Oh, What a Lovely War!

In the end nothing really matters. In the final analysis we're all dead. A brief, flickering spark followed by extinction.

So while the flame burns...brightly or splutters, let's get on with living!

Were it that simple.

Take yesterday for example. It began by looking like a complete dog's dinner. First, I had booked the boiler engineer to give the central heating unit it's annual check up. I do it this time of year 'cause if I don't sure as eggs is eggs the bloody thing will die on us during the coldest cold snap in living memory. I have to stay in from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm. No, they can't give a definite time - what do you expect for £99 a service.

I then discover that I have a training course from 5 pm to 7:45 pm,  and I remember that I've a ticket to hear Brittan's "War Requiem" at St Paul's Cathedral at 8 pm. It's all rather impossible.

I'm in a foul mood being totally annoyed with myself for being so crap at organising my life. I could leave home at 4 pm to get to the course at 5 pm and leave the course early to get to the concert. However, if I do that and the boiler man hasn't turned up I'll have waited in for nothing and will have to re-book. I'll also miss quite a bit of the course if I leave early enough to be at the concert in time.

Get control! I phone up the boiler people and explain that I have to leave my house by 4 pm because I have a meeting at 5 pm. They check with the manager: the technician will be with me before 4 pm. That's one problem sorted.

I then phone the course organiser. I explain that I have another appointment at 8 pm and will need to leave early - is that o.k. She is, however, rather confused since the course I'm booked on isn't on Tuesday but tomorrow, Wednesday! That's a second problem solved. I check my diary - sure enough it's down as Wednesday not Tuesday as I'd woke up in the morning thinking it was.

The boiler man arrived at about 1 minute to 4 pm, but that didn't matter. He spent 10 minutes checking my boiler and it was A O.K. He gave me a print out dealing with the emission levels etc - bit like a car MOT print out - and warned me that the Russian vine was attempting to throttle the boiler's venting duct. I nodded sagely and mimed snipping a hedge and showed him out the door.

St Paul's was magnificent. The sky was clear and as the sun set shafts of light lit up the gallery in the great dome. As the sun light dimmed the cathedral's internal lights gently suffused the whole place in a warm golden light.

As we were at least three miles from the choir, orchestra and soloist in the rear Nave, I didn't quite catch the words. Some people sensibly had the text of the Latin mass and the poems of Wilfred Owen that interspersed the sacred text. But never mind it was a truly wondrous setting and the music was out of this world - you might even say "heavenly".   It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.