Wow! It's been a while!
Difficult to believe so much could happen in the time since I was last able to bore you all with a ramble, but so much has.
And it has only been around six months.
So here I am rambling again on rememberance weekend , a time when we think about those people whose life changed in an instant.
Rememberance time is something that I can recall from when I was a child, vividly.
The time of year, dark usually damp, sometimes cold, watching the event from the Royal Albert Hall on the Saturday, taking it in but secretly wishing they would march a little quicker as Match of the Day was due on next and I could be asleep! But even through my eagerness to see Jimmy Hill et al the power of what was being broadcast wasn't lost and even as a young child the knowledge that each petal was a life sent goosebumps through me, still does.
Then there was the Cenotaph, solemn, serious, respectful.
This was our way, the nations way of remembering and thanking those who had made the ultimate sacrifice, it was about them.
Sadly that is no longer the case.
The political elite and their extreme friends have been turning remembrance weekend more and more into a jingoistic flag waving exercise, with the my poppy is bigger than your poppy attitude, it's no longer about the people it's about them.
The poppy is a case in point.
Does anyone, anywhere, seriously question anyone's respect or patriotism if they are not wearing one? Does anyone really think that it's an insult to wear a different coloured one? Surely not.
When someone passes away who you were close to do you wear a black arm band? Do you wear dark colours until after the funeral all the time? No we don't.
Does that mean we care less for the person? No, it absolutely does not.
I am sat here writing this with my poppy in place, not because some idiot might think I am disrespectful or anti British, I wear it because I am paying respects to those who have fallen.
I wear my poppy for the right reason, how many others can honestly say that?
