Does David Cameron meditate we wonder?

In today's Times, there is a long article about Dave.  I rather love Dave because he looks quite a lot like Grandpa!  (Not Grandpa as you saw him in his woolly onesie with ears).  Grandpa and I wonder what he does in the "tiny windows" of time out which are mentioned as being included in his diary.  In the report these windows of time are called "moments of stillness" and we think that maybe he meditates....what do you think?

You tell us one thing and we tell you another!

He says that he does have regrets and fears and that he doesn't much look forward to Prime Minister's Question Time which he describes as a "bearpit".  We say look Dave,  meditation frees you up, it helps you see that your life with it's ups and downs is passing:  Prime Minister's Question time and even being photographed in a woolly onesie is passing passing passing.  Meditation means you don't have to hang on to all the bad things that come along and as long as you let the good ones dissolve in the same way you can just let your self detach for those minutes and more or less hey presto...things get into perspective.

So, Dave, to help you get through the debate next week and to help you ride the election roller coaster and if you get in, to help you to help us for the next 5 years, get meditating we say.

meditating Grandpa becomes an Easter bunny!

Taking Grandpa shopping isn't really what he wants to do on a Friday afternoon.   Even a meditating Grandpa has limited endurance when he finds himself in a shop full of curtains, duvets and pillows. Of course it might have been different if he had been in a hardware store!  

So, a little light diversion was needed to keep him cheery... and as it is nearly Easter this seemed a seasonal way to bring a smile to his face.  And the other shoppers too!  They really appreciated seeing someone modelling this particularly stylish outfit.  

Does anyone have any ideas for the right shoes to go with it?

The real Grandpa hiding within!

The outer Grandpa

left behind slipper

I am going to start with a slipper which slipped out of the wellington boot rack yesterday.  It belongs to the abracadabra girl.  She is skipping about in Singapore and doesn't need it there, barefeet do the business there.  So, it made me think about all the absent grandchildren and how the left behind grandparent thinks about them.  Well, you may not know this hidden part of the Grandpa who loves his dogs and loves shouting at the television and is in every way a particular kind of Grandpa in the English mode.  The hidden Grandpa comes out to the special garden hut where the bric a brac Buddha presides and before he meditates, he starts to sing!!! You didn't know that did you?  And this is what he sings....May all be happy, may all be without disease, may all creatures have well-being and none be in misery of any sort... And he sings it in Sanskrit, he chants it beautifully.  And together we meditate with that sound as the dedication.  Then, out with the dogs for him, and over to the hens for me and we whisper to the hens that one day you will all be back so they shouldn't stop laying eggs.  And we tell the dogs that you will all be back soon and will have tales to tell us about what you have been doing in your new lives, new schools, new skills and even a new baby have been added in to your lives.
Then everynight, we say all your names, one after the other, before we jump into bed.  So, see the picture below of the Grandpa you don't always see and see how magic his meditation is...he even manages to turn Algie's eyes green.

WOW!

Granny tries a scooter in Singapore

Imagine this one electric

This one even has a seat

 There is always something new to discover and new to try before you pop your clogs and there is a lot to give rise to an optimistic future for we Grannies.  For a start, i pads for us will be our way of communicating not our way of staying dry!  We won't need zimmers and walking sticks if we can master the new electric scooter. I am sure you have seen small children zooming along at speed on their little scooters, paddling the ground with one foot while they stand on the platform with the other.  They weave along the pavement dodging Grannies and dogs with their mothers calling them to stop at the end of the pavement.  They have made electric ones for us now although they are being marketed for executive types to get to work but that is only to  make them seem cool.  They are really been made for us, I know because I tried one in Singapore.  Easy it is and you zoom along just like your grandchild but with no effort, you just stand on the platform and lightly turn the handle and off you go.  Perhaps they will invent docking devices so that we can glide into a safe place without tipping off but I'm sure that's what they are working on.  Then watch out, no more Granny stuck at home, we will be out and about as soon as we can order our very own scooter from the internet on our i pad.  Move over young people, we are on the move in cyber space and shortly we will be on our way down the High Street too.  All the more time to meditate if we get to our destination quicker after all.

This one isn't even electric

post granny post

So this is what it's come to...two letters on a merry Monday morning; one from Alzheimer's Research and the other from Kingfisher Independent Funeral Services.  The Alzheimer's Research was just asking for a donation but it had a heart-rending story of a woman exactly my age!! and exactly what happened to her symptom by symptom.  The first thing I do is to check my symptoms, memory loss certain, forgetting phone numbers just to start with and progressing along to the end game at great speed.  It must be a symptom of a character lack that I check my own memory and think about myself first and then think about the donation.

Then the Funeral Service letter which tells me that I can pay in advance!!  I can pay for my funeral at today's price and that is a benefit because it may cost more when I finally peg it.  It also says that they will listen to what I want!  How, I ask you can they listen to what I want when I am dead or listen is a mystery!  I progress from mildish memory loss to the previously described end.

So, I'll tell you what...I would like everyone who might still be around to come to my funeral to be a teeny bit sad and maybe a bit of sad music (perhaps the pacobel canon will do it) will bring a tear or two even to those who don't like me and then I would like everyone as many as care, to meditate so a still still essence wafts whatever I then am towards whatever I am going to become.

And just in case you think I have forgotten what the answer to the riddle about there being 8 Edmunds in Singapore and that without anyone else coming in by aeroplane, they would become 9, the answer is Benji Richard Arthur who arrived by stork.  Well done the abracadabra girl, it must be your magic.

abracadabra girl goes away, but the magic can stay

Abracadabra girl on the right with the cake eater on the left

That wonderful abracadabra girl, the grand daughter who tuned straight into the idea of meditation when she heard it was about saying your magic word, she said she knew THE magic word and it was abracadabra.  Well never mind if it is abracadabra or something different, she has gone off to Singapore, all 5 years old of her with her 3 year old sister and her parents.  She has gone to where the grandson is, the one who couldn't resist the cake he had helped to make and took a great scoop out of it when I was out.
Anyway, 4 of them have gone to Singapore to join 4 others and with abracadabra in her mind as a magic word I think that she is going to manage to make those 8 people into 9!  Watch this space and I will tell you when 8 people become 9.

Jihadi John, Your Granny should be saying this to you

Listen Jihadi John,
You may have a band of followers now but watch out, one day and it won't be far away, all those followers who think you are such a cool boy will wake up to the reality that you are a fraud masquerading as some sort of warrior.  Not only will  you lose your youth and strength but you will end up lonely, and that's if you survive that long.  One day you will just be a little old man with shaky legs and a leaky bladder and no-one will want to come near you any more.  You won't even have the strength to cut your food up let alone cut off any heads.  If I was YOUR Granny I would be on my knees praying that the ideas which possess you and possess your so called friends will change before this happens and you will get the chance to feel so so sorry for all the misery and distress you are causing all in the name of the God who sees everyone as the same.