Passenger’s Terminal had a huge cruise liner docked with probably the people tasting things in our esteemed coffee shops.

The people who could not fly out might really be so cross whilst those who could not fly in might well still have another day of holidays – how I wish I was far away – but one phone call I got today just threw confusion into when and how my sickness benefits would be decided and paid up.

The Holy Father asks us to do penance, but how that helps those who had no resistance, I would not know, maybe the repentance of the offender is supposed to be the deliverance of the victim – where is the chapter and verse?

Now, a late dinner, my pills, my bed and tomorrow – Deo volente is another day.