The Mistress Sea.

She ebbs and flows and plays a tune
To moon and stars that shine
She gives us life and ample food
And cant be judged by time
 

She see's the passage safe of ships
Or breaks their hearts in two
She bears no malice sailor brave
But has her job to do.
 

The mighty sea that cant be tamed
Though men have often tried
Left many frightened ill and maimed
And many more have died
 

But yet she holds her secrets well
her mystique temptress borne
From calmest day to heavy swell
When hope is felt forlorn
 

And though her destiny be wrote
By weather, stars and moon
Her care not of one single boat
Can spell a sailors doom.
 

Here's prayers for luck on ocean's blue
Safe passage one and all
Fair wind and sun i wish for you
Amidst the roughest squall.

A lesson in business we all should heed?.

Running any business in today's climate is always going to be tough. We all have a tendency to put more and more hours in when things get leaner, but I have a theory that it's not the quantity but the quality of time and how it's used that is essential.

Indulge me for a moment while I transport you back in time to an era when i was running my own trucks and indeed driving one of them. Yes, I drove trucks and they were the largest available to the UK roads today without special requirements and were weighed in at 44 tonnes each.  I was contracted on general haulage, a hard task in itself as I was supposed to work all week and fuel my truck at £1350 a week and pay my two other guys their weeks wage and fuel THEIR trucks for at least 3 months BEFORE I got paid.... recipe for poor business? too damn right it was but if its all you think you are good at then you have nowhere else to go and you just keep fighting it. Anyway I digress.
 One day I was sent to an RDC (retail distribution centre) run purely for the biggest supermarket in the country (every little helps) and on entering the site (at an allotted time or you are denied entry) I was told to wait. So I waited. Oh.... and I waited. In fact I waited almost 3 hours before a guy in a fluorescent jacket waved me over to an unloading bay, which coincidentally had been empty for almost the same time and was told to reverse my truck on to that bay, which I duly did. I gathered my tickets and locked my truck and went to the main office, on entering (you guessed it) I had to wait, another 15 mins past and a guy says "I want your keys please" as he poked his head through a frosted window type hatch, there upon he took my keys and paperwork and shut the hatch.
And there I was... nothing to eat or drink (all in my truck) nothing to read, just a waiting room. I sat there for 1 and a half hours until i was called to the frosted glass window in a "Wizard of Oz" type grumpf manner and given my signed tickets back and oh yes... my truck keys.
This whole episode had taken 5.5 hours out of my day. I had met a guy at security,a guy to show me to which bay and a guy to take my tickets, who sat in an office with 12 other staff.
 Now anyone in haulage will tell you we have a device called a tachograph, it records the amount of time you are on duty and how much time you are driving. We are allowed 15 hours on duty, (not driving) and even that is restricted further with the advent of the WTD (working time directive) so all in all (every little helps) had ensured i had lost almost half my day through waiting around to get unloaded, costing me a vital load and income for my family.

So the following day i was sent to an Eastern Counties dockyard to collect water for a well known German competitor (every little helps 'cos it's packaged cheaper) and i duly arrived somewhere around Swindon way to their distribution centre.
 On driving into the unloading area i noticed one security guard in an office, he looked at my tickets and waved me through. I watched as other trucks that had been in my queue just reversed onto the bay, so i asked when would it be ok for me to do so?, the driver next to me said "if you see an empty bay just reverse up to it and get your load off!". Not needing to be asked twice after the previous days hold-ups i backed the truck on a bay and walked in to the warehouse.
On walking through the door i saw drivers using pallet trucks to unload their goods and only one guy at a huge desk. I approached him, he collected the tickets shouted "Bay 22" and i duly returned to my truck and unloaded 26 pallets as fast as my little legs could carry me. On completion of the unload i went back to the guy, he sent a runner to count my pallets, signed my ticket and i was outta there. Time taken? 45 minutes.

If you want to know why (every little helps 'cos its packaged cheaper) are growing so fast then there is a lesson to be learnt by the bigger guys here. It isn't that their food or goods are cheaper, far from it the vast majority is excellent standard, it's because they get the damn stuff to our plates cheaper!. In fact what drove me to actually write this was listening to two local ladies having a conversation while waiting for us to fit tyres to their cars, when asked about shopping at (every little helps 'cos it's packaged cheaper) the one woman said "The big supermarkets are doing budget brands but they are exactly that, they are budget and taste horrible mostly, whereas in (every little helps 'cos it's packaged cheaper) you may pick it up off a pallet, but the quality is still very acceptable for what you are paying". I have to say it was her view and her view alone but it should give any wise CEO some food for thought..(excuse the pun).

The moral of this story is never let your standards to your customers drop because you want to make goods cheaper. Better to look at cutting costs at the distribution end by streamlining the process and the number of staff needed to carry out that process than let quality slip on the aisles.

As for my exploits behind the wheel?. Well i tried to hold on as long as i could and in the end the price of fuel and falling rates left me almost penniless. It will take my business another 3 years to get the spectre of haulage off my back as i chose to fight back rather than go bankrupt, something you will rarely ever hear anyone in business say or admit to, quite simply because its not the done thing, but i consider it the right thing to do to stand my ground. I have known tough times indeed over these past 2 to 3 years and that will continue for at least another 18 months yet, i see huge firms struggling to get to grips with a changing economy that demands the right product at the right price, a statement the slow to change big guys out there would do well to heed, changes made at ground level can have a huge impact on what happens on the shop floor.

If only government could mirror the (every little helps 'cos it's packaged cheaper) way of delivering services to the country.

Morning!

The sun is shining brightly through the kitchen windows this morning in defiance to the frost that descended overnight, it's the sort of morning that only this country can produce, bitter sweet and fresh all in one, a day when being alive is reward in itself, nothing else matters.
 Perhaps this Monday morning we could all go to work or play or wherever we are headed and remember that fact, just celebrate being here and able to enjoy what we are given all for free.


Have a great day all!.

Out Of Reach.

I watched you always from afar your smile etched on my mind
Your walk, your voice your thoughts of me my love was never blind

I dared to walk beside you once, I dared to call your name,
But you just saw another guy and never felt the same.

I tried to be the best in all the things that life has thrown
While you had been with other guys I waited all alone.

I shared the tears along with you when they had left your side
But there was nothing I could do the feelings I would hide.

If I had been a man as such, I should have let you know
And told you just the way I felt and never let you go,

Instead I watched in silence, then to my eternal shame
As you were hurt so many times by this the loving game.

The years have past the song is sung, I wonder what we missed
If I had been a different man and we had only kissed.

A Mother's day ditty

Wrote this over breakfast this morning as a little tribute to you Mum's out there God bless ya !!.. and Happy Mother's day  xx 

From date of birth until you die

One constant we all share

No questioning or reasons why

A life just filled with care

Of politicians I don't speak

Nor Generals and their ranks

No 'A' list star that's gone next week

Without so much as thanks,

I speak of one true friend in life

Who cheers us when we're glum

A mother, nurse a loyal wife

And mostly 'just' a mum.

So on this day we celebrate

our mothers and their caring

Like staying up when we are late

And all the love they're sharing

Let's raise a glass a hearty toast

To mother's far and wide

A one true friend who gives the most

And always by our side

 

I really am ok... honest !

I have to admit, several times lately I have written a piece of work and it has at some point been published in a paper or magazine or online etc and it has caused a flurry of worried texts and e-mails as to my state of mind at the point of writing. I do feel my work is created from within but it's also a subjective observation or comment on any given subject.
To say it's actually how i am feeling or that it's something I need to say on a personal level is not really the way I work. I enjoy taking on a subject close to my heart and speaking outwardly about it but I don't (thankfully) go through every single emotion described in my work and I am, I must admit taken aback by comments i receive from people afraid that i am about to jump from the forth bridge in a barrel while drinking arsenic!.

Poetry for me is a social comment, its a mouthpiece for subjects seldom aired, it's a short story or a piece of pure fantasy, it's as simple as that, sometimes it does relate to my feelings at any one given moment but I find mostly I can write while detached from the subject at a personal level. I guess it's the product of a vivid imagination and inspiration to put thoughts to paper and enjoy whatever it is you are writing about.

I hope people who read this blog have gained at least some comfort or pleasure in my works, I enjoy writing and am discovering myself through the input to the blog page much more-so than i would through single publications from time to time in newspapers and books, i guess that's the wonder of the internet for you !

Signs of the times

I am a simple man it seems
And happy I should be.
Not driven by the money train
Or chic celebrity

I wish to only live and breath
And find a house to dwell
And raise a little family
With loving wife as well

My only wants are very small
My outlook always bright
To work and earn to feed us all
To sleep so sound at night.

Be healthy and enjoy life so
To me is all it takes
But lately it's been touch and go
like someone hit the brakes.

For all around are darker foes
Who's wish it only seems
To break the hearts of simple men
And shatter all their dreams.

Men with money cheat and lie
Avoiding any sleaze
People in authority
We find so hard to please.

The law that stands to help us so
So strangely now entrenched
In battles with the "average Joe"
no thought of common sense.

Councils snoop and use our cash
To persecute the meek
While thugs with drugs grow like a rash
Each day of every week.

Politicians lie and shout
And lose the very focus
Of what their job is all about
a mire of  Hocus Pocus.

They say that money is so short
They have'nt got a bean.
Yet spend our cash on some report
It's really quite obscene

So what of I the simple man,
Who only wants to live?
And raise a little family
And has the love to give?.

Well truth be told upon my soul
A future I have none,
Like water down an unplugged hole
There's nowhere left to run..

Life to live.

Be still by quiet waters so,
Reflect on what has past
Accept that life has ups and downs
And laughter cannot last,
Take all the knocks that come your way
Be last to lay the blame
Not always have to have your say
And play the waiting game
Be brave when tasked with things you dread
Be wise with what you hear
Keep secrets told within your head
And enemies quite near.
Live life in all it's fullest form
Be frightened not of trying
Be strong amidst the fiercest storm
And not afraid of dying.
Take advice then sleep it through
Let sleep be judge and jury
Regret has ways of haunting you
For moments lost in fury
Above all else in all you do
Be guided by your conscience
Let no-one live your life for you
And pay no heed to nonsense.
 




 



.

Nature's gift.

May I stay awhile with you?

May I walk your narrow tracks

That meander across your back

Like a sunlit spiders web on dewy mornings?

May I stay awhile with you?

Among the freshest air and flowing grass?

Such beauty never matched

yet always to your splendour true

The flowing stream that cuts a dash

Crystal clear yet ice cold too

Tracks as if  your very spine

Bringing life to all within purest beauty.

For upon this crest of natures very soul

My every sense is teased and caressed

From mighty oaks that stand on guard

Among the fern that sways to scented summers breeze

So here I am. I will stay awhile

Upon this mountain top that steals my very breath

Staring into the abyss of nature at her best

For none is richer than I today... 

 

The "I will do it"

The life of the 'i will do it' Is invariably busy all day, For if something in life is required 'I will do it' will make it ok. When most of us stand looking simple, Scratch our heads looking puzzled and glum, 'I will do it' just heads for the action, and you know it will always be done. From walking the dog in the morning, To rocking the baby to sleep 'I will do it' will never need asking, And appointments they always will keep, So next time you need something doing, and your mind wonders off from the task, Just remember to call 'I will do it' Chances are, you won't have to ask