Biting the bullet.

It would be a hot and sunny day just when I have forced myself to reorganise the shop for a month of selling. I need some cash for the trip south to the Cornish Pixies' Naming Day and this seemed like one way of getting it. It will also hopefully thin the stock further. Paperback novels at 50p and hardbacks at £1 - better than the charity shops. There's no point in hanging on to novels when they can be had on Amazon for 1p + postage. At the end of the month there is a Forres Week and for that I shall put forward the local books. Already there have been folk trying to get in.

I know I'm going to hate sitting there again though. No iMac to waste time on either since it's all fitted up in the attic now. I shall have to write.

The Lily Pad has gone into hiding since it has been brought to my notice that TT reads it. Silly chap. Listeners hear no good of themselves.

It was getting a bit confusing anyway. My prefered method of writing is the patchwork approach. I like to write a section as it comes into my head then set it aside until I've got a matching piece to sew on to it. The conjoined pieces change each other thus everything evolves. I'm never sure what the end result is going to look like.

The Houyhnhnms

Sandy will be riding today although it's really much too hot. I saw these and thought of him, they are the Houyhnhnhms from Gullivers travels. I don't think he'd be allowed on their backs. Difficult lot. They based their society on Reason. Not one where I would live happily I fear.

Dawn take you all...

It's that time of year again. This was the sky at 4am, already well into the daylight hours. The 'pale fingers of' start creeping over the horizon at 1.30am all lemony and lovely.

Unfortunately it means I don't sleep much and am turned to stone by mid morning like the trolls in 'The Hobbit' (Trolls in the Tolkien universe turn to stone when exposed to sunlight.)

Many, many moons ago when travelling with the three children and listening to a BBC recording of the Hobbit we all joined in with Gandalf's triumphal shout of 'Dawn take you all and be stone to you!' Rousing cheers as Bilbo was saved from being put in a pie by Tom, Bert, and William Huggins..

Ah, it takes me back.

Excercise is good for you.

Finally someone has invented a gadget for excercise-o-phobes like me. I've been sitting gloomily at the imac all day but when I drag my butt off the chair I feel as if i've had a rigorous work-out. This cunning cushion full of air forces me to balance myself constantly so all sorts of useful muscles get called into service.

Now all I need is one that I can lie on and I'll be able to get totally buff.

Eating worms.

A dish of worms to be eaten in the garden is on my menu today. It never fails to amaze me how these feelings of unlovedness can creep up from behind.

'Stupid people are quite nice'

Sunday, for the first time, I saw the ‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp’, by Powell and Pressburger starring Roger Livesey and Deborah Kerr. It was made in 1943, at the height of the war and Winston Churchill tried to have it banned because of the sympathetic presentation of an anti-Nazi German officer who is more down-to-earth and realistic than the central British character.

I did some looking up afterwards, not knowing much about Blimp. For me he's just been a symbol of reactionary old buffers everywhere - as he was meant to be in fact. That made the film rather a surprise. I hadn't expectd to be touched with sympathy for the old horror.

David Low, the cartoonist who created Colonel Blimp, described his character as "a symbol of stupidity", but added that "stupid people are quite nice".

“With the sympathy of genius", wrote The Times in 1939, "Low made his Colonel Blimp not only a figure of fun, the epitome of pudding-headed diehardness, but also a decent old boy."

Ralph Steadman, met Low in 1957 and recalled later that he "was my bete noir": "Something turned me off him as the voice of authority...He was the insider playing the maverick, hand-in-glove with Lord Beaverbrook."

Low regarded himself as 'a nuisance dedicated to sanity'.

I wonder how he would have felt to discover that Colonel Blimp is now thought of in some circles as a gay icon?

Horsey heaven

Still feeling a bit uneasy here...

Many Tesco's organic carrots and softie mints have to be administered before life is returned to a safe normality.

Equipage.

Exhausting morning. Drive G'son to pony - shouldn't be a problem. Pony missing. Pony, with compadres, have escaped to far-distant field. Further complications follow; the Yard is excited by the arrival of a two-in-hand equipage. This has an electrifying effect on the horses and ponies on campus. They gallop about as it passes, they call to each other in distraught whinnies. Are they concerned they might also be asked to do something as demeaning as to pull human beings around in one of these contraptions? Does it bring back Dickensian past lives as ill-used carriage horses? Whatever is happening in the collective unconscious of The Horse the whole place is in uproar. G'son's normally bomb-proof, laid-back, love-of-his-life Star is agitated in the extreme.

Art (by 11 - 13 year olds.)

That's it! I'm not even going to try. What can a 65 year old have to offer??

Two jolly brothers...

... made an appointment to look at my dwindling stock of books. They spent an hour browsing, drinking coffee and gossiping. Who says men can't gossip? The final score wasn't high but will buy me a knitted silk beret I've had my eye on. It prompted a confusing dream about taking cash from the till to give to someone so they could buy something for themselves. The dream made me happy. I do like to be generous, to be able to hand out largesse now and again, so being cramped financially makes me moody.

No time to paint so far. Today is the Open Day at Sanders' school. It's also the Sports Day but they failed to put that on the invitation so most parents think it's an open day for prospective parents and aren't coming. The poor secretary is distraught as she has ordered 300 strawberry tarts! I'm sure the children will help out there.

As Chloe is working all day it's up to G'dad & G'ma to be the reps. In the morning there is an art exhibtion, martial arts display and a concert; then there's a picnic (food provided, please bring rugs.) Then the sports, at which our sandman is rather good so expects our attention. I confess I'm not looking forward to it. Standing doesn't agree with my crooked back. Fortunately G'dad has dug out a shooting stick so I shall look quite the point-to-pointer perched on that. An enormous brolly will also be necessary if the weather follows the pattern of the last few days when we have been frozen, baked and soaked in rotation.

Toying with aquarelle

It disappoints me sometimes, as I look at the beautiful photos on the blogs of people in the world of visual arts, that very little of what I create can be hung on a wall or even (in the case of a classy dinner) survive the hour. I've bought a few materials and am going to have a go at creating something that CAN be hung on a wall. My daughter needs a couple of largish pictures to replace the family photos her ex is taking and there is the fond hope she may be persuaded to cover the faded bits of paint-work with one of my masterpieces. It's much more likely that she will go to Au Natural and get a nice sea-scape, bland but restful (and cheap) but I can try.

Several boxes of the books from the garage have gone to the newly opened local Art Centre for their library. I was quite surprised at what they took, anything with pictures, understandably, but also an old set of encyclopædias that had some nice illustrations. Spurred on by this I may look in the garage for my own inspiration - but I could do a nice restful sea-scape from photos taken during one of the recent trips to Roseisle!

It looks such a doddle smearing some nice colour onto a canvas, until I try myself, and I have tried enough times to not be deceived by the apparent doddliness of the few pleasing lines and shapes in a simple-but-arresting composition. There have been enough botched attempts in the past to put me off starting. Also the mess the projects make is inhibiting. Being unable tolerate a bit of disorder is instant pre-natal death to the creative urge! I suppose not thinking too much about it but getting on and doing it would be the way to go.

After Sanders and I went to the exhibition of our felt-maker friends I discovered N&D had also seen it and a discussion on 'what is Art' followed. He (and she, sheep-like IMO) thought the felt pictures a bit OTT. Excuse me? Gradually I winkled out of them what they meant. After a lot of 'umm'ing and 'er'ming N's problem was the New Age-iness of the pics. Now I know the lady with the little pool in front of her was pure NA but I'm not sure that if the woodland scenes had been exhibited further away from this area they would have been damned with that label. They were in fact closer to the spirit of the land and its mythology than a lot of the local painters manage to get in my not-very-humble opinion.

Admitedly there's far too much twee-ness and sentimentality, and, heaven forefend, niceness, around in the local art galleries so I suppose we do get a bit fed up with it. Not much art hereabouts challenges the senses, it tends to be safe and pleasant, designed to be saleable - and who wants disturbing stuff on their walls unless they are rich beyond dreams and therefore investors.

I still like my moonhare.

Booksellers Anonymous?

A pleasant and, for me, financially satisfactory visit from bookseller friends yesterday which cleared my shelves of 100 or so books, a stack of framed plates and some shelf labels. I hope they feel they have some bargains and that their booty will bring them future profit.

Naturally we talked a lot about the secondhand book trade as it is today. They work all hours, the shop is open seven days a week 10 - 5.30. M restocks her shelves, prices her cards and gifts until late into the night. B cleans and repairs his secondhand books, restocks his shelves, keeps the accunts straight, does the VAT returns and so on and so on. They work 24/7. Yesterday was a day out for them and therefore a real busman's holiday. Though they haven't yet had to go down the internet selling route they're bracing themselves and have been looking into the best ways of so doing. Personally I think Amazon takes a lot of beating for cheapness and simplicity but I learnt about a new web-site which creates a web page for the seller that sounds promising. A route I may go down.

These contacts with other booksellers always sway me in my determination to be retired. My enthusiasm for the trade, frustrating as it can be these days, renews. I'm anyway considering re-opening the shop for a month or so across the summer to sell stock at reduced prices and pull in some pocket money... swithering because of the need to occupy Sandy once the holidays come, but then there's friend who might shop-sit ... .

Oh dear, decisions, decisions. Nothing is clear at the moment. For the moment I will bank my cheque and go have some fun looking for a birthday present for my ex-husband's wife (she must be a sort of sister-in-law, I think I'll call her that.)

No news from my fellow journalists (I will NOT use the ugly b word..) but I hope they’ve had a good weekend too.

The virus has at last retreated; the withdrawal symptoms from the anti-d’s have abated, and so I’m feeling about as good as it gets these days.

Which meant I allowed myself to be persuaded to help groom Star. A good grooming for a horse must be like a lo-o-o-ong massage. She has stopped looking like a yak but still has some winter coat left on her rump which had to be curry-combed vigorously. The nice deep rotations seemed to please her highness greatly. Then the dandy-brush which made her twitch a bit under the belly. Lots of combing of the mane ensued, (with Product to help get out the tangles) finally a good polish and a finish with anti-insect cloths. She smelled like a hair-dressing salon. When we stood back to admire our work she arched her neck and stretched the muscles of her withers in the sort of satisfied stretch a cat has, or I take when I’ve had a really good massage, so there we are - it is officialy enjoyable to have two humans working you over for 50 minutes.

I sneezed my way back up the road (I'm really VERY allergic to horses. There is no god.) After a long shower there was time to make a chicken and chorizo paella for a friend and happily there was just enough warmth in the sun to eat outside. We got through quite a bit of white wine.

Cybersleuthing

Like many folk these days I do quite a lot of noseying about on Google to find out what's going on in the world pertaining to me, so when I got an email from someone whose name I didn't recognise, telling me of an event we had shared 20+ years ago that I have no memory of, I did a bit of trawling, firstly to see if there was any clue out there to help jog my memory, and secondly to find out if person or persons unknown could get hold of my more private email address which thus far has been fairly spam free. I did foolishly put the email on Facebook for the friend who had sought me out but only invited friends can get in there (I hope.) It was interesting what came up from this search, along with the almost-me obituary as noted below. Mention of my name on another 'social network' often gets me in there to see what's written. That's fun in itself (no voodoo curses so far) but leads to an ego-flattener - any illusion of being a one-off name on this planet soon fades when I count how many people there are sharing my monica.

A touch of insomnia had me chasing about digging dirt on (no, not Torquil Toad this time) my daughter's ex and/or his daughters. As he has threatened C's partner with 'investigation' I decided to be pro-active and get us armed with reprisal missiles. I wasn't disappointed.

In the midst of this entertaining excercise Youtube clips of the High Street came up - good grief no wonder I can't sleep! The things that go under under these extra-bright security street lights are not fit for a decent grandmother's eyes. So I should possibly ask for night-vision glasses for my birthday. It would be better than TV.

I may have mentioned this somewhere in this journal already but the temptation to get a mirror fixed to the wall by my living room window is very strong. The Belgians and the Nederlanders who live in apartments do it so they can see who is knocking at their door. Or that's their excuse.

P.S. It's also quite amazing how many people who share the same name also share the same interest or trade. For instance one woman potter I looked up has a namesake who is also a potter. Chillsider has a dopelganger Born in Melbourne in 1956,. Studied Fine Arts (1975-1981) Graduate Diploma in Woman's studies (1980-1981) Feminist photographer

Well will you look at that! Women's studies and an artistic nature is in full bloom there too.

Food for thought.

R.I.P me

Isn't it weird when you find your own death notice. My father was mourned a month or so before his death because someone with exactly his names, first, middle and surname, died and his death was announced in the local paper. Almost unbelieveably the man had lived in the same town where dad had spent a large portion of his life yet they had never met. People rang my mother to commiserate with her and to say what a great bloke dad had been. He was spooked. They both were. I tried to lighten the mood by saying "Well, at least you know what your friends think of you and that you're going to be missed. Not many folk get to know that before they go."

I like the obituary this Carol Argyris got (and envied her her middle name, Calliope)

In Memoriam
ARGYRIS Carol Calliope, A brilliant, loving woman and mother. She was and is the light. ASTERA AND HELEN

With apologise to Maddox for infringement of copyright I have to add this..


Blogger: Term used to describe anyone with enough time or narcissism to document every tedious bit of minutia filling their uneventful lives. Possibly the most annoying thing about bloggers is the sense of self-importance they get after even the most modest of publicity. Sometimes it takes as little as a referral on a more popular blogger's website to set the lesser blogger's ego into orbit.

Tee hee! He's right of course. Something I wrote about a local bookshop (not on this blog but another) found its way into Richard Dawkins' forum and.........look out... there goes my ego now across the sky.... Weeeee!!.....that's Meeeeeeee!!!!

(By the way, thanks sister L for putting me on to Maddox. It's taken a while but I found him.)

The weather is still glorious but I have an illogical need to stay in and write.

Recently Facebook took up more time than I usually give to that social outlet. It was fun, but in the middle of an orgy of putting on photos and bouncing bits of chat back and forth I was shaken to read about a couple whose social life was exclusively conducted in cyberspace! Time to drag myself away and get a life I thought but it hasn't worked very well. Dawn is before 4am already and the birds are very active with their nests in my eaves (or guttering I suspect) or on the roof across the way, so the noise is energetic and get-up-ish. I get as far as this desk and stick here for two or three hours tapping away. The rest of the day is a blur of tiredness after that. Not sure there is anything to show for it but it's absorbing. I do have to produce something to take to the Arvon course in September so there's a deadline of sorts.

Loss.

A friend's dog has just died. The dog meant everything to her and she's taken it hard although it was on the agenda for a while. It's terrible losing a friend, human or animal, who has been alongside for a lot of years. I hurt for her.

Veggie Belgers

Well, well! Good for Ghent.

The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.

Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.

The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent's declaration of a weekly "veggie day".

Public officials and politicians will be the first to give up meat for a day.

Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own veggiedag in September.

It is hoped the move will cut Ghent's environmental footprint and help tackle obesity.

Around 90,000 so-called "veggie street maps" are now being printed to help people find the city's vegetarian eateries. A poster advertising "Veggie Day" shows a sailor rowing an aubergine

Very beautiful weather here today. I spent a happy hour or so sitting in the sunshine staring in an unfocused sort of way across the bay into the dunes, where the laird is presumably still crouched over a table in his sand-trapped house playing cards with the devil. I counted five swans (quite a record) and watched the boats lazily shifting on their moorings as the tide went into dead water then turned. I'm so happy my customers don't need anything from me beyond wrapping their books safely and getting them mailed.

I have a virus. I have the Sandman's virus so we shall be fighting for the facilities if he is still off school today. Hopefully it's not of the swinish variety but anyway it's so far showing no signs of being terminal, just achey, nauseating and unpleasant. My lungs have taken the opportunity to join in the general bodily malfunctioning of course, lazy pair that they are.

I do wonder how the authorities can say with such certainty just when the swine flu started to do the rounds in Mexico. Surely the health authorites there don't check out every case of 'flu looking for new permutations?

Rites of passage with a new purse.

We’ve had some invigorating weather over the last couple of days. As we drove to Inverness yesterday we could see snow on the higher northern peaks and on Friday hailstones fell here. Which perhaps was the reason I dropped my purse in the street. I've just changed purses, alweays a traumatic and unsettling event. I bond deeply with my purse (British purse not American purse) so when the sad moment comes that I have to set it aside it almost has to be surgically removed from me. A year or so ago Sophie bought me two purses, one teal with a metal ornament and one in shades of pink. I chose the pink one for immediate use making my farewells to the incumbent holder of my cash which was anyway a cheap stand-in because I had had the loved one stolen from the counter in the shop (daft of me to leave it there so no more than I deserved I suppose.) That was an easy transition. I loved the pinkness of the new one, the softness of the leather, and the number of compartments just right for my needs. We have been together now for what feels like a very long time. Recently it has started to shed coins all around me every time I take it out and although I will never part completely with this friend the bending to pick up those silly little 5p pieces from the grimy Post Office floor was getting a bit tedious so I’ve pensioned it off for special occasions when cash isn’t in much demand and taken to the teal-with-ornament purse, also soft leather and a colour much to my taste. For about a week I've been trying to become accustomed to its alien newness. Friday morning in the wind and lashing rain at 10.30-ish I took it out, located the right card and withdrew money from the ATM. At the end of this operation I had very cold wet hands (and has anyone else noticed the dripping gutter or cunningly shaped funnelling architrave just above every ATM?) As usual I put the money carefully into my purse and shoved the purse into my big purple bag, zipping it up to keep the parcels dry. At the Post Office I stood in the queue for what felt like an hour to get to the desk and once there piled the book orders onto the counter then rummaged amongst the debris at the bottom for the new purse which I couldn't find. Showering old tissues (whoops, should have disposed of them like the leaflet says) empty chewing gum packets, bits of fluff , more silly 5p’s and several old shopping lists around me I rummaged some more, increasingly frantically, but still no purse. The nice assistant expressed sympathy, I threw everything back in and hightailed it up the road to the last place I was sure I had had the runaway. By now I'd worked out that so cold and wet were my hands after I'd taken out the maney I'd probably not shoved the purse INTO the bag but into the space between my mac and the bag, from whence it had descended to the ground. No purse lay in the puddles on the pavement so, full of dread, (I REALLY don't have cash to lose these days) I called in at the bank belonging to the ATM to ask if it had been handed in. It hadn’t, but as I was telling the Teller all about it a lady in the next queue asked ‘Have you lost a purse? I was just in the Post Office and someone was saying they had found one.’ I beat my way against the wind and rain back to the Post Office to be told, yes, a nice lady had picked it up and was taking it to the Police Station. Back I wheezed to the house, grabbed the car key and by now soaking with both rain and perspiration, drove off to the Police Station, woke them up to be told that no purse had been handed in yet, but a form should be filled in, the purse described and my claim to it laid. Back home again I rang Chloe to ask for a loan of some of the cash in her practice room because one parcel had been especially needed Saturday by the customer. Clutching enough cash to post it I puffed back up the road where Linda, the head honcho at the PO, told me who it was who had picked up my purse, a hairdresser working at the other end of town. Off I set in an easterly direction, against the prevailing wind, and when I finally found the salon (there seem to be dozens in this town, you wouldn’t think it could support so many but as new ones keep appearing I suppose it can) I was totally out-of-breath and anyway incoherently grateful to be reunited with Teal-Green runaway purse. A reward seemed a bit much but I made an appointment to have my hair cut by her next week. I just hope she’s as good at cutting hair as she is honest.

As I have quite a history of lost, stolen and strayed purses, also front door keys and car keys, I’ve a habit (irritating I’m told) of constantly rootling about in my bag to see if I still have everything I should have and I can’t leave the house until I’ve checked at least three times. Sometimes obsessive-compulsive behaviour is the only way to go.

All senses satisfied.

Daughter, Ex-H and I had a highly enjoyable afternoon out yesterday to the Scottish Ballet at Eden Court, Inverness. We had an excellent lunch first at one of Inverness’s better eateries, the Rocpool. To be perfectly honest it was the meal I was chiefly looking forward to as ballet can leave me less than satisfied. If you aren’t a devoted foodie look away now.

My starter involved figs, pomegranate seeds mixed with mint (inspirational!) and tiny balls of feta turned in nutmeg. It was delicious. We all had Cod ‘puttanesca’ to follow which my shaky Italian thought probably meant ‘Whore’s Cod’ and I was right but no-one listened to me. I’m not sure what the whore had to do with it unless she used the recipe to seduce her customers. The cod was fresh and just flaking, cooked to perfection. The saucy combination of capers, olives, tomato, red pepper and chillies was certainly sensual enough to improve the business of an upmarket lady of the night. No pasta appeared, happily as I don’t like pasta much, but a neat little rondelle of creamed spud had a mysterious object like an unexploded bomb sticking out of it. Some nervous forensic nibbling and I had it pinned as the promised anchovy , cooked in tempura batter. I haven’t had a fresh anchovy since the Belgian days so it was another trip along that particular memory lane which, ignoring all other legacies, left me with some extremely pleasant gastronomic experiences to recall.

Buoyed up by good food and a little wine we headed off down the road to get our other senses tickled. The first half of the programme was ‘Carmen.’ I think I had too many expectations of the heavy voluptuous passion I associate with the opera, of matadors and gypsies, with Bizet’s hypnotic music throbbing through this tale of love and jealousy and death. Well, it wasn’t like that. The music was there but ‘nice’ was how I would describe it, with a few interesting adaptations . The dancing couldn’t be faulted and Carmen herself was certainly quite emphatic , still it felt weak. The male dancers didn’t really pull it off as hard-bitten soldiers despite a lot of ‘manly’ posturing; the toreador and the matadors wore their bejewelled costumes with evident pleasure and pride but I don’t think they’d have scared many bulls, (they might have dizzied it with their leaps and twirls of course) Whatshisname who stabs Carmen in the end was so shocked by what he had done that he did some complicated twiddles and retched a bit. Not very convincing IMO.

N liked it, particularly he liked how the music had been arranged. Chloë hasn’t seen the opera so had no expectations and enjoyed it.

The second piece was quite different, much more Ballet Rambert, with no orchestra, electronic music which was often loud, always insistent, often jarring, not meant to be comfortable at all. It was called ‘Cheating, Lying and Stealing’ and was billed as having no beginning or end, being a moment in time. The dancing was much stronger, freer, less classic, sinuous and sexy. I loved it. The scenery was great, a back drop of hills and a distant house which all of a sudden included a luminously outlined sofa and was overhung by an enormous red oblong as the time of day changed from dawn to dusk and passions heightened. The sofa turned into a huge fireplace with what looked like real flames; dry ice blew on mists; the towering grey blocks at the side of the stage began imperceptibly to move and traversed the stage changing colours as they did so. The Japanese first female dancer was poison in a tiny, beautiful, package, using all her evidently extensive range of sexual wiles to get what she wanted. When she and her rival killed the man they fought over it was no surprise.

At some point my breathing, which had been troublesome all day, eased. I’m not sure what that says but it was quite marked. Maybe the second piece was cathartic.

When the clapping began N, who had funded this treat and was sitting between Chloe and I, grinned at both us as we turned to him to say ‘That was excellent.’ He told us gravely that he 'wasn’t so sure.' We collapsed into giggles because without any exchange we had both known that’s what he would say. He ‘wasn’t sure’ mostly about the music which at times had admittedly been hard to bear. N is a classicist. (He even swims classically if I remember rightly from our visits to Greece. A very measured breaststroke.) He took our teasing cheerfully. He knows we all love him.

Sandy would have enjoyed the occasion too. He likes to watch the orchestra and he’d have been impressed by the second piece. Sadly he now has a very nasty tummy bug which involves regular trips to the lavatory so we had to leave him with Iain.

Facebook...

... has brought me back in touch with a very welcome friend from the Brussels days so joining Fb has been worthwhile after all. I joined reluctantly in the first instance. This blog is my chosen place on the net where I can express myself in a reasonably open way whilst staying incognito to all but those in the know. Mostly I don't want to be sought out by the past as the present is what I have energy for (all I have energy for really!) but still it's nice occasionally to see how folk are getting along with their lives in a not-too-involved sort of way. JW I am delighted to see again and as she lives in Cambridge, working in the University Library, it makes yet another reason for visiting that county some time this year. She also split from her husband of the Euro years and she also went for a while to a religious community, (house..? I have yet to hear more details) So, as in the days of old the wifeless woman did hie her to a nunnery, we both in our ways followed the tradtional, if not quite archetypal, procession of our female ancestry.

I'm looking forward to hearing more.

Later: JMW & I had a long telephone chat friday evening and if ever I though my after-Brussels years had been fraught I have now learned I wasn’t alone. JMW has done more to pull her life around and together than I have and she has achieved more but she always was a high-energy being who expected to achieve whereas I’m not and never did have any expectations of myself. It seems the Brussels years were fairly disastrous for others amongst the first wave of Brits too so there was interesting gossip/news to catch up with. JMW is from New Zealand and thinks nothing of long-haul air travel so is likely to make a short visit within the near future - she flew to her beloved Venice for a day!

Body beautiful

Thanks to my window cleaner, (a totally charming man, once a soldier in the Foreign Legion with many stories to tell about those days) I have a considerable number of the sort of books pictured below. Titles like: "The Complete Guide to a Beautiful Bottom" and issues of "Ripped" have taken their places amongst the Health and Wholeness books on the shelves, looking slightly uncomfortable next to Homeopathy and Tai Chi etc. but hey - they're selling well! As they are written for men I don't feel I should be taking a leaf out of any of them. WOuld I really want to look like that? Scary.

The slight blurriness is because once again the battery in the camera is running low - but in the case of these books I think it might be a saving grace.

A matter of life and death.

It does feel as if the universe is against Sanders sometimes. He rescued a baby crow at the weekend, named it Dudley, fed it cat food (which worked well for a rescued baby crow 20 years ago that his mother saved) and was happily bonding with it. As he seemed calmer it was arranged he should go back into school for a little longer each day, starting today. The crow died this morning. The Sandman was in floods, blaming himself for all the animals and birds he has carelessly shot whilst with his dad. He didn't last long in school.

There is to be a funeral later.

Socks

My daughter-in-law once had the idea to start a Black Sock Service, delivering emergency pairs of black socks door-to-door like pizza. Like Pizza the idea didn't catch on at the time with the bank manager. (I have a true story about a friend who'd been in Italy during and after the war returning to Britain and asking for a loan to start a Pizzaria. 'Tomato sauce and cheese on bread - it'll never catch on' was the apocalyptic reply. Then we wonder why the banks have been doing such stupid things lately.) Anyway, what I would like is a service for matching singleton black socks of which I find I have 20. I buy the almost-disposable ones from Tesco but still they don't seem to look the same as each other after a few washes. There's a nice children's story about socks who when lost go to Lost Sock Land and became sock horses. Sometimes they find their partner and live happily ever after. If I made 20 sock horses I suppose I could try selling them.

Nah. Too much trouble.

Jolly early morning thoughts.

It's becoming psychologically quite hard for me to go out at all (so it's probably just as well that I have to leave the house to take Sanders during the week.) I've had so much more asthma this year and have had to take more and more prednisolone with the inevitable result that my face is beginning to balloon. It's horrible. I didn't notice so much in the past. Maybe I had less time to look in the mirror or maybe it didn't happen so suddenly so I got used to it. Whatever. This time I see my mouth disappearing into the 'cushioning' and wonder if breathing is worth it. M's son, who has a potentially deteriorating eye condition controlled by the same drug, hated his blown up face so much he has persuaded his doctor to prescribe injections which he can give himself and which seem to make him thin rather than fat. I suppose I'm not extreme enough (and probably don't have to take such a heavy dosage) for the NHS to shell out for that variation of treatment. It's expensive.

Never mind. There's always swine flu.

New furniture.

I'm delighted with the new TV unit made up for me by a wonderful local cabinet maker who always seems to understand what I want without any fuss and is able to translate it from my wobbly scribbles to proper measurements and then the actuality. He sweated up two flights of stairs with it, round the killing bends in the staircase, without complaint and not only cut a piece of rug for me to fill in the gap left underneath by the absence of the marble fireplace but replaced all the scarts and so on in the right holes so I could just switch straight back on when he'd finished. Amazing service!

I have hardly any DVD's to sit on the shelves but perhaps that will change now I have a place to put them (provided the Amazon orders play ball with me here!!) My ex has a huge collection from which I can borrow but his more erudite taste doesn't run to crime unless it's a good B&W like 'Anatomy of a Murder' so I'll have to get the complete 'Bones' and 'Dalziel & Pascoe' sets for myself.