A Rainy Morning Ride, Flowing River and Canal, Nat’s Bedroom, Wardrobe, Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion, Bye Bye Sunday School

The work on Nat’s bedroom continues at a frantic pace. Whilst I’ve slept today Deb, in between goinging out and about with Hannah, has continued to work her decorating magic. While it still looks like a sh*t hole it’s beginning to look like an organised sh*t hole…well done that woman. The wardrobe is complete although we may need to remove and reattach the doors as they don’t line up perfectly and tend to stick but, hopefully, that shouldn’t prove to be too difficult.


I cycled home this A.M. and deliberately stayed on the canal in order to take a few photos of the swollen river Soar and the Union canal; both are quite flooded and the Soar is threatening to over flow on one bank. It’s not been as bad as this for a few years.

Deb took the car into the garage this morning and so I stay up until she came home; as Hannah was fast asleep I took the opportunity to watch Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”. As is always the case, with anything that RD makes, it was a fantastic programme; in fact it was a remake of his original four part documentary “The Age of Reason”. I don’t and can’t understand what it is about peoples’ basic mind set that compels them to believe in complete and utter drivel. I stopped attending Sunday school at the age of seven after receiving a particularly arsine response to a question I had asked the “teacher”. The question - basically “how do we know that the ancient gods are myths but that GOD isn’t”? The answer “because we do; it says so in the bible”. Well after that God and I parted company; in fact, if I recall correctly (and I always do), I think I continued to believe in Santa until I was nine which was two years more than I believed in God. Mind you, I did have a “reason” to keep believing in Santa …PRESENTS…my Mama didn’t raise no dummies! The problem with all of RD’s programmes is this; they are simultaneously entertaining, informative and deeply, deeply depressing! If the soldiers and generals of the First World war can be accurately described as Lions Led By Donkeys (they can’t, this is a dreadful over simplification) then surely the religious and their leadership can accurately be described as Sheep Led By Sharks! The people who actually lead these cults must, surely, be too intelligent to believe in the bullshit they peddle, shouldn’t they? Unfortunately it seems, at least in most cases, that they to do truly and absolutely believe the exact same nonsense. It’s enough to make one believe that there can be a good argument for genocide or whatever the equivalent word is for wiping out people based on their belief in the existence of the supernatural…Rigocide perhaps?

Anyways eventually we got to the end, with much gnashing of teeth and shouts of incredulity on my part, and at about 12:00 I went to bed. I listened to a few podcasts before finally drifting off to sleep and experiencing a deeply disturbing dream about having to give Nat the kiss of life. I think my worries about him being on and adventure outward bound type course in the Lake District during this bad weather run very, very deep. The good thing is that today will be the last day of activities as he, and the others on the course with him, will be leaving there tomorrow morning to return home. Question, can anyone suggest fifteen words I might use in order to reach six hundred words. Oh forget it; I’ve just reached six hundred and eleven.