friday 4 – flew out to visit John and sort a few financial things out

saturday 5 – went to ERS annual meeting, bit disappointing but glad i went along to find out more, their idea of PR is strictly by the STV method

sunday 6 – went to communion service at trinity harrow

monday 7 – working out of bedfont office

tuesday 8 – met up with Pete in twickenham after working out of the bedfont office

wednesday 9 – working out of the moorgate/city office, pretty good, had wonderful walk at lunchtime to go to yorkshire bank on the strand opposite the high court

thursday 10 – get up incredibly early for flight back to munich.
went for meal at sendlinger wirtshaus on albert rosshaupterstr, had fried eggs and scallops, bumped into fabian and doris

saturday 12 – went for run with kats, about 5km then onto zöttl for breakfast and back to listen to radio 4’s Saturday Live where Marin Alsop’s Inheritance Tracks covered J P Johnson – swing composer, for her the missing link between scott joplin and duke ellington

friday 18 – “it is easy to have the will to win (more or less everyone does), it is the will to prepare to win that matters” bryant, us football coach

saturday 19 – in the evening watched “Grand Budapest Hotel”, Saby calling me downstairs to come up and her tone reminding me of that child-like excitement as she exclaimed “Dad, come on up, we’re waiting for you to start the film”.

sunday 20 – tegernseelauf – started off with reasonable, if cold, weather, turned nasty on the other side of the lake with heavy showers and continued at the finish area, so took some food quickly and jumped on the next train back to munich at 13:01.

Reasonable run, at least the first 10km were in 55:03, but slowed up in second half (had too much to eat last night!) to finish in 2:05:38, placed 322 out of 446 in M50 age group.

Got back had a relaxing bath, then fell asleep on sofa. We had chestnut stuffing and beans for tea then finished off watching “Grand Budapest Hotel” for a second time.

Played pontoon with Eve using matchsticks, with me being the bank/casino, but only her playing unfortunately as Saby was doing homework, as had Eve with getting ready for a maths “Jahrgangstufentest”, ie. revision of all of year 8 work.

saturday 26 – go to bahuaus and get materials for plinths/panels to go above the windows in saby’s room and the living room

sunday 27 – anitra spoke about the difference between leaders engaging in a process of dialogue (discussion, listening and compromising or changing opinions) and what she termed leaders “possessing space” (power and ideology).

a few thoughts from the month:

  • interesting how pope francis and jeremy corbyn were both elected to positions they never remotely thought they would occupy, this brings a level of humility and desire to listen to others for help and advice; which someone who wanted to win, doesn’t have and perhaps has been a reason why the leaders we have been getting have been so flawed, since they are power/social/political (delete as appropriate) psychopath;
  • the number of times the phrasing “for the common good”, which i first heard from natalie bennet, but now is becoming “mainstream”, eg. the pope in his address to US congress;
  • other green ideas like privatising the railways also becoming increasingly popular and now, no longer castigated by the press;
  • the desire for a kinder politics, the write-off of this left swing by the media and labour MPs, but is this the start of the dismantling of the “establishment”, ie. unbridled, partisan, doctrinal power?

    • watched “about time” as eve had suggested it after i’d put on the soundtrack whilst finishing off fixing the curtain rods to the newly created mounting plinths.

    monday 28 – we get up at 4am to watch the lunar eclipse as saby had reminded us about and wanted to do, went into west park and observed it slowly developing, a dark patch over the moon, sometimes seeming like 2 concentric circles but usually fuzzy, after all it is just refracted red light and should be completely obscured technically by the earth. we came back and observed it from the balcony and stairs’ windows, getting a the views as the moon moved from behind the earth and gained in brightness.

    wednesday 30 – Eve asked for help working out a probability question and i overstepped the mark a little in explaining but she was so strong and was happily working it out on the internet on her own when i went in to apologise, nice that she is tough or do i mean resilient!