The New Age Business...

It all started with a few scruffy caravans. Now it's hard to find any caravans at all. The Visitor's Centre started life as a toilet block which was promoted to glory when Eileen escaped into it at night to get some peace from from her cramped caravan shared with small sons and a large husband. It's the place she meditated and received the guidance that got the community started.

Perfectly formed.

Last weekend I went to the 53rd wedding anniversary of some much-valued friends. Sandy took the photos so I didn't get any of this amazing couple but I got one of Cally, the female half, with Nicholas, my ex. They were made for different scale models I think!

The little Wendy house was built by Harley (the male half) to house his studio. He is an artist and a creativity machine. Over the years he has instigated, undertaken and carried through more projects than most people even dream of.

They've been through some tough times together, and apart. There has been some smashed china along the way. I've watched in admiration over the years as they went at the bumpy bits with the same positive and creative energy that they put into all their projects. Their shared journey seems to have brought them lots of happiness and satisfaction, especially nowadays.

Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher.

Red Umbrella's mention of a commemorative bobbin inscribed with the date of Mrs T's re-election brings to mind the excellent TV programme last Sunday on Mrs T's progress in Scotland. She was much hated here for closing pits and destroying industry; cutting off school milk (which I could only have seen as an advantage. I absolutely hated having to drink the stuff as a child.) Mainly I think she was hated for her extreme, 1950's BBC presenter's English accent. The part of the documentary that amused me most was the attempt by her ministers to make her more acceptable up here by bringing to her attention her habit of distancing the Scots in her speeches by referring to them as if they were a breed apart: 'the Scots may think so and so,' 'the Scottish people,' and so on. She took this on board like someone with autism trying to fit in. Her speeches this side of the border thereafter were full of 'We, the Scots,' 'We here in Scotland,' 'We, the Scottish people.' It was agony to watch and those in her entourage must have wanted the earth to swallow them.

However, in the interesting final summary came the opinion that she had dragged Scotland kicking and screaming into the new age of prosperity from sources other than coal and steel, and that the present day Scotland has much to thank her for.

They won't of course - the Tory party up here has never recovered and shows no sign of doing so in the visible future.

Hey! I've broken my 'no politics' rule..

Still waiting.

Although every ache and sneeze seems to be a prelude to the SF none of the adults exposed to young Sandy have succumbed as yet. Chillside may be right and the asian flu (which yes I believe I did get) has left some immunity, but - there are still at least five days of possible incubation, so better not break out the party piñana just yet. I have Tamiflu on the shelf. Daughter asked the doc if she should stop working. She has been notifying vulnerable patients who mostly have decided to risk it. Doc said - no point. If the health workers all stopped for fear of spreading it there would be no doctors or nurses left on the job.

Sanders is well again with a residual cough. So far he hasn't managed a full week back at school and next week is 'leave out' weekend which means school ends lunchtime Friday, so he still won't be burdened with five days hard grind at the educational coal face.

Not much other news here. Slow week generally. On a whim I started to read 'King Lear' which somehow has escaped me till now. I come across so many quotations from it in general reading it seemed to be time to put them all together. 'Death Comes As the End' has been a welcome light relief intermittently. I think it's one of Agatha's best.

Envy of Chillsider, and all those having short holiday breaks before the winter (our Sophie is off to Rome tomrrow) is almost crippling my spirit. I woke this morning and thought it must still be night but no - 6am already. The weather is lovely. I should try to get to the beach but there always seems to be something else to do. This morning gnomes are coming to tidy my garden and I want to get to the indoor mart first so - off I go for my morning bath. (I read an alarming report about shower heads carrying diseases, especially lung diseases... bit hypersensitive right now to talk of disease....)

Yellow flag.

A ship's yellow flag, denoting the letter Q for ‘quarantine.’ When flown with another flag, it indicates disease on board; when flown alone, it indicates the absence of disease and signifies a request for customs clearance.

Well, we have disease on board but I'm not sure what the 'other flag' should be so I'm just telling friends by text to stay away - not an option in the days of the great sailing ships.

Sandy didn't seem too bad yesterday. His temperature went down quickly and his apetite never went away. Much food was consumed, many DVD's watched. For the other children at his school it also seems to have presented as a heavy shivery cold. He was, however, taking it like a man, with lots of moaning and a groan after every cough. 'You really don't want to get this granny.'

I don't, but on the other hand I'd really like to get it over one way or t'other.

Trends in reading

Anthony Trollope must be having a revival because after not selling one at all for literally years I've sold five in the last three weeks. Odd. Not even a TV adaptation to explain it.

Lots of novels and crime going out the door. The onset of autumn has to have something to do with that. The trees are turning, the berries reddening, the nights drawing in. I've been reading voraciously myself, which isn't always the case these days. Yesterday I bought a complete hardback set of Agatha Christie's works in 'as new' condition at the car boot for £20, and although I've been asked for her books in the shop recently I'm going to keep them for myself. They are, like Harry Potter, comfort reading. I got them home at noon yesterday and have read two already. They're a welcome change from WW2.

Also a welcome relief from the crime authors I was reduced to by the end of the week. James Paterson 'The Quickie.' Not recommended!

And then there was that Lee Child book. A nice but pushy customer is an admirer - a groupie even - of Lee Child. He has corresponded with and met his hero, has lots of signed first and every time he comes to town he pops in to see if I have any in stock, not to buy, just to talk about them, and to find out if I've read one yet. Because I was stubbornly refusing to try a title so we could have a proper conversation about the style and general excellence, this non-buying customer finally shoved a small pile of LC's through the letter box and told me he would come back in five days to check out my progress. Grumpily I tried one. NOT my taste. I didn't think they would be. Anyway it's never good having to read a book when you're not in the mood. (I couldn't be a Booker judge even if they went down on their knees for my opinion.) When he came back in as threatened I confessed it wasn't for me and sugared the pill (needlessly) by saying that they were probably 'men's books.' He objected to that excuse. Statistics have shown that 65% of LC's readers are women. OK. I'm abnormal. Furthermore, he told me crossly that he didn't like the book I had recommneded for HIM the last time he came into the shop. The subtext was clear: 'You don't like my favourite, I hate yours.'

Oh dear! I really must stop being so honest.

Rhetoric

The historian Arthur Bryant wrote 'Our Notebook' for the ILN during the war years. It gave him a wonderful soapbox for his opinions. He may have been right of centre but he was probably, like Churchill, what was needed at the time. I was interested by a 1944 entry which focused on lessons that had been learned during the hard years, chiefly, he sees a loss of illusion:

"The biggest of all our pre-war delusions was the delusion of materialism. It was the belief held by men and women of the most varied kinds that the possession of things was somehow a desirable end in itself.... It entirely lost sight of the fact that men and women, being bodies animated by and dependent on souls, could not acquire virtue or happiness by the mere acquisition of things as things, for unless the latter could add something to their spiritual stature they were manifestly of no use to creaturs with such pathetically short and transient lives."

"Are we" he continues further along on his dissertation " going to do the work of reconstruction like mechanics or like craftsmen? - to follow set rules blindly and servilely or to fashions freely with the artists eyes God gave us fixed firmly on our fellow man, his needs, his capacities, his immortal soul? Are we going once more to allow any statistician to argue us, in the name of wholely illusory realsim, into accepting as inevitable the slum, unemployment, the slavery of an unthinking mass-production, the destruction of soil fertility, industrial conscription or any of the other vile and inhuman prctices which offend against the eternal laws of man's nature? The master machine on which all our other machines, laws, systems and institutions depend is man: starve or warp his intricate living nature for the sake of these inanimate and servient things and before long they will cease to work."

One of the laws of humanity seems to be that we never learn from experience unless the experience is directly our own - so, yes, we did once more plunge into an orgy of materialism - and how! I'm the last person to want to do without my creature comforts plus a few luxuries so no homily from me on this one, it's just rather depressing that there probably were thousands upon thousands of folk who had discovered what really matters, yet we still insist on going to war and spending unimaginable amounts of money and resources in so doing.