Smile Of The Day

 

DAY SEVEN:

Thursday 7^th January 2021:

Today is going to be a busy day for me, a very busy day. But before I share all that let me put on record the china virus figures for yesterday. 62,322 tested positive for the virus and 1,041 died. Each number there represents a REAL person surrounded by loving families and friends. This is so frightening. Are we facing the end of the world ? Certainly we are facing an end to the world we know.

Today’s Smile of the Day: Something from the Dalai Lama

He said:

There are only two days in the year when nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe and

mostly live.

We need to do that for EVERYONE in our society. EVERYONE needs to do that for EVERYONE.

5.15pm yesterday my front door bell rang ?  Who could that be ?  In lock down who could be ringing the bell. Answering the bell a Royal Mail van was parked at the top of the drive, Postman Pat was standing there smiling. He had put a parcel on my doorstep and was ringing the bell to tell me it was there. THANK YOU POSTMAN PAT.

That parcel contained card on which we can print SMILE CARDS to send to wonderful people.

As I write this diary page the TV news is reporting on the stress NHS staff are going through. If the NHS does collapse then for all of us living in Britain it will literally be the end of the world. But that is not going to happen is it ?  No matter how mad things get, no matter how bad things get our NHS is NOT going to collapse.

I have so many times criticised our Prime Minister our government’s management of the china virus pandemic and the majority of the country would probably agree with me.

Britain is a democracy and is holding our country together. Across history we have had some less than good Prime Ministers, we’ve got one now, but we live in a democracy.

The world is waking up this morning to what is happening in America and its version of democracy. With every fibre of my being I am so grateful I do not live there. No matter what may happen Britain would never behave the way America has. Britain would never storm the Houses of Parliament, to riot and kill. No Prime Minister would ever behave the way President Donald Trump is.

May I suggest that Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay needs to close as a tourist attraction and re-open as a high security prison. It can then accommodate one inmate, a certain Donald Trump !

So what was happening in history on this day:

7^th January 1959 The United States recognised the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

7^th January 1985 Lewis Hamilton was born

Not a lot !

Yesterday I wrote 4,477 words in my one million word challenge. I wrote:

1,166 words for the diary

306 words as I started reviewing my writing in A STAIRCSE OF WORDS

3,005 words for JUKEBOX

Today I am setting myself the challenge to write TEN thousand words.

I am having great fun writing Jukebox which is specifically aimed at teenagers, giving them something positive to do in this difficult time.

It was 2am in the morning when I came up with the idea to do something similar, not with music but with poetry. One of the poems I will be including in my anthology is BATTERY HEN by PAM AYRES Let me share it with you now:

Oh. I am a battery hen, on me back there's not a germ,

I never scratched a farmyard, and I never pecked a worm,

I never had the sunshine, to warm me feathers through,

Eggs I lay. Every day. For the likes of you.

 

When you has them scrambled, piled up on your plate,

It's me what you should thank for that, I never lays them late,

I always lays them reg'lar, I always lays them right,

I never lays them brown, I always lays them white.

 

But it's no life, for a battery hen, in me box I'm sat,

A funnel stuck out from the side, me pellets comes down that,

I gets a squirt of water, every half a day,

Watchin' with me beady eye, me eggs roll away.

 

I lays them in a funnel, strategically placed,

So that I don't kick 'em and let them go to waste,

They rolls off down the tubing, and up the gangway quick,

Sometimes I gets to thinkin' "That could have been a chick!"

 

I might have been a farmyard hen, scratchin' in the sun,

There might have been a crowd of chicks, after me to run,

There might have been a cockerel fine, to pay us his respects,

Instead of sittin' here till someone comes and wrings our necks.

 

I see the Time and Motion clock, is sayin' nearly noon,

I 'spec me squirt of water, will come flyin' at me soon,

And then me spray of pellets, will nearly break me leg,

And I'll bite the wire nettin' and lay one more bloody egg.

Do we still have battery chicken farms ? I hope not.  The supermarket where I buy my eggs does not sell them.

Yesterday evening I almost completed packing the SMILE ENVELOPES for Dreamsai’s food boxes next week. Just five more to go. I am then going to pack the Smile Cards and NHS quiz for Churchill Hospital in Oxford.

What was it The Dalai Lama said in today’s SMILE ?

There are only two days in the year when nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe and mostly live.

That is my mission for today. Please make it yours as well.

Speak again tomorrow

Dave