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 …
I took a weeks holiday at the end of October to go spend with my lovely mum … Found myself regarding her sometimes with a clinical eye … she’s not too bad really - can still look after herself, though when dad’s not there, she does not feed herself, even though she has a good appetite, she just can’t manage cooking, so dad does it normally, and she’s sort of got out of the habit … she can’t push a hoover or clean anymore, but she can tidy, do the washing, and wash up dishes …
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 …
She’s definitely got nominal dysphasia, which bothers her very much - this is when she knows perfectly what she wants to say, just can’t find the right word … temporal lobe damage …
she’s still got a will on her which is totally unfazed though … whether she’s right or wrong, she’s very capable of retaliating … not so much with me, but often with my dad, when he points something out that she doesn’t like …
she’s very frail, with breathing difficulties and mobility issues that follow on from that, and she’s all skin and bone, despite eating a really good diet, which means she is always cold … she’s quite disturbed by the bruising and raised veins in her hands and arms that the intravenous antibiotic treatment has left her with … there’s nothing anybody can do about that …
We had a good week together though …
Other than that, it’s now that time of the year when you can take more time … Perfect for playing hookey occasionally - like yesterday, I mentally signed off work at 2pm, having seen that ‘K9 widow-maker’ was just starting up on the telly - a cold-war film with both Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson in it (mm-mm :- ) … That’s it, I thought … ‘Come-and-get-me’ sign on the door, and flaked out like tripe on the sofa for the afternoon …!
Lunar Samhain coming up soon - it’s on the 16th November this year, I believe … and it’s not a full-moon either, it’s a dark moon, almost totally occluded … This is the real beginning of my year, and symbolically fairly important to me, so pretty soon, there’s a lot of preparation to be done, my friend and I shall be having a fire on that night, and hopefully we will’ve reflected on what’s passed in the old year, and decided what we’d like to carry on into the new year, and what we’ve resolved to change - those sorts of things … I have some pieces of this years evergreens which will be burned on our fire, once again providing a powerful symbol of how things carry on and follow on throughout the year, and also, if you like, how we are able to put things behind us, or change them … I’m a big believer in symbols … Sort of like talking ‘in words of one syllable’, slowly and carefully to your brain, or what lies inside it … Sometimes it takes a good symbol to get through to it …! ah well …
Tags: blogs, books, floyd, morse, quiet desperation, samhain, weather
1 Nicon 11 Nov 2009 at 10:07 pm
I think blogging is like most things in life, the more you do it the easier it gets, and that includes cooking, visiting family and doing outside-ish stuff, even when the weather is foul - which is why I enjoy feeding the animals every day, even when I don’t want to go out.
I’m not sure I’m ready for New Year yet, I need to wallow in the dark for a bit longer before I make real plans for the spring.
PS Coll breathes a sigh of relief when the boat changes and we hit winter hours, even though for the first fortnight the village has random frustrated people who have forgotten Wednesday is now a dead (everything shut except the PO) day instead of a shop, petrol and pub session day.
2 Galeon 11 Nov 2009 at 10:29 pm
It is good to hear from you. Hopefully, you will have more time during the winter season to blog. I’ve missed reading about Mindy and the ducks. I’m sorry that your Mom is not doing so well. I know it was good spending time with your parents. It is difficult to see a parent or anyone for that matter suffer with declining health. Nov 16 is my birthday. I guess I have a New Year coming up too!! Just another year older. (Picture - sad face here!) Enjoy your New Year celebration!!
3 Jillon 12 Nov 2009 at 9:25 am
Hi SL, good to hear from you again. “Winter Opening Hours” LOL! And why not? If CalMac can do it, why not you?
Hugs to Mindy, hello to the ducks, kind thoughts to you about your mum, and take care.
4 paton 12 Nov 2009 at 2:26 pm
Is that right no pub on Wed.
5 Harryd(Canada)on 12 Nov 2009 at 6:22 pm
Good to hear from you again. Last year was the first time I read your Blog. It was when you were visiting the old chapel and the picture showed you in all your winter clothes walking a long way with the curch in the distance. I hope you keep writing and
your Mum’s condition brings back memories of my wee Mum who died in 1974. Any blog that reminds me of my Mum is good. Thanks.
6 Barneyon 13 Nov 2009 at 9:33 am
Wishing you a fine Samhain! Do you go and visit the Stones and get special vibes on such days. Although they were almost certainly put up long before druidical religion had been invented, or adopted, or whatever one does when a new way of looking at the Scheme of Things comes into being. But that doesn’t stop a modern young lad like meself from going all goose-pimples at a good set of Stones. Samhain with a dark moon - perhaps that is a specially powerful symbol of change and rebirth?
7 GravirLifeon 13 Nov 2009 at 11:24 am
I travel back from Somerset (deepest SW) to Lewis(far NW) on Monday 16th and will be thinking very much of the Lunar Samhain.
Thoughts and best wishes go to you and your Family for the forthcoming year. Kind regards…RJG
8 taddoeon 13 Nov 2009 at 11:56 am
god to hear from you; thanks for update on your mum;Strange how people when,sadly they have some mental health problems,theyare always cold:
9 kingdomcaton 15 Nov 2009 at 10:27 pm
I think the eating plenty but still being thin thing is just the body gradually losing the ability to process food. Ancient ancient female parental unit had her full marbles until she died, but was birdlike thin. Unfortunately, those charged with the care of aging thin person often get the blame for not feeding them properly. However well serviced an old engine is, in the end it gets worn out.
Obviously you wouldn’t know how to deal with a Chinese food set, you live out in the Boondocks!
I hope your mother enjoys her food right to the end. It’s one of the last pleasures in Liff along with music.
I’m going to hug a tree in Tentsmuir.
10 Barneyon 17 Nov 2009 at 11:16 pm
Those fiendish Chinese have been everywhere, Harry Little Seagoon Lad! Eccles has just found a piece of paper at Calanias saying “Quil-loi was here”.
And stop hugging that tree, you fool, it can’t breathe. We may need the oxygen in a century or two.
11 kingdomcaton 18 Nov 2009 at 11:32 am
Your bark is worse than your bight…
12 Barneyon 18 Nov 2009 at 11:56 am
Ööööh, been saving that one up, ‘ave you?
Punners should be punnished, as it were.
13 Soapladyon 18 Nov 2009 at 1:39 pm
you two are priceless, aren’t you … :- )
14 kingdomcaton 19 Nov 2009 at 11:20 pm
Beyond rubies Soaplady
And it should have been barque…
15 Barneyon 20 Nov 2009 at 9:18 am
And look what you have done to that tree! The barque is all worn off. You must have been bighting it, Savage Thing, you!
16 kingdomcaton 20 Nov 2009 at 5:12 pm
Purrhaps you have not read that purriceless classic ‘A Melon for Ecstasy’ by John Fortune and John Wells, or you wouldn’t have remarked on the worn-off barque so carelessly, oh Kapitan mon Kapitan…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Melon_for_Ecstasy
I do apologise for hi-jacking your serious, philosophical and finely-written blog Soaplady, but I feel this is a book everyone should read in the interests of promoting human diversity and understanding
17 Barneyon 20 Nov 2009 at 5:21 pm
Sounds promising, Cat. Tho’ what you know
About that sort of thing
Boggels the brain.
Poor Soap Lady, having to be associated with the likes of us! You can understand a thing or two when you take that into consideration, eh, Cat? Eh?
Sleeping again……
18 kingdomcaton 22 Nov 2009 at 6:19 pm
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzprrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
19 Barneyon 22 Nov 2009 at 7:15 pm
Ropey answer.
20 taddoeon 22 Nov 2009 at 8:08 pm
yup,but a bit frail in the middle–
21 Barneyon 22 Nov 2009 at 9:40 pm
Most astute observation, dear Taddoe!
22 taddoeon 23 Nov 2009 at 4:27 am