Wednesday 1st November 2023

From passion flowers, passion fruit grow.

Wow, that's deep, man!

Wednesday in the Ugly House, and with bad weather already here, and worse to come, there wasn't going to be much going on outside. Maybe the skies would clear just before dusk.

Maybe.

Jools went swimming at six, well, before six in fact. I was just up and she was gone, but there were podcasts to listen to, coffee to drink, and watch the skies lighten to the point I could see the rain running down the outsides of the window of the kitchen.

I got a call at seven, my colleague, Henrik, who is Brazil working, and there it was the middle of the night. His Mother passed away in her sleep that night, the day before he was due to travel home.

This comes two weeks after my other colleague, Rune, also lost his Mother, and a Flickrfriend lost hers too.

There are no words I can say, of course, just listen and be there for them.

We are all doomed to become our parent's carers, or to be the adult in the relationship as they become frail and cautious.

And then they're gone.

And life goes on, though we have the same tasks to do, the paperwork. Always the paperwork, and the sorting out, and the telling friends and family the news.

And life goes on.

As does work.

Being the start of the month, a new round of monthly meetings start, with us comparing the inaction of this month with the inaction of last.

And outside the rain continued to fall.

Even after three when the rain stopped and I had finished for work, the sun did briefly shine bright, but the wind was already picking up, in preparation for nine and later when gales and worse would sweep through.

There was league cup football to watch, and the ongoing comedy festival that is the current Man Utd season carried on, with Utd losing 3-0 at hoe to Newcastle at the Stadium of Revised Expectations.

And thoughts returned to how rich Man Utd are. How does the club compare to a supermarket, my guess is that the club makes little more than a medium sized Tesco.

And with the internet, its possible to find out.

The last year there is figures for, Utd had a turnover of £648 million. Finding how much the average Tesco, but easier if it were Ikea.

Ikea in the UK had a turnover of £22.2 billion, and has 22 stores, meaning, on average, each store has a turnover of £100,000,000.

Or that 6.5 Ikea stores have a larger turnover than Man Utd.

The point?

Man Utd is big, but not that big. In the scheme of things.