Wednesday 11th October 2017....This and that!!!!

This is the rose outside my living room window....

You have often read about my gym sessions with Joe....I have been going to him for over 6 months twice a week for 30 minutes and he has helped me immensely... defined my upper body and helped me loose 10 pounds......I really like Joe as a trainer and a friend but his sessions are very expensive, really expensive and now my routine is mainly on the floor with free weights I can do them any where.....

Joe has been away for two weeks and my tennis buddy Steve, told me of the gym he goes to which charges 500 pesos a month with unlimited visits........

Well I went there yesterday and soon realized that this was the place for me when I saw this photo...

Please do not ask who is he!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  he is my sports hero!!!!

I did my complete workout and joined the club right away...I like that I can go anytime and the walk to the gym is the same distance as I was walking to Joe's.....

I wrote Joe and told him and thanked him and got a nice reply back......so my fitness routine will not suffer but my pocket book will benefit at least 3000 pesos a month!!!!

Tonight in my English class I invited two of my friends, Karen and Phyllis to attend..I had three students so I paired them off and they talked to my friends for nearly 45 minutes and then talked in the front of the class about their new friend...this went down really well and I know I shall do this sort of thing again!!  I have great friends....

I do believe if I searched my fridge I will find a nice slice of iced carrot cake and I k now where the tea bags are!!!

OH yes something else...

Three years ago I really went out of my comfort zone and signed up to enter a story telling  competition..usually if I cannot throw it, hit it or kick it I am not interested but  I did enter and the story had to be a true story about myself and between 7 and 8 minutes in length and then I talked about my Camino....

Well the International competition is here again next weekend and I have entered again...below is my story which I perform a week today and if selected get to tell again at the finals on Saturday...

So you want to become a Police officer!!!

Like most young boys growing up in the working class area of the big steel city of Sheffield in central England I wanted to become a professional soccer player

I was a pretty good player but realized I would never achieve my goal of marching out on the hallowed turf of Wembley Stadium and playing for England...

So I had to decide where my future would take me and what adventures along the way and at the ripe old age of 16 years I decided to become a Police Cadet.

Fortunately I passed all the examinations and in September of 1964 was accepted as a Police Cadet with the

Sheffield City Police force.

The training was rigorous but fun and for 3 years I learned the ropes until at the age of 19 to complete the training I went away to an old Royal air force base where for 4 months we were treated like a recruits at a Navy Seal boot camp...one of my highlights was having 3 hair cuts in one day!!!!

The training was very physical and also learning the laws and procedures was a long and painstaking process we had classes that taught us to try to delve into the minds of criminals.

You know how the memory goes as we age... well I can still recite the definition of stealing which I learned in 1967.....don't believe me????

A person steals who without the consent of the owner fraudulently and without a claim of right made in good faith takes and carries away anything capable of being stolen at the time of such taking permanently to deprive the owner thereof!!!!

After graduating from the Academy we were posted to various Police stations around Sheffield and my post was West Bar.

So here I was 19 years of age a fledgling raw recruit setting off for my first day as a Police officer.....My parents had presented me with a 50 cc Honda scooter as a graduation gift and I was very proud of this machine........It was a chilly rainy morning when I reported to the Police Box, like the one you would have seen in the movie Dr. Who...it was 7am and I really did not want to leave my scooter in the open so across from the police box were rows of houses each house having a small covered alleyway leading to the rear entrance of the house.

I decided to park my scooter in the alleyway across from the Police box and go and do my first job...directing rush hour traffic from 8 am until 9am …..

It was still raining so after the traffic control I came back to the box and decided I'd better go and tell the folks in the house across from the box that it was my scooter and ask their permission to park in their alley.

Picture this....here I am so proud in my uniform, bobby helmet, creases in my pants and shirt striding down the alley and at the corner I see the door to the back of the house is slightly ajar.....

I knock on the door and after a few seconds a man about 35 years of age appears and says hello to me.......I tell him that this is my very first day on the job and it is my scooter parked in his alleyway and is it OK..... he smiles and tells me sure any time you want to leave it there no worries and then he asks me if I want to come in for a cup of tea.......

We English folks are renown for our love of a good cuppa char, tea......the offer was tempting but as I told the man in the house thanks very much but not to today as I did not want to get into trouble.

He smiled again shook my hand and told me any time I was welcome for tea and I could also leave my scooter in his alleyway no problem

I continued the morning of my foot patrol chatting to shop keepers smiling at the kids crossing the roads and just generally feeling like I had finally arrived in this world with thoughts of playing football for England a distant memory.....

Now the police boxes are also where the patrol policeman has his lunch and later that midday I was in the box eating my sandwich and pork pie when there was a knock on the door.....

I opened it to see a middle aged lady obviously in distress crying and sobbing and telling me she had been robbed!!!!

OM Goodness not even 5 hours into my first day and I was about to handle a robbery...do this right I thought and instant promotion to the Detective division was on the cards...

I managed to calm the lady down a tad and asked where she lived and what had happened...she took me across the street down the alley where my scooter was parked and into the house where I had been invited for tea only a few hours earlier.....

She explained she had left home around 8am that morning and had just got back and found her door had been forced open and some money, jewellery and her radio stolen.....

I asked if her husband had been in at all during the morning but she told me he had died 4 years ago and that she lived alone.

I am sure my mouth dropped open and the look on my face was gormless.....it quickly dawned on me that as a fledgling Policeman I had been duped by a very charming robber

and had even been invited in for tea I shuddered to think what might have happened had I accepted his offer........

I took all the distressed ladies details and informed her that I would do all in my power to try to catch this nasty man....she smiled and said would you like a cup of tea????

For the second time that day I declined tea in that house!!!!!

Back at the Police box I reported the crime and added there were no suspects..how could I to tell anyone what had happened I would have been the laughing stock of the whole station.

I was a bit of a flake for the rest of the day and on the drive home I thought I cannot tell anyone about what had happened to me.....

The weeks went by and I noted from the police reports that for the next several weeks over 30 house break-ins were reported each during the mornings and in the same area again with no suspects....but I sure knew what he looked like and did I scour every face I passed in those weeks ? You bet I did.....

A couple of months later I was enjoying my life as a police officer and I like to think I was pretty good at what I did......

One miserable rainy night shift I was in the Police canteen having dinner and reading the reports when I saw a face I immediately recognized......

The report said that Michael James Oliver, 35 years of age had been arrested that morning caught red handed breaking into a house on Cemetery Road.....he admitted to over 45 break ins and would appear in court the following day.

Mr.Oliver was later sentenced to three years as a guest in one of Her majesty's prisons....

If you are wondering NO I did not go visit Michael and sit down and have a cuppa with him!!!!!!

My career in England lasted 5 years I then I applied and was accepted for a position as a seasoned police officer in Bermuda where I spent 10 years......

To this day I still enjoy a good cuppa tea!!!!

Yashi Kochi!!!!