I sighed a bit when given an amaryllis this year, but they are rather wonderful and this one didn't insist on getting so tall. It also has 5 flowers on one stem and another stem still to bloom!

DNA

Very little achieved apart from a fruit cake for the rest of the family and a nice veggie tagine that for once didn’t disintegrate into mush (the chestnuts were especially good.) I shared that with a friend one evening while exchanging news of current frustrations and potential disasters. It does look as though my son has made the right move, taking the redundancy package and maximising his freelance work whilst looking for a more lucrative position. He did it with such dignity and grace, offering help with the transition (the firm was surprised and shocked to find he was really going!) and even writing an email to head Office thanking them for nine years of pleasurable employment.  Thank goodness he has his fathers equanimous genes to balance my volatile ones! (Never thought I’d get ‘equanimous’ into a sentence!)

He is also making use of the time doing work on his house which will the boys and dogs is rather like the Forth Bridge, in constant need of attention.

So that’s OK then; for the moment. Other storm clouds are gathering elsewhere.

A book lent to me by a friend ‘The Scots: A Genetic Journey’ by Alistair Moffat and James Wilson, has been engrossing and reminded me how much I enjoy prehistory. In the days when we took an extramural course in prehistory at London University genetics have greatly expanded (and confused) the knowledge of human evolution. I did get a bit overwhelmed by information that I could scarcely understand, and it got worse when I checked it all out on the net afterwards! two facts stuck: firstly that according to Alan Wilson all human races began in Africa, Mitochondrial Eve  walking out of the Dark Continent c.150,000 years ago bearing the mitochondrial DNA  most closely linked to all lineages in humans today. Which caused some to call Africa the garden of Eden. the discovery of the Y chromosome seems to support this suggesting that all modern European DNA derives from Africa, c.100,000 BP. I think that’s amazing. 

Until the last Ice Age it’s probably that only Neanderthals existed in Northern Europe, some surviving to flee to ‘Refuges’ in southern Europe, where they eventually will have met up with Cro-Magnon Man. Some Homo sapiens certainly predated the Ice Age, traveling into Europe via the Middle East. One man on Islay must have been astounded to hear that his DNA linked him in a direct Y-chromosomal line with an ancient Y lineage in Mesopotamia - modern day Iraq on their trek out of Africa!  As the author says: ‘It is a wonderfully refreshing, ironic, and redressing balance for centuries of racial prejudice to think that Homo sapiens, and not so sapiens, originated amongst people once routinely and widely believed to be sub-human.’

Scotland was under a mile of ice for 15,000 years and it isn’t until 11,000 PB that its colonisation begins, then a second ice age caused by the melting of ice on the North American landmass turned off the Gulf Stream causing snow storms, a rapid fall in temperatures and before long another deep layer of ice over northern europe. The first pioneers to make it back to the top of the world came from the areas known as the Ice Age refuges, Southern France and Northern Spain. 

Well, I could go on - and on. Why this should give me comfort I have no idea. The life span of a human compared to the unimaginable aeons that there has been life on the planet isn’t exactly cosy, it’s like seeing billions of stars on a dark night. We are breathtakingly insignificance. 

Unless there is a spiritual dimension - which I’ve been exploring again with the 'Oversoul Seven Trilogy.' More of that next time. I need some fresh air and an earthly perspective. Coffee and ... oh someone give me strength to refuse the almond croissant.

Juice.

25th January - Burns Night. Bizzarely I was asked to read one of his poems this evening when the local writing group meet to celebrate him. I declined - wrong accent, and I can’t pretend to be a great fan. My favourite Scotsman (doesn’t blame the English for everything; thinks Independence is a nonsense) has booked us a table for a lunch-time celebration which I’m afraid will involve haggis fritters. My stomach shudders and bloats at the very thought. Whisky will help it digest, but only in a very modest amount obviously since I will be driving. Snow threatens and it looks a bit more meaningful today; heavy lowering skies just on the point of bursting.

It’s been a funny old week. Writing has been at a standstill. That might have happened anyway but the news that my hard-working and conscientious son has been told his job has been restructured out of existence and he can either take redundancy or a newly created position with a 20% drop in salary. The company is in difficult times and he knew they had to make cuts, that it would be painful, but the people they have now put in the driving seats are those who are good at number scrunching, fund raising and generally sitting on their backsides in an office telling others what to do but knowing nothing about the reality of the work. With a wife, two small boys and three dogs to support (I believe there is also a cat, but she finds cosy bowls of milk in front of fires with neighbours so we won’t worry about her) he is somewhat over a barrel and ‘they’ are confidently expecting him to take the puny offer and  then, no doubt, they will flog him to death getting him to do what he did anyway,  but in his new position he will just be attempting to mop up their mess. My ex is more phlegmatic about these politics as he has experienced similar all his working life and is anyway a cautious man, so would take the offer and look for another job. I know my son, and so does his wife luckily (she’s wonderful - so supportive); he’s a proud soul who is hating what has been done to him and he couldn’t work in such conditions so - hopefully - is this morning telling them, politely, where to stick it. Lucky is the company that gets him next ,IMO.

So, back home, what to do about the lack of inspiration in my own life? Friend Maudie (self-chosen pseudonym) brought me the Guardian supplement: ‘How to write a book in 30 days’ which is surprisingly helpful whilst saying all that one already knows. Mostly I get bored with myself and the repetitive stuff I am extracting from my own dull consciousness. It's a question of injecting some inspiration - raising some juices. In the article, music is mentioned as a block buster. I don’t have a habit of playing music but this morning I remembered a time when I first had the bookshop and didn’t know ( almost didn’t know) about the tax on playing music in public places so had my favourites playing all day long, principally Leonard Cohen. I don’t have any way of playing CD’s now except through the TV, which isn’t in my bedroom  or where I write, so visited Youtube on the iMac and heard him. Instantly there was the prickling of hairs on the back of the neck and the impression that someone had touched my soul, a sensation for which I can find no words less melodramatic. I also heard Javier Mas, guitarist, play a long solo introduction to ‘Who by Fire’ which had the same effect, equally inexpressible. 

These lyrics are available in the public domain so I can’t be flaunting copyright (I hope). I have to put them down here. It has been sung, well and badly, by so many, but the words move me as much as the music which, for me, is secondary.

"Hallelujah"

I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you don't really care for music, do you?

It goes like this

The fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you to a kitchen chair

She broke your throne, and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before

I know this room, I've walked this floor

I used to live alone before I knew you.

I've seen your flag on the marble arch

Love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know

What's really going on below

But now you never show it to me, do you?

And remember when I moved in you

The holy dove was moving too

And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above

But all I’ve ever learned from love

Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you

It’s not a cry you can hear at night

It’s not somebody who has seen the light

It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain

I don't even know the name

But if I did, well, really, what's it to you?

There's a blaze of light in every word

It doesn't matter which you heard

The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you

And even though it all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

ad infinitum..

Above all, the effect this poem has on me reminds me that to be passionate is not a prerogative of the young.

Thick and bitter.

After a week of doing virtually nothing I thought I'd better  justify my existence on the planet so made some marmalade. Thick, dark, and bitter, just the way my ex likes it.

A few comments come to mind, but my hair wasn't always dark and I absolutely deny bitterness, so that's only one out of three.

I had to go quite a few miles inland and up hill to find some snow. Just a discreet, picturesque, smattering. A few tiny flakes were falling, like vibhuti out of an almost clear sky as I drove home.

What have I been doing with my life?

The Economist's obituary on Beate Gordon that I tried to pop in here didn't stick. Pity. I'm too lazy to summarise it properly but, very briefly, when she was 22 she wrote Article 24 for the Japanese constitution which revolutionised the rights of women in Japan, then went on to do even more amazing things until the day she died at 80+ which is why I say - what have I been doing with my life?

Look no snow!

We keep being threatened with it but so far so good. Just glorious sunshine to go with my mood.

‘Confusticate and bebother these doctors’ as Bilbo might have said. Today I have to waste an hour of my precious retirement time visiting a redheaded twelve year old who will undoubtedly tell me I need to take more tablets to propitiate the drug companies. I hate having to upset him but he has still to learn how stubborn and opinionated old ladies can be and how much they like to be respected.

   Later: He’s a god! I love him like a son. My tests showed almost normal sugar levels over the last three months; doctor all smiles and relief at not having to goad me on, and I’m let off both taking more medication and testing with one of those nasty jabby things. 

I went for a walk to celebrate then, less wisely, bought an almond croissant to eat with my coffee. I will do penance for that for a week.

Back to the original subject - time and how it is spent. Protecting mine has become a bit of an obsession. Which meant I could understand the heroine of Sue Townsend's latest, ‘The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year’ (but that didn’t mean I enjoyed the book). As the mother of twins the eponymous heroine suffered post natal sleep deprivation times two; then there came years of thankless domestic slog until her twins turned into brilliant but autistic, antisocial, cuckoos and finally left home. This was the signal for her to fulfil the promise she made herself during the aeons of exhaustion. I have a feeling I made the same promise to myself when, with three babes under three, I forgot what a whole night’s sleep was like for many years. As time went by the pressure of being responsible for the scene-shifting, driving, housework, providing food and comfort, in short playing the complex archetypal role of parent for them, crowded out my own identity. That’s how it felt at the time.

I promised myself I would get back to myself. Now I suspect there wasn’t a self to get back to. I was always just me. This is it. Get on with it. 

When I sit down to write each day, getting progressively more depressed with what comes out, I remember Agatha Christie who had to clear a corner of the kitchen table surrounded by family detritus, to write the novels that earned her a living. You just haven’t got what it takes Carol!

To rub this in I’ve started rereading Agatha again and am, as ever, impressed by the tightness of her plots; the speed of the action and the absence of anything extraneous. Good as modern crime writers are we have come to expect some side-tracking from the procedure, rambles into the ids, egos and Weltanschauung of the chief protagonist, and often the killer. The closest AC comes to giving us this is a dip into Miss Marple’s past to see the tragic loss of her lover in the Great War. Otherwise the plot and the characters driven by it stick closely to the storyline with only the most essential fleshing out of personality. Every word counts as a clue or a red herring. It’s what makes for such good TV. Virtually no piece of dialogue is without significance. She is admirable.

Since my ritual re-reading of Harry Potter over Christmas I can’t find attraction in any book. I tried reading the last of the Lewis Trilogy by Peter May which has just come out. I was annoyed by its frequent clumsiness of style (who am I to criticise? At least he has written something readable; chosen for publication.  But there, I do.) I think he wrote it in a hurry and forgot to go back over it to polish the rough edges.

After that I tried ‘The Woman who...’ I don’t think I like humorous books much. The deifying of the heroine was a predictable outcome which anyway has been done before.  (I wonder if Julian of Norwich wasn’t just trying to get a bit of peace and quiet.) Before the end I was cross with the woman for her selfishness and irritated by the whole thing. The only bit that made me smile was the Holy Chapati. 

Maybe I was in a grumpy mood. I tested myself by trying a book that has been sitting unopened on my shelves for a long time (I think someone gave it to me) Thorne Smith’s ‘Topper.’ Got five pages in and gave up. Hardly cracked the spine. No, I don’t like books that set out to be humorous. I wasn’t keen on Bertie Worcester and Blandings although that might have been because I read most of them when I had a temperature of 105 F (viral pneumonia).

I bought a new notebook/diary to start the new year and suffered for a week from the usual inhibition a brand new book of virgin pages brings.  Anything I put down has to be in my best handwriting and worthy of the space. No drivel. No mundane meanderings. Maybe just quotes and worthy thoughts from others more qualified than I? This has happened so many times and I find the notebooks a year later with two stilted entries then a wodge of blankness.

I’m over it. I can write stuff like the following:

Losing 4 inches round the area I laughingly call my waist is all well and good but has the inevitable dark side. To reach that goal I’ve had to eat so few calories that the surrounding fat has melted, leaving me scrawny and as bony as a toolkit. The fleshy bits above the diminishing mound, parts of me that were once firm, enticing, causes for pride, now look like the photos of native women in famine areas, and with less under them for them to rest on the sight is quite hideous. I need a trip to the local lingerie shop very urgently.

Sanders and I went to see The Hobbit yesterday, 3D version. Very enjoyable. The technology used for the 3D effect was less satisfactory than whatever Avatar was filmed in; occasionally the figures and surrounding set looked like cardboard cut-outs, but it didn’t bother me much, I was too happy with the great acting, the nice touches of  humour (far more than in the Lord of the Rings which gets a bit turgid), the excitement of the wargs and high action drama. Sandy enjoyed it, especially the trolls who he imitated all the way home.

I did understand why my daughter said she kept waiting for the well-remembered lines we listened to so often on car journeys when they were young. That was an abridged text read by Nicol Williamson, who cut all the ‘he said’ bits and relied on his voice changes to mark the characters. It’s the best production I have ever heard and I kick myself frequently for selling the tapes at a car boot sale long ago. I’ve been looking for them for years, only seeing them at exorbitant prices. Yesterday I found  CD versions on ebay. Hopefully they will be exactly the same...

I heard Melvyn Bragg quote Goethe yesterday: 'To act is easy; to think is hard.' I really liked this ( it seems like a justification for my life of lying around 'day dreaming ' and 'doing nothing') so in an attempt to find the rest of Herr Goethe's thoughts on thinking I Googled the quote. It was amusing to find how many people  triumphantly misquote it, reversed, (which is probably how they hear it, being incapable of conceiving the opposite) as a support for their own personal world view, discrediting mere thinking and extolling a life of action. 

I do enjoy a good quote.

The year so far....

So far I've done nowt with my freedom except reread Harry P from start to finish, clear away the decorations, throw out some papers, books etc. I think I detect prevarication mode.

It's really nice to have the choice though.

My body clock has gone haywire; I find myself wide awake at 2.30 am, shopping in Tesco at 7.20 am, dozing comfortably at 4pm.

And no-one gives a damn..... oh the heady delight......

Santa is packing it in for another year. That must be his 33 tour of duty since he first arrived from Athens for our family Christmas, 1979, Brussels. I think he has worn better than me!

Happy 2013 everyone. Look who my angel is for this year! I've never had Power before!!