Rutland columnist Allan Grey talks about trying to please all the people all the time
Well, the weeks are zipping by, and we’re six months on from that very sad day at the end of April when we said goodbye to my Lovely Lady, six months, and yet I’m still meeting people who knew her, but hadn’t heard that she had passed, shocked that they didn’t know, writes Rutland columnist Allan Grey.
For me, I still find it hard to believe it’s half a year, it seems like yesterday, and yet I have done so much in the time that has passed.
I have been incredibly fortunate to have my family and so many friends around, all looking out for me, and sometimes still arriving unannounced at my front door with a box full of homemade cakes, the most recent, just a week or so ago, walnut and Biscoff cupcakes, yes, you know who you are, thank you, keep up the good work.
I have also been fortunate enough to travel, and already have some exciting trips in the diary for the future, the very next one, back to our home from home in Lanzarote for a couple of weeks, probably in transit whilst you are reading this column. Plus, I’ve even learned to ballroom dance, a slight exaggeration maybe, I think that would be stretching veracity just a little.
Having organised a good many events in recent years I’ve learnt that it doesn’t matter what local or national event it might be, what special occasion has been planned, what festival or entertainment has been arranged, notwithstanding the plethora of media we are surrounded by 24/7 in 2024 promoting such events, there are still people who walk amongst us who will wake up on December 26 and say, well no-one told me. I didn’t see any posters, it wasn’t on the news, no-one banged on my front door and explained it very slowly in words of one syllable to me, I thought it was next week, now I’ve gone and missed Christmas and we don’t have one for another year, oh billy bother, perhaps I better put it in my diary, or maybe a post-it note on the fridge, maybe even tie a knot in something, yeah, right, that’ll work.
Much of my recent time has been spent organising the Lions fireworks display, as ever with two spectacular displays in the safety of the Rutland Showground. This event is extensively advertised on social media, on local radio, and various other media, and yet we watch folk leaving after the first more gentle children focussed display, many unaware that there is a second larger, musically accompanied, big bang display to follow, and last Friday, not turning up at all, probably thinking it was still to be on Saturday as it always has been.
On returing home last Friday an email was waiting for me from one gentleman saying what a terribly disappointing display, that there was far too much waiting around and that he had seen better displays in people’s back gardens. My reply, not surprisingly was at first apologetic, but graduated quickly into slight, well no, into heavy sarcasm, suggesting that he invite all the volunteers round to his garden next year to show us how it’s done, oh, and by the way, did you wait and see the second spectacular display, unsurprisingly I’m still waiting for a reply.
Fortunately his tirade was more than offest by a good number of positive messages received by volunteers as people left, and one in particular arriving via Whatsapp with a big thank you to all the Lions and volunteers for ‘the best fireworks we have seen in years’. The one thing you learn from organising anything these days, no matter how hard you try, is that you cannot please all the people all the time. Ain’t that the truth?
Now, never let it be said that I don’t give credit where credit’s due, and as much as it sticks in the craw to give much credit to our beloved council, I can report that my road was fully and beautifully resurfaced on exactly the three days they said it would be, with minimal disruption to residents up and down the road, chapeau Rutland County Council; the road is now a strong contender to host the 2025 marbles world championship.
Perhaps I’ll go and have a strong drink and a lie down after writing that, and try and make sure it never happens again. It did cross my mind however, now that I live in the socialist enclave of Oakham NW, that our new ‘working people’ focussed government might have had some small influence, maybe it was in the small print of last week’s budget, resurface Allan’s road double quick, stop him banging on about phantom roadworks every other week, and while you’re at it, get one of our wealthy donors to buy him a new suit or four as all his current ones are at least 20 years old with several having been feasted on by a family of homeless moths, maybe everyone missed that little addendum. Anyway, all pleading apart, a top job RCC, and while your on top of things, how about a tunnel under the level crossing to truly demonstrate that we’re no longer on the wrong side of the tracks?
