Caravan Park Manager

I’ve got to share a blog with you. I was searching the web for something aabout Belfast, and came across a blog from a guy called Nils Ling

I came across this while googling for something else alltogether. It made me stop and think. It’s been two and a half years but it stil hurts like it was yesterday.

This guy puts it into words, so well. I can hardly see the computer.

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It was time to go have my last words with my father. He was dying, in the bedroom he built. He built our whole house, even dug the foundation himself, with a diaper tied around his head to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He was always working on the house, more than 35 years, and he never did finish it. He was first to admit that he really didn’t know how to build a house.

When I went in to see him, he was lying in the bedroom, listening to “The People’s Court.” I remember when he always would be on those Sunday-morning television talk shows, back in the fifties and sixties. Dr. Barry, they called him. He was a Presbyterian minister, and he worked in inner-city New York. They were always asking him to be on those shows to talk about Harlem and the South Bronx, because back then he was the only white man they could find who seemed to know anything about it. I remember when he was quotation of the day in the New York Times. The Rev. Dr. David W. Barry.

His friends called him Dave. “Is Dave there?” they’d ask, when they called to talk about their husbands or wives or sons or daughters who were acting crazy or drinking too much or running away. Or had died. “Dave,” they’d ask, “what can I do?” They never thought to call anybody but him. He’d sit there and listen, for hours, sometimes. He was always smoking.

The doctor told us he was dying, but we knew anyway. Almost all he said anymore was thank you, when somebody brought him shaved ice, which was mainly what he wanted, at the end. He had stopped putting his dentures in. He had stopped wearing his glasses. I remember when he yanked his glasses off and jumped into the Heymans’ pool to save me.

So I go in for my last words, because I have to go back home, and my mother and I agree I probably won’t see him again. I sit next to him on the bed, hoping he can’t see that I’m crying. “I love you, Dad,” I say. He says “I love you, too. I’d like some oatmeal.”

So I go back out to the living room, where my mother and my wife and my son are sitting on the sofa, in a line, waiting for the outcome and I say, “He wants some oatmeal.” I am laughing and crying about this. My mother thinks maybe I should go back in and try to have a more meaningful last talk, but I don’t.

Driving home, I’m glad I didn’t. I think: He and I have been talking ever since I learned how. A million words. All of them final, now. I don’t need to make him give me any more, like souvenirs. I think: Let me not define his death on my terms. Let him have his oatmeal. I can hardly see the road.

© Dave Barry

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We’ve had midweek and breaks advertised for a while…. 4 nights for £99. Today, we have still 2 apartments not booked. Next week, we’ve got 1 apartment not booked. The week after… we’re completely empty!

I know the trend is towards last minute booking… people are waiting for a bargain… but for goodness’ sake… it’s equal to £12.50 per person per night?

The roads into Southport were jammed with traffic today… so there were plenty of “day trippers” around… but less who wanted to stay for a few days.

Come on, folks, get booking… and I’ll even tell you the “back way” into Southport to avoid the traffic!

The financial crisis explained in simple terms:

Linda is the proprietor of a bar in Cork. In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers – most of whom are unemployed alcoholics – to drink now but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood into Linda’s bar.

Taking advantage of her customers’ freedom from immediate payment constraints, Linda increases her prices for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Linda’s borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager (subsequently of course fired due to his negativity) of the bank decides that the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at Linda’s bar.

However they cannot pay back the debts.

Linda cannot fulfill her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95 %. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80 %.

The suppliers of Linda’s bar, having granted her generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities, are faced with a new situation. Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor.

The bank is saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties (and vested interests).

The funds required for this purpose are obtained by a tax levied on the non-drinkers.

Finally an explanation I understand……………….

Apparently, RyanAir are about to start charging £1 to use the aircraft toilet. Well, why stop there?

We’ve just added 3 more rental units… giving us the grand total of 8 !

Now, because we’re only small, we don’t have a contract laundry supplying bedding and towels. Instead, we buy from local retailers. This is where the problem starts. 6 double bed sets and 14 single bed sets of quilt covers, sheets, pillowcases, quilts, pillows, and all the towels and so forth are needed. Ideally we will have them all the same colour…. while the units are decorated individually and it would be nice to color-code the bedding to each unit, it’s easier to have everything in a neutral colour.

Our first three units have got brown and cream bedding. Now, it doesn’t matter if they are not interchangeable with the others. Everything else has cream bedding or white bedding. As long as the collars and cuffs match………..

So far, we have opened one unit at a time, so we have not had too much trouble getting enough bedding. But trying to kit out three units… two units with a double and two singles, one unit with a double and four singles, has tried my patience.

The shop has next to no stock of my colours, so I go to their web site. Everything shows as available…. great! However, as soon as I start with “10 of these, 6 of those” etc, etc, we hit problems. Not immediately, only when I go to checkout. Then it says some items are out of stock.

Does it tell me how many they have? No. So I have to keep changing my order quantities to get the order through. And the web site has a couple of links down, so I have to go through the whole menu, Household > Bedroom > Bedding > Sheets > for every item.

Well, I started 2 hours ago, and the order is finally sent. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

(“Grrrrargos refers to the web site argos.co.uk”, but they’ll always be Grrrrargos.co.uk to me from today onwards.)

As the year started, we saw this near-disaster….

Date: January 15, 2009 Time: 15:31
Location: New York, New York
Operator: US Airways Flight: 1549
AC Type: Airbus A320-214
Reg: N106US cn: 1044
Aboard: 155 Fatalities: 0 Ground: 0
Details: The plane was taking off from La Guardia Airport when both engines were disabled after striking a flock of geese. The crew was able to make a soft landing in the Hudson River. All 150 passengers and crew of 5 made it out safely before the plane began to sink. No one was reported to be seriously injured.

Soon after, we had another incident, this time with 50 fatalities

Date: February 12, 2009 Time: 22:17
Location: Clarence Center, New York
Operator: Continental Connection/Colgan Air Flight: 3407
AC Type: Bombardier DHC-8-402 Q400
Reg: N200WQ cn: 4200
Aboard: 49 Fatailites: 49 Ground: 1
Route: Newark, N.J. – Buffalo, NY
Details: The commuter plane crashed while attemptiong to land in rain and sleet, 6 miles northeast of Buffalo Niagara International Airport, were it was scheduled to land. Forty-four passengers and a crew of five were killed aboard the plane and one person on the ground. Ice buildup on the aircraft may have led to the accident.

Then yesterday

Date: February 25, 2009 Time: 10:31
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Operator: Turkish Airlines Flight: 1951
AC Type: Boeing 737-8F2
Reg: TC-JGE cn: 29789/1065
Aboard: 135 Fatalities: 9 Ground: 0
Route: Istanbul, Turkey – Amsterdam, Netherlands
Details: The plane was on final approach to Runway 18R when it crashed 1 mile short of the runway into a field and broke in three. Nine people were killed and 55 injured.

It seems, after the recent few years, which have seen far less incidents than average, that airplanes are falling from the sky on an almost regular basis.

Looking closer, though, there have been a lot of lucky survivors, surely far more than average. Every passenger survived the Hudson River crash – partly because of the pilot’s superb skills, and partly because of luck… had the incident occurred after nightfall, the story would have been very different… as well as darkness hindering the rescue operation, the surface of water is far harder to see at night, so it would have been almost impossible for the pilot to put the plane down on the water so gently.

The recent Amsterdam crash saw very few fatalities, because there was no fire follwing the crash. Obviously this raises the question was the plane out of fuel…..

But what can we deduce from these three incidents happening so close together?

Are airlines responding to the credit crisis by cutting expensive maintenance?

Are they cutting equally expensive dutting de-icing procedures?

Are they cutting expensive reserve fuel?

Probably not. We have had no holiday bookings for the last 10 days. Then yesterday, 4 bookings were made on the same morning.

Do we deduce that people prefer to book holidays on Wednesdays near to the end of the month? No.

Do we deduce that three recent aircraft incidents are due to cost cutting? No.

No maintenance engineer wants to cut corners on his work. It’s not even his money he’s saving.

No Pilot wants to fly an unsafe aircraft. It’s his neck he’s risking.

I guess it’s just a statistical anomaly which will average out by this time next year. Then again, I’m flying off on holiday soon. So if this blog suddenly stops… you’ll know I was wrong.

Schoolboy father Alfie Patten, 13, has joined “Fathers For Justice”.

He’s not sure what the organisation is about, but he loves the Spiderman costume…….

Maybe his parents should have bought him these-

From BBC news:

A Dutch MP who called the Koran a “fascist book” is to be sent back to the Netherlands after attempting to defy a ban on entering the UK. Freedom Party MP Geert Wilders was invited to show his controversial film – which links the Islamic holy book to terrorism – in the UK’s House of Lords. But Mr Wilders, who faces trial in his own country for inciting hatred, has been denied entry by the Home Office.

Good. The last thing we need is people inciting racial hatred.

Hopefully, when the likes of Abu Hamza are refused entry to the UK in the future, moderates of all faiths will remember today and understand that denying entry to radicals is in the interests of peace and friendship.

Yes – the Boeing 747 is 40 years old. Probably the most distinctive-looking aircraft at the moment – while every other 7-something-7 and airbus looks pretty much the same, the Jumbo’s distinctive hump makes it easy to spot.

Last month I flew to Miami on a British Airways 747 – and a big “thank-you” goes to the “upgrade fairy” who waived her magic wand and got us upgraded to World Traveller Plus… that’s one up from economy or “sardine” class. A slightly bigger seat made all the difference – but it made us notice the difference on the return leg – cramped middle seats on an American Airlines 777.

Still – the return journey only took just over 6 hours – we had a tail wind of over 150 mph – so our ground speed was actually supersonic – just.

Off to Miami again next month…. British Airways again for the outbound flight…. so…. pleeeeeease can we have an upgrade again ?????

Return flight is with Virgin Atlantic – I’ve never flown with them in the 25 years they’ve been operating – I’ve heard good, and I’ve heard bad. I guess it’s the luck of the draw – with any airline you get good flights and bad flights.

Anyway – all together -

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Boeing 747 Jumbo
Happy Birthday to you