The Soaplady

I don’t think I’ve ever been as glad to spend christmas at home, here in Breasclete, as I am this year …

My absence at family celebrations on the mainland was the result of a decision taken way before the weather became cold and the snow started to fall - more due to extraneous factors, and a wish to just have a good long rest, coupled with Mindy’s relief at not having to go to the Boarding Kennels for more than a week (though she points out that she’s always well looked-after there, and the foods not half bad, it’s just that she prefers her mum, and her comfy sofa … :- ).

I went home (to the mainland) for two weeks earlier, in October, and had a lovely time with my mum and dad, and my sisters. I think Dad was a bit startled that I didn’t want to ‘Do’ anything, or go anywhere, while I was there, and despite my protestations, kept up an endless list of invitations of places that Dad’s Taxi Service could ferry me to, shopping and the like … But I was more than happy just keeping mum company, helping to do meals, and generally watching tv together …  :- )

Now christmas seems finally to be here … and I confess that I listen to the traffic reports with a small measure of glee, knowing that I won’t have to venture farther than Stornoway as long as it continues …

Here, roads have been gritted, but ice re-forms overnight, and I’ve had to walk quite carefully and gingerly with Mindy (seeing her first snow this year!) just over our local roads … I’ve had one driving ‘fish-tail’ event, turning right at Leurbost, in a blinding snowstorm on Saturday - it was very frightening to feel the car going in a direction where it would’ve been impossible otherwise  to steer it, and I have to admit to driving the whole way home at 30mph, without full-beam, which just seemed to make vision worse …

That was my Xmas food shopping trip, and I came away with the following adjuncts to my normal shopping: a tub of ice-cream, Pringles, ingredients for my christmas gooseberry fool (gooseberries donated from the friendly Workforce’s freezer :- ), plenty of dog and cat food, ingredients for my special coconut-fried basmati rice, seven packs of Tesco plain naan bread, some oven chips, gouda, halloumi, parmigiano reggiano and three bags of easy-peel clementines … (well no need to go mad, is there … I am cheap to run … :- )

I have also splashed out upon new vinyl on my kitchen floor, and each time I walk in there, it fondles my eyes anew …!  Makes cooking a bit more enjoyable …

Monday the duck-food was delivered by Lewis Crofters, and Tuesday the coalman staggered under the weight of five unfeasibly-large bags of coal, and four bags of logs, now residing in my shed, for use on my roaring open fire which I tend to look forward to making up each evening …

I have never felt more like a squirrel perched upon an exceptionally large and comforting pile of nuts …! What more can one wish for, at christmas …!

Mindy and I are looking forward, starting Friday, to a couple of weeks of good long walks (usually our walks are constrained by time of some sort), with me double-gloved, scarved and hatted, pockets filled with mint imperials and a packet of ten proprietary menthol cigarettes for those outdoor moments when you just can’t make a roll-up, and my firebird outdoor lighter which jets a useable flame up every single time, gales, rain or storm …

We shall enjoy evenings on the sofa, in front of the fire, me with one of my treasure-trove of books (currently Stephen King ‘Under The Dome’), and her with one of her calcium chew-bones … We shall eat in the living-room, as our own little pack …

I shall have much more time for meditation, in order that I can join her in Living in the Moment … :- )

The very best Compliments of the Season to one and all, from myself, the (slightly) smug Soaplady, Mindy the maniac, Finn the black terror and Fauvey the queen of fluff …

Tags: christmas, christmas dinner, foul weather, home comforts, squirrel and nuts

Well, it’s a lovely crisp fresh sunny day here in Breasclete, although the temperature is definitely cold, and the roads were suicidally icy this morning when Mindy and I went for our walk around Callanish …

I desperately feel that I should be doing something ‘outside-ish’, like hanging out the washing, or closing down the garden for the winter, so as not to waste a day when it didn’t rain or blow a gale …

Since the clocks have gone back, it’s been really annoying here at tea-time … It starts getting dark around 4pm, and is almost completely dark by a couple of hours later … This is problematic because it means if I close the shop at 5pm I have to walk Mindy in the dark, which is not adviseable, as I can’t see what she’s doing … So I took an executive decision, and decided to invent ‘Winter Opening Hours’, so now we close at 4pm instead (45 mins to go …!). What a nonsense this clocks business is - I see no need for it these days …

Was thinking about what Nic said about why we don’t blog so much … I think with me, BBC-IB was a very first footstep into blogging, and perhaps the novelty wore off somewhat … But I still feel a need to do it from time to time … My blogs are not very often (as tws says) ‘informative’ or erudite, more likely they’re going to be a rant, or a desperate scream (who was it said something about - ah yes … Pink Floyd ‘hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way’, although I’m sure another poet invented the term ‘quiet desperation’, though I can’t remember who it was, and I’ve read it recently too) …

But I try to convince myself that that doesn’t make them any more valuable or pointless than anyone elses …  :- )

Am reading Colin Dexter at the moment - Inspector Morse, reason being in the last digital shuffle, I lost ITV3 (hence Inspector Morse withdrawal), and gained Channel 5 … I am very disappointed with the books … John Thaw gave Morse something very dignified, with so much hidden depth … However Colin Dexter has a habit of sometimes making Morse an angry and vulgar man, something John Thaw would never have done … I expect I shan’t make it past the second story in the book …

on Saturday, dad was away, so he got a 2 person chinese food set for us for dinner, and gave me instructions on what to do with it (!) … Comes dinner time, and my mums wandering about with a plastic-wrapped piece of ham and egg pie and a margarine tub, telling me that’s what we’ve got for dinner, but she doesn’t know what to do with it … She enjoyed her chinese later on anyhow … 

Tags: blogs, books, floyd, morse, quiet desperation, samhain, weather

Who …?

the bast**ds who have hacked into my website over the weekend, that’s who …

I first noticed a problem when I couldn’t get into my shop administration dialog, and asked the lady who looks after the code for me, to take a look.

Meanwhile, she had received an email from the server providers, 1&1, who being very ‘on the ball’ had noticed an unauthorised intrusion and the upload of various files to my website netspace - apparently this enables the hackers to do phishing, malware distribution and spamming.

1&1 closed down the intrusion, but as my website shopping cart was using an old version of php language, they updated this version to the newest one, which prevents these intrusions, which is a reasonable step.

Unfortunately, parts of my online shop and the scripts that go with it do not function under the new version of php, so my website lady is having to do a full re-install and customisation of my online shop, which will take at least a weeks effort.

Happily all sensitive customer information is totally unreachable on a secure server, which is as it should be, and it can just be slotted back in when the re-install is done.

So I have a temporary message up at the moment, explaining what has happened, and an improvised product list so people can still choose what they want, and then the payment process must be done by a combination of email and phone. Just a bit laborious and effort-intensive for the markets that I concentrate upon …!

It’s just a little close to christmas for me to be really nonchalant about a week off-line, but I suppose in the long run it will place me better, until the next time, that is …!

But just goes to show you how dependent we become on these very ‘fragile’-seeming systems, doesn’t it, and how you always have to keep one step ahead of people who always seem to have time to find new loop-holes and ways in.

Am spitting fire here … apart from being just a little worried about lost business …

Tags: Business, down-time, hacking, internet fraud, reinstalls

My mum was the eldest daughter of a well-to-do family in Grimsby.
At the age of 15, she took up a scholarship to the local Grammar school, on the basis of her own talents. This was a big deal in those days …

Having finished secondary education, she then sublimated her own future within the future which my father offered to her …
On her wedding pictures she looks like a princess …

She had three daughters whilst moving all around the UK with my fathers work …
I remember her best aged about 42, myself being around 10 years old, and my two sisters being 4years and 6 years …

She taught all of her daughters to read and write well before they were required to learn how to do so, in school, preferring to make her own educational materials and teach us on the living-room floor …

She was a big woman …
Always with her sleeves rolled up in the kitchen …

She gifted to all of her daughters a love for books and reading … To this day, we all read like demons, and enjoy the feeling of being taken away from life for a little while, to a world formed by our own imagination …

She smoked Consulate menthol cigarettes through all of her three pregnancies, before it was fashionable to stop smoking whilst pregnant … None of her daughters weighed below 8 pounds at birth … She gave up smoking at the age of 45, and never once smoked again …

She is 77 years old now, as is my dad …

Whilst he is still active with his own work life, my mum is losing her marbles …

At first it just manifested itself in a bad memory, which we thought nothing of because both she and we have always been characterised by a slight confusion, and ‘getting the wrong end of the stick’ …

She still completes many crosswords satisfactorily …

She was diagnosed as having dementia last year, and was given the drug which sounds something like Erecept, designed not to treat the fault, but to halt its progress …

It’s a sad victory really, I decided to myself at christmas, watching my father trying to help my mother tell the time … Talking about the little hand and the big hand …

If he’s out of the house, she does not attempt to feed herself … Whereas in her younger years she weighed around 13 stones, now she flutters around the 6.5 and 7 stone mark - this is a problem …
If people come around to the house, she doesn’t know who they are, and it frightens her …

She still reads voraciously, but I suspect she can no longer follow a plot, and often does not know what she has just read.

I believe she knows what’s happening to her … She can feel it … and this often makes her agitated, and hostile to my father, who still quizzes her on where she put so-and-so, and still tries to argue rationally with her …

He will never get over the loss of his wife, or be able to deal with her in the new softer way which is necessary …
Neither does he want to give up his own life, and the commitments that go with it so that he can be at home with her 100% of the time.

I feel that I should be doing more to help her … If I didn’t have my business here, maybe I could visit her more …
One of my younger sisters who lives in the same City does what she can, and keeps me informed about how its going …
But really, it’s obvious that mum shouldn’t really be left on her own …

How do you feel OK about putting your own happiness and comfort in front of that of your parents, when their health is failing …?

In the old days, children would look after parents … But in the old days, they lived very much nearer than these days …

In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe mum would appreciate me giving up my life here to support her … That would be putting the guilt onto her instead of me, wouldn’t it …?

I write her a good long letter almost every week, which she likes, I’m told, and I try to say at the end of it just how much she means to me, and how good a job I feel she and dad did with me …

I see my parents only for a week, at christmas, thus far, but I am now trying to plan for a couple of days break with them at other times too …

She’s in Hospital just now - they’ve taken her onto a respiratory ward for a couple of weeks for intravenous drug treatment to try and sort out a long-standing chest infection. That’s good for my dad because it gives him two weeks of respite rest …

But she herself doesn’t know quite why she’s there, and each time she’s visited, she maintains that she’s ‘going home tomorrow’ … She can’t work out how to switch the television on, or how to put on the headphones to hear it with, regardless of how many times she’s told.

She’s convinced that people on her ward don’t like her, because they don’t include her in their conversations.

The majority of nurses on the ward are not even aware that my mum has severe dementia, despite the fact that it’s in her notes, and her daughters having pointed it out to the nurse in charge several times, so she doesn’t get the help she needs.

Her co-patients report that she wanders to and fro in the ward, and cannot settle down.

I’m sending a little parcel to her tomorrow with a few luxuries in it, and a letter. What I really wanted to send was myself … But commonsense dictates that I should wait a couple of weeks before she’s discharged, so I can be with her at home.

In her lucid moments (and there are some), she cries because she realises what is happening to her. But all too soon, the alter-ego mum is back, and there is no understanding there … I don’t know which is best …

It seems to me that dementia is the cruellest of all diseases, for the family anyway, because effectively, you suffer all the feelings of bereavement and loss - let there be no doubt about it - I have lost my mum - only the person is still there, always becoming more and more of a stranger to you, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to make it any better for yourself, or them.

The biggest question that I don’t seem to have the answer to is:
How many times will it take for me hugging my lovely mum,

before it feels like it’s ‘enough’ …?

Tags: children, dementia, growing up, Mum, other lives

My little east indian black ducklings have grown, and are now out in the garden, their feathers being fully through, and their little chests all waterproof and springy …

we is playing with the big boys ...!

They are so *loud* … especially at feeding-time when they surround me and quack as if it were their last breath, getting it all off their springy little chests …!

looking cute ...

Then two days ago, I came downstairs, opened the front door to find little brown duck looking up at me hopefully, with a sizeable black-and-yellow ‘crocodile of offspring behind her - just a day old - eleven of them …!

I  had a choice to make just then … leave them to take their chances (the BBC wildlife filming approach), or intervene to make sure they all survived, even though it’s not ‘natural’ …

which would you’ve done, in my place …?!  

This time, I enclosed them in the duck Pleasure-Drome (no longer needed for the blackies), and set mum in there with them, with a box-shelter, food and water …

so now all I have to do is to get in some extra growers and layers pellets, and hope the ratio of drakes to ducks isn’t that high, or the garden will be a morass of testosterone soon …!

Tags: brown muscovy, ducklings, east indian blacks

There is a new business start-up in Breasclete which is already starting to pick up custom all over the island: my friend and neighbour Karin and her Company

Clean Squad …!

Clean Squad Logo

Karin is naturally-endowed with enthusiasm, vigour and ebullience, and is that particular treasure of womankind who *enjoys* ironing …!  Imagine it …!

ironing - a nasty chore ...

Karin also offers all the services usually performed by a traditional house-keeper including the usual vaccuuming and kitchen maintenance tasks.

If you’d like to talk to her about cleaning requirements, whether you are your own person or a Hotel or Guest House accommodation concern, her website is www.cleansquad.co.uk, and her Phone number is Breasclete 621293.

I remember fondly the time in my life when I employed a lady to clean for me … She was a treasure too - there is nothing like the feeling of coming back home after a hard day at work to your quiet home sanctuary, to find that your lady has been, and it’s obvious that your carpet has been hoovered and your glass tables polished, removing all rings, everything in its place, your curtains neat and tidy and even your cushions plumped up a bit …

My lady used to move the furniture around a little bit from time to time (having checked first with me that this would be OK of course), so I came back to a home that was a little different sometimes, which I liked …!!

I haven’t owned an iron for ten years now, since I came to live on the island in fact, and if it needs ironing I don’t buy it, simple as that …

However, my ’seen its day’ kitchen complete with spiders webs, resident spiders and mummified fly cocoons, dust bunnies mixed with Mindy’s forgotten or broken toys, small piles of cement dust from heaven-knows where, and bits and pieces all over the place is calling out for Karin …

My bathroom too, complete with thin but persistent layer of talcum powder, dust and cat hairs on the painted floor, also dirty skirting boards …

Loudest voice of all is from my carpets, which I’m *very* ashamed to admit, have not been professionally cleaned since I moved in ten years ago to find them on the floor …!

Perhaps I’ll treat myself, for the summer …

Tags: Clean Squad, Cleaning, Ironing, Karin

I should be working …

however, the need to express myself, properly, has brought me here, to my PC …

I am truly *glad* for all of those whose lives have been made easier by Sunday sailings - my own sister will be coming here on the sunday ferry soon, and I shall be so glad to see her … I can now go to the Summerisles, and stand a chance of getting back home at the weekend … This is good …

I am, in no way, going to confine myself to a dark room, going ‘ochone, ochone’ and bewailing anything - I am perfectly happy with the decision …

What I am *not* too happy about, is the way that  ‘A victory for commonsense’ has been decreed … and that’s what I want to talk about here … Not the ferries, or anything associated with them … But the way that ‘a victory for commonsense’ makes me feel …

Commonsense is in the eye of the beholder … It is mine, and it is yours, and the two may not be the same …

There is no global, correct, ‘I got the answer right then’ body of shared commonsense out there, floating in its own perfumed pink cloud of correctness, waiting for us to intelligently recognise and espouse it …

People with polarised and totally different bodies of commonsense on the same issue, often based upon considerations which do not match each other at all, and consequently cannot be matched at all, point for point, can still both claim to hold valid views can’t they …?

By claiming ‘a victory for commonsense’, you are negating and denying the commonsense of the other view …

A philosophical view perhaps … Semantics also maybe comes into it …

But you really do need to take on board that offence may be caused when you speak in these terms, however unintentionally …

That was all I wanted to say …

Tags: beliefs, commonsense, philosophy, semantics

No pictures today - just an account of the most delicious breakfast I’ve had in many months …

Two Stag bakeries spiced fruit buns, sliced in half and spread with butter, then gently heated for 10 seconds in the microwave until just warm, the butter softly melting inside, accompanied by a whole punnet of fresh, plump, perfect raspberries …

I felt like a goddess as tart yet sweet raspberry juice danced over my tongue, cutting through the richness of the spiced buns …

One would’ve expected to pay a great deal for this fare at any usual time … however, my breakfast cost me only 40p …!

Whilst shopping in the Co-op yesterday, with Mindy left to sleep off her Castle Ground exertions in the car, I was delighted to find whole shopping carts full of boxes of raspberries, all reduced to 20p, as compared with their original £3.99 … All produce of Scotland … I rather guiltily stacked up five of them …

Then, in the bread aisle, I lingered surreptitiously as the packets were being marked down, and selected two packets of the 4 spiced buns, at 40p each …

It also seems that the Co-op is fighting back against the low prices of Tesco, on the island, because there were many £1 deals on various items, and lots of things were half price … I wonder if this will pay off for them …

The main reason I shop at the Co-op is that I can never find a parking space in Tesco’s car-park, at any time of the day or week, and it’s always so claustrophobic with so many people milling about in there … Co-op shopping seems rather more leisurely and comfortable, although cerebrally I know it costs more …

There was brisk trade in the newly-opened Peacocks concession at the end of the Co-op buildings, selling clothing, and in the foyer, Isles FM seemed to be noisily and sizzlingly cooking mexican food, accompanied by large boom-boxes shouting ‘voulez-vous couchez avec moi, ce soir …?’, which hardly seemed fitting for staid old Stornoway … I hoped that I would be out and finished before that old staple ‘I’m so horny, horny, horny, horny’ made an appearance, because it’s very difficult to stand next to your fellow shoppers without blushing in embarrassment whenever that is played, and it was really loud too …

One last purchase of a bogof Sprite Zero, and I was all set for a very good weekend indeed …!

Well I’m going to garnish this lovely sunny sunday with a large caffe latte now, and probably the first menthol roll-up of the day, after which I shall be completely replete, and infinitely ready to face the day …

Tags: bogof, breakfast, fresh fruit, inappropriate music, morning, raspberries, supermarket deals

Welcome to the duckling pleasuredrome …!

oh what fun we can have inside a roll of fencing wire, fortified with duckling mesh …!

Duckling pleasuredrome

My babies go out for an airing most afternoons, and come back in absolutely worn out … Most times they are watched over by the muscovy duck contingent, as in the picture …

But mostly, they just get used to the concept of grass and breezes …

aint half hot mum ...!

But they’re growing fast now at about 14 days old, and each time I pick them up their fat little tummies seem bigger … They no longer all fit in the Carte D’Or ice-cream carton:

udge up a bit there please ...

Still can’t recognise three out of the four though … by the sizes of them it looks like two girls and two boys, but nothing yet but the cheep cheep cheeping …!

Tags: ducklings, grass, growing, pleasuredrome, two weeks old

Feast your eyes on the latest additions to the Soaplady’s menagerie …

4 little bundles of black fluff ...

These are four of Fred’s black east indian ducklings … I believe their father was Mr Quack, and their mother was Crispy … They made the strange journey from Aird to Breasclete on Sunday afternoon, and are still settling into their sunny window-sill, warmed by a heat-lamp … They are showing great taste by loving their Carte D’Or Marscapone ice-cream container, in which they huddle together at every possible opportunity …

They run through their food and splatter their water everywhere, and their 2″ of wood-shavings needs to be changed daily …

I can only distinguish one of them by sight just now - he has a yellow blob on his wing and another just under his chin …

I’m hoping that there’s a breeding pair in there somewhere … Ducks always have more boys than girls, but I think it would be beyond the bounds of probability to have got four males … I’ll only know when the first male ‘quacks’ are heard …

They’ll be on their window-sill, in their cage until they’re about six weeks old … and then they’ll be transferred permanently to the garden, in a secure run … I’m taking no chances with crows and gulls …

Many thanks to Fred and Sarah for lending me their accommodation … 

Tags: black east indian, crispy, ducklings, hand-reared, messy