Je suis Charlie

Thursday 8 January 2015

Back to frosty again

1 degree

Down the market wearing one of my new jumpers bought online and miraculously delivered in just three days!!  Well done, House of Fraser.  Today's model is a bright turquoise with cable pattern and went very well with a gorgeous capelet in thick multicoloured wool that I ran up over a year ago.  I often find my knits difficult to wear as the Season never seems quite right.  OH says some of my knits look better in the drawer.  This is because I knit in front of the TV and sometimes they are undeliberately asymmetrical...

The cold weather had kept quite a few stall keepers away and the remainder were wrapped like babushki and stamped around at the back of their wares, their breath curling up into the clear, sharp air.  Bought two scarves for the charitable project I am involved in - got bright colours in the hope it will cheer the recipients.  Decided to attach little message to let the new owner know someone cares. Other members of the project have already sent items.  How terrible it must be to be on the streets in this freezing weather.  How terrible that people are on the streets in the 21st century.  How terrible that all those journalists in Paris were murdered by islamist extremists in order to intimidate and suppress free speech.  Not a single newspaper other than Charlie Hebdo will publish these cartoons. Je suis Charlie signs in all of the shop windows.  Vigils in Paris.  One minute silence at midday.

Get home and find OH has been reading about Muslim faith and is in a state of high agitation and says that they want to take over the World and kill all infidels.  I try and calm him down with a tuna sandwich and point out that what were the Crusaders other than radicalised Christians who were happy to go and murder and rape and pillage the infidels between the 11th and 15th centuries and that the whole idea of the Crusades was thought up by Pope Urban II.  It is payback time and there is as much chance that the Muslims have forgotten the Crusades as the Irish forgetting the Battle of the Boyne.  Religion has always, and probably always will be, used by extremists as a reason for gaining power and territory.   I also point out that radicalism is facilitated by the fact that the Muslim populations are kept poor and ignorant in places like Afghanistan.  OH counters with the fact that the Muslim leaders are not willing to let the religion evolve and that the Koran says that all infidels should be killed.  I look this up and references state that this can be taken out of its context.  OH thinks muslims coming to Europe should sign a charter saying they will integrate and that faith schools should be abolished.  I look up more about the Koran and discover it says that infidels can be lied to so the charter idea just wouldn't work.

I have, unfortunately, to go out and do some work at this point.  Go and see property where I dropped the card off the other day and had surprise phone call inviting me to go and see the property.  The house is on the heights above our village and has lovely views.  It was jaw droopingly clean.  It was so clean that I wished I had parked my filthy car at least two hundred metres further up the road.  The owners were in their 80's and absolutely charming.  The house has been for sale unbelievably for nearly a year on exclusive contract with another agency.  Agree a very reasonable price, take pictures, measure up, eat a lot of lovely buttery biscuits and drink excellent coffee.   Disabuse them of the idea that the Queen owns all of the houses in the UK (a lot of French people think this).

Back home to find OH playing with his leaf blower.  Take down most of the Christmas decorations.  Leave up the stags heads in the kitchen, plus the sparkly lights and the hearts in the living room.  Hoover.  WF phone still switched off.  Ring the recruitment agency he was supposed to be seeing yesterday and they confirmed that he had indeed been there.  He is not looking at his emails either.  RJ rings to say that the bank have deducted huge bank charges.  He insists on not having online access to his bank account in case of hacking.  The only danger to RJ's bank account is RJ himself.  He never manages to save a penny.  Not like WF who is as tight as the proverbial bottom of a mallard.

Listened to the MindValley Clear Your Abundance Blocks 'masterclass' with Christie Sheldon.  It was a recording so you couldnt see her actually talking.  OH kept on popping in and out of the kitchen and saying 'dont give them any money'.  My abundance blocks are

1.  Feeling money is very hard to come by and I need to work very hard at things I dont enjoy in order to get it.

2.  Feeling that my career doesnt nourish me and that I am not paid for being me (unlike Christie Sheldon who apparently is)

3.  Feeling that I wasnt given support and encouragement at a very early age.

It was of course a sales pitch for the course.  If Christie Sheldon is a multimillionnaire, she should be giving to the poor and desperate people who come to webinars like these, instead of taking nearly 300 dollars from them.