Sunday 12 May 2013

It’s Equally True

that one can never rely on the weather, particularly English weather. Last weekend I was drunk on sunshine and gardening, the whole of this week I have been fending off the black dog. Overflowing with the joys of spring one minute,


miserably staring out of the window at grey skies the next. Even a rainbow doesn’t help, it’s so short-lived it’s hardly worth getting excited over. Instead of being able to relax into a pleasantly reliable summer season, we feel that we must rush out and make use of every drop of sunshine there is; you never know, there might not be any more.


This business of ‘making the most of it' is really exhausting. It’s like having to work to a deadline, having to cram everything that normally happens over a period of three months into a weekend; at the seaside towels are spread out with inches to spare between tribes, other people’s brats kick sand into your picnic; roads to beauty spots are clogged with day trippers and, unheard of with modern cars, some idiot has managed to break down at the narrowest bit. Motorways have road works going on and witches’ hat cones wait to pounce on the hapless motorist. Even sensible people like us, who stay at home, can’t allow themselves to relax. Tables and chairs have to be brought out, meals have to be taken out-of-doors, and there has to be a constant flow of “what a lovely day” - “look at that sky” - "isn’t this wonderful”, as if not mentioning your good fortune might make it disappear again.

Mention it or don’t, it’ll disappear again before you can get get the chairs back under cover.

On a completely unrelated subject: I took Beloved to the eye clinic for another injection. He went in to see the consultant, while I stayed in the waiting area. A short while afterwards a chap from the other end from where I was sitting came up to me, in a hurry, and greatly disturbed. “That gentleman you came in with, well, he came out of the consulting room and marched off, down the corridor.” “Really? I wonder why”, I said.  “Yes, he was actually striding down the corridor”. The chap was obviously inviting me to get up and see where my ‘gentleman’ had disappeared to. Sometimes people have this effect on me, they become earnest and urgent and I feel obliged to fall in with their wishes. I passed a small group of people waiting and they all sped me on my way as I walked by. “Down that corridor”, they said as one man, “he was going really fast.” They had obviously discussed this phenomenon amongst themselves.

You know how this resolves itself, don’t you?

At the other end of the corridor is a Gents. I opened the door and Beloved was just washing his hands. I told him about having been sent on a mission by a gaggle of excited patients. He laughed. “I asked the consultant if there was time for a pee before the injection,” he said.

When you are sitting waiting in any kind of clinic, bored, with nothing to do, you might pass the time by examining fellow patients and it is all too easy to make up a story and come to the wrong conclusion, a kind of mild mass hysteria. The benevolent kind in this instance. I suppose dementia is fairly common now.

I should have thrilled them and said “Just managed to get hold of him before he threw himself out of the window”, but one always has the best ideas afterwards.




49 comments:

  1. I guess that people really do watch out for other people's wellbeing, even if they are completely misguided and have too much of a runaway imagination.

    Our weather here is the same as yours and I am amazed at the women I see dressed in sundresses and sandals, while I am dressed in a warm coat when I walk Tyke. I suppose they imagine that if they dress like it, the weather will act like it also.

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  2. I hear you about the black dog. We have had great sunny weather for the last nine days in Seattle and it is supposed to end tonight. Just thinking about the upcoming days of gray skies and rain brings me down. We're not due for our reliably nice weather until July, so this May surprise has been a treat, following on the heels of the second rainiest April on record.

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  3. ha. i am glad it was just a pee you know...smiles...been rainging like crazy here this week...have a river running through the back yard where there usually is none...any sun i can get i am def trying to make the most of it before the yard becomes a jungle...smiles...

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  4. But Friko and Linda, those gray skies help keep your English countryside -- and Seattle -- so beautifully green!

    But I know what you mean, Friko, about pleasure on a deadline and with numerous obstacles. What IS it about road construction and breakdowns at the worst of times? I was in Los Angeles recently to visit family and friends and was getting on the dreaded, most horrible, always barely crawling at all hours of the day and night 405 freeway near my brother's house in West Los Angeles when I noticed not only the usual bumper to bumper barely moving traffic as far as the eye could see, but added delights of road repair and blocked lanes as well as an accident that nearly sealed off the entrance to the freeway. (I began to lose a bit of my nostalgia for L.A. at that point and started feeling grateful for uncrowded rural Arizona despite its heat and dust!)

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  5. It's clear that we have the same sort of weather you, on your hillside, and I here in the woods by the Pacific. It is truly exhausting, the trying to make the most of a sunny day - the hurry to get the use of the new patio set (the repeating 'we only sat out three times last year for supper) and the constant looking at the sky.

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  6. Today was supposed to be a washout, but instead it has been glorious. I know the weather here is supposed to get wet again, but It's been an awfully nice stretch of blue skies and lovely temperatures. So I'll just be glad for now, but in a week I'll be joining you. :-)

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  7. Oh, the relative serenity of tropical weather after the vagaries of Europe.

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  8. Bwah haha! How I wish you'd thought of it at the moment. Hope you're feeling a little more cheerful today.

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  9. Ha ha, glad you tracked him down and all was well. I hope the sun shows up for you this weekend.

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  10. We are just running a month late. These are April showers in May.

    I wouldn't advocate eating in the rain but walking in it I find is fine. It never seems to be raining as hard when one is outside as it does when one is inside looking out at it.
    It only takes a week of sunshine for everyone to be praying for rain and the water companies to impose a hosepipe ban.

    I enjoyed the story. I would have been much sharper with the nosey folk.

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  11. Yes, many a perfect retort has appeared just a smidgen too late... Life's a funny little thing, isn't it?

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  12. I can not complain about the weather here - or can I? It is very hot, and dry, no rain - and a LOT of sunshine - too hot to eat outside in the sun, you have to look for shade and then it is still too hot! :-)
    I hate crowds of people, to this I really can relate. And people going into each others business we have here too. Of course they always "mean only good".

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  13. Oh, your photos are gorgeous! I know the feeling of having to cram in all the good stuff in a short window of time - but I do enjoy it nevertheless.

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  14. I am still weeding my heart out, hoping against hope that we will get some much needed rain. The weeding/pruning/tidying is long over-due, and I have bought far too many spring bulbs which I will have to try and squeeze in (and then hope even more for life-giving rain).
    Isn't it a blight that the best replies never happen when they should? I hope the black dog is firmly back in its kennel.

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  15. Friko, you've made me laugh!
    Yes, I too always think of the best retort AFTER the event.
    Your magnolia is magnificent.
    I'm sorry to hear you've had too much grey - down here we've been having too much damn heat!

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  16. Hi Friko - you brought a huge smile to my face ... and yes it's miserably windy too ...

    Happy whatever weather Sunday allows you to do and the week ahead .. sincerely hope Beloved's injection was satisfactorily concluded and will continue to ease the eyesight ..

    Cheers Hilary

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  17. If we are confused by the weather, think what it is doing to the poor birds who start to nest then abandon the idea as a fresh wave of cold & high winds slashes across the gardens.

    Loved your clinic story! Boredom can start all sorts of panic/rumours!
    Maggie x

    Nuts in May

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  18. Cold and grey and rainy here again, too, but I have so many weather-independent things to do and to look forward to that I don't mind too much. But I miss going out for a run and for walks when it is like this.

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  19. I echo your sentiments about the weather and the unreasonable demands it makes of us. I laughed at Beloved's determined stride away, and the onloookers thinking they were being good Samaritans. Waiting rooms are a hotbed of curiosity and imagination.

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  20. It's amazing just how quickly a random crowd can start worrying in unison . Herds of elephants do it , too , wanting to help somehow .
    (You may have to blame the rain on me ... I had the temerity to eat a sandwich on the balcony earlier this week .... Sorry !)

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  21. One shouldn't say it, but other people in hospital waiting rooms can be quite an entertainment. Last time I had to be in one, a man was anxiously trying to explain (to quite the wrong person, in any case) why his daughter might not be coming round from her anaesthetic rather more slowly than most people - "You see, she's got slight necrophilia".

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  22. It's this kind of weather that makes me so profoundly glad that we decided to put a conservatory on our house. The outside can be enjoyed when it isn't warm enough actually to be out in it and it's taken off all the pressure to make the best of good weather.

    My answer to hospital waiting rooms is a book. I don't mind how long I wait then. That said there is something very reassuring about the concern of a stranger for your Beloved's well-being.

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  23. I always get excited about rainbows, n matter how brief.

    I loathe waiting rooms.

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  24. I'm not sure what to take from all that, but as is often the case your last line gave me a good chuckle.

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  25. entertainment is where you can find it or make it I suppose. the weather is wacky worldwide this year it seems.

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  26. I love the adventures of you and Beloved so much. They always make me smile. And really, if you can't make up the most wonderful stories watching strangers, well then, life would be so very dull!

    Your weather and so-called spring appears to be mirroring ours. When you wrote this: "This business of ‘making the most of it' is really exhausting," I thought "spot-on!" Yesterday I decided to take a walk down to the ditch to see if Harry was there. Since it was one of the first times I'd felt like doing something like that, I was rather excited -- a walk, stop at the market on the way home, come home and cook up some pickled onions. It all sounded to of the earth. It was cool, but I had on a sweatshirt and was game. About half-way around the ditch I felt the first sprinkle. By the time I got to the store it was a gentle rain, and by the time I bought my onions, coming down hard. I made it to Rick's (two blocks from my house) where noticing he was on his bike, I figured he wasn't going to be using his brolly and then went the rest of the way under cover. A few days ago it was sunny and 70.

    Looks like we're having another good one. Maybe I can actually get some groove to do something productive inside.

    And as always, your writing delights. I just love coming here.

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  27. You left me with a smile, Friko. And, in my opinion, that rainbow is well worth a photo or two. Hope your week is filled with sunshine so you can dig in the dirt.

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  28. People are funny, aren't they?

    Hope spring/summer settle in for good soon!

    =)

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  29. I think it's nice that the others cared to make sure Beloved was O.K. A little insulting that they assumed he needed a care-person. Ageism anyone? Bright-side afterthought: You must look so young that they had grounds to guess you were his nurse, or daughter:)

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  30. Oh Friko! whatever stopped you from the "should have" in the last two lines! -chuckle-

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  31. I think those other patients deserved a suitably impressive denouement: you should have gone with your imagination;) As to the weather, don't get me started. Just when I had got all excited and was sowing seeds like mad.

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  32. Oooh, you are a wicked women Friko :-) - Dave

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  33. Hallo Friko,
    interessant aufgebauter Text. Brauche leider nur etwas länger, bis ich fremdsprachliche Texte durchdrungen habe. Solch einen Tagebuch-Stil habe ich längere Zeit nicht geschrieben, sondern eher in Geschichten-Form. Fängt aus meiner Sicht etwas belanglos mit dem Wetter an, dann hüpfst Du weiter zu Baustellen auf Straßen oder zu einem Termin in der Augenklinik. Liest sich insgesamt aber homogen, so dass es mich nicht stört, wenn Du von einem Punkt zum nächsten springst.

    Gruß Dieter

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  34. Funny story at clinic!
    I love your photo of rainbow, it's always is mystic although in dark cloudy day!

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  35. Well, Friko, you are describing the very same weather we are having her in the midwestern states; 76°F one day, close to freezing the next. I could use that rainbow for a wee bit of hope right now, though. I enjoy your sense of humor - poor soul that thought he was helping to rescue your husband.

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  36. I truly enjoyed this. After a week of rain we got out to a local park yesterday to see the roses, which of course are not blooming. Severl chigger bites and a lunging dog episode with a scared nanny and we drove home to our own garden and wondered why we had bothered to look anywhere else. Perhaps Dorothy said it best about our own back yards....there's no place like home.

    Speaking of visits to various docs. We are bound for our annual physicals tomorrow. I hope I don't lose David again, but like your Beloved he leaves a trail of "watchers" who can usually point the way I should go to find him. Have a good day and I hope the sun shines in your part of the world. I am working in my garden today!! Dianne

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  37. Friko the problem with WP is me and a lack of patience at critical moments. I think its a swell system and I really love it most of the time. Dianne

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  38. Friko, you got me smiling with this waiting room tale, and I noticed that the sun has just come out, after a chilly, often wet weekend. I was lucky to be working during the rainy bit, but now wonder if perhaps I'll shed my current flip flops and get some socks and shoes on. Who wants cold feet mid-May?

    Your rainbow photo is a beaut!

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  39. I would have been so tempted to tell them that you found him peeing at the end of the hall. It wouldn't exactly be untrue.

    I hope your sunshine returns for a good, long while.. weather-wise and to your heart.

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  40. Oh, I would have found these people irritating with their concern. I mean I suppose they feel they should do something, but OTOH what do they know?

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  41. Earnest & urgent can appear overdramatic & ridiculous to me very easily. I then turn exaggerated calm(or else I will laugh at the person in a very unkind way).

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  42. Your lack of sunshine reminds me of a Ray Bradbury story (I think it was RB) about a planet where it rained all year long except for one precious day. And a class of schoolchildren was getting ready to go outside for that day and one little boy got left behind, locked in a closet by some other kids, just for fun...

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  43. Here in Alaska, we are experiencing the coldest spring on record. Sludge brown skies and no buds popping yet.
    But I keep my head up. Creating something helps!

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  44. Auch hier bei uns ist "The Month of Maying" in diesem Jahr nur von innen zu erwärmen ;-) ...

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  45. First I'm sighing in sympathy and then in empathy! Hope the sun comes soon to kick the black dog in the butt. We had a late frost last night. Nothing but a patch of grass suffered here but just to my north the freeze was a hard one that damaged the apple blossoms.

    The best return lines are ALWAYS thought of too late!

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  46. An indelible memory of an early trip to Scotland is of the sun barely peeking out and the car in front of us squealing to a halt. I wondered what could possibly be the matter, then down went the tailgate, out came the folding chairs, and, above all, the tea kettle was popped on the Primus. They were determined to have a cuppa before the clouds closed over again. Now, that's pressure!

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  47. That's exactly the way we live in Belgium too ! You couldn't have described it better I could copy and paste it on my blog about Belgium !!

    You should be in an Italian waiting area ! It's so loud and noisy that you would need earplugs ! Everybody talks to everybody about his miseries and your "gents" could never walk out of there without an explanation ! In short he would have to announce loudly "I go for a pee !" What a difference to the Belgian once where everybody is mute or whispers and hardly say Good Day when they enter the room ! And nobody would care if you sneak out ! I am sure if somebody fall off a chair, nobody would move and just have a shy glance. That's even worse !

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  48. Sorry to hear about the lack of sunshine. It does affect human psychology. But your rainbow is so beautiful, no matter how grey the sky and how brief the duration. The story about your husband made me smile.

    These three days, I experienced summer, before that, it was like the extension of winter in my part of the world.

    Yoko

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