Moonhare Mine????.

Sandy and I visited a museum this afternoon. He really likes museums and so do I but we usually head off in different directions, me to look at the flint arrow heads and scrapers, he to the interactive exhibits, swords, blunderbusses, and stuffed animals.

Serendipitously there was a textile exhibtion of works in felt by two women we know well, one who has been a great help to Sanders over the last couple of years, and her daughter who we met occasionally at grandpa's and was from time to time a customer of mine. I want to rush away and make felt pictures and bags now. The woman below, surrounded by the blue waters of ostrich feathers, has streamers in her hair saying that she has come a long journey and now had offerings of wisdom to give. Sandy was unexpectedly delighted with her.

Above is the picture I want for my birthday although the look on my daughter's face when Sandy told her the price suggests I'll be (un)lucky!!

Felt

The past.

I got my photo of the 400 year old turkey oak, not its very best side because on this day it was standing plumb in front of a cricket screen so I couldn't get too close, but I also got this 'doocot' built by a gloomy evil-tempered laird who really hated his wife. The superstition of the time was that building a dovecot was the fastest way to, euphemistically speaking, 'get rid of' a wife - so he built four!! The wife left to live in a friendly household in the neighbourhood before the curse could take effect.

The laird was hated by his tenancy and many of his neighbours but he left a colourful legacy of tales. Smuggling was one of his favourite hobbies and a local cave in a nearbye bay is still known by his name. The belief was that subterranean passages joined the cave to his house and that he kept contraband there until it was needed. He used the cave to hide his cattle and horses in times of trouble (the '45' for instance) when they might have been comandeered and enlisted by government troops.

The father of this laird also had a fearful reputation, possibly even more fearful as he was reputed to dabble in the Black Arts. He was known as 'the wizard' though he was probably just an clever, learned man, interested in chemistry and mechanics and the contemporary alchemical search for the elixir of life. It was generally supposed that he had sold his soul to the Prince of Darkness.

The past sounds so much more vivid, passionate and romantic tha the present but I suppose it was only thus for the larger-than-life characters who made it so.

Letting off steam here.

House viewing has been put on hold as a move down to England has become attractive to my poor daughter who is approaching melt-down trying to deal with a bright, once cheeky and bouncy son now showing marked signs of depression, who is also panicked, torn apart and made thoroughly miserable by her horrible ex. G's own maturation stopped at about 10 so he thinks only of himself, tells Sandy he (G) might not have long to live, that the pain of having to see S living with someone else is killing him, that he is in poverty and working all hours god made to keep his head above water (but is sinking fast) and it's all Sandy's mother's fault, and so on and so on. We've been hearing it for 15 years, the same old tune with different names on the blame list, the hard done by, put-upon G who everyone is out to get. Blah blah.. Sadly it's all new to his son who feels he has to help, protect and save his dad and try to make him happy, as children so often do. It's taken me years to stop cleaning the house to please my mother.

YUK and URGH and AAAAAAGH!!

I've just stuck my finger in my eye and ten minutes ago I was chopping a chili, so add OUCH!

I watched Madagascar 2 four times with Sanders yesterday. He came back from his week-end with the Ray of Sunshine puffy-eyed and exhausted from 15 hour days out in the fields, generally with no food until supper time. He likes that he can drive a tractor and a quad bike and shoot pigeons but he does need sleep and he does need to keep up with his school work. He also could do with a shower and a change of socks occasionally. Mostly he needed rest and M2 is good so I let him play it round and round whilst he cat-napped on the couch. He insists I stay in the room with him and although I planned to write it was impossible.

Enough of that, although it is obviously the backdrop (when it's not the main scene) to everything else.

The season is being marked on the roof-top opposite my bedroom by a loving couple of seagulls who have been shagging away and are now beginning to seek out bits of twig and moss. The shagging is funny to watch - after a short while the female twists her neck to look round and up at the striving male with, I swear, an expression of impatience and more than a suggestion of irritation that he's not quite hitting the spot.

Need I comment?

Houses.

It's a great pity I can't take photos of the houses I am seeing on our quest for the perfect extended family home. The last was probably the best and I couldn't sleep for thinking about it, moving us in, getting myself settled, utilising its potential. It's a shame because it's really too soon to be finding The One. There is a VERY long way to go before we are even in the field. To sell in Scotland now one needs to buy a survey first, £475 for this place I'm told. That sounded harsh but then I remembered that it avoids the need to pay for surveys on houses viewed, which could easily add up to more if one or two fell through. The surveyor has lots of influence over the asking price as his/her valuation is seen upfront and is usually set as the 'Offers Over' price. Maybe it's the same in England. I'm not sure. Anyway, it's new to me and does make one think carefully before putting something on the market. If for any reason a house is withdrawn for more than 4 weeks a new survey has to be paid for!

The house that so excited is 30 years old, designed by and built for the present owners. The husband was an engineer so it should be structurally sturdy. It's surrounded by almost an acre of completely wild woodland and the couple are keen on their privacy so the hedges are towering 20' high leylandii which could do with a cut. There is an outside office with lighting and heating, suitable for Chloe's practice I think. On the 1st floor there are 2 en suite bedrooms and an enormous living room so as to make the most of the views (not quite visible above the leylandii!) On the ground floor is a fully appointed kitchen, morning room, another living room with doors onto the garden (happily mostly lawn and established shrubs) and two bedrooms with a separate bathroom. On the mezzanine between the front and rear of the house there is a vast (I'm not exaggerating here, it's far bigger than any single room in my present house) entrance hall with a plain teal carpet (just the place for Kes, Iain's gorgeous long coated Alsation to roll off her mud!) A utility room, and a small stairway to an interesting attic room which would be excellent for Sandy. The decor (teal carpet included) is a bit dated but clean so we could ignore it. We might need more furniture.

Mustn't get too attached. But of course I am.

Farewell Lyric Gems of Scotland.

It looks likely that a favourite little book of mine, a nicely rebound collection of Scottish songs with 'music in the tonic sol-fa notation' is about to go to the USA. It is being bought by the granddaughter of a gentleman who took a copy of it with him when he emigrated. That copy has been so much used and browsed that it's falling to pieces so this one is going to give it moral support. I'm really happy about its new home and touched that people value their heritage so much.

A day out.

I took a ride out to Ballater yesterday. The journey is always a pleasure and reminds me why it's so good to be living in Scotland. I stopped a lot, getting out of the car to listen to the silence. A rare experience, the deep silence of the hills.

It wasn't a good day for taking photos sadly, overcast and misty, and I can never quite capture the pretty peeps I want, sometimes because there's nowhere nearbye to stop and sometimes because the vastness is diminished by the viewfinder. A grouse came out from the heather to give me a sharp eye but I didn't dare move to point the camera at him so that was another opportunity missed. The 20% hills are impressive but don't photograph well either because there's usually a killing bend in them half way up causing the car to choke a bit and spoiling the vista, or there's a 4x4 behind huffing at my heels. Walking up them would be the only way. Ha! My legs are still stiff from the beach walking as it is.

It was great to see the book people again and hear how they are doing. Not badly it seems. Trade was a little down last year but so far this year has been good, which is what I'm hearing in this High Street too from the small shops. B has also maximised his resources by co-publishing a book about his locality by a local author and is reaping the rewards of that project - it's a rich vein. I should return to my own similar project but I can't get over the feeling that it's something to be done by a true local. Also, let's face it, it's more than I can do to stay focused on the other story at the moment!

The Hopeful Troll Bridge.

That's not its name but probably should be as this is a tricksy bridge that comes with a warning triangle - a car teetering astraddle the top balancing on its undercarriage. Tour buses with low clearance have to ask their passengers to get out before they cross.

Rush hour in the Cairngorms.

Des.res. for later?

With not a church in sight this has always struck me as a desirable after-life situation.

Des. Res.

Natural beauty.

Treasures brought home from my day out. J, she who raises rare breed hens, turkeys and guinea fowl, was also selling these beautiful eggs alongside the books and antiques. The photo doesn't really do justice to the delicate pale green of the smallest eggs. I didn't get to see J herself as she was up in the hills feeding orphaned lambs every 4 hours. She has the animal-husbandry equivalent of green fingers.

Man's greatest discovery.

Fire!

I know it looks a bit puny, in fact the flames don't show at all because the sun was too strong, but it DID cook 4 sausages, honestly!

All to ourselves.

The lone figure in the far distance is the Sandman on his bike, paddling its wheel in the fresh water from this little riverlet.

On the beach.

This was a local beach on a warm day last week. Yesterday the Sandman and I made it our own, he on his bike, me panting along with the Innocent Smoothies, matches and sausages to cook. Mistrustful youth had bought sandwiches too, for me to carry, reckoning that anything grandmothers try to do in the male department of fire-lighting and al fresco cooking is bound to fail. He wasn't even enthusiastic about collecting dry sea-weed and drift wood. Once the setting up began in the shelter of a re-inforced concrete anti-tank block (they can't even get rid of them by blowing them up!) he showed more co-operation digging a hole, finding big stones for the edges and making the little pyramid of starter grasses, seaweed, fir-cones, driftwood and so on. When the matches came out he was on top of it! We failed our Scout fire-lighting badge (if they still demand a two-match-only start)used a whole box and eventually the wood of the box as well, protecting the tiny flames from the wind with much care until I stood up to get rid of a cramp and the wind took over and we had - a fire!! Small, but once it was hot it was very, very hot and cooked four sausages impaled on green sticks and laid across between the stones. Triumph. This Child of the Times looked dubiously at the first sausage muttering about food poisoning. I told him about a disastrous hike with the Guides in the rain when my patrol got lost and we ate raw sausages with cold baked beans so hungry were we. No grit the young these days. He has more grit now as the sausages were crunchy with blown sand. Still, it was a success.

Angels on overtime.

I liked Chillsiders comment about keeping my angels on overtime - it's true. I looked at the first house yesterday and although in many respects it's perfect - late Victorian stone built with 6 bedrooms, three attic rooms (undecorated but with a bit of plastering and paint they'd be bigger and better than I'm using now) two reception rooms, a BIG dining room, a newly fitted kitchen (with plenty of room for a table for 6 so the sort of heart of the house to sit around in yacking to the cook and then eat in) a utility room, three shower-or-bath rooms with all facilities... somehow I still couldn't see us all living there. A night's sleep and a few possibilities have popped in that would make it good but.. I think it faced in the wrong direct so there wasn't enough light for me. It was a sunshiny day and only the large living room was getting it.

I'm seeing another more modern spread, bungalow this time, tomorrow. The problem with modern houses is the sound. It generally filters everywhere. No privacy!! That solid Victorian house had a drum kit in the attic. I wanted to get Sanders to try it so I could walk around and test for sound - maybe when we go back.

His hip is better - tick one off.

Decisions, decisions.

Not much energy is being put into book sales of late. Strangely the income stays the same although the numbers of orders drop.

Somebody must be looking after me up there, but I don’t envy them their job.

A couple of days on the couch with Michael Connelly (he’s readable) and a bottle of Marks & Spencer Rosé (reduced, very quaffable) and I came up with a solid plan for my future. I’m getting rid of all my book stock (friends have been alerted) and, probably, putting this place on the market. I’ve even asked Estate Agents for ballpark estimates. The one who has turned up so far called it ‘quirky’ and was apparently rather taken with it so said he’d have to go away and think about it a bit because it wasn’t what he’d been expecting. If nothing else I may decided I like the quirkiness and stay after all. I very much dislike featureless houses and there are far too many of those around. It isn’t the best time to be selling, to state the obvious, but prices don’t seem to have dropped as much in this area. For the next move - well, there has been a suggestion made by other members of the family for a ‘family’ sized house which might help Sander's sense of security and lessen the number of bedrooms he has with his name on to wake up in. This is the fun bit; I'm beginning to nose around properties in the area. We shall see. I love looking at houses so won’t mind a bit if it drags out.

Nosing into people's lives and talking to book dealer friends again make a welcome break from worrying about Sanders who is still the front end of the donkey (‘Heee’ on the inbreath to my ‘Haaaw’ on the outbreath.) Occasional glimmers of what is going on for the poor child do nothing to reassure. Throat = communications chakra where problems stem from fear of voicing thoughts, fear of making oneself heard in the world and so on. When he is ever going to feel he can have his own life back I just don’t know. He worries about both his parents and telling him not to doesn’t seem to make any impact. Frankly the lack of professional help available is as much of a scandal as the saga of Iain’s back. Even after hospitalisation he is still on a long waiting list for the child psychs - and will they be any good?

To go back to the Plan (to cheer myself up.) Once I’d decided to sell all my stock one way or another I started to wake in the night thinking about books I want to keep. The pile is getting bigger and bigger. Will I ever be able to go back to putting humble paperbacks on my shelves? I suspect not. There are books I like to read once a year, books I have promised myself I will read one day, and books with decorated covers I like the look of too much to part with, quite apart from reference books, local books, etc. etc.. It’s all very difficult.

Easter

Easter with the Eggyrises was like the curate's egg - good in parts.
Good bits:
*Sophie was with us for four whole days and two bits. This was VERY good.
*Chloë's birthday lunch was garlicky and tasty at the best of the two local Italian places.
*The weather was often beautiful.
*Plenty of chocolate.
*A trip to Clava Cairns and the newly refurbished Culloden battlefield exhibition (Sandy enjoyed that because he was able to use a wheel chair as his hip is still bothering him and there's a lot of walking outside. He was doing wheelies by the time he left.) I preferred the cairn's. They are set in a pretty glade and never fail to intrigue me with their complexity and the hugeness of the stones used. I'm doubtful of the claim that they are burial mounds. Why line the entrances up with the winter solstice sunlight? (That's rhetorical by the way. Obviously there are reasons why they MIGHT line burial mounds up but I'm just not convinced by those reasons. Gut feelings and all that.)

Less good bits (I'm sure the curate was VERY polite and wouldn't have called them 'bad.')
*Sandy came back from eight days with his dad and almost immediately started a panic/stress attack that is still going on. His throat is all tight and the sound he makes is like someone having an asthma attack but it isn't asthma because the wheeze is on the inbreath not the outbreath and anyway he has spent two days in hospital under observationa during which time we learned diddly except that it isn't asthma. Once he gets to sleep his breathing reverts to normal but as soon as he wakes he's off again. He seems to have enjoyed his time with dad but was glad to be back, had been having very late nights and not getting fed during the daytime (dad doesn't bother much with food) but did some fun things, so ????????? We all have our theories but have nothing to substantiate them. Poor child is fed up with us asking him 'was it this or was it that?' He simply doesn't know. The next plan, mooted by his mum, is for the two parents to go back to mediation to try to get to the bottom of it without involving Sandy directly. Not sure dad will agree but that's his problem.

I was with Sanders a lot of the time whilst he was in hospital when Mum was working and others were out walking. It proved more entertaining than I had hoped. For the first time I played Wii tennis, went Wii bowling, and raced Wii cars round crazy tracks. I lost regularly, beaten by the whooping and wheezing 10 year old, naturally, still it was quite fun. The food in the hospital restaurant is pretty good too. I really enjoyed a beef stew - it was also very cheap which kept me cheery. Nice not having to cook.

Enjoyment is to be found in the most unpromising circumstances.

Spring cleaning.....

....has been happening. Somehow it feels inevitable with the sunshine showing the dust and the time to see it; also to prowl the house on my own. Amazing what comes up; photos and knick-knacks I haven't seen for years, old clothes I haven't taken out of the cupboard for years, keys to other houses long since moved out of (oops!) Dissertations on 'Performance Art,' 'The Knee,' 'Teaching Techniques for Sports. Written by my three children at their respective places of further education ( Some very wise words about 'trauma as it is held in the body' written by my son who I really didn't think was into that stuff. Somewhere along the way it must have been part of his training course for teaching watersports and ski-ing.)

Piles of half-starts and half-hearted-starts at stories, poems, novels, by me. I feel as if I have been living on deep litter made of paper.

Walks, coffee and cake (a new place discovered; V. nice) and connecting with friends. A desultory attempt to be present at a performance of singing crystal bowls was thwarted by the absence of the performer yesterday, so that's something for another day. All in all a good and rather lazy time is being had by this person.

Fairies and sunshine.

Suddenly there is a rush on books about fairies. Is it because it's Spring? Even a limited edition book I never seriously hoped to sell has just gone off to Australia, 'The Fairy Family' which was the first book to be illustrated by Burne-Jones.

It's a glorious day today and begs me to go gardening or (as the grime shows so much better in the sunlight) to spring clean. Happily a friend rang up and we're going down to the beach for a stroll then off to seek out coffee and cake somewhere. This is the first day of a week in which I officially have nothing to do. Sandy is at his dad's and Chloë is on her way to a cranial osteopathy course in Leeds. I stayed in bed till 11am without a qualm of conscience. All the writing I plan to do and - yes - spring cleaning - looks like having to happen around other plans that are forming. Goodness. It feels like a holiday.

April Fool

So who got caught out this year? I did. The most shaming thing is I've been caught by it before:

********

Hi Yous
We just found our old school photos at:

http://www.worldschoolphotographs.com/

Please do send us a copy if you can find yours.

Love and XX
******