The Buccaneer

 

It is now 51 years since I made my last Buccaneer flight when I disembarked from HMS Eagle on a 2-hour flight to Lossiemouth piloted by Lt Robin Cox of 800 Squadron. I had accumulated a little under 1500 flying hours, 294 catapult shots, and 295 arrests during my time in the Royal Navy, and was leaving as one of the few observers to pass the Air Warfare Instructor's Course, the British equivalent of what is now known in the United States as the Top Gun course, according to US General Chuck Horner who was the commander of US Central Command Forces in Desert Storm, the equivalent of a doctorate degree in Fighter Operations.

Only over the past few weeks have I been able to obtain a number of buccaneer pictures, hitherto unpublished, and so I am taking this opportunity of publishing them here in my blog. Those of you who are "in the know" will see that they are a mixture of squadrons, Navy squadrons 800, 801, 736, South African Air Force 24 Squadron, and RAF squadrons 12,15,16, 208, and 237. I have not attempted to discriminate between the various pictures.  

 

The Buccaneer was originally designed to be a low-level attack aircraft with the capability of approaching a then-Soviet warship beneath its radar dome in order to deliver its weapon load, be it conventional or nuclear, without being detected. Hence many of the sorties carried out were essentially low level. Examples of these may be seen in some of these pictures.

Very few people think that the buccaneer was capable of formation aerobatics - think again. Dave Howard ran a successful team as may be seen in the following picture

There was also a formation flypast for the launching of QE2 - not aerobatic though !!

 

The Bionic Man

 It has been over a year since my previous post, a year in which plenty has happened, least of all a close call with the big D. I had thought that all was normal before that close call. The first signs were my losing my balance in the house and being unable to get to my feet by myself. To cut a long story short, I was whisked to casualty at the local hospital and after receiving six units of blood and was ferried to Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital by helicopter and released two weeks later. Apparently, I was the victim of a bleeding duodenal ulcer. It was only a few weeks later that I was informed by one of the casualty surgeons that they had "almost lost me".

The year has been useful to me in other ways in that I have been able to take advantage of a generous discount being offered to me by the same hospital. I am sporting a replacement knee in my left leg, have had cataracts removed and new lenses in both eyes, and had corrective surgery for a bilateral hernia. Today I received the first of two Lumbar Medial Block procedures, following which, if all goes well, will be a longer procedure for a Lumbar Radiofrequency Ablation. 

I make no secret of the fact that I am delighted that we no longer have A/H Trump as president. He is still trying to say that he won the last election despite being turned down by the courts countless times. This next paragraph is dedicated to those numerous white evangelists and supremacists who still believe in the Antichrist. In John le Carré's latest novel he writes Trump is Antichrist, Putin another. For Trump, the draft-dodging rich kid brought up in a great if flawed democracy, there is no redemption in this world or the next. ...... He's Putin's shithouse cleaner. He does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can't do for himself; pisses on European unity, pisses on human rights, pisses on NATO, Assures us that Crimea and Ukraine belong to the Holy Russian Empire, the Middle East belongs to the Jews and the Saudis ......

Of course, it is up to you, my reader,  as to whether you agree with Mr le Carré. I will remain the uncommitted reporter.

Birds of the Northeast Kingdom - specifically Sunset Drive, St J.

As I am now well into my ninth week of self-isolation, and still healthy, I thought it appropriate to once more put pen to paper, metaphorically speaking. The city library has been closed to the public for the duration, so being a quick and avid reader I have at last picked up ( and am halfway through) the 1026-page The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy. Yesterday my oil paints saw the light of day for the first time in many years (nearly twenty by my calculation).

At least the weather has finally settled down to a warm Spring, with daytime temperatures in the 60s and 70s, so Liz and I have been spending some time in the garden. The ride-on mower has been taken out of winterization and put to use, and we have a load of herbs, vegetables and flowers planted. Jake very kindly came over the other day and built us a couple of planter boxes, which we have already put to good use.

 

I thought that I would use this post to talk about some of the birds that we have witnessed here in Sunset Drive. Only two species of note have been with us right through the Winter months, the Bluejay and the Cardinal.

 

The first birds to return from their migration are always American Robins, followed a few weeks later by the Goldfinch, the Crested Titmouse, and the Chickadee

 

 

The last two weeks have seen Liz and I scampering to identify species we have not witnessed before. The Purple Finch is a regular visitor to our birdfeeders

Other visitors to the yard have been the Rose-throated Grossbeak

  

and the Summer Tanager, and we have seen an Indigo-bunting a couple of times.

Last evening Liz identified a visitor as an Oriole

I have only included pictures of the more colorful visitors. There are others like the woodpeckers, starlings, crows, doves, turkey, and so on. 

Of course, birds are not the only visitors to our yard, as the following pictures will attest. We have had numerous white-tailed deer - a bunch of nine together one night

as well as a groundhog, a skunk, a fox and grey squirrels. 

Four weeks in self-quarantine

Today marks the end of the fourth week where I have been under self-quarantine. Here in Vermont, like much of the rest of the country, we have to keep at least 6 feet from other people when we have to go out, and we have to wear a mask. I have been stuck in the house for 4 weeks with a couple of exceptions. I went shopping in Littleton a couple of times with Liz, although I stayed in the car and she did the shopping. Other than that I have been twice to a bank to pay a bill (most all banks here in the USA have a drive-through, and this means that you get to stay in the car.

At long last, the snow has gone away, hopefully until November. On a couple of the warmer days, I have been in the yard planting bulbs, corms, and seeds. g We also invested in a small greenhouse in which I have been planting my pole-beans in peat growing pots. In a few week's time, I will be able to transplant them outside. I am an avid reader, but have been unable to visit the local library for 4 weeks,

Trump continues to make a fool of himself, treating his daily Coronavirus briefings as a campaign rally. We are at the peak of the outbreak and he wants to open up the economy in three week's time, which he can't do because he has no control over what takes place in individual states. Only the governors of each state can re-open businesses such as banks, restaurants, gymnasiums and retail outlets. At the latest count, some 16 million people were out of work in the USA. He can't get it into his stupid head that if he opens up the economy too soon there will be another surge in the infection and ultimately the death rate. I personally hold him directly responsible for a large proportion of the 22,859 deaths that have occurred from this virus in the USA at the time of writing.

Self Quarantine

The present COVID 19 scare has shown just how incompetent our so-called president is. Today the DOW fell more than 2,500 points in the first 2 minutes of the opening bell and within a few points of 3,000 by the close of the day. For my part, I have decided to self-quarantine at home for the foreseeable future. This is because of my age together with my condition (COPD). This also means that for the present I will not be carrying out any substitution at the Academy, which may be closing down for a period anyway. All indications are that the country is falling into recession.

All of this is bad news for our egotistic president, who is completely fixated on self-image and on how well the stock market is doing. Only since Sunday night's Democratic presidential debate in which both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders showed themselves to be far more presidential than Trump, has he changed his tune somewhat regarding the Coronavirus pandemic.

I just spent 20 minutes chatting on videophone with my sister in the United Kingdom. She, like me, has self quarantined at home and is pretty depressed about it. Here in Vermont and neighboring states, all schools are closing at the end of classes today, restaurants, theaters, gyms, bars and many businesses except for grocery stores and pharmacies are banned from opening to the public. For my part, I have canceled a planned visit to my ophthalmologist down in Lebanon in early April.

I can't wait for Spring. My sister turned her camera outside to show me her magnolia tree in full bloom and her spring flowers. I have a bunch of bulbs to put in as soon as the ground unfreezes; daffodils, narcissi, croci, gladioli, and freesias. I uncovered my rose bushes a couple of days ago when most of the snow had melted, but guess what! We have a white carpet on the ground once again,

Back to school

Last week on Friday I went back to school - no, not as a student but as a substitute teacher. I have been appointed in that position at the Saint Johnsbury Academy, a prestigious 9 to 12-grade high school in the Northeast Kingdom - the far Northeast portion of Vermont, bordering the Canadian border.

This change so late in my life comes as a result of several different circumstances. Liz and I recently took ownership of a ranch-style house just five minutes from the Academy but frankly, I have become bored with being at home every day, and when the opportunity came up of being able to spend some time helping out at the Academy, I jumped at it. 

At the time of writing, I have sat in on two hour-long sessions of Grade 11 American History,

tow of Grade 12 English and two of Grade 11 English. The students are mostly American, but with a smattering of Chinese and other nationalities. 

The Academy offers a wide range of subjects and has a particularly wide range of the Arts, including  Visual Arts Courses comprising Foundations of Drawing and Painting, Anatomy and Figure Drawing, Printmaking, Photography, Fashion Design, Filmmaking, Digital Design, Clay, Sculpture, Water-based Painting, Oil Painting, Portfolio, AP Art, and Visual Art Capstone.

The Academy also offers Performing Arts Courses comprising Acting, Stagecraft, Popular Dance, Dance, Band, Jazz Band, Chorus, Strings, Guitar, Music Appreciation/Theory, and AP Music. I believe that the coming year will certainly not be boring,  

The power of Positive Thinking

Much has been written in the past by many authors about Positive Thinking, and I would like to add my small contribution.  Does Positive Thinking actually work? Can your life be bettered by practicing it? The answer is “Yes, it can and it does”. I believe that Positive Thinking is directly related to the Quantum Theory – for the uninformed that is the science of physics, but at a sub-atomic level. You are probably unaware that millions of dollars are spent every year on Quantum Physics research, that there have been major breakthroughs in recent years in such subjects as c and in Quantum Computing.UU

The Quantum Theory is said to be linked to or responsible for a number of common phenomena. These include extrasensory perception, telepathy, telekinesis, and similar phenomena. It has also been theorized to have links to near-death experience, ghosts, the afterlife and more recently with UFOs. There is also a school of thought that hypothesizes that consciousness is a quantum event that takes place in the brain. Have you ever been thinking of something only to find out that a loved one has been having exactly the same thoughts at the same time? That is a quantum event, and it is more common than you may think.

What has this got to do with Positive Thinking? One of the principles of the Quantum Theory is that everything in the Universe is interconnected at a sub-atomic level. It is a proven fact that, at a quantum level, information can be transferred from one point to another instantaneously, no matter what the distance is between them. This can account for two people thousands of miles apart thinking the same thoughts at the same time.

Your mind is a very powerful weapon that has been encoded throughout your life by your memories, experiences, and environment. All of these memories are buried deep in your brain and are the reason for your present state of mind and self-esteem. Many people have developed a low frame of mind because of their jobs or the kind of environment they exist in, one of extreme negativity. But low self-esteem can be countered and turned around. There are a number of recognizable signs that will tell you that you are suffering from low self-esteem. Typically these are depression and possibly, in the extreme, suicidal thoughts.  People suffering from low self-esteem frequently turn to drugs.

It is important that you recognize that you are suffering from low self-worth in order to reverse the process. If you find yourself in such a position, if you think that you are stuck in a rut. Once you have made up your mind to do something about it, all it needs is a little positive thinking. To drag yourself out of that rut you have to make a determined effort to employ the use of positive thinking. One way is by using the Law of Attraction, one of the spin-offs of Quantum Theory.

Most people unconsciously allow outside influences to control their lives. In order to change this, you have to let your inner thoughts do the job, not outside influences. This calls for serious positive thinking. When you concentrate your mind on positive things, then positive things will happen. Let me give you an example. If you think all the time of having no money, guess what – you will never have money because that is a negative thought. Rather think positively and use visualization and you will attract the positive.

The Law of Attraction states that whatever you concentrate your thoughts on will be attracted to you. This law works for everyone all of the time. It works for rich and poor, young and old, and for all races and religions. By getting rid of your negativity and concentrating on the positive, you will put yourself onto a pathway that leads to abundance and contentment.

Getting settled

We were devastated at the time, but in retrospect when our landlady phoned us on that Sunday afternoon in late March and gave us 60 days to vacate our apartment, it was the best thing that could have happened to us. It is now late July and we have just celebrated Independence Day. The house is starting to look very lived in, although we are still unpacking boxes, some of which have been sitting unpacked for more than two years. I can say with absolute certainty that we are both extremely happy in this house, and even happier that all of the paperwork is now over and we have the Deeds in our possession.

The country is warming up for the 2020 election, and more than 20 Democratic hopefuls are campaigning hard, with the first of the debates now behind us. It is no secret that I cannot stand that idiot Trump. More than 10,000 lies have been recorded since he took office. In fact, he lies so often that it has become patently obvious by his lead in when a lie is about to be told. I didn't really understand the political system in America before I arrived here five years ago. But having now witnessed it first hand, I do understand it. I know that nothing will ever persuade me to vote for any Republican candidate. At the same time, I will stick by the Royal Navy ruling for mess dinners - no discussions of a political or religious nature in our house.

The road our house is on is named Sunset Drive, and the above picture, taken a couple of weeks ago, is a good example of why. For a change, this year, we are going to be able to host the Thanksgiving Dinner in late November. One of our rooms is easily big enough to seat more than a dozen people - and our stove is massive. Yesterday we picked up a garden table with 6 chairs and a couple of matching loungers for a very reasonable price, and we have a dining room table and six chairs as well as some other furniture on hold for us.

The yard is starting to look good too. We have removed a rather ugly fence, originally erected to keep in small children when the previous owners were running a day-care center here. We have put out bird feeders and so far have seen a pair of red cardinals and of blue jays and a  nesting robin as well as a number of species that I do not know. One songbird wakes me every morning at about 0430 with the most beautiful singing I have ever heard. Other wildlife includes a grey squirrel and, next door, a groundhog or woodchuck. No chipmunks, skunks, bears or deer as yet though!

Six months

It has been six months since I wrote my previous post - six months too long. The last time that I wrote I had just become a United States citizen. This time Liz and I are celebrating closure on a property in Saint Johnsbury, Vermont. We took closure on June 3rd and moved into our new property on the following Saturday.  At the end of March, I had received d a telephone call from our landlord giving us sixty days to vacate the apartment. Not that we had done anything wrong. No! The landlord and his wife have gotten divorced and he required our apartment, it is the largest in the complex, for himself, his mother and granddaughter...

It has always been my belief that things happen for a reason, and so it was in this case. We searched the region for a suitable apartment to rent, but they were each either too small, too expensive or in an area of town inhabited by a lower class of people or drug addicts. So I suggested that we look at houses that were available for purchase, which we did. At the same time, we investigated the possibility of obtaining a mortgage. and were quite surprised when we became pre-approved.

So here we are on our 10th day. We have a garage full of boxes from the apartment and are slowly working our way through unpacking them, and a basement that still has a bunch of unpacked boxes left over from two years ago when we vacated 200 Sampson. When we viewed this house there was over a foot of snow on the ground, and so our offer was based only on what we were able to see.

The closure was not by any means cheap, and boy was the lead-up complicated and full of red tape. The purchase of our farm in the Eastern Cape was chicken feed by comparison. I just started counting the emails that I had received regarding the purchase and stopped counting when I got up to 110. Because of a couple of spine operations that I had more than 25 years ago, I am unable to lift anything weighing more than a few pounds, so Liz has been doing all of the heavy liftings. I do what I can with a trolly while she is at work.

Today was a first for me with our ride on lawnmower, which we picked up second-hand after closing. I had never driven a ride-on before so it was all new to me, but I did manage to cut a patch of  2,000 square feet in our back yard this afternoon before the first rain shower. I still need a lot of practice though. I turned 79 last month so I have every reason to be proud of myself. Fortunately, we have a very friendly neighbor who mows our front yard whenever he does his own. 

I took my Jeep Liberty in for a service eleven days ago and still have to get it back - there was a problem with the gear selector that I told them about, and as a result, it needs a new valve cover fitted at a cost of a little under $2,000 - it never rains but it pours.. 

It is a couple of days now since I started this post. I have been busy moving and emptying boxes. Yesterday I got our hifi (if you can call it that) and treated myself to opera highlights for much of the day. Today has been a lazy day. My back has been playing up so I have been taking it easy for a change, Liz has the morning off tomorrow (Saturday) so I'm looking forward to passing the whole weekend with her for a change. 

Taking the Oath

On the evening of 28th November, after Liz got home from work, we set off in the Volvo for Rutland to spend the night at the Comfort Inn before I took the Oath of Allegiance to become a Citizen of the United States. The drive was a little uncomfortable - I have developed a dislike of driving after dark falls, and especially when it is trying very hard to snow. Fortunately with the exception of a couple of places down by Hanover, both the I-91 and Route 4 were clear of snow, and we arrived in one piece at about 9.30 p.m.

Thursday 29th November was the big day - the ceremony was to take place at the Paramount Theater in Rutland at 1.00 p.m., so we had plenty of time to get dressed for the event the next morning. For breakfast, Liz had a freshly made waffle with Maple syrup (this is Vermont!) and I had an unappetizing slice of French toast and a fried egg (both were on the cold side) but I think I was too excited, certainly not nervous, to eat. So I settled for coffee. At the appropriate time, we set out for the theater where I completed documentation before getting seated on stage - the first time I had 'walked the boards" other than a couple of school productions since Salisbury Repertory Theater way back in 1980. The Paramount Theater, which originally opened in 1913, had recently been restored and was very impressive.

The ceremony started on time, and Liz captured all 32 minutes of it on her smartphone. You can see the video she took here

After the ceremony was over and photographs were taken with the judge, we decided to hit the road back to the Northeast Kingdom, a 2-hour drive. By this time I was getting hungry and told Liz I could have eaten a whole rack of lamb - but would settle for a diner. We passed through Killington, a well-known ski resort, but nothing was open. Then as we were driving through Bridgewater I noticed a diner to the left of the road. We doubled back and parked facing the diner - a notice said that they closed at 2 p.m. - just our luck as it was 2.30 p.m. already. Just as we were about to drive off we noticed someone waving for us to come in, which we did. The family-run business stayed open just for the two of us.

So how will becoming a citizen affect me? I have been a little wary of what I have put into writing in this blog in the past, but I am now protected by the First Amendment, so I can now put into writing what I feel about the lying misogynistic bufoon of a president without fear of retribution.   

So, for those that have not yet seen it on my Facebook, here is a little nursery rhyme that I made up especially for our president.

Humpty Drumphty sat on his wall.

In the midterm elections, he had a great fall. 

All of his senators, all of his men

Couldn't put Drumphty together again

Miss my Volvo

Liz and I run a Volvo C30 T5 R-design - out of all of the vehicles that I have owned in my long and fruitful life (and there have been many) this is undoubtedly the best. It is the most comfortable ride I have ever experienced, fast, the acceleration when she slips into turbo mode is nothing short of fantastic, reminding me of the days I spent going down the catapult on an aircraft carrier. Right now she is in the shop where they are trying to sort out a recurring airbag warning problem, and have given us a loan car until we get the Volvo back.

The loan car is a Dodge Avenger, and a couple of days ago I got to drive it for more than 200 miles - I had to take Liz to work in Littleton then drive to USCIS in St Albans near the Canadian border to have biometrics taken for my citizenship interview. I was at the wheel for about 2 hours each way along some of the finest scenery in this corner of the United States. But what a painful drive! after about 30 minutes of the drive in each direction the seat was so uncomfortable - the pressure on my Coccyx made me need to shift my butt while driving. I will be very happy when we get the Volvo back.

The Northeast Kingdom

I live in the Northeast Kingdom - that will mean plenty to my local readers, but to those of you on the eastern side of the Pond, it will mean little. You probably will have never heard of it. Let me explain. The Northeast Kingdom is the name given to three counties, Caledonia, Orleans and Essex, in the far northeast of Vermont on the Canadian border. The name was first used in a 1949 speech given by the then U.S. senator and former Governor of Vermont, George D. Aiken. The Kingdom is bound in the east by the Connecticut River and the west by the Green Mountains. The main towns are St Johnsbury and Lyndonville in the southeast, Newport and Derby in the north, and in the southwest Danville and Hardwick. 

Known affectionately by locals as The Kingdom, the region lies outside the state's Green Mountain area, and is made up of a number of extinct volcanic islands that were compressed together by tectonic movement more than 400 million years ago. A sheet of ice over a mile thick covered the Kingdom several times during the Ice Age, which ended some 13,500 years ago. The retreating glaciers carved out the piles of granite, schist, slate and limestone to leave behind today's rock-scattered landscape. Some 80% of the Northeast Kingdom is covered by forest; a mixture of 60% northern hardwood (Sugar maple, Yellow birch, American beech and White ash), with spruce, hemlock and fir making up the rest. The brilliant colors of the leaves during Fall make this a popular tourist destination.

There is a relatively high moose population, along with white tailed deer, black bear, coyote, fox, bobcat, some Canadian lynx, and even some once locally-extinct marten. Smaller species include red and gray squirrel, and groundhog or woodchuck, muskrat, skunk, opossum, snowshoe hare, beaver, porcupine, raccoon and the small and adorable chipmunk. There have been reports in the past few years of the grey wolf being seen - this is certainly possible judging by the reports although experts say not probable.

     

The climate here is fairly predictable. Winter extends from November through to April, with the temperature often remaining below zero for weeks on end. The lowest temperature that I recorded last winter was -35˚ F (-37˚ C) - at the time colder than Alaska. .At the other extreme yesterday's high was +97˚ F (+36˚ F) after a full week of being in the 90s. There is plenty of snow in winter, with it often lying on the ground for months on end. A number of blizzards have produced more than 20 inches of snow overnight.

I have noticed that there is plenty of French influence in the region, which is not surprising as it borders French-speaking Quebec Province to the North. Many of the surnames in the region are quite obviously of French origin and in summertime and Fall you can see plenty of Quebec Province cars on the Kingdom roads and hear French being spoken by couples in the region's supermarkets.

I've been in the Great North Woods for four years now, the last year and a half up here in the Northeast Kingdom. I can understand why many of the older residents who can afford it migrate down to Florida with the onset of winter. I am too old to take up my once youthful passion of skiing - major spine surgery a couple of times has seen to that. So I will see out my days here with my beautiful wife and close to my daughter and three grandchildren, all of whom I love dearly. Were it not for them Liz and I would be living in the warmer climes of North Carolina. Next month Liz and I will drive down to Massachusetts for her birthday and to stay with her daughter and family. 

Racism in 2018

Since I relocated to the United States a little more than three years ago I have been able to look with fresh eyes on Racism, particularly where it is related to politics. Few people will admit that they are a racist because of the stigma attached to the word. I am pretty sure that in this country I would never call myself a racist, although there are clearly a great number of them about. On hearing the word my mind immediately associates it with the South, where much of the population is either, in their minds, still fighting the Civil War, with the NRA, and with Trump and many of his followers. I do not yet have the vote, but have my papers filled out for citizenship (just have to find the $640 it costs to apply). When I do get the vote I will never be joining the ranks of the evangelists and the pro-lifers of the Right. It is very rare to see a person of color up here near the Canadian border - I venture to say that I have seen more black bears.

In South Africa, it was a lot different - but there, racism was also mostly related to politics. The ANC has adopted a reverse apartheid frame of mind. They are vehemently anti-white and in their own way racist. Living there as a white person it was inevitable that one countered with the opposite. Although at my farm in the rural Eastern Cape I developed a rapport with several of the locals, especially with Julia, who ran the local shebeen, and with Headman, the local preacher who doubled as a gardener and odd-job man. I would probably have admitted to racism while living in that country, though not to those people of color with whom I had a rapport, but with those hard-line politicians like Winnie Mandela and Zuma - and especially Robert Mugabe. How I cheered when I heard that he had finally been ousted.

According to True North News Vermont, where I now live, has been classified as a racist state - although this is refuted by an article in the Manchester Journal. I'm not sure that many people of color would want to come to live in a state where the winters have so much snow and last for a good six months. The coldest night I recorded last year was -35˚ C (-31˚ F) and for much of the time, we were colder than Alaska.

More reflections

At 6 a.m. GMT tomorrow - that's 1a.m. EST - I will have completed 78 years of life on this planet, years in which I have set foot in 37 countries, met national leaders (Mandela, Smith, de Klerk), and all in all, led a very interesting and accommodating life. I have achieved 250 catapult launches and carrier arrests, survived a mid-air collision and a separate crash landing, appeared in repertory theater in a dozen or more plays, ridden in mine-proof vehicles with a police escort to assess the damage wrought by terrorists on lonely farmhouses, and  I have swum with barracuda off the Kenyan coast. Sure I have made some mistakes - don't we all? But I have striven to make my life both interesting and the life of a gentleman. I get livid when I read or hear of someone mistreating a woman, and though I admit to having sowed plenty of wild oats in my time, I don't believe that I have ever treated a woman with disrespect, and this may be backed up by my 13 years of marriage to Lizzie - still to this day without a single argument or fight. I pray every day that I will get to live at least as long as my late dad, who crossed over in his 94th year.

So what have I learned? What advice can I pass on to my peers, my relatives, and my friends far and wide? I have written extensively in another earlier post about Time, and I sincerely believe in all of my previous comments thereto. Namely, that Time is the most important and valuable asset that you will ever be given. Cheerish the Time that you are given, for you never know when it is going to be taken away from you.

I have been writing my memoirs - The Graceful retirement of an English Gentleman and to boost the page count have included as an addendum all of the poems that I wrote in my earlier days and all of the blog posts written in the Internet age. I am up to 236 pages so far, and when complete will distribute it to friends and family - for posterity and so that I am not completely forgotten.

I am an avid reader, getting through a couple of novels every week - but then I have a lot of Time on my hands. To keep myself informed of political affairs and the like I have taken to regularly read the Reporter at Large column in the  New Yorker magazine. Now that the warm weather is here (83˚ F today) I shall start painting again. I would have been doing so today but for the wind, which at a steady 17 knots was trying to get my easel airborne. Lizzie bought me a set of gouache tubes so I will try painting with those as a medium - there's a first for you.

Well guys, as you can see I'm still around and for any of you who are in the business am looking for some writing jobs, so if you're interested, do drop me a line.

No Collusion, No Obstruction of Justice, No Witch Hunt

No Collusion, No Obstruction of Justice, No Witch Hunt. Remember those words in a few months' time when the Special Counsel Robert Mueller eventually publishes his report or issues more indictments.

I am not a Trump supporter - indeed until I am a naturalized American citizen and have the right to vote, I will remain an unbiased onlooker, but will base my thoughts on what I observe in the so-called "fake" news. Frankly, the only real fake news is that published by Fox News and other right-wing news outlets.

Let's start my post with Korea. Many people are advocating that Trump should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - not a bit of it! Let's not forget that North and South Koreas leaders got together and started the peace process without any help from Trump. My own view is that it could have just as easily been Kim Jong Un's sister that made the first overtures to her brother after her visit to the Winter Olympics.

Judith Thurman wrote in Time Magazine in January of /2017 in an article comparing Nixon, GW Bush, and Trump "But whatever I may have seen as their limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump is: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English."

This week has seen Trump take on Rudy Giuliani as part of his legal team in the White House, only to result in dropping the president into deeper water regarding the Mueller probe. Does it not bother anyone, especially House and Senate Republicans, that Trump is a compulsive liar. I have never in the many years that I have been here on Earth come across anyone who is such an obviously bare faced liar. But then there are many people here in the USA who have known for a long time that he is a con-man.

At yesterday's White House press briefing Sarah Huckabee Sanders was so confused that she didn't know whether she was coming or going. She was asked point blank by the gathered press corps yesterday how she expected them to believe her when she contradicted herself time after time. I guess that's the trouble when a buffoon of a president changes his mind so often. The Washington Post stated today that the president has knowingly lied publicly more than 3,000 times since his inauguration. Trump has stated that there was "no collusion" and "no obstruction of justice' so often that it has to raise doubts in any sane person's mind. You are wrong Mr Trump - there is NO Witch Hunt.

Goodbye to the Autumn of my days

I started writing this post in longhand on Sunday evening last, seated in my recliner in the Northeast Kingdom and sipping a Manhattan cocktail. Vermont's Northeast Kingdom is comprised of Essex, Orleans, and Caledonia counties and had a population of just 64,764 at the 2010 census. It is in the state's far Northeast and borders Canada. I relocated here in order to be close to my daughter and her family, and to see out my remaining years - hopefully still quite a few, but you never know!

Right now the temperature outside our Cape Cod style apartment building is 3˚F, but last night it plunged to -36˚F - colder by far than Alaska! It is likely to be the same tonight and has not been above freezing for several weeks. It is so cold outside that the salt that has been spread on Route 5 in order to melt the snow lying n the road has absolutely no effect. We have had two separate storms so far this Winter - one that swept in from the Great Lakes to the West of us, and the other a bomb cyclone that swept up the East coast from Florida, giving snowfall in that state and every other coastal state from Georgia to Maine.The ski resorts of Northern New England are crowded, and well over 90% of runs are open.

A couple of weeks ago Liz and I enjoyed watching my granddaughter in her debut stage role, a real treat for someone who has spent so much time walking the boards. I was so impressed with her performance and her singing,. If I had started my acting career when I was at her age I might have ended up as a professional actor rather than a naval aviator. But then the circumstances around my acting career were very different as will be found in detail in my autobiography, The Graceful Retirement of an English Gentleman when I eventually distribute it to family and friends. So far I am up to 97 pages and a little short of 20,000 words.

I have had a pretty good life - have set foot in more than 30 countries and resided in four. Unless I should happenstance make a big win in one of the state's lotteries I am here to stay. The alternative would be somewhere like St Martin or Guadeloupe - somewhere in the French Caribbean anyway. I have met presidents, prime ministers, and even a princess. I have designed websites (currently have three of my own) and have had more than 6,500 articles and web pages published on the Internet so one way or another have left some sort of legacy.

It has been an interesting couple of years here in the United States. I spend a fair amount of my time watching MSNBC (never Fox) and their coverage of the country's political news. It seems that we are getting closer and closer to a Mueller - Trump face to face. That indeed will be very interesting, although it will probably never be made public.Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury has disclosed how most staffers in the White House describe Trump as being childlike. He is certainly a liar and an egomaniac. In a couple of month's time, I will be eligible for citizenship, so I am swotting up on the Constitution and other citizenship-related subjects.

Arctic Winter

When I lived in sub-tropical Africa, it was rare for the temperature to drop below 16˚C (61˚F) even in the depth of Winter, Now that I have relocated I have had to acclimatise to a whole new environment, one where it can go for weeks on end with temperatures straight out of the Arctic Circle. Today is a good example. Those temperatures that you see on this jpeg are all Fahrenheit where, for those who are not familiar with the scale, the freezing point is 32˚F. So the temperatores on the graph below represent -16˚C to -25˚C!

I cannot say that I was not forewarned, for when basking in the African sun I used to follow the New England weather that my daughter was experiencing. On Christmas Eve we had a Winter Storm. The weather forecasting here is excellent. When a winter storm is forecast to start in a certain place at a certain time, the chances are that it will do just that. This one was predicted to start at 11 p.m. and to go on until 4 a.m. on Christmas morning, depositing between 6 and 8 inches of snow, and it did just that. In fact because the forecasting is so reliable, Lizzie and I went to drop off our presents with Julie and Jake on Christmas Eve. Sure enough when we awoke on Christmas morning, there was a good 8 inches on and around the Volvo, and the area did not geet snow ploughed until the late afternoon - so we would not have gotten out on the snow-covered Route 5 anyway.

The Christmas Eve storm

I have to admit that I miss the weather of southern Africa - but then I spent 42 years there, certainly more than enough time to get acclimatised. With a change in climate comes the inevitable change in the wildlife. We have Moose, white-tailed deer, black bears, turkeys galore, skunks, foxes, coyotes, lynx, and a few others. No big five, although in some parts of the country you can find the mountain lion and the grey wolf.

Doctoral Degree

I recently read a study of the Gulf War air campaign that was written by Tom Clancey with the help of retired Air Force General Chuck Horner, who led the air campaign. In chapter 3 he describes the 6-month course at the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base. The course is essentially the same as the Royal Navy's Air Warfare Instructors' course that I completed in  July 1968. The course includes a full month at HMS Excellent, the Royal Navy's weapons school at Whale Island and several months' tactical flying. Subjects include avionics, ballistics, air navigation, the theory of flight, radar and electronics, air combat and air weapons and fuzes, and is a high-intensity learning curve. In addition, candidates receive training in instruction techniques as they will be passing their knowledge on to squadron comrades in briefings and lectures once they have completed the course.

What struck me about General Horner's description of the course was that he claims that those few pilots that have successfully completed the course have, in effect, completed a doctoral degree in Fighter Operations. The academics of which, he claims, are fiercely difficult, and the flying almost endless. It was during the equivalent Royal Navy course at RNAS Lossiemouth that I experienced my two "close calls" when in the one we lost an engine at 24,000 feet (my pilot was killed when he ejected at the last second) and in the other I experienced a mid-air collision with a second aircraft in our formation.

The Hawker Hunter after forced flame out landing

I recall that, according to the Daily Telegraph, a few years before my joining the Royal Navy, a group of air warfare instructors went to NAS Miramar to give instruction in air warfare to US Navy aviators. The original eight navy aviators became the original instructors at Miramar's Top Gun school. The modern version of the manual that was brought about by these AWI's can be seen here. Looking back in retrospect I wonder how different my post navy life could have been if I had included a doctorate in my résumé. I guess I'll never know.

Passing Time

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing my post of seven months ago when we had just suffered our final Winter storm of the season, yet here I am about to have my studded winter tires fitted to the Volvo's 18" wheels. In the average year, it would have already snowed some time during late October. But to date, there is none forecast in the foreseeable future - which in my case is about 12 days. Good. I hope that we are in for a mild Winter for a change. However, it is still a wise precaution to have the tires changed (and anyway, Liz insists!).

April 1st, 2017

I make no apology for writing once again about Time as I am well aware that I am slowly running out of it. I have certainly tried to make the best of that which was allocated to me. Along my passage, I have made plenty of mistakes, and there are many times when I wish that I could travel back forty-something years. However, I know that that is not possible just yet. Maybe when scientists have learned how to play with quantum mechanics someday in the future, it will be. Not for me though - unless that quantum world includes Life after Death (which has been suggested by some, by the way). Time has taken its toll on my body, in particular, my spine and my knees. I have had major spine surgery twice - once to screw a plate across C6 and C7, and once for a laminectomy L2 to S1. The former does not bother me at all, but the latter has me taking painkillers each morning. I had my annual medical last week and it looks as if I may still be around for another 10 years or so.

There are plenty of things that I would like to have accomplished during my Time on Earth. I would love to have visited the islands in the Carribean - especially some of the French-speaking ones like Guadeloupe and Saint Martin. However, to offset that disappointment I did once spend a few weeks vacationing on Isle Maurice in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius for those that are not aware of it). As Maurice is largely French-speaking I was very happy and felt "at home". I even get to speak the language here in the Northern Kingdom from time to time, as we are less than 100-km from Quebec Province and get many French Canadian tourists visiting the region.

Fall in New England

Another Halloween has come and gone, and last Saturday evening Liz and I got to spend some very valuable Time with family - this time with Julie, Jake and the Grandkids around the firepit toasting marshmallows. A couple of weeks back we drove down to Massachusetts to spend the Saturday night with Liz's side of the family, Dena, Andrew and family. Fall has really hit hard - just a month ago the leaves were starting their annual change to the brilliant colors of the New England Autumn. Today, the trees are almost bare and the ground beneath them covered with their shed colors.

My message to my readers is this. Time is the only asset that is given to you for free. It is up to you to make the best of it for you do not have any idea how much of it remains in your account. Whereas you may believe that you have plenty of it left - in reality, what is remaining can be taken away from you in a flash, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it. I recall in my youth wondering whether I would still be around to see the turn of the Century - well I guess I am lucky for I am now 17 years past it.