When will I learn?

There are some lessons that we seem to have blind spots to ever learning.

 Friends will repeat the message over and over again.

They will recommend putting a notice up ten foot high directly outside my window with the same message so that I will be repeatedly be reminded.

 Yet I still fall into the same trap.

 Over and over again.

People who stand beside me cannot believe that I've gone and bloody well done it again.

My failing is clearly that I think that involvement with politicians can ever be beneficial. 

By definition, (I have to drum the message in), politicians are emotionally draining people.

 We need to steer a course that avoids them by many miles. We should never seek them out for help or even try to pressure them to do anything. Yet here am I doing it all over again.

 I'm writing to politicians to ask for them to do something. Why don't I learn that one is far better avoiding them and doing the whole job myself. One always has this "this time I can make it work differently" feeling.

 Here's a message to take in:

 Geoff if there's a politician around, run a mile in the opposite direction. 

 Carl Fine in South Ulverston has told me again and again "I don't go anywhere near them as they make me so angry". "I just don't vote." So why did I get dragged in this last time round ?

 Next time I will, I really will, ONLY VOTE IF THERE IS SOMEONE I REALLY WANT TO VOTE FOR. This would have meant that I would have only cast one vote when in reality I  voted four times.

Next lesson: if reliable people don't get elected then shrug and give up straight away. To do otherwise will be inviting an emotionally draining experience. Others learnt this message ten, twenty even fifty years ago and have lived a relaxed life since with little frustration from the people that can set you off in a spin without trying.

More to follow as I reflect on what is wrong with us and our system of local government - and what I find actually works for me.

"Absolutely Lethal"

Have you heard this expression anywhere recently?

Are you privileged not to have heard this expression recently?

A small amount of snow must, by now, have wiped out 98% of the population of Ulverston if not England.

Welcome to immigrants who are perhaps, a little more surefooted.

There must be empty houses everywhere and jobs galore to be found in the mortuaries.

Welcome to the country of overused expressions !

Is it a match though for the phrase "I'm with you 110%"

There goes all that effort in teaching maths in our classrooms - down the plughole.

No, it must be a big hole, let's say a massive sewer.

 "Oh, I've got it all wrong" you tell me.

It's me that needs to go back to school.

'Asolutely Lethal' actually means 'you might fall over if you're not careful' (I wonder how many even did that).

Being 'with you 110%' actually means ' I agree with you at the moment but forgive me if I change it in the next 30 seconds if I get a better offer'.

Naughty Geoff - slap wrists  and go stand in the corner with the dunce's hat on until you've written the hundred lines you've been set.

"I must learn to speak English proper"

It would  help if you spelt correctly too.

Now that I can certainly improve . . . .

"Oh No" - Illegal activities again

Local Government - this time SLDC - are winding me up a treat and I'm in great danger of turning criminal in frustration.

The locking up of the public toilets at dusk is driving me bonkers.

I past a man peeing beside someone's front door as I walked along Upper Brook Street.

"Do you really have to ?" received the rejoinder " I'm busting for a pee - where else can I go"

I had no reply.

I talked to someone yesterday who told me they had shit in the alleyway across from the toilet in The Gill. She had to clean it up herself.

The fair is in town and The Gill is milling with people - it's also the Lantern Procession - and the toilets are locked - with their lights on!

Do we have to revert to life in the middle ages.

Someone could easily nick the hasps on all the toilets in the town so that they can't be locked any more.

If that fails , I guess the next step is remove the gates themselves - not difficult!

Anyone who checks will find that the nuts on the ones in The Gill are only finger tight . . . . .

Sad to see

The people of South Ulverston appear to have given up.

Many of them no longer believe that democracy works.

They have suffered so many disappointments that they, justifiably, have stopped believing that they can influence their surroundings through local government.

I agree that in many cases it is so frustrated to be strung along with promises of others doing things that the time and effort are best spent doing the job, where one can, oneself.

This is the approach I have used when dealing with flooding from Dragley Beck which I have documented before with footage posted on Youtube

The problem lies with the water from heavy rain, not being able to pass under the bridge at Low Mill. This was captured on film last September. The solution is to clear the rubble that has in the past been dumped over the bridge on the downstream side. This I have started to do by lifting the blocks out of the river bed. There is more to do with a lot more rubble there together with a long strong beam still buried.

The 'action' by the Environment Agency has been entirely superficial with a few things being lifted out of the beck. Many of these have been just left on the bank and not even taken away.

One of the first things I will do when elected as County Councillor is to pay them a visit and get them to explain themselves and report back here.

Not only are houses being threatened by the flooding but potential businesses are being prevented because of the unpredictable threat of flooding.

This is just one of the things that can be improved in the area.