26th January 2020 - Scarlet Cords, and Scarlet Cars

Thought or the day:"I didn't tie the knot until I was 48... I'm just hopeless with shoelaces!"

Busy day yesterday with my first Provincial Meeting as Provincial Director of Ceremonies in the Masonic Order of the Scarlet Cord...  also standing in as the Grand Director of Ceremonies in the absence of anyone coming down from London to assist..

Seemed to go well enough - except that I forgot the name of my boss which was a little embarrassing. In fairness to myself I only Know him as Howard Jones, but there is a habit in proclamations and salutations to use someone's complete name - so I become  IAIN WESTON SEWELL, the Grand Summus becomes IAN STANLEY CURRANS , adn so the Provincial Grand Master needs to be RODERICK HOWARD JONES.   

That is fine except Terry Jones (Monty Python) died this week and every time I hear "Roderick" - I can only think of "Woderwick" and the famous line "Welease Woderwick!"..

And so I stumbled - and in doing so got the Howard out and forgot if he was Jones or Thomas - Howard Thomas was an old colleague who died many years ago! Sadly I did not get away with it - but at least I got the rest correct and the Grand Summus was not yet in the room - so his trip down from London was not spoiled..

Carmarthen Masonic Hall

Past Deputy Grand Summus, Provincial Grand Summus,
 and Grand Summus

So a busy day and then a 70th Birthday Party in the evening - got to admit I was quite stuffed after two big meals in the day!

So on to today - Sunday and a lie in and then a trip to Cross Hands to see what we could do about our car. Well, our current car was the top of the range and had all the bells and whistles, some of which we did not use, but our main problem was that we bought it when we thought we would not really have to do much mileage and then found that we had to go to the south coast a couple of times a month. So our 30,000 miles estimate over 4 years was rather overshadowed by the reality of 50,027 to date with a year to go !!!

So we crunched some numbers and went to have a look....

So welcome to the new member of the Family - possibly a Vicky based upon the registration.

Not all the bells and whistles - no leather seat and sadly for Susie no heated seats - good for her back - and no sun roof - but still rather nice and a red one this time - same make but a couple of models down in standard and 1.5 litre diesel but with ad blue this time so a little more eco-friendly.

Have to finish up in Barton this week before the tow bar disappears .....  

In other news - I have registered with Purple Bricks for Barton and wills end the passport details and utility bills today (needed to prevent money laundering so I understand).

Will look at the options for house clearance and house cleaning.

Another busy day - bringing Vic home for dinner tonight - first time out of the flat for him.

Cheers!