More minor incidents at the autumn equinox

Last year, I posted about some incidents at the time of the autumn equinox. They involved two rather weird women I encountered when I went out shopping while feeling under the weather. 

Once again, it is the time of year when seasonal depression may strike.

Once again, it is the time when strangers may behave strangely! 

I have a little more of the same to report. The recent incidents, the first since last year's equinox, were minor, even more so than they were last time around. They may hardly seem worth mentioning, but getting these things down in writing is good practice and may have good results. 

Last year, one of my shopping trips was a waste of time; my recent long bus trip to a big new branch of a store I like and a street market was also fruitless: I found that the store was self-checkout only, which for me is a deal-breaker, and the market was run down and didn't have many stalls.

The buses were packed on the journey out; a woman with a shopping bag with 'Jesus' on it got on, and kept saying things such as “May the Lord bless you” and “Jesus loves you” to someone who offered her a seat. She also made some random religious remarks. Someone who sat next to me seemed a little over-friendly, but I just replied pleasantly to her enthusiastic remarks.

I was a little down because of the time of year; the disappointing outcome of my journey made me feel slightly worse, so I decided to cut my losses and go home. I had a long wait for a bus; during this time a man at the bus stop kept talking loudly to himself, saying the same thing over and over again. I was a bit wary as he seemed rather angry, but he was probably harmless. He eventually got on a bus that came before mine did. 

I had to change buses, and while I was waiting a woman started to talk about my shopping bag and how it was not set up correctly. She even moved a flap to where it could reach some velcro. This was an improvement, and rather than feeling threatened or offended I thanked her for her help.

That was the end of this year's incidents. 

The great and positive influence of Odhams Press

The article about Books, Reading and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mentions The Marvels and Mysteries of Science, one of the first books that I ever owned. 

I saw this book as an endlessly-fascinating treasure trove; I felt the same way about several other books that I owned as a child. I didn't realise at the time that a few of my best books, including Marvels and Mysteries, were published by the same company. I wasn't interested in any background information: all I cared about then was a book's content. 

I learned a while back that some of my favourite books came from Odhams Press, which published a whole series of reasonably-priced, high-quality gift books for children. There were many more Odhams books than I ever saw at the time; I wish that I had been given more of them, considering how immensely just a few of their children's books enhanced my early life. Reading an Odhams book for the first time as an adult is just not the same!

A typical Odhams children's book, one that I wish I had owned:

My original copies were lost along the way, but some years ago I found replacements for Marvels and Mysteries and other books such as The Golden Gift Book and Wonders of the World online. The books were just as I remembered them. I was overwhelmed with nostalgia when I opened them and saw the familiar text and pictures.  

Something about The Golden Gift Book 
The Golden Gift Book (1939) is a typical Odhams gift book and in my opinion is the jewel in Odhams' crown. 

The Golden Gift Book is over 500 pages long. It is an anthology that has something for everyone. It contains a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, both with illustrations. Most of the illustrations are black and white but a few are in colour, including some beautiful endpapers.

The fiction consists of both short stories and poems, some by well-known authors, complemented with many attractive pictures by different artists; the non-fiction includes many How it Works and Introduction to Wildlife articles and a few general knowledge questions with answers.

A few workplace memories with a wider application

A few comments that were made by colleagues in companies I worked for many years ago suddenly surfaced in my mind recently and inspired an article. At the time, I just accepted the remarks at face value; now, they seem more significant and to have a wider application. 

Settling for far too little
I remember a time when a new IT manager was taken on. One of his first tasks was to go round to each workstation in turn and speed it up.

The boss said that he had no idea what had been done, but he wanted everyone to know how amazed and delighted he was with his workstation's performance after the upgrade. 

The IT man told me that he was amazed to see what the workstation users had been living with for a long time in terms of a very slow service. He said that he had seen similar situations in his previous job and couldn't believe what people had been putting up with until he arrived to sort things out.

I have often felt amazed for similar reasons myself, and in many different scenarios. How can some people put up with what they are getting? How can they settle for so little?  Do they not know how much better things could be? Probably not; Who having known the Diamond and all that.

Or maybe they are aware that what they have is of low quality, but assume that for them a better deal is unattainable.

It is always advisable to monitor what is out there and investigate the chances of moving on to something better. It is also a good idea to seek advice and assistance from someone more knowledgeable and experienced.

Seeing with new eyes
A memory that comes to mind in a similar connection is of a colleague who resisted wearing glasses for a long time - contact lenses were not an option for some reason. She finally bought some, and was amazed at how much clearer and stronger her vision was.

She told me that she wanted to cry when she realised how much better things could have been and how much she had been missing all this time.