Curate's Christmas

Christmas day was lovely and, like the curate's egg, had some greenish bits. Young Dizzy-dog has been poorly for a while now, in and out of the vet's (alternating with Sandy's visits to the A&E for a broken bone in his hand.) Her temperature has been going up and down and one day she collapsed completely so had to be put on drips. There have been times when it looked as if treatments for an unknown badness were working then times when it didn't. Lots of tests were made. This has been going on for a couple of weeks or more. Christmas day she spent with us for the champagne and present-opening but, rather than being a pain with the wrapping paper, she was only interested in being cuddled. Then she stayed in her very cosy house-bed whilst we went to the hotel for a splendid meal. 

Boxing day she went downhill again and the worried vet finally advised an emergency dash to the nearest animal hospital - Edinburgh, 4 hours drive away. Her distressed and loving owners took her, driving through the horrendous rain and wind to get there. They had to turn around and drive straight back once she was settled. She is still there. They think they have finally found the cause of the trouble, a perforated uterus, which is common in cats and humans (didn't know that!) It occurs after their first season but isn't at all common in dogs. Dizzy is really more cat-like than dog-like so that figures! She is getting first class treatment, being made a fuss of - and costing an absolute fortune, several thousand beyond the insured mark.Yikes! My daughter makes good money, has a thriving osteopathy practice and works very hard but poor girl never seems to be able to keep it in the bank what with divorce expenses, school extras and the necessity for a new laptop for Sanders.....   

If all goes well Dizzy will come home after New Year's Day.

Happy Christmas everyone.

The Santa candle holder was given me by a friend who has just died, so this to say 'thank you' to him
and light him on his way

Winter Solstice

Thank goodness it's the shortest day today. Yule. Midwinter. I shall do all in my limited power (no wood-burning stove and the neighbours might complain about a bonfire two or three metres from their fences). I will light many candles in order to bring back the sun. As I type this it is 8 am and there is no sign of dawn.

An evening in the town jail (sort of.)

The High Street from the Tolbooth

Whisky collection at the Tolbooth

Whisky jugs and optics

A member of the Writer's Group arranged for us to have a tour round the Tolbooth. Most of us have seen its main function room, the Court Room as it's used for local council meetings, but the extensive whisky collection in the basement was worth seeing. It was a chilly night, the 6 cells (empty or storing sundries) were forbiddingly bleak, but hospitality was laid on in the Board Room; hot tea, coffee, sandwiches and brownies much appreciated. We had a jolly time. It didn't inspire any odes in my personal Muse, but there's still time. I copy&pasted the following:

King David I had a bit of trouble bringing Óengus, Mormaer of Moray, into line with feu-paying, but defeated him in 1130, it is quite likely that Forres became a Royal burgh about that time.   These burghs were  a convenient place for the paying of feu and market duties so collection offices were set up near the town market place to collect the dues.   These would have been simple buildings, perhaps “toll bothies” becoming “tolbooths” in due course.

The loss of the original Royal charter and ancient records during the sacking and burning of the town by Alexander Stewart “The Wolf of Badenoch” in 1390 means that the early history of Forres and the Tolbooth is lost.   The first archival record referring to the Tolbooth is a proclamation made 1586, then in 1588 a reference is made to repairs to the building.   The records show that in 1619 it was being used “for sure keiping and deteining” of evil-doers and prisoners.   In 1655 the Tolbooth is a “thackit” ruinous building that cannot carry the roof until the walls are repaired.  Between 1671 and 1677 much masonry has been repaired and new structures added to form a three storey building.   By 1698 an agreement for major rebuilding work had been drawn up and “£333 1s 8p” had been provided by the merchants and burgesses for the project.  In 1708 a bell “not to be under 3 cwts.” is installed and in 1710 James Anderson receives 600 merks “for building the piramede of the Tolbiuth”.  Then, in 1711, James Broun is employed “for making a clock for the Tolbuith”.   By 1734, after some further work, Forres has a recognisably very impressive public building, which served the town well for the next century.

The nineteenth century building, like its ancestors, has been right at the centre of this ancient Royal Burgh.  There is evidence that it has evolved through many variations, dilapidations, reconstructions and expansions over the best part of 800 years.   The foundation stone for the new  Court House and Public Offices was laid in 1838 to establish the building in its present form.   The main feature of the Tolbooth is its impressive Court Room where once the town provosts made proclamations and magistrates made orders that unworthy citizens be detained in the adjacent prison building.  This Jail House has six cells and an exercise yard or "airing ground". We were told that it was a 'correctional' prison, not a 'punishment' establishment. They had facilities for torture and hard labour. 

I didn't sense a single ghost. Perhaps my chattering teeth put them off. No fun in moaning and clanking if someone's doing it already.

Christmas Cheer and four poems.

I’ve baked five Christmas cakes (one got eaten and had to be replaced) made eggless marzipan, steamed three puddings, stirred up some mincemeat, ordered two scooters to be delivered to the smaller grandsons, bought and wrapped presents for their parents, bought and wrapped presents for Oxford -living daughter and her partner, had wall and desk calendars made by Vista prints with the best photos from this year, found boxes for everything that didn’t get sent direct, plus cakes, bundled everything in swathes of bubble wrap, queued and paid the eye-watering price. I bought an electric drill, tools box and a few tools for Sanders, untangled the Christmas lights after all, and am now resting on my laurels. Very uncomfortable stuff to rest on is laurel. I may have to get a bed. (And that is the level of gibberish I have been reduced to by wrapping paper and cellotape. )

Now everything seems quiet and abnormal. I can live with that. The house in Hayle is about to be pulsating with family, five adults, four smallish children, three dogs with puppies imminent. 

I like to think of them having fun. I like to THINK of them. 

It’s so peaceful here.

There was the Writer’s Group party which was fun in a low-key adult sort of way. We ate nibbles and drank wine (for me) and punch for the lucky, non-type two’s. We read poems and prose we hadn’t written ourselves, except Glynis who read a piece she HAD written herself and it was great. I chose Dylan Thomas: ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales,’ wanting something entirely non-religious. I was worried about this extract because DT is hard to read for someone short of breath. He seems to string all the words together and although the sentences are not very long they insist on being delivered fast without breathing space. A Welsh accent would have been helpful too. I used to be so good at that when I read ‘Ivor the Engine’ to the children. I think I nailed it for Mrs Protheroe's  shout of: ‘Fire!’ In the end I needn’t have worried about the breathlessness because two glasses of wine helped my lungs work nicely and my tongue whip easily around the words.

Now there is time to meet friends for coffee and make plans for the New Year, mostly about writing. I’ve done quite well with poetry since February but want to focus more on stories (novels) now. The magazine ‘Sarasvati’ came out last week with four of my poems in it which I can now put here. My favourite is the first one.

Village Panto 1953

The baker’s wife

in fishnet tights

was Dandini.

Second fiddle, with less strut to her stuff

the Prince, who pulled pints in the village pub,

and no-one thought it odd

that two girls should vie

for the hand of Cinderella.

Our Violet in rags.

Violet’s magical change

(behind a screen, distracting pixies prancing)

put her into sequined silk and satin slippers,

turned her into someone we could never hope to meet;

rather scaring us.

Foreshadowing.

The baker and the garage man

rouged up,

balloons strapped rudely to their chests,

hammed it for our delighted delectation,

relishing the ribald ridicule,

cruelly capitalising on the coy

and bashful blushes of the ladies.

They encouraged us to hiss and boo,

to jeer and shout at their comeuppance.

Our brother Al, a woeful, cheeky Buttons

wowed the crowd,

won himself Evelyn,

who went on to play his wife. 

Their two-hander running sixty years.

Dad fell off his chair laughing.

The Interval.

Sometimes it takes a twenty minute break

with coffee and chat.

Chit chat.

A bit of froth.

Whilst some mindless part of me

Understands and evaluates the plot.

Love

People’s lives written on their faces,

carved between brow and chin.

I jump into their souls.

Hikikomori.

A new word has appeared in the Japanese language: Hikikomori,  literally ‘pulling inwards, being confined,’ i.e. ‘acute social withdrawal.’ 

Like a horse who knows the jump is too high,

the water too wide, he

wakes one morning, tries to rise,

shies at the door to the day.

No rope, no poison,

no unseemly decomposition,

still, this is a kind of suicide.

Parents cry and pay the price

for their over-loving, 

crush-hugging, breath-stealing, pride

in the fruit of their loins,

their sling-shot at immortality.

A face in a window watches

the busy walk of those who claim 

with confidence their right to life,

stony mouth screaming silently 

the turmoil of a race

buffeted by social thermals.

An Officer and a Spy.

I’ve just finished reading ‘An Officer and a Spy’ by Robert Harris. I can’t say I enjoyed it because the Dreyfus affair is a nightmarish tale of corruption and deceit by those in power, notably the military, but it’s a formidable piece of writing. From a conversation with the film director Roman Polanski in 2012 to the publication of the finished novel in 2013 Harris must have worked with obsessive intensity, reading what had already been written about the scandal and consulting primary sources. From this research he has created a gripping story against all odds. The outcome is already known so there can be no dramatic denouement; accounts of the evidence brought against Dreyfus again and again could have become repetitive and tedious, yet he has given the process toward that outcome the tension of a first rate thriller. The many players in the drama are drawn with clarity and made memorable for their quirks, pleasant and unpleasant. He has also succeeded in creating a visual backdrop to events, sometimes even an olfactory backdrop (I had no idea that late nineteenth century Paris smelled so atrociously of human excrement.) 

It’s a sordid tale; one that could be repeated in any country in any era amongst men whose careers and politics are on the line. Not a comforting thought. The one person who comes out of the stew as a hero, is Marie Georges Picquart. His battle isn’t fought with bravado or deeds of daring-do, he even admits a coolness toward the man he fights to exonerate, but he has a dogged belief in the rightness of truth and justice, whatever the cost. He is appalled by the sentiments expressed by a fellow army officer:  “He ordered me to shoot a man and I have shot him,” he says. “You tell me afterwards, I got the name wrong, and I should have shot someone else – I am very sorry about that but it is not my fault.” 

This amoral attitude is echoed in the behaviour of all the army officers involved in setting up Dreyfus. All that matters to them is the good name of the army; human kindness, compassion and honesty are not considered useful qualities.

Bubble wrap and bones.

It has been so warm lately that I haven’t had to wear a coat. I suppose I might if I did more than pop in and out of shops from the car but still it’s remarkable. 

I’ve enjoyed shopping for presents, mostly on line to be delivered direct, but it still took me three hours to wrap the presents bought locally, along with the cakes, marzipan and puddings that were to be sent southwards. Then there was the anguish of finding boxes the right size and shape. The enormous roll of bubble wrap I bought two years ago finally ran out. It was all very stressful. After the wrapping there were the trips (two) to the Post Office which only has a small amount of parking space so getting there very early in the morning is desirable when carrying heavy boxes. Finally there is the agony of parting with rather a lot of money. 

By yesterday I felt I had done Christmas. I dragged out the decoration, made a half-hearted attempt to unsnaggle the lights then bundled them all back in and decided to settle for a pot plant instead. 

We are rather looking forward to a quiet Christmas, but it might be dull for Sanders who at fifteen is too old to look as if he cares but too young not to. He is yet again in plaster for, IMO, rather a noble reason, though his mother and grandfather called him an idiot. At the end of term the hype and the tiredness in the school causes squabbles and strife. I don’t know how the girls deal with it but the boys start working each other up and fighting. Driven to intense exasperation Sandy backed into his room and hit the wall instead of someone’s face. Now I call that very sensible. Unfortunately the walls are solid and stony and he broke a couple of bones in his hand. His mother texted me resignedly from A&E where she really should have a bench with her name on it. The doctor who saw him said: ‘Didn’t I see you last month?’

He’s going for an MRI on Monday to check on an old injury. I bought him a drill and various dangerous tools for Christmas. Perhaps a First Aid kit is a necessary addition. 

Back again.

I lost it again (the blog.)  I'm just back to say I'm back. More tomorrow. Something has happened that I'd like to tell Gillian about..... not sure how to contact you Gillian ......