Oh what a beautiful morning

DAY SIXTEEN: Saturday 16th January  2021:

Oh what a beautiful morning – Oh what a beautiful day – I’ve got a beautiful feeling – Everything’s going my way !

Getting out of bed this morning just after five there was snow on the ground. Leaving home at 6.45am to head to Morrissons Supermarket so I could pop out SMILE envelopes for next week into the Dreamsai box the snow was almost gone, the heavy rain was washing it away.  Within West Bletchley, where I live, our estate has all its roads named after rivers, the rain and snow was turning them into literal rivers.

Running into Morrissons, eager to get home for breakfast, the staff were all there SMILING and welcoming customers. The security guard on the door has a thick beard over which he has his mask. You can hardly see his face but it is obvious he is SMILING.

Last week I sent an e-mail to Morrissons head office thanking staff for all they are doing and called Morrissons the SMILING supermarket. Now that has given me an oing to be idea, several actually which I will share later on in today’s diary. Add to that my 4am moment where ideas burst into my head while I am still asleep began at 3am today and ideas right now are fighting to find a corner of my head in which to sit down. This IS going to be a beautiful day.

SMILE OF THE DAY: SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED SOMEONE TO TELL YOU YOU’RE

NOT AS TERRIBBLE AS YOU THINK.  I put that onto The Sunshine SMILE Crew’s facebook page at 6,04am and already it is drawing attention. 8.04 am – One like – seven people have seen it. Yesterday’s SMILE certainly made an impact.

So how many words did I write yesterday ?  How many towards my million challenge ?  I was a good boy: 8,182 bring my total half way through the first month of the year to 179,997. A lot of those words were for my book WHO NEEDS A PUB TO HAVE A QUIZ. I was planning to publish this in April but I think it will be some time next month. The SMILE envelopes I dropped off to Dreamsai contained the quiz sheet Animal Crackers. Yesterday, I put a selection of quiz sheets into an envelope to post to residents at Flowers Care Home. Today I will sort our NHS quiz for staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Quiz For Teachers at Oakgrove school.

Those lovely people at Morrissons have inspired me to write a Quiz For Shops which can help to put SMILES on shop workers’ faces.

In my letter to Flowers Care Home I said that for next week I would write a series of decade quizzes one each covering 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s. 1980’s and 1990’s. My 4am moment told me to add in 1930’s !  At 4am so many questions came into my head. Here are a few for you to try out:

DECADES 1940’s:

In a phone box what happened when you pressed button A ?

In a phone box what happened when you pressed button B ?

In that same phone box what were the PIPS ?

DECADES 1950’s:

Which 1950’s conflict was featured in a 1970’s TV series starring Alan Alder ?

What did HRH Prince Philip The Duke of Edinburgh found on 1st September 1956 ?

Who was the first person to stand on the summit of Mount Everest ?

Which organisation celebrated its 50th anniversary in Sutton Park in 1957 ?

DECADES 1960’s:

In which US city was president J F Kennedy assassinated ?

It was nicknamed Hippie Park but what is the real name of this San Francisco location which hosted The Summer of Love ?

What TV soap was first broadcast on 9th December 1960 ?

Which singer was the first to win the Eurovison Song Contest for the UK ?

DECADES 1970’s:

Who was President of The United States on 1st January 1970 ?

What did America celebrate on 4th July 1976 ?

Plant a tree in ’73. What were you supposed to do in ’74 ?

What was D Day ?

If you dialled 192 on a phone what service would you connect to ?

DECADES 1980’s:

Who was the British Prime Minister on 1st January 1980 ?

Who was President of The United States on 1st January 1980 ?

And the same again for 1990’s.

So another question ?  Did you skip those questions ? Are you still with me ?  That’s two questions LOL.

Time now for our regular feature ON THIS DAY:

16th January 1969: Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of manned spacecraft in orbit, the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk. That I remember.

16th January 1979: The last Iranian Shah flees Iran with his family for good and relocates to Egypt. That I remember and look what has happened to the country since this date.

16th January 1991: Coalition Forces go to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War. One of my former students fought in that war.

16th January 2003: The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.

16th January 1963: James May of Top Gear was born.

Yesterday 48,628 more cases of china virus were announced in the UK and 1,248 more deaths. I am trying to encourage people as they lay down their heads on pillows at night to spend a few moments before sleeping think about the real people represented in the figures, the real people and their families, real people and the NHS staff who cared for them. The numbers are so big it is not and easy task but while the pandemic continues I will always do this.

Where I live we have BIN BAG THURSDAY. Collection was postponed to Friday. Now on Saturday the sacks are still outside houses. That is a constant reminder that TWO of our binmen team have died of the virus and 40% are off sick. I have always praised our binmen, the hardest workers in the borough. Long may the sacks remain as a reminder of this sad loss.

Back to yesterday’s writing. One thousand, one hundred and seventy-nine words were used as I rewrote the opening introduction for my book BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS. I needed to make the opening chapter far darker and sinister. I think I achieved that yesterday but things were not going to turn out into a full length crime novel. I started to prepare myself for a short story which really not going to even closely approach being of interest ton read. Then last night three words came into my mind: Neuro Linguistic Programming. They remained in my mind as I slept, I dreamed a new plot for the story which I believe will enable me to write a good little crime novel.

Back to Morrissons The Smiling Supermarket. On 11th April 2017 I published an e-book THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TEENAGE ENTREPENEUR (Failed) When I left school I embarked upon a management training course with a giant department store. The word (Failed) means I suddenly changed career direction. My ambition as a management trainee was to become The King Of The High Street.  I dreamed of owning a nationwide chain of supermarkets which


I was going to call Sunshine Supermarkets. That’s fifty-three years ago but my plan was to put a giant SMILING face over the entry doors of every branch. Somewhere within my one million word challenge I am going to write something for today’s SMILING Supermarket and all who are going the extra mile in these hard times.

Oh what a beautiful morning – Oh what a beautiful day – I’ve got a beautiful feeling – Everything’s going my way !

Tomorrow I will tell you just how beautiful today is.

Speak again then

Dave

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