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.