Just a little complaint.

I passed this stairway while out walking yesterday morning and just could not resist sitting down and painting it. As I painted my mind, as usual, was a frenzy of thoughts and images. How many feet had trodden up those stairs and worn them over the years? How many messengers of good news? had anybody been dragged down those stairs during the French Revolution to make acquaintance with a more horrible messenger? 

How many children had been born at the top of those stairs and where were they all now? The stories those stairs could tell. Happiness, joy, love and anger. The feet of youth moving up those stairs with certainty, the unsteady tread of somebody in later years. There was a flimsy handrail but I did not paint that leaving it out like the answers to the many questions the steps posed in my mind.

That only took me up the stairs the questions raised by the little doorway at the top was another world.

I left having my painting and my thoughts and completed my morning walk. That sounds simple but the reality was something else. Where I am living at present we are surrounded by little villages but no shops. In the tiny village where I saw this staircase, I found a tiny little shop come community gathering place. I was able to fill my rucksack with bottles of lemonade. I purchased onions and eggs and a few other things. My rucksack could not take it all but I had another bag I could tie to the rucksack, with all of this on my back I made my way back to my van after having a lovely expresso with the locals.

A wonderfully pleasant though hard walk in the hot sun.

I arrived back to my van just as the afternoon complainers were gathering, how different from the thoughts I had been having. There are about four or five caravans surrounding my pitch. The occupiers gather at one each afternoon to put the world to rights. It is one complaint after another about the government the health service, you name it they would manage it all so much better. Then without fail the immigrants become the topic and at that, the complaints become rather unpleasant.

Rather than rejoice in the blessings they have, they are after all able to be over here enjoying the sun and the culture and atmosphere so life cannot all be bad. In their words, "It would be better if France was not full of foreigners."

"Don't complain and talk about all your problems, 80% of people don't care; the other 20% will think you deserve them," said Mark Twain.   I cannot help but quietly agree with him.

"You will find that, as a rule, those who complain about the way the ball bounces are usually the ones who dropped it."

I heard a lovely tale which comes to mind frequently. 

A heavy wagon was being dragged along a country lane by a team of oxen. The axles groaned and creaked terribly, the oxen turning around addressed the wheels, "Hey there, why do you make so much noise? We bear all the labour, and we, not you, ought to cry out!" 

Those who complain first in life are often who have the least to complain about and do the least to sort things out. 

My experience in life tells me that the gift of grumbling is largely dispensed among those who have no other talents, or who keep what they have wrapped up in a tissue.  

My friends often in a humorous way call me a grumpy old man, but thankfully they are the first to admit I do not just complain I frequently put my hand to the ploughshare and try to put things right.

My complaining about the complainers over for another day. have a marvellous one.