Dizzy. Our Easter chick.

So far Dizzy, seen here with an older brother at her original home, is about the size of a chihuahau. I do hope she grows. Even Chloë was surprised how small she is at 12 weeks. Luckily grandson, who had sworn he could never take a tiny dog for a walk, or have anything to do with something so unmanly, was completely in love with her after about 10 minutes, especially as she curled up on his broad, muscular chest and went to sleep after an intense 30 minute show-off time.

The pink accoutrements will have to go of course.

I worry that Kes, the enormous German Shepherd will eat her. She wouldn't make a mouthful. Am assured this is not going to happen. She's probably too small to show up on Kes's radar.

I think it's going to be quite a while before I am asked to babysit.

Picts unmartyred.

A fun day yesterday, despite the arctic conditions that saw us waking up to a covering of snow again. (I am SOOO bored with feeling cold and am badly missing my best duvet)

My personal tour guide Tom and I went to a lecture of the Picts at the museum in the next town. We sandwiched the lecture between with before and after trips to Wetherspoons. Alcohol first to sharpen the brain (er...um?) then a delicious curry after. 

The lecture hall was packed to the rafters showing how many of the grey and grizzled are fascinated by the mysterious Picts (or are bored in the afternoons.) We were delighted to learn that the densest concentration of Pictish settlements are in this very area. Gives us a sense of being at the heart of something at last, rather than on the edge of everything. Nearbye Burghead is probably the largest settlement and has the famous Bull carving which is taken to be the symbol of a royal, cultish site. 

What is so odd about these people is the lack of evidence of themselves they have left behind, apart from crop markings which reveal, in arial photography, the sites of their Ringforts. All their building was in wood, with a few carved stones marking goodness knows what, possibly entrances to their most royal settlements. The timespan uncovered by the most recent digs have shown them to be inhabiting this land for a relatively short period, 340 - 600 AD.  They made intricate metal goods and jewelry; used roman style amphora, also found at Tintagel, drank from conical flagons which couldn’t be put down so had to be passed around (at feasts one imagines.)  They made vellum but no manuscripts written on it have survived. Eumenius in 297 AD described them as ‘painted men’ or Picti (hence Picts) but that hasn’t been proven. They straddled the Pagan-Christian era and Rhynie Man, engraved on a stone, is carrying an axe-hammer of the sort associated with animal sacrifices. The place name Rhynnie is said to mean 'very royal place.'

The very young Senior Lecturer in Archeology from Aberdeen Uni, galloped through his stuff proficiently, which suited us as we were looking forward to our curry. I suspect he upset a few locals during question time by debunking the claims that genetic lineage can be traced down to the present day indigenous population as ‘crap.‘  

 I won an Easter egg in the raffle! Sandy will be pleased. It has ‘Elgin Museum’ written on it, but I don’t think it’s an antiquity. 

Lottie the Lhasa Apso. Originally worn in the sleeve to keep off the Himalayan chill, which we now have in Scotland so I miss her.

Cuddles to come and warming words.

The small hairy person in a photo below is Lottie, one of the pack of three dogs owned by the Cornish family. She came to visit because there wasn't room for her in the kennels with the larger two (poodles) and was the perfect house guest. Just as well because I have signed up to be part-owner of an Italian Greyhound, Dizzy, 12 weeks old, who is arriving next weekend. I'm told they are the nearest thing in the dog world to a cat, are unfussy about being taken for walks, are biddable and cuddly. And won't make me sneeze. I hope.

I might get out more. In the past month I have read 24 fiction books and a couple of NF. One day when I got into the car I found I couldn't see properly - my poor eyes were focused at 12" from my nose.

I've also started 3 short stories. I'm really good at thinking of promising titles. It doesn't get much further.

I'm fascinated by all metaphysical thought, not so much by metaphysical poets, only Thomas Traherne, much quoted by Phil Rickman because he bridges the christianity of his female vicar Merrily, and the Pagan leanings of her daughter Jane (who rejects christianity because it isn't cool and threatens to usurp her place in her mother's affections.) Traherne is also a past resident of the borderlands between England and Wales where most of the episodes play out. 

Here's an extract of 'My Spirit' that I love. Especially the line:
'My essence was capacity
      That felt all things;'


  My naked simple Life was I;
     That Act so strongly shin'd
     Upon the earth, the sea, the sky,
     It was the substance of my mind;
          The sense itself was I.
I felt no dross nor matter in my soul,
No brims nor borders, such as in a bowl
We see. My essence was capacity,
          That felt all things;
          The thought that springs
Therefrom's itself. It hath no other wings
     To spread abroad, nor eyes to see,
          Nor hands distinct to feel,
               Nor knees to kneel;
But being simple like the Deity
     In its own centre is a sphere
     Not shut up here, but everywhere.
     

Celebrations

I seriously suck at taking photos on social occasions but here are a few of the 70th birthday celebrations. A wonderful meal was cooked for us chez Maison Argyris. Melt-in-the-mouth canapés. A sea food platter with lobster, shrimp and scallops. Mint, dill and lemon sorbet palette cleanser. Goose with delicious stuffing and orange gravy. Very nice veggie alternatives for Sophia. Passion fruit soufflé with chocolate fudge cake. A different wine with every course, (of course!) I could just feel my blood glucose level rising by the mouthful but sturdily ignored it because the stuff was all too delectable to be missed.  

Small grandsons ate enormously. Too enormously in one case, with disastrous results for my best duvet during the night.

The largest grandson (nearly 15) is now about 5'10" and can pick me up. This is not good. I seem to have lost any gravitas I might once have had.

Birthdays

Momentary hiatus in entries here for a variety of reasons: 
1 Not much to write about.
2 Distracted by many birthdays that have needed cards, presents and cakes, culminating in tomorrow's family event when the ex becomes 70 and there is an all-family gathering. So comforting that he gets to the milestone a year before me to try it for size. Daughter has arrived from Oxford and gone down with a tummy bug so poor thing hasn't had much fun yet. Son and energetic family-plus-one-dog (oh joy) arrive tonight so I hope there isn't snow anywhere. We've had quite a bit here but it all melted away.

One of the birthdays was celebrated with a musical soirée. It was quite fun but as I am usually ill-at-ease on social occasions I was relying upon at least one glass of white to buoy me up. Imagine my distress, dear reader, when I discovered that the birthday girl has sworn off the demon drink and even the punch was non-alcoholic. I knew I should have asked for a hip flask.

Silkie

Silkie simply does not see the point in sitting around having coffee and scones when we could be running on the beach in the rain. 

in it together.

I was glad to go to an assortment of cafes this week for coffee and scones and some uninvolved people-watching after a couple of peculiarly stressful days visiting a friend in the big city who is undergoing nine weeks of radiotherapy for prostate cancer. ‘Peculiarly’ because it wasn’t in the least overtly stressful; no distressed patients or relatives to be seen. Even the nice woman whose husband is in the hospital itself in the last stages of throat cancer displayed no signs of what she must be feeling, except to say that she hoped to get him back to Shetland ‘before anything happened.’ All she wanted was a friendly bedtime cup of tea and a chat about normal everyday things before she tried to sleep. The patients, effectively out-patients, but from the Western Isles, Shetland, Orkney, therefore unable to nip back and forth, are housed in an extremely pleasant well-run place, rather like a superior Travel Lodge with nicer furnishings and textiles. It has a big lounge, kitchen and dining  area, neat fresh rooms, all en suite, comfortable beds, good hot water for showers, and a welcoming atmosphere. Everyone I met seemed determined to make the best of it all and not to be depressed or depressing. There is a war-time atmosphere of camaraderie, of all being in it together. My friend, who isn’t the most sociable of beings, has absorbed the prevailing mood, was much more inclined to talk, has even made a friend from Shetland, a retired hotelier over with his big Citroen people-carrier, who took us off to an out-of-town pub doing a wonderful carvery for Sunday lunch. 

So why stressful? Why so hard to shake off? My theory is the underlying, unspoken, loneliness and fear that walks the corridors.  I wouldn’t be so fanciful if I hadn’t found it so difficult to shake off.