Acting up!

Finish every day and be done with it. 

You have done what you could;

some blunders and absurdities 

no doubt crept in;

forget them as soon as you can. 

Tomorrow is a new day;

you shall begin it serenely

and with too high a spirit

to be encumbered

with your old nonsense. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have you ever had one of those days, where nothing seems to go right, and even the nice stuff has some disaster attached to it. I'm a drama queen by nature and my nightmares are often not as bad as they seem - I do however, have a nice egg size bump on the crown of my head, but I got it at the expense of spending a very lovely hour with a friend in her studio, so on the scale of things its really not that bad.

In fact in the greater scale of things a lot of what I chunter about is small fish and insignificant, when you consider the poor people of the Philippines or the brave service men that daily put their life at risk to secure our freedom. Today is remembrance day and this year I planted a cross at Westminster Abbey in honour of my great uncle who was killed in the Second World War. I also made a handmade poppy yesterday and wore it today in his memory.

I often find myself thinking about him at work, when someone asks me to do something that I feel isn't part of my job description (not that I have one of those!), because sadly he was 'acting up' (or covering for someone else) on the bridge when his ship hit a mine and sank. All those on the bridge were killed out right, while others elsewhere on the ship were rescued. Bad luck you might say, certainly not a good day at the office! Which kind of makes my mere daily trifles seem very inconsequential. This sense of duty is mirrored in a million equally tragic and moving wartime stories that should inspire us to greatness of spirit in our every day lives.

Noel Brown, who was just 24 when he died, a serving officer added the following tribute to him in the newspaper article below. 'speaking of him as a hard and enthusiastic worker. he much admired his sense of duty and cheerfulness at all time.' I would wish for no greater tribute than that myself.

So whatever's bothering or niggling at you today let it go and move on, is my advice to you and myself.

When you go home,
Tell them for us and say,
For your tomorrowWe gave our today.