Standards

I have some. Not many but a few. One of which is that shorts are de rigueur for the duration of BST or add an hour to the tide times time. Summer time has arrived even if the temperature leaves something to be desired.

Today is another one, no different really from its predecessor, the sun is shining and we were able to attend virtual church this morning and very good it was, too.

Now, having ventured outside and hurried back the coffee is cooling at room temperature, the music is flowing at quite adequate bitrates, the lady of the house is in communicado with many both verbally and textually. No doubt extending the time after which her conscience will allow her to ignore the Wii Fit Plus no longer.

I fear the guilt from lack of exercise is passing me by. In the early hours I noted that Tidal were offering 120days for £4. Too good to be true was my initial thought but leaving the page on this tablet my financier agreed to the sum of £4 being risked, after all it's usually £20/month and, in my opinion never worth it.

I now have zillions of albums hiding under my right index finger and in the last hour or three I've selected such new and upcoming artists as Led Zeppelin, In through the out door, the record is next door, Yes, Close to the edge, the album being an arms length away and In the court of the crimson king, the album being somewhere hereabouts. I think they're pretty good and I'd expect them to prosper. Who knows one day they may even become classics. Neil Young next, probably, he's not bad either or so I'm told. There's a stack of his albums next door, too. The cover of Harvest is pretty worn but the vinyl is perfect. I expect there will be a migration to explore some crowd called U2 and another bunch called Pink Floyd ........

All in all not bad when you are shielded for the next 11 weeks. I could explore a whole world of music of which I am totally unfamiliar or I could just play what I always play. 60 years ago my dad told me such as these would never last. I was allowed a Beatles mug and plate but never bought a record of theirs at the time. The Stones got in the way and then James Marshall Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper and Bob Dylan. The rest is history. Wonderful history.

Now I can listen to a world of music and I end up listening to the familiar. Love it!

New music, it's all new when your memory becomes as porous as mine has. More like meeting old friends, predictable, comforting, uplifting, satisfying. I guess that when I first heard these and their cohorts it was new music. Anyway, I've just unplugged the HDD for 120 days or whenever.

However, a slave to standards I am not. It's a lot colder than it ought to be but having put the shorts on its only right to take appropriate precautions against the chill.

It's just as well that I've got Tidal streaming in here as well, not the quality as the front room would provide but much cosier. It's only taken me an age no doubt a teenager would have done it in seconds.

Besides which we've just had another phone call from one offering to go shopping for us, our neighbours put a couple of bunches of flowers and box of chocolate on the wall and txtd the one for whom they are meant and an email has dropped in the inbox from a good friend.

Surrounded by goodness, none taken for granted, none deserved but we are thankful for all.

It's all good and we are conscious of being looked after as only an all powerful, all knowing God can look after you. Which reminds me of

Come, Thou fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,

Till released from flesh and sin,

Yet from what I do inherit,

Here Thy praises I’ll begin;

Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Here by Thy great help I’ve come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood;

How His kindness yet pursues me

Mortal tongue can never tell,

Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me

I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,

I shall see Thy lovely face;

Clothed then in blood washed linen

How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,

Take my ransomed soul away;

Send Thine angels now to carry

Me to realms of endless day.

Robert Robinson 1735 -1790