Salad days for a carnivore!!

The irony of having "Salad days" when the reality is I'm as much a carnivore as the meat eaters of the animal kingdom is not lost on me! I detest all things green as being tasteless, sans texture and pretty much a waste of mastication. Of course green is my favourite colour but that is more on the basis of my Irish ancestry and my love for a football team that play in hoops in Glasgow (that dear green place). There is some misplaced pride in being the archetypal West of Scotland man, if God had meant me to eat vegetables, I'd have been born a rabbit and not been given incisors. Give me pies, meat and anything sweet!!

Back to the point of the salad days; I intimated in the last post that I'd joined the ranks of the wage slaves after a period of being another statistic on the British list of shame, the number of people who were out of work and actively (?) seeking employment. I have just completed my first two weeks of satisfying work with a decent return in terms of money for my efforts, the signs for the future are good and I'm really enjoying the challenge of changing from carbon energy to renewable energy. The work is mentally stimulating, infinitely more challenging than I'd been used to under corporately controlled, procedurally hog-tied, top of the food chain, oil industry. More to the point I've saved them more money in that first fortnight than I'll be paid for the next 6 months using my experience and they are a really good young company to work for!

Ally that to the salve for my conscience, of being in renewable energy as opposed to the scrabble to get sticky hands on a finite resource (oil) and you'll appreciate my contentment.

Life's been a bit of a "sticky wicket" since my return from the sub-continent, and the resultant "bouncers and yorkers" from life's bowlers had me worried for a bit. No more though, as I'm happy in the knowledge that with a bit of luck and a fair wind in my sails I'll manage to navigate my way back to Delhi in 2010, but probably only for a fortnight's holiday time. This will get me back to see all my guys in Mother Teresa's (and of course Sister Maria and the residents in Merhauli Road).

I'd a very interesting e-mail from the US the other day, it came from a lady who's preparing to go to Delhi for a similar period (2 months) and in 2010. Like me she doesn't have a teaching background and we're both probably about the same age group since she's retired. CCS have me down as an "alumni" whatever one of those is! I assume it to be like a former pupil, anyway they had prompted her to e-mail me for my thoughts. I'm delighted to have been able to re-affirm her thoughts about India and let her know that if she metaphorically immerses herself in the Ganges with India, then India will envelop her with warmth and love in return. Good luck Suzan!

I needed a kick up the jacksy!

Since my sojourn in Delhi, it has been like a long holiday except the weather here is crap! On the plus side, my bowling has improved (grass not ten pin), but since it is lacking in financial stimulus it was never going to stop the draining of my savings. I'm going to have a wee bitch now, last year I paid almost £20k in tax, this year post Delhi, I rashly thought Her Majesty's tax flunkey's would have deemed it fair play to give some back! How wrong can you be? A derisory offer of £8 per week job-seekers allowance was all that was on offer, oh and by the way you need to travel a round trip of 30 miles each week to get it!
Is it any wonder the people of this country are mightly hacked off when they see MP's milking the system like some sort of Jersey cow with a full udder, and you're offered such a pittance to seek work.
That said I'd been pounding the market myself for anything (including shelf stacking or driving) that would stop the outward flow of funds from the savings I'd been fastidiously putting away over the last couple of years. All to no avail, it seemed that experience was not as valuable a commodity as I'd errantly thought. Is it ageism I asked myself on more than one occasion? A friend suggested lying about my age by about 13 years, a sort of back handed compliment in a way, since he obviously thought I could pass for 50 instead of 63.
I'll never know as the need to fabricate a c.v. minus my time in the RAF wasn't needed, and I'm now back in the land of the wage slaves. There's been other changes in my life which I'll not bother you with, but suffice to say there's now a spring in the step, if only on the basis of being back in gainful employment! This means that with a bit of luck and a fair wind in my sails, I can return to Delhi sometime in the not too distant future.

The old adage of "Whit's fur ye, will no go bye ye" has held good and if fate dictates your course in life then go with the flow as it is pointless trying to pee against the wind.