Saturday, November 12, 2016

Looking for the Logic

This past week I stood in a colleague's office, uncomfortably warm in coat and boots, while she spun conjecture after conjecture, trying to make sense of a recent decision that would bring small good to either of us.

In response to an unpersuasive imperative and with an eye to cause as much unnecessary disruption as possible, several teams working for the Ministry are being moved from one building to another. Some of the moves will split offices (mine included) into two.

My colleague tried gamefully to make sense of the needless additional complications to our working lives. She said, "I'm looking for the logic here."

Because of my closer proximity to the core of decision-making, I had a bit more information. So I tried to help. 

"There is no logic," I reassured her.

This also sums up my feelings about the outcome of the US election.

Remembrance Day

Another colleague at work circulated for our Remembrance Day reading excerpts from a WW1 diary kept by an Irish officer who spent 14 months as a prisoner of war, commencing on October 24, 1917. 

The excerpt starts with the story of how he and a band of soldiers set out into no man's land to capture some Germans and, after becoming disoriented and mired in the muck of shell craters, were themselves captured. 

Any diary entries about the tedium and suffering of incarceration did not survive the excerpting process. It is not surprising that the stories the soldier retold on the 50th anniversary (in 1967) of his capture focused more on food - and the few fine meals he had while in transit to the final place of internment - and on the moments when he appreciated the beauty of the landscape through which he travelled as a captive. Here's an excerpt that includes both:
The journey for the next ten hours was not very exciting, as it was night, and nothing to be seen.  The next stopping place was Cologne, and a very beautiful place it appeared to be.  A splendid Cathedral was just outside the station, and as we had to wait some time, for another train, we had good facilities for looking all round us. A very broad river, the Rhine, runs through Cologne, and enormous bridges span it, carrying trains, trams and all sorts of vehicles. We went into a German soldiers buffet, and had the best meal since our Journey began: plenty of coffee, and we had bread, and we had a large bowl of soup and potatoes. When we had finished these we were given a huge German 'Wurst ' or sausage. We felt very contented, and for the next ten hours, were comparatively happy. We got into the train, and after going across one large bridge, after another, we started to go down the  Rhine valley. 
We have all heard of the beauty of the Rhine valley, but to hear of it, and to see it, are two different things, and it is hard for me to write of the picturesque scenes which I saw. The Rhine flows in a long curving stream in the valley at the bottom of a high ridge of hills, and this continues for many miles. Very little traffic was to be seen on the river, and it did not appear to be capable of carrying very large ships. The hills rise steeply from the banks, and are covered with a kind of heather, which must look very pretty in summer. The hills are not of great altitude, but tend to make the scenery very picturesque. Trains run along the sides of the river, and on the top of the hills are numerous castles, all seemed to be very old. It was clear that in ancient times, the barons must have had very hard skirmishes there, with only the river to cross, and they would be in enemy territory, but I am afraid that the difficulty of crossing the river then was much greater than would be the case, in these days of expert engineering.
My favourite passage is this, when the war's been ended, he's freed, has taken the train to Holland and is now on board a ship to take him home:
On board ship, the Captain asked me what I would like for supper. I asked if I could have some butter. Surely, said he, and when I went down to the dining room, what did I see, but a keg of butter, weighing at least a hundred weight, was on the table. Everybody was so kind, that tears were not far from my eyes.
Renovation Update - Spot the Difference

Stupid closet; old ceiling light fixture
Stupid closet gone; plaster applied to wall wounds. 

First coat of paint applied; new light fixture installed







These three photos show the major changes in our master bedroom. There's one small change. Can you see it in the photos? Leave a comment if you can!

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

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