Current Activities

Things are pretty good for us although rather hectic. I am finishing off my dissertation and extended essay. they are due in at the end of April. Hopefully, if they are OK, my Foundation Degree will be upgraded to an Honours Degree. As I am now "working" as a Permanent Deacon at our local church I am finding getting motivated a challenge. Sometimes I do wonder why I decided to go for this. I could have just stuck with the basic degree. Never mind - onward and upward!

We are both occupied at Church as we have a Parish Mission starting this coming weekend. Julia is in charge of hospitality which means getting a group of people together to provide  refreshments after all the services - including breakfast after the 6:30am Mass! She is also having to provide lunch and supper for the Mission Team that is visiting the Parish - this is up to 13 people. You will understand that she is quite busy!

Apologies for lack of activity

I must apologise for the lack of recent activity. I have been and am still rather busy finishing off my dissertation for my degree and also with the forthcoming Parish Mission. If you are interested in coming to the Mission the programme of events can be found by clicking here.

An interesting debate

There is an interesting debate going on in the comment section of the Daily Telegraph. One of the posts is:
You cannot live forever.. Attempting to extend life expectancy for people who should have died years ago just racks up the bill "which is already oppressive" and continues to make the population / housing crisis even worse...
Their must be a cut off point at which your time is up. And it must be set by population demographics not by condition.
Their are far too many elderly in the UK for the tax base to support something has to go, Either tax the economy and those of working age to death or give Nature a push and drop the population and free up resources.
Either way expanding pensions and healthcare and continuing to tie up so many flats and houses on a section of the population that has "to be blunt" had it is complete madness. Either set a cut off point and after that step back and let Nature reset the population balance or more pro-active methods will eventually have to be used, The UK cannot maintain the current12 million "soon to be over 20 million" elderly.. The economy and the tax base of 34 million due to drop to 29 million of working age cannot pay for or accommodate so many in retirement.
Sticking your head in the sand and hoping for the best will not cut it i'm afraid... The problem will not just go away and so far everything the government is doing to win the next election will just bring D-day closer and quicker that it would have been had they not decided to keep the triple lock and not to means test. The deficit has not shrunk "it is impossible to shrink it now boomers are hitting the retirement pay rolls" the debt is increasing exponentially and the tax base just cannot keep up.
That their will be a reckoning "and in a time short" as opposed to many years from now is absolutly guaranteed. The longer it is ignored the worse it gets and the more draconian the solution. Sorry to pee in your soup but it is what it is and given the voter demographics it cannot be fixed... The end result after the next election is not in doubt...... Good luck.

As the write syas, sticking our head in the sand is not an option. The question is what should we do?
To take part click here.
 

Christmas Letter from the Mellish Family of Bromley

Dear all,

Apologies if you have not had a card so far this year. We, or rather I, managed to lose our address book earlier in the year. You are never quite certain whose addresses you do not have until Christmas cards start arriving. So if you have not had a had from us please email me your postal address
It has been a mixed year for us - most of it was brilliant, but it has ended with a downer - the death of two cousins, one on my my mum's side of the family and one on my dad's.

The really good parts were:
1. Birth of our first grandchild on Friday 5th of April - Henry Thomas Reynard Mellish his parents being Lawrie and Emma

2. My ordination to the Permanent Diaconate in the RC Church - 8th June

The Litany of the Saints

With the Bishop and assembled clergy

3. Wedding of our daughter Helena to Sam on 17th August

With Julia's twin sister and her family

The Family - Barry, Julia, Sam. Helena, David. Andrew, Gaew. Lawrie, Emma and Henry

Additionally I did a Sky Dive in April- my last years birthday present from my children - do they really love me???

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and peace, prosperity and good health in 2014.

Barry and Julia

Lost address book

We (or rather I) managed to lose our address book during our summer holiday on the Channel Islands. With the arrival of Christmas cards we are finding out whose addresses we do not have, which is quite a few!
So we would be grateful if you would email your postal address to me - barry_mellish@yahoo.com.

In particular we need Peter and Teresa, Gus and Pam, Barry O'G, Ann and Gerard (in Australia)

Many thanks

Gordon Mellish RIP

My cousin Gordon died a few days ago from cancer. He was only 72 and a wonderful guy. He will be sadly missed, his mum and dad only died recently - his dad in December 2011 aged 99 and his mum Grace about a year later. His funeral is next week on December 19. Gordon was the oldest of the family on mu dad's side. I am glad that we met in September at the unveiling of the family memorial, which was a good family get together. I also saw him in hospital. We had a great two hour chat about rugby, politics, religion - all the important things in life. That was just a few days before he died, he was in fine form.
May he rest in peace.

Do I want to be a poet or an artist?

W H Auden, the famed English poet, the day started with a dose of Benzedrine; that is to say: speed. He then fuelled himself to work with coffee and cigs, before starting on the martinis at 6, following on with litres of vino, then popping a Seconal (a downer) at about 11, so he could sleep. Fitfully.
The painter Francis Bacon would have laughed at Auden’s puritan sobriety. He commenced work at the crack of dawn (and he worked hard) but by 11am he was ready to “socialise”. First a friend came over to splice a bottle of wine. Then he repaired to a Soho restaurant for a long boozy lunch, drank through the afternoon, before dining out, going to a nightclub, necking some more wine, moving onto spirits, then visiting a casino, then having another liquor-fuelled meal at a bistro, then popping some sleepers to help him snore away the grog.
It is reliably estimated Francis Bacon drank six bottles of wine a day. He also died at the age of 83, and created some of the most valuable paintings in history.


Not sure whether my constitution would stand it!