Another (SSAFA) Day

1 It was almost all over by 0900, the time I returned home from the morning swim. In this instance, the morning swim itself was easy and enjoyable; the morning swim as a whole included a pot of tea and time with the newspapers. There is some truth in the view that the point of the morning swim is to have completed it so that one may have a heightened enjoyment of the following tea and newspapers. And so I returned home to a boiled egg and, the PC having been switched on before I left, to SSAFA.

2 From then on, with the exception of an outing to the London Road, I was occupied with work which, in other circumstances, would constitute an employee's jobs of the day. Ahead of a meeting tomorrow, I got my head round the case of the 41-year-old man, on DLA, ex-RAMC, who has self-harmed and who has attempted suicide. There was also the case of the 91-year-old woman who, as a result of a fire in her kitchen, needs a new cooker. I talked about the handling of welfare cases by the local RBL. A social worker telephoned me about a woman, ten years in the army, who now lives with her mother in Ifield, is depressed, and feels unable to take a job, because she is looking after her mother, a woman who, according to the social worker, is quite able to look after herself. It turned out that the social worker is seeking a riser/recliner chair for the mother. I also heard that they keep an Alsatian dog, one who growls.

2.1 Still I did have that outing to the London Road, by way of the library. There, I spent time with a member of the WSCU Board who represents the WSCU from 0930 to 1200 on Wednesday mornings. I recalled that I hadn't seen any publicity for the presence of a WSCU officer. I bought a book for Summer.

3 And so I moved from SSAFA, in the afternoon, after a sandwich, to Armed Forces Day in East Grinstead 2010. I had prepared some of the materials last night. Now I printed those materials and prepared some further ones. In particular, the Excel-based Planning document had to be revised. Sometime after 1600 I was ready to collect my papers and so be prepared to chair the meeting at 1730. Along the way I collected my Vespa from Biker's World: the machine has a new starter-motor. The tyres, battery, and so were checked. All credit to the staff: the Vespa started with a sound that I can't recall hearing. Some time ago, the machine may have started smoothly; if the starts were smooth, I have forgotten. In any case, the change was evident. (And I register that it was just as well that the starter-motor failed here in East Grinstead. Suppose it had failed in Crawley, or in some other place.)

4 The meeting. The return home. Dinner. A posting to the blog. And now to bed.

Bigger keyboards for mobile telephones

1 Yes, bigger keyboards. Put away fiddling with the child-size keys on the mobile telephone. Texting with less-than-fully supple fingers is just not able to accommodate the richness of the proposed message. For that one needs well-practiced fingers touch-keying on full-size keyboards. Imagine, just imagine the two impediments - the three - to the keying of this message on a mobile-telephone keyboard. There is no scope for the use of all the fingers. Some letters require two, three, or even four key-strokes. The key-stroking cannot keep up with my thinking. What I want is a full-size keyboad which can be attached to my mobile telephone.

1.1 Better still, of course, I want my correspondents to have access to this blog. Some places, I know, do not have access to the internet. At least, I have heard of such places, though it is hard to imagine such impoverishment in these times. Even so, one can require one's correspondents to hire a horse, or to borrow a cart, or perhaps a man who will take one, piggy-back, to the nearest internet café.

2 Otherwise, I have been occupied with external matters today. SSAFA, of course; a call to remind me of a RAFA meeting, already running - a call I answered as the man who called has been a co-worker on various enterprises; from the RAFA meeting to the continued preparation of papers for an AFD2010 meeting tomorrow; soon it was time to begin the drive to Worthing to attend a Board meeting of the WSCU: my co-worker, another one, and I rattled the cages but, having done so, were ready to smile and to listen; from Worthing to East Grinstead, to a call to the CU member to whom an unwarranted payment was made; further preparations for tomorrow's meeting. Hey, where's my time?

2.1 Now there is just no possibility that I would have sent the preceding paragraph by text. The keying would have been so slow that instead of a flowing text I would have realised a stilted, abbreviated one. And now it's time for bed and for reading. After all, I was awake at 0500 this morning, and I suppose I'll be awake at that time tomorrow. It would be good to rise soon after 0600 so that I was the first or among the first into the pool. (Or what about an early-morning ride on my bike.)